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The original song done by Amy Grant and with scenes from the movie, " The Nativity".

Earlier this month and despite the public scrutiny over the voter fraud and felony criminal activity associated with ACORN, the Department of Homeland Security went ahead and granted $997,402 to ACORN under the FY 2008 Fire Prevention and Safety Program. To most people, the timing and the amount of the grant would seem off base, but when you take into account the fact that DHS awarded ACORN–an organization with no clear expertise in fire safety and prevention–a fire prevention and safety grant, it’s just plain offensive.

Many immigrants are drawn to the Midwest for the same reasons that anyone moves to the heartland: job opportunities, the strong educational system and the high quality of life. However, new immigrant workers are too often vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation or unsafe working conditions, according to Amy Weismann, University of Iowa Center for Human Rights deputy director. The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded a grant of $50,000 to the UI Center for Human Rights, the UI Labor Center and Nebraska Appleseed for Law in the Public Interest to extend significant outreach activities to immigrant workforces in Iowa and Nebraska....

It's a lesson he should have learned from Plaxico Burress -- but this was worse. A 15-year-old Brooklyn boy shot himself in the penis Sunday after fumbling with a gun that had slid from his waistband, authorities said yesterday. Khamir Grant was then arrested for reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon -- the same charges levied against Burress, who shot himself at a Manhattan nightclub in 2008, law-enforcement sources said.

Changes in student loans could mean savings for youJEAN CHATZKY TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Published: July 9, 2009 **SNIP** Graduates in the Class of 2009 have an even better deal, says Edie Irons, communications director of the Project on Student Debt. "If you consolidate during your grace period, which is the six months after you graduate, you can lock in a rate of 1.88 percent." New borrowers of subsidized (need-based) Stafford loans are also going to see lower rates. Because of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, the interest rate on these loans for 2009-2010 is going to be...

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will grant President Barack Obama permission next week to ship U.S. weapons supplies across its territory, or through its airspace, en route to Afghanistan, sources on both sides told Reuters on Saturday. The transit deal will open up an important corridor for the United States as it steps up its Afghan war against Taliban insurgents by sending in more troops. Routes via Pakistan have come under attack by militants. It will be one of the main agreements signed during Obama's Moscow summit next week with Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev, the sources said. "The agreement will include...

A team of flyers risks their lives to deliver the mail in a mountainous South American country.

Hollywood star Hugh Grant has run into trouble with paparazzi yet again. According to a video posted on the celeb website TMZ.com, the 48-year-old star is seen kicking a photographer below the waist, in the groin. Grant was leaving a hotspot in New York when he was followed by a group of paparazzi. When they followed him in spite of his warnings, Grant kicked a photographer. This is not the first time for Grant. A few years ago he was also accused of throwing baked beans at a London photographer.

Roman Catholic, Anti-Communist Republican classic movie director Leo McCarey's "Once Upon A Honeymoon"(1942) with Republican movie superstars Ginger Rogers & Cary Grant. is airing on TCM on Monday morning. From its title, stars & director one might think it's a light romantic comedy like Grant's "The Awful Truth" and Miss Rogers' "It Had to Be You." And while it's partly in that genre, it's also a WII spy adveture. It's loads of fun to watch if you're a fan of Ginger, Cary, Walter Slezak(as Ginger's villainous Nazi husband), McCarey or 1940s WWII propaganda films. It also provides evidence that there...

THROW AWAY THE SCABBARD What if Stonewall Jackson had survived Chancellorsville? In this alternate history, Jackson survives Chancellorsville. With Jackson leading his Second Corps in an invasion of the North, the war shifts from the Virginia wilderness to the Pennsylvania countryside. After the Army of Northern Virginia wins a stunning victory on the banks of the Susquehanna, General Ulysses S. Grant comes east to drive the Confederates from northern soil. But when Grant fails to dislodge Lee's army, President Abraham Lincoln risks all in a desperate attempt to win the war and restore the Union. Throw Away the Scabbard is...

The trouble with many of the past ratings of America's presidents is that the "consensus" has been arrived at by academics who act alike, do alike, and think alike. In the view of many, they are suspect of viewing history exclusively through the prism of Ivy League faculty lounge discourse. Alvin Stephen Felzenberg (Ph.D.) — who has taken a fresh and comprehensive look at the nation's chief executives in his book The Leaders We Deserved (and a Few We Didn't): Rethinking the Presidential Rating Game — does not challenge the credentials of the conventional historians. Rather, as he explains in...

