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General Electric Co reported a 44 percent drop in quarterly profit Friday, meeting Wall Street’s expectations, as the U.S. conglomerate and economic bellwether closed out one of the toughest years in its 117-year history. Earnings tumbled 67 percent at GE Capital finance and 86 percent at its lighting and appliance unit, and were also down 6 percent at NBC Universal media. Profit was up at its two infrastructure units, which make electricity-producing turbines and engines. The world’s largest maker of jet engines and electric turbines said on Friday profit came to $3.72 billion, or 35 cents per diluted share, compared...

MORE than eight million litres of this season's production of Beaujolais wine is being turned into near-pure alcohol for use in disinfectants, cleaning products or fuel additives, as French vineyards face up to a massive overproduction crisis.A chronic wine glut, falling domestic consumption and fierce overseas competition have converged to create a wine crisis on an unprecedented scale. With "lakes" of unsold wine threatening to undermine prices, the European Union has resorted to paying vintners to destroy some of their stock each year, distilling billions of bottles of perfectly drinkable wine into pure alcohol. Sceptics say the measure, which cost...

DETROIT -- A Mississippi-based conservative Christian group has canceled a boycott of Ford Motor Company. The Tupelo-based American Family Association first announced the boycott against Ford and related brands on May 31. AFA criticized Ford as being too gay-friendly, giving thousands of dollars to gay rights groups, offering benefits to same-sex couples and actively recruiting gay employees. Gay rights activists now say they fear there may be a secret deal between the AFA and the company. Ford has denied any such deal. After a spring meeting with a group of Ford dealers, the association said in June that it was...

MRC on ABC, CBS and MSNBC Tonight About CBS Dropping The Reagans ABC News and CBS News sent camera crews to the MRC this afternoon to tape comments from MRC President Brent Bozell and so he should appear in stories tonight on ABC's World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News. Be on the lookout tonight and tomorrow: The MRC should be quoted in a lot of newspaper articles and cited in a bunch of TV and radio stories and segments on CBS's dumping The Reagans and putting it on the Showtime channel. I've spent the afternoon on the phone...

Halle Berry solidified her place as one of the world's sexiest women with her role as Bond girl Jinx in "Die Another Day." But the Oscar-winning actress (Monster's Ball) says she still doesn't see herself as a beautiful star. "To be totally honest, most of the time I think I'm ugly," she told the German magazine Journal fur die Frau. "I see myself without makeup every morning and that's why I don't have illusions anymore. I certainly don't feel like a big star." Berry added that being black still hinders her progress in Hollywood. "For many film studios and directors...

The Dixie Chicks aren't the only Texas natives bashing President George W. Bush.Sandy Duncan who is performing in South Carolina, told a local paper that she questioned the decision to go to war, and wishes that rather than President Bush, the United States had a leader who was 'globally aware' and 'really smart.''I just wish men would quit thinking they could just duke it out with each other,' the native of Henderson, Texas, told the Times and Democrat.'I don't have all of the facts, and who knows what's really the truth, but I really don't respect [President Bush's] way of...

2002-08-08) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LA Daily News) - ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings is apparently not the only celebrity to take issue with Toby Keith's chart-topping country hit, "Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)." Now, the Dixie Chicks's lead singer, Natalie Maines, freely shares her dislike of the song. "Don't get me started," Maines told the Los Angeles Daily News. "I hate it. It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture - and not just the bad people who did bad things. You've got to have some tact. Anybody can write,...

Second Thoughts By: William W. Lawrence 04/15/2003 We hear so much about young Americans -- teenagers and early 20s -- who give Americans a bad name. Then we watch our young GIs and our chest swells with pride.They were freeing an oppressed people while naked women, transvestites, dogs, dancers and singers joined Harry Belafonte in an antiwar protest to "praise the patriotism of the demonstrators" and condemn the military action in Iraq."We denounce governments that act with tyranny," Mr. Belafonte told the crowd. He was talking about our government, not Saddam Hussein's. Listen, there were always war protesters.I was a...