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LOANGO, Ala. (AP) - After three requests for a $20 donation went unanswered, a small church got $200 from former President Clinton to help maintain a cemetery where his great-great grandparents are buried. An official at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church said the church received a $200 check Sept. 6 from a Clinton bank account in New York. Clinton's name wasn't on the cashier's check, but the chairman of the church's cemetery committee, Pete Lowe, said an aide to the former president confirmed it came from him. The aide also said an apparent mix-up in communications prevented Clinton from responding to...

BARF ALERT! NEW YORK - Martina Navratilova defended comments about the United States she made to a German magazine last month and said she may run for public office one day. Navratilova complained in the German weekly Die Zeit that money matters too much in her adopted homeland and that she "exchanged one system that suppressed freedom of opinion for another." "It's depressing — decisions from America are based only on how much money comes out of them in the end, and not on the question of how much health, ethics or the environment suffer," Navratilova was quoted as saying....

LONDON - Environmentalists won their final bout against the world of beefcake wrestlers Monday as Britain's top court ruled that the World Wildlife Fund, not the World Wrestling Federation, owned the WWF initials. The ruling by the House of Lords, published Monday without any accompanying reasoning, upholds a High Court ban last year preventing the wrestlers from using the WWF initials to which the environmentalists claimed sole ownership. However, Monday's ruling was in any case largely academic after the wrestlers officially changed their name to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc last month and with it their initials to WWE. The ban...

Indian police have issued pictures of the Monkey Man killer, amid reports he has claimed his second victim. A pregnant woman died after falling down stairs at her East Delhi home as her family fled from the creature. Officers in Ghaziabad are offering to pay £75 to anyone who can capture Monkey Man on film. Around 1,000 officers are involved in the search. Vigilantes are taking to the streets frustrated at the police's failure to catch him. In Noida, a mechanic wearing a black outfit and fitting a description of the Monkey Man was beaten up. A second man was...

Albright accused President Bush's foreign policy team of suffering from "untreated bipolar disorder," saying the Bush administration is projecting contradictory messages on a broad range of global conflicts, including the Middle East and Afghanistan.AP PhotoBARF ALERT! In response to scathing criticism by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Bush administration said Monday it speaks clearly on U.S. foreign policy — and otherwise declined to take Albright on. "I don't think I am going to get into a back-and-forth," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. On Sunday, in a commencement speech at Tufts University, Albright criticized President Bush and his...

Chelsea Clinton smiles amongst her favorite flowers, tulips, at the annual Chelsea Flower Show in London, Monday May 20, 2002.

Debbie Smith, left, a rape victim from Williamsburg, Va., talks to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., center, and Linda Fairstein, former chief of the New York District Attorney's Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit, right, on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Both Smith and Fairstein testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee subcommittee on using DNA evidence to find and convict perpetrators of sexual assaults.

TAMPA - The other U.S. president - Martin Sheen, a k a President Josiah Bartlet on the popular ``The West Wing '' television drama - is getting into real Florida politics. He'll be here in June to campaign for Janet Reno for governor, making stops in Miami, Orlando and maybe Tampa, the campaign announced Tuesday. For thousands of fans, one question must be answered immediately. No, there are no plans for Sheen to be joined by other cast members like tough-love dispensing press secretary C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) or heartthrob speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe). But political observers are...

Cher, left, talks to talk show host Oprah Winfrey about four decades of stardom during a taping in Chicago on Tuesday, April 30, 2002, for an upcoming show. Cher will kick off her Living Proof Farewell Tour in Toronto on June 14.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Considering a run for the presidency, John Kerry is trying to assure voters that he's more than just another Democrat from the liberal state of Massachusetts. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran, a former anti-war activist, a one-time prosecutor and a senator with what he calls an independent and balanced record in Congress. Even as he lists his credentials, Kerry suggests the Massachusetts label isn't a problem. Fellow Massachusetts politician Michael Dukakis won the Democratic nomination in 1988, he said, and the last president from Massachusetts "was pretty well regarded." Kerry — whose middle name is Forbes...

Tom Daschle - Photo by: AP THE city's Democratic roots will be showing Monday when a slew of out-of-state candidates arrive at the place where the money is. Senate majority leader Tom Daschle will be feted at the Park Avenue apartment of Barbaralee Diamonstein and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel with a cocktail party, following the lunch Daschle is giving at the Pierre for New York state attorney general Eliot Spitzer. (Spitzer will have only a sacrificial GOP lamb opposing him this year, so he'll have spare campaign money to help national Democratic candidates.) That morning former Sen. Bob Kerrey, president...

