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 West Nile-Like Virus Found in N.J. - Four dead crows found in New Jersey tested positive for the West Nile-like virus believed responsible for the deaths of at least five people in the New York City metropolitan area. The state health department said Monday this is the first time the virus has been identified in New Jersey. The crows were found in Bergen, Essex, Middlesex and Union counties in the northern part of the state...

 Pakistan Warns of Nuclear Doomsday - South Asian nuclear rivals India and Pakistan carried their hostilities to the U.N. General Assembly, accusing each other of pushing the fragile region toward a bloody conflict. Warning of nuclear ``doomsday'' in South Asia, Pakistan urged world leaders and the United Nations to stop India from developing a massive arsenal of atomic weapons...

 Technology Aims To Locate 911 Calls - "Federal regulators are taking the next steps toward ensuring that cell phone users who dial 911 automatically give emergency dispatchers a key piece of information: their location. The action today by the Federal Communications Commission sets the technology standards for cellular companies to follow as they make 911 caller location available in their phones. Regulators hope that cellular companies will begin providing phones with locator technology within two years. The commission voted 5-0 to set the rules..."

 Study: Women Give Dying Family Care - "When someone falls terminally ill, it's usually a woman in the family who ends up providing most of the day-to-day care, including complex nursing tasks such as changing feeding tubes and giving intravenous medication, researchers say. Their study is the first in a decade of how terminally ill patients get their care..."

 Siemens Sheds Components Business - Siemens AG said today it has agreed to sell its electromechanical components business to Tyco International Ltd. for $1.1 billion. The transaction, which is still subject to antitrust approval, completes Siemens' plan to leave the components business. Siemens chief financial officer Heinz-Joachim Neubuerger said Tyco was the most suitable of more than 40 bidders for the electromechanical components business, which has 12,400 employees worldwide...

 Generous Millionaire Ends Column - Percy Ross, who for 17 years used a syndicated column called ``Thanks a Million'' to share his fortune with people who wrote in with good sob stories, says the money has run out. Ross published his final column last week. ``I've achieved my goal. I've given it all away,'' Ross, 83, told readers in his farewell column. ``You've given me so much over the years. In many respects, I'm far richer today than when I started...''

 Beatty gives 'majorette' speech - "Actor-director Warren Beatty says he won't let "monied, honeyed voices of ridicule and reaction" stop him from considering a presidential bid. In a speech Wednesday night to Hollywood's liberal elite, Beatty drew several rounds of applause, but didn't deliver what the crowd came to hear - a yes or no about his presidential intentions..."

 Three Boys Arrested in Girl's Rape - Three boys were arrested Wednesday in the alleged gang rape of an 8-year-old girl, while the four other suspects were too young for prosecution. The three boys, ages 10, 11 and 13, were being held at a juvenile detention center on preliminary charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The boys must be charged within 48 hours...

 Clinton Says $115 Billion Surplus Biggest Ever - "President Clinton said that taxpayers will produce a record $115 billion budget surplus this year and urged Republicans to help him decide what to do with it. ``We have to come together and work together to get anything done, and we can do that,'' Clinton said. The president's call to set partisanship aside was unlikely to play well with Republicans in Congress. He vetoed their $792 billion tax cut measure, effectively dooming chances for a major tax reduction this year..."

 Investor Accused of $1B Fraud - Criminal and civil charges were filed against a New Jersey man accused of bilking Japanese investors out of up to $1 billion as he tried to make up for losing hundreds of millions of dollars on risky investments, authorities say. Martin A. Armstrong, 50, of Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested Monday and released on $5 million bail after an appearance in federal court in Trenton, N.J. A message left at a telephone listed in his name was not immediately returned...

 Internet Taxes Fail to Catch Fire - "House Republican leaders warned an Internet tax commission that the GOP-led Congress is in no mood to expand taxes on electronic commerce, including sales taxes on purchases across state borders. ``This idea is not a popular one in Congress or among the American people,'' wrote three dozen GOP lawmakers in a letter to the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, which is holding its second of four meetings..."

 Health Systems Called Unprepared - Local public health systems remain ill-prepared to respond to potential biological or chemical terrorist attacks, emergency management and medical officials told a House subcommittee. An administration official, acknowledging the situation, said the Department of Health and Human Services was working hard to improve it...

