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Kenneth Chiu, son of Christopher Chiu, a member of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, was stabbed to death on Monday, in Orange County, California, according to reports from the L.A. Times. The attack occurred about midnight as Kenneth Chiu, 17, was driving his girlfriend home from dinner at the Chius' house, according to local police. Investigator said Kenneth had been stabbed at least four times and was pronounced dead about 115 a.m. at a local medical center. Before Kenneth died, he told the police that his assailant was the next-door neighbor, 20-year-old Christopher Charles Hearn. Hearn was later taken to ...

Boston Boy Scouts Allow Gays Minuteman Council Passes Bylaw To Accept Gay Scoutmasters Policy Says Scout Leaders Can't Discuss Sexual Orientation Supreme Court Ruled Last Year BSA May Exclude Gays From Serving BOSTON, August 1, 2001 AP (AP) One of Massachusetts' largest Boy Scout councils will allow gay scoutmasters under a new "don't ask-don't tell" policy, despite the national organization's ban against homosexuals. "Discussions about sexual orientation do not have a place in Scouts," said Brock Bigsby, Scout executive for the Massachusetts Minuteman Council. "The Scouts will not inquire into a person's sexual history, and that person will not expose ...

Judge Voids Manslaughter Conviction, Saying AA Conversations Are 'religious Communication' By Jim Fitzgerald Associated Press Writer Published: Aug 2, 2001 WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - A federal judge overturned a manslaughter conviction, saying conversations among Alcoholics Anonymous participants should not have been used as evidence because such exchanges are a form of confidential religious communication. U.S. District Judge Charles Brieant said treating AA meetings with less protection than any other form of religious communication, which carries assurances of confidentiality, is unconstitutional. The entire AA relationship, he wrote, "is anonymous and confidential." Paul Cox, 33, had been convicted of two ...

Excerpt from article: "PERC warned that Taiwan's president and legislature needed to start working together to tackle the floundering economy and embark on banking and corporate reform. "If they fail to, there is a very real risk that Taiwan will lose the ability to set its own development agenda. Instead, Taiwan businessmen will be motivated more by the desire to participate in China's rapid growth than by the opportunities for growth created by the Taiwan government," the report said." ******************************************************* 'Asia looks for excuses to shirk reform' TOKYO: The failure of governments to implement reforms is exacerbating Asia's economic slowdown, ...

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno would easily win a Democratic primary for governor, but if the election were held today she would lose soundly to Gov. Jeb Bush, a new poll shows. The Mason-Dixon Florida Poll of 625 registered voters shows that despite a drop in his popularity, Bush could hold his own against Reno, by 54 percent to 39 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Only 7 percent of those surveyed were undecided, a sign that most voters have firm opinions on the pair. Reno hasn't yet said whether she will ...

STUDENT SELLS LIFE FOR 4G ON THE WEB By MARY HUHN John Freyer, 28, of Iowa City has sold most of his earthly possessions on eBay, including a slinky, canned ham (left over from his Y2K rations) and a dish set. August 2, 2001 -- Surfer Gurl HOW much is a life worth?To find out, John Freyer, a 28-year-old grad student at the University of Iowa, put all of his possessions for sale on the Web.He sold a salt shaker to a woman in Maine, a jar of sauerkraut to a road technician in Washington state and a canned ...

The director of communications for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark R. Warner apologized yesterday for misrepresenting herself when she posed a question to Gov. Jim Gilmore on a radio call-in show Tuesday. Steve Jarding, Warner's chief of staff, said Amanda Crumley has been reprimanded for conduct "not tolerated by the campaign." Crumley, who formerly worked in the Clinton White House, wrote a letter of apology to Gilmore and to Washington radio station WTOP-FM. Gilmore had demanded an apology for "this kind of below-the-belt campaigning." ********

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush scored a legislative victory as the House approved a package of proposals aimed at boosting energy development, conservation and drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge. Working past midnight, the House passed the energy bill by a 240-189 vote early Thursday after a spirited - at times testy - debate over whether to allow oil companies into the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska. Bush has called the refuge the country's major untapped source of petroleum and insisted drilling can be done there without harming the environment. In the end, a majority of ...

I have tried to follow up on something I heard the G-Man elude to on one of his shows last week. He was talking about the whole militia argument used by the Left , and how ,if they understood the English Language they would realise how silly they really are... A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Anyone with a good understanding of the english language can break this sentence down into an absolute phrase and independent clause. "A well ...

(CNSNews.com) - The Senate Commerce Committee Thursday will likely become the first panel under the new Democratic-controlled Senate to reject one of President Bush's nominations. That opposition, according to a presidential historian from the Heritage Foundation, appears to be an attempt "to blackmail the administration."Although she is not a member of the Commerce Committee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has led the fight against the nomination of Mary Sheila Gall to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Clinton criticizes Gall for voting, as a member of the CPSC, against tougher standards for the manufacturers of bunk beds, baby bath seats ...

