Free Republic

COATESVILLE -- Wording changed in a controversial city ordinance authorizing the taking of private land for a public golf course sparked confrontation during a city council meeting Monday night. Those who stand to lose land through the city's use of eminent domain questioned why the changes were necessary. "It's not a matter of need. It's a matter of greed," said Dick Saha, who, along with his family, has been fighting the seizure of his farm, located in Valley Township. The revised ordinance, approved by the board 6-1, omitted a clause reading, "the City of Coatesville will not exercise the power...

You know you are getting old when a former student writes to thank you for teaching her a valuable lesson that helps her rear her children. Last week, I received such a letter from Janice Anderson, an African-American, now 49, who took an honors English course I taught at Broward Community College in 1984. She was an excellent student -- but not always so. At midterm, she made an F on her examination and a D on her essay. She stormed into my office and demanded to know "the real deal" with me. I informed her that "the real deal"...

Petah Jennings of ABC News fame, is receiving hundreds of pairs of cowboy boots in the mail/UPS. Seems that the hullabaloo regarding Petah's "booting" of Toby Keith, Country Music Star from the ABC Fourth of July Program because Petah didn't like Keith's song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" is backfiring on the pain in the rear anKor man. Midwest radio stations have been urging their listeners to send in their old cowboy boots to Petah as a hint...GRRRRRollin' in the USA

Daniel LaBianca, chief of outside funding for School District 14 in Brooklyn, pleaded guilty in 1999 to helping private school officials embezzle millions in federal aid for poor children. Three years later, he still holds his New York public school job — and has a $10,000 raise to boot.A Daily News review of the seven cases since 1999 in which the Board of Education filed to terminate tenured school teachers or administrators with criminal convictions found that in every case, the crooks stayed in the school system.The reason, say school officials, is Section 3020a of the state education statute, which...

"This is what democracy looks like. The Gap is what hypocrisy looks like." The irony in that chant was everywhere yesterday. As the crowd -- made up by as many media types and onlookers as protesters -- jammed Stephen Avenue Mall and chanted against the sweatshop conditions the trendy clothing manufacturer allegedly imposes upon its Third-World workers, I had my toes stomped upon by a chanting teen wearing "sweatshop- made" Reebok running shoes. "You're wearing Reeboks!" I exclaimed accusingly. Leighanna Gates, 21, blushed at the shameful revelation. "Like many other Canadians, it took me a while to be educated about...

BAGHDAD, June 26 (Reuters) - The newspaper run by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday on Wednesday denounced President George W. Bush's Middle East policy speech as trickery, and urged Arabs not to fall for it. "Bush's cheating speech aims at curbing the Palestinian armed resistance against the Zionists' (Israeli) occupation and denying the Palestinians the right to live," Babel, Iraq's most influential newspaper, said in a front-page editorial. In a message read at the White House on Monday, Bush backed the creation of a provisional Palestinian state and a final settlement of the Middle East conflict in three years,...

CAIRO, June 26 (Reuters) - A hoax bomb threat delayed a flight of Israeli flag carrier El Al for two hours at Cairo airport, airport sources said on Wednesday. Police searched the plane, carrying 21 passengers headed for Tel Aviv, after airport authorities received the call just minutes before takeoff late on Tuesday, the sources said. The flight left after security checks showed the call was a hoax. Cairo airport deals with up to a dozen bomb hoaxes a year, airport sources said, but they rarely concern Israel's state-owned carrier, which has very tight security measures. Relations between Israel and...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jun 26, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Suspected al-Qaida fighters killed 10 Pakistani soldiers in a gunbattle Wednesday in a remote area of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, the Pakistan military said. At least two attackers were also killed in the fight, which occurred before dawn and lasted for about four hours, an Interior Ministry source said. The Pakistani dead included a major and a captain, the official said. One suspected al-Qaida fighter was captured, he said on condition of anonymity. They were the first known combat deaths suffered by Pakistani soldiers since the government...

<p>Sally Schofield convicted of manslaughter By Glenn Adams, Associated Press, 6/25/2002 17:05 WISCASSET, Maine (AP) A former adoption caseworker for the state was convicted of manslaughter Tuesday for causing the suffocation death of her 5-year-old foster daughter by covering her face and binding her to a highchair with 42 feet of duct tape.</p>

With the fall of communism and the alleged end of the "era of big government," many commentators and politicians grudgingly acknowledge the practical value of capitalism. The free market, they concede, is the best system for producing wealth and promoting prosperity; the private economy, in Bill Clinton's words, is the "primary engine of growth." But this has not led to the triumph of capitalism. Quite the opposite: Federal taxes as a percentage of gross domestic product are at their highest rate since the Second World War; antitrust assaults on the market's winners are growing; the regulations on the federal register...

