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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Civil rights groups filed suit Tuesday to stop Florida's school voucher plan, a day after Gov. Jeb Bush enacted the first such statewide program in the nation to help parents of students in failing schools pay for private education. Attorneys representing the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and a handful of other civil rights organizations filed a complaint in state circuit court in Tallahassee to block the implementation of the plan. "The state constitution says it's the state's duty to provide a uniform system of adequate public schools," said ...

Could Y2K cause an accidental chemical or nuclear spill?   By Sunil Madhok June 23, 1998   The press has largely downplayed the news of the 4 million-gallon sewage spill in California. If, as reported, the spill was caused due to a failed Y2K test then the matter is very serious and should have received a much wider coverage. It has been reported that the exact reason for the problem was not immediately clear. It has also been reported that it was unclear whether the problem was related to the test or was coincidental. It is believed that the ...

Could Y2K cause an accidental chemical or nuclear spill?   By Sunil Madhok June 23, 1998   The press has largely downplayed the news of the 4 million-gallon sewage spill in California. If, as reported, the spill was caused due to a failed Y2K test then the matter is very serious and should have received a much wider coverage. It has been reported that the exact reason for the problem was not immediately clear. It has also been reported that it was unclear whether the problem was related to the test or was coincidental. It is believed that the ...

When Vice President Al Gore began his formal run for the Democratic presidential nomination, there was considerably more cause for thinking of Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the Republican front-runner, than just the gibes Gore pointedly got off at him, while managing never to mention the Texan's name. The most obvious reason for thinking of GOPer Bush during Dem Gore's official opening days on the proverbial campaign trail is the reality most political types, quite apparently including Gore and Bush, are convinced they will be their parties' candidates in the 2000 general election for president. But the veep has ...

The Cover Story in this week's issue of Wednesday on the Web is a study of the Medicare system and how bureaucratic meddling with America's health care system is imperiling a program hordes of senior citizens rely on for their medical care. The study's author,  Dr. Sandra Mahkorn M.D., M.P.H., M.S, shows just how deadly the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) has been to the functioning of an efficient national health care program, and how it threatens to ruin the system. The study is exhaustive and compelling, but it barely mentions the difference between basic Medicare and the Health Maintenance ...

Translated By Aaron Lerner Originally appeared in Hebrew in 18 June 1999 Netanyahu plans in the book he is currently writing to publish>several details that will considerably embarrass the president of the United States. In one of the chapters Clinton will earn the title 'International Swindler'. And this is the story. In September '98, Yom Kippur Eve, Clinton and Netanyahu met for a conversation in the White House, during the course of which Netanyahu agreed to attend the conference at Wye Plantation with Yasser Arafat on condition that Clinton would act to immediately release the spy Jonathan Pollard. Clinton, ...

19:35 NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana has announced that, if necessary, KLA would be disarmed forcibly. 18:20 Foreign Ministers of Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy have arrived in Kosovo.They will organize a press conference in KFOR Headquarters in Pristina at 6:30p.m. 17:25 UN civilian mission spokesman Cavin Kennedy said that within the next 12 weeks 3,000 international policemen are expected to arrive in the province. 75-80 of them will come in the first group. They will patrol together with KFOR soldiers and help them in solving civilian problems. 16:30 The German KFOR soldiers have arrested 30 Albanians for plundering Serbian ...

THE GREAT DISRUPTION: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order; By Francis Fukuyama; (The Free Press: 354 pp., $26) By Virginia Postrel Francis Fukuyama likes big subjects and bold claims. In 1989, he burst into public consciousness with his provocatively titled National Interest article, "The End of History," later expanded into a book, "The End of History and the Last Man" (1992). His thesis: Liberal, democratic capitalism represents the final stage in the Hegelian evolution of governing regimes, and the fall of the Soviet Union settled the debate. When the musical group Jesus Jones hit the pop charts with ...

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Surely most of you by now have seen this cuddly pic of our president? If not, go to http://www.homestead.com/takenoprisoner/intern.html

North Korea, our most irrational, unpredictable and dangerous enemy -- with whom we've been in an on-again, off-again shootout for 54 years -- is back on the warpath. If the million-man North Korean army attacks, our 37,000 soldiers in South Korea will be little more than a speed bump without immediate U.S. air, naval and ground reinforcements. They'll be squashed like a beer can flattened by an Abrams tank -- just as our troops were in the summer of 1950, the last time this Red horde roared south. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein continues his war games in the Gulf, designed ...