 The future of peacekeeping - The collapse of Indonesian misrule in East Timor caused hundreds of deaths, a refugee crisis and raised questions about the future of the world’s fourth most populous nation. But there is a bright side. State-sponsored violence, for once, was met not with words, but with action. The U.N. Security Council quickly approved intervention. Indonesia’s neighbors pledged troops immediately. Perhaps most importantly, the United States acted in proportion to its national interests. It did not send an aircraft carrier. No reservists have been called up. Could this be a model for sustainable interventions in the new century?

 Bitter Paradise: The Sellout of East Timor - "In the weeks before and the days since the August 30th overwhelming vote for independence by the East Timorese, armed gangs of thugs, armed and controlled by the army, have rampaged throughout the country, trying to terrorize the population and block independence..."

 Candidates' Stance on the Military - "Positions of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on the military..."

 Bush Emphasizes Defense, Weaponry - Promising a ``new architecture of American defense,'' Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush said that he would spend $20 billion more on futuristic weapons research, build a national defense against ballistic missiles as quickly as possible and cut back on overseas peacekeeping by American troops...

 1999 Is Busy Year for Executioners - Many people knew who Gary Gilmore was in 1977 when he became the first U.S. inmate executed in a decade. Hardly anyone has heard of Willie Sullivan and Harvey Lee Green, the latest of 76 killers put to death so far this year. Death row is a growth industry. ``It's no longer big news when people are executed,'' says Yale Kamisar, a University of Michigan law professor...

 Budget Surplus Reaches $115 Billion - The Clinton administration today increased its estimate of the rapidly growing budget surplus, saying it should hit at least $115 billion in fiscal 1999, the largest in American history.  ``It is a landmark achievement for our economy,'' President Clinton said in a Rose Garden announcement, scribbling the new figure on a chart for the cameras. ``And when you consider where we were just seven years ago, it's as great an American comeback as the Ryder Cup was,'' he said, referring to the U.S. team's come-from-behind victory in the golf team classic...

 Murder Trial Opens for Fetish M.D. - "A former doctor is on trial for murder in the death of an elderly man who paid $10,000 to get a healthy leg amputated merely to satisfy a sexual fetish..."

 Swedish teen awaits verdict in online music piracy trial - A Swedish teenager is awaiting a verdict on charges of Internet music piracy in a case that is the first of its kind in Europe, according to a recording industry lawyer. The complaint against Tommy Olsson was brought by the Swedish branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents 53 record companies...

 Great weight-loss expectations - “It just isn’t working,” you say, and you give up on an important diet or exercise resolution. It’s tempting to toss in the towel when you don’t get results fast enough. One way to overcome this temptation is to develop healthy habits that don’t feel like torture. Equally important, however, is to have realistic expectations in the first place...

 7 Tried for Four-Year-Old's Torture - "Prosecutors charge that his family used him as a punching bag, made him sleep in a pigsty when he wet the bed, and wanted to kill him to stop him crying..."

 Who's Spamming Whom? - Meet the spammers, those furtive and reviled entrepreneurs who make a living clogging your inbox with junk e-mail. You could get rich, download nude pictures of celebrities, buy penny stocks or start your own business...

 Presenting Lobster-cam on the Web - A new Web site is launching lobsters into cyberspace. It's based inside a trap under the waters of Spruce Head, where a camera sends a new photo to an Internet site every two minutes, sometimes showing a caged crustacean poking its antennae around or climbing across the lens...

 'Missing' airplane sought in N.H.   - ATOP CARR MOUNTAIN, N.H. (AP) - The librarian, clutching a machete, wades in first and vanishes instantly. The karate instructor follows. The veterinarian brings up the rear. On a morning at the peak of Carr Mountain, silence envelops everything. In the coming hours, the others in their coterie will join the quest. Diverse personalities, enduring a grueling three-hour climb for 10 days of hardscrabble outdoor living. The reason: This forest contains a mystery - one these men and women have claimed as their own. They have come from around the country to the White Mountains to find an airplane. The one that vanished in 1996, taking two young pilots with it. The one that, after almost three years, has eluded authorities and hundreds of volunteer searchers. But these folks on the mountain, they do this stuff for fun. They spend vacations and money getting together to find what's missing - people, corpses, airplanes.

