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Iran's female racing champion barred from defending title Robert Tait in Tehran Wednesday October 4, 2006 The Guardian (UK) She was the speed queen of the racetrack who became a feminist icon after triumphing over an all-male field to become Iran's national car rally champion. But now the high-octane driving career of Laleh Seddigh has juddered to a halt, with a ban from participating at a race by the country's motor racing authorities. Seddigh, 29, was walking towards her 1600cc Peugeot 206 at Tehran's Azadi stadium when stewards blocked her way, citing "security problems". The snub followed days of wrangling...

USC should forfeit the 2004 national crown after reports that Reggie Bush and his family appear to have accepted financial benefits from prospective agents. LOS ANGELES – The would-be agents who provided the house, the money for the tricked-out car, the luxury hotel rooms and the tens of thousands in cash used to roll right into the Southern California locker room after the game, right past security, to meet and greet the triumphant Trojans. The marketing agent who provided the cash allowance, the plane flights, the limo rides and the designer suits used to hang around Trojan practices, filed paperwork...

Just a suggestion for the FR powers that be (do we have a suggestion box?): Can another posting section be added below "Title of Thread", such as "description", "subject" or "sub-title"? I have noticed many duplicate postings are due not as much from failure to search, as failure to use original article titles in favor of a more descriptive thread. I think there is a place for both, and currently many posters will put their descriptive/subject text in parentheses after the title. Unfortunately this is not common practice and not defined as proper method although it obviously allows searches to...

Strom Thurmond wins S.C. 3A title Associated Press Posted on Sat, Dec. 03, 2005 COLUMBIA, S.C. - Coco Hillary passed for one touchdown and ran for two more scores Saturday night to lead Strom Thurmond a 21-3 victory over Clinton for the state Class 3A championship. Hillary completed 13-of-19 passes for 174 yards and ran for 63 yards as the Rebels finished with a 14-1 record and won their first state title since 1968. Hillary's touchdown pass came on the last play of the first half on a 50-yard toss to Jarrell Taylor that gave Strom Thurmond a 14-3 lead....

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. -- Imagine getting a letter in the mail one day telling you that you don't really own your home. Thomas and Dorothy Dowdell don't have to imagine. It's happening to them. The retired couple, who bought a waterfront condominium here in 1988 and are about to sell it for nearly $900,000, were notified recently that the land on which it was built actually belongs to the state of New Jersey. Like the owners of eight other properties on 47th Place, they have been told that the sliver of land their house sits on was city-owned land...

ROCHESTER, Minn. - The decision to literally turn the lights out on Rochester public high school baseball this spring was not a school district issue nor a city of Rochester issue. It was complying with federal law, specifically Title IX. That, Rochester school officials say, was the reason all home baseball games for Century, John Marshall and Mayo must be played under natural light exclusively for the first time in years. A couple of weeks ago Mayo players were the first to experience the baseball blackout when their game was suspended because of darkness. Despite the Mayo Field lights being...

BEAVER, Okla. - James Pratt has a chip on his shoulder -- a cow chip. The local fire chief is ready to defend his title Saturday at the World Champion Cow Chip Throwing Contest. About 150 people usually compete in the event, choosing from about 230 cow chips. Each contestant gets two throws, with the longest distance winning. Pratt throws with an overhand, baseball-like motion. "I've seen people throw like a discus and under their leg," he said. "They've tried everything." He says he doesn't practice but takes care selecting his chips, looking for those that are about 6 inches...

With all the votes tallied after a recount in the roller coaster race for governor, Christine O. Gregoire, the Democrat who trailed in the campaign and in a previous recount, won by 130 votes as battered Republicans demanded more vote counting and vowed to use every legal weapon to reverse the extraordinary turnaround. The Republican candidate, Dino Rossi, 45, won the Nov. 2 election in the initial count by 261 votes and a machine recount by 42 votes. But a statewide hand recount completed Thursday gave Ms. Gregoire, 57, a microscopic but notable lead out of the 2.9 million votes...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

A turkey waits in it's cage as it's owner hopes to sell it for the Thanksgiving holiday, in Amman November 25, 2005. REUTERS/Ali Jarekji

Florida retailers are entering the holiday season with more cheer than last year, but tempered a little by worries that people recovering from hurricanes may not have as much to spend on Christmas gifts. About 82 percent of retailers surveyed by the Florida Retail Federation said they expect Christmas sales this year to be the same or better than last year, a report released Monday by the industry group said. Larger retailers tended to be more optimistic than smaller ones, the report said. The federation's quarterly index of retailer optimism shows it's higher now than in the final quarter of...