To justify their arrest warrant for BART Officer Johannes Mehserle, Oakland police claimed that Oscar Grant's hands were "restrained" behind his back when Mehserle shot him. Alameda District Attorney was only slightly more circumspect, asserting in his indictment that: After careful analysis of the video, it is clear that both of Grant's hands were behind his back, a position hands are commonly placed in by police officers in order to handcuff individuals, when the shot was fired into his body. On the contrary, however, frame by frame analysis of the shooting video proves that Grant's hands were NOT in a...

I apologize for the vanity, but I just had to ask if anyone else had seen all the ads on facebook and around the internet trying to get people to pay $3 (shipping and handling) to get 'free' information about how to get $12,000 (and more!) from Obama through a grant, "just for being married" within 30 days. I realize this is a scam, but has anyone paid the money out of curiousity and can you share with the rest of us what the scam is?

By his own admission, Bernard Madoff has catapulted himself into the major leagues of Wall Street fraud. That is no small accomplishment, given some of the more famous frauds of the past. But a $50 billion Ponzi scheme is no small thing. To be sure, the number of still unanswered questions is huge. How could a Ponzi scheme last as long as this one and reach so fantastic a sum? Why didn't he take the money and decamp to some extradition-free country instead of admitting the fraud and waiting for the cops to show up? And, of course, how could...

Adding the finishing touches to Grant ParkJames Janega | Tribune reporter November 2, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama returns home Tuesday for an Election Night rally in Grant Park that has sparked huge civic interest and many questions about how the event will work. **SNIP** Q. How many people will show up? A. Daley estimated 1 million, a number he said was a guess. The campaign's permit said there would be 65,000 ticketed guests and 7,500 "participants" at the official fenced area. But interest is high and the weather is expected to be excellent, so expect quite a throng...

City Crews To Take Work Home For Obama RallyOct 26, 2008 7:35 am US/Central CHICAGO (STNG); Off-duty Chicago firefighters and paramedics have been ordered to take all of their gear home with them to speed deployment in the event of an emergency at Barack Obama's giant election night rally in Grant Park. The order begins next Wednesday and continues until Nov. 6 -- two days after the election. Firefighters have been ordered to take home gear that includes protective clothing known as bunker gear, gloves, face mask, helmet, boots and breathing apparatus tank. **SNIP** "This way, their gear would be...

Obama-Ayers link involved Annenberg grantBy Rita Giordano Inquirer Staff Writer Posted on Sat, Oct. 18, 2008 The Chicago education project that has linked the names of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and William Ayers, a former 1960s and 1970s radical turned college professor and education activist, was part of a $500 million initiative by Philadelphia publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg to aid schools around the country. The half-billion-dollar "gift," as it was described by President Bill Clinton at a 1993 White House ceremony, would go on to provide 2-to-1 matching-fund grants to 18 school districts around the nation. **SNIP** The...

A $100,000 state grant for a botanic garden in Englewood that then-state Sen. Barack Obama awarded in 2001 to a group headed by a onetime campaign volunteer is now under investigation by the Illinois attorney general amid new questions, prompted by Chicago Sun-Times reports, about whether the money might have been misspent. The garden was never built. And now state records obtained by the Sun-Times show $65,000 of the grant money went to the wife of Kenny B. Smith, the Obama 2000 congressional campaign volunteer who heads the Chicago Better Housing Association, which was in charge of the project for...

Grand Old Partisan salutes Ulysses Grant, the second Republican to serve as President of the United States. He was born in Point Pleasant, OH on April 27, 1822. Sometimes overlooked are President Grant's exemplary efforts to protect African-Americans from their Democrat oppressors.In 1870 and 1871, President Grant signed into law three laws known as the Enforcement Acts, one of which banned the Ku Klux Klan and other Democrat terrorist organizations. Grant then...[see http://grandpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/ulysses-grant-r.html]Each day, Grand Old Partisan celebrates 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000. A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – A grant of just $163 dollars from a group that supports military families turned out to be a really big deal -- not only for the recipients, but for the granting organization, as well. The grant put “Our Military Kids,” a group that supports families of deployed or wounded National Guard and reserve members, over the $1 million mark in grants given, said Gail Kruzel, one of the organization’s founders. This particular grant means that two young sons of Missouri Army National Guard Maj. Matt Bacon, who currently is serving his second tour in...

