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2/1/2006 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- As the president spoke to the nation during the State of the Union address, an Airman sat in the gallery, dressed in blues, displaying the combat medals she earned in Iraq. America’s most prominent leaders were gathered in one room on Capitol Hill for the annual speech Jan. 31. Sitting attentively at her feet, the Airman’s German shepherd attended the speech too. Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana is an Air Force security forces specialist and military working dog handler. In June she was severely injured by an improvised explosive device while on duty in Iraq with...

Shooting yourself in the foot By David Limbaugh Unlike our president, who spent Martin Luther King Day paying respectful tribute to MLK and Abraham Lincoln, Democratic Party notables, Hillary Clinton and Albert Gore, used the holiday as another opportunity to character-assassinate President George W. Bush. Just when we were beginning to think Hillary Clinton had found her voice - albeit a decidedly phony one - as a mature, seasoned politician poised for a presidential run, she reverts to those cacophonic utterances that find little resonance beyond her embittered but indispensable base. If one could momentarily suspend his powers of discernment,...

PASADENA, Calif. - Singer Kelly Clarkson, who vaulted to fame as the first "American Idol" winner in 2002, is not letting any of her songs be used by new contestants on the show. A spokesman for Clarkson insisted it's nothing personal, but the stance prompted a public scolding from "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell. "I think that by ignoring the show you're ignoring the audience who put you there," Cowell said Tuesday. Clarkson has become a major star in the past year, with her hit "Since U Been Gone" earning both massive sales and critical respect, particularly from a rock...

12/8/2005 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFPN) -- More than five months, 8,000 miles and countless prayers led to an unlikely reunion at a Colorado animal sanctuary. Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana and Maj. (Dr.) Paul Morton first met June 25 in Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq -- a hot summer day the major described simply as chaotic. They met again Dec. 2 on a cold winter day in the relative calm of the Black Forest Animal Sanctuary in Monument, Colo. At Kirkuk Sergeant Dana, a former 21st Security Forces Squadron dog handler, hovered near death. An improvised explosive device detonated...

My question - if the Beast kisses both *Billy Jeff and Ellen, doesn't that make her just another carrier? (I sure hope she's kept her shot record current...) Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (R) is seen with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres on the Staten Island Ferry touring the New York waterways, in this undated handout photograph released by Warner Bros. on November 19, 2005. This segment airs on Monday, November 21st as part of Ellen's New York Five Borough Show. EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Albert Ferreira/Warner Bros./Handout

Today's celebrities are well aware of their responsibilities as role models but can well do without public interference in their private lives. As tennis star Sania Mirza says, “As long as I'm winning, people shouldn't care whether my skirt is six inches long or six feet long.” Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Wednesday, Sania said, “How I dress is a very personal thing.” Wearing a long-sleeved black-and-white shirt with conservative black pants, she was speaking out in public for the first time since a cleric issued a fatwa against the way she dressed on court. Sania, who...

My sister in law, a lovely young woman, mother of three of three young children and wife of my brother has been diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer. She will undergo surgery to remove the entire right lung with in a week. At this early stage, we are uncertain of any long term prognosis. Please, please keep her and her family in her prayers.

Third officer this year to face charges; Johnson accused of molesting girl, 15 A Columbus police officer was charged Saturday night with sexually abusing a teenage girl. Bruce Anthony Johnson, 41, of 1050 Farr Road, was charged with aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, statutory rape, enticing a child for indecent purposes and two counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor. He is scheduled to appear in court this morning. Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren said the investigation began Friday afternoon, and the allegations involved a 15-year-old girl. "We started the investigation Friday afternoon, and the investigation continued until Saturday evening...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Oct. 4, 2005) -- It was June 23, 2005, when 20 Marines boarded a seven-ton truck and began, unbeknownst to them, their treacherous journey back to Camp Fallujah, Iraq. What happened a short distance down the road, is something that has and will continue to change their lives forever. Sitting in the second to last seat in the back, on the right side of the truck was Lance Cpl. Erin Liberty of Niceville, Fla., an ammunition technician with Ammunition Company, 2nd Supply Battalion, 2nd Force Service Support Group. She remembers talking with the female...

