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Is Hillary Clinton’s campaign pulling the plug on its hopes to win the batlleground state of battleground states: Ohio? That’s what CNN’s Jeff Zeleny wondered this morning as he noted Clinton has not been in the state since her epic Cleveland coughing fit on Labor Day.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSFZTd9PgRs “So long Ohio? It’s been 20 days Hillary Clinton has stepped foot into this class battleground state, and she’s not expected to visit it again in the month of September,” Zeleny said. But it’s not because the campaign believes she has it sewn up, but rather the opposite. “That is a nod to the...

A Chaldean Catholic priest who was kidnapped and tortured by Islamic militants a decade ago in Iraq said Tuesday in Washington that while the American invasion of his country in 2003 was a “big mistake,” President Obama’s decision to withdraw American troops in 2011 was “a bigger mistake.” After Obama ignored his generals’ recommendations and pulled the last U.S. troops out of Iraq, the president boasted that “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq… This is an extraordinary achievement, nearly nine years in the making.” But Fr. Douglas Bazi, a priest at the Mar Elias Catholic Church in...

Everybody knew that Israel's move to build new settlements in the previously off-limits area outside Jerusalem known as E1 would anger friends and enemies alike. But few probably guessed that it would send European ambassadors fleeing the country. According to a new report from Haaretz, that's exactly what the diplomats from France and Britain are thinking. More specifically, the Haaretz report cites senior European diplomats who say that the two countries are considering "the unprecedented step of recalling their ambassadors." One told the paper, "This time it won't just be a condemnation, there will be real action taken against Israel."

Fit your dog with a cart-pulling harness. This special harness has extra padding and comes low across the dog's back legs to distribute the weight for pulling. If it's a weight-pulling harness, there may be a special bar in the back to keep straps from squeezing the dog's legs as he pulls. Once he is pulling at your cue, start adding bits of weight to the cart. Toys or rocks work well. Eventually the cart should be pulling weight as heavy as the kids or stuff you want him to pull around. He should follow your commands respectfully, especially "Stay,"...

GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Russia announced to the West it would begin withdrawing forces from Georgia on Monday after a war that dealt a humiliating blow to the Black Sea state and raised fears for energy supplies to Europe. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had told him by telephone that forces would begin leaving around midday on Monday. Sarkozy, representing the European Union, said failure to pull out under a ceasefire deal would have "serious consequences" for ties with the EU. Sunday saw no evidence of fighting, but Russian troops continued to man...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan predicted on Thursday the United Nations would avert a budget crisis threatened at the end of the month over the slow pace of U.N. reforms and implicitly warned the United States against trying to "pull the plug" on the world body. "The reform will proceed, and the cap on the budget will be lifted. There will be no crisis as far as I can see this month," Annan told a news conference. Rich nations, pushed by the United States, imposed a cap on the U.N. budget in December in hopes of increasing pressure...

An 8 X 12-foot trailer filled with 42 illegal immigrants crashed on Tucson’s Southwest side Wednesday morning, and the driver of the truck pulling the trailer fled the scene. This all started around 8:00 a.m. when Border Patrol tried to pull over a suspicious truck. The truck was pulling a trailer and it sped off east on Aho Way, weaving in and out of traffic. The vehicle smashed into a light post, knocking the light post over into the street. After the crash, the driver of the truck jumped out and unhitched the trailer, leaving 42 people to fend for...

DUBAI (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton (news - web sites) said he believed his successor George W. Bush would work more actively to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gave him a "50-50" chance of success. "The United States should be more active in the search for Middle East peace. It think it (the Bush administration) will be," Clinton told the opening of a three-day Arab Strategy Forum. "I think there is a 50-50 chance of success," said Clinton, one of a host of world figures taking part in the gathering entitled "The Arab World in 2020" in Dubai,...

This is just a reminder that before one posts an article, one should check to see if the article has been previously posted in order to avoid duplication.Duplication causes several problems. Just like the old Monty Python skit about spam, if the same thing is posted over and over, it can drown out other valid posts. It needlessly consumes system resources. It fragments discussion.In general, moderators will pull duplicate postings when we are alerted to them or when we notice them. This has the benefit of eliminating the "spam" effect and it helps keep discussion from being fragmented. However, it...