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Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), a onetime rising star who came to Congress 20 years ago as a next-generation reformer, was charged Wednesday with racketeering related to an off-books $1 million loan to his unsuccessful campaign for Philadelphia mayor in 2007. The Justice Department charged Fattah, a senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, and four supporters with 29 counts that included bribery, bank fraud and other corruption charges. “The public expects their elected officials to act with honesty and integrity,” said U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “By misusing campaign funds, misappropriating government funds, accepting...

My wife and I are in our mid fifties. We are grandparents. We have tried to play by the rules. Yesterday, I came home from lunch to find his and her notices in our mailbox from the IRS. The fiends have recalculated our income from a few years back and now suddenly want over 21,000 dollars in fees and penalties. They don't even audit you anymore. They just recalculate and demand payment. This is how they operate. So if this thing is worked out, we will pay five hundred bucks a month to the IRS for most of our remaining...

KIEV, April 29 (Itar-Tass) - Foodstuff prices are skyrocketing in Ukraine on the eve of May holidays. Odessa residents were the first to respond to this situation: they staged a “foodstuff” protest rally in front of the townhall, Tass learnt on Friday at the police department of the Odessa Region. Residents expressed indignation at doubled prices for meat and milk. A drop for meat prices, promised by the Ukrainian government in mid-March, has remained so far “an Easter fairy tale”. Meat producers refused to sell their goods at depressed prices, as the government demanded. Inspections of Ukrainian markets showed that...

Napster Takes On iPod With New, Portable Service 02.03.2005 1:48 PM EST New technology allows subscription service to work with portable players. Photo: Napster The music-subscription service Napster unveiled a portable version on Wednesday that will allow it to tackle Apple's popular iPod head-on. Called Napster to Go, the service includes a new technology that allows it to work with portable players. A $30 million ad campaign for the service will launch during the Super Bowl on Sunday. "Introducing the world's first portable music service," reads an ad on Napster's official site. "Now you can fill and refill your compatible...

PAUSING in the foyer of a comfortable suburban home two days before Halloween in 2002, Kevin Barrows, a special agent with the F.B.I., could not bring himself to open the front door. He and a team of agents had just spent several hours searching every room in the house, in New Rochelle, N.Y., but they were leaving empty-handed. Months of investigating had led Mr. Barrows to believe that someone was orchestrating a huge fraud from the house, yet he had not found a single scrap of evidence. Still, something bothered him about the furniture in one of the bedrooms. It...

This happened in Asheville, NC where the hippies and tree huggers have been fighting against the proposed Wal-Mart super center for years (link). Somone repeatedly drove a dumptruck trough the walls of the building under construction. The article from WLOS: Vandals hit the construction site of the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Swannanoa River Road overnight. Someone drove heavy construction equipment into the building, creating nearly one million dollars worth of damage.The vandalism will push the opening of the controversial store back about a month. Workers say security around the site will be upgraded to prevent this sort of incident from happening...

California has not exactly been the prime target for terrorists but that process could be speeded up with help from a judge who is sending the wrong message on a case of domestic terrorism. Kathleen Soliah was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group fond of assassinating innocent civilians such as Marcus Foster, the first black school superintendent in Oakland. They also robbed banks and Soliah was on the scene in 1975 when the SLA hit a bank near Sacramento and gunned down Myrna Opsahl, a 42-year old mother of four depositing church collections. The SLA gunners wrote...

Anti-Clinton Protesters Lose in Suit Against Rendell BY SHANNON P. DUFFYU.S. Courthouse Correspondent A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights suit against former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell brought by two anti-Clinton protesters who claim he was responsible for their being assaulted by five Teamsters union members in October, 1998 when President Clinton was in Philadelphia to attend a political fund-raiser. U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn, Jr. ruled that Rendell, who is now Pennsylvania's governor, cannot be held liable for the attacks because the evidence showed that he did nothing more than invite the Teamsters to attend a rally...