Free Republic

<p>LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government did not mislead parliament or doctor evidence to justify the war on Iraq, a parliamentary committee concluded Monday.</p> <p>The Foreign Affairs Committee, which has been probing charges officials exaggerated intelligence on Iraq's weapons to strengthen the case for war, cleared Blair, a top aide and ministers of the allegations, made on the BBC.</p> <p>But the committee did slap the government's wrists for giving undue prominence to questionable intelligence in a September dossier on Iraq's weapons and for plagiarizing a student thesis for a second dossier published in February.</p>

OAKLAND, Calif. - Two major tobacco companies won a rare West Coast court victory when a federal judge cleared them of responsibility in the death of a lifetime smoker. U.S. District Judge Saundra B. Armstrong ruled Tuesday that there was insufficient evidence to find Philip Morris Cos. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. liable in the death of 81-year-old Frank Robert White. The verdict came shortly before jury deliberations were to begin in the case. White's children and widow argued that the man's 1999 death was caused by the companies' failure to make safer cigarettes or to provide adequate warnings of...