 City of Miami Charged in Bond Fraud - The city of Miami and two top officials defrauded investors on three 1995 bond offerings by presenting a rosy picture of city finances when deficits were secretly mounting, federal regulators say. The following year, a $68 million hole in city funds was uncovered when corruption charges brought in a new administration. The city is still operating under a state financial oversight board...

 Web isolation? It's all the rage - At a party recently, the topic among a few of us turned to airline travel. I mentioned the increasing number of incidents of violent passenger behavior in the not-so-friendly skies—flight crews being attacked and so on. I had read a story about the disturbing trend on Salon.com. We all suggested theories to explain the behavior...

 August Internet Buying Rebounds from Summer Slowdown - "U.S. consumer buying on Internet retail sites rebounded in August after a slight decline in July, according to PC Data Online, a leading Internet research firm specializing in web commerce measurement. PC Data Online's latest figures for web purchasing among U.S. households show that an average of 4.5 percent of visitors to the top 40 online retail sites purchased items in August, returning to June levels after dropping to 3.2 percent in July..."

 Floyd is history, but misery endures - A CLEAR picture of the devastation was only beginning to emerge from the receding ooze, and Floyd’s misery was compounded by the stench of the storm’s flotsam. Douglas Maready, leaning against his red pickup, stared across a field to his turkey houses, filled with a quarter million pounds of rotting turkeys and smelly muck. “Now we’re trying to figure out what to do with them,” said Maready, 55, who lost 6,500 turkeys and four months of work...

 Student Said ``Bullied'' Into Suicide - A heartbroken father says high school students bullied his 14-year-old son ``for four days straight'' before the boy shot himself to death in this small southern Illinois town. High school administrators were interviewing Andrew Rudy's classmates to determine who may have been involved in the harassment. Police said they've found evidence of verbal harassment, but no criminal acts...

 2 Killed, 2 Hurt on Roller Coaster - Mark Matczak and his two young children were waiting to board the Wild Wonder roller coaster when a car that had started out on its ride suddenly reversed course.  ``It was like, `Oh, my God, it's coming back down,''' said Matczak, 39, of Tylersport, Pa. ``As quickly as I said that, it hit...''

 Is the World Population Explosion Really Over? - "Many journalists now assume that the "population bomb" has been "defused." But the assumption isn't supported by hard facts. Here are a few essential points to consider..."

 Cracking down on the mystic - Mindful of the explosive role mystical forces have played in toppling weak regimes throughout Chinese history, China announced this week a plan to prosecute senior leaders of the Falun Gong sect and send them to prison for the rest of their lives. In the following essay, historian Franz Schurmann explains why the thought of its people “turning inward” is so frightening to China’s leaders...

 The War on Drugs is Lost - "WE ARE speaking of a plague that consumes an estimated $75 billion per year of public money, exacts an estimated $70 billion a year from consumers, is responsible for nearly 50 per cent of the million Americans who are today in jail, occupies an estimated 50 per cent of the trial time of our judiciary, and takes the time of 400,000 policemen - yet a plague for which no cure is at hand, nor in prospect..."

 A-10 Bomb Search Fails - A search team looking for a bomb from the suicide crash of an A-10 Air Force warplane two years ago found an old unexploded mortar shell, but no sign of the 500-pound bombs they were seeking...

 Entrance to Holy Sepulcher Not Made - A second exit to the crowded Church of the Holy Sepulcher may not be ready in time for the millions of pilgrims expected to visit in the year 2000, Israeli officials said...

 Probation, Parole Numbers Top 4M - "Americans on parole or probation at the end of 1998 numbered more than 4 million for the first time ever last year, but differences in policies made for wide variations among the states, the Justice Department reports..."

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 U.N. Launching Poverty Web Site - A new Internet site from the United Nations aims to fight hunger and poverty worldwide by making it easier for donors to contribute their time or money. President Clinton, former South African President Nelson Mandela and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were to launch the NetAid site through satellite appearances...

