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HAMILTON, Ontario - The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty Monday to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, and was fined $4,000 in the public health disaster that infected thousands. More than 1,000 Canadians contracted blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others were infected with hepatitis C after receiving the tainted blood products. About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available. "(The) Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death ... for the suffering caused to families and loved ones of...

Clinton Fundraiser Says He Thought Use of Porsche Was Personal Gift By Laura Wides Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) - The former national finance director for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton testified Wednesday that he may have used bad judgment when he failed to report that a campaign donor paid his $10,000 Beverly Hills hotel bill and let him use a Porsche. But David Rosen said he never tried to hide anything. Rosen is charged with making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, which oversees campaign contributions. The defense rested after he testified, and closing statements were expected to...

In a surprise move that shocked even the judge at the trial of Hillary's Clinton's former finance director, David Rosen - prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg announced yesterday that he would not introduce the government's strongest evidence that Rosen was guilty - the Hillary aide's own tape recorded admission implicating him in election fraud. "The government does not intend to introduce the tape or elicit any testimony from the witness about that conversation," Zeidenberg told Judge A. Howard Matz. Judge Matz was stunned by Zeidenberg's announcement, and hinted that the Bush prosecutor was throwing away his case. "You couldn't keep [the tape]...

A mounting number of aides, advisors and fundraisers for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton have faced criminal prosecution in recent months, conjuring up memories of her ethically challenged past just as Democrats begin to focus on the former first lady as their probable 2008 presidential nominee. Though press coverage of the trial of Sen. Clinton's finance director, David Rosen, was sparse last week, the case has brought attention to the prosecutions of at least three more Clinton fundraisers. And that's on top of the plea bargain reached with the Justice Department in March by a senior foreign policy advisor to...

Hillary Clinton receives honorary degree, presidential 'charge' CHARLES ODUM Associated Press Posted on Sat, May. 14, 2005 Democratic U.S. Sen. and former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton applauds the just graduated women from Agnes Scott College as she joins them for a group photo after the graduation ceremony at the school in Decatur, Ga., Saturday, May 14, 2005. Clinton was on hand to deliver the commencement speech and accept an honorary degree from the all women's college. (AP Photo/John Amis) DECATUR, Ga. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday told Agnes Scott College graduates that all women must "decide what...

In a stunning development in the criminal trial of David Rosen in Los Angeles, whistleblower Peter Paul has said that he believes Andrew Grossman committed perjury in his testimony. It was Grossman's job to take the campaign info and make the official filings to the FEC. On the stand, Grossman claimed that he never before heard of an event costing a million dollars. Paul says that such is not true. On June 18, 2001, Grossman was served with a civil suit by Paul. Paul gave him details and copies of checks to advise him on the cost of the event....

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Wednesday morning that he'll press for the release of findings by independent counsel David Barrett, whose probe into former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros reportedly concluded that Clinton officials at the Internal Revenue Service conducted politically motivated audits of White House enemies. "I believe the investigators should be permitted to complete their work and to issue their final report," Sen. Frist told syndicated radio host Tony Snow, who had asked if he would guarantee the report's release. "I'm pressing the conferees on the supplemental bill to take that amendment out," the Republican leader added. Frist...

NEW YORK If the Democratic Party wants to figure out how to win national elections again, it has an unexpected guide: Hillary Rodham Clinton. . . [snip]The first lesson Clinton is demonstrating is the need to talk much more openly about God and prayer. That resonates in a country where a Pew poll found that 60 percent of Americans pray at least once a day. . [snip]"I've always been a praying person," Clinton declared recently. . [snip]Democrats are usually more comfortable talking about sex than God. But that doesn't work in a country where 70 percent say that "presidents should...

