Free Republic

RUDY LOCKING HORNS AGAIN WITH OLD FOE AL D'AMATO By DAVID SEIFMAN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAYOR Giuliani's tense on-again, off-again relationship with former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato is about to hit a new low - maybe permanently. A senior-level administration source told The PostD'Amato is now persona non grata at City Hall because mayoral aides have firsthand evidence he's trying to block Giuliani's U.S. Senate bid. The source said some contributors to the mayor's $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Washington Thursday night reported that they had been urged by D'Amato not to attend. Giuliani aides deemed the event a success since it pulled in nearly ...

Villagers fearing war flee           Punjab           BHIKHIWIND (India): More than 80,000 terrified people from border           villages in India's northwestern state of Punjab have fled to safety           following troop movements along the border with Pakistan, police said           yesterday.           Inspector General of Police (Border) J.P. Birdi said 90% of the population           of about 200 villages had moved out.           "We are trying to persuade them to stay but we can't stop them forcefully,"           he said. "As per our estimate, more than 80,000 people have left."           "We have been seeing troop movements in our area ...

McCARTHY'S EMOTIONAL PLEA FALLS SHORT By BRIAN BLOMQUIST WASHINGTON - Few saw Rep. Carolyn McCarthy speak on guns and violence in the wee hours of yesterday morning, but those who did were touched in a way that is rare in Congress. McCarthy, 55, whose husband was killed and son was seriously wounded when a madman opened fire on a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, came to Congress in 1997 with one major goal: passing strong gun control. Early yesterday, as Congress was on its way to killing the gun-control bill, McCarthy (D-L.I.) grew emotional and seemed unable ...

CITY TEACHERS' COMMANDMENT: KEEP RELIGION OUT By ANGELA C. ALLEN Thou shalt not put the Ten Commandments in the classroom. That was the reaction of educators in the nation's largest school system, who turned thumbs down on the controversial congressional proposal. Conservative Rep. Robert Aderhold (R-Ala.) is pushing to let states decide if they want to display the biblical rules in public schools. The measure was passed by the House Thursday and now goes before the Senate. Yesterday, dozens of educators and administrators from all five boroughs declined to speak out on the thorny issue, but the few who ...

KOSOVO REBELS RAPED SERB NUN, SAY FRENCH OFFICIALS By URI DAN BELGRADE - Three days after NATO troops refused a mother superior's pleas for protection, Kosovar rebels looted her monastery and raped a young nun, officials said yesterday. French commandos and members of the French Foreign Legion arrived as the Kosovar Liberation Army guerrillas were leaving the isolated mountain religious community in Devic, about 30 miles northwest of the Kosovo capital of Pristina. The Post reported Monday how Mother Macaria drove to Pristina on Sunday to plead with arriving British troops for protection for herself, a priest and nine ...

Russia's Military Role in Kosovo New York Times Lead Editorial 06-19-99 Provided no new hitches develop, the weeklong crisis over Russian participation in the NATO-led peacekeeping operation in Kosovo now appears satisfactorily resolved. Negotiations between top American officials and their Russian counterparts have produced an agreement that defines the zones where Russian troops will operate, the channels through which they will report to NATO's commander and their role at Pristina's airport. The sudden arrival of 200 Russian troops at that airport last Friday was unnerving. But the talks that followed have been useful and gave both sides what they needed. ...

Ehud Barak: Serving by Waiting Out Opponents By DEBORAH SONTAG JERUSALEM -- Israelis abhor silence, and their prime minister-elect, Ehud Barak, has been silent as a stone since his overwhelming victory a month ago. In that time, Barak has conducted extensive negotiations with political parties to form a coalition government. But he has made few public declarations, given few interviews and refused to show his hand through the news leaks that have long been tradition here. It has been an unusually protracted limbo between governments, and anxious Israeli commentators first read trouble into the vacuum. They decided that Barak, 57, ...

It apears as if sightings.com has been pulled. Reroutes to some lame page with all kooky links. I don't go for all the wierd stuff, but they did have some good government corruption storys(Including Drudge,NYP,And even FR) with links to the source. Emailing the webmaster gets you a returned mail. And premere radio no longer lists them as a client of talk radio. Anyways it looks like the end. Probably the result of some lawsuit With Art Bell who loves to put devel worshipers on his program. So I guess this is the end of an erra. The end of ...

THE FINGER POINTING Politics Among Culprits in Death of Gun Control By ALISON MITCHELL WASHINGTON -- For all the national horror at the carnage in Littleton, Colo., the sentiment over the school shooting could not keep gun control legislation from collapsing on the House floor. All that was left Friday afternoon was a cloud of dust and a bitter political debate over who killed gun control. The confounding outcome was the result of a number of factors, including the narrow majority of House Republicans, the sway of conservatives over the Republican caucus, the determination of Democrats to win back the ...

