Free Republic

BARROW--Barrow will experience an inescapable sign of approaching winter today when the first sunset in almost three months takes place. Adam Futterman of the National Weather Service office in Barrow said the sun will set at 2 a.m. and rise 68 minutes later. However, rain was predicted so the sunset might not be visible, he said. The sun has been above the horizon continuously since May 10, when it last set, rising the same day. Once the sun starts setting, the days quickly grow shorter. On Friday, the sun is expected to set at 1:42 a.m. and rise at ...

AP Top News Stock-Linked Tax Break Considered by CURT ANDERSONAP Tax Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress will consider a tax break for people who faced huge tax bills after they exercised incentive stock options in 2000 and then saw their stock plummet during the technology swoon. Legislation introduced Thursday would provide one-time relief for people who owe the alternative minimum tax because of paper stock profits they never actually realized. Tens of thousands of people, many of them lured by stock options to work at technology companies, are facing bills that can run into millions of dollars. Many are going ...

Legislation aimed at fixing tax trap for many with incentive stock options By Curt Anderson, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 13:49 WASHINGTON (AP) Congress will consider a tax break for people who faced huge tax bills after they exercised incentive stock options in 2000 and then saw their stock plummet during the technology swoon. Legislation introduced Thursday would provide one-time relief for people who owe the alternative minimum tax because of paper stock profits they never actually realized. Tens of thousands of people, many of them lured by stock options to work at technology companies, are facing bills that can run into ...

Talk of Texas Bush proposal on legal immigration spurs debate on economics By Lisa Falkenberg, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 01:15 DALLAS (AP) At a gas station in Dallas recently, a group of Mexican workers watched anxiously for approaching vehicles, hoping for a ride to the odd jobs that are helping them build new lives. All are illegal immigrants. ''I want to send a message to Senor Bush,'' said Donato Monter Acosta, 33. ''He needs to learn to value the people who are not legal, people like us who are here. We are here to fulfill a need.'' That need is part ...

2001--Saf-T-Hammer Corp. (OTCBB:SAFH - news), and its wholly owned subsidiary Smith & Wesson Corp., filed its form 8K/A with the Securities and Exchange Commission today, detailing its unaudited consolidated pro forma financial statements, following the acquisition of Smith & Wesson Corp. by Saf-T-Hammer in May. The company reported consolidated net working capital of approximately $52 million or $3.25 per share. Sector valuation methodologies for mature, non-branded (excludes value of existing trade name) manufacturing companies typically use 1x trailing sales for valuation. In this case, using the acquisition price paid for Smith & Wesson of $15 million, and trailing 12-month ...

Texas is breaking off its 50-year romance with frontage roads, meaning the two-lane roads that are home to gas stations, motels, restaurants and countless neon signs will not play a part in most future highways. The Texas Department of Transportation is adopting a new policy to avoid building frontage roads wherever possible, a drastic change for a state where access roads along highways are as ubiquitous as pickups and cowboy hats. Other states build frontage roads only as needed, using ramps or short driveways connected to local roads to get drivers on and off highways. That approach will now be ...

Rush hasn't got a clue about trucks, drivers and NAFTA, in his knowledge of the problem. He knoes nothing about the way things work.

By Louella Houldcroft OWEN'S OUTRAGE AT FAILURE OVER BLOOD DAVID Owen, co-founder of the SDP and once one of Britain's most charismatic and passionate leaders, has turned his back on the world of politics. The former Foreign Secretary and trained medic says that nowadays he goes out of his way to avoid the political sphere, preferring instead to spend time with his family and concentrate on his London business. But despite his resolution to "not get involved", Lord Owen says there is still one piece of unfinished business that continues to anger him - Britain's "failure" to become self-sufficient in ...

Energy notebook AES, Huntington try to negotiate permit settlement August 2, 2001 The Orange County Register Diamond Bar AES Corp. has launched settlement talks with Huntington Beach city officials in an attempt to resolve a permitting dispute over the company's Pacific Coast Highway power plant, AES officials said Wednesday. A hearing on the dispute before the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar was to have begun Wednesday. Lawyers for both sides instead adjourned to a private meeting room. If the sides can't come to an agreement, the hearing will commence Saturday and continue Aug. 14. "We ...

No joke, the WP's headline on their main page says, "Bush Avoids Political Free Fall — For Now." Underneath, in tiny print, it says Poll: Bush Approval High, and links to an article about his current 59% job approval and 63% personal approval.

