Free Republic

SOUTH PASADENA - Massage therapist Colleen Ronnberg had just left work in her Ford Mustang to drive home for lunch. She says she turned on her signal, stopped at an intersection, looked both ways and turned onto Pasadena Avenue. But somehow her car collided with an 84-year-old woman who was riding a motorized three-wheeled scooter across Pasadena at Hibiscus Avenue. Although a sheriff's deputy later estimated that Ronnberg was driving 5 mph, the other woman was knocked out of her scooter, hit her head and died Wednesday, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said. Ronnberg is very sorry, still shaken and...

TAMPA, Fla. — A man acquitted of taking part in a Tampa terrorist cell will be released from jail this week, according to the St. Petersburg Times. Sameeh Hammoudeh will return to Jordan with his wife and six children, the newspaper reports. He has spent nearly three years in prison. Hammoudeh was on trial with former South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, who was acquitted of eight of the 17 counts against him. Although a jury found Hammoudeh not guilty of all charges in December, he remains in jail awaiting deportation. "I don't understand. Even if you are acquitted, the government...

ST. PETERSBURG - Just before 10 p.m. Thursday, undercover police on a prostitution sting downtown saw a woman trying to wave down cars. She approached an undercover officer and asked for a ride. Once inside, she exposed herself and asked the officer to touch her to prove he wasn't a cop, police said. After officers identified themselves, they found a crack pipe with suspected cocaine residue in the woman's bra. They also learned she had a butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder with one word: Carlie. The woman was Susan Schorpen, mother of Sarasota abduction and murder victim Carlie Brucia....

Roger Moe is conceding at this hour. A whiny, sanctimonious speech about how his campaign played by the rules and did not make promises he will not keep, and oh yes, how uncle Wally will win the Senate seat.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Blake plans to sell his home, dubbed the "Mata Hari Ranch," which he shared with his wife who was shot and killed. The 67-year-old former "Baretta" star has put the Studio City home up for sale and will move to the west San Fernando Valley to be closer to his adult daughter, Blake's attorney Harland Braun told the Daily News of Los Angeles for Friday's editions. Both Blake and the daughter will help care for his 14-month-old girl, Braun said. Blake is asking $1.09 million for the nearly 5,000-square-foot compound, which has seven bedrooms and ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Richard Hatch, who won fame and $1 million on the hit reality game series "Survivor," was arrested on Tuesday in a domestic dispute with his boyfriend, the entertainment show "Access Hollywood" reported. Hatch turned himself in to police in Middletown, R.I., was released on his own recognizance and ordered to be in court on Sept. 7 to face misdemeanor charges of assault, the syndicated "Access Hollywood" reported. Alan David, a spokesman for the 40-year-old Hatch, declined to comment on the arrest. He said Hatch would make a statement on Wednesday. Hatch, who lives in Rhode Island, ...

Tiana Clemons got a Visa card five years ago when she was a senior at South High School in Minneapolis. "I signed right up, and so did all my friends," she said, sitting in the cramped, modest Maplewood apartment that she shares with her boyfriend, a school-bus driver, and their three children. "We thought, 'Wow, a thousand bucks!' But when we spent it, it didn't seem like real money." Five years, four more credit cards and a painfully real $25,000 debt load later, Clemons, now 22, saw no choice but to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this past March because ...

Mark Dayton, Minnesota's newest U.S. senator, said today that he thinks "it's a mistake" for his family name to be removed from the stores. Dayton's parent company, Target Corp. of Minneapolis, said today that all of its 60 Dayton's, Hudson's and Marshall Field's stores will bear the Marshall Field's name. Target said it is making the change "to increase the power of the company's brand and strengthen its competitive position" nationally. "It's a public corporation, it's not a family corporation," Dayton, whose great-grandfather founded the stores, said at a State Capitol news conference on campaign finance reform. "I personally think ...

Post all Rush comments and your comments here. He comes on today a bit incredulous; like he's living in a banana republic (his words). Smells rats and is fighting the urge to look up in the sky for black helicopters (my words).

