Tennessee: Gore signals interest in running again

With a select audience of still-loyal financial donors and political partisans cheering him on, Al Gore declared Saturday that if he ran again for president, he would shed the constraints of polls, tactics and consultants that hobbled his 2000 campaign and “let it rip.”

The former vice president’s closed-door meeting in Memphis with several dozen key backers, an event staged in part as a show of strength to other potential Democratic contenders, edged him further toward a declaration that he wants a rematch with President Bush in 2004.

While Gore officially remains uncommitted (he promises a decision after the November congressional elections), his wife, Tipper, says she wholeheartedly would support another run for the White House, squelching rumors about her reluctance.

Virginia: Lawmaker took loan from AOL founder

Rep. Jim Moran said he did nothing improper in accepting a $50,000 loan from America Online founder James Kimsey last year.

Moran, a Virginia Democrat, received the loan in January 2001 and repaid it with interest within three months, according to financial disclosure statements filed Friday. In a statement, Moran said the loan was from an old friend.

“There may be questions about my judgment in accepting this loan and what I did with the money,” Moran said. “That is understandable and warranted, but there was no compromise of the public trust involved in this transaction nor in any prior loans that I have reported throughout the course of my congressional career.”

Kimsey is a founder of America Online who retired from the company in 1996.

Texas: Gutenberg Bible soon to be just a click away

In his shop in Germany, Johann Gutenberg was at the cutting edge of 15th-century information technology. Using separately cast, movable type for the first time, he published about 200 Bibles in the 1450s, revolutionizing the printing process as well as Western civilization.

If only he could see what technicians at the University of Texas are up to now.

Using cutting-edge computer-imaging technology, the university last Wednesday began digitizing its copy of the Gutenberg Bible, a copy that scholars consider one of the most interesting of the 48 Gutenberg Bibles known to exist.

It is believed to have been in use for nearly 300 years, longer than any of the other surviving copies. Within a few months, it will be available for inspection by anyone with an Internet connection, said Richard Oram, chief librarian at the university’s Harry Ransom Center.

Portions of Gutenberg Bibles owned by the Library of Congress and institutions in Japan and Britain are available on the Internet. “But every copy is unique,” Oram said.