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Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's real birthday, as many an 11-year-old girl can tell you, is June 13, 1986, but their first few months on earth don't really count--they didn't accomplish all that much. That changed in October 1986. Selected from a lineup for their nice smiles, the Olsen twins landed a shared part as newborn Michelle Tanner on ABC's Full House. In September 1987, one of them (your guess is as good as ours) was trotted out in front of the camera in the arms of actor John Stamos. Since then, in their trajectory from the Full House twins...

<p>Does history repeat itself? It surely does when it comes to the state government's budgeting process. Since World War II, the national economy has experienced 10 recessions varying in length and severity. As expected, during these recessions, the state's receipts (taxes and fees) fell short of spending plans and crises developed. Programs needed to be cut, hiring freezes were instituted and in almost every cycle some taxes or fees were raised. During the years following the recession, not surprisingly, government receipts outpaced spending targets and at least for a few years surpluses were generated.</p>

(New York-AP) -- Senator Charles Schumer says banks should have to notify consumers of ``hidden'' debit card fees. He says those fees can run as high as a dollar-fifty per purchase. He plans to introduce legislation that would require banks to tell consumers each time they're being charged, like A-T-M machines do.A recent study by the New York Public Interest Research Group finds that 57 percent of banks surveyed charge a debit card fee at each transaction. The average fee is 89 cents.Schumer, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, says he'll introduce the bill in the next few weeks.

Britain denounces 'blundering' US hunt for al-QaedaBy Christina Lamb in London July 1 2002Senior officials in the British Prime Minister's office have delivered an astonishing attack on America's handling of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda fugitives. They say that troops conducting house-to-house searches in tribal areas of Pakistan along the Afghan border were "blundering", with a "march-in-shooting" approach. The US action was "backfiring", increasing support for terrorism and making it harder to catch bin Laden and his henchmen. "The Americans think they and the Pakistanis can just march in shooting," an official closely involved in the war...

G'day, I am doing a road trip to FRIVA and back. So far, i have two other people who are probably committed. I am looking for some others to help defray costs and help drive. Interested? If so, please e-mail me at real_sauropod@hotmail.com His Royal Podness

<p>Negative furor over 'under God' decision reminds them of their outcast status.</p> <p>Last week's Pledge of Allegiance debate reaffirmed at least one political lesson: While elected officials usually try not to offend anyone, there's one group no one worries about alienating - atheists who believe in the nation, though not in a deity.</p>

HONG KONG (AP) -- Chanting and cheering, hundreds of Buddhists sent the fish on a swim for freedom, putting them onto a pair of stainless steel slides that dropped off the side of a ferry into the South China Sea. Followers of Buddhism are duty-bound to save any trapped animal -- and the Chinese have adopted the practice and made a tradition of buying, then freeing fish, birds and turtles in the belief it can bring good fortune. Despite the good intentions of everybody on the ferry, and thousands of fish going down the slides, not many got very far....

Sunday, June 30, 2002 Plane tows boycott banner At an event aimed to promote unity among blacks and whites, Cincinnati's continued racial division was evident Saturday at the Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Billy Graham Mission. As the Rev. Mr. Graham called on the crowd to join him in prayer, a plane out of Lunken Airport flew over the stadium 10 times pulling a banner that read: “Boycott Cincinnati. www.cincyboycott.org” “My sense is it did not create any form of distraction,” said Rick Segal, a mission spokesman. However, Victoria Parks, an African-American woman from College Hill who attended the mission on Saturday,...

<p>GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon has moved to the left of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis on oil drilling, beaten him to the punch in appealing to Latinos and added a diverse campaign team aimed at helping his message resonate with moderate voters.</p>

<p>Washington -- George W. Bush has sent Palestinians the same ultimatum John F. Kennedy sent the Cubans: Dump your leader!</p> <p>Ditch Yasser Arafat, Bush demands. Then, and only then, can we do business. It's the same ultimatum JFK issued to the Cuban people the week before he was assassinated by a pro-Castro zealot.</p>

Katherine Albrecht has seen the supermarket of the future, and she doesn't like it. "I've actually held in my hand the prototype next-generation shopping `loyalty' card -- a radio transmission-driven LED (light emitting diodes) shopping card," says the New Hampshire schoolteacher and mother of small children. "There already exist radio frequency devices in shopping carts so they can actually track your movements around the store. They're used in combination with the shoplifting cameras," says Albrecht, founder and head of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (www.nocards.org/). Well, so what? If the market finds out I buy cat food and...

