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Blockbuster Plans to Take $1 Billion-Plus Cash Takeover Bid to Circuit City Shareholders DALLAS (AP) -- Blockbuster Inc. said Monday it will take an unsolicited $1 billion-plus bid for Circuit City Stores Inc. directly to the consumer electronics chain's shareholders, saying Circuit City has not responded to repeated offers.......

ALBANY, N.Y. - With pressure mounting on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign over a call-girl scandal, investigators said Tuesday he was clearly a repeat customer who spent tens of thousands of dollars — perhaps as much as $80,000 — with the high-priced prostitution service over an extended period of time. Spitzer and his family, meanwhile, remained secluded in their Fifth Avenue apartment, while Republicans began talking impeachment, and few if any fellow Democrats came forward to defend him. A death watch of sorts began at the state Capitol, where whispers of "What have you heard?" echoed through nearly every hallway...

EVERETT, Washington (AP) — A fuselage section of Boeing Co.'s new 787 jet has passed a series of stress tests that had to be done before the plane can begin flight testing, the company said. The Chicago-based aircraft maker put a composite fuselage barrel through tests that simulated the most extreme conditions the airplane is expected to experience over its lifetime. Engineers also subjected the fuselage section to 150 percent of its so-called ''limit load,'' then pushed it to the point of destruction. Boeing, which assembles its commercial planes in the Seattle area, said the fuselage did not suffer as...

Endure the ad.. Warms the heart. A ship made from the ruins of the World Trade Center......

In last week's space spectacular, a U.S. missile did more than turn a dead satellite into bits of space scrap. It also blew another hole in hopes that the world's nations could forge a treaty making outer space a weapons-free realm, analysts say.Wednesday's orbiter shootdown by a U.S. Navy missile came just eight days after Russia and China, at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, submitted a draft treaty to ban weapons from space.

SINGAPORE (AP) — Airbus said Wednesday it expects half as many orders for new planes in 2008 as it got last year after receiving record orders in recent years and amid slower global growth. John Leahy, Airbus' chief salesman, said at the Singapore Airshow that the European planemaker is likely to sell about 700 planes this year, down from more than 1,400 orders last year. ''The market, in terms of new orders, will be going down,'' Leahy told a press briefing. ''We have a record backlog so I would expect to see fewer and fewer orders as the market does...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani police placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest Friday, uncoiling barbed wire in front of her Islamabad home and reportedly rounding up 5,000 of her supporters to block a mass protest against emergency rule. Bhutto tried twice to leave by car but was blocked by police after a scuffle with her supporters who tried to remove a barricade. The former prime minister had planned to address a rally in nearby Rawalpindi, defying a ban on public gatherings.

FARGO (AP) - Work continues on three ethanol plants in North Dakota, despite a downturn in prices and the temporary shutdown of another plant. Tharaldson Ethanol near Casselton and U.S. BioEnergy near Hankinson are to begin operations next year, to refine 100 million gallons of fuel a year from corn.

HANGZHOU, China - Wanxiang, China's largest car-parts maker and one of its most acquisitive companies, is in talks with Ford to buy assets from the U.S. carmaker's troubled components arm. Lu Guanqiu, founder and chairman of Wanxiang, said the talks were part of a plan to expand the company's global presence. But he would not say which assets it was interested in or whether a deal was imminent. Mr. Lu said Wanxiang had also been in preliminary discussions this year with Delphi, the former General Motors parts-maker that is in bankruptcy proceedings, but there had been no material results from...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the move to block the Senate confirmation of John Bolton as America’s ambassador to the U.N. a "cheap political stunt on the part of a handful of people." Bloomberg also declared that the holdup of Bolton's confirmation, which led him to resign Monday, was a "disgrace" and "an outrage," and said "countries like America and Israel will suffer because they won't have John Bolton there." Bloomberg told reporters on Tuesday: "John Bolton was a guy that was standing up and trying to change the United Nations in ways that would make it a...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Suicide bombings fell in November to their lowest level in seven months, the American military said Thursday, citing the success of U.S.-Iraqi military operations against insurgent and foreign fighter sanctuaries near the Syrian border. But the trend in Iraq has not resulted in less bloodshed: 85 U.S. troops died during the month, one of the highest tolls since the invasion. In Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. military played down reports by residents and police of widespread attacks Thursday against American and Iraqi installations in the city. The military said only one rocket-propelled grenade was...

After a lot of soul searching on this volitile subject, a few thoughts occur to me. First, we claim to be a Republic. What does that mean? One definition: A state or nation in which the supreme power rests in its voting citizens and is exercised by representatives elected by them and responsible to them.In other words we delegate our power and our interests to those for whom we vote. Seems to me we did that last November. We knew our President by then. At least on the matter of judges, he has NEVER let us down. Looking at the...

WASHINGTON - Keeping up the pressure for Syrian forces to leave Lebanon, the United States strongly criticized President Bashar Assad on Saturday for announcing only a partial pullback. "As President Bush said Friday, when the United States and France say withdraw, we mean complete withdrawal -- no halfhearted measures," the statement said.

Section 1988. Proceedings in vindication of civil rights (a) Applicability of statutory and common law The jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters conferred on the district courts by the provisions of titles 13, 24, and 70 of the Revised Statutes for the protection of all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and for their vindication, shall be exercised and enforced in conformity with the laws of the United States, so far as such laws are suitable to carry the same into effect; but in all cases where they are not adapted to the object, or are deficient...

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on...

MADRID, Spain - Police found a bomb on a high-speed rail line between Madrid and Seville, Spain's interior minister said Friday. Bomb-disposal experts found 22-24 pounds of explosives, possibly dynamite, under a track about 40 miles south of Madrid. The explosives were connected to a detonator with a 430-foot cable, Interior Minister Angel Acebes told a news conference.

What TV news outlet are you watching the most for your war coverage?

WASHINGTON, Jul 19, 2002 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following is a statement from DNC Chairman McAuliffe on Vice President Cheney and Halliburton:  "Vice President Cheney should explain to the people of Houston why his company misled investors while he was CEO of Halliburton. The people of Houston know all too well the painful results of corporate accounting tricks.  "Vice President Cheney should spend more time explaining his business practices and the accounting tricks he used as CEO of Halliburton and less time raising money for the Republican Party.  "Restoring investor faith in corporations is vital to getting the economy...

The lone chair across the table from members of the Kent County gun board is known as the hot seat. But when Mark Gelders recently sidled up to ask permission to carry a concealed weapon, it barely got warm. Thanks to the state's nearly year-old CCW law, Gelders left with a permit in less than a minute -- one of more than 2,000 issued by the county's gun board in the last year. Under the old law, he would have walked away empty-handed. "I'm under the belief that if more people are carrying weapons, there will be less crime," said...

  Few would deny the shift in attitudes about guns that has taken place since the election of 2000. One interesting sign is the resurgence of college gun clubs. Just a few years ago, the idea of college students starting a gun club would have invoked universal horror among administrators and politically correct student organizations. Even now, they sometimes attract the ire of the traditional liberal media, as was the case last week with the Second Amendment Sisters at Mt. Holyoke College. The New York Times published a misogynistic op-ed, "Chicks With Guns," decrying the fact that the women of...