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Filtering Amendment Passes House By JERI CLAUSING WASHINGTON -- The more than 25,000 schools and libraries that receive federal subsidies to connect to the Internet would be required to install software that blocks pornographic and other "inappropriate" Web sites as part of the juvenile justice bill that passed the House this week. An amendment by Bob Franks of New Jersey and Chip Pickering of Mississippi, both Republicans, was just one of several proposed amendments that would have regulated Internet content. But it was the only one that passed. And it was immediately criticized by civil liberties groups and the American ...

THE SCENE A Congresswoman Is Defiant in Defeat, and the G.O.P. Is Anxious By FRANCIS X. CLINES WASHINGTON -- "Let me go home," came the weary plea to the House from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., as she watched her gun-control measure go down to defeat in the middle of the night, beyond the waking notice of most Americans. "Let me go home," she repeated, teary-eyed in early Friday morning, transfixing the House in her moment of exasperation at the bare-knuckled political machinations that befell her cause. Far from quitting, the second-term congresswoman was vowing to work at her new career ...

THE SERBS In a Kosovo Town, an Experiment in Coexistence Ends After a Few Days By IAN FISHER ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia -- A few days ago, the Serbs here made a brave and unusual decision: They would stay in this Kosovo hillside town, nearly 4,000 of them, and try to live again beside Albanians, even as their fellow Serbs fled the province in the tens of thousands. That all broke down Friday, and with it one small pocket of hope for re-creating a multi-ethnic Kosovo. Friday afternoon, heavily armed young German soldiers were reduced to escorting scared Serbian women to their ...

THREE CALIF. SYNAGOGUES SET ON FIRESACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Three of the area's five synagogues were hit almost simultaneously by arsonists Friday, and a leaflet blaming the ``International Jew World Order'' for the war in Kosovo was left behind.The fires caused moderate damage to two synagogues and gutted a third temple's library, destroying a collection of videos on Jewish history.Investigators questioned four youths who fled from police near Congregation B'nai Israel, the most heavily damaged, and determined they had nothing to do with the fires. There were no suspects Friday evening. ``Hate is hate. You can't predict when it will ...

NATO Ties With Russia Soured Before Bombing By CRAIG R. WHITNEY BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A few hundred Russian soldiers in Kosovo, commanded by a general who outranks the British lieutenant general who will be in charge of the 50,000 NATO troops there, have had the alliance trying to figure out since last weekend how Russians can be included without being under NATO command, which they reject, or weakening the mission. In fact, allied officials said Friday, NATO's military relationship with Russia started going seriously wrong months ago, when Moscow tried to assign a senior military intelligence officer to the alliance's ...

Violence Is Reported as Kosovo Rebels Take Over Towns By JOHN KIFNER PRIZREN, Yugoslavia -- The Kosovo Liberation Army is setting up interim governments in a number of cities, moving rapidly to fill the civic vacuum. In at least one case of exerting their self-appointed authority, the rebels arrested and apparently beat several prisoners, one so severely that he died. The troops are moving into city halls and makeshift municipal buildings, with their own black-uniformed police at the doors, trying to get electricity, water and other basic services working. Their major problem is that there is virtually no food and ...

Daniel McGrory reports from Pristina as KLA fighters seek their revenge SNIPERS are the latest curse to grip Pristina as British troops struggle to prevent gun law taking hold in the capital. Three people have been shot dead in the past three days by snipers who are once more emptying streets that had only just come back to life. Another man was hit yesterday as he drove through the busiest thoroughfare in Pristina, prompting military commanders to fear the start of a sniper war that would paralyse what progress to peace has been made. British troops were confiscating weapons ...

Teen-agers do not have the right to wander the streets late at night, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in upholding the District of Columbia's youth curfew law. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled the 1995 law governing district children younger than 17 does not violate their rights or interfere with the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit, The Washington Post reported. A majority of the 11-judge court said the law gives parents almost total discretion over their children's late-night activities and, in fact, helps parents control their children. Critics ...

AP: Turin Italy will host the 2006 Winter Games.

June 19, 1999 Grape growers join call for farm labor By RICHARD T. ESTRADA BEE STAFF WRITER (Published: Friday, June 18, 1999) Their cries of anguish are not as high-pitched as others in agriculture, but California wine- grape growers are just as concerned about having too few people to work their vineyards. "We still harvest 30 to 40 percent of our wine grapes by hand in the (San Joaquin) valley," said Barry Bedwell, president of Allied Grape Growers. "Normally, a smaller labor force might not be a primary concern because many newer vineyards are mechanically harvested. But this year's harvest ...