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WASHINGTON - Hustler magazine is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again -- and willing to pay for it. 'Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?' read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt's pornographic magazine in Sunday's Washington Post. It offered $1 million for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and e-mail address were provided. The last time Flynt made such an offer was in October 1998 during the drive to impeach President...

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee introduced a resolution Monday to allow the panel to begin investigating a California judge for possible misconduct. In a statement, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., urged committee members "not to jump to any conclusions in this matter" involving U.S. District Judge Manuel Real. "Today's resolution merely allows the House Judiciary Committee to open an investigation to determine the facts," Sensenbrenner said. "Only after the House Judiciary Committee has conducted a fair, thorough and detailed investigation, will committee members be able to consider whether ... impeachment might be warranted." Sensenbrenner added that the next step...

The federal receiver in charge of California's inmate health care system said Thursday that the two prisons Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to build should be used instead as hospitals for inmates. The proposal was among a wide range of initiatives outlined by Robert Sillen in his first in-depth interview since he was given broad authority to reform the inmate health care system, which has been plagued for years by poor treatment and neglect. "Why spend that money twice?" Sillen told The Associated Press during an interview in his capital office. "It would seem to me the smart way to go...

The watchdog appointed by a federal judge to oversee California prison reforms said Wednesday he wants to force top aides of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to testify under oath in a case that could result in more federal control over the state's deeply troubled corrections system. John Hagar, the special master who reports to U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, wants the judge to let him conduct a full investigation into whether the administration has been backsliding on reforms since the first of the year. At issue is whether Schwarzenegger's top aides have been currying favor with the state's powerful prison...

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as part of a plan costing at least $3.6 billion to alleviate overcrowding in California prisons, is proposing to free up space by contracting with other states to house 5,000 incarcerated illegal immigrants. A detailed outline of the governor's prison agenda, released Friday, also says the corrections department needs to add more than 51,000 beds -- the equivalent of at least 10 large prisons -- during the next 15 years and offers new insights into the stresses put on a 33-prison system that is operating at nearly 200 percent capacity. One new proposal is a...

2,000 inmates already are in two tent facilities PHOENIX - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio wants 11 more large tents to house an influx of illegal immigrants. --

GAZA (Reuters) - The Hamas government wants a ceasefire with Israel and is willing to ask Palestinian militants to stop firing rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, a spokesman said on Thursday. But Ghazi Hamad said Israel had to first stop military activity in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Islamic militant group scrapped a 16-month truce with Israel last Friday and soon after launched a barrage of makeshift rockets at the Jewish state from Gaza. "I spoke today with the prime minister and he said we definitely want quiet everywhere. We are interested in a ceasefire...

NEW YORK - Keanu Reeves says he's lonely and wants to get married and have children, in an upcoming issue of Parade magazine. The 41-year-old actor says he continues to mourn the loss of his stillborn daughter in 1999 and the death of the baby's mother, Jennifer Syme, in a car crash in 2001. Syme had a small part in the 1997 David Lynch film, "Lost Highway." She and Reeves had reportedly broken up in 2000. "When the people you love are gone, you're alone," he tells the magazine. "I miss being a part of their lives and them being...

Official wants Da Vinci movie bannedWed May 10, 8:51 AM ET MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine government should ban the controversial movie "The Da Vinci Code," a senior official in the mainly Catholic country said Wednesday, describing the religious thriller as blasphemous. The film, based on the best-selling fiction novel of the same title, is due to open in Manila's cinemas next week. "I think we should do everything not to allow it to be shown," said Eduardo Ermita, executive secretary to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, expressing his personal opinion as a "devout Catholic." He told journalists the state's censors...

GRAPEVINE, Texas - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he wants the NFL to return to the Los Angeles area — with two teams. After meeting with a group of NFL owners, Schwarzenegger said he was there to make sure "we're getting not only one NFL team to the Los Angeles area, Southern California, but to actually get two teams. That's why I came. Why limit it?" NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and a committee of 11 owners met to hear proposals from Los Angeles and Anaheim. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle were there to make...

