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LIMA — Two robbers who broke into Luther Ricks Sr.’s house this summer may have not gotten his life savings he had in a safe, but after the FBI confiscated it he may not get it back. Ricks has tried to get an attorney to fight for the $402,767 but he has no money. Lima Police Department officers originally took the money from his house but the FBI stepped in and took it from the Police Department. Ricks has not been charged with a crime and was cleared in a fatal shooting of one of the robbers but still the...

Japan freezes more Iranian assets over its nuclear plan TOKYO: Japan decided on Friday to freeze the assets of more Iranian individuals and institutions in line with United Nations sanctions aimed at persuading Tehran to stop nuclear enrichment, which could be used to make an atomic bomb. Fifteen Iranian individuals and 13 institutions designated by a UN resolution as being involved with Iran’s nuclear programme will be added to a list of those whose assets have already been frozen, the government said. The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions on Iran since December, but Tehran has refused...

A high school art teacher who sparked controversy when his off-hours work as a so-called "butt-printing artist" became known has been fired. The Chesterfield County School Board, in a unanimous voice vote, decided to terminate Stephen Murmer at a meeting Tuesday night, spokeswoman Debra Marlow said. The vote came during a nearly three-hour meeting during which the board heard Chesterfield superintendent Marcus J. Newsome's recommendation that Murmer be fired during a portion of the meeting closed to the public. Murmer and his lawyer, Jason Anthony, also had an opportunity to present their case in closed session, she said. The voice...

Assets held by Iranian nationals residing in the United States reached $800 bln last year, said an economic expert. Bijan Bidabad told Fars news agency that the latest estimates by University of Massachusetts show that the Iranian American community held $600 bln in 2003. He further noted that restrictive laws have put investment security at stake in Iran, stressing that the country has failed to encourage investors to keep their capital at home. Investments usually seek places with adequate security, because capital always moves away from the insecure areas gradually, he noted, adding that when investors see their capital at...

Anyone who's ever temporarily "lost" a car in a parking garage - and that's most people - would surely be understanding if the state government "misplaced" one of its thousands of fleet cars occasionally. But 30,000? A recent audit of the state fleet of 70,000 vehicles, as part of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's push to aggressively manage the government's assets, found that as many as 30,000 can't be accounted for. Five or 10 missing would be simple mismanagement. Losing track of 30,000 cars would require a remarkable feat of negligence, ineptitude or corruption - or some combination thereof. Not only does...

Is JohnHuang2 on vacation? His threads have been the stuff of FreeRepublic.com, IMO, and he's not posted since the fourth of March.

Saturday, Aug. 7, 2004 10:16 p.m. EDT NY Times Blew Cover of Key Counterterror Agent An al Qaida computer expert who was secretly arrested on July 18 and has since been providing critical intelligence on the terror group's plans for coming attacks on the West was rendered useless this week when he was outed by the New York Times. Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, described by U.S. intelligence as "a one man al Qaida communications hub," was using the Internet to contact and identify al Qaida operatives throughout the world so they could be tracked and arrested by British and U.S....

AP: FBI Sent Hamas Money in Clinton Days JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press WASHINGTON - While President Clinton was trying to broker an elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the FBI was secretly funneling money to suspected Hamas figures to see if the militant group would use it for terrorist attacks, according to interviews and court documents. The counterterrorism operation in 1998 and 1999 was run out of the FBI's Phoenix office in cooperation with Israeli intelligence and was approved by Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI officials told The Associated Press. Several thousand dollars in U.S. money was sent to suspected...

Land prices nationwide at the end of March fell to levels not seen since March 1982, the Japan Real Estate Institute said. The prices averaged 54.9 percent of their September 1991 peak, the group found in a survey. The survey, which is conducted every March and September, covers 2,000 locations in 223 cities nationwide. This March it showed land prices had fallen continuously for 11 years. The institute forecasts a further decline ahead. The land prices as of the end of March nationwide had fallen 3.7 percent from the previous survey last September, and 7.1 percent from a year before....

The following is adapted from a speech leading the debate on the Canadian Alliance motion: Last night at Stornoway I hosted a reception for ambassadors and representatives of nearly 50 countries that have now joined the coalition. I did that on behalf of our caucus, and I believe on behalf of the silent majority of Canadians, to tell them -- to tell these countries and to tell their people -- that in this fight we Canadians are not and cannot be neutral any more than we can be for Saddam, that we are with our friends, with our allies and...

http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-bz.hancock29jan29,0,7030752.column?coll=bal-home-columnists The Fed official who cried 'bubble' long before it burst Jay Hancock January 29, 2003 LAST summer, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan claimed "it was very difficult to definitively identify" the late-1990s stock bubble until it was too late to do anything about it. Perhaps it was, for Alan. But one of his colleagues in the sanctum sanctorum of U.S. monetary policy saw the bubble early, saw it for what it was and urged Greenspan and the other money shamans to attack it. "Apparently I am not as convinced as others that the problems to which we ultimately will have...