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A decade after the Cold War's demise, Russia and the United States are still swapping spies. An electronic "bug" is found eavesdropping on Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. An employee of the American embassy in Moscow is caught carrying a pocket-size snooping device and - yes, they still use it - invisible ink, so pedestrian that James Bond's "Q" would have been disdainfully unimpressed. As required under one of international espionage's enduring, unwritten game rules - "catch one, lose one" - it's home-you-go for one Russian, one American. Unspoken etiquette calls for the meticulous equation of banished operatives' respective ranks, ...

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on December 9, 1999. A fairly recent movie, The Matrix, is an interesting science-fiction thriller. People believe they are living normal lives, but, in fact, it is all an illusion. In reality, their naked bodies are hooked up in vast rows of vats and used by machines, which control the Earth, to generate energy. I would like to suggest to you that we, too, are living in an illusionary world. Our five senses {spcostr} vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch {spcostr} are our only contact with the world outside our bodies. These senses send ...

Out With Preseason Posturing, In With the Voters By ALBERT R. HUNT The ghosts of Gary Hart, Pete du Pont and Bob Dole soon will traipse across the presidential election stage. The moment of reckoning is close: In a little over a month, voters start registering their choices and a swift forty-three days later--perhaps even more quickly--the party nominees will be obvious. On Jan. 24, the Iowa caucuses set the table, and the central question will be the margin of Vice President Gore's and Texas Gov. George W. Bush's victories. Eight days later, New Hampshire will once again profoundly ...

Shot down in Congress, his tenure running out, President Clinton is trying to get the drop on the gun industry in the courts. His administration makes no bones it is a deliberate attempt to bring about, by litigation, the gun-control regulation it has failed to obtain by legislation. And makers and sellers of guns, as more than one newspaper headline put it, are up in arms. Adding to their bafflement and outrage is the Clinton administration's sudden decision to sue at the very time it is in the middle of negotiations with the gun industry to reach some sort of ...

(CNSNews.com) - A hearing in the case of two men charged with rape and capital murder in the death of a 13-year-old Arkansas boy was pushed back two days to Friday because of scheduling conflicts, a spokeswoman for the Benton County Prosecutor's Office told CNSNews.com. It was originally scheduled for Wednesday, December 8. The omnibus hearing, during which the prosecution will present discovery and talk about motions, will be held December 10. Prosecutors said the hearing is "a usual course of events" before going to trial. Joshua Macave Brown, 22, and Davis Don Carpenter, 38, are charged with six counts ...

NewsMax.com December 9, 1999 President Clinton says he's "comfortable" turning over control of the Panama Canal - and he corrected himself - not to Communist China after all. Whoever does succeed the United States in effectively controlling the vital waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will do so Dec. 31. Clinton's White House staff went into spin-control overdrive last week, when their president played right into the hands of opponents who charge it will be the Chinese who end up in control of the canal. Almost as he was walking out the door on his way to Seattle for ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican John McCain and Democrat Bill Bradley are in final negotiations to conduct an unusual joint meeting to highlight their support for campaign finance reform, aides for the two presidential candidates said today. Top advisers for the underdogs have agreed in principle to try to arrange a meeting as early as next week. They are discussing possible formats and comparing schedules. ``It's being talked about but it's not set,'' said Bradley spokesman Tony Wyche. The session would likely take place in Claremont, N.H., where President Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich shook hands in 1995 and ...

Shredding 162 Boxes The federal government now admits that for decades it grossly mishandled 300,000 trust fund accounts it manages on behalf of American Indians. But it took the Clinton Administration to add to that incompetence the destruction of 162 boxes of evidence, lying to a federal court and two Clinton Cabinet officers being held in contempt of court.   This week, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth released the 121-page report of Alan Balaran, a special master tasked with looking into how the Interior and Treasury Departments have withheld evidence from Judge Lamberth on the Indian trust funds. An ...

The LOS ANGELES TIMES is reporting in Thursday runs that ex-LAPD officer David Mack is among the suspects in the 1997 murder of rap star Notorious B.I.G. TIMES scribes Matt Lait and Scott Glover cite "sources and confidential LAPD documents" that Mack -- serving a 14-year prison term for bank robbery -- "conspired with Death Row Records founder Suge Knight to arrange the contract killing of the 24-year-old rap sensation whose real name was Christopher Wallace, according to a former detective on the case." The LAPD is strongly pursuing the theory that Mack hired his college friend, Amir Muhammad ...

A Sarasota man caught dozing with a loaded hunting rifle outside his ex-wife's home in Millersville, Maryland, has been indicted on attempted murder charges.Michael R. White, 51, wa arrested Sept. 12 after being caught sleeping under a tree with the rifle, said Kristin Riggin, spokeswoman for the state attorney's office. He had 17 extra rounds of ammunition in his pocket, she said.The court had ordered White to stay away from his ex-wife, Riggin said.An Anne Arundel County, Maryland, grand jury indicted White this week on charges of attempted murder, first-degree assault, stalking, reckless endangerment, making a false statement to police ...

