Toys Stolen From Firefighters' Holiday Cheer Fund

Jay Hermacinsski

The Grinch hit early this year in Columbus. Someone broke into a warehouse and stole shopping carts full of toys. The toys were donated by the community. Columbus firefighters were collecting them and planned to hand them out to deserving children next month.

Volunteers dropped off a truckload of toys and clothes at a warehouse in Columbus on Monday. The generous donations comes at a particularly needy time. Over the weekend, someone broke in and stole dozens of toys.

"You always hear about the Grinch who stole Christmas. Whoever done it is kinda the Grinch to us," Leroy Armstrong with the Columbus Fire department said.

Shelves that were once full are now empty. The thief or thieves nearly cleaned out the cd players and boom boxes. Costly gifts to replace.

Whoever broke in stole more than just a handful of items. Firefighters say they got away with at least two shopping carts full of goods.

"It's rather disappointing because you're here to help other people and someone comes in and helps themselves," Scott Stam with the Columbus Fire department said.

The toys are part of the Columbus firefighter's Cheer Fund. Founded in 1930, the fund provides holiday gifts to needy children, 1,500 kids last year alone.

The firefighters can't understand how someone could steal from them.

"The money, the time is donated by the community. They're stealing not only from kids who get the toys but from everyone else," Armstrong said.

Disappointed, yes but still focused on the kids. The firefighters say they will work hard to replace the stolen toys. They won't let some Grinch take the cheer out of this years Christmas.

While Columbus Police are investigating the theft, firefighters are asking for more donations from the community to make up for the stolen goods.

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Indianapolis Attorney Reacts To Canceled O.J. Simpson Book, Interview Deal

Eric Halvorson

O.J. Simpson's book and TV special have been canceled. "News Corporation," which owns the FOX network, planned to air the interview. It also owns the company that published the book.

News Corp's chairman, Rupert Murdoch, says the projects were "ill-advised." Others are much less diplomatic.

Simpson's book entitled "If I did it" inspired outrage from the Goldman family and from people across the country.

"I'm thrilled that the American public forced them to do what was right," Fred Goldman said.

Fred Goldman's son, Ron, was killed along with Simpson's wife, Nicole, in 1994.

Simpson always claimed he was innocent and the jury acquitted him.

But, he lost in a civil trial and was ordered to pay millions of dollars.

"We are elated at News Corp's decision to pull the book and pull the interview," Indianapolis Attorney Jonathan Polak said.

Polak represents the Goldman family. He's trying to help them collect on the civil judgment.

"We still have a great deal of legal work to do, to find out where the money went and why it went there," Polak said.

For now, he's grateful the Simpson story backlash forced News Corp to re-evaluate its plans, "Although they didn't do the right thing in the beginning they seem to have done the right thing now in pulling that."

"Unfortunately, we should not have been put through this insanity," Fred Goldman said.

And Polak says Simpson needs to know the Goldmans will never go away, "And we will continue to hound him and continue to seek justice against him for as long as he lives."

So, Polak says he and the Goldmans are planning more legal action.

He says they'll go after anyone from publishers, to producers, to lawyers who, they think, may have tried to hide Simpson's assets from the Goldmans as they try to collect the judgment.


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Why the U.S. and South Korea Don't See Eye to Eye


Rather than help the U.S., the APEC summit showed how Pyongyang has driven a wedge between Washington and its usual ally, South Korea.


Five years ago, the Presidents and prime ministers of the 21 countries that comprise the forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathered for the first time in the shadow of the War on Terror. The host city back then was Shanghai, and the Chinese had hoped the APEC summit would be a historic coming out party for the gleaming symbol of their reignited capitalist fervor. Given the timing — two months after September 11, 2001— it didn't quite work out like that.


President Bush just left the latest APEC meeting, this one held in another one party Communist country — Vietnam — hoping to impress the world with its own recent embrace of capitalism. And once again, five years on, it was the War on Terror, and its consequences, that sucked the oxygen out of the conference rooms. In fact, what people may remember most about this APEC meeting is that it became painfully obvious just how successful Kim Jong Il — charter member of the "axis of evil" — has been driving a wedge between the United States and its ostensible ally in Seoul.

