Maggie asked, not without skepticism--the day seldom passed without nature striking some near-fatal blow at Graciela.

Many Zamestaad council members insisted on heralding those triumphs, and Raya could hardly dispute that her world had made an amazing recovery, considering the near-fatal blow dealt by the rogue pulsar.

The building, which suffered a near-fatal blow in 1981 when a fire gutted its interior, was bought in 1991 by a local not-for-profit housing developer, Manna Inc..

In 1961 he went to Hollywood, but there his career as a director of feature films suffered a near-fatal blow.

Revelations about Stalin's crimes in 1956 disillusioned many of those who remained and dealt the party a near-fatal blow.

One of the combatants, both now covered with blood, had delivered a near-fatal blow with his knife, but the life he wanted to end would not surrender.

In The Thousand Orcs, Bruenor suffers a near-fatal blow and for most of The Lone Drow is kept alive only by a constantly labouring team of Dwarven priests.

Then he dealt his career a near-fatal blow when he closed his Washington office for a month in October 2004, after an unspecified terrorist threat.

Shaken by how quickly a profitable manufacturer could be dealt a near-fatal blow, Mr. Lednicer began talking to other companies and found they were experiencing the same problems.

One month later, PeerWeb was dealt a near-fatal blow when the RAID array where the database of the site was kept accidentally corrupted and could not be restored.