WASHINGTON — This year marked the start of a "new era'' for human rights after the international community deployed troops to stop atrocities, arrested a former dictator accused of past abuses and indicted a sitting head of state on ethnic cleansing charges, Human Rights Watch said Thursday. "These trends mark the beginning of a new era for the human rights movement,'' the group said in its annual "World Report.'' "Today, tyrants are increasingly likely to be indicted.'' Human Rights Watch said "significant progress'' was made toward an international system of justice, citing the case against former Chilean dictator Augusto ...

Preacher charged with more church burglaries By Skippy Davis The Macon Telegraph DUBLIN - Laurens County authorities added three charges Wednesday against a tiny itinerant preacher they say burglarized several country churches where he had preached by invitation. William Carl "Billy" Cumby, 22, was charged last week with three counts of burglary of Treutlen County churches. Cumby's female companion, 19-year-old Mary Lou Carpenter, also faces burglary charges in all six cases. Both are in the Treutlen County Jail. The Laurens County burglaries occurred in October and November at the House of God Pentecostal Church on Ga. 29, White Springs ...

This column is for serious conservatives only. No cheap off-color Clinton jokes today. We're going deep. You may want to put on your thinking cap for this one. As you presumably know, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to impose taxes to "provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States." But since the New Deal, this clause has been pretty much boiled down to one phrase: "general welfare." It is now generally assumed that Congress may pass any law it deems in the "general welfare" of the United States. Strict constructionists ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - For Bill Clinton, the president who once deemed it necessary to declare himself relevant in dealing with the Republican Congress, the next year will not be an easy one. Clinton promises to work vigorously for the passage of proposals that ``got left on the table.'' But what he wants done must come from an election-minded GOP Congress, in a campaign setting, with the focus increasingly on the next president instead of this one. The president told a State Department news conference Wednesday that he is not even giving up on seeking Social Security financing changes, to deal ...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (December 9, 1999 10:45 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) - At the height of Bill Bradley's fame as NBA star, he rented a cottage on Mount Desert Island in Maine for a solitary retreat to write. When his time was up and the next renters appeared at the door, they found him at the dining table, tapping away at his portable typewriter, engrossed in his work. "He wasn't even packed," recalls Lou Stanek, who was to occupy the house next. "He had no idea it was time to leave, but he was very apologetic and gracious." From his days on ...

Clinton Feels No Pain Losing Control of Canal December 9, 1999 President Clinton says he's "comfortable" turning over control of the Panama Canal - and he corrected himself - not to Communist China after all. Whoever does succeed the United States in effectively controlling the vital waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will do so Dec. 31. Clinton's White House staff went into spin-control overdrive last week, when their president played right into the hands of opponents who charge it will be the Chinese who end up in control of the canal. Almost as he was walking out ...

After months of complaining about it, the Manatee County School Board is taking steps to kill a program that has allowed more than 350 employees to leave their jobs while keeping benefits up to three years. The board has asked its internal auditor and attorney to review the program for its intent, content and financial implications. The board members are concerned about the high number of employees taking the leave and the associated costs. The applications for "enrichment leave" from Superintendent Gene Denisar and, more recently, Assistant Superintendent Jim Keranen drove the board to act. Some board members accused ...

THERE IS NO "RIGHT TO SHELTER" Well … the weather is getting cold, politics is getting hot … and we’re starting to piss and moan about the so-called "homeless" again. We have Hillary Clinton telling us that we celebrate the birth of a "homeless" child at Christmas. What nonsense. If the large majority of Americans weren’t so damned stupid she would never get away from an outrage like that. Mary and Joseph had a home --- they were on the road because their wonderful government told them they had to go pay their taxes. We also have that so-called Queen ...

Mother of black man slain by LR police files lawsuit JULIA SILVERMAN ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE The mother of a black man who was shot and killed by Little Rock police officers Dec. 6, 1996, has filed suit in federal court against the officers in the shooting, the Police Department and the city. Kevin Williams' death angered some residents in his east Little Rock neighborhood, exposed a rift between the black community and the Police Department and led to a year of introspection and review by city officials. Now, Shirley Williams is alleging that the six officers present -- David Rowan, John ...

Sheen in 2000 Taking his role of president of the United States to heart, “West Wing” star Martin Sheen has set out to protect the rights of the homeless — starting with their right to eat tofu. The actor believes homeless people who happen to be vegetarian deserve warm, filling holiday meals just like everyone else. So he’s teamed up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to stock homeless shelters with Tofurky, a meatless alternative to turkey. “With 17 million vegetarians in the United States today, you will doubtlessly have some visitors who have given up meat,” ...