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WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 — President Bush and Representative Charlie Norwood, the leader of a six-year campaign to enact a patients' bill of rights, said tonight that they had agreed on compromise legislation, clearing the way for House passage of the measure this week. The agreement stunned Mr. Norwood's allies in Congress, who were meeting to discuss strategy at the very moment he was going to the White House to shake hands on the deal with Mr. Bush. "Congressman Norwood and I have reached an agreement on how to get a patients' bill of rights out of the House of ...

Battle Ship                                                       Battle Ship "New Jersey" The Navy Dept. has officially turned over to the state of New Jersey, the Battleship "New Jersey". This ship will be available for viewing effective Sept 12th 2001 and there after at Camden New Jersey.           Directions to the New Jersey Battleship               take hwy# 168 to the Morgan Blvd exit. Go Left upon exit.          Mark T Hacala is the director, Education institute of the US NAVY memorial foundation         The Lone Sailor WebSite;                                                   www.lonesailor.org             Email for the Lone Sailor WebSite                                                     ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted late Wednesday to allow oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, rejecting claims that development would devastate ``a cathedral of nature'' in need of protection. The 223-206 vote was a major victory for President Bush who in his presidential campaign and in a broad energy blueprint, called drilling in the refuge key to assuring the country's energy needs in years to come. Protection of the refuge, which was created 41 years ago by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, emerged as the most hotly debated issue in a package of energy ...

U.S., city officials announce corruption indictments Two former police officers were charged with taking cash in exchange for gun permits. A probation officer was charged with taking cash to falsely certify alcohol treatment for drunk drivers. By Joseph A. Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Federal and city authorities today announced the indictments of two Philadelphia police officers and a city probation officer, all charged with taking cash to help felons get gun permits or drunk drivers get back on the roads. "We've all been working very hard ... to get guns off the street," said U.S. Attorney Michael L. Levy at ...

USA TODAY, August 1, 2001 Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.   USA TODAY August 1, 2001, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 10A HEADLINE: Insurance for school shootings? The National Education Association's decision to offer teachers insurance for school shootings at work is unnecessary hype ("Teachers offered 'unlawful' homicide insurance," USA TODAY.com, Thursday). Since the fall of 1997, four teachers have been shot to death in any type of shooting at elementary or secondary schools, an annual rate of one per 3.3 million teachers. In addition, during the same period, 32 students have been killed, an annual rate of one ...

Breaking News Alert WASHINGTON _ House approves oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Why international elites shriek at Bush John O'Sullivan These refusals have been denounced as "U.S. unilateralism" by European politicians. And their criticism was echoed in Sunday's Washington Post by its distinguished foreign affairs columnist, Jim Hoagland, in an article that described George W. Bush's policy as "isolationism lite" but worried that it could have very un-lite consequences: "Other nations fear the effect of Bush's rejectionism on the overall system of international agreements and negotiations that has grown up since World War II. And seeing a similar political opportunity to brand his opponents as isolationist know-nothings, Senator Tom Daschle, the Majority ...

Ted Koppel is doing a show on the phony "abused girl" study right now! (EST)

US Radar can find anyone buried under ground. Micheal Savage just interviewed the owner of US Radar. He says that no one has called him to look for Chandra, though he has been called by the FBI many times before. His radar can penetrate up to 15 feet, with great clarity up to 10 feet. He said it would be no problem at all to find Chandra, even if she's under a concrete parking lot. He also claims to be been involved in many searches and most bodies are buried less than 5 feet deep in murder cases. Savage ...

Signing himself, "M.D., Ph.D.," a reader I'll call by the initials D.H. wrote in recently: "Dear Vin, I have just finished reading your book 'Send in the Waco Killers'. Congratulations on writing such an interesting and provocative book. I also enjoy your columns, especially those on U.S. drug policy. You were right on to castigate the oblivious public for its complicity in shooting down the missionary and her daughter. The whole drug policy travesty/ scandal is a major reason why I've moved to Canada. "I have a couple of questions. In your book, you seemed to sidestep the question of ...

W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 1 — President Bush struck a compromise with a key lawmaker over a proposed patients' bill of rights today, clearing the way for Congress to pass the landmark health-care reform legislation. "Congressman [Charles] Norwood and I have reached an agreement on how to get a patients' bill of rights out of the House of Representatives," Bush told reporters at the White House this afternoon. Norwood, R-Ga., is the chief sponsor of a Democratic-backed bill that the president had repeatedly threatened to veto unless major changes were made. The ...

