France's sports teachers are feeling outraged by the manner in which the national football team qualified for next year's World Cup.
The sports teachers' main union said Thursday in a statement that Raymond Domenech's team advanced to the tournament following "indisputable cheating."
France secured a 1-1 draw with a controversial goal in extra time and …
Helicopters equipped with "night sun" lights and heat-seekingdevices to locate suspects will be dispatched to Chicago to bolstersecurity during the Democratic convention, state officials saidTuesday.
Together, the OH-58 helicopter provided by the Illinois NationalGuard and the Air One helicopter and four fixed-wing aircraftsupplied by the Illinois State Police offer the "potential forround-the-clock air surveillance" during the Aug. 26-29 convention,said Chicago Police Department spokesman Paul Jenkins.
The State Police also will provide a formidable groundcontingent. State troopers will escort President Clinton and VicePresident Al Gore and act as bodyguards …
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Tim Tebow is once again making Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers seem like an afterthought.
It's not hard to see why.
Tebow and the Denver Broncos are hot. Rivers and the Bolts are not. Tebow has the Broncos (5-5) winning and in second place in the AFC West, even if his play is unconventional by NFL standards. The Chargers (4-6) have bumbled their way to five straight defeats — their longest losing streak since the start of the 2003 season — and a last-place tie with Kansas City.
Sunday's matchup between original AFL teams will be big. With livid Chargers fans howling for coach Norv Turner and general manager A.J. Smith to get the heave-ho from …
The word went out early Monday morning to Miami Heat fans. Show up at 8 a.m. and welcome Dwyane Wade back to South Florida, they were told.
So they did.
Right time. Wrong location.
Wade arrived back in Miami, but instead of flying on a private jet into a charter facility _ as the Heat marketing department expected _ he took a commercial flight from Charleston, S.C., into one of the airport's main terminals. So about 50 Heat fans, as well as a handful of team employees, left without a glimpse of Wade, who is expected to decide his playing future in the coming days.
Later, Wade was seen walking into the Heat's arena with owner Micky …
* Hanson Chapel will hold special services to dedicate the newchurch steeple at 7 p.m. today.
* The JoyBeams will sing at 3 p.m. Sunday on WSCW Radio, at 7p.m. Sunday at Summit Ridge Community Church in Lincoln County, at7:30 p.m. Thursday at Jordan Mound Church and at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8at Atkinson Memorial Church off Frame Road.
* Canaan Baptist Church, 1919 Bigley Ave., will have specialwelcome services at 10 a.m. Sunday for the church's new pastor,Brother James Warden, and his family. Morning worship begins at 11a.m. with special singing by the choir, trio and soloist.
* Gospel soloist Jim Edens will sing at 11 a.m. Sunday atChasmere Baptist Church, …
There's nothing better than putting aside a Sunday afternoon for holiday baking. Every family has their traditional favorite, whether it's gingerbread men, pumpkin pie or poppyseed cookies. But did you know that some of the same spices used in holiday cooking also have medicinal properties? Granted, it usually takes a lot more than a half teaspoon of the spice to have any effect, and eating cookies isn't the way to treat what's ailing you, but here's a look at what some of these favorite holiday flavors have to offer.
Cinnamon: (Cinnamomum verum) The spice used for culinary purposes is from the dried bark of the laurel tree. The medicinal parts, however, are the oils, extracted …
The Philadelphia Phillies have reached a preliminary agreement with outfielder Raul Ibanez on a $31.5 million, three-year contract.
Ibanez will receive a $2 million signing bonus, payable this year, a $6.5 million salary next season and $11.5 million each in 2010 and 2011.
The agreement is subject to Ibanez passing a physical, two people familiar with negotiations said Friday, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the contract was not yet finalized.
The 36-year-old, who …
Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet arrived in the area -then a swamp, now a national historic site - in 1673 while portagingtheir canoe toward Lake Michigan.
Today Lyons, located 12 miles southwest of the Loop, has littleroom for expanison.
"In recent years, there have been some small, single-lotprojects and a few multifamily developments," said George Kucharchuk,a village inspector. "But we're not really a high-growth community."
Lyons is experiencing slow but stable commercial growth. …
NEW YORK - The title of the new "Indiana Jones" movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, has been revealed.
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" will be in theaters May 22, 2008.
