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LONDON (AFP) - The producers of the hugely successful James Bond film franchise have chosen British actor Daniel Craig to take over the role of the suave super-spy, a report said. The 37-year-old has been offered a three-film deal by Bond producer Barbara Broccoli and is expected to sign up formally in the next few weeks, The Sun newspaper reported Wednesday. Craig, a tough-looking character actor who has mixed up appearances in many art-house titles with roles in blockbusters such as "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", just beat fellow Briton Clive Owen for the role, the report said. Craig would be...

DELTONA, Fla. - Even though the dishes, garbage and dirty laundry were piling up, homeowners Cat and Harlan Barnard were getting no help from their two children. After begging and pleading with their 17-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter to help out around the house, the Barnards decided they were fed up. So they went on strike — and moved out to the front yard. "This was our last-ditch effort," Cat Barnard said. Since Monday morning, the Barnards have lived in a tent in their front yard, going inside the house only to use the restroom or shower. The couple sits...

According to Benjamin Franklin himself, many of the proverbs and aphorisms found in "Poor Richard's Almanack" were gleaned from the "wisdom of the ages and nations." In the dictums and maxims that follow, one hears echoes of the Bible, the ancients, and collections of proverbs readily available in Franklin's own time. Yet, in recrafting many older sayings, Franklin, who was among other things an inventor and musician, brought new design and melody to timeworn truisms. Franklin once created a list of 13 virtues to live by. This baker's dozen included temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness,...

BOSTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry received communion from a Catholic priest Saturday, one day after a top Vatican cardinal said politicians who support abortion rights should be denied the Eucharist. Kerry took communion during the 6 p.m. mass at Boston's Paulist Center, where campaign spokesman David Wade said the candidate regularly worships. The church is close to the Beacon Hill home Kerry shares with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. "We're following the directive of our archdiocese," said Father Joe Ciccone, who gave Kerry the Eucharist. "They have said we should give him communion." The Paulist Center attracts Catholics...

An inch-thick stack of allegedly stolen cell-phone records has touched off another firestorm in an increasingly ugly Philadelphia mayoral campaign. Each side is crying foul and lawyers are threatening to sue anyone divulging the contents of those records. Federal Postal Inspectors are being asked to investigate the possible theft of U.S. mail in this case — which would constitute a felony. The records are for the private cell phone of Michael Williams, better known as Michael Youngblood — former City Council aide, convict and confidant of mayoral hopeful Sam Katz. A cover sheet attached to the records attempts to draw...

Pittsburgh-AP) -- A teacher's aide who was suspended without pay in April for wearing a cross necklace in violation of a school agency's ban on religious emblems will keep her job under a federal court settlement reached today. Brenda Nichol's attorneys will also receive unspecified attorneys fees as part of the settlement with the ARIN Intermediate Unit 28, which provides to 11 public school districts in Armstrong and Indiana counties. The agency has since dropped the policy, which prevented employees from wearing any religious garb or emblems at work. The lawsuit was brought by the American Center for Law and...

PITTSBURGH -- Channel 11 News has learned Pittsburgh police are investigating a claim that a Florida Marlins baseball player sexually assaulted a woman at the Westin Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. Channel 11 News reporters and photographers witnessed police detectives removing evidence from the hotel Thursday afternoon. Sources tell us the assault allegedly took place at the hotel sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday morning. Those same sources tell us the woman was treated and released from a local hospital. Sources identify the player as catcher Ramon Castro. According to Castro's biography on the Florida Marlins' Web site, he is a...

With trial lawyers snuffling, "food police" threatening, and the Health and Human Services Secretary preaching, it's no wonder that Kraft Foods felt the pressure and unveiled its global healthy foods campaign on July 1. Kraft, the second-largest food company in the world with instant brand recognition for its Kraft cheeses, Nabisco cookies and crackers, Oscar Meyer meats, Post cereals, and Philadelphia cream cheese, announced a global plan to do its part in combating obesity. Their strategy is a combination of reducing portion sizes, putting even more information on labels, restricting its marketing, and educating consumers about healthy living. Oh, and...

BERLIN - Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is threatening to cancel his planned summer vacation in Italy after a member of the Italian government branded Germans as "stereotyped blondes" with a "hyper-nationalist pride," a Berlin daily reported Monday. Stefano Stefani, undersecretary in Italy's Industry Ministry called Germany a "country intoxicated with arrogant certainties" in an open letter published Friday in the Northern League party's newspaper, La Padania. "We know the Germans well, these stereotyped blondes with a hyper-nationalist pride who have always been indoctrinated to be first in the class at any cost," Stefani wrote. The letter comes on the heels of...

