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Hubbell plea punctuates end of counsel law PATRICK HOWE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE WASHINGTON -- Cutting short a vacation in Ireland, independent counsel Kenneth Starr is expected to enter a Washington courtroom today to watch as Web Hubbell enters two guilty pleas that will in essence put a cap on the active phase of Starr's 5-year-old investigation. Whether intentional or not, Starr's court appearance will carry symbolic importance -- today marks the expiration of the independent-counsel law that employs Starr and has funded his $40 million investigation. Congress is set to let the law die at midnight. By law, Starr's investigation could ...

Blood code rules in northern Albania SHKODER, Albania, June 30 (AFP) - A bloody mediaeval code of honour known as kanun is virtually the only law in northern Albania, where the state and its police are powerless to stop a rising tide of violence and crime. On Monday afternoon a dozen men armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles burst into the Sahati bar in the centre of the northwestern town of Shkoder. They had come to collect the "gjoba", the protection money claimed by the local mafia. But bar owner Ibrahim Isufi was waiting for them. In the ensuing shootout five ...

Official Washington and the sleepy "establishment" media are agog over President Clinton's "great victory" in the Balkans. Even the president's critics grant him a stupendous foreign policy success. "Victory," screams the editorial headline of the Weekly Standard, and the editorialist goes on to proclaim, "Slobodan Milosevic's capitulation to U.S. and NATO demands represents a triumph for...President Clinton, and for the small but stalwart group of Republicans...who supported the war from beginning to end." The National Review's senior editor Peter Rodman said on C-Span's "Washington Journal" that it would be "churlish" of Bill Clinton's critics now to criticize the Clinton/ NATO ...

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON LISTENING TOUR JULY 7 - 10, 1999 Story Filed: Wednesday, June 30, 1999 8:01 AM EST Hillary Rodham Clinton will begin a summer long listening tour of New York next week. The tour will include visits to every region of the state and meetings with New Yorkers in small groups. Mrs. Clinton's trip will beginon Wednesday, July 7th at the farm of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Over the next three days Mrs. Clinton is expected to visit Oneonta, Cooperstown, Utica, Syracuse and Albany. "I'm eagerly looking forward to listening to New Yorkers and hearing directly what's ...

Reflect on this during this 4th of July weekend. Every year we seem to get the traditional holiday message and standard safety brief. Well, the importance of vehicular and recreational safety can not be over stressed during this time. However, the below is a different holiday message which truly is "the rest of the story"...it's short! Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary ...

THE WAR PARTY TURNS LEFT The War Party has lately taken on a left-liberal coloration, with the socialist parties of the Second International (including Tony Blair's New Labour and the Clintonian Democrats) leading the charge in the war for Kosovo. In spite of the gasps of astonishment that greeted this new development, the almost universal surprise at the sight of Vietnam era peaceniks like Clinton, Blair, and the German Greens suddenly becoming the biggest warmongers on the block, to many on the Right it seemed like a perfectly logical extension of the leftist mindset to the realm of foreign affairs. ...

Lyrics Copyright 1999, Doug from Upland. Not for commercial use without permission of the author. James Hormel, Ambassador Can't wait to see who's in store Looks forward to dating New weenies are waiting James Hormel, Ambassador In Luxembourg gay bars he won't find too often The Catholics don't think they're cool He'll wink at a young one whose chair's in the way And ask "May I push in your stool?" The country's been slapped in the face But he hopes they won't be too cruel He'll wink at a young one whose chair's in the way And ask "May ...

Why doesn't the Media visit Kennesaw? June 30, 1999 The New American magazine reminds us that March 25th marked the 16th anniversary of Kennesaw, Georgia's ordinance requiring heads of households (with certain exceptions) to keep at least one firearm in their homes. The city's population grew from around 5,000 in 1980 to 13,000 by 1996 (latest available estimate). Yet there have been only three murders: two with knives (1984 and 1987) and one with a firearm (1997). "After the law went into effect in 1982, crime against persons plummeted 74 percent compared to 1981, and fell another 45 percent in ...

CIA Frets About Russia's Y2K Readiness   By Rick T. Vannelli June 30, 1999   The federal government's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been doing a lot of testifying in 1999 about Russia's Year 2000 Computer Problem. In January, it presented testimony to the House Government Management, Information and Technology Subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. This House Subcommittee, chaired by Congressman Stephen Horn, has been monitoring the Y2K remediation progress of government agencies since 1996. At the January hearing, the CIA warned that Russia was one of the least prepared foreign countries. Russian officials have ...

