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Fisherman in Southwest Harbor hauls up a coffin in net Thursday, June 27, 2002, 9:15 AM Email story to a friend SOUTHWEST HARBOR (AP) -- A fisherman hauling in his catch Wednesday found something extra in his net: a coffin. Kyle Archibald of the Coast Guard in Southwest Harbor says it happened at 12:30 in the afternoon. The captain called in and described what appeared to be a coffin: a metal box with handles. The Coast Guard referred him to the state police, and the state police referred him to the medical examiner's office. Authorities say the captain was...

<p>ORLANDO, Fla. - A Muslim woman from Winter Park, Fla., is being "hypersensitive" because she refuses to show her full face for a drivers license picture and should be required to remove her veil for the photograph, a state attorney said in a recent court brief.</p>

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia - Trapped aboard a cargo ship in the howling depths of an Antarctic winter, scores of Russian scientists and technicians saw hopes of a quick rescue vanish yesterday. "Of course I am worried," said Vyacheslav Martyanov, leader of the scientists on the Magdalena Oldendorff, in an interview over a satellite telephone. "Because the distance is long, the daylight is short and the weather is bad." The ship lies snug against a 13-story wall of ice in a bay off the Antarctic coast, waiting as efforts to reach it falter. A South African research vessel trying to carry...

I think I have it fairly well pinned regarding whom is to blame for the present malfeasance in Africa. When the Europeans colonized Africa and set up their own governments, they were establishing a carbon-copy of their own type of government. Now bare with me for a second...I took a look recently at the biographies of every dictator I could think of (major or minor)...one of the things I'd found was that most of them were educated in Paris or somewhere else in France. Now I could be wrong here, but when the Europeans actually left Africa (out of their...

Prosecutors drop charges against Gorham man accused of raping 7-year-old boy Thursday, June 27, 2002, 12:43 PM Email story to a friend By JENNIFER SULLIVAN NewsRadio WMTW 870 AM/1470 AM/106.7 FM PORTLAND -- Prosecutors have dropped charges against a Gorham man accused of raping a 7-year-old boy and say at least one of the other people who accused him of sexual assault was lying. The investigation into the charges against Thomas Wright also uncovered "a distressing pattern of allegations by members of the Faith Baptist Church" in North Yarmouth, Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said in a prepared statement...

Poor Wording Blamed for Low Writing Test Scores By The Associated Press The passing rate for North Carolina's fourth grade writing test has plummeted and educators say the problem is how test's only question is worded. Some 47 percent of North Carolina's fourth-graders got passing scores this year on the test. Last year's passing rate was 69 percent. State school superintendent Mike Ward says he wants consultants from Florida and Texas to look into why the scores dropped. Ward said he called for an outside review because of the sharp decline in scores. He also was motivated by complaints...

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After three days of speeches, the Cuban National Assembly has voted to amend the country's constitution, making its socialist system of government untouchable. "A return to the past is undesirable, unthinkable and impossible for our people. The revolution is invincible," Vice-President Carlos Lage told the assembly. The vote came at the end of two weeks in which nine million Cubans took to the streets and 99% of voters signed a petition in support of the amendment. It was called by President Fidel Castro in response to what he perceived to be attacks from George W Bush. The US president made...

I have never published a vanity before and hope freepers won't mind helping me out. I have an extremely close friend in another state who last month was manhandled by some police for a traffic violation in a not-so-large town. They actually broke her hand. She feels her rights were violated (the traffic ticket was actually dismissed) and she went to an attorney. The attorney told her she can count on not only losing the case but being tormented by the police the rest of her time in that town (and her children, who are just starting driving) if she...

(AgapePress) - When the Catholic bishops completed their conclave in Dallas, they had no more addressed the real problem in the priesthood than they had before, because it would rattle the Roman Catholic Church down to the catacombs. That problem is homosexuality, not pedophilia, and more than a few bishops and priests, and even some orthodox Catholics, have said nothing forbids the ordination of homosexuals. They can and should control their sexual urges just as heterosexuals do, we are told, and the Catholic Church must not be unjust. But here’s what the bishops aren’t telling Catholics: a 41-year-old law in...

