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WOOD RIVER JUNCTION - In an apparent attempt to make a home movie based on the popular "Matrix" film series, three teenagers were arrested on Tuesday afternoon with pellet rifles and a paintball gun outside of Chariho Middle School. The teens - two 15-year-olds from Richmond and a 16-year-old from Charlestown - were seen walking on the regional school district campus on Switch Road at 2:55 p.m. by a school clerk who called 911, said State Police Major Steven O'Donnell. The boys were dressed in black trench coats with black gloves and dark glasses, the major said. Upon receiving the...

Picture credit: TheCabal"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat"LINK TO THREAD TEN Iran seeks swap of Brits for suicide attackers Report says 40 Revolutionary Guard 'volunteers' held by UK Iran apprehended British military personnel and Navy vessels earlier this week in order to secure release of 40 "suicide operations volunteers" held by the UK, according to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard source. The source told the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the British Army command in Iraq received the demand from the Revolutionary Guard, reported the Middle East Media Research Institute. According to the source,...

<p>As President George W. Bush tries to persuade the nation that he has a plan for Iraq, he might try another tough sell: that he has a plan for the economy. While the U.S. economy continues to limp along with the unemployment rate at 5.6 percent, its vital signs are not encouraging.</p>

Blair is reacting in 'blind panic on migrants' By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 28/04/2004) The Tories accused Tony Blair last night of reacting in "blind panic" to growing public concern over immigration and asylum by promising a top-to-bottom review to tackle abuses of the system. With his leadership under the most sustained attack since he became Prime Minister, Mr Blair acknowledged that the country had reached "a crunch point" on immigration, with an expected influx of migrants from 10 countries joining the EU on Saturday. Although he denied that the Government had lost control, he adopted a more conciliatory...

The more blows he takes, the better W does in the polls In the last month or so, everything has gone wrong for President Bush. He has been criticized by members of the 9/11 commission for being lackadaisical about terrorism. Richard Clarke accused him of being weirdly obsessed with Iraq. More than 100 Americans have been killed there in the last 30 days, and Bush was so inarticulate in his recent press conference that you could say he violated the standards of his own "No Child Left Behind" policy. Still, if this keeps up, he'll win reelection in a landslide....

THE White House today blamed "domestic concerns" for the decision by Jordan's King Abdullah II to postpone a scheduled meeting with US President George W Bush.

The U.S. and other world governments already have detailed secret plans for first contact.When UFOs land, a series of plans created to deal with nuclear emergencies and biological attacks will be activated. Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division. Scientists are of two minds regarding the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Skeptics acknowledge simple life-forms might be found on other planets, but insist that intelligent life is unique to Earth. Their belief is based on the assumption that Earth possesses unique physical attributes, including a...

<p>California legislators begin each year's session with a fairly comprehensive understanding of what they're supposed to accomplish, and they certainly don't lack the resources of time and staff assistance to do their jobs. Indeed, it's interesting to note that despite the state's huge budget deficits and the certainty of severe cutbacks in state and local services, the Legislature is planning about a $10 million boost in spending on itself.</p>

Flu panic grows as death toll rises By Jan McGirk in Bangkok 25 January 2004 Thai officials were battling yesterday to contain mounting public panic over the outbreak of avian influenza, which has left millions of chickens dead and killed at least eight people across Asia. Up to 13 deaths have been linked to the disease.By the weekend it was apparent that the widespread slaughter of chickens, including burying them alive in Thailand, had failed to stop the bird flu from spreading through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, in south-east Asia, as well as South Korea and Japan. The latest reports...

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean denied that he ever suffered from "panic attacks" during a Monday morning interview with Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends," insisting that neither he nor a reporter who recently interviewed him had used that term to describe an episode where he hyperventilated upon taking office as Vermont governor in 1991. Citing a recent interview he gave to People magazine, Dean complained to "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy, "I think if you read People magazine it says no such thing. The quote that you just read, it didn't say anything about a panic attack." People's...

Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean offered more details this week on psychological counseling he underwent for anxiety attacks suffered in the 1980's - and revealed that he had a panic attack the day he took over as governor of Vermont 13 years ago. Reacting to news of Gov. Richard Snelling's death in August 1991, Dean told People Magazine, "I hyperventilated and I started hyperventilating and I thought, You better stop that or you won't be much good to anybody," The panic attack was understandable, Dean said. "To suddenly get told that you have responsibility for 600,000 people — it provokes...

<p>WASHINGTON -- As the nation stepped up security yesterday with extra police on the streets and fighter jets in the sky, a broad range of specialists warned that the color-coded terrorism alert system should be replaced because it frightens people and wastes public resources even in those cities not mentioned as possible targets in intelligence reports.</p>

Fox News reports Tuesday evening that Democrats in California are “panicking” as the Governor’s recall race goes to down to the wire. The cable network also reports that fierce infighting has developed between Gov. Gray Davis and recall candidate Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante. The Davis camp is encouraging Bustamante to withdraw from the race. According to sources, Davis’ polls show that if Bustamante pulls out, support for the recall would drop ten points. Bustamante, meanwhile, is frantically trying to raise $1 million before the last weekend TV blitz -- but is getting stiff resistance from wealthy Democrats. Fox says the...

Are We All Socialists Now?Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson would be proud of what the Republicans who run the federal government are doing now: They are planning to add a massive new element to the welfare state. Cheered on by President Bush, the Republican Senate is poised to approve a bill adding a prescription drug benefit to the already bankrupt Medicare program. So far, there is no organized resistance to the plan in the Republican House. This new entitlement is politically shortsighted, pandering to forces that could eventually smother the Republican Party. But worse, it is fiscally and morally indefensible....

VIGILANTES and police have killed hundreds of cats and dogs in the most gruesome manner as fears grow in China that pets could be spreading the Sars virus. From Guangzhou in southern China, where the virus appeared, to Beijing, where thousands of people are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome, pets have been strung up, buried alive, poisoned, thrown out of high-rise windows and beaten to death. Some pet-owners have evacuated their cats and dogs, fearful that neighbours might seize and kill them. Others have asked vets to put down their pets humanely before a mob could catch them....

Beijing residents flee `savage attack against mankind'AFPFriday, Apr 25, 2003,Page 1 China implemented drastic quarantine measures yesterday to contain the SARS epidemic after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned against travel to three new locations including Beijing, where scenes of panic erupted. After covering up severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreaks for months, China's state-run media began rallying the nation against what it called a "savage attack against mankind." The backtracking came as the global death toll from SARS rose to 261 after eight new deaths in Hong Kong and China, and the World Bank warned the epidemic was damaging...

Return of al-Qa'ida provokes panic across the world By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 17 May 2003 The United States, Britain and Australia ­ the three countries that sent ground troops to depose Saddam Hussein ­ have issued a spate of new warnings on possible terrorist attacks in Asian, Arab and African countries. But several of the countries named are complaining that the alerts are unjustified and an overreaction. In the most specific warning, the US State Department said it had received information that an attack could be launched "in the near future" against "Western interests" in the Alhamra district of...

<p>May 11, 2003 -- As SARS fears spiral out of control, hundreds of cats and dogs in China have met gruesome deaths at the hands of angry mobs who suspect pets could spread the virus - which has killed eight more people, government officials reported.</p>

An American friend of mine visiting from South America walked away from one of last month's parties around the L.A. Times Books Festival rather shaken and bewildered. "I felt like I was in a loony bin," he said as we emerged from a chic book-launch party in the Hollywood Hills. "If one more crazy person came up to me with some crackpot theory, I swear I would have thrown him off the balcony," he said. I know what he meant. With the 2004 presidential campaign now under way, it seems clear that as whacked out as George W. Bush may...

BERKELEY, Calif. - The University of California at Berkeley will turn away new students from SARS-infected China, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong this summer in what is believed to be the first such move by a major U.S. university to prevent the spread of the virus. The decision, announced on the campus Web site Friday, affects several hundred students who were planning to attend Berkeley for summer school, which begins May 27. Instead, those students will get their money back. There have been no cases of SARS at Berkeley, which has a very large enrollment from the Asian regions hit...