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This is exciting. Will Dick Cheney keel over from his fifth heart attack before he becomes the first veep since Spiro Agnew to resign in the face of charges of financial crookery? Or will Bush fire him to divert attention from his own scummy past? n Over the weekend President Dumbo poked his head above the rubble of the WorldCom scandal and made a stand: "No violation of the public’s trust will be tolerated... Executives who commit fraud will face financial penalties and, when they are guilty of criminal wrongdoing, they will face jail time." Sunday morning brought more ringing...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- A judge has fined the National Education Association $800,000 after the teachers' union missed a deadline to respond to a campaign finance lawsuit filed by the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation. It wasn't clear whether the order Thurston County Superior Court Judge Daniel Berschauer issued Monday will stand. If lawsuits go unanswered, judges can presume the facts and allegations contained in them are true and rule accordingly, but such cases are rare. Berschauer ruled in favor of the foundation's claim that the NEA violated state law against spending -- for political purposes -- fees paid to the...

An unbelievable furor erupted last week about an addendum to the Pledge of Allegiance after a federal judge ruled that making schoolchildren recite the words "under God" was an unconstitutional breach of the wall that separates church and state. The plaintiff, an emergency room physician in California, had sued on the grounds that his young daughter was, for all intents and purposes, forced to utter the phrase even though her family does not acknowledge the existence of the deity. The plaintiff’s daughter is now in hiding because of death threats from the God-loving. The U.S. Senate immediately denounced the decision...

Assad reiterates support to Hizbullah, Palestinian groups; says Syria to “defend itself” if attacked by Israel Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday rebuffed U.S. pressure to cut ties with Hizbullah and expel Palestinian groups regarded as “terrorists” by Washington. "Syria supports the Lebanese national resistance, including Hizbullah... in resisting Israeli occupation and liberating land - politically and in the media - because the brothers in the Lebanese resistance do not need military support from Syria," the Syrian leader told the Lebanese daily, al Liwa. "As for the Palestinian groups... their work is limited to political and media activities, and their...

LONDON: Baghdad is using new mobile missile launchers against British and US planes that monitor "no-fly" zones in the north and south of Iraq, the specialist Jane's Intelligence Review reported in its July edition. Jane's said the weapons system comprised two S-125 Neva missiles capable of being fired from a truck. "By mounting the missiles on mobile launchers the Iraqis have complicated US and UK efforts to monitor Iraqu's air defences," Jane's said. The S-125s originally supplied by the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s were static missiles fired from fixed launch pads. Almost daily skirmishes are reported in...

The Defense Department is considering turning over ownership of many of its military bases to neighboring cities and towns as a way of reducing the maintenance costs that go with owning them. Under such an arrangement, a city or town near a military base would take ownership of the base and then lease the base property and infrastructure back to the military. The town or city would then be responsible for providing maintenance services for the base, buildings and other infrastructure. Such an arrangement exists between Brooks Air Force Base and San Antonio, Texas. Michael Jaggard, the Navy’s executive...

An official source in Fatah, has stated that the statement, attributed to the Fatah Movement and the Al-Asifah Forces which threatened to strike the US and Israeli interests, was “baseless.” The official quoted by WAFA new agency, said the movement has absolutely nothing to do with this statement. Earlier, groups affiliated with Fatah called upon all Palestinian organizations, including the Islamic movements, to attack” Zionist and American targets everywhere” in response to US efforts "to remove the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people." The statement warned US President George W. Bush that it would return to the type of fedayeen...

GALVESTON -- Federal agents are investigating allegations that an employee at the University of Texas Medical Branch illegally sold body parts for his own gain, an FBI spokesman said Monday. And, in what UTMB President Dr. John Stobo called "an unforgivable failure of oversight," officials at the medical school said they have discovered that the cremated remains of many people who willed their bodies to science were mixed. In a letter e-mailed to the medical center's faculty and staff late Monday, Stobo apologized to families that may have received mixed ashes and said, "We pledge to do everything in our...

It's official. Northern Command is coming to Colorado Springs, with the first staff arriving next month. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld signed an environmental study Friday, clearing the way for the command to be placed at Peterson Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mike Halbig said Monday. Operations are scheduled to begin Oct. 1. Prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon decided to create a single homeland defense command in charge of protecting America's land, sea and air. An official announcement is expected within a week. Congress is preparing to give the military...

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang-raped in order to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a girl from a higher class tribe, police said Tuesday. The private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan demanded that all those involved in the rape, which took place June 22 in the village of Meerwala in southern Punjab province, be punished.Police said the victim's father had filed criminal charges against the four men involved in the case. Police said they picked up eight relatives of the suspects to pressure the perpetrators into...

