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Elginite and former U46 school board member Douglas Heaton asked for a simple explanation of what Elgin police are doing locally to enforce immigration laws. He was met with silence, at least until newspaper articles about his frustration at the lack of response were published. One would think that a city council that hurried along a proposed ordinance seeking acceptance of a Matricula card as a valid form of identification locally would at least treat a request from one of its citizens with the same dispatch. Heaton got his response, and although it was not what he had hoped for,...

President Bush was in no mood for diplomatic niceties at the G8 summit, judging by remarks made to Tony Blair as the leaders of the world's most powerful industrial democracies sat down to lunch today. Unaware that a microphone at the summit was switched on, Mr Bush, chomping a piece of bread, used the opportunity to suggest a way out of the latest criss in the Middle East. "See, the irony is what they really need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s***," he said. Mr Bush also hinted that Condoleezza Rice, the...

Saying he was fine, former Secretary of State Colin Powell returned to a seminar Friday after being briefly hospitalized following a dinner with former President Clinton and others. Powell, 69, arrived on time for a panel discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival and showed no signs that he had been sick the night before. "I'm fine. I look healthy, don't I?" he told the Aspen Daily News after the hour-long session. "I started hyperventilating a little and was feeling a little altitude sickness, I think. "I probably would have been OK but they said, 'Oh god, let's take a look...

By Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 18/06/2006) The American spy who persuaded Libya to renounce its weapons of mass destruction is to return to the Central Intelligence Agency, where he will direct an aggressive drive to recruit informants inside Iran to aid possible negotiations over Teheran's nuclear capability. Stephen Kappes, a former United States Marines officer who resigned from the CIA after a clash with its then director, Porter Goss, has been brought back from self-imposed exile in London by George W Bush. Iran will be top of his agenda. "He's a remarkable guy, a talented leader and among the...

A man is suing an auto-parts store for assault and battery after he attempted to hold up the business and employees responded by beating him with a metal pipe. Dana Buckman, 46, walked into an auto shop brandishing a semiautomatic pistol July 5, 2005, only to have it turned on him by employees Eli Crespo and Jerry Vega, police said. The men beat Buckman with a metal pipe and held him with his own gun. Buckman escaped, only to be arrested a week later. He pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and was sentenced to 18 years in prison as a...

Is it Rush or Best of? His Website does not say

Did you know that Pat Robertson, through rigorous training, leg pressed 2,000 pounds? How did he do it? ...Where does Pat find the time and energy to host a daily national TV show, head a worldwide ministry, develop visionary scholars, while traveling the globe as a statesman? One of Pat's secrets to keeping his energy high and his vitality soaring is his age-defying protein shake...

While promoters of "The Da Vinci Code" have tried to downplay the film's challenge to Christianity, actor Ian McKellen took a shot at the Bible in an interview with the "Today" show, saying Scripture should carry a disclaimer that it is "fiction." McKellen, who played Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" triology, was responding to a question from host Matt Lauer about the requests by some Christian groups to insert a "fiction" disclaimer at the beginning of the controversial film, which suggests Jesus and Mary Magdalene were man and wife and that the divinity of Jesus was an invention...

Steelers fan-instructor makes teenager sit on floor, tells classmates to pelt him An ethnic studies high-school teacher and die-hard Steelers fan in Pittsburgh has "humiliated" one of his students who wore a Denver Broncos jersey to class, making the boy sit on the floor and having his classmates pelt him with paper. According to a report in the Denver Post, Joshua Vannoy, 17, showed up for his midterm test sporting a John Elway No. 7 Broncos jersey. Not only did his teacher at Beaver Falls High School, John Kelly, make him take the test while sitting on the floor, he...

Ky. Gov. Refuses Pamela Anderson's RequestBy ROGER ALFORD, Associated Press WriterFRANKFORT, Ky. - With a bust in the balance, Kentucky's governor is siding with Colonel Sanders over Pamela Anderson. Gov. Ernie Fletcher wrote the "Stacked" actress to say a bust of the KFC founder will stay in the Kentucky Capitol, despite Anderson's claim that Sanders is a symbol of cruelty to chickens. "Colonel Sanders remains a Kentucky icon," Fletcher wrote last week. "His success story has been an inspiration to many. The industry he began has employed hundreds of thousands of workers over the years. His business and his legacy...