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Why the U.S. and South Korea Don't See Eye to Eye


Bill Powell

Rather than help the U.S., the APEC summit showed how Pyongyang has driven a wedge between Washington and its usual ally, South Korea.
Five years ago, the Presidents and prime ministers of the 21 countries that comprise the forum for Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathered for the first time in the shadow of the War on Terror. The host city back then was Shanghai, and the Chinese had hoped the APEC summit would be a historic coming out party for the gleaming symbol of their reignited capitalist fervor. Given the timing — two months after September 11, 2001— it didn't quite work out like that.

President Bush just left the latest APEC meeting, this one held in another one party Communist country — Vietnam — hoping to impress the world with its own recent embrace of capitalism. And once again, five years on, it was the War on Terror, and its consequences, that sucked the oxygen out of the conference rooms. In fact, what people may remember most about this APEC meeting is that it became painfully obvious just how successful Kim Jong Il — charter member of the "axis of evil" — has been driving a wedge between the United States and its ostensible ally in Seoul.

For his entire second term, as Iraq has gone from bad to worse, the President has desperately sought to cajole the other Great Powers to join him to help deter North Korea and Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran is still a slow motion work in progress, but the effort to deter Pyongyang from getting nukes failed. It's now about persuading Kim Jong Il to stand down his nukes in return for all sorts of unspecified economic and diplomatic goodies. But as the APEC meeting showed, on this matter South Korea and China have practically switched their standard roles of U.S. ally and irritant in the region.

The good news out of Hanoi, after all, is that China, North Korea's primary benefactor, still seems more determined than it had been before Pyongyang's July 4 missile test last summer to rein in Kim's nuclear program. An administration official said the U.S., China and Japan "see eye to eye" on their carrot and stick approach to the North. Given that China and Japan pretty much don't agree on anything — save the benefits of running mind bending trade surpluses with the United States — that's progress.

The bad news, however, is that South Korea — ostensibly (and unlike China) a close US ally — was notably absent from the "eye to eye" crowd. South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, like Bush, a lame duck whose party has taken a drubbing in mid-term elections, is determined to pursue his country's "Sunshine Policy" toward the North — all carrots and virtually no stick — no matter what. At multilateral meetings like APEC, he's effectively become a more effective stand in for Kim Jong Il and his agenda than Chinese premier Hu Jintao.

Pressed by Bush to take a more proactive stance in the so called Proliferation Security Initiative against the North — which seeks to prevent WMD proliferation by interdicting ships if necessary — Roh demurred. The South Korean government issued an extraordinarily mealy mouthed statement, saying that it "supported" the "goals" of PSI — but wouldn't actually do anything when it comes to interdicting North Korean ships. At least the Roh government is pretty straightforward about the reason: it says it's afraid of provoking the North into a war.

For the same reason, South Korea had avoided, until earlier this month, voting on UN condemnations of North Korea's human rights record, which next to Sudan is about the worst on the planet. One bitter human rights campaigner told TIME last month that for all South Korea cares, "Kim Jong Il could personally drop North Korean citizens from a helicopter into boiling vats of acid — just as long as he didn't by mistake drop one over the 38 parallel [into South Korea."] Now that South Korean Ban Ki Moon is Kofi Annan's designated successor as UN Secretary General, the Seoul government couldn't quite bring itself to abstain from a resolution criticizing Pyongyang earlier this month. But make no mistake; South Korea's See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Hear No Evil stance toward the North is still in place, and it couldn't be more out of sync with Bush's.

Roh and Bush had a sideline summit in Hanoi, which both sides tried, as usual, to put the best face on. But there's genuine reason for skepticism as to just how united a front the US and its partners will present when the North finally shows up (as it has said it will) for the next round of "six party talks" about its nukes.

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6 imams removed from Twin Cities flight

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.


The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m., airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.


A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

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6 imams removed from Twin Cities flight


STEVE KARNOWSKI,
Associated Press Writer

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.

The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m., airport spokesman Pat Hogan said.

A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

"They took us off the plane, humiliated us in a very disrespectful way," said Omar Shahin, of Phoenix.

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

"I never felt bad in my life like that," he said. "I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed anger at the detentions.