 Former U.S. POWs Want Out of Army - The American soldiers, hearts pounding, hands behind heads, dropped to their knees. The Serb captors placed guns to the back of the prisoners' heads. Staff Sgt. Christopher Stone wondered if he would be executed. Spc. Steven M. Gonzales thought, ``Am I going to see one of my friends get shot in the head?'' In the ensuing week, the POWs, hooded, handcuffed and legs bound, endured beatings, interrogations and death threats as NATO's air war against Yugoslavia raged overhead. After 32 days of isolation, they were released in May and welcomed home as heroes...

 Microsoft Denies Helping Govt Snoop - Microsoft Corp. says it's not conspiring with the federal government to allow a spy agency to read what's on your personal computer. The claim against the maker of the popular Windows software was originally brought by security consultant Andrew Fernandes of Mississauga, Ontario, on his Web site...

 Frankel May Fight Extradition - Since his arrest, Martin Frankel has run and rerun through his head the events of the last months: how it came to pass that he traded his Connecticut mansion for a one-person cell in northern Germany.  German attorney Thomas Piplak visited Frankel, accused of bilking clients out of millions, in jail Monday and described the man as depressed, exhausted and - above all - fearful that the people he is accused of swindling might seek revenge. So great are Frankel's fears, Piplak said, that he is considering fighting extradition to the United States...

 Jamaica Mulls Legalizing Marijuana - Sitting in a small shop in Dunkirk, one of Kingston's poorest neighborhoods, Junior Spence tells a tale he describes as incredible: one day he was arrested by police - for smoking marijuana! ``I could not believe it,'' said the 23-year-old, who months later remains befuddled over the arrest that landed him in jail for a few days and cost him a $20 fine...

 10-Year-Old Begins College - The weight of the textbooks almost knocked 10-year-old Greg Smith to the floor as he packed his bag. Otherwise, the first day of college went off without a hitch. Three years after his parents' dropped him off for the first day of second grade, Greg arrived at Randolph-Macon College for a 17-credit honors course-load...

 DNA Test Clears Imprisoned Man - A 60-year-old man who spent 17 years in prison for rape became a free man Wednesday after a DNA test cleared him. Vincent H. Jenkins, also known by the Muslim name of Warith Habib Abdal, was convicted of robbing and raping a 23-year-old woman who was attacked in a Buffalo nature preserve in 1982. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison...

 Senate Roll Call Vote on Pay Raises - "The 54-38 roll call by which the Senate today gave final congressional approval to a $28 billion bill financing the Treasury Department and other agencies and allowing pay raises for members of Congress, the next president and federal workers..."

 Zenith Files for Bankruptcy - Zenith Electronics Corp. filed for bankruptcy as part of a long-planned overhaul of the struggling maker of televisions, VCRs and digital equipment.   The Glenview-based company said the Chapter 11 filing on Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., was one of the final steps in its restructuring, which is aimed at reducing debt and de-emphasizing manufacturing...

 Campaign Finance Reform Moves to Senate - The U.S. Senate is beginning work on a bill that would overhaul federal campaign financing. The House of Representatives Tuesday passed its version of the bill by a 252-177 vote. The legislation would ban unregulated "soft money" contributions to political parties and require the disclosure of the money behind so-called "issue ads." A similar measure died last year when senators could not muster the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster. The conventional wisdom is that the same thing will happen this year. Get the details as NPR's Peter Overby reports for Morning Edition...

 Homework Copycats Prosper on the Net - ``Wow,'' exclaimed John Schinnerer, a Berkeley-trained school psychologist, after surveying a handful of homework-help sites. ``Knowing the level of cheating when I was in school, I think it would be out of control today, with resources like these. How would you ever catch anyone who was just copying and pasting answers?''

 Europe's Got Net Fever - "Nick Denton didn't plan to leave his perfectly good job as technology correspondent for the Financial Times when he moved to California. But after sitting across from "one too many guys who were younger than me and having more fun," the 33-year-old former journalist simply couldn't help himself. After less than a year on the job, Denton wrote a business plan, ditched the FT and started banging on venture capitalists' doors for seed cash for his Internet start-up, Moreover.com — an online news service with offices in Britain..."

 Floyd's Aftermath: Floods, Rain - The power is intermittent, much of the county is completely under water, roads are closed, grocery store shelves