The title of the long-awaited fourth installment of the adventure series was announced by Shia LaBeouf, who co-stars with Ford in the film, at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas on Sunday.
The new Indy adventure, which is set in the 1950s, also stars Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Karen Allen.
Sean Connery, who played dad to Ford's globe-trotting archaeologist in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," …
A weak auction of Treasury notes is putting the pressure on both stocks and bonds.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 70 points Wednesday after the government sold $19 billion in 10-year Treasury notes. The government had to lure buyers with a higher yield than the market anticipated.
The 10-year note's yield, which is closely tied to interest rates on mortgages and other consumer loans, jumped to 3.99 percent, …
RABAT, Morocco (AP) — New clashes erupted in the Western Sahara between Moroccan security forces and local people seeking independence for the vast, resource-rich desert region, activists said.
People in the regional capital used rocks and sticks in street battles with Moroccan police conducting house-to-house searches on Tuesday, said Brahim Ahmed, an activist for the native Saharawi people.
"Every now and then you hear something, screams and everything," he said.
Violence exploded Monday after Moroccan forces using tear-gas and high-pressure water cannons tore down a tent camp set up by some 20,000 Saharawi outside of the territory's main city, Laayoune, to protest …
The provocative and moving new play "Grace" takes the ceaseless global struggle of faith versus reason to the domestic front. Mick Gordon and AC Grayling's work, now being presented by MCC Theater at off-Broadway's Lucille Lortel Theatre, pitches it as a battle between mother and son.
Grace Friedman, played with unflinching bravado by Lynn Redgrave, is a university professor and famous atheist. She is so committed to her ideals that she rejects the atheist description, saying it is a religious term. Redgrave is a serious, commanding presence with her cropped silver hair, conservative long sweater and black pants (costumes are by Alejo Vietti).
"The word itself gives credence to the idea it is pretending to criticize," she says. "It's pernicious. Atheist is not a description, it's advertising. I am a naturalist."
So, it naturally follows that Grace is completely appalled when her lawyer son, Tom (Oscar Isaac), announces that he's decided to become an Episcopalian priest. She is convinced that she's done something terribly wrong, and appeals for help to her secular Jewish husband, Tony (Philip Goodwin).
Goodwin is extraordinarily affecting in this role _ he is sweet-tempered and calm in the face of his wife's belligerence and his son's insistence. He tries to introduce reason and bring a bit of humor to the situation. Tony tells Grace to look on the bright side: No one is going to take a priest named Friedman seriously.
She is resolute in her disapproval and disappointment, though _ especially when Tom tells her that he has doubt and that "it's fine to be thinking, moderate, self-critical and religious." Isaac is very believable as the slightly naive son who is just as firm in his convictions as his mother. He is preaching better religion as an alternative to zealotry _ he believes it's possible to be enlightened and be religious.
For Grace, it's one or the other; she is as fundamentalist on this point as the groups she criticizes. "You can't have it both ways," she says. "It's faith or reason _ you have to choose." Her rigid philosophy drives Tom away, and after he is killed in a terrorist bombing, the relationship can never be repaired.
Tom's pregnant girlfriend, Ruth, thoughtfully and compassionately portrayed by K.K. Moggie, was never quite sure about his ambitions for the priesthood but she does know what kind of funeral he would have wanted, and when Grace opposes even this, she passionately demonstrates the consequences of her actions.
Director Joseph Hardy smoothly articulates the action as it leaps from past to present. An economical set by Tobin Ost consists of four main set pieces _ chaise lounge, kitchen table, park bench and "God Helmet" lab.
This last location frames the play: Grace has been invited to Canada to participate in an experiment where she'll wear a helmet implanted with electrodes that will attempt to identify the brain's electric pulses associated with mystical feelings. During this induced epiphany _ this mixture of spirituality and science _ Grace finds a modicum of salvation.
Insurer Allianz Cornhill is expanding its Bristol claims centre.
The centre has moved to Bridge House, Baldwin Street, and willdouble in size following a reassessment of its company claimssystems.
It will mean the company runs seven claims centres na tionwide.
Each centre will specialise in certain types of claims. TheBristol site will concentrate on motor insurance, employers'liability and public liability claims.
The new offices, in Baldwin Street, will house 63 people followinga doubling in size of the depar tment.
Many of the new staff have come from other insurers who havescaled back in the city.
