Free Republic

President Bush will put a special focus on reading next week, hoping to give his education package an extra nudge toward passage on Capitol Hill. The president began the campaign Friday night by attending a National Book Festival gala at the Library of Congress with first lady Laura Bush, the festival host who plans to testify before a Senate education panel on Tuesday. The festival is patterned on one Laura Bush, a librarian, sponsored in Texas when her husband was governor. At Friday night's event, she said she became a reading advocate because "I love to read, and I want ...

MIAMI (AP) -- Hurricane Erin formed in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, becoming the first hurricane of the 2001 Atlantic season. The government of Bermuda issued a hurricane warning for the island, said forecasters at the National Hurricane Service in Miami. At 5 p.m. EDT, Erin's maximum winds had reached 75 miles per hour. The hurricane was about 360 miles southeast of Bermuda. "It intensified a little faster than we had forecast,'' said meteorologist Eric Blake. Erin had been moving through the Atlantic most of the week. The tropical storm had been briefly downgraded to a tropical wave. In ...

In its cover story "A Mormon Moment," Newsweek magazine says members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "appear mysterious and clannish." In other words, the same way the staff of Newsweek appears to many LDS members. And over the next few months, those members and the national media will all be going through "mutual discovery." We'll be giving each other the once-over like Charlton Heston and the monkeys in "Planet of the Apes." You decide who's who. One difference is already showing up, however. The media and the LDS faithful differ on what things matter most. ...

India and Australia will conduct joint military exercises as part of an "intense defence cooperation plan" between the two countries. "An intense defence cooperation programme between the two countries started off after Australia brought out a defence white paper last December in which it recognised India as one of the important powers of the Asia Pacific region, along with Japan and China," visiting Indian Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain told Indo-Asian News Service on Friday, the concluding day of his trip to Australia. "We've decided to intensify our military-to-military and defence cooperation. This would include training programmes and hydrographic surveys as ...

Al Gore is back. We just don't know for how long. Associates tell Whispers that the newly bearded and dieting ex-veep is test-driving a sharp-tongued attack on President Bush in small gatherings. "Issues he is focusing on are Bush's economic stewardship, foreign policy, and the environment. He has been both sharp and sharp-tongued," a friend tells us. So far he's trotted the speech before backers in San Francisco, D.C., New York, and Minneapolis. And he likes the reaction. Gore plans to go public with his assault September 28 at Iowa's Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner. Fans are hailing it as his official ...

Agents apparently knew felon stock-piled weapons before fiery standoff Saturday September 08, 2001, 11:46:00 AM LOS ANGELES (AP) - For better than a year federal agents knew that a convicted felon had illegally bought thousands of rounds of ammunition, but didn't serve a search warrant until last week, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. The disclosure raises questions about the investigation leading to a deadly standoff that began when officers tried to serve a warrant at the home of James Allen Beck on Aug. 31. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Hagop "Jake" Kuredjian was shot and killed, and Beck barricaded ...

Fifty percent of whites find segregation O.K., as do 40% of blacks. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People commissioned a poll that uncovered these "shocking" results. Predictably, the mainstream media led the parade. Of the top 50 newspapers in America, 31 ran stories about this "surprising" poll. One major newspaper breathlessly reported, "The affirmative action establishment is expressing shock at a study…" And get a load of the headline—"Uncle Sam Encourages Jim Crow, Jr." Another major newspaper said, "Analysts who worked on the study said the findings signal that race relations could worsen," unless society does more ...

It is the dark underbelly of globalisation, a trade in human misery and despair that has gone largely unnoticed. Beginning a major Herald series, Mark Riley reports on 21st century slavery. Nearly 150 years since slavery was officially abolished, about 27 million people around the world remain physically or economically shackled - the highest number ever, and it is growing. Yet world leaders have been either unable or unwilling to focus on the issue, leaving aid agencies and advocacy groups fighting a losing battle against what many consider to be the greatest threat to future international liberty. "Recognition of ...

MEDIUM RARE By Jim Rarey September 8, 2001 IS CHANDRA AT FORT LEE AFTERALL? The day after an anonymous tip was received by the WeTip organization, and forwarded to law enforcement authorities, the FBI foreclosed any investigation when spokeswoman Mary Johlie was quoted, The FBI…determined that there is no site on or around the Fort Lee military base that corresponds with information in the anonymous tip." Unnamed Fort Lee officials were quoted as saying, "the last construction project on the base was completed in October 2000." Presumably the FBI decided not to investigate the tip based on someone’s representation that ...

BOSTON (September 8, 2001 3:13 p.m. EDT) - The decision to reveal his homosexuality to his family didn't go well for one Bridgewater State student. His father threatened to cut him off financially and left the junior feeling "like a piece of trash." "There's no way I could support myself," said the 22-year-old, who asked that his name not be used. "I was very, very scared." A new scholarship offered by the school could make it easier for gay and lesbian students to break unwelcome news by helping gay students whose families refuse to support them financially. The school says ...

