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PHILADELPHIA - A smiling, energetic former President Clinton (news - web sites) campaigned for Democratic Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) on Monday just seven weeks after undergoing heart surgery, telling a crowd of thousands that President Bush (news - web sites) and Republicans are trying to "scare the undecided voters" away from the Democratic nominee. "If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is," Clinton said of the enthusiastic response from the lunchtime crowd. Democratic strategists hoped Clinton's appearance in the final days of the campaign would provide a jolt of excitement that would help...

California Highway Patrol Commissioner D.O. "Spike" Helmick, who has criticized fellow officers who too liberally used past injuries to beef up their retirement benefits, is seeking that type of lucrative pension himself. On Friday, neither Helmick nor the state retirement system would describe the injuries involved. But in workers' compensation cases Helmick filed during the past three years, the 59-year-old commissioner said he injured his back falling off his office chair and hurt his knee riding a stationary bike. The cases also cited the cumulative effects of traffic accidents and scuffles. The commissioner is seeking an industrial disability retirement after...

City trying to turn table on police Eyeing pickets, contributions in PR offensive By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff July 17, 2004 City officials, scrambling to salvage the Democratic convention's opening festivities, launched a public relations offensive against Boston's police union yesterday in its intensifying battle over a new police contract. At a hastily arranged press conference called by Boston's convention organizers, small business owners said the police union is putting its own concerns before the needs of struggling small firms, including those owned by minorities. They said their businesses would lose an opportunity to prosper if the union goes ahead...

A security officer in the Israeli Embassy in Beijing caught a group of Chinese technicians last month attempting to plant electronic eavesdropping devices in the embassy's telephone lines. The officer spotted the technicians near a telephone switch box on the street near the embassy, according to the Ma'ariv newspaper. The Chinese told the Israeli guard that they were from the Chinese Foreign Ministry information security department. The officer then asked the technicians to undo the work and leave. The Chinese are known to conduct aggressive electronic eavesdropping operations on all foreign facilities in China. This was not the first time...

NEW YORK - Phil Donahue struck back at MSNBC on Wednesday for his firing, suggesting the network was too quick to pull the trigger and that it might be trying to "out-fox Fox" with conservative voices. Donahue's political talk show, a distant third in the cable news ratings in his time slot, was abruptly pulled from the air after Monday's show. The show premiered last July 15. The legendary talk show host noted that "Donahue's" ratings were better than anything else in struggling MSNBC's prime-time lineup. "It took almost three years for Fox (News Channel) to overtake CNN," Donahue said...

The rhetoric remains the same but Iran is trying to change (Filed: 02/11/2002) The revolutionary dynamo that stoked the zeal of the Muslim world would appear to have run down, reports Patrick Bishop in Teheran In the time of Ayatollah Khomeini Friday prayers at Teheran University were like a religious rock show where thousands flocked to hear the mullah's sermons. Fifteen years on the rhetoric remains the same but the congregation is greatly diminished. Last week the huge, open-sided shed on the campus was only half full as Ayatollah Mohammed Yazdi, a veteran preacher, denounced Zionists and Americans. Most of...