Free Republic

A national animal rights advocacy group is speaking out against "Chicken Challenge" games being played at Aztar Corp. casinos, including Evansville's Casino Aztar. The game, which features a hen playing a human in a game of tick-tack-toe, made its debut June 1 at Casino Aztar. The hen is inside a game machine and places her "O" on the tick-tack-toe board by pecking on a screen. Humans who defeat the highly trained hen win $5,000. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote a letter Monday to Aztar Corp. President and Chief Financial Officer Robert M. Haddock alleging that the "Chicken...

<p>In a ringing 5-to-4 decision last Thursday, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle that elections are about ideas and that the censorship of political ideas violates the First Amendment.</p> <p>In Minnesota, as in 39 other states, the people elect their state court judges. Gregory Wersal had wanted to run for a position on the Minnesota Supreme Court on the platform that the current court had made some bad legal decisions.</p>

APNewsAlert Jul 01, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- BAGRAM, Afghanistan - Two rocket-propelled grenades hit airfield used by U.S. military in southern Afghanistan, no injuries reported, spokesman says. Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved MORE...

<p>KABUL, Afghanistan — With 10 capsules of "uranium" stuffed into a sock, Taliban officials once drove off in search of buyers or ideas for what to do with the smuggled material, a former Taliban intelligence chief says.</p> <p>"The Taliban had no experience with such things. They were simple mullahs," said Mohammed Khaksar, himself a mullah, or Muslim cleric.</p>

<p>Smokers in six states will pay more for their habit beginning today, nudity with "artistic value" no longer will be off-limits to minors in Utah, and grits will become Georgia's official prepared food.</p> <p>Hundreds of new laws take effect with the start of fiscal years in many states. The laws reflect legislators' concerns with the burdensome threats of terrorism and budget deficits, spiked with a few less-weighty matters.</p>

GULF WAR II How a War With Iraq Will Change the World It's not if but when. Here are the consequences. FORTUNE Monday, July 8, 2002 By Bill Powell They made 16,000 of them the last time: Sacks that are about eight feet long and three feet across, with six handles and a zipper across the top. "Human Remains Pouches" is the horrible phrase the Pentagon uses for them, but everyone else knows them by the vernacular: body bags. Remember the run-up to the first war with Iraq, Operation Desert Storm? The U.S. was headed to war, and for the...

Investigators probing the accounting scandal at WorldCom Inc. are turning their attention to the company's recently ousted chief executive, Bernard J. Ebbers, to determine what role he may have played in the alleged fraud that has brought the giant telecom concern to its knees, Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. The focus on Mr. Ebbers comes as officials involved with a myriad of probes become increasingly convinced they will find evidence of improper accounting beyond the $3.8 billion that WorldCom disclosed last week will need to be restated. The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought a civil charge of fraud...

<p>NEW ORLEANS — In a state long associated with crooked politicians, a current investigation into judicial misconduct may shake the very foundations of the legal system.</p> <p>The Washington Times has learned that the arrest of a Jefferson Parish judge last month is part of an FBI investigation targeting judges, bail bondsmen, deputy sheriffs and lawyers.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 1 The Fox Fur Nebula Credit & Copyright: Anglo-Australian Observatory, Photograph by David Malin Explanation: The nebula surrounding bright star S Mon is filled with dark dust and glowing gas. The strange shapes that surrounding this star originate from fine interstellar dust reacting in complex ways with the energetic light and hot gas being expelled by the young stars. The region just below S Mon, the...

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hey I need some people to sign my petition to save parents from problems that are known only by parents that have children in the system please help me by reading and signing my petitions thank you here are the links http://www.petitiononline.com/families/petition.html and http://www.petitiononline.com/RF51680/petition.html I will be printing and sending this to congress and Other sources to get the Child Protection Services to do their jobs and preserving family units what they claim from the begining of a case. Help me fight back read the petition see if you agree and then sign it I need as many signatures as...

<p>Former solicitors general on both sides of the aisle are urging the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee to back off its request for confidential internal memos regarding one of President Bush's judicial nominees.</p> <p>The committee asked for the documents as part of the confirmation process of D.C. Court of Appeals nominee Miguel Estrada, who was nominated 412 days ago.</p>

Second Frat in Racial Controvery Reinstated at Auburn Email story to a friend (Auburn-AP) -- A second white fraternity whose members dressed in racially offensive Halloween costumes has been reinstated at Auburn University as part of the settlement of its lawsuit against the school. Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity's local chapter will be reinstated under the agreement. That is according to chapter president Matt Furin, commenting in the Opelika-Auburn News. Beta Theta Pi, which also had lost its university recognition in November, settled its $100 million lawsuit in May and also was reinstated. Neither chapter received any financial payment from the...

30-year-old Woman Gets 99 Years on Cocaine Conviction Email story to a friend (Huntsville-AP) -- A 30-year-old Huntsville woman has been sentenced to 99 years in prison for conspiring to traffic in cocaine. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Don Rizzardi says Tabitha C. Dickerson, who was sentenced Friday, must serve at least six to eight years before she is eligible for parole. A jury convicted Dickerson on the trafficking charge June 11. At sentencing, Circuit Judge Jim Smith imposed the 99-year term and also ordered Dickerson to pay fines totaling $13,000. Prosecutors said Dickerson had fled to Troy two years...

<p>Arin Ahmed, though already 20, looked like a typical American teen-ager, in tight pants and a short shirt exposing a bare midriff. More like a Methodist, you might say, than a Muslim. She stepped lively along the crowded city sidewalk as though she were on her way to shop with friends at Old Navy.</p>

<p>Whatever it was, after the prime-time debut of Mr. Al-Arian — who, not incidentally, used to run a pair of USF-affiliated organizations closed by the FBI in 1995 as terrorist fronts — everything changed. As "Terrorism U" was besieged by calls and threats, as donations and student applications fell off, Mr. Al-Arian was suspended with pay. Citing a contractual violation and safety concerns, USF President Judy Genshaft announced in December that he would be fired.</p>

<p>NEW YORK — The world's first permanent war-crimes tribunal becomes a reality today over the vehement objections of the Bush administration, which moved to end its U.N. police mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.</p> <p>The administration has been lobbying against the International Criminal Court at all diplomatic levels, and yesterday the Bush administration vetoed a renewal of the U.N. police mission to Bosnia, rather than expose 64 Americans to possible prosecution by the ICC.</p>

Sunday, June 30, 2002 10:36 p.m. EDTPledge Ruling Certifies California as the Land of Fruits and Nuts NewsMax.com contributor Fr. Michael Reilly deconstructs the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. The California federal court attacked the Pledge of Allegiance on the grounds that it established religion, a violation of the First Amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights. Our Constitution is based on the concept of inalienable rights, rights which the government cannot take away. What makes those rights inalienable? According to the Declaration of Independence, man is endowed by...

MEMPHIS, Tenn - Move over Adlai, here comes Al. Not since Adlai Stevenson ran against Dwight Eisenhower back to back in the 1950s - and lost both times - has a losing presidential candidate won his party's nomination a second consecutive time. But Al Gore is getting ready to run for president again, pondering whether he can defy history, reclaim the Democratic nomination and this time grab the prize that eluded him two years ago. Gore, 54, is poised to enter the race a front-runner for the nomination with formidable strengths: he won the popular vote in 2000, knows...

<p>President Bush's top foreign policy advisers said yesterday that Yasser Arafat already has lost his last chance to be regarded by the administration as a credible participant in Middle East peace negotiations.</p> <p>National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said she doubts the administration will hold any high-level meetings with the Palestinian leader and that the United States would cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority should he be re-elected in January.</p>