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WASHINGTON, June 27 (Reuters) - In another sign of accelerating re-engagement, the United States and North Korea are expected to meet on Friday in New York to discuss details for the start of formal talks, U.S. officials said on Thursday. "The U.S. will be talking to the North Koreans very soon," said one official, who subsequently acknowledged that a meeting had been set for Friday. U.S. envoy Jack Pritchard met Pak Gil-yon, the head of the North Korean mission to the United Nations, in New York two weeks ago to prepare for the next stage of a dialogue proposed by...

Baby Born Near Cash Register At Wal-Mart Store Manager Named Godfather POSTED: 9:33 a.m. EDT June 27, 2002 ALBANY, Ga. -- Shenna Williams was feeling labor pains, but she and her mother thought they had plenty of time to buy a disposable camera at Wal-Mart before going to the hospital. While her mother, Katherine Williams, was in the store looking for the camera, Shenna's pain increased. "I heard someone scream out. I said 'Lord, that's my child,"' Katherine Williams said Tuesday. By the time she reached the front of the store, her daughter was on a bench by the...

LONDON (AP) — Britain's High Court ruled Thursday against extraditing an Algerian man wanted for a series of bombings on the Paris subway, overturning a government decision to hand the suspect over to French authorities. Rachid Ramda, an alleged member of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, is wanted in France in connection with bombings in 1995 that killed 10 people and injured 180. The attacks terrorized France and put soldiers in the streets. In the deadliest explosion, at the St. Michel metro station on July 25, 1995, eight people were killed and more than 30 were injured. Ramda's lawyers argued there...

CALGARY - In the searing downtown heat outside a McDonald's restaurant, an activist named Ifny perched herself in a tree to help defuse a potentially violent confrontation yesterday between police and anti-G8 protesters. The nimble Ifny, 27, scrambled up the tree to moderate a tense standoff that saw balaclava-wearing anarchists standing toe-to-toe with police on the sidewalk. Ifny's intervention was the most graphic example of how a predominantly non-violent G8 protest movement has been policing itself here this week, drawing praise from G8 security officials. Non-violent factions also held in check a group of anarchists Tuesday night who attempted to...

We are constantly told that Al Qaida has thousands of fighters all over the world. they have new headquarters in Pakistan. They are in the Phillipines. They have sleeping cells in the USA. With all this activity, where is all the money coming from. If, for example, Al Qaida has 10,000 fighters all over the world, then I estimate that it would cost at lease $100,000,000.00 to support them. To do this someone has to supply steady cash flow. Where is that cash flow coming from? I would seem that id we could find those cash sources, and stamp them...

Confessions of a Green ConservativeBy J.P. ZmirakFrontPageMagazine.com | June 27, 2002 Okay, maybe I was brainwashed as a kid. Not by sitcoms and rock and roll, nor even by the CBS Evening News. Such dreck bounced right off me-as did the politics of PBS. In fact, "educational TV," as we called it in the early '70s, was perhaps the only oasis of high culture in the bleak and brainless reaches of outer-borough New York where I grew up and still reside. PBS (and now NPR) was a window into Evelyn Waugh, Shakespeare, Roman history, medieval architecture, art and the history...

Just heard on Fox News. Dead in Las Vegas

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -- Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but even the owner of Rascal has to admit that he's better observed with rose-tinted glasses. Rascal, a canine of dubious lineage, is a champion of sorts. He has been crowned the 2002 World's Ugliest Dog. He's a Chinese crested dog, and he won the title this week in California. The pup hails from a long line of ugly dogs. In fact, Rascal's grandfather is in the Guinness book of world records for winning the "Most Ugly" title -- seven times.

Simon for Governor Statement on Pledge of Allegiance: The people of California, who care about their nation's grand traditions such as the Pledge of Allegiance, did not have their voices heard as the Pledge of Allegiance came under assault. Gray Davis and Attorney General Bill Lockyer failed to defend the Pledge of Allegiance in court. · "The State of California did not join in the motion to dismiss or otherwise participate in the District Court proceedings. [from Ninth Circuit opinion.] The state of California was the only major defendant to refuse to defend the Pledge of Allegiance at either the...

Excerpt from A Brilliant Peace Plan, But Will It Work?: President Bush sounded the most optimistic note by saying that with "intensive effort by all, this agreement could be reached within three years from now." That's a pretty tall order, of course. The first step is cleansing the culture of terrorism from Palestinian society. It is possible, but it not only requires that the Palestinians change, it requires a change on the part of the entire pan-Arab culture of Islamic fundamentalism that considers civilian murder a justified response to political disputes. The real threat to peace in the Middle East...

