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MEXICO CITY -- A strong earthquake shook southern Mexico on Wednesday. The quake swayed tall buildings in Mexico City but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury. The earthquake recorded at 4:50 p.m. had a magnitude of 5.5, according to Mexico's National Seismological Service. The service said the quake was centered near the town of Pinotepa Nacional, about 205 miles southeast of Mexico City. END

LOS ANGELES (TICKER) - -- NASCAR and pop star Britney Spears on Monday signed an exclusive agreement to produce a feature film set in the world of Winston Cup racing. The entitled project, currently in the development stage, will be written by Jim Hart, whose credits include "Hook" and "Contact." It will tell the fictional story of the daughter of a NASCAR team owner and will feature real NASCAR teams, drivers, tracks and competition. Spears' character will inspire a former NASCAR driver to return to the circuit. "One of NASCAR's objectives is to grow our sport by developing entertainment projects...

Smoke and mirrors: The 'interim' state Once again, Yasser Arafat has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. A suicide bomber packing an enormous explosive boarded a Jerusalem bus filled with schoolchildren and commuters before detonating his payload. The resulting explosion literally ripped the bus to shreds, together with as many as 20 passengers. Another 40 or so were lucky enough to survive, although many of them will be permanently disfigured or disabled as a consequence of the attack. Credit for the attack was claimed by Hamas. But anybody who looks past the Arab rhetoric to see the facts on...

Interrupting the endless 30-year Watergate retrospective and getting back to the war for a moment, I've noticed that liberals are having trouble making any good arguments against Bush, so I thought I'd help them out this week. In the third presidential debate, George Bush responded to a question about racial profiling by spontaneously denouncing the profiling of Arabs at airports: "Arab Americans are racially profiled ... people are stopped, and we've got to do something about that." Admittedly, this was before Sept. 11. If Arabs were being stopped at airports before Sept. 11 -- and that's a big if --...

TEHRAN, Iran — What if a theocracy and a democracy had a baby? What would it look like? It would look like Iran. What makes Iran so interesting is that it's not a real democracy, but it's not a real Islamic theocracy either. It is, though, just enough of a democracy for many Iranians to know that they want more of it, and just enough of an Islamic theocracy for many Iranians to know they want less of it. And if you listen to what's going on behind all the noise here, what you find are a lot of thinkers,...

Wednesday June 19, 5:31 pm Eastern TimePress ReleaseSOURCE: Lockheed Martin Space SystemsNext Generation Space Telescope Primary Camera to be Built by University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin Team SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2002--The primary Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) for NASA's Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will be designed and built by a team headed by the University of Arizona (UofAz), including the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Palo Alto, Calif. as the principal partner. NGST is a key mission in NASA's Origins Program. The new space observatory, slated for launch in 2010, will help NASA observe the first stars...

Many familar with USENET News may have heard of the killfile, or of killfiling someone. A killfile is simply a list of names you wish to ignore. Any posts with a matching name in the killfile are discarded, unread. The Focus software will have the ability to killfile posters, or in other words, the often requested "Ignore" feature. However, Focus killfiles will be much more. First, a little info about how the posting software works. When a post is made, a number of records are placed onto a list. This list is the source data for the Self-Search routine among...

Fettered Fathers By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. 06/16/2002 © Tribune Syndicate For too many children -- 1.5 million according to the Department of Justice statistics -- this Father's Day will pass with a father who is incarcerated. These fathers will be disproportionately African American and Latino, the vast majority incarcerated for non-violent crimes. In our passion to punish rather than treat drug addiction, we are contributing to a new generation of poor children without fathers. America's disgraceful criminal justice system continues despite undisputed proof of its racially discriminatory effect. According to the federal Household Survey, "most" -- almost three...

A GREAT time will be had by ALL FReepers in Vegas, August 17th, as we celebrate the end of the Post/Times Lawsuit (were still here and kicking!)! DON'T MISS THIS ONE!

WASHINGTON (AP) - Intelligence agencies aren't sure if a conversation in Arabic intercepted Sept. 10 was a warning of the next day's attacks at the World Trade Center and Pentagon ( news - web sites), an intelligence source said Wednesday. The conversation intercepted by the National Security Agency suggested that a big event was to take place the next day. It was not translated until Sept. 12. The conversation has been brought to the attention of the House and Senate intelligence committees who are conducting a joint inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks. The panel is investigating the events surrounding...

