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Miss Cleo Won't Discuss Birthplace Wed Jun 26,10:07 PM ET FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - Television psychic Miss Cleo repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination Wednesday, refusing to discuss a birth certificate that shows she was born in Los Angeles to American parents. Miss Cleo, whose real name is Youree Dell Harris and has claimed to be a Jamaican shaman, gave a deposition in a civil suit filed by Florida. It accuses her with deceptive trade practices for her television ads pitching a psychic hot line that charged up to $4.95 a minute. She had been resisting for...

June 27, 2002 Bush Says Palestinians Will Lose Aid if They Keep ArafatBy DAVID E. SANGER ALGARY, Alberta, June 26 — President Bush told his key allies today that the United States would cut off aid to the Palestinians if they failed to embrace the kind of changes he demanded on Monday. Stepping up his pressure for the removal of Yasir Arafat, he warned that "we won't be putting money into a society" dominated by corrupt leadership that helps to finance terrorists. Mr. Bush's warning came as he met with Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, who became the first major...

Wednesday's ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, holding that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional, has sparked widespread outrage. Average Americans are upset. Republican politicians are upset. Democrat politicians are upset. And Senator Robert Byrd has urged the Senate to do something to throw "back in the face of this stupid judge." The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit was faced with a lawsuit by an atheist father who was upset with the daily recitation of the Pledge in his daughter's school. He wasn't upset about her having to recite it, and thanks to a war-era Supreme...

(Editor's Note: The following opinion piece was originally published by CNSNews.com on July 4, 1999 and is reprinted this date in light of Wednesday's Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.) One of the Left's greatest accomplishments is its use of language to defuse explosive issues and distort facts about matters in which liberalism has a vested interest. The contemporary debate over the role of government as it pertains to religion in America is one of the best examples of how this deception has succeeded. The practical myth of "separation of church and...

<p>A key House Republican introduced legislation yesterday to temporarily cut legal immigration to the United States by about 20 percent as part of a broad reform of immigration laws.</p> <p>Rep. George W. Gekas, Pennsylvania Republican, the chairman of the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, said government agencies need time to restructure and to catch up with the current backlog of applications.</p>

A San Francisco federal judge's decision to ban recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on the grounds that it is an unconditional endorsement of religion is the logical culmination of a decades-long erosion of the notion of civic education. Legal scholars will haggle over the reasoning of the decision, which unlike past rulings apparently seeks to end the Pledge for all rather than to grant exemption from it for some, as the court has evolved from protecting the rights of a few dissident individuals to mandating what everyone should say and do — regardless of the democratic decision-making of...

<p>NEW YORK -- It all started a few weeks ago with a check of the books by Cynthia Cooper, an internal auditor for WorldCom Inc. The telecom giant's newly installed chief executive had asked for a financial review, and her job was to spot-check records of capital expenditures.</p>

WHO debates obesity problem, ignoring hunger problem. Worth reading... http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock062502.asp President Reagan once quipped that sometimes in his administration, "the right hand doesn't know what the far-right hand is doing." The United Nations these days possesses two left thumbs, most concretely when it addresses nutrition. The U.N.'s World Health Organization strives both to shrink and expand waistlines across the globe. And even as WHO bureaucrats furiously add and subtract calories, millions of third worlders succumb to diseases that industrialized nations vanquished decades ago.

AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL CONSTITUTION? 6/27/02 Recently a Federal court declared the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional because it contained the phrase "…under God". This of course violates the most important clause of the entire Constitution, the "Separation of Church and State". However, these same judges might be surprised to learn that at least one blatant reference to God occurs in the very document they claim bans such references; "…by our creator with certain unalienable rights…." Does this mean that our Constitution will soon be declared unconstitutional? Strangely enough, as a staunch defender of the Constitution I would welcome such a...

Amtrak, Bush Admin. Reach Agreement Amtrak, Bush Administration Reach Tentative Agreement to Keep Trains Running The Associated Press Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent • Remote Alaskan Towns Rely on Telemedicine • Is the Pledge Patriotic or Religious? • Where Does Personality Come From? W A S H I N G T O N, June 26 — Amtrak and the Bush administration reached tentative agreement Wednesday night on a plan for resolving a budget crisis that could have shut down the national passenger railroad next week. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta and Amtrak Chairman John Robert Smith...