The Army, FBI and cops scrambled yesterday to chase an anonymous tip that Chandra Levy was wrapped in plastic and buried under a parking lot on a Virginia military base. Police hastened to stress that it was one of many tips — none of which has panned out — but two things struck investigators: The parking lot was under construction when Levy vanished May 1, and the organization that took the tip said it was unusual. "This looks like a very definitive tip. It gives a lot of detail," said Miriam Brownell, head of the Los Angeles-based We Tip, who ...

Inside Washington ONE of President Bush's new best friends suddenly is . . . Republican rival Sen. John McCain. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer praised McCain for his "very helpful role" in getting yesterday's compromise Patients' Bill of Rights - a hot issue on which Democrats hoped they had the Arizona maverick on their side. But that's not all - McCain is also Bush's chief ally in a fight over Mexican trucks, and is lobbying for the president's stalled U.N. ambassador nomination of veteran diplomat John Negroponte. McCain will also fight alongside Bush on Pentagon spending, base closings, missile ...

Backlash stopping red-light cameras Sean Scully SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/2/01 LOS ANGELES -- The nationwide rush to embrace red-light cameras has run into a rebellion in Southern California, where one city has turned off the machines temporarily and another has backed away from buying them, citing legal concerns. The backlash comes at a time when the District plans to continue installing more red-light cameras operated by a private corporation -- despite the opposition of many motorists. The Southern California rebellion is also occurring on Capitol Hill, where critics are questioning whether the devices invade the privacy of ...

    VORONEZH. Aug 1 (Interfax) - U.S. citizen John Tobin, who was convicted in Russia on drug charges, may be set free shortly.     A commission that will consider Tobin's and about 30 other cases will meet at 9 a.m. on Thursday, Alexander Babkin, head of the press service for the Justice Ministry's Voronezh region office, told Interfax on Wednesday.     On August 2 Tobin will have served one half of his sentence and become eligible for conditional early release, he said. [RU EUROPE ASIA EMRG CRIM US] ap cj 02.08.2001 10:20 Prison authorities to urge court to grant ...

DAMASCUS (dpa) - After the war-like rhetoric and the tactical maneuvering seen during recent weeks, Iraq's opposition feels sure President Saddam Hussein has something dangerous in the works. Some opposition members expect a military attack against the semi-autonomous Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, while others believe that Saddam is seriously ill and is only making his military threats in order quietly to pave the way for his younger son Kusai to succeed him in Baghdad. "In the past few weeks he has sent every key figure to positions outside of Baghdad who could pose a danger to his son," ...

It's about a missing person, but it's about sex, too. And until police find Chandra Levy, part of the focus will stay on the sex life of Rep. Gary Condit, who had an affair with the 24-year-old former intern before she vanished May 1. It's become yet another tale about the liaisons of a powerful Washington politician, and one that raises age-old questions about why married people cheat. Two other women, a United Airlines flight attendant and a former Condit staffer, have said they, too, had affairs with the California Democrat, who is 53 and has been married 34 ...

Lima, Aug 01, 2001 (EFE) -- Former wife of deposed Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori said Wednesday that former Peruvian presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos had admitted to her that he was the front man for her ex-husband on several Swiss bank accounts containing more than $70 million. Higuchi, who is a legislator in the Peruvian Congress, said that Montesinos had told her that the money in the Swiss accounts belonged to her former husband. "He said that the funds belonged to him (Fujimori)," Higuchi stated on the local Panamericana Television. She met with Montesinos last week in the Callao Naval ...

Thousands of drug abusers could join a lawsuit against the city for arresting people registered in clean-needle exchange programs, a lawyer for one of the addicts said yesterday. The lawyer, Corrine Carey, has filed a suit on behalf of a 21-year-old homeless heroin addict who was arrested for carrying a needle he got through a needle-exchange center in Manhattan. Judge Robert Sweet - who in the past has argued for legalization of drugs - has granted the case class-action status, meaning others who shoot drugs could join the case. "At least one hundred, and no more than 5,000 people" may ...

William Kennedy Smith - the nephew of Sen. Ted Kennedy who beat a sensational rape charge 10 years ago - has shot down his plans to run for Congress in 2002. But Smith, now a doctor, said he won't rule out running for office at a future date. "I hope sometime in my life to have that honor and that experience," Smith told the Chicago Sun-Times. Smith had toyed with going after the seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Rod Blagojevich, but changed his mind in the wake of a Sun-Times story that revealed he was quizzing voters on whether ...

WASHINGTON - The FBI yesterday started investigating allegations that Sen. Robert Torricelli took $62,000 in campaign contributions from a New Jersey businessman who used straw donors. Josh Krantz, 45, who owns a New Jersey real-estate company, said the FBI interviewed him yesterday about a $2,000 contribution that a business partner and Torricelli friend, Richard Kurtz, made in Krantz's name. "He gave the money and put my name on it, like I gave the money. I didn't give any money," Krantz said, adding that he's never even voted for Torricelli. Individuals are limited to $2,000 in contributions to a Senate candidate, ...