LOS ANGELES - Former teen idol Leif Garrett is hooked on heroin, his mom says - and she blames hard-partying rock 'n' roll legends like the Rolling Stones for steering her son toward drugs. "Leif idolized rock stars ... that whole life of rock 'n' roll and drugs ... the Rolling Stones. He figured if they could do it, so could he," Garrett's distraught mother, Carolyn Stellar, told the Daily News yesterday.

PLANS to erect the Australian flag over the Bondi Beach pavilion were vetoed because of fears the symbols could incite further racial violence on Sydney's beaches. In a decision met with outrage from residents, returned servicemen and ethnic groups, Waverley Council voted six to four against the proposal, declaring Australia's most famous beach should remain clear of flags to "remove provocation". Mayor Mora Main and fellow Green George Copeland led a block of Labor councillors, including deputy mayor George Newhouse, Peter Moscatt and Ingrid Strewe, vetoing the plan by Liberal councillor Joy Clayton on December 13. The Australian flag and...

Tehran, 22 Nov. (AKI) - Iran's religious authorities in the holy Shiite city of Qom have officially invited Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, to convert to Islam, according to Hojatolislam Mohammad Reza Hakimi, quoted by Iran's Farda news agency. "I met Castro together with the Iranian foreign minister, Saiid Salili, and gave him some sacred Islamic texts translated into Spanish," said Hakimi, who recently returned from a government visit to Cuba. "We spoke with Castro for several hours, and I think I almost managed to convince him to become a Muslim," Hakimi added. "Castro certain that Cuba is suffering from...

Using a digital camera dangling from a line nearly 3,300 feet long, scientists for the first time have photographed a live giant squid, the tentacled deep-sea monster that is the largest invertebrate on Earth. *SNIP* "the recovered section of tentacle was still functioning," they continued, "with the large suckers of the tentacle club repeatedly gripping the boat deck and any offered fingers."

Murder and rape - fact or fiction? Gary Younge in Baton Rouge Tuesday September 6, 2005 Guardian There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre. In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out. But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal. New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or...

Russian Sub Surfaces; All Seven Crew Alive By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer Seven submarine crew members trapped for nearly three days under the Pacific Ocean were rescued Sunday after a British remote-controlled vehicle cut away the undersea cables that had snarled the vessel. The seven crew members, whose oxygen supplies had been dwindling amid underwater temperatures in the mid-40s, appeared to be in satisfactory condition, naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. The seven were being examined by ship medics, he said. The sub surfaced late Sunday afternoon, some three days after becoming stranded in 600 feet of water off...

Giant 'Bra Fence' Sparks Controversy Official Says Fence Offends Asian Cultures, South Africans POSTED: 1:15 pm EDT July 29, 2005 UPDATED: 1:24 pm EDT July 29, 2005 A New Zealand man is resisting demands to take down hundreds of women's bras strung on his farm's fence after their night of drinking, according to a Local 6 News report. "It was probably a novelty for the first six months but I think it's passed and we need to move on," said chairman Bill Gordon. "This town has got lot of Japanese students who get educated here. They are very offended by...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Pyongyang Radio Acting Strangely [Yonhap News, 06/06/05]Wang Gil-hwan Seoul -- As of 10am today, N. Korea's propaganda broadcast station, Pyongyang Radio, was transmitting the exact same content they did the day before(June 5th broadcast.) Pyongyang Radio started its broadcast at 6am(today) with "Good morning fellow S. Koreans, it is June 5th, Sunday, and April 29th in lunar calendar. We are starting today's broadcast now." It also aired the program schedule for today which contained the exact copy of  Sunday morning broadcast.Following this repeat schedule, it broadcast 'Kim Il-sung's memoir' at 6:30am, news at 7am, 'With the lofty vision of support' at...

U.S. Agents Raid Fla. Migrant Labor Camp The Associated Press Sunday, June 5, 2005; 10:29 AM EAST PALATKA, Fla. -- Federal agents raided a migrant farm labor camp where homeless men and women were kept in what labor officials called a version of modern-day slavery. Four people, including the camp's owner, Ronald Evans, face federal charges in a case that officials said is likely to grow. Investigators are looking into alleged environmental violations and drugs found at the camp in Friday's raid. "The word is out that we are concerned about human trafficking, and we will leave no stone or...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Former President Clinton said Wednesday the political changes in Iraq, including parliamentary elections in January, will help bring stability to the region. Clinton met with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and a number of Danish lawmakers during his visit. The former president spoke with reporters before flying to Jordan for a poverty conference. "The Sunnis and the Shiites, the Kurds and all the various tribes can work out accommodations that will allow them to build a stable society, I think that will be good for Iraq and good for the Middle East," Clinton said at...