The move follows a review of Allianz Cornhill's claims divisionthat has resulted in the setting up of dedicated call centres,handling specific claims.
The Bristol centre, which opened this week, is one of only sevenclaims centres run by the company following its restructuring.
Allianz Cornhill has its headquarters in Guildford but it employsmore than 400 people in its Bristol offices.
As an assignment for a peace studies course at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, student Jan Braun of Osler, Saskatchewan, analyzed Mennonite responses to the 1990 Gulf War. The following is her response to the findings.
August 2, 1990 was the day many people thought they were seeing a Hitler-like beast rear his ugly head in the form of Saddam Hussein and his invasion of Kuwait. Many people, including the Canadian government, saw military action as the only option.
Through researching responses in the Mennonite Reporter (Sept. 1990 to April 1991), it's clear that General Conference and Mennonite Church members did not take the same view as the U.S. and Canadian governments.
The Mennonite responses showed leadership and an ability not to take sides on the issue. Seeing that both sides had valid concerns, the first thing that needed to be done was to put away weapons of war. Mennonites lifted their voices and real action was taken.
Sharon Welch in A Feminist Ethic of Risk, says that one of the main problems in western society is what she calls an "all or nothing ethic." A prevailing attitude is that if complete change can not be effected, no attempt should be made at any amount of change.
In contrast, I see Mennonites as having a mentality of patience which reduces the frustration of accomplishing only small goals. My hope is that we can maintain this mentality, not matter how discouraging. Can we be a community in which small victories can be celebrated, despite the fact that we cannot stop daily bloodshed from occurring all over the world?
We can look to the model of Jesus. I believe it was not merely chance or missed opportunity that Jesus did not lead Jewish.Zealots in an armed rebellion against the oppressive Roman government; he chose not to. I believe that it was not chance or missed opportunity that Jesus didn't call down myriads of angels to eradicate the Romans; he chose not to.
Perhaps some think the Mennonite message of nonviolence and resistance/pacifism is already done to death, but I wish to support it at every opportunity because we have the model of Christ who made conscious, daily choices. This has real consequences for US.
We also have the model of our ancestors. Menno Wiebe once said in a lecture I attended, "If you say the same thing that your ancestors said, then you are not saying the same thing." It is imporant to find a way of marrying the past with the present. We are in a different position than our ancestors and can afford to practise nonviolent resistance without fearing immediate persecution.
I find it important also to remember that following Christ is a radical undertaking. To me, this means that we can no longer simply be pacifists but must be practising peace in the form of nonviolent resistance so that we do not say the same thing our ancestors said.
My hope is that a balance can be found between concentrating on peace within our own communities and in the global community where we are called to peacemakers.
CRAWFORD, Texas--President Bush has made no secret of hispreference for life on the ranch, but he has decided to return toWashington a few days early from his vacation.
Bush has been here since Aug. 4. He had tentatively planned to goback Labor Day, Sept. 3.
Instead, Bush will return to the White House Aug. 31, spokesmanAri Fleischer said Friday. The president is likely to maintain thelow profile he has kept this month, either at the White House or atCamp David, the spokesman said.
Bush plans to take a Labor Day trip, but Fleischer did notdisclose his destination.
The president plans to fly to several cities in the next two weeksto promote various initiatives.
LONDON - A Briton released by Pakistan after more than a year in custody was arrested shortly after his plane landed Friday at London's Heathrow Airport, police said.
A handcuffed Rangzieb Ahmed was pulled off the plane by armed police who boarded it as soon as its doors opened.
Manchester police, who made the arrest, said Ahmed was being held under Britain's terrorism laws.
Ahmed was arrested Aug. 25, 2006, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province for alleged links with al-Qaida. A U.S. human rights group said he had been tortured in custody.
Pakistani officials did not charge him, and a review board headed by Supreme Court Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar ordered his release Aug. 31, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
"The fact is that during one year of detention, the Pakistanis, the British and the U.S. have been unable to unearth a shred of evidence against this person," said Ali Dayan Hasan, South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Ahmed said he was interrogated several times by U.S. law enforcement personnel from unidentified agencies and by British security services, but he denied wrongdoing and involvement with al-Qaida, Human Rights Watch said.
Ali said he did not know why Ahmed had been detained. Pakistan held Ahmed under its security powers and was not obliged to specify on what charges he was held, Ali said.
