Free Republic

<p>HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- President Robert Mugabe said yesterday that he approves of a Commonwealth-backed deal to end his country's farm seizure crisis. But new violence in the north of the country was reported.</p> <p>Under an agreement signed last week in Abuja, Nigeria, Zimbabwe pledged an immediate end to violence and farm invasions in return for British funding for orderly land reform.</p>

<p>The U.S. male population grew slightly faster than the female population in the 1990s, narrowing the gap between the number of men and women in this country, according to a new Census Bureau analysis released today.</p> <p>A census brief titled "Gender 2000" shows that the number of males rose at a rate of 13.9 percent in the last decade, compared with 12.5 percent for females.</p>

Suspect was spotted by a citizen who called it in. Shots are being fired, CHP and Sheriff's under fire at this moment, suspect is stopped, facing southbound Zinfindell. The fire fight is on near Mather Field ... an officer is down. Updates as it occure ... now shooting at fire personnel. Vehicle disabled. Another subject down but Air Unit infrared shows hotspot that is not moving on driver's side door. A nearby Jack in the Box is full of customers in the crossfire. The subject down is an innocent passerby. The suspect is still believed to be taking cover at ...

<p>The Army Corps of Engineers twice discharged four times the legal limit of chlorine into a pristine national park stream in Maryland, according to documents obtained by The Washington Times.</p> <p>While the discharges of chlorinated water violate state law, they do not violate the Corps' discharge permit issued by the Maryland Department of the Environment, a spokesman said.</p>

<p>Police said Joseph Ferguson, already suspected in the shooting deaths of four people, killed a fifth person Sunday night in Sacramento's Lincoln Village neighborhood and then escaped in the victim's car.</p>

<p>Leading Senate Democrats and Republicans yesterday pressed for further tax cuts to stimulate the slumping economy and suggested reductions in the Social Security payroll tax as one such option.</p> <p>In talk show appearances yesterday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, North Dakota Democrat, and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, both identified a payroll-tax cut as a way to put money into people's pockets quickly, and they said the option needs to be examined.</p>

<p>Janet Reno's bid to unseat Florida Gov. Jeb Bush just began, but the red-pickup-truck routine is already getting a little old. It just goes too well with the house dress, the big purse and all those cozy press conferences in the back yard of what a real estate agent might call her "rustic" family home. Folksy is as folksy does, but is Janet Reno, Bill Clinton's favorite (and only) attorney general, honestly as simple as her props? Or is she a seasoned, cynical manipulator?</p>

<p>For more than 750 years, Oxford University has been a tranquil oasis of learning where students can study among cloistered courtyards or along the River Cherwell.</p> <p>For one incoming graduate student, any hopes of a quiet life soon will be shattered.</p>

<p>An elite U.S. Army study center has devised a plan for enforcing a major Israeli-Palestinian peace accord that would require about 20,000 well-armed troops stationed throughout Israel and a newly created Palestinian state.</p> <p>There are no plans by the Bush administration to put American soldiers into the Middle East to police an agreement forged by the longtime warring parties. In fact, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is searching for ways to reduce U.S. peacekeeping efforts abroad, rather than increasing such missions.</p>

<p>Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is taking heat in his home state of South Dakota over his support for extending dairy price supports in the Northeast.</p> <p>Mr. Daschle, who has opposed the Northeast Dairy Compact because it creates unfair competition for South Dakota dairy farmers, nevertheless has indicated his willingness to extend at least temporarily the deal to benefit farmers in six Northeastern states.</p>

Diary Of A Feline ....05.25.00 DAY 752 - My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while I am forced to eat dry cereal. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope of escape, and the mild satisfaction I get from ruining the occasional piece of furniture. * Tomorrow I may eat another houseplant. DAY 761 - Today my attempt to kill my captors by weaving around their feet while they were walking almost succeeded, must try this at the top of the stairs. In an attempt to disgust ...

NASCAR gave $15,000 to GOP day after Earnhardt photos sealed Monday, September 10, 2001 Associated Press TALLAHASSEE — NASCAR gave $15,000 to the state Republican Party the day after a judge ruled to keep racing legend Dale Earnhardt's autopsy photos sealed. Campaign records show the GOP reported the check on June 14, though a NASCAR official said Friday the donation came in conjunction with a June 9 fundraiser in Orlando featuring Vice President Dick Cheney, Gannett News Service reported Sunday. NASCAR and GOP officials denied any connection between the state political gift and the Legislature's swift passage of a bill ...

40 Reasons For Gun Control 1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, & Chicago cops need guns. 2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control. 3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics." 4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates, ...

ASHINGTON, Sept. 9 — A detailed study of child sexual exploitation in North America has concluded that the problem is far more widespread than was thought. The study, by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, relied on interviews with victims, child welfare workers and law enforcement officials in 28 cities in United States, Mexico and Canada from January 1999 through last March. It also relied on the latest public and private estimates on the number of runaway and homeless youths in the three countries and on estimates by law enforcement officials and child welfare authorities of the number of ...

n mid-August, when it was unclear which news organizations would get interviews with the embattled California congressman Gary A. Condit, The San Francisco Chronicle, like many others, was pitching itself as the best place for Mr. Condit to break his silence. Why should Mr. Condit talk to The Chronicle? The first reason the newspaper's senior vice president and executive editor, Phil Bronstein, gave in his Aug. 14 letter to the congressman was, "Clearly, we have not called for you to resign, nor do we have any plans to do so." For Mr. Bronstein, the appeal was a simple factual ...

<p>Call me naive, but I was hoping that this month might mark the beginning of the end of ethnic-identity politics in California. It looks like I was wrong, again.</p> <p>The Legislature's task of drawing new district boundaries, a once-a-decade job triggered by the 2000 census, has prompted howls from Hispanic activists, who contend the new lines will deprive their community of full representation in state government and Congress.</p>

Universities, Government Agencies Receiving Taxpayer-Funded Farm Aid By John Kelly Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 10, 2001 URBANA, Ill. (AP) - When it comes to harvesting subsidy checks from the federal government, few farms in this state are doing better than the University of Illinois. Agriculture Department records show the state's flagship university and its foundation got $710,000 last year from a network of federal subsidy programs meant to protect the agriculture industry from the perils of volatile commodity markets. An AP review of $27 billion worth of subsidy checks sent out in fiscal year 2000 shows the university ...

ASHINGTON ANY Texan will tell you that "Don't Mess with Texas" is not just a slogan on a T-shirt. And the Texans who work on Capitol Hill know an important corollary: For goodness' sake, don't mess with Phil Gramm, the state's ornery, razor-tongued and fiercely conservative senior senator, who has just announced his retirement from Congress. But somebody has been messing with Mr. Gramm, and the 59-year-old Republican does not like it. Only hours after he stunned Republicans with his announcement last week, somebody began circulating a rumor that Mr. Gramm was being pressured to resign quickly, allowing the ...

Current Poll numbers: Did the recount decision hurt the Supreme Court's credibility? * 9020 responses No. The ruling was a correct interpretation of the law. 42% Yes. The court's decision was obviously politically motivated. 56% I'm undecided. 2%

OS ANGELES, Sept. 9 — Gov. Gray Davis announced a plan today for closing a loophole in the protection of certain old-growth trees in California, but some environmentalists attacked the proposal as far too modest and vowed to place an initiative on the ballot next year to strictly limit the cutting of the state's remaining old trees. Mr. Davis appeared to be seeking to head off the ballot initiative and to satisfy the many competing concerns battling over the older trees, but even environmentalists who backed the proposal insisted that it had to be a first step. Other environmentalists ...