February 24, 2001 -
Online
Battleground - Has your home page been hijacked?
- By Stefanie Olsen, Special to ZDNet, Web
surfers are in a tug-of-war for control of their home
page settings, fighting off increasingly aggressive
tactics by Net businesses and online marketers aimed
at commandeering first rights to consumers' browsers.
Unsuspecting consumers who install software, open
attachments or merely visit certain Web sites can find
themselves tethered to an unwanted start page every
time they log onto the Net. Security experts say the
practice is on the rise, but few people are
technically savvy enough to understand what's actually
going on when browser settings are switched...
November
01, 2000 - Doctor-drug
co. conflicts studied
- CHICAGO (AP) - A funny thing happened to Dr.
Jerome Kassirer at a recent lecture to medical
students about financial conflicts of interest for
doctors: It turned out the free buffet was provided by
a major drug company. Kassirer had a blunt message:
Medical schools and training programs "must teach
that there is no free lunch. No free dinner. Or
textbooks. Or even a ballpoint pen." From
freebies for medical students to research funding that
can taint study results to the growing practice of
marketing prescription medicine directly to consumers,
drug companies have a growing and sometimes unseemly
influence on doctors, according to articles, studies
and editorials published Wednesday in the Journal of
the American Medical Association. Most experts agree
that research needs industry dollars. The top 10
pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $23 billion on
clinical research last year - more than the nearly $18
billion provided by the National Institutes of Health,
JAMA editor Dr. Catherine DeAngelis said. The problem
is when researchers have financial interests in
companies funding their work. DeAngelis said such
research is lower in quality and more likely to report
findings favorable to the company.
November
02, 2000 -
Boys' abuse led to dwarfism - JOSHUA
TREE, Calif. (AP) - Two brothers whose parents allegedly
kept them chained to their beds suffered
"psychological dwarfism" and malnutrition,
medical reports show. When discovered by sheriff's
deputies last month, Yahweh Davis, 17, suffered chronic
bronchitis, stood 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed what
a normal 10-year-old boy would. His brother, Angel, 12,
measured 4 feet 2 inches and weighed 58 pounds.
Authorities said they found the boys after Yahweh called
911 on Oct. 14. Police and prosecutors allege the
brothers were chained to a bed, beaten and kept hidden
from the outside world for most of their lives. The boys
apparently never received medical or dental care,
investigators said. Dr. Claire Sheridan of the Loma
Linda University Medical Center said in court Tuesday
that the boys' condition was caused by stress and
profound abuse. The boys' parents, John Davis, 53,
Carrie Davis, 41, and another adult, Faye Potts, 46,
appeared in court Wednesday for a preliminary hearing.
Potts lived with the Davis couple. John Davis said he
was following biblical teachings that called for being
strict with children.
November
01, 2000 -
Americans evicted from Baja
homes - ENSENADA, Mexico (AP) - The two-story wooden
house Alex and Sally Sanchez built in an oceanside
Mexican community was not just a vacation getaway. It
was an investment into which they had poured most of
their savings, a home where the Arizona retirees planned
to spend the rest of their lives. Now the couple and
dozens of other foreigners - most of them Americans -
are being forced to rebuild their retirement dreams
after Mexican authorities evicted them from their homes
on a sandy peninsula in Mexico's Baja California state.
The evictions began Monday, a week after Mexico's
highest court ruled that because of a bureaucratic
mistake nearly three decades ago, Mexican landowners
were wrongly stripped of the land when it was included
in a grant to a peasant land collective, known as an
ejido. Foreigners cannot legally buy land on the Mexican
coast. But the ejido of 85 families in the Punta Banda
area, 100 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border, gave
long-term leases to the foreigners to build homes. When
Mexico's Supreme Court ruled the land wasn't the ejido's
to lease - and ordered the government to return it to
its rightful owners - authorities began evicting the
foreigners.