Manchester police said Ahmed was 32, while Pakistani officials said he was 30.
Ahmed, who was born in the northern England city of Manchester, traveled to Pakistan last year to visit relatives, said his brother, Mohammed Pervaiz.
Pervaiz said Ahmed was tortured in Pakistani custody and was told by a prosecutor in court that the government had "secret evidence" against him. British officials were not allowed to see Ahmed because Pakistan claimed he held joint Pakistani citizenship, he said.
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Associated Press Writer Alisa Tang in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
All track athletes have been waiting anxiously for the outdoorseason to start. For Micah VanDenend, that wait is just going to be alittle longer.
"People tell me I should be [patient]," the Glenbard South seniorsaid. "But I'm not."
VanDenend won the Class AA state cross-country championship andled the Raiders to the team title in November, after an injury-plagued junior year. He carried the momentum from the fall into theoffseason, until he developed pain in his left leg in late February.
I had a great winter, got a lot of miles in for a base, and thenthis happened," he said.
Doctors were uncertain whether the pain was a strained patellartendon or slightly torn calf muscle, but after three weeks of rest,VanDen-end was feeling better by mid-March and is still easing hisway back into training. He expected to be running hard again bytoday.
VanDenend had wanted to run at the Top Times meet Saturday, butGlenbard South coach Andy Preuss nixed that idea. As it is, he onlyexpects VanDenend to run in five or six outdoor meets this spring,given his history. A stress fracture in his right fibula sidelinedhim for most of his junior year. Preuss and VanDenend have targetedthe Raider Invitational April 19 at Glenbard South for his return.
"I love to race," VanDenend said. "But I know it's important tostay healthy."
VanDenend will get his chance to run soon enough; he wants todouble in the 3,200 and 1,600 at state. He qualified for both as asophomore, but pulled out of the 1,600 in prelims. As a junior, hefinished ninth in the 1,600.
VanDenend remains undecided on where he will run in college. Hehas taken visits to Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina State andWisconsin and has a visit upcoming to Illinois.
FINISHING TOUCH: Morgan Park figures to be the team to beat in thePublic League again this year. After winning the indoor championship,the Mustangs learned something at Top Times. In first place nearingthe finish of the 4x400 relay, Jean Middleton, running the anchor legfor Morgan Park, had the baton knocked out of his hand as he crossedthe finish line.
Middleton dove back across the line to get it, and wasdisqualified on the grounds that he interfered with the otherrunners. He and coach Lexie Spurlock both were upset, but Spurlock istaking it in stride now.
"As long as my team ran the best time. ..." he said. "We didn'tget the medal, but we know we won. From now on, we're going to makesure we're so far out in front, that can't happen."
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya on Tuesday dropped death sentences against five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of children with HIV, commuting their punishments to life in prison, the foreign minister said.
The ruling came after families of the children each received $1 million, according to a victims' advocate, and agreed to drop their demand for the execution of the six, who deny having infected more than 400 children and say their confessions were extracted under torture.
Libya remains under intense international pressure to free the medical workers, and Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said Tripoli was willing to consider the medics' deportation to Bulgaria. He said the negotiations would take place within "the legal framework and political context" between the two countries.
"In return (for a transfer), improving the conditions of the infected children and their families should be taken into account," he told The Associated Press.
Bulgaria's chief prosecutor, Kamen Mihov, said requests would be made Wednesday to have the medics leave Libya shortly. They have been jailed since 1999.
But the medics' main Libyan defense lawyer, Osman al-Bizant, told the Al-Jazeera television network that their deportation would depend on "whether there is the possibility of carrying out the punishment there (in Bulgaria)."
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin called the Supreme Judiciary Council's ruling "a huge step in the right direction." Asked whether it was possible the medics would be pardoned after returning home, Kalfin said: "All judicial options are real."
Libya's Supreme Court upheld the six medics' death sentences last week, but Shalqam said the country's Supreme Judiciary Council decided Tuesday to commute the sentences to life in prison. The council is a government body that can overrule the court.
"Issuing this decision automatically closes the legal case against them," Shalqam told the AP.
Speaking to journalists after the ruling, Kalfin said the case would only be closed for Bulgaria when "our citizens return to their homeland."
Experts and outside scientific reports have said the children were contaminated as a result of unhygienic conditions at a hospital in the northeastern coastal city of Benghazi. Fifty of the infected children died.