STATE GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik is exhorting the party faithful to open their wallets so that Republicans can "soundly defeat" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year, with the result that "her hopes of running for president will wither on the vine." Meanwhile, an adviser to Gov. Pataki, angered by a top Clinton strategist's dismissal of the governor as "an object of ridicule," responds: "It's obvious that Hillary's people have decided who they don't want to run against." That's two "What color is the sky in your world?" moments. Hillary Clinton is in great political shape — and has been ever...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - In August 2000, Bill and Hillary Clinton attended a Hollywood fund-raiser billed as a tribute to a president ready to leave the White House after eight years and a first lady seeking to establish herself as a force of her own in American politics. The guest list reflected the glitter of the occasion: Cher, Diana Ross, Brad Pitt and Patti Labelle, to name just a few. But a person who later emerged as perhaps the most memorable - to the Clintons and their associates, anyway - was a well-connected figure with a checkered past who helped...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

Private Eye May Have Eavesdropped On DA, Police LOS ANGELES -- Federal agents are keeping District Attorney Steve Cooley in the dark about their wiretapping probe targeting former celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano, it was reported Thursday. Pellicano, now imprisoned for illegally possessing explosives, may have eavesdropped on at least two deputy district attorneys, a Los Angeles police detective and an alleged rape victim, sources close to the wiretapping investigation told the Los Angeles Times. Cooley, who said he was not privy to details of the probe, said criminal investigations could have been compromised. "Such illegal wiretapping puts lives of...

<p>ACCUSING Michael Jackson of sexual abuse comes with a hefty price tag.</p> <p>A decade after shocking the world with allegations in 1993 that he was molested by the bizarro superstar, the lives of a California man and his relatives remain a living hell.</p>

Man Implicates Seagal and Pellicano in Probe Fri Nov 22, 8:34 AM ET LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man charged with threatening a reporter who was investigating an alleged Mafia extortion plot against Steven Seagal told an FBI informant the actor was behind the threat, court documents show. Alexander Proctor allegedly said in secretly recorded conversations that he was hired to carry out the threat by Anthony Pellicano, a private detective to the stars. FBI agents said Proctor told the informant Seagal hired Pellicano to threaten Los Angeles Times reporter Anita Busch. "He wanted to make it look like the...

Actor Steven Seagal has been linked to threats directed at a Los Angeles Times reporter investigating the action star's relationship to a Mafia figure, according to federal court records. The explosive allegation is contained in an October 17 FBI affidavit filed in support of a government bid to search the Los Angeles home of Alexander Proctor, a 59-year-old ex-con who has been charged with threatening Times writer Anita Busch. The 21-page FBI affidavit--a key excerpt of which you'll find below [SEE LINK]--alleges that Proctor told a bureau informant (in tape-recorded conversations) that Seagal hired him through Anthony Pellicano, a noted...

Hollywood is buzzing over "investigator-to-the-stars" private eye Anthony Pellicano, who copped a plea earlier this year after the FBI caught him with a draw full of hand grenades and, in the words of one agent, enough plastique explosive to "take out a 747." But Left Coast celebs may not be the only folks currently losing sleep over Pellicano - especially since news broke late last week that he had the habit of illegally wiretapping the targets of his investigations. Besides causing trouble for headliners like Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, Kevin Costner and dozens of other stars, Pellicano's tapes could easily...

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 16 — Anthony Pellicano, the celebrated private investigator who has worked for celebrities like Michael Jackson, Kevin Costner and Tom Cruise, is expected to surrender to the authorities on Monday to begin a jail term for possessing illegal weapons. But Mr. Pellicano will hardly disappear from public view. Mr. Pellicano is the star player in an unfolding Hollywood drama involving reported illegal wiretaps that may give him the kind of fame reserved for the clients he has represented in a 20-year career in the entertainment business. Almost daily, new names surface in connection with a grand jury...

Clintons, Oprah Lead Star Studded Tribute to Senile, Communist Mandela JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. president Bill Clinton (news - web sites) led a host of glittering stars and world luminaries in celebrating the 85th birthday of former South African leader Nelson Mandela on Saturday. Reuters Photo Related Links • Mandela - Icon of Stupidity and Marxism (AFP) Irish rock star Bono and U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey were among international guests celebrating the anti-apartheid hero, who turned 85 on Friday, at a banquet for 1,600 people. Mandela's South African invitations spanned the range of...

ALEXANDRIA -- Two former top-level Pentagon officials were charged Friday with accepting more than $1 million in bribes and kickbacks and using their influence over defense contracts to extort cash, prostitutes and boxing tickets. Robert Lee Neal Jr., 50, of Bowie, Md., was appointed by President Clinton in 1996 to serve as director of the Pentagon's office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (SADBU), which assures that minority-owned businesses get a share of available defense contracts. According to a 52-page affidavit filed by Cynthia Stroot, a special agent with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Neal and his top assistant, Francis...