Drivers License Now you can see anyone's Drivers License on the Internet, including your own. I just searched for my license, and there it was, picture and all! This was something I didn't know you could do. I am not sure that I like this info out there for everyone. What do you think? Legal? www.license.shorturl.com/ Check it out

BET Founder Gives Democrats $1 Million for Voting Rights Institute The Associated Press Published: Jun 27, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) - Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson is donating $1 million to the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. Johnson's $1 million contribution, one of several seven-figure contributions the DNC has received for the 2002 election, will help finance voter education and get-out-the vote efforts, said Donna Brazile, who heads the institute. DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe established the institute last year in response to Democrat Al Gore's loss to Republican George W. Bush in Florida's 2000 presidential election recount. Johnson...

CONFESSION THROWN OUT The state's highest court upholds a Mesa County judge's decision to throw out an alleged double murderer's confession. When 23-year-old Verle Mangum was pulled over last year, he ran from Mesa County deputies and began slashing his own throat with a knife. Deputies say once they captured Mangum, they did place him in handcuffs but only to protect him from himself. Mangum admitted he murdered Janet Davis and her 11-year-old daughter Jennifer in their Clifton home in 1996. Mangum said he beat the Davises to death with a baseball bat after Janet walked in on him having...

Hear John Wayne recite the Pledge of Allegiance!

This week, Senator Ted Kennedy will be conducting hearings on “solutions” to the nation’s “obesity epidemic.” Since the Surgeon General’s call to action on obesity was published, food cops, trial lawyers and public health zealots are seeing dollar signs and have pulled out the stops on everything from taxes on foods and drinks to tobacco-style class action law suits against the restaurant industry. The Center for Consumer Freedom is running the enclosed full-page national ad in this week’s issue of U.S News & World Report to alert consumers that their freedoms of food choice could be the next thing to...

NEW YORK (Dow Jones/AP) - You don't hear much from the bond market vigilantes anymore, but there's new talk of rough justice on Wall Street. The bond market vigilantes rose to prominence in the early 1990s by pushing bond prices down and interest rates up at the slightest whiff of inflationary government spending plans. Such noble public policy gestures were, of course, also in the vigilantes' self interest. Now in our time of the great executive suite fraud, America's wild West mythology and terminology again is being dragged out. U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill almost actually said "hang 'em high."...

ABC News/ Washington Post 6/16-17/02 App.74 Dis.22 D.N.4 Bloomberg News Poll 6/11-16/02 App.68 Dis.23 D.N.9 CBS News/NY Times 6/18-20/02 App.70 Dis.20 D.N.10 CNN/Time Magazine 6/19-20/02 App.70 Dis.23 D.N.7 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics 6/18-19/02 App.73 Dis.14 D.N.13 Gallup Poll 6/21-23/02 App.73 Dis.21 D.N.6 The Harris Poll 6/14-17/02 App.70 Dis.28 D.N.2 Investor's Business Daily/Christian Science Monitor 6/4-9/02 App.64 Dis.23 D.N.10 NBC News/Wall Street Journal 6/8-10/02 App.69 Dis.23 D.N.8 Zogby International 6/17-19/02 App.69 Dis.28 D.N.3

FBI closes down three stores at two Florida Panhandle malls Email story to a friend (PENSACOLA, Fla.) June 27 - People at two Pensacola malls say the FBI has arrested three merchants there who appear to be of Middle Eastern of southern Asian descent. The FBI says only that it is part of an investigation. Witnesses say agents closed Intrigue Jewelry shops at Cordova and University malls, and the Wild Things shop at University Mall. The people who saw it all say that agents escorted two men from University Mall in handcuffs Wednesday and that at least one man was...

SAN FRANCISCO - Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon, standing at the steps of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, today lambasted Governor Gray Davis and state Attorney General Bill Lockyer for the state of California's failure to defend the Pledge of Allegiance in the recent U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case. "When I sat down yesterday to read the court's opinion -- in an effort to make some sense of the nonsensical -- I noted three prominent defendants: the federal government, the state of California, and the local school district," said Simon, a former federal prosecutor. "Of the...

My reaction to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance is a little different than most of those you will read or hear elsewhere. Is it a correct ruling? No. Is it a ruling that has anything to do with the Constitution? No. Is it unexpected? Not by me. To me, it was just a matter of time. Let's remember that in 1962 and 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prayer in the schools was unconstitutional. The fact that it took nearly 40 years for the other shoe to drop is something of...