<p>Bill Simon Jr.</p> <p>Bill Simon, who has promised to protect abortion rights if he is elected governor, has been a longtime adviser and supporter of an organization with close ties to some of the most extreme members of the anti-abortion movement.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - A former FBI informant is suing the federal agency, claiming it abandoned him after he infiltrated a violent drug cartel in Mexico.</p> <p>Avery "Skip" Ensley, 56, alleges the FBI failed to pay more than $1 million he had been promised from seized assets linked to the investigation into the Arrellano Felix syndicate. He sued in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday.</p>

If the Constitution of the United States of America, in its various interpreations, does provide for a Wall of Separation between the Church and the State, can we then expect the State not to intervene if the Church declares people above 14 years of age not to be children anymore? Are the Churches compounds exempt from State laws? Can the Priests found guilty of crimes avoid State prescribed punishments?

Once upon a time, right-wingers were seen as hostile to the First Amendment, intent on quashing expression they deemed unpleasant or contrary to their values. How times have changed. Whether imposing speech codes on college campuses and in the workplace, championing campaign-finance reform, or pushing restrictions on advertising legal products, the left has emerged as the primary architect of modern efforts to suppress expression. For further evidence of this stunning transformation, consider the U.S. Supreme Court. On Thursday, the justices issued a handful of important rulings before adjourning until October. Among them was a case from Minnesota, where candidates for...

THE world outside the US is now getting used to the fact Americans have a fraudulently elected nitwit as their president, but George W. Bush excelled himself this week with a "long-awaited" definitive speech on Middle East policies that stretched even the weirdest imaginations. BRUCE WILSON in London reports: US embassies around the world moved to "explain" the batty future Bush saw for Israel and Palestine, but nothing could disguise that the bedbug was running the White House and anything could happen next. Hey, look. Even Tom Cruise is worried. In London this week he said he wanted his adopted...

Responding to former Vice President Al Gore's criticism on Saturday of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, Secretary of State Colin Powell blasted the Clinton-Gore administration for not accepting a deal for Osama bin Laden's extradition from Sudan negotiated by Pakistani-American businessman Mansour Ijaz in the late 1990's. "Perhaps that's what Vice President Gore should have been talking about - what happened on their watch as opposed to the progress we've made on our watch," Powell told "Fox News Sunday," after being asked about Ijaz's claims. In a Sunday Washington Post op-ed piece, Ijaz and former...

<p>COMMERCE TOWNSHIP -- When Gordon Traskos unpacks his concession trailer -- where he serves pickles, hot dogs, hamburgers and fresh-squeezed lemonade -- he is also packing heat now. Traskos, 66, carries his .45-caliber Kimber with him on most days -- not because he feels unsafe, but because he feels safer with it, he said. "I don't feel uncomfortable if I'm not carrying it," said the semi-retired manager of a family-owned hardware store. "I just like being able to have it when I want."</p>

Reflecting over the past 1 and a half years one can only thank the Lord that GWB was elected President1. The message it sent to the world was that the hill billy days of crime and corruption was finally defeated2. Taxes were cut and the people finally had someone in government who wasn't trying to pick their pockets.3. When attacked a man was in office who had the balls and brians to handle the crisis with the aggressiveness needed to bully bullies.4. Time and again GWB has risen to the problem or challange in a sterling way the old hill...

<p>What's hot now is "NASCAR dads," the folks who show up by the hundreds of thousands for what used to be called "stock car races."</p> <p>The Democrats appear to have just discovered this electoral fact and are publicly admitting they have a "NASCAR-dad gap."</p>