Ray Sansom on Bed Tax/Conference Center - President Gerald Ford once said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."  I believe President Ford must have had the most recent Okaloosa County conference center proposal in mind when making this kind of comment as our President. This plan would require an increase in the Tourist Development tax by 100% and have the county assume full financial liability associated with the proposed conference center...

 Missing Travelers Apparently Found - The three buddies came to Florida for a week of fun in the sun. They rented a four-wheel-drive vehicle, stocked their timeshare with $200 in food and drink and then vanished without a trace...

 USAFSOS course helps Nations build civilian-military ties - If you thought you saw a Russian general wandering around Hurlburt Field, Fla., recently, you weren't seeing things...

 Eglin uses tank turrets for new artificial reef - The turrets were dropped into the Gulf May 21 at two sites off the Destin, Fla., coast to build an artificial reef for area aquatic life. A tank turret is the rotating upper section of a tank that weighs roughly eight to 12 tons...

 Hurlburt Cops Detain Suspected Bank Robber - The 16th Security Forces Squadron detained a suspected bank robber May 27 after he fled onto the base...

 AC-130H crew assists stranded boaters - For five boaters stranded 10 miles off the Gulf Coast, the sight of an AC-130H Spectre gunship from the 16th Special Operations Squadron, Hurlburt Field, Fla., was a welcome one...

 CSAF says 'Thanks for the Memories' to Hope - Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan joined more than 1,600 adoring fans at the Okaloosa-Walton County Community College Performing Arts Center here Nov. 1 to say, "thanks for the memories," to legendary entertainer Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores...

 Hunt Is On for Africanized Bees
Defensive, mean and unpredictable, the killers entered through the Port of Jacksonville, hiding among the crates and containers arriving daily from other countries...

 Lightning Strike Snarls Railroads
A lightning strike at a communications center slowed or halted rail traffic - including 11 Amtrak trains - in parts of the East and Midwest. Some 200 trains were affected.  The lightning struck a CSX communications center in Jacksonville, Fla., at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, knocking out the signal system between Chicago and Philadelphia...

 Some Rumor and Fact about Billy Bowlegs - ...treasure hunters smashed into his grave and found 2 pots of gold buried in his grave and located an unusual looking tree in the cemetery, which when hit with an axe, poured out silver dollars...

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 Small Businesses Offer Web Tips - Small businesses looking for success on the Internet should have functional, well-designed Web sites and advertising good enough to lure customers, a New England seafood retailer told a House committee Wednesday...

 Smoke Could Linger a Week - School children were kept indoors, golfers struggled to breathe and asthma sufferers were urged to carry emergency inhalers as putrid smoke from a smoldering fire blanketed South Florida...

 Fires Burn Florida - One person was killed and 20 others injured when five tractor-trailers crashed into an overturned truck Tuesday on a smoke-shrouded highway where firefighters battled fast-spreading wildfires...

 Hank Williams Sr. Estate Wins Case - The illegitimate daughter of Hank Williams Sr. isn't entitled to $12 million from his estate, a judge ruled...

 Hectic Hurricane Season Predicted - Federal officials predicted a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season today and urged people in hurricane-prone areas to think about how they will handle the storms...

 Chuck Norris To Appear in Fla. Crime Ads - Gun-toting criminals will go to jail longer under a new Florida crime law, and one of Hollywood's toughest actors will be spreading the word...

 O.J. May Buy House in South Florida - O.J. Simpson was in no mood to skimp during a house-hunting excursion in South Florida. The former football star is scouting some of the area's finest real estate - homes priced from $870,000 to $1.2 million, The Miami Herald reported...

 Local Police Ratings Vary by Race - The release of the survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics comes amid controversy that some police departments around the country engage in racial profiling, the practice of stopping or searching motorists based on race...

 Hectic Hurricane Season Predicted - Federal officials predicted a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season and urged people in hurricane-prone areas to think about how they will handle the storms...

 Florida Girl Wins Spelling Bee - Nupur Lala, a 14-year-old Tampa, Fla., girl who never met a word she would not look up, correctly spelled ``logorrhea'' on Thursday to win the 72nd annual Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee...