Soybean growers hold up University of Minnesota funds to protest biofuels paper Trade council unhappy with biofuels paper By Leslie Brooks Suzukamo lsuzukamo@pioneerpress.com Article Last Updated: 02/28/2008 09:41:51 PM CST Call it a soybean spat. The University of Minnesota isn't going to receive any research funding from the state's soybean growers council until the two parties have a heart-to-heart talk next week. The Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council voted to temporarily suspend its financial support after a study co-authored by U researchers in the journal Science said increased use of biofuel crops like corn and soybeans could worsen global...

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. -- A verdict of second-degree murder has been reported in the trial of Stephen Grant, accused of killing and dismembering his wife, Tara. Stay with ClickOnDetroit.com and Local 4 for more on this developing story. Grant will be back in court for sentencing on Feb. 21 2008. Watch Live As Stephen Grant Verdict is Announced Court officials have not released the name of the detained reporter at this time. Judge Druzinski said she will decide whether to press charges on the reporter at a later time. Earlier in the day, the jury asked the judge to provide...

I have to say at the outset that I am not impressed when someone quotes a long dead sage to “prove” a point. Appeals to authority are one of the weakest of the logical fallacies. However, sometimes the things you read about events long ago and men long dead strike a responsive cord and remind you that there are very few new things under the sun. I am re-reading Ulysses S. Grant’s Memoirs. Yes, THAT Grant: Ulysses S. Grant of Civil War fame. He was the Civil War General who finally commanded all of the Union armies and defeated the...

A diamond-adorned sword once owned by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant brought a winning bid of more than $1.6 million in an auction of Civil War items. The sword given to Grant, who later became the 18th president, was one of the marquee items among the 750 to be auctioned Sunday and Monday by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas. Another showcase item up for bid was Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's frayed battle flag, which was auctioned for $896,250. Another item of note was a "Bonnie Blue" flag carried by the 3rd Texas State Cavalry, which drew a bid of $47,800....

BOISE - Boise Police officers & Ada County Sheriff's deputies are on the watch – working to snag aggressive drivers during a two week long program. (snip) The stepped up patrols are funded by a grants from the Idaho Transportation Department’s Office of Highway Safety. The money goes to help pay overtime for officers conducting the special patrols. An extra two to three Boise Police Officers are on duty each day.

September 11, 2006 -- IF Sean Hannity has his way, talk-radio titan Bob Grant will return from his WABC "exile" soon. Grant, 76, was abruptly fired 10 years ago - right after Disney bought ABC - for making a wisecrack about the death of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown in a plane crash. Now, WABC is awaiting the closing of a Disney deal to sell ABC's radio division to Citadel Broadcasting - which could open the door for Grant's return.

Evolutionary biology reappears on federal grant list 31 August 2006 Evolutionary biology, mysteriously missing from the list of undergraduate subjects eligible for a US federal grant, has been reinstated after a flurry of protest. David Dunn of the Department of Education says its absence was the result of a misunderstanding. "As soon as the omission came to our attention, we took steps to correct it." However, the incident has left pro-evolution campaigners wondering whether evolutionary biology was deliberately left out by people who find Darwinian evolution at odds with their religious beliefs.

BURLINGTON, Vt. --A former University of Vermont College of Medicine professor was ordered Wednesday to serve a year and a day in federal prison for using false data to obtain federal research grants. Eric Poehlman, 50, who left UVM in 2001 for the University of Montreal and was fired from there amid revelations about his scientific misconduct, will serve the sentence at a federal prison work camp in Maryland. An official with the National Institutes of Health said Poehlman's case marked the first time a researcher would serve time in prison for falsifying data to obtain federal grants. (snap) Poehlman,...

URBANA, Ill. - The University of Illinois plans to use a $251,000 grant presented by the state attorney general's office Thursday to test techniques and technology to control hog farm odors. "Finding solutions to reduce emissions that are both effective and cost-effective and won't reduce the competitiveness of our swine industry in Illinois is obviously of critical importance to swine producers. It's also of importance to people who live near swine facilities," said Michael Ellis, an animal sciences professor at the university, who is leading the research. The grant comes from an antitrust settlement reached in 2000 with several vitamin...