NORAD is braced to provide security for the nation during the July Fourth weekend. Federal authorities issued an alert to state and local authorities warning of a possible terrorist attack around the holiday. The message was not made public because the threat is too vague, officials said. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, headquartered in Colorado Springs, will be ready to defend the nation's air space, said Maj. Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesman, which greatly increased fighter patrols over the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. "July Fourth weekend is a special situation," Snyder said. "We will take actions...

SKOPJE, July 2 (Reuters) - Ethnic Albanians in northern Macedonia blocked the country's main border crossing with the Yugoslav province of Kosovo on Tuesday, demanding the release of three fellow villagers detained there earlier by police. Around 100 ethnic Albanians from the village of Blace north of the capital set up roadblocks near the border and refused to allow any vehicles past. Columns of cars and trucks were stranded on the road, including NATO military vehicles heading towards Kosovo. Police confirmed that they earlier detained three ethnic Albanians trying to enter Macedonia, but declined to say why. The protesters said...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The blue print for the traffic route of the magnetic levitation (maglev) airplane has lately been completed in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in west China, according to sources from the local department. And Chengdu will be the first possible city in the world to have both maglev airplane production and operation lines in the near future. Maglev plane is developed by an American university and has not been applied in any country. It is a new type of track vehicle for hi-speed transportation on land. Not touching the track, maglev...

HUNTSVILLE -- The Army's Comanche helicopter program is down to its last chance. The Army has spent $5.2 billion over two decades to develop the stealthy, armed reconnaissance helicopter. But the program has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. Critics want to scrap the program, and a congressional committee recently said its support of the Comanche is in jeopardy unless there's a quick turn-around. And the Army is asking the Pentagon to bless a plan that restructures the program a sixth and final time. The program will need another $6.7 billion to finish development over the next 11 years....

Washington -- The U.S. Navy can't order more computer workstations from Electronic Data Systems Corp. until those already on contract are tested more thoroughly, the U.S. House of Representatives said. The Navy's new communications network is the Pentagon's most extensive and costly information technology program. The service already has contracted for 160,000 stations and planned to order 150,000 more by Sept. 30. ``I don't think they have done some of the analysis as to the adequacy of the program to spend money as rapidly as they like,'' said Representative Jerry Lewis, a California Republican who heads the House Appropriations...

China is having big problems maintaining its Russian-built and supplied Kilo-class submarines, although it is planning to buy even more, defense sources said yesterday. The Chinese navy has four Kilo-class submarines, which are the most advanced submarines in its fleet and the only ones it has obtained from abroad. The sources said two of the submarines had been taken out of service over two years ago, after developing serious battery problems. They speculated that they had been taken to Russia for repair. The four submarines are of an older type of Kilo, the first of which was delivered in...

Since Sept. 11 the U.S. intelligence services have been working hard to uncover links between Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network and other Islamic groups throughout the world. And the Bush administration has not been slow to advertise connections once discovered or to demand cooperation from local authorities in order to disrupt the links. According to President George W. Bush, the war on terror should be seamless and Washington expects all countries to assist in fighting the scourge of terrorism. In return, Bush has promised the United States will "support and reward governments" that, in his words, "make the...

50 ways to show you love your country From Gazette Staff And Knight-Ridder News Somehow, the Fourth of July this year stands for so much more than just grilling hot dogs and enjoying fireworks. We find ourselves thinking, instead, about what it means to be American. About the bedrock guarantees of freedom and equality that make this country a wonderful place to live. And about the sacrifices so many have made to preserve our way of life. So this year, many Americans want to celebrate the nation's birthday by finding at least one way, however small, to keep things...

On Sept. 10, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the man the MICE — the Military-Industrial-Congressional Empire — loved to hate. Today, after nine months as everybody's favorite "secretary of war," the MICE are chewing on him again. The reason, then and now: "transformation," or Rumsfeld's attempt to drag America's defense establishment, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. The most recent well-publicized example is Rumsfeld's decision to cancel the Army's Crusader artillery system, and the frenetic counter-offensive to save it. Congress, miffed that it wasn't "consulted" prior to the announcement, now appears disposed to cancel the Crusader in...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Spc. John Dalgleish’s nose began gushing blood during a two-mile run with his unit on Sunday, but he didn’t stop.The Afghanistan air, baked dry by the 120-degree heat, caused the nosebleed."It’s like a mission," Dalgleish said. "There’s no reason, for something as petty as a nosebleed. In combat, I’m not going to be able to stop and say, ‘I have a nosebleed.’"The Utah native, who loves NASCAR and comes from a military family that traces its roots to Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of the Revolutionary War, is among about 700 Fort Bragg soldiers who have...