"CAIR will be filing a complaint with relevant authorities in the morning over the treatment of the imams to determine whether the incident was caused by anti-Muslim hysteria by the passengers and/or the airline crew," Hooper said. "Because, unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it's one that we've been addressing for some time."

Hooper said the meeting drew about 150 imams from all over the country, and that those attending included U.S. Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minneapolis, who just became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Shahin said they went as far as notifying police and the FBI about their meeting in advance.

Shahin expressed frustration that — despite extensive efforts by him and other Muslim leaders since even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — so many Americans know so little about Islam.

"If up to now they don't know about prayers, this is a real problem," he said.

Reached by cell phone just after his release, Shahin said he didn't know where they would spend the night or how they would try to get back to Phoenix on Tuesday. Hooper said US Airways refused to put the men on another flight.

Hogan said more information would likely be released Tuesday.

The other passengers on the flight, which was carrying 141 passengers and five crew members, were re-screened for boarding, Rader said. The plane took off about three hours after the men were removed from the flight.

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Today in history - Nov. 21

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2006. There are 40 days left in the year.


Today's Highlight in History:


On Nov. 21, 1922, Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. (Felton, a Democrat appointed by Gov. Thomas Hardwick to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas E. Watson, served only a day before Watson's elected successor, Walter F. George, took office.)


On this date:


In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

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Today in history - Nov. 21



The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, Nov. 21, the 325th day of 2006. There are 40 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 21, 1922, Rebecca L. Felton of Georgia was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. (Felton, a Democrat appointed by Gov. Thomas Hardwick to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas E. Watson, served only a day before Watson's elected successor, Walter F. George, took office.)

On this date:

In 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1934, the Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes," starring Ethel Merman as Reno Sweeney, opened in New York.

In 1942, the Alaska highway across Canada was formally opened.

In 1964, the upper level of New York's Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which connected Brooklyn and Staten Island, was opened.

In 1969, the Senate voted down the Supreme Court nomination of Clement F. Haynsworth, the first such rejection since 1930.

In 1973, President Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt, revealed the existence of an 18 1/2-minute gap in one of the White House tape recordings related to Watergate.

In 1979, a mob attacked the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing two Americans.

In 1980, 87 people died in a fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas.

In 1985, former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Jay Pollard was arrested, accused of spying for Israel. (He later pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 1995, The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the 5,000 mark for the first time.

Ten years ago: Thirty-three people were killed, more than 100 injured, when an explosion blamed on leaking gas ripped through a six-story building in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Five years ago: Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year-old resident of Oxford, Conn., died of inhalation anthrax in a case that baffled investigators. Actor-turned-author Gardner McKay died in Honolulu at age 69.

One year ago: General Motors Corp. announced it would close 12 facilities and lay off 30,000 workers in North America. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon broke away from the hardline Likud with the intention of forming a new party. President Bush became the first U.S. chief executive to visit Mongolia. Time magazine political columnist Hugh Sidey died in Paris at age 78.

Today's Birthdays: Baseball Hall-of-Famer Stan Musial is 86. Country singer Jean Shepard is 73. Actor Laurence Luckinbill is 72. Actress Marlo Thomas is 69. Actor Rick Lenz is 67. Singer Dr. John is 66. Actress Juliet Mills is 65. Comedian-director Harold Ramis is 62. Television producer Marcy Carsey is 62. Actress Goldie Hawn is 61. Movie director Andrew Davis is 60. Rock musician Lonnie Jordan (War) is 58. Singer Livingston Taylor is 56. Actress-singer Lorna Luft is 54. Journalist Tina Brown is 53. Actress Cherry Jones is 50. Rock musician Brian Ritchie (The Violent Femmes) is 46. Gospel singer Steven Curtis Chapman is 44. Actress Nicollette Sheridan is 43. Singer-actress Bjork is 41. Football player Troy Aikman is 40. Rhythm-and-blues singer Chauncey Hannibal (BLACKstreet) is 38. Rock musician Alex James (Blur) is 38. Baseball player Ken Griffey Jr. is 37. Rapper Pretty Lou (Lost Boyz) is 35. Country singer Kelsi Osborn (SHeDAISY) is 32. Actress Jena Malone is 22.

Thought for Today: "Never confuse motion with action." — Ernest Hemingway, American author (1899-1961).

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