The Knights of Columbus will provide an $8 million grant to The Catholic University of America (CUA) for the renovation of a prominent building on the university’s campus. The announcement was made April 28 by CUA president Father David M. O’Connell C.M., during the annual American Cardinals Dinner in Washington. The donation, which is the largest the Order has ever made to the university, will be used to renovate Keane Hall, a 35,000-square-foot limestone building located on CUA’s central mall. Built in 1958, the modern-classical structure was the university’s original physics research facility. Renovations are expected to last two years....

Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficient (LEP) Pilot Program The following applications have been preliminarily selected to receive a grant for the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program. Revised 4/12/06 Contacts: Carlos Garza(Funding) Discretionary Grants Phone: (512) 463-9269 carlos.garza@tea.state.tx.us Roberto Manzo (Program) Office Education Initiatives Phone: (512) 936-6060 roberto.manzo@tea.state.tx.us Program Description: The purpose of the Texas Pre-Kindergarten Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Pilot Program is: To implement multi-age programs serving 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds that assure that English language learning children receive appropriate activities to enter school prepared to succeed. The pilot program must provide many opportunities for the...

HELENA, Mont. - Nearly seven dozen Montana residents convicted of sedition during World War I are finally getting official pardons from the governor, years after their deaths. In a ceremony Wednesday afternoon, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, the grandson of German-Russian immigrants, planned to sign posthumous pardons for 78 men and women convicted in 1918 and 1919 for criticizing the U.S. government or its war effort. Relatives of some of those being pardoned were expected to attend. Montana's Sedition Act, passed in 1918 but since repealed, was one of the harshest in the country and a basis for a national sedition law...

This Day In History | Civil War April 16 1863 Passage of Vicksburg Admiral David Dixon Porter leads 12 ships past the heavy barrage of Confederate artillery at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He lost only one ship, and the operation speeded General Ulysses S. Grant's movement against Vicksburg. Grant had been trying to capture Vicksburg for six months. A first attempt failed when General William T. Sherman's troops were unsuccessful in attacking Vicksburg from the north. Grant now planned to move his army down the opposite bank of the river, cross back to Mississippi, and approach the city from the east. The...

Today marks the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh (or as some Southerners refer to it - Pittsburgh Landing) that took place on April 6-7, 1862. The Confederate Army of Mississippi launched a large dawn attack along the Union encampments, catching them off-guards. The Confederates pressed steadily as the Union army conducted a fighting retreat towards the banks of the Tennessee River. Only a determined stand by some hastily put-together Union troops (at the Hornets Nest) allowed Grant to put together a strong defensive line. The death of Confederate General A.S. Johnston threw the Rebel attack into disarray and the...

WASHINGTON, March 29, 2006 – The teenage co-founder of an "America Supports You" organization in Massachusetts that distributes prepaid phone cards to deployed troops has earned a $5,000 grant and is competing for another. Robbie Bergquist, 13, who started "Cell Phones for Soldiers" two years ago with his sister Brittany, is among nine "BRICK Award" winners competing for a second $5,000 grant from "Do Something," a national organization that encourages young people to become involved in community service. America Supports You is a Defense Department program that spotlights efforts by the Americans to support men and women in uniform. According...

A University of Pittsburgh reproductive biologist relied on the now-discredited stem-cell findings of a disgraced Korean scientist to win a $16.1 million federal grant last fall, according to federal documents and letters obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pitt's Gerald Schatten will use the money for an ambitious stem-cell research program that will occupy four of seven floors of Magee-Womens Research Institute's building, now under construction in Oakland, the documents show. The five-year grant, awarded to Schatten in September by the National Institutes of Health, is based in part on cloning experiments deliberately falsified by Hwang Woo-Suk, the documents show.

As the morning sun burned through the fog along the New Market Road about eight miles southeast of Richmond on the autumn morning of September 29, 1864, it revealed a scene of carnage and human wreckage. Dead infantrymen in coats that were a familiar shade of Union blue covered the slopes before New Market Heights. But most of the faces of the dead and maimed were black. Events leading to the Battle of New Market Heights began during the blistering summer of 1864, when overall Federal commander Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant directed the Army of the Potomac, commanded by...

GROTON, Conn. (NNS) -- The Naval Historical Center’s (NHC) search for Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones' ship Bonhomme Richard received further support in early February, when it was recommended for funding through the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration's competitive grant process. The NHC and Ocean Technology Foundation (OTF) plan to launch a search for Bonhomme Richard off the coast of England in July. "You cannot find an underwater archaeological site more important to the U.S. Navy than that of John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard," said Dr. Robert Neyland, head of the NHC's...