WASHINGTON - Sixty-four mainly European non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are demanding that British Petroleum (BP) meet tough conditions on a proposed multibillion-dollar Caspian oil and gas pipeline before it receives any financing from public agencies. Potential backers of the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline include the World Bank and national export credit agencies. BP, which leads a consortium of oil companies that includes Italy's Eni, Statoil of Norway, and California-based Unocal, has said it will need hundreds of millions of dollars in what its chief executive, Sir John Browne, referred to as "free public money" to help finance the construction of the US$3 billion...

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives began their day Thursday by pledging allegiance to the American flag and clearly enunciating the phrase, "one nation under God." On this day, the Pledge was more than an expression of patriotism. It was also a condemnation of Wednesday's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) opened the Senate's session. "The Senate will come to order with prayer to Almighty God, the Supreme Judge of the world, which will be led by the Senate chaplain, the Reverend Dr. Lloyd J. Ogilvie,"...

"More than a month before her death, the wife of a Pearl Harbor sailor filed a request for a protective order against her husband. "Zalerha Daermond, 31, and her mother, 66-year-old Saniah Binte Ghani, were killed on June 10, 38 days after a family court judge granted the order against David Dearmond, a hull technician second class at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. "The 32-year-old sailor has been at the Ford Island brig, pending charges, since turning himself in June 10. "The Honolulu medical examiner's office said Zaleha Dearmond was beaten to death, and her mother died of stab wounds to...

The announcement yesterday that long-distance giant WorldCom had fudged its books by $3.8 billion has not only pushed the company to the brink of extinction and debunked the legend of former CEO Bernard Ebbers. It has also given the lie to another myth of the '90s bull market: the infallibility of the financial metric known as EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. During the Bubble, investors—professional and amateur alike—came to regard EBITDA as a more reliable indicator of a company's financial health than the old standard, net income. The biggest reason for EBITDA's ascendance was that it...

Leading Democratic Senator Robert Byrd forgot the words to the Pledge of Allegiance this morning, after he was chosen to lead his colleagues in a rousing recital of the oath in defiance of yesterday's ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. With TV cameras rolling for the event, the world's so-called greatest deliberative body rose to recite the patriotic words of loyalty, waiting for Byrd to start. "I pledge of allegiance to the flag," the West Virginia Democrat began, bobbling his syntax right out of the box. Then Byrd jumped to, "And to the republic for which...

I need help from you guys in finding a charity. I'm selling Pledge of Allegiance "UNDER GOD" T-shirts, and they're going like wildfire. I want to give part of the money received to a charity that is relevant to this issue. Right now, all I can think of is the Salvation Army and various church groups. If the Freeper community can think of a better idea, please let me know. This will be a substantial sum of money, based on early sales. JeffGOPportal.comadmin@gopportal.com

Serious yet sociable, scholarly yet jolly, natural leader arrives Others never doubted he would reach this levelBy MARK JOHNSON of the Journal Sentinel staff St. Louis - When Timothy Michael Dolan knew that he would be returning from Rome, where he had served as rector of the Pontifical North American College for seven years, he remarked that he would like to spend some time as a parish priest. It made perfect sense that he would set such a seemingly humble goal for himself, this man who still roots for his beloved St. Louis Cardinals, displays a lively wit, and so...

Did America's newly discovered ally, India, cry wolf (that is, deliberately exaggerate tentative indications of the presence of Al-Qaeda in Kashmir) to get the United States to intervene sympathetically on its behalf and secure a commitment from Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to end "cross-border infiltration" of militants? Although there is no irrefutable proof of this, many pointers suggest that this happened in the last week of May. It paved the way for the visit to Pakistan and India of US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage in the first week of June, and later of defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The...

http://www.petitiononline.com/aside/ PLEASE SIGN THIS! IF YOU HAVE ALREADY, THANK YOU, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!