Questions: 1) What was the last fad to sweep America? 2) What will be the next fad that sweeps America

Mubarak dismisses Arafat's call for another summit by Daniel Sobelman Courtesy of Ha'aretz Thursday August 2 2001 Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday expressed his opposition to Palestinian attempts to convene a meeting of the Arab League. He made the comment shortly after meeting Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in Alexandria to discuss the recent escalation in violence between Israel and the Palestinians. "It is not logical that we shout `Summit, Summit' every time something happens. What will come after a summit?" Mubarak warned, however, that a "cycle of revenge" may be the result of the helicopter attack against the Hamas ...

Thurmond's son tapped for U.S. attorney Thursday, August 2, 2001 Associated Press      COLUMBIA - President Bush on Wednesday tapped the 28-year-old son of U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond to be South Carolina's next U.S. attorney.     The elder Thurmond, who is the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, recommended his son to the White House in January. The Judiciary Committee must approve the nomination.     The U.S. attorney oversees federal prosecutions in South Carolina. The most recent officeholder, Rene Josey, nominated by President Clinton in 1996, left office in February.     Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Schools, who is running the office on ...

May 13, 2001 Sunday, Late Edition - Final HEADLINE: NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: COLUMBUS CIRCLE; A Jesuit Lion Of Protest Turns 80, Unrepentant BYLINE: By KATHERINE MARSH The braids and beards were a little grayer, peace stories had become old war stories, and there were grandchildren now, ogling the sun and moon puppets. Still, 800 friends and admirers of the Jesuit activist Daniel Berrigan gathered last Sunday at St. Paul the Apostle Church, on Ninth Avenue and 60th Street, to mark his 80th birthday. The granddaddy of the Catholic protest movement, Father Berrigan sat in the front of the hall, wearing a ...

Federal official says ranchers involved in grazing dispute are cheating taxpayers By Scott Sonner, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 06:04 FALLON, Nev. (AP) A federal official criticized cattle owners embroiled in a grazing dispute with the government over the seizure of their cattle, calling them nothing more than ''trespassers.'' The Bureau of Land Management confiscated the cattle owned by John Vogt and Ben Colvin because the Nevada ranchers have allegedly overgrazed tens of thousands of acres of federal range without a permit. ''I don't really even care to characterize these people as ranchers. They are trespassers,'' Bob Abbey, the agency's Nevada director, ...

A sleeping Indian street worker who woke to find a mouse had climbed into his mouth was rushed to hospital when part of it lodged in his windpipe. According to the Thanthi newspaper, when the 35-year-old woke the mouse bit him as it struggled to get free. He then bit and killed the mouse, part of which lodged in his windpipe. He was rushed, choking, to hospital where the body parts were removed. "It was a terrible experience. The mouse has spoiled my appetite," the man named as Muthu, told the newspaper. He has now recovered. Muthu is a 'ragpicker' ...

August 1, 2001 Left-wing magazines profiting from Bush presidency 'Residual anger' drives up salesJeet Heer National Post As a left-wing activist, Victor Navasky was horrified by the election of George W. Bush as president of the United States, but as the publisher of the weekly magazine The Nation he couldn't be happier.Since Bush took office, Navasky's magazine, the flagship publication of the U.S. left, has seen a nearly 10% increase in circulation, jumping from 92,000 subscribers to more than 100,000. Navasky expects that this is just the beginning. "Our motto is: What's bad for the country is good for The ...

Thursday August 2 11:12 AM ET Navy Begins Training Exercise on Vieques WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy (news - web sites) began a new round of war games on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques on Thursday, four days after Vieques residents voted to ask the military to stop bombing and leave immediately. Lt. Bill Speaks, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon (news - web sites), said 10 days of scheduled exercises by the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt battle group of warships began with shelling of the range on the island using five-inch shells and other ammunition. There was ...

Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom? JUL 29, 2001 Beyond Multiculturalism, Freedom? By HOLLAND COTTER ULTICULTURALISM, more than an attitude but less than a theory, was a propelling force behind American art of the last two decades. It will define the 1990's in the history books as surely as Pop defined the 1960's. But it came with problems as well as benefits; some of those problems have grown acute. In the 2000's, the time has come to move on to new ground. Multiculturalist thinking changed the art world's demographics and expanded its frame of reference far beyond Western horizons. It exposed the ...

Davis' secrecy invites conflicts Just because Secretary of State Bill Jones has political motivations for raising conflict-of-interest charges regarding the governor's office doesn't mean that his criticisms should easily be dismissed. The Republican secretary of state, and likely opponent to Gov. Davis in the next gubernatorial election, sparked an initial federal Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into whether the governor's energy consultants used inside information for personal gain. Last week, Gov. Davis fired five consultants (a sixth one quit) who owned stock in an energy company, even though they had been making energy deals on behalf of the state ...