Z writes: I am a molecular biologist working in a Virginia medical research facility. My boss happens to be a higher up at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Hampton and is on site most of the week. We have been contemplating moving our laboratory to the VA site (which is a huge collection of buildings) so he can be closer to the lab and yesterday we toured the facility to look at the new lab. Just as we walked in the door, the Administrative officer was reading from a document with everyone gathered around about doing a Y2K ASSESSMENT! ...

China was offered compensation for embassy bombing; 'Apology phase long over,' envoy says The Clinton administration offered to pay compensation to the families of three Chinese officials killed in the mistaken bombing of their embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, a senior State Department official said yesterday. Stanley Roth, assistant secretary of state for Asian Pacific affairs, said during a speech the administration also may pay China the cost of the bombed building, a demand made by Beijing two weeks ago. The United States is also seeking compensation from China for the damage caused to U.S. facilities by angry Chinese mobs ...

New computers still housing Y2K bugs Most glitches won't affect personal use, Microsoft says, but complexity of PCs is questioned Clint Swett - Sacramento Bee SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ When Lori Deal bought her new Gateway personal computer in February, she assumed she was getting a machine that was ready for the Year 2000. She was wrong. Though her computer will undoubtedly operate after Jan. 1, some minor glitches could show up in her software -- and that of nearly any PC owner. Industry experts blame it on the extravagantly complex software in most PCs, making it hard to root out ...

Couple Face Prison In Misrepresentation - (AURORA) -- A couple charged with obtaining information illegally could each spend up to 24 years in jail if found guilty. James and Regina Rapp are accused of illegally gathering personal information on the Columbine High School shooting victims... and people involved in the Ramsey murder case. The two misrepresented their identities in order to collect information they would then sell to the media.

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Wednesday June 30 9:04 AM ET Rappers Banned From Salvadoran Airwaves SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - Salvadoran radio stations, responding to a government request, Tuesday banned songs by two controversial rap groups because their lyrics were said to be an assault on public decency. The Interior Ministry called on local stations to stop playing songs by a Salvadoran band called Mecate and Mexican hip-hop band Molotov. The request was accepted by the country's radio operators' federation. Stations aimed at youth audiences were asked to pull from their playlists the Mecate hit ``El Directo,'' a song telling the story of an infamous ...

The Threatening, Missing Links in Minnesota's Y2K Approach Dear Governor Ventura, I am one of the two Minnesotans who have been invited and are participating in the Group of 8 (G8) Countries' Virtual Y2K Conference taking place on the Internet, which is being coordinated by the U.S. GSA office[1]. I am also the most published writer on Y2K (in the realm of journals and magazines) residing in Minnesota, having authored over 40 articles for seven magazines or journals[2]. If you want a personal reference on my credentials from someone in the Minnesota government, please contact State Representative Bill Hilty ...

How the Mainstream Press Ignored the Expose of the Year Some three weeks before the 1996 presidential election, the author was tipped off by a highly reliable source that Bill Clinton and Ross Perot had come to an understanding between them, that the flaky billionaire Texan would enter the 1992 presidential race as a third-party candidate in order to impede any likelihood that President George Bush would win reelection at the polls. Immediate inquires confirmed that report, and this writer proceeded to prepare such a story for exclusive publication in his alma mater, The New York Post, where he had ...

When David Huff filed for re-election as the state representative for the 30th District of Lenexa, he claimed his top priorities included property-tax relief and either the elimination or lowering of the sales tax on food. Not exactly truthful. When Rep. Cliff Franklin gave Huff the opportunity to make good on his campaign promises, Huff not only reneged but stopped speaking to Franklin, who sat next to him in the Legislature. But then Huff is a follower and his little white lie is dwarfed by the miserable record of Gov. Bill Graves and many of the Legislature's brighter lights. Remember ...

sometimes something smells so bad everybody wants to do something about it. Imagine, if you can, these political odd couples: Henry Hyde and Barney Frank, Bob Barr and Bill Delahunt. They got together the other day to work on eradicating a really bad stink. The Hyde/Frank/Barr/Delahunt coalition went after the rape of the Constitution that allows the feds to seize the property of the innocent in the name of making war on drugs. They persuaded the House to strip the feds of this power, which the feds have brazenly arrogated unto themselves in defiance of Jefferson and Madison, and ...

A Postcard from the Other Side of Midnight   By Charlie Register June 28, 1999   For homegrown newspapers, the sensitive issues are ones that occur in their own backyard. What affects the community locally, even if that effect comes from distant lands, is of no minor consequence, and thus warrants the coverage of the day. Businesses are often a product and reflection of that community. Few businesses better identify with a region of the cultural South than Coca-Cola. This Atlanta based institution, conglomeration, whatever megaterm you wish to apply to it, has been so linked with the city ...