November
01, 2000 -
UN looks at impact of war on
women - UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security
Council unanimously adopted a resolution Tuesday calling
for special measures to protect women and girls from
rape and sexual abuse in war and for a greater role for
women in making peace. While the council has passed
resolutions on civilians and children in armed conflict,
it has never focused exclusively on the impact of war on
women and girls - and the need to include women in
solving conflicts and rebuilding shattered nations. The
resolution, sponsored by Namibia, was redrafted after
last week's first-ever Security Council meeting on
"Women, Peace and Security" at which
representatives from some 40 nations spoke. Many said
women and children are the primary victims of war, that
too often their human rights are not protected, and that
their participation in peace efforts has been
consistently undervalued. The resolution reaffirms
"the important role of women in the prevention and
resolution of conflicts and in peace-building" and
stresses "the importance of their equal
participation and full involvement in all efforts for
the maintenance and promotion of peace and
security."
November
01, 2000 -
Lawyer pleads guilty, faces
jail - FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) - A pregnant lawyer learned
Tuesday that she will spend a year in jail after the
birth of her baby as part of her sentence in the death
of a teen-age girl. "I'm sorry for the pain and the
suffering this has caused," said Jane L. Wagner,
her voice cracking with emotion. Circuit Court Judge
James E. Kulp of Richmond initially was prepared to
preside over a nonjury trial, but Wagner, 30, changed
her plea to guilty of felony hit and run, accepting
criminal culpability for the March 8 incident that left
NaEun Yoon gravely injured in a ravine in Fairfax
County. "Her body was found 100 feet from the
guardrail," said Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney
Raymond Morrogh, who prosecuted the case. Yoon, 15, was
walking along the road after her mother stopped the
family's minivan to defuse a dispute between her son and
daughter following a shopping trip. The teen-ager was
struck by Wagner's vehicle with such impact that the
windshield was shattered, a mirror was torn off and her
skull was fractured. Wagner drove home, where her
defense attorney said she got in bed and did legal
paperwork. She did not surrender to police until 36
hours after the incident occurred.
November
01, 2000 -
Mother of slain soldier appeals
- WASHINGTON (AP) - The mother of a soldier who was
murdered in his barracks is appealing the Army's denial
of her $1.8 million wrongful death claim. Patricia
Kutteles of Kansas City, Mo., believes an anti-gay
atmosphere in the Army led to the killing of her son,
Pfc. Barry Winchell, 21. It is her last chance to seek
redress under the Military Claims Act, an administrative
procedure that allows people to seek reimbursement from
the military for injury or death. Lt. Col. Russ Oaks, an
Army spokesman, declined to discuss the appeal. Col.
John H. Belser, chief of the Army's Tort Claims
Division, denied Kutteles' original claim in September,
ruling there was "no legal basis" for it. He
said the Federal Tort Claims Act, a procedure for
seeking compensation in civilian courts, is the
"exclusive remedy for negligent or wrongful acts or
omissions by the United States or its employees within
the United States." Kutteles said fellow soldiers
believed Winchell was gay and harassed him for months
before he was beaten to death with a baseball bat while
sleeping in his cot July 5, 1999 at Fort Campbell in
Kentucky. The Army knew about the harassment but did
nothing to stop it, she said.
November
01, 2000 -
Court debates extended jail
terms - WASHINGTON (AP) - Three years after ruling
that states can keep sexually violent predators locked
up after their prison term is over, the Supreme Court
debated on Tuesday whether some sex offenders still can
show they are being held unlawfully. "My client has
been punished for 10 years under a so-called civil
commitment statute," said Robert Boruchowitz,
lawyer for a six-time rapist locked up under Washington
state's sexual-predator law. Boruchowitz contended the
state was not providing treatment required by law, and
convicted rapist Andre Brigham Young therefore was being
punished unlawfully and should be released. The state's
lawyer, Maureen Hart, argued that the remedy for alleged
improper treatment is not to release a sex offender but
to "go to court and require Washington to provide
the treatment and care that it has promised."
February 09, 2001 -
Police
investigate costly computer crimes, student denies
wrongdoing - By Rachel Dissell, Daily Kent
Stater, Kent State Police are continuing their
investigation of an alleged computer crime committed
from a computer in a Verder Hall dorm room. According
to Kent State police, the crimes being investigated
include tampering with records and unauthorized use of
a computer system, which are third and fifth degree
felonies. But the police couldn't specify exactly what
the crimes were...
February 05, 2001 -
Privacy
in the Digital Age - By AMY HARMON, NYTIMES
© 2001 "A New Trick Gives Snoops Easy Access
to E-Mail A watchdog group has uncovered a new trick
that enables someone to essentially bug an e-mail
message... (and
more)"
