Free Republic

Consumers are being urged to buy powerful vacuum cleaners while they can after it emerged that some of the most powerful models on the market will disappear in September when a new EU rule comes into force. An EU energy label, to be introduced from 1 September, means manufacturers will not be able to make or import vacuum cleaners with a motor that exceeds 1,600 watts.The Which? consumer group said many of its Best Buy models had motor sizes that exceeded this, “so if you’re in the market for a powerful vacuum, you should act quickly, before all of the...

(Reuters) - A fire that caused an estimated $400 million in damage to a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine docked in Maine may have been caused by a vacuum cleaner, authorities said on Wednesday. The fire in the forward compartment - which includes crew living, command and control spaces and the torpedo room - of the USS Miami on May 23 took about 12 hours to extinguish and injured seven firefighters. "Preliminary findings indicate the fire started in a vacuum cleaner used to clean work sites at end of shift, and stored in an unoccupied space," the shipyard's public affairs office...

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton campaigns for Congressional candidates in Chicago October 23, 2006. REUTERS/John Gress (UNITED STATES)

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Eric Clapton is playing "Cocaine" in concert again. The recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who founded the Crossroads Centre addiction recovery center on the Caribbean island of Antigua, stopped performing the song written by J.J. Cale when he first got sober. "I thought that it might be giving the wrong message to people who were in the same boat as me," Clapton recently told The Associated Press. "But further investigation proved ... the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song. And so I thought that might be a better way to...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Bill Clinton reveled in the spotlight on Thursday as political friend and foe alike, including two presidents named Bush, helped him dedicate his $165 million presidential library, which highlights his achievements with a little bit of Monica Lewinsky mixed in. Only 91-year-old Gerald Ford was among former presidents absent, a group that grew smaller last summer with the death of Ronald Reagan. Democrat Jimmy Carter, 80, and Republican George Bush, 80, and his son, President Bush, and their wives, attended a rain-soaked ceremony on the bank of the Arkansas River. The event featured 30,000 of...

I am informed that Roger Clinton has not been paying the court-ordered child support payments for his daughter in Tennessee. According to the information, Roger is now $9,000 behind in his payments to her. Attempts by the girl's mother to serve legal papers on Roger Clinton have been unsuccessful so far. It was also reported a few weeks ago that Roger Clinton is now divorced and owed his ex-wife and son more than $24,000 in overdue child support and spousal payments. (See Clinton’s Cash Crisis Could Mean Jail). So these bills for overdue support payments are piling up fast....