BOSTON -- The decision to tell his family he was gay didn't go well for one Bridgewater State student. His father threatened to cut him off financially and left the junior feeling "like a piece of trash.""There's no way I could support myself," said the 22-year-old, who asked that his name not be used. "I was very, very scared."A new scholarship offered by the school could make it easier for gay and lesbian students to break unwelcome news by helping gay students whose families refuse to support them financially.The school says it's the only program of its kind.The 22-year-old ...

Public health expert urges parents to use school lunches to fight childhood obesityTRENTON, N.J. -- Barraged by advertisements for junk food, schoolchildren need help from their parents to avoid developing a lifelong weight problem, according to a public health expert. Parents should use the school lunch bag as a weapon against childhood obesity, which has become an epidemic in this country, said Dr. Leah Ziskin, associate dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "Children see nearly 10,000 advertisements each year for fast food, candy and cereals and drinks with high ...

By R. D. Woods Letter to the Editor: "L. A. Sentinel," I disagree with the (July 5) opinion piece, "Finally, a LAUSD Plan to Help Black Children." We (black folks) are always passing the buck and looking for someone or something to help us out of the miry clay. Black children are at the bottom of the totem pole in public schools, but we should not blame the schools for the failure of our offspring. I am a single parent with a full-time job. Nevertheless, every day for one hour, I sit with my four-year-old to do phonics, simple math, ...

Amid growing doubts about American inclinations, Pakistan has launched a no-holds-barred campaign to pressure the Bush Administration to lift the nuclear-related sanctions against it in tandem with those on India. The Pakistani lobby has drafted US legislators, corporate groups and commentators to press for a "fair, even-handed approach". Some commentators have plainly warned Washington of the dangers of a step-up in "Islamic militancy" in case Pakistan was discriminated against. After a concerted bid by a bipartisan group of 24 legislators, a strong business lobby has now taken over. As many as 62 American companies doing business in Pakistan have dashed ...

Non-Potent Version Could Be A Cash Crop, Tribe Argues As Alex White Plume tells it, the raid began with the rising sun and the whir of helicopter blades. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration spread out across his property on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, nestled by the Black Hills the Sioux consider sacred, looking for drugs. "One of them came running towards me, and he pointed his gun and told me to halt," White Plume says. "In my mind, I was going to jail." He wasn't headed for jail, and has not been charged with a crime, ...

Pot-smoking mom sentenced to 7 years for baby's death in hot carNEWTON, N.J. -- A Sussex County woman whose 13-month-old son "baked to death" inside a parked car while she smoked marijuana in a nearby house has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Christine Hayes, 34, of Lafayette, was sentenced Friday on a reckless manslaughter conviction. She told Superior Court Judge N. Peter Conforti in Newton that she never meant to harm her son, Jack. "I miss Jack so much. It was horrible, all this pain and grief," she cried. Hayes said she showed accountability by pleading guilty and ...

<p>Young women terrified of a serial rapist in the college city of Fort Collins, Colo., have taken their safety and protection into their own hands — arming themselves with handguns and joining the ranks of gun rights advocates.</p> <p>"I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to be afraid about going out at night. I just want him to know not everyone is going to be submissive," a 23-year-old college student said Friday as she announced she had obtained a .38-caliber special revolver.</p>

Timeline to Global Governance **** (Links followed by (M) available to members of the Environmental Conservation Organization) 1891 The Society of the Elect and the Association of Helpers - (also known as the "Secret Society,"), was created by Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner, William T. Stead, Reginald Baliol Brett, and Lord Esher, in London. Rhodes died in 1902, leaving the society, and his fortune, under the control of Milner, who established the Rhodes Scholar program. Good background here. 1910 The Round Table - a periodical, first published by Milner's "Secret Society" for Britain's intellectual community. The writers, and those associated with ...

<p>Rep. Gary Condit will not run for an eighth term in office, a source close to the embattled California congressman told Fox News on Friday.</p> <p>Condit is planning to announce his decision in the next few weeks, the source said. He intends to remain in office until January 2003, the end of his seventh term.</p>

Breaking: US Congress Subpoena Orders Ashcroft To Release Clinton Evidence on Sept. 11, 2001 – Thread 2 Thread 1: Breaking: US Congress Subpoena Orders Ashcroft To Release Clinton Evidence – Thread 1 By Authority of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America To United States Department of Justice Serve: Attorney General John Ashcroft You are hereby commanded to produce the things identified on the attached schedule before the full committee on Government Reform of the House of Representatives of the United States, of which the Hon. Dan Burton is chairman, by producing such things ...