Excerpts follow: Another refugee, Isa Muftari, 25, remarked that "it could have been over in a week," but the alliance did not hurry because American and allied officials were unwilling to accept casualties. Each of the refugees that Clinton, the first lady and their daughter, Chelsea, met in the camp had been interviewed in advance by refugee aid officials, so their accounts contained no surprises. But he heard first-hand of the slight impact the NATO bombing had on the Belgrade government's military offensive and its widespread human rights abuses in the first 10 weeks of the air war – knowledge ...

Program of Assertive Community Treatment A new proposal to Congress may mean daily psychiatric drug deliveries to your doorstep Picture this: Every morning, seven days a week a car pulls up in front of your house, as it has every day for years. Inside that car is a locked box of containers with powerful psychiatric drugs. An eager government-paid mental health worker jumps out of the car rings your doorbell and presents you with your daily prescribed psychiatric drugs. You are asked to swallow the pills in front of the worker, and drink water to show that the pills ...

French business executives will be forced to work less under a new law to be proposed by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's government later this year. Middle-rank executives - but not company heads - are to be brought within the rules of the 35-hour week, which is already being applied to blue-collar workers and civil servants. Business employees will be permitted to work a certain number of overtime hours, beyond the weekly average of 35. But this will be taxed at a punitive level - initially 10 per cent and then 25 per cent above the normal rate of income ...

http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/20335.html Reach Out and Target Someone by Leander Kahney 3:00 a.m.  22.Jun.99.PDT You're online doing some research into new financial planning services when the phone rings. On the line is a sales rep, who launches into a pitch for the firm you were just reading about. "It's easily doable," said Jason Catlett, CEO of JunkBusters, a firm that consults to companies about their privacy practices. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ See also: DoubleClick's Single Focus: You ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "[Database marketers have] the technology and the financial incentive. People don't realize the extent to which they can be watched on the Net." In an ever-increasing effort to more ...

Do they ever actually turn the engines off on Hillary's taxpayer funded private jet? Untitled Normal Page Wed, Jun 23, 1999 Plans finalized for Hillary's trip to region By Jim Franco TROY -- Congressman Michael McNulty said first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will be in Albany on July 9 for a fund-raiser to be held at the Omni Hotel in Albany. The $50-per-plate fund-raiser will allow a broad range of people to attend, as opposed to the usual price of $125-per-plate that a Clinton fundraiser usually draws, McNulty said. Anyone wishing to contribute $500 will get a private reception with ...

U.S. Marines fired on in Kosovo, kill two assailants. http://web3.stlnet.com/postnet/news/wires.nsf/Bulletins/094745A5E4A59CCB862567990064FD53?OpenDocument

WASHINGTON - Federal officials, advocacy groups and industry leaders are teaming up to teach families and educators how to use v-chips, as manufacturers near their first deadline to install the technology in new television sets. Two private groups were launching a national education campaign Wednesday to promote the use of v-chips and explain the electronically coded TV ratings system that goes with it. While most television and cable networks use letter notations or age-based ratings to flag violence or sexual situations, viewers don't always understand what the symbols signify, said Kathryn Montgomery, president of the Center for Media Education. ...

Spy network eavesdropping on Canadians Spy network eavesdropping on Canadians, says former spy <http://www.canoe.ca/NationalTicker/CANOE-wire.Spy-Network.html> OTTAWA (CP) -- The federal government is using a secret international computer surveillance network to collect personal information about Canadians, says a former Canadian spy. Canada is part of a Cold War-era electronic interception network, known as Echelon. Until recently the existence of the network, which monitors almost all electronic communications, was almost impossible to prove. But a report by the European Parliament, published May 10, detailed how Echelon works and how Canada is involved. The report, Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse ...

A man and woman sat in their car that idled at a stoplight along Broadway in north Everett. The woman watched the traffic slide slowly past the car's window. The man watched the woman watch the cars glide by. And on a light pole perched above the intersection, the unblinking eye of a video surveillance camera watched them both. The surveillance scene, captured on videotape in March by the Everett Police Department, was a test of the city's plan to install a network of security cameras at "high crime" areas in the city's core sometime this summer. The cameras, proposed ...