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'Record' Afghanistan drugs bust International and Afghan troops have killed 60 militants and made a record drugs haul in an operation in southern Afghanistan, the US military has said.

CAMP PENDLETON ---- A Marine Corps hero showered praise Monday on a comrade who is on trial for killing an unarmed prisoner of war. Navy Cross recipient Sgt. Maj. Brad Kasal said the accused Marine, Sgt. Ryan Weemer, was a skilled warrior who always displayed "excellent" military characteristics. Kasal was given the Navy Cross, the second-highest award a Marine can receive, for saving fellow Marines despite suffering severe wounds during the "Hell House" battle in Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 13, 2004. Both Kasal, now head of a five-state recruiting region based in Des Moines, Iowa, and Weemer were injured that...

Frances Picker taught algebra for 35 years in the Fremont schools and never smoked before she was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer in December. A slim 73-year-old with a magnetic smile, Picker copes as well as she can between bouts of chemotherapy that have robbed her of her hair. The ugly coda — the crowning insult, if you will — came when she went to renew her driver's license in mid-March at the Fremont DMV. It should have been no big deal. Knowing that the DMV has long lines, Picker made an appointment. But she had to stand in a...

Snow wasn't the only thing that fell Saturday: so did pants - and jaws - on the subway. Hundreds of brave New Yorkers dropped their bottoms in Saturday's sub-freezing temperatures before taking to the rails for the eighth annual No Pants Subway Ride. "They couldn't have picked a better day to do this?" asked John Ocskai, 18, of Long Island, wearing a pair of spiffy gray boxers. "This is my first time. I was shocked it was still going on." Dana Sterling, 33, was shivering even before she stripped down to her three pairs of undies. "I'm cold already," Sterling...

78 Pages of corruption by the numbers...........

REPORT: Helicopter carrying John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Joe Biden makes emergency landing in Afghanistan: Developing.

E-mails offer Polk school officials a view of the origin of life they say is just as valid as intelligent design. LAKELAND | The Flying Spaghetti Monster has stretched its noodles to Polk County. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, or FSM, is a satirical group that pokes fun at intelligent design. It first emerged in 2005 during the debate in Kansas over whether the belief should be taught in science classes. The group has sent dozens of e-mails to Polk County School Board members demanding that the idea of a Flying Spaghetti Monster creating the world receive classroom equal time with...

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 NEWS) - The fate of more than a dozen crosses honoring fallen UHP troopers was left in the hands of a federal court judge on Tuesday. The issue was taken to court after a group of atheists sued the state claiming the crosses violate the constitutional separation of church and state. The group is now asking the Utah Highway Patrol Association to remove the 12 foot-crosses because they denote the death of Jesus Christ. However, the state and UHP troopers say they are memorials to brave public servants and not religious in nature. The majority...

The Boy Scouts of America's refusal to bend its rules to permit gay scouts will cost the organization's local chapter $200,000 a year if it wishes to keep its headquarters in a city-owned building on Logan Square. Representatives of the Boy Scouts of America's Cradle of Liberty Council were notified that to remain in their 79-year-old landmark headquarters, they needed to pay the city a "fair market" rent, Fairmount Park Commission president Robert N.C. Nix said yesterday. Currently, the rent is $1 a year....

In a letter to the Pentagon, Republicans Frank R. Wolf and Thomas M. Davis III and Democrat James P. Moran Jr. said they had been contacted by “numerous constituents gravely concerned” about their 2008 pay raise under the new program, called the National Security Personnel System or NSPS. “We must keep our promises to our employees,” the three wrote in the letter, sent last week. “It would be difficult if not impossible to recruit or retain employees if they knew they could not rely on their promised salaries.” The Pentagon, in a memo last month, said that about 110,000 employees...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - An office worker for the US city of Detroit is suing for her colleagues to be banned from wearing perfume which gives her such severe headaches, nausea and coughing fits that she must leave work. Court documents showed Thursday that Susan McBride suffered so acutely from allergy to the chemicals in scents, lotions and sprays that she had to go home sick when a heavily perfumed co-worker shared her office at the city's historic districts department. Her sensitivity is such that she avoids the detergent sections in shops and cannot sit near perfumed people in a movie...

A Broward County state senator has a message for pushy drivers who can't wait in line like everybody else stuck in traffic: Pay up. Sen. Steven Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, wants to make it a crime for drivers to cut in at the front of the line at exit ramps, accident scenes and anywhere else traffic backs up. His bill is probably a year or more away from getting a vote by the Legislature but it's sure to ignite passions before then. "You want to look at what causes road rage? That is it," he says. The "rude jerks" can spark...

"That is not a hair question." "That is also not a hair question." These guys are kind of funny.

Hours after Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as House speaker last week, Democratic Representative Rahm Emanuel held a celebratory reception at Johnny's Half Shell, an upscale Capitol Hill restaurant. Having just overseen his party's victorious campaign as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (dccc), Emanuel resembled a mafia don who had taken down a rival family and was now receiving visitors (Harold Ickes, Paul Begala, James Carville) to kiss his ring. Filing into the restaurant along with the giddy Democrats, however, was a crowd with markedly longer faces. These were Republicans attending a reception for Arizona Senator Jon Kyl,...

PARIS - The nations of the world joined Monday in solemn remembrance of Sept. 11 — but for many, resentment of the United States flowed as readily as tears. Critics say Americans have squandered the goodwill that prompted France's Le Monde newspaper to proclaim "We are all Americans" that somber day after the attacks, and that the Iraq war and other U.S. policies have made the world less safe in the five years since. Heads bowed in moments of silence for the 3,000 killed in the attacks on New York and Washington — while the No. 2 al-Qaida leader issued...

OK, here's a thread where all the Steve Irwin bashers can post away to their hearts content. Please leave the threads titled "In Memory..." or "Tribute to..." alone. Not every single thread about Steve Irwin on FR has to include the incident of him holding his son in the croc enclosure, a mention of Darwin, and/or the word "Fool" Sometimes the old saying is true "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all."

The Dixie Chicks and their camp will continue their struggle this week to figure out where their own Mason-Dixon Line lies on a map of America's arenas. The reason is that ticket sales for their upcoming road run, the Accidents & Accusations Tour, have not as gone as they expected; basically, in many Southern states and Midwest markets, the Chicks have not been forgiven for perceived political sins of the past. Concert industry watchers say some radio station chiefs are extending their boycott of the group's recordings to include advertising bans for the group's concerts. "Obviously there are political overtones...

THREE years may sound like a relatively light sentence for a man who was at one point facing the death penalty, but Gary Glitter’s time in Vietnamese custody will be extremely tough. “Conditions are terrible,” Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said. “Creature comforts are nonexistent, prisoners sleep on mats on concrete floors, food is minimal and there are widespread lice. “There is also regular abuse, although I don’t expect Glitter to be abused because it would be too hard to cover it up. He is luckier than his cellmates in that respect. “He may be able to...

House Republicans sought a showdown Friday with Democrats on a proposal by one of their most senior members to force an end to the U.S. deployment of troops in Iraq. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., offered the resolution demanding a pullout. The GOP-run House was expected to reject it _ and make a prominent statement about where Congress stands on Iraq _ as the chamber scurried toward a Thanksgiving break. "We'll let the members debate it and then let them vote on it," said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., the acting majority leader. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's office had no immediate...

***snip*** Everyone knows them, or knows someone who’s had to deal with them: gorilla bosses. The ones who make their way to the top by throwing one elbow too many, scaring colleagues with their violent rages and basking in an often-unearned aura of cockiness. “A boss like that doesn’t want to accept feedback, doesn’t want to understand other points of view — it’s his or her way or the highway,” said Chicago-based science writer David L. Weiner (search), who wrote about the about the "gorilla boss" phenomenon in this year’s “Reality Check: What Your Mind Knows, But Isn't Telling You."...