 The Image of the Pig in Southern Culture - In the American South, as in the United States more generally, the pig business and symbolic representations of swine are both extremely popular and remarkably political...

 Clinton Gets No Break From Kosovo
President Clinton played a round of golf and went biking with the first lady Wednesday on a secluded plantation in northern Florida. But it wasn't all fun in the sun for the commander in chief...

 Air Force Bars Leaving During War
Air Force pilots, ground crews, air traffic controllers and others central to the NATO bombing campaign in the Balkans must stay in the military for now, the Pentagon said Wednesday...

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The illegitimate daughter of Hank Williams Sr. isn't entitled to $12 million from his estate, a judge ruled.  Jett Williams was born five days after the country legend died in 1953. She said she was denied the inheritance because Robert Stewart, her father's longtime attorney, and Irene Smith, her father's sister, hid the fact that she was Williams' daughter. She asked Circuit Judge Gene Reese to award her the $12 million from American States Insurance Co., which insured her father's estate.

Reese ruled Tuesday that since another court found that Stewart and Smith were not personally liable for any damages, Ms. Williams is not entitled to collect from the bonding company. Williams' mother cared for Jett Williams until she died. She was later adopted and didn't discover she was Williams' daughter until she was 21. The country star's son, Hank Williams Jr., once tried to block her from collecting any money from the estate. They settled for an undisclosed sum.

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MIAMI (AP)  Federal officials predicted a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season today and urged people in hurricane-prone areas to think about how they will handle the storms.  This is the first time the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a preseason forecast. It calls for three or more intense hurricanes - two is normal - and will be updated in August, at the height of the June-to-November season. 

The outlook was issued at the National Hurricane Center, during a news conference attended by officials from the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Forecasters expect more hurricanes this year in part because of La Nina. The opposite of El Nino, La Nina brings cooler-than-normal temperatures to the part of the Pacific Ocean off South America that sees warmer water temperatures during El Nino.   Forecasters anticipate two conditions that could facilitate hurricane development: low wind shear in parts of the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea and a wind pattern off of west Africa that may feed developing storms.

Advances in technology are helping forecasters warn people more accurately and further development of early warning systems for safer communities.'' The officials also took the occasion to urge all residents in areas that could be affected by hurricanes to heed any and all evacuation orders.  Hurricane center director Jerry Jarrell, however, also cautioned against unnecessary flight.

``You tend to have too many people evacuate,'' he said. ``Trust me, there's not enough roads to get us all to Atlanta.''

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Gun-toting criminals will go to jail longer under a new Florida crime law, and one of Hollywood's toughest actors will be spreading the word.

Chuck Norris, the karate-kicking star of television's ``Walker, Texas Ranger,'' has agreed to issue a stern warning in a series of TV commercials. The ads, which Norris is doing free of charge as a favor to his friend, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, will let crooks know about the new ``10-20-life'' law.

They will begin next month. The law stipulates that a criminal can go to jail for 10 years if a gun is used in certain felonies, 20 years if it's fired and 25 years to life if anyone is seriously hurt or killed. Bush made the announcement Monday in front of about 200 law enforcement officers. ``He's a friend, and he's a good conservative supporter of law enforcement,'' Bush said of Norris.

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MIAMI (AP) - O.J. Simpson was in no mood to skimp during a house-hunting excursion in South Florida. The former football star is scouting some of the area's finest real estate - homes priced from $870,000 to $1.2 million, The Miami Herald reported Wednesday.

Simpson rejected a five-bedroom home because it didn't have enough baths to allow daughter Sydney, 13, and son Justin, 10, to have their own, the newspaper said. He also checked out a $995,000 home in a gated community in the Coconut Grove neighborhood.

Simpson was acquitted of murder in the 1994 slayings of former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman. Simpson was found liable in a civil trial and ordered to pay $33.5 million to the victims' families. The verdict excluded his football pension plan, which pays him up to $25,000 a month.

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