Please place your predictions, traditions, comments, jabs, and jokes on this thread for the 2004 Auburn/Alabama game...This is the thread...

California students certainly won't find it in their civics textbooks. Nor will the subject surface in most conversations about the way legislation is enacted. That's because political insiders in Sacramento would just as soon keep quiet about the disturbingly common practice of gutting and amending a bill in order to slip it through at the very end of a legislative session. It works like this: A lawmaker or a special-interest group wants to pass a controversial measure but the deadline has passed for the introduction of new bills. So, supporters grab a dead or dormant proposal, strip the original language,...

The Washington Dispatch Commentary by Paul M. Weyrich July 28, 2004 Every now and then I have loosely related matters I think would be useful to tell you, but independently do not warrant an entire commentary. So here are the items for your consideration: A number of important Members of Congress believe that former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger leaked the problem he had about stolen documents on himself. The theory is that he knew he had been caught red handed. It is presumed that he knew the matter was coming to a head and would likely be made public....

To secure the continuing existence of the United States democracy against intractable religious fanaticism, whose goal is nothing less than a Muslim theocracy for all of planet Earth, it is inevitable that military conscription will again be implemented during the months following the 2004 Presidential Election. The nature of this struggle renders irrelevant the person or party who wins the election. With very rare exceptions, every male residing in the United States 18 to 26 years of age is required by the Military Selective Service Act to register with the Selective Service System, and thereby subject himself to the possibility...

The American author Ray Bradbury has demanded that Michael Moore return the title of his classic novel Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury, whose science-fiction tome Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953, blasted Moore, whose politically explosive film Fahrenheit 9/11 opened in North America this weekend, for using the title without permission and asked for an apology and for the film's name to be changed. "It's not a nice thing he has done," Bradbury, 83, said. "My book is known all over the world and that title is my title." Bradbury said he wanted a public apology from director and author, who published...

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- It's the NBA Finals, and that means Phil Jackson digs into his personal jewelry box for a championship ring to inspire his players. Jackson sported the 2001 ring won by the Los Angeles Lakers on his right pinkie Thursday. A bit gaudy perhaps, but the 58-year-old coach with nine titles to his credit is following a personal tradition. "The stuff has just snowballed. I can't stop to absorb it all," he said of the staggering success he's experienced as an NBA coach. Jackson has been called lucky to have coached the likes of Michael Jordan and...

CHICAGO (Jan. 1) - Despite a sharp drop in homicides, Chicago has regained a title it didn't want: America's murder capital The city finished 2003 with 599 homicides, police said Thursday. That was down from 648 a year earlier and the first time since 1967 that the total dipped below 600. Still, the nation's third-largest city outpaced all others for the second time in three years. New York, with about three times the population, ended the year with 596 homicides. Los Angeles, which had the most murders in 2002 at 658, wound up 2003 with an estimated total just under...

Can the North’s ‘Walking Computer’ Remember His 1,200 Names? by Kim In (ginko@chosun.com) Since February 1974, when current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was unofficially chosen as the successor to his father, Kim Il-sung, North Korean newspapers and broadcasters have used more than 1,200 terms of endearment to refer to the son, according to the North's state-run Korea Central Broadcasting Station (KCBS). Before Kim Jong-il officially emerged as new North Korean leader, at the sixth convention of the Labor Party in October 1980, he was referred to only as the “party center” on newspapers and TV. Later, the title of...

The Bush Administration has just re-affirmed the Clintonian feminists' Title IX outrages, which impose a gender quota-like system on college sports. The feminists are squealing with joy, but Bush is dreaming if he thinks they will ever reward him with their votes. At least 56 percent of college students are women, yet only a fraction seek to compete in intercollegiate sports. The Clintonian feminists' "proportionality" test laid down the absurd rule that fewer than 56 percent of women on athletic teams would be judged unlawful sex discrimination. To protect against lawsuits, colleges have been disbanding men's teams, a practice that...