After decades of stalemated diplomacy and months of renewed violence, the Sharon government appears ready to launch a massive blow against the Palestinian political infrastructure. The strike will aim to decapitate the Palestinian leadership, destroy key facilities and isolate the Palestinian community. In the absence of external constraints from the United States and regional neighbors, Israel may consider expanding this option to Syria and Iraq as well. Since it seized the West Bank in 1967, Israel has had three options for dealing with the Palestinian people and territory it controls. The first was to attempt a negotiated settlement such as ...

The federal government is "reaching a moment of decision" on education policy, President Bush said Wednesday as he laid out his bottom line for House-Senate negotiators not moving as quickly as he'd like to overhaul the nation's schools. "We're coming down to the wire. We've got to finish strong and make sure the accountability measure are right," Mr. Bush said. The president used a speech to the National Urban League to prod lawmakers working this week on Capitol Hill to hammer out differences between House and Senate education bills that would bring several major changes to the federal system, ...

Bush, Norwood agree on patients' rights billWASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush and Georgia Republican Rep. Charlie Norwood -- the standard-bearer for a popular patients' bill of rights set for debate in the House Thursday -- announced late Wednesday afternoon they had agreed to amend Norwood's bill in a way Bush finds acceptable.The announcement in the White House briefing room came after days of negotiations. The agreement presumably centered on the liability provisions of the bill, but the two offered no details because Norwood needed to present the compromise to the bill's supporters in the House and Senate."We have reached ...

President Bush announced agreement Wednesday with a pivotal Republican lawmaker on a patients' bill of rights that the House would pass and he could sign. Mr. Bush told a hastily arranged White House news conference that the measure would meet his principles by protecting patients without encouraging "frivolous lawsuits." Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the changes would limit the conditions under which HMOs could be sued and place limits in the damages that patients could win in court. Under the deal, Mr. Bush agreed to open the door to more lawsuits than he had proposed, but Norwood ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 1 -- President Bush and a key fellow Republican said this afternoon that they had reached an agreement on a patients' bill of rights that they were sure would be acceptable to a majority of lawmakers. "We shook hands in the Oval Office about 10 minutes ago," the President said at the White House with Representative Charlie Norwood of Georgia by his side. Mr. Norwood, a dentist, has been leading a six-year effort to set strict federal standards for health maintenance organizations and insurers. While many politicians favor some kind of bill of rights in principle, there ...

It's the New York Post vs. Newsweek. Or could the truth lie somewhere in between? Aug. 1, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- We all know that Chandra Levy made a flurry of frantic calls to Gary Condit in the final days before she disappeared, right? Maybe not. That Levy left a series of messages with Condit's private answering service in the last days before her disappearance has been part of the Condit-Chandra gospel ever since it was first reported June 8 by Niles Lathem in the New York Post. But according to a Newsweek exclusive by Michael Isikoff, that last-minute flurry ...

Thursday, August 2 7:13 AM SGT Israeli approval not needed to deploy Foreign observers: Arafat ROME, Aug 2 (AFP) - There is no need for the international community to seek Israeli approval before deploying neutral observers in the troubled Middle East, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said here Wednesday. Arafat spoke to reporters after meeting Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi on the first day of a visit to Italy. He said he would appeal to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who chaired last month's Group of Eight summit in Genoa, during a scheduled meeting Thursday "to do everything possible" to enable the ...

Washington, Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- A group of Senate Republicans set out proposals to change the Medicare system, and were rebuked immediately by the Democratic chairman of the finance committee, who called their ideas akin to ``robbery, not reform.'' The finance committee's ranking Republican, Charles Grassley of Iowa, Vermont independent Jim Jeffords, and Louisiana Democrat John Breaux, offered a plan that shifts more Medicare coverage to private companies and uses a $300 billion budget allocation for broader changes. Democrats want the $300 billion to go exclusively to a guaranteed prescription-drug benefit for the 39 million beneficiaries of the Medicare ...

Since Bill Clinton left office, the Democratic Party has lost its focus on the contentious matter of national missile defense. That is understandable, but unfortunate. Unless Democrats devise a sound alternative to the Bush administration's plans, they will lose the debate - and the country will lose as well. The recent Bush-Putin agreement to talk about the issue should provide Democrats with just the focal point they need to get their act together. Democrats fall into two main camps. The first group opposes missile defense because it could mean junking the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which they see as ...