SOURCES close to Bill Clinton tell me that the former president will make what they call "a major public policy statement" about the fraught situation in the Middle East, probably within the next week. They say that Clinton feels enough time has now passed since he left the White House to start speaking out publicly about major issues. Clinton gave a hint of this Saturday night when he told reporters before a Texas fund-raiser that he supports Secretary of State Colin Powell's peace efforts. He added, "There has to be justice and economic opportunities for the Palestinians." I hope...

SOUTHINGTON, Conn. --BARF ALERT!!!! At most political dinners, the kitchen crew would much rather stack dirty plates than come out to listen to the oratory. But three dozen waiters and waitresses stood in rapt attention at the back of the ballroom Monday night to hear the featured speaker at the Connecticut Democratic Party's annual fundraising gala. Bill Clinton did not disappoint them. Near the end of his 35-minute address, the former president paused to acknowledge the service staff. He did not pander, nor express empty gratitude. Instead Clinton declared, as he stared at the back of the room, ''I want...

<p>NEW YORK — Those crazy kids in South Park have finally killed off Kenny for good.</p> <p>The creators of the popular, low-brow Comedy Central cartoon say the hooded, mumbling character — who as a running joke died brutally during almost 80 episodes — will not be returning from the grave this time.</p>

The American Taliban’s defense team hopes to prove that Lindh stayed with the Taliban out of fear, not love or loyalty Walker Lindh with prosecution and defense lawyers at a Feb. 15 court appearance When John Walker Lindh was captured in Afghanistan last December, ,b>he told reporters that he joined the Taliban because his “heart became attached to them.” But according to documents his lawyers filed in federal court in Virginia on Friday, Lindh actually feared his comrades more than he loved them. After learning of the September 11 attacks, the documents say, Lindh “was obviously disillusioned...and wanted to leave...

March 12 — Just days after it was revealed that there is a “shadow government” in place underground somewhere outside of Washington, D.C., former Vice-President Al Gore was trounced in his bid to become president of it. SUBTERRANEAN VOTERS GAVE the former vice-president a scant 38 percent of the vote, with 59 percent going to Buford T. Bush, an amateur motocross competitor and a distant cousin of President George W. Bush. Mr. Gore had campaigned aggressively for the job of Shadow President, which may have been part of the problem, underground voters said. “If you think he’s irritating when he’s...

Alec Baldwin -Photo by: AP ALEC "Bloviator" Baldwin was in Tallahassee on Wednesday - much to the surprise of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "He had promised he would leave the country if my brother got elected," Bush said. "Well he's back, I guess." Baldwin - with People for the American Way to criticize Florida officials for not doing more to reform elections - testily replied: "You can tell Gov. Bush to rest assured that I'm not going to leave the country because we have to get him out of office and we have to get his brother out of ...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday suspended former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker from practicing law before the high court, a routine step that followed the one-time Clinton associate's conviction on Whitewater charges. The court gave Tucker 40 days to say why he should not be permanently disbarred. Suspension or disbarment at the Supreme Court typically follows discipline in state courts. In Tucker's case, the high court was following up on a state judge's decision to strip Tucker of his Arkansas law license in September. Membership in the Supreme Court bar is largely honorary, with few lawyers ever ...

SPEAKING of the former first family, "Anonymous" author Joe Klein, who made millions on his Bubba novel "Primary Colors" and is following up with "The Natural: The Presidency of Bill Clinton," admits he's never got a handle on his subject. Klein tells the new issue of Book magazine that after lengthy conversations with Clinton, "I don't feel that I've ever gotten inside him personally." He notes that someone can be with Bill for hours and think they've got very close. "Then an hour later you wonder how much of it was real." Monica would back Joe up on that. ...

The ranking of the world's richest people as estimated by Forbes magazine. Listings include rank, name, home country, age where known, wealth in billions of dollars and source of the money. 1. Gates, William H. III, United States, 46, $52.8, Microsoft 2. Buffett, Warren E., United States, 71, $35.0, Berkshire Hathaway 3. Albrecht, Karl and Theo, Germany, $26.8, retail 4. Allen, Paul G., United States, 49, $25.2, Microsoft 5. Ellison, Lawrence J., United States, 57, $23.5, Oracle 6. Walton, Jim C., United States, 54, $20.8, Wal-Mart 7. Walton, John T., United States, 56, $20.7, Wal-Mart 8. Walton, Alice L., ...