OAKLYN, N.J. - Matthew Lovett was known as an angry young man: He dressed all in black, drew violent pictures and walked around town with a baseball bat. Acquaintances said he kept a list of people who had teased him as far back as grade school. Early Sunday, Lovett, 18, was arrested with two other teenagers on charges they plotted to kill three teens and open fire randomly on other people with a cache of guns and ammunition they were carrying. Lovett was being held on $1 million bail Monday. Authorities would not discuss a possible motive, but people who...

In June 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller spoke at the American Muslim Council's 11th annual convention, despite the group's vocal support for terrorism. At the time, Mueller defended his decision, describing AMC through a spokesman as "the most mainstream Muslim group in America." In fact, AMC has consistently opposed U.S. counterterrorism efforts, and has defended terrorists. AMC's latest project in support of terror is its defense of South Florida Professor and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian. Last month, AMC president Aly Abuzaqouk and former executive director Eric Vickers testified as character witnesses on al-Arian's behalf at his bond hearing....

<p>This week, the Senate marks a dismal political anniversary: Two years of partisan obstruction of President Bush's judicial nominees, culminating in two unprecedented filibusters. More are threatened. Never before has the judicial confirmation process been so broken, and the constitutional principles of judicial independence and majority rule so undermined.</p>

A rift between the parents of a 23-month-old Conemaugh Township boy has spilled into Indiana County Court. While the tot's parents are fighting over his custody, a judge this week granted a protection-from-abuse order to one of them. Criminal-assault charges are pending against the other. Both parents are women. Annette Dunmire, 46, of Saltsburg Road, has asked the court to grant her permanent physical custody of a child whom she has raised with 37-year-old Cathleen Burgess of Briarwood Road, White Township. According to the court papers, Dunmire wants the the boy to live only in her home but wants Burgess...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 12 — The business of staffing a new Iraqi government began literally in front of American tanks today. Job-seekers showed up at a hotel here, in response to a radio announcement, and a translator near the tanks ordered the men into lines: police to the right, doctors to the left. Marines set up lines for electricians, engineers, sanitation workers. "We need new police, honest police!" shouted Magdad al-Jaburi, 45, who was seeking to reclaim the job as a police captain he said he lost 10 years ago. "A new government, a democratic government!" Finding a new top...

WASHINGTON - Jessica Lynch, the soldier rescued in a daring commando raid in Iraq, returned to the United States on Saturday to recover from her head-to-toe injuries at the Army's premier medical center. Lynch, 19, was taken by ambulance from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a huge campus several miles from downtown Washington. Some four-dozen wounded soldiers also were on the flight from Germany. The former POW from Palestine, W.Va. was carried on a stretcher down the rear cargo ramp of the huge C-17 aircraft, while her parents entered a van. A convoy...

<p>This is a partial transcript from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, April 10, 2003.</p> <p>GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Tonight, FOX News has learned that, at the start of the war, there were a flurry of calls between Baghdad and the Iraqi ambassador to Syria stationed in Damascus--who's reportedly a close associate of Saddam's son--and there are numerous intelligence reports suggesting Saddam's first wife and daughters are hiding in Syria. Who else is there?</p>

BERN, Switzerland - Switzerland said Wednesday it would freeze all Iraqi government and corporate assets in Swiss banks until the U.N. Security Council determines the rightful owners. The decision was the government's "answer" to last month's U.S. demand that other countries confiscate frozen Iraqi assets so the money could be used by a postwar Iraqi government, a Foreign Ministry statement said. "The measures taken by Switzerland fulfill completely the request that all assets of the Iraqi state should be preserved for the people of Iraq," the statement said. The move tightens restrictions in compliance with U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's...

NEW ORLEANS - The advance of U.S. troops into Baghdad is proof that early criticism of the war's plans was misguided, Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday. The war is "one of the most extraordinary military campaigns ever conducted," Cheney said, speaking to the annual convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors. "With every day, with every advance of our coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent," Cheney said. He dismissed critics as "retired military officers embedded in TV studios." Cheney said the war has sent a clear message to all violent groups that the United...

WASHINGTON, April 8 (AFP) - A US congressman and anti-war activist on Tuesday revived his proposal for the creation of a "US Department of Peace" to be headed by a cabinet-level official on a par with the secretary of state or secretary of defense. Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich, a presidential candidate and an outspoken critic of President Bush's policy on Iraq, unsuccessfully introduced similar legislation in July 2001. But he said he is reintroducing the bill because, especially during this time of war, Washington needs a peace department. "Now, more than ever, this legislation is urgently needed," Kucinich said. "Our...

With the newest war underway, the Planned Parenthood promise is not far from my thoughts: Creating hope for humanity: the freedom to dream, to make choices, and to live in peace with our planet. We are still free to dream, but we are very far from peace. This war, as any other, will claim a significant number of casualties who are noncombatant women. This war, waged in the name of freedom, cannot ignore the rape and brutalizing of women that are, tragically, time-honored weapons of war. If we are fighting for freedom in Iraq, then most surely that freedom should...