The United States and European Union welcomed the move by the Libyan judicial council, which could remove an obstacle toward rebuilding ties with Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. was "encouraged" by the decision. "We urge the Libyan government to now find a way to allow the medics to return home," he added.
"The fact that (Libya's) High Judicial Council did not uphold the death sentence is a first relief," said a joint statement by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
"However, our objective is a solution which allows for the departure of the Bulgarian and Palestinian medical personnel from Libya and their transfer to the EU as soon as possible."
The husband of jailed nurse Kristiana Valcheva said he was relieved by the council's ruling.
"Thank God the death sentences were dropped," Zdravko Georgiev said in a radio interview from Tripoli. "But I cannot make any forecast how long the upcoming procedures will last."
Idriss Lagha, head of the Libyan-based Association for the Families of HIV-Infected Children, said the families had dropped their demand for the medics to be executed after each received the compensation money they were due under a settlement reached last week.
"All the families have received their cash transfer, $1 million for each infection," Lagha told AP late Tuesday.
Officials here have said the families' acceptance of a compensation settlement was key to resolving the deadlock and would allow the death sentences to be withdrawn. Gadhafi's son, Seif al Islam, had told a French newspaper that $400 million in compensation would be paid to the families and would be financed in the form of debt remission.
The younger Gadhafi, who heads the group working to resolve the standoff, told Le Figaro newspaper that the countries involved were Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia and the Czech Republic.
But government officials from Bulgaria and other nations reportedly involved in the deal have all denied they were sending cash to the families.
Bulgaria has said it would not pay compensation because it would imply the medics were guilty, but the country's foreign minister acknowledged Tuesday his country was considering participating in an international fund for humanitarian aid to Libya.
"Since other European countries are involved in the international fund for humanitarian aid, it would be strange if Bulgaria was not interested," Ivailo Kalfin told Bulgarian National radio. "We will consider some form of participation."
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Associated Press writers Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, Maggie Michael in Cairo, Egypt and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.
Anti-government protesters have vowed to avenge those killed and injured in clashes this week with the police.
Soldiers helped maintain an uneasy calm Thursday in Bangkok, two days after two people died and more than 400 were injured when police attempted to break up protests that degenerated into Thailand's worst political violence in more than a decade.
While each side accused the other of using excess force, many pointed to the grievous wounds suffered by several demonstrators, including four who lost parts of their legs, as evidence that the police used heavy weapons. Police said they only used tear gas, and said they believed some demonstrators were hurt by explosives they themselves were carrying.
Protesters rallied in their stronghold at the compound of the prime minister's office, which they have occupied since Aug. 26.
"We will not negotiate with a man who has blood on his hands," said key protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul to loud applause. "I ask our brothers and sisters to be strong and turn your sorrow into anger so we can have our revenge!"
The protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy say Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat is a pawn of ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 by military leaders who accused him of corruption. He now lives in exile. Somchai is his brother-in-law.
The alliance wants sweeping changes to Thailand's electoral system to prevent what they call corrupt politicians from exploiting the rural majority to take power.
Though police insisted they used only tear gas in Tuesday's clashes, Associated Press reporters said stun grenades were also employed.
Protesters claimed their gathering early Tuesday aimed at blockading Parliament was peaceful, but many had brandished iron rods, slingshots, firecrackers and bottles to attack police. An AP Television News reporter saw at least three carrying guns, and witnessed two of them firing at police. Three police officers were shot and one was stabbed with a flagpole.
Almost a dozen doctors at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn Hospital said they would refuse to treat policemen because of their actions Tuesday, and urged colleagues to join them. But the hospital's director said all patients would be treated.
A pilot on a domestic flight of Thai Airways International, the national carrier, refused to allow lawmakers from Somchai's ruling People's Power Party onto his flight.
The airline later suspended the pilot from duty, The Nation newspaper reported on its Web site.
The People's Alliance for Democracy claims Thailand's rural majority _ who gave strong election victories to Thaksin and his allies _ is susceptible to vote buying and too poorly educated to responsibly choose their representatives.
The group wants the country to abandon one-man, one-vote democracy and instead adopt a mixed system in which some representatives are chosen by certain professions and social groups. They have not explained how exactly such a system would work or what would make it less susceptible to manipulation.