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton called for negotiation and compromise Saturday to resolve a nasty budget war over taxes, immigration and education that forced Congress into a rare weekend session just 10 days from the presidential and congressional elections. Citing bipartisan compromise on a number of recent bills, Clinton said: I'm not trying to provoke a confrontation. All I'm trying is to get the job done here. "I'm not trying to harass them," the president said, responding to complaints by Republican leaders as he appeared in the White House briefing room. "I'm just trying to get them to finish their ...

Rush is just about to play the "Gravitas Montage". Stand by; post comments now!

BERLIN (AP) - President Clinton floated some ideas Saturday for how the Internet could be used to improve lives and fight poverty in the developing world, from downloading school books in poor villages to marketing native crafts in cyberspace. "We should recognize what an enormous potential the Internet has for bridging economic, educational and social divides," Clinton said at the closing of a Berlin conference on retooling government for today's global information society. Clinton noted that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the other leaders about how his government had connected remote Eskimo villages to the Internet. "That has enormous ...

I was just out for a walk this evening, flipping the portable radio to ESPN radio sports blather. Evidently Bob Costas, in the course of doing the play-by-play of the NBA Western Conference finals, made a remark that will be construed as racist. I kept the radio tuned to the jock-talkers for about 5 minutes before moving on, but did not hear them say or play the actuality of what Costas said. It had to do with describing the matchup between Shaquille O'Neal of the Lakers and Arbeydis(sic) Sabonis of Portland. Hosts and callers agreed it was probably a slip ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The forward hatch of Air Force Two operates a bit like a stage curtain: On the outer side of the threshold, Al Gore is in pressed pants and hairspray. Inside, the man the Secret Service code-named "Sundance" pads about in flip-flops and short shorts, with a briefing book or cold Heineken in hand. Those who hold backstage passes to Campaign 2000 hear the question a lot: What's Gore really like? Glimpses behind the curtain offer some surprising answers - like goofy. In a receiving line of VIPs at the snowy Rochester, N.Y., airport, the vice president encountered ...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Bob Jones University is using full-page newspaper advertisements to answer national criticism of its interracial dating ban and other issues that cropped up after Republican presidential contender George W. Bush made a campaign stop at the fundamentalist Christian school last month. In the "Letter to the Nation," University President Bob Jones III says the Greenville school has been wrongly painted as racist and anti-Catholic. The issue is religious freedom, Jones wrote. "We do not expect everyone to agree with us or like us," Jones wrote. "The cross of Jesus Christ is a dividing line for some. ...

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - President Clinton joined an annual economic forum here today in a whirlwind visit to urge world business and political leaders to heed labor and environmental concerns in the global economy. It is the first time an American president has attended the World Economic Forum, bringing to a new high the U.S. profile at what began 30 years ago as an informal gathering of economic elites in this Alpine resort. Top administration officials and leading members of Congress and state governments have routinely attended the forums, but the Clinton entourage makes this the biggest U.S. delegation yet, ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton on Thursday signed into law legislation banning so-called "crush" videos that depict women crushing small animals like mice beneath their high heels, often during sex acts. The White House said the law establishes federal criminal penalties for the creation, sale or possession of "a depiction of cruelty to animals" with the intent to distribute it within the United States or overseas. To comply with the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, the law makes exceptions for works of "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value." "The act would prohibit ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A group that wants a state law legalizing gay and lesbian same-sex marriage in California began a drive on Friday to collect a million signatures to put an initiative on the ballot for the November, 2000 elections. And they expect most of the support to come from heterosexuals and churches. Tom Henning, a San Francisco school teacher who with his brother John, of Los Angeles, founded "Californians for Same Sex Marriage" told Reuters, "We believe young heterosexuals under 35 will be the key to our success. We have seen very good signs from that group. Their ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The nation's major television networks, in concert with the White House, will blanket the airwaves tonight with a message urging parents to talk with their children about violence in the wake of shootings at public schools and a community center. In the public service announcements, to air on more than two dozen networks between 8 and 9 p.m., President Clinton says: "Our children need our help to deal with tough issues, like violence. Please, talk with your kids." The Ad Council calls the effort unprecedented, saying it will reach millions of viewers during Wednesday night's "family hour" ...