The mechanisms driving the process of evolution have always been subject to rigorous scientific debate. Growing in intensity and scope, this debate currently spans a broad range of disciplines including archaeology, biochemistry, computer modeling, genetics & development and philosophy. A recent $2.8 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Cambridge Templeton Consortium [link] is providing the resources for further investigation into this complex and fascinating area. The funds will support 18 new grant awards to scientists, social scientists and philosophers examining how complexity has emerged in biological systems. Attracting 150 applications, the grant process has generated much interest...

December 22, 2005, 8:57 a.m. Can You Hear the Bells? Christmas 1864. In the winter of 1864, an unexpected sense of optimism and good cheer settled on the northern states. The Civil War continued, but the news from the fronts was promising, and hope flourished that with spring the end would come and peace would return. New Yorkers in particular were in a festive frame of mind, of a like unseen since the before the war began. People skated in Central Park, and rode sleighs through the snowy fields. They stopped at shops for warm cider, confections, nuts and dried...

Ronald Reagan has an airport, an aircraft carrier and buildings around the nation named for him, but his admirers aren't through. As the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the Reagan Revolution approaches, Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., is proposing legislation to put the late president on the $50 bill. "Not all of America uses Ronald Reagan airport, but all of America uses our currency," Kline said. "We have used currency to commemorate great leaders in our past. It seemed to me this was a good way to do it." But Rep. Jim Oberstar, D.-Minn., calls Kline's proposal "a fatuous idea."...

I was born to be a soldier. Not that I was particularly brave or even destined for a distinguished military career, but I think there is something inherent in most Southern boys that predisposes them to the profession of arms. I simply got a bigger dose of it than most.

In the worst case of scientific fakery to come to light in two decades, a top obesity researcher who long worked at the University of Vermont admitted yesterday that he fabricated data in 17 applications for federal grants to make his work seem more promising, helping him win nearly $3 million in government funding. Eric T. Poehlman, a leading specialist on metabolic changes during aging, acknowledged that he altered and made up research results from 1992 to 2002, including findings published in medical journals that overstated the effect of menopause on women's health. Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR TODAY marks the fifth anniversary of the peak of the great millennial stock market. What were you doing when the lights began to dim? Were you a bull or a bear? Rich or otherwise? What about today? Are you inoculated against the new alleged sure things? Or perhaps you believe in the permanent hegemony of the dollar in the world's currency markets? In the inevitability of rising house prices? Or of falling interest rates? Answer true or false: the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is clairvoyant. From the March 2000 top to the October 2002 trough, the...

"Every one had his opinion about the manner in which the war had been conducted: who among the generals had failed, how and why. Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word dropped, and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not confirm their preconceived notions, either about the conduct of the war or the individuals concerned in it." US Grant Memoirs, pg 95.

Q: After having read many accounts of the Civil War, I still don’t understand why South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter, galvanizing the North into war.  What do you think might have happened had the South continued to let these coastal forts be manned by the Union for a longer time? Hanson: I think conflict was inevitable, because the South had little appreciation of Northern industrial power nor of the competence of a number of formerly nondescript Union officers. The best officers of the Mexican War had joined the Confederacy and there was an erroneous general impression that all superior...

WASHINGTON - Rep. John Kline wants former President Ronald Reagan to adorn $50 bills, where we would replace Ulysses S. Grant, a Civil War general who went on to become president. Kline, who served as a military aide to Reagan, said the former president "was guided by unwavering principles and a steadfast character." Kline introduced the bill Thursday, to mark the week of what would have been Reagan's 94th birthday. Various efforts have emerged to put Reagan on the nation's currency, on the $10 bill or the $20 bill, or possibly the dime. But they've gone nowhere.

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A defunct state agency that distributed federal crime grants was so plagued with accounting problems that it was impossible to audit and tens of millions of dollars in future funds could be in jeopardy, state auditors said Wednesday. Auditors looking into the Office of Criminal Justice Planning found incomplete and inaccurate paperwork a year after the agency was abolished because of leadership problems and poor business practices. "In my 30 years experience, this is the worst thing I've ever seen," said Samuel Hull, chief of state audits. "When we got into there and started looking at things...

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