Look For The Network Label … NETWORKS LABEL CONSERVATIVES FOUR TIMES AS OFTEN AS LIBERALS ALEXANDRIA, VA. - A new Media Research Center study has found that network reporters label conservatives four times more often than they label liberals, confirming recent allegations of liberal media bias made by former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg in his best-seller, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How The Media Distort the News.MRC researchers examined all instances in which the reporters themselves applied either the "liberal" or “conservative” label on ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts over a five-year period, from January 1, 1997 through...

A knife-wielding Martha Stewart chopped away at a head of cabbage in a bizarre national television appearance yesterday while curtly refusing to answer questions about the ImClone insider-trading scandal. "I want to focus on my salad, because that's why we're here," Stewart told "The Early Show" host Jane Clayson during a live cooking segment on the CBS program. It was Stewart's first TV appearance since the stock debacle erupted this month.Writers for "Saturday Night Live" couldn't have done it better.Here was the queen of American style and taste, wearing a pink button-down shirt as she stood behind a kitchen counter,...

Here's a live thread for the Today Show interview with Ann Coulter. Will the perky Katie interview Ann? Will Ann make the perky Katie cry? Will the perky Katie chicken out and have Matt do the interview? Never thought these words would cross my lips, I can't wait for the Today show!! The interview will probably be short but oh so SUH-WEEEEEEEEEEET!

WASHINGTON - A new group on Capitol Hill backing changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba began a push Tuesday to end the 40-year ban on travel to the island, citing benefits to the U.S. economy. If the travel ban were lifted and U.S. airlines, cruise ships and tour operators were allowed into Cuba, $523 million in revenue would be generated for the U.S. economy and about 3,200 jobs created in the first year, according to a new study. By the fifth year after the ban is lifted, more than two million Americans would be visiting the island, predicted Ed Sanders,...

WASHINGTON FBI agents working the stalled anthrax investigation spent hours searching the Maryland home of a former government bioweapons expert yesterday. They cautioned that the man was not a suspect and said he consented to the search to eliminate himself from suspicion."He is part of a larger group of scientists who, because of their expertise and access, are of interest to us," a law enforcement official said.The quality of the deadly anthrax spores, which were sent through the mail in October and killed five people, points toward someone from the government's secret bioweapons program, experts said.Starting at 10 a.m.,...

An internal Merrill Lynch investigation of Martha Stewart's broker found three versions of why she dumped her ImClone stock, the Daily News has learned. The brokerage house discovered inconsistencies among the accounts given by Stewart, by broker Peter Bacanovic and by his assistant, Douglas Faneuil, two sources familiar with the investigation said.Merrill Lynch suspended Bacanovic and Faneuil on Friday.At issue is whether Stewart and her broker cooked up a story about a "prior agreement" to sell her ImClone stock if it dipped below $60 per share as a ruse to cover up possible insider trading, one source said.Though Stewart and...

Sen. Chuck Schumer demanded today an investigation into how ex-cons were able to slip through the federal anti-terrorism net to work as guards at the Statue of Liberty.Citing a Daily News probe, Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote National Park Service Director Fran Mainella seeking a full explanation of "why security guards with criminal records were hired to work at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island."The News reported Sunday that at least two former felons were manning metal detectors and X-ray machines at the national landmarks, both potential terrorism targets, after the Sept. 11 attacks. They were not discovered or fired...

<p>June 26, 2002 -- SHE huddles against the office-building wall, looking as guilty as a junkie and every bit as needy.</p> <p>"I'm just stopping, cold turkey," Cassandra Sullivan says. "I'll toss the money I spent in a jar, then I'll buy myself a Fendi bag or something."</p>

A state grand jury indicted 36 people - including eight who worked for the Division of Motor Vehicle Services - for schemes that provided New Jersey driver's licenses to illegal immigrants and identity thieves.The indictments, handed up Thursday and announced Monday, outline criminal enterprises that reach from city streets in Newark, Paterson, and Union City to the counters of state DMV offices. License "brokers'' charged upward of $2,000 to obtain illicit permits and licenses for clients who couldn't drive legally or who wanted to steal others' identities, the state alleges.The ongoing, two-year investigation - dubbed "Operation Identity Crisis" - charges...

CALGARY -- Prime Minister Jean Chretien told U.S. President George Bush that it "might be a good thing" that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat be ousted. Chretien made the surprise statement during a photo opportunity with Bush shortly after he arrived yesterday at the Kananaskis resort where the G8 meetings officially begin today. "The president talks about perhaps it would be better to replace Mr. Arafat. I don't have a specific point of view on that. I think it might be a good thing," Chretien said yesterday. "I don't want to comment on that. We need a quick election there and...