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DAYTONA BEACH -- City leaders can finally realize a decades-long dream of replacing the beachside Boardwalk's aging arcades, restaurants and gift shops with a new retail complex to lure more upscale tourism. A court ruling Friday allows Daytona Beach to force the sale of three Boardwalk businesses to make way for a $120 million redevelopment project that would be the last major piece in the city's remake of its historic oceanside. Circuit Judge John W. Watson III gave the city approval to seize the three businesses in a ruling that echoes a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave cities...

I ran into a group of Kerry/Edward supporters today at lunch time at a local Pizza Hut resturant . They were having what looked like a voting drive meeting and I ignored them as I sat down. I watched and listened as I waited for my order and then finally one of them approached my table where my boss and I were sitting. My boss is pretty "moderate" yet I am swaying him towards our side by presenting the facts. There were about thirteen adults and four children sporting Kerry/Edwards T-shirts and buttons and they were getting louder and more...

<p>From a sofa in her Miramar home, the mother of Adnan El'Shukri-Jumah watched her son's face flash across the television screen with six other pictures of terrorist suspects. When Attorney General John Ashcroft singled out her son by name in Wednesday's live broadcast, Zurah Abdu Ahmed loosened her pursed lips.</p>

POSTED: 4:26 p.m. EST December 6, 2003 ALBANY, Ga. -- A hair stylist was pumping gas into her car when her hair burst into flames. "That scared me to death," said stylist Traci Marshall. The fire was probably caused by static electricity from Marshall's hair rubbing against her clothes, said her husband, Camilla firefighter Lt. Bill Marshall. The static electricity apparently mixed with gas fumes and ignited the fire Sunday. "I started beating my hair to get out the fire and saw flames coming out of the gas tank," she said. A man with a fire extinguisher put out the...

NEILLSVILLE, Wis. -- Police say he wasn't the brightest robber they ever captured. A masked man tried to rob a pharmacy in Neillsville armed only with his fingers. Chief Brad Lindner says the man formed his gloved hand into the shape of a gun and tried to hold up Sniteman's Pharmacy Sunday. No, his pointed finger wasn't concealed under a jacket or anything. The robber simply held up his hand and formed a gun. The pharmacy owner William Weiler wasn't going to stand for it. He wrestled with the suspect and ripped off his mask. The would-be robber ran away...

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- More than 100 villagers scavenging gasoline from a vandalized pipeline were killed when the gushing fuel exploded in rural southeastern Nigeria, Red Cross officials and witnesses said Saturday.

Sheriff's deputies trapped and killed seven alligators Thursday in a search for the gator that fatally attacked a 12-year-old boy swimming in a Central Florida river.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Lightning struck a house in northern Vietnam, injuring 51 people who were inside watching a popular television show, an official said Saturday. The victims, mostly students aged 8 to 17, were taken to local hospitals in Lang Son province following Thursday's incident. Four adults suffered burns, while 10 children were treated for dizziness and headaches, said Hoang Van Thinh of the People's Committee of Binh Trung village, 105 miles northeast of Hanoi. The other 37 victims were treated and released. None of the victims' conditions was life-threatening, Thinh said. The village is not wired for electricity,...

Washington(Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a $400.5 billion defense bill that ends a decade-long ban on research and development of small nuclear weapons, a step critics said may heighten risks of nuclear war. The Senate voted 98-1 for its bill authorizing next year's defense programs that repeals the ban on study and development of "mini-nukes," which Congress imposed in 1993 to stem their spread to other nations. The House passed its bill 361-68, but the White House said its measure did not offer enough leeway to explore the new generation of nuclear weapons because it keeps...

<p>RABAT (Reuters) - At least 20 people were killed in four bomb attacks -- three of them car bombs -- in Morocco's commercial capital Casablanca on Friday night, the official MAP news agency said.</p> <p>The car bomb attacks targeted the Belgian consulate, a Jewish community center and the Hotel Safir, located in the old heart of the city center.</p>

I was shocked to read about the allegations, ostensibly based upon documents discovered in Iraq, that George Galloway was somehow compensated financially by the Iraqi government for championing its cause. I was shocked because, if these allegations prove to be true, then the integrity and credibility of a man for whom I have great respect would be dramatically undermined.

Lucky the bull is lucky. Despite setting his head on fire early Sunday evening, the 15-month-old bull appears to be fine, said his owner, John Sweet. The near-distaster began Sunday late Sunday afternoon in Rose Valley when Lucky wandered too close to a burn pile. Next door at an Easter egg hunt, neighbors saw the bull running around the pasture with its head ablaze. "The fire was shooting out of his mouth," said party-goer Dan Hamer. Neighbor Susan Gann interrupted the egg hunt around 5:30 p.m. and called the fire department. Not knowing what else to do, Gann called 911....

SOME NEW TOWNS IN IRAQ.... US Central Intelligence has discovered SOME NEW TOWNS... 1. Wherz-Myroof 2. Mykamel-Izded 3. Oshit-Disisabad 4. Waddi-El-Izgowinon 5. Pleez-Ztopdishit 6. Kizz-Yerass-Goodbi 7. Ikantstan-Disnomore 8. Wha-Tafuk-Wazi-Tinkin 9. Myturbin-Izburnin

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE -- A new conventional bomb whose blast releases shock waves that can be felt miles away is scheduled to be tested at a range here, possibly within a week, officials said Saturday. The 21,000-pound bomb is known as a MOAB, or "massive ordnance air burst." A bomb known as a "daisy cutter," the 15,000-pound BLU-82, is currently billed as the world's most powerful non-nuclear explosive. Eglin spokesman Jake Swinson would not give a date for when the bomb would be tested, but said Saturdaythatit would probably be within a week. Pentagon officials declined to comment on...

Sunday, Feb. 16, 2003 On the question of Iraq, America's oldest ally has turned into one of its principal adversaries, as Paris and Washington disagree about whether United Nations inspectors should be given more time to do their job. The French President doesn't feel isolated. In fact, he told TIME in an exclusive interview in the Elysee Palace, he's ready to offer some "friendly advice" to President Bush on how the American Chief Executive might honorably back away from the brink of war. Excerpts: Do last week's U.N. inspectors' reports mark a turning point in the debate over Iraq? In...

But more informal Web writing makes for just as fascinating reading. A nearly two-month long Space.com thread that tracked the shuttle’s progress is, as one poster puts it, “Almost like a dark novel, full of foreboding, clues to the pending disaster.” A FreeRepublic.com thread is equally sad. The “Mission Status Center” at SpaceFlightNow.com contains another minute-by-minute account of the shuttle’s flight.