Okay, so the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has declared the use of the words "under God" by public schoolchildren when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to be an affront to the Constitution. Big deal. The Ninth Circuit says a lot of things, few of which, thank God (!), are taken seriously outside their own chambers. This court has demonstrated time and again that its view of the Constitution is at odds with that of most of America and indeed with that of the Supreme Court. Wednesday's decision, in Newdow v. U.S. Congress, et al, was of course greeted by...

W A S H I N G T O N, June 26 — Politicians from both parties rallied within moments to support the Pledge of Allegiance today after a federal appeals court ruled it was unconstitutional, with the Senate voting 99-0 to condemn the court's decision. Democrats, recognizing the potential for political havoc because they have historically been seen as more likely to oppose such things, and because the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges are generally considered to be among most liberal in the country, rushed to the floors of their respective houses to denounce the opinion. "This decision...

The FBI is eyeing unidentified experts who are tracing American computer systems from sites overseas, with the possible intention of mounting terrorist attacks, according to a Washington Post report. And a Defense Department report sees "multiple casings of sites,” the paper reported in Thursday’s editions. Many of the computer traces – which seem to be seeking information on American power and telephone grids, and other infrastructures - are routed through Saudi Arabia, according to the report. Experts said the surveillance does not necessarily suggest a cyber-attack, but that it could mean that far-away assailants are simply trying to get information...

A medical expert says anoraks are a possible health hazard.A study carried out at Birmingham City Hospital found the hooded coats reduce the field of vision by up to half.The professor behind the research says this can be potentially dangerous when crossing a road.Philip Murray, an opthalmologist, has published his research in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.He said: "Our researchers measured the binocular visual field of volunteers wearing four different styles of anorak."Most wearers pull the hood over their heads and we found that with the hood up the field of vision is more than halved."The Daily...

In early December the official exorcist of the Rome diocese, Father Gabriele Amorth, warned parents against the Harry Potter book series. The priest, who is also the president of the International Association of Exorcists, said Satan is behind the works. In an interview with the Italian ANSA news agency, Father Amorth said, “Behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of darkness, the devil.” The exorcist, drawing on his decades of experience in directly combating evil, observed that young people could become involved in Satanic practices because they see the invocation of supernatural powers as a simple and attractive...

Don't look for a split along party lines in the hottest issue to hit official Washington in quite some time: a court ruling striking down the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional. Lawmakers from both parties are expected to arrive early today to publicly recite the pledge on the floor of the Senate, to show their defiance of the court decision that the White House calls "wrong" and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle calls "just nuts." A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Pledge of Allegiance, recited daily by generations of American students, is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and...

<p>HOUSTON — The chief U.S. Border Patrol agent said yesterday that the government has a responsibility to protect Mexican citizens who are illegally crossing into the United States.</p> <p>Speaking at a forum at the 73rd annual convention of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), David V. Aguilar said that the recent deaths of illegal migrants in Arizona presented a "challenge" to both the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol, which is an agency of the INS.</p>

Some legal scholars say the ruling will likely either be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court ( news - web sites) or reversed by the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ( news - web sites). "I would bet an awful lot on that," Harvard University scholar Laurence Tribe said. Wednesday's ruling was in response to an atheist's bid to keep his second-grade daughter from being exposed to religion in school. In a 2-1 decision in favor of Michael Newdow, the panel took issue with the words "under God" in the pledge. Circuit Judge Alfred T. Goodwin said...

. . Official guilty of tax evasion A prominent Democratic Party fund-raiser pleaded guilty yesterday to failing to pay $1.2 million in federal taxes. PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A prominent Democratic Party fund-raiser pleaded guilty yesterday to failing to pay $1.2 million in federal taxes. Samuel Kuttab, owner of a Philadelphia security business that operated under several names, including Delaware Valley Security and Central Security Agency, was charged with conspiring to hide the company's profits and failing to pay income and payroll taxes. Kuttab, 42, of Wyncote, raised thousands of dollars for U.S. Rep. Robert Brady and Philadelphia Mayor John...

The world's most powerful leaders, meeting behind well-guarded gates at a Canadian mountain resort, named Russia a full member of their exclusive club on Wednesday and sought new ways to help stop terror groups getting their hands on nuclear bombs. The Group of Eight industrialized nations, meeting in the shadow of the snow-covered Canadian Rockies, also offered a ray of hope to economies reviving from the slowdown of last year and promised an extra $1 billion for poor-country debt relief. Russia, until now excluded from key parts of the annual meetings of the world's richest countries, would host the 2006...