OLYMPIA – Three years after getting drunk, blowing through a stop sign and triggering a wreck that left her passenger critically injured, a former Idaho resident has filed a $1.5 million claim against Washington's Pend Oreille County for not detaining her before she caused the crash. In her claim, Ashlen Lee says that on June 12, 2002, a county sheriff's deputy stopped her truck around 3:30 a.m. and could see that she had been drinking. But after quizzing her, the deputy let the 17-year-old drive away. The officer said he'd give them a warning," said Lee's attorney, W. Russell Van...

A teenager was back in class Friday after receiving a one-day suspension for wearing a T-shirt with slogans including "freedom of expression" and "don't drink and drive" that school administrators considered disruptive. Hanna Smith, 18, a junior at Tift County High School, said principal Mike Duck told her that if she wore the shirt again she would be suspended for the remainder of the year. The principal was arrested six years ago for DUI and running a stop sign, the Tifton Gazette said Friday in a story on Smith's suspension. Duck made a public apology for the DUI and was...

Sen. Clinton's former aide could be used against her By Kenneth R. Bazinet New York Daily News WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton isn't on trial in Los Angeles on Tuesday - but as far as her political adversaries are concerned, she may as well be. Her former finance director David Rosen has been charged with concealing the real cost of a star-studded Hollywood fund-raiser for Clinton in August 2000 - and if he's convicted, her enemies plan to exploit it to the maximum. ''If it was any other senator, it might not be an issue, but with her past it will...

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Passing Buck on Schiavo Cheats Public By JOYCE PURNICK Published: March 24, 2005 THE House of Representatives acted quickly over the weekend in the wrenching case of Terri Schiavo, so quickly that maybe those who opposed the special bill allowing the federal courts to take over the case might have missed the Senate's role - conspicuous for its silence. The debate was confined to the House, for nearly four hours late Sunday night and early Monday. In the Senate, home of Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California, and, of course, Hillary Rodham Clinton and...

Mona Charen: Hillary cannot reinvent her past BY MONE CHAREN Published Saturday, January 29, 2005 A little immigration reform here, a little religion in the public square there, a little gentle talk about common ground on abortion - and what have you got? A new, moderate Hillary Clinton, announces the press. "Democratic Party appears to be getting softer on reproductive rights," headlined a National Public Radio story. "Gasps as Hillary woos the anti-abortion vote," reported the London Daily Telegraph. "Hillary Clinton Seen as Staking Out Centrist Positions," announced the Bulletin's Frontrunner. It's a testament to the rigidity and extremism of...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) -- A woman angry with her 12-year-old daughter for having sex forced the girl to drink bleach and sat on her until the child died, a police detective said. The girl's 9-year-old brother was forced to watch the attack, Detective Warren Cotton testified Thursday in a preliminary hearing for Tunisia Archie, 31.

Matsui Seeks Late Husband's House Seat SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Doris Matsui announced Wednesday she will seek the congressional seat held for 26 years by her late husband. She immediately received the endorsement of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi. With her family by her side just four days after burying Rep. Robert T. Matsui (news, bio, voting record), Doris Matsui said, "I am asking those who supported him to now support me." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) has set a March 8 primary election and May 3 special election to choose a new congressman for the Democratic-leaning district. The...

What is the issue the Palm Beach Post calls "almost the only topic" and the one that is "playing a pivotal" role in Florida's battle for the American Senate? It's not health care, taxes, education, the economy, or even Iraq. Rather, the two principal candidates are engaged in a ferocious argument over Sami Al-Arian, an accused Islamist terrorist. Their battle teaches lessons for the future.Mr. Al-Arian, a Palestinian immigrant, was a professor of engineering at the University of South Florida when in 1994, investigative journalist Steven Emerson aired a documentary establishing that, as president of the Islamic Committee for Palestine,...

The killer of a pregnant woman may have been paid by members of her family, her husband told the Old Bailey today. Anita Gindha, 22, was strangled in front of her 19-month-old son two weeks before she had been due to give birth to a baby girl. Three years earlier, Anita had caused anger among her family when she ran away from her Glasgow home to marry Kashmir Ralh. Mr Ralh told the court: “Anita was scared that her family would trace her and kill her or me.” A cousin had told him that on two occasions, people had come...

HOLLYWOOD (Talon News) -- Entertainer Barbara Streisand this week joined those attacking President George W. Bush for his support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to protect marriage as only being between a man and a woman.