State Department - The Bush administration said any move by the European Union to boost economic ties with Iran should be linked to changes in Iranian behavior, including its support for terrorism. It left open the possibility of U.S. sanctions against European firms dealing with Tehran. The administration is giving a chilly response to the European Union announcement that it will seek to negotiate closer trade and political ties with Iran. In a move seen as a break with Washington, EU foreign ministers Monday authorized the community's executive arm, the European Commission, to begin trade negotiations with Iran once the...

02-24-2002Pastor's Message From the desk of Fr. Joseph McLafferty..... The lead article in this month's Maryknoll magazine is about Bishop Francis Xavier Ford, M.M., a Maryknoll missionary who served in China for almost 40 years.  This past Thursday, February 21st, marked the 50th anniversary of his death in a Chinese prison. Francis Xavier Ford was born in Brooklyn on January 11, 1892, the son of Austin and Elizabeth Rellihan Ford.  Ford attended St. Francis Preparatory School in Brooklyn and Cathedral College in Manhattan.  In 1912 he was the first student to apply to the seminary of the recently established...

US Official Attacks Drug Tactics The controversial pilot scheme that relaxes Scotland Yard's attitude towards cannabis possession has been criticised by the head of the US drug enforcement administration for increasing drug usage. Asa Hutchinson, director of the DEA, said that the scheme in Lambeth, south London, had led to a rise in cannabis users and led children to believe it was legal. The pilot programme, which has been running since July last year, means people caught with cannabis are given on the spot warnings, rather than being cautioned, arrested and possibly charged. An interim study carried out during the...

  House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) Refusing to concede defeat to the Bush administration, House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) is continuing his campaign to drum up support on Capitol Hill for the embattled Crusader Artillery System.One of many steps in his fight to maintain funding for the $11 billion howitzer program, Watts took Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash.), a member of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, and an aide from the House Armed Services Committee on a trip to the Yuma, Ariz., Proving Ground to examine the artillery program that the Bush administration is determined to cancel....

<p>The University of Massachusetts student charged with murdering her newborn son sent e-mail messages and watched television after delivering the baby in a dormitory shower and putting him in a trash bag, prosecutors said Wednesday.</p> <p>Jennifer L. Paluseo wrapped the baby in a towel and put him in the plastic bag that suffocated him, prosecutor Renee Steese said.</p>

Americans cherish their right to criticize their leaders in public, but there limits to it when you happen to be in the military. Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Butler, a combat pilot during Desert Storm, recently learned that lesson the hard way after he brutally ridiculed President Bush in a letter to the Monterey County Herald in Monterey County, Calif.The president, Butler charged, knew the Sept. 11 terror attacks were going to happen but kept it from the public because "his presidency was going nowhere.""His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama." Butler wrote.Butler went on to praise Bill Clinton...

A clip from the story: "Mike Enzi, a former business professional and now junior Republican senator from Wyoming wanted to bring his laptop computer onto the Senate floor in 1997 because he used it to take notes. Kentucky Democrat Wendell Ford (who voted against the moratorium on Internet sales taxes in 1998) of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee told Senator Enzi to check his portable PC at the door, citing no specific rule barring laptop computers but relying more on burdens of sacred tradition. The sacred traditions of the Senate include rules for brass-plated spittoons at the foot of...

The relentless flogging of the Catholic Church is beginning to beg the question: Who or what will determine when this miserable story has finally run its course? It's obviously transcended the events that triggered it, providing a forum for malcontents who've been angry at the Church for years, long before they ever heard of James Porter and John Geoghan. Listen to their rants - ordination of women, acceptance of homosexuality - and ask yourself what any of that has to do with the betrayal of a young person's trust?The young Malcolm X coined a motto, ``By any means necessary,'' that...

California legislative committee ends investigation of sleazy Oracle state database deal without formal report. A clip from the story at World Tech Tribune.com: What do you do with 2,500 pages worth of legal documents, testimony from 30 different witnesses and 60+ days worth of committee hearings on a sleazy deal with the second largest software company in the world that cost Californian taxpayers $95 million? If you’re the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, you chalk it all up to a breakdown in procedure and leave it at that...

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