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We don’t want to be dramatic, but NASA just ruined our lives. For the first time in 3,000 years, they’ve decided to update the astrological signs. This means that the majority of us are about to experience a total identity crisis. Apparently, these changes are due to the fact that the constellations are not in the same position in the sky that they once were, and the star signs are about a month off now, as a result. To further confuse things, there is now a new, 13th sign, called Ophiuchus, which those born between November 29 and December 17...

WASHINGTON -- As the Internal Revenue Service prepares to implement a new program that sends private debt collection agencies after delinquent taxpayers, critics -- including several lawmakers and the employee union at the Treasury Department -- are gearing up to protest it. Opponents say the IRS will pay private debt collectors more to do what government-paid employees could do and that the agency is not doing enough to let the public know about the new program, set to launch in early September. "I think taxpayers will be very offended and appalled that their tax information is being handed over to"...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Wednesday announced it was giving $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to help it through a financial crisis. A senior Bush administration official said it hoped the aid would encourage additional donations from other countries "at a time when the Palestinian Authority is in desperate need of budget support to pay its bills, maintain stability and allow it to focus on the larger question of governing." The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to falling tax revenues during four years of violence which has paralyzed the Palestinian...

Metro should seek alternatives to light rail, he says IRVING - Houston leaders responded with enthusiasm Friday to an apparent warming of relations between U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the Metropolitan Transit Authority. "I consider this to be a real positive, and perhaps a turning point, for improved mass transit in our region," Mayor Bill White said. "Metro has established a good relationship with Mr. DeLay, which is critical to getting the mass-transit funding we need." DeLay, who has opposed Metro rail plans for more than a decade and blocked federal funds for the Main Street light rail...

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Palestinians are mocking and laughing at American casualties in Iraq in their press and elsewhere, an independent Israeli media watchdog group said on Tuesday. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Director Itamar Marcus said that while the Palestinians have been criticizing America in their media for years, the hatred has recently been ratcheted up. Established in 1996, PMW monitors and analyzes Palestinian Arabic language media. "[The Palestinians] have been condemning America since 1997," said Marcus in a telephone interview. "Anti-American cartoons mocking American dead [have] reached a new level of hatred." In a cartoon printed in the Palestinian Authority's...

Jibril Rajoub, senior security advisor to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, has been quoted as blasting the Bush administration as ruled by the "Zionist Right," and urging stronger resistance to a "fascist" America's occupation of Iraq. Rajoub's remarks were published this week in the Arabic-language al Hakayik newspaper, and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. Rajoub was quoted as telling the London-based paper that America was "fascistic" and was acting as though it were the "policeman of the world." "At this moment, the Arabs must arise," he continued. "Iraqi resistance to the occupation must be stepped up." The...

The United States Forest Service, now battling one of the worst fire seasons in history, "misplaced" about $215 million intended for wildfire management because of an accounting error, a watchdog group contends. The Forest Service says the money is being recovered. Taxpayers for Common Sense, an advocacy group based in Washington, made public on Friday an internal memorandum from the Forest Service chief, Dale Bosworth, that said the error, made nearly two years ago, had been discovered as the agency tried to improve its accounting practices. The Forest Service expects to spend a record $1.5 billion this year to fight...