WASHINGTON - Not long after columnist Jack Anderson's funeral, FBI agents called his widow to say they wanted to search his papers. They were looking for confidential government information he might have acquired in a half-century of investigative reporting. The agents expressed interest in documents that would aid the government's case against two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, who have been charged with disclosing classified information, said Kevin Anderson, the columnist's son. In addition, the agents told the family they planned to remove from the columnist's archive — which has yet to be catalogued...

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syrian President Bashar Assad issued an order Saturday for a special committee to investigate any Syrian involvement in the assassination of a former prime minister in neighboring Lebanon, the state news agency said. The move comes as the U.N. Security Council considers a U.N. investigator's report that implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the Feb. 14 killing of Rafik Hariri and accused Assad's regime of not cooperating with the probe. Syria sharply disputed the report's findings, but said it would cooperate in the U.N. investigation, which has been extended until Dec. 15. Assad ordered the...

UNITED NATIONS - The United States is making a new push for the U.N. Security Council to confront human rights abuses by the ruling military government in Myanmar, despite strong opposition from a few members, a U.S. official said Thursday. American diplomats have gone to several key capitals around the world to try to convince other governments that the 15-nation council, the most powerful U.N. decision-making body, should discuss Myanmar, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said. "The U.S. would very much like to bring this to the council if we can get sufficient support," Patterson said. "We think it belongs in...

NAIROBI, Kenya - An influential religious leader and alleged al-Qaida collaborator vowed in an interview Wednesday to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, a lawless Horn of Africa nation the United States fears could grow into a major base for Islamic terrorists. "The Western world should respect our own ideas in choosing the way we want to govern our country, the way we want to go about our own business. That is our right," said Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, a key figure in a growing religious camp vying with secular factions for control of Somalia. Despite peace talks and the...

'Iron Lady' wants to kick out foreign petty crooks By David Rennie in Brussels (Filed: 01/10/2005) Foreigners living in Holland who repeatedly commit petty crimes will face deportation, under plans announced by the country's immigration minister yesterday. The shift in policy lowers the legal threshold for deporting immigrants holding Dutch residence permits. At the moment, they face expulsion only for serious crimes, such as kidnapping or murder. The policy change was put to the cabinet by the "Iron Lady" of Dutch politics, Rita Verdonk.A spokesman for Mrs Verdonk said she took action after an advisory panel urged the government to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The former lover of Pledge of Allegiance challenger Michael Newdow is again fighting to keep the words "under God" in the pledge. Sandra Banning and Newdow, an atheist, are the unmarried parents of the elementary school-aged daughter Newdow sued on behalf of three years ago when he challenged the pledge. A San Francisco federal appeals court in 2002 agreed that it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion for public school children to recite the pledge because it includes the words "under God." After the court ruled, Banning challenged Newdow's standing to sue, saying he did not have...

ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. (AFPN) -- Air Force Reserve Command officials said they are extremely concerned about reservists assigned to New Orleans or Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., who have not contacted their units with their status after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. "Only 63 percent of our (servicemembers) assigned to Keesler and 56 percent who are assigned to New Orleans have reported their status," said Steve Mann, AFRC director of personnel. "We are very concerned about the more than 930 reservists who are unaccounted for and who may be in need." People assigned to...

DENVER (Aug. 17) - If a group of prominent ecologists have their way, lions and elephants could someday be roaming the Great Plains of North America The idea of transplanting African wildlife to this continent is being greeted with gasps and groans from other scientists and conservationists who recall previous efforts to relocate foreign species halfway around the world, often with disastrous results. But the proposal's supporters say it could help save some species from extinction in Africa, where protection is spotty and habitats are vanishing. They say the relocated animals could also restore the biodiversity in North America to...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Monday to pursue a bipartisan compromise on his remaining special-election measures, despite his redistricting initiative being kicked off the ballot. During a news conference to highlight his agenda for reducing obesity among public schoolchildren, Schwarzenegger was asked repeatedly about his plans for the Nov. 8 special election now that Proposition 77 has been removed from the ballot by a judge who cited constitutional issues. Two initiatives sponsored by the governor -- including one to reform the state budget process -- remain on the ballot, as do others sponsored by various parties. "We are moving forward with...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has attacked violent video games as "a silent epidemic" among children, said she wants a federal investigation into one of the most popular, "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Clinton, D-N.Y., is asking the Federal Trade Commission to probe how users of the game can access "graphic pornographic and violent content" for the game from the Internet. In a letter dated Thursday to FTC chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras, she also urged the agency to examine whether the game's rating of "M" for mature should be changed to an "Adults Only" rating. The Entertainment Software...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday that his government maintained good relations with former President Clinton and told U.S. business leaders that he would do his best to improve ties with the Bush administration. Speaking to business representatives from the United States at a trade meeting in Caracas, Chavez said relations with Washington have been tense since Clinton left office more than four years ago. With the current administration, there hasn't "been the smallest possibility of dialogue," said Chavez, one of Latin America's most outspoken critics of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Chavez said he nonetheless...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants California to have a liquefied natural gas terminal and he prefers it be off the coast of Oxnard. Energy companies have submitted four separate proposals for LNG terminals on or off the California coast. Although the state is studying all of them, Schwarzenegger said after a speech in Alhambra on Thursday, "my personal preference is Oxnard." A proposal to build a floating terminal off the Oxnard coast has been submitted by the Australian energy firm BHP Billiton. The Coast Guard is conducting an environmental review, with safety one of the major issues being studied since an...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Tehran should be recognized for its role in unmasking the nuclear black market, a senior Iranian envoy said Wednesday, challenging criticism that his country was not working closely enough on the issue with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency. At the same time, Sirus Nasseri suggested Iran was entitled to supply itself with nuclear technology by all means available - including through illicit channels if it is blocked from legal means by international embargoes. "If you restrict countries ... from (getting access to) what they should be having ... things are bound to go (underground) again," Nasseri...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for a congressional investigation into reports of desecrations of the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. "As Muslims, we say enough is enough," the influential African American leader said from the pulpit of his south Chicago mosque. Farrakhan said a delegation of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders should participate in the investigation. Farrakhan also demanded that the US military either charge and try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay or release them to their families. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the US government Wednesday of turning "a...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - After years of neglect, scores of transportation projects statewide would receive a badly needed infusion of $1.3 billion under a plan outlined Wednesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The proposal is a key part of Schwarzenegger's revised 2005-2006 state budget that is due out on Friday. Facing a shortfall estimated at $8.6 billion, Schwarzenegger proposed in January a $111.7 billion spending plan that included more than $4 billion in borrowing and the transfer of $1.3 billion in sales tax money from transportation programs to other uses. The governor told an audience of mayors and city council members from...

Vice PM Shimon Peres said today that the disengagement should be pushed forward rather than postponed due to its coincidence with a period commemorating past Jewish tragedies. “We knew it fell out on that date from the very beginning,” Peres said, referring to the recently publicized fact that the forced expulsion of Jews from Gaza and the northern Shomron will take place during the three weeks leading up to the 9th of Av [Tisha B’Av]. That time period commemorates the destruction of the Holy Temple and a myriad of other tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. A special ministerial...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - California First Lady Maria Shriver said Friday that having her husband serving as governor was hard on their family and that she would prefer to see Arnold Schwarzenegger "back home" instead of run for president. "While I was always raised to believe that public service is the most noble calling, it's all-encompassing," Shriver said on "The Oprah Winfrey Show. "And it's tough, if you have young children. And it's a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week job. I want him home." Appearing on the show alongside her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Shriver repeated several times that if she had her...

WASHINGTON – As California officials assert their authority in court over liquefied natural gas terminals, Congress is moving to make it clear that federal regulators have the final word on where the sometimes-controversial facilities are located. An energy bill being crafted by a House committee would solidify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's role in approving the growing number of proposed LNG facilities nationwide, proponents say. Some of the terminals, including several proposed for California, have encountered strong opposition from residents worried about accidents or terrorist attacks involving the highly explosive fuel. Senate energy subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., introduced similar...

WASHINGTON (March 31) - The same Congressional committee that conducted hearings into steroids in baseball has asked NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue for information about how football regulates the performance-enhancing substances. The Government Reform Committee also said Thursday it will ask for similar data from the NBA, NHL, NCAA, U.S. Track and Field and Major League Soccer. "As the committee has stated publicly numerous times, its focus on the performance-enhancing drug use in sports is not limited to professional baseball," the committee said in a letter signed by committee chairman Rep. Tom Davis and ranking Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman. "As part...

The California agency famous for putting the squeeze on automotive tailpipe emissions is poised to tackle dirty indoor air. In a hefty report to the Legislature completed this month, the California Air Resources Board asserts that indoor air can be as polluted and dangerous to breathe as outdoor air, costing the state at least $45 billion a year in lost worker productivity, medical expenses and premature deaths. Yet, by and large, the government does little to stem indoor air pollutants, which come from sources as disparate as cigarettes, gas stoves and certain types of air purifiers. "Efforts to reduce indoor...

<p>This mail may not be surprising to you if you have been following current events in the international media with reference to the Middle East and Palestine in particular.</p> <p>I am Mrs. SUHA ARAFAT, the wife of YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader who died recently in Paris. Since his death and even prior to the announcement, I have been thrown into a state of antagonism, confusion, humiliation, frustration and hopelessness by the present leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization {PLO} and the new Prime Minister.</p>

The state's largest teachers union will ask its members to consider a $60 hike in dues in each of the next three years to help raise tens of millions of dollars to combat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's merit pay, pension and budget initiatives, union officials said Friday. If approved by the California Teachers Association's state council in June, the increase would tack on a total $180 over the next three years to the $500-a-year dues that its 335,000 members now pay the statewide organization. "We feel the need to defend public education and our students," said CTA President Barbara Kerr. "Our...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) plans to ask Congress to spend more to crack down on undocumented workers and arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But he wants to fund only a fraction of the new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. Bush's budget plan will call for spending $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work site investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government official familiar with the spending plan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The money would be used to conduct audits on employers, investigate violations...

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer has all but officially declared that he's running for governor next year, seeking endorsements in a letter to Democratic legislators in which he also said, "It's the job I want." California's top cop is one of three statewide Democratic officeholders whose names have been prominently mentioned over the past year as leading prospects to take on Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in next year's balloting. Lockyer, who previously served as the state Senate's president pro tem, provided his strongest signal on his intent in the Jan. 10 letter he sent to the Democratic members of the...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - He's running unopposed, but Mohamed ElBaradei may still fail in his bid for a third term leading the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, tripped by his main opponent, the United States. Unable to find a candidate willing to oppose the independent-minded Egyptian diplomat, Washington is now quietly lobbying other member states in ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency in a bid to unseat him by June, opening the way for a replacement more to the Bush administration's liking - one harder on Iran and other nations on the U.S. nasty list. With the agency spearheading international attempts to...

SACRAMENTO — The second-most-powerful California politician is proposing the state seize some zoning power from cities and counties to build projects that round out areas like Oakland and the East Bay as transportation hubs, where even depressed inner-city housing would then bloom — an issue voters may decide this year. The proposal to ease sprawl, traffic congestion and housing prices is opposed by cities and counties but could go to voters this turbulent political year — with or without the support of Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor is planning to call a statewide special election on a wide array...

BOSTON (AP) - A 94-year-old woman who won a $5.6 million dollar Megabucks lottery drawing in September wants to get the cash now instead of a 20-year annuity payout. Louise Outing of Everett said she won't live to collect her full winnings, and she wants to be able to help her family and spend the money as she chooses. In March, I will be 95 years old. "Do you realize that? Ninety-five in March". Now, you know I'm not going to live another 20 years, she told The Boston Globe. On Tuesday, she asked Norfolk Superior Court Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration Friday proposed abandoning an expensive suspension design for the eastern stretch of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in favor of a plainer, cheaper concrete skyway. "We need a safe bridge completed as soon as possible at a reasonable cost," said Sunne Wright McPeak, secretary of California's Business, Housing and Transportation Agency. "This is a time of very constrained resources for the state of California." The bare-bones skyway design could shave between $300 million and $400 million off a project whose price tag ballooned from $2.6 billion to $5.1 billion, McPeak said. She...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The California rancher and congressman whose committee oversees environmental policy wants to enlist some home-state muscle in his campaign to rewrite the Endangered Species Act. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., said he'll seek backing for his legislative efforts from Arnold Schwarzenegger and other Western state governors during a meeting this weekend of the Western Governors' Association. "I think that having the governor on board is critical for a lot of different reasons, particularly the impact that the act has had on California, and I think he also helps influence a lot of people," Pombo said...

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) - President Bush on Monday told the Pentagon to make two U.S. transport planes available to aid African peacekeeping forces seeking to end a humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. A White House statement issued as Bush campaigned in Florida, said the president had directed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make the planes available to the African Union, or AU, for two weeks, starting at the end of October. The military planes will help transport fresh troops that part of a 4,500-soldier contingent to be deployed to Darfur by the African Union by...

WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites)'s presidential campaign, contending that Sinclair Broadcast Group wants to help President Bush (news - web sites) by airing an anti-Kerry documentary two weeks before the election, asked on Friday that each station carrying the program provide a similar amount of time to Kerry supporters. Sinclair has contended that the program is news, covering an issue of interest and importance to viewers, and has invited Kerry to appear on a post-broadcast program. Kerry has declined. A call for comment about the Kerry campaign request was not answered at Sinclair's main phone number...

NEW YORK – While Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech brought electricity to the president's campaign Tuesday night, the California governor is unlikely to do much more for the re-election bid, he said Thursday. Meeting with the California press corps, he also talked about the need to moderate the Republican Party, continued to leave the door open to future events that could allow him to become president, and said how much he enjoyed addressing the American people. "I'd love to go to every state in this country, to every city, to every village, and to tell the people how great this country is,"...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States is calling for the immediate withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, according to a a draft resolution circulated in the U.N. Security Council late Tuesday. The new measure also offers support for elections under the current Lebanese constitution, which would rule out a second term for pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. The United States decided to press for a resolution - with the support of France, Lebanon's former colonial ruler - after what many saw as a Syrian-engineered move to change the constitution to extend Lahoud's term. The resolution calls on the council "to...

In a hotly worded letter to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a top Republican lawmaker is urging the creation of a bipartisan committee to investigate whether Kevin Shelley knowingly funneled taxpayer money into his successful 2002 campaign for California secretary of state. Assembly Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy urged Nuñez, of Los Angeles, to immediately set up a committee "to take swift and effective action to determine the facts in this issue." He compared the need to probe the unfolding debacle with the Legislature's investigation of former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, which led to his resignation in 2000. The FBI is already...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - With state health care costs soaring, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed more than $1 billion in spending cuts next year for public health programs along with caps in enrollments, new copayments for patients and lower reimbursements for providers. But he appears to have far fewer ideas for reining in the billions spent on employee benefits - the fastest growing part of the state's medical bill. Medi-Cal, the state's version of the federal Medicaid program, would lose about $900 million in funding next year. About half that money would come from a $454 million cut in support for...

WASHINGTON - Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites), accusing the Bush administration of failing to protect chemical plants, says he would require them to assess their risks of catastrophic attack and use less dangerous chemicals when possible. Kerry's plan, which he was expected to outline in a speech Thursday in Philadelphia, closely mirrors legislation he co-sponsored in early 2003 with Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and other Democrats. It stalled in the Senate over opposition from Republicans, who said it sought to inappropriately micromanage the nation's $450 billion chemical industry. Kerry was to say that President Bush (news - web...

COMMENTARY--The FBI is trying to convince the government to mandate that providers of broadband, Internet telephony, and instant-messaging services build in backdoors for easy wiretapping. That would constitute a sweeping expansion of police surveillance powers. Instead of asking Congress to approve the request, the FBI (along with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration) are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with minimal public input. The three agencies argue that the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) permits the FCC to rewire the Internet to suit the eavesdropping establishment. "The importance and the urgency...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A U.N. envoy proposed Wednesday that the U.S.-appointed Governing Council cease to exist June 30 and said the United States should surrender sovereignty to a "caretaker" government of respected Iraqis. U.N. Undersecretary-General Lakhdar Brahimi said the new government should be led by a prime minister, a president and two vice presidents until elections are held in January. The proposed new structure would give Washington a way to dissolve the fractious and unpopular 25-member Governing Council named by the United States. Brahimi's proposals came as Iraq's U.S. administrators have been anxious to show progress on the political...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - State lawmakers should work part time so they would be more productive and less likely to write "strange bills," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a reporter during a family vacation in Hawaii.</p> <p>"I want to make the Legislature a part-time Legislature," he said Tuesday. "Spending so much time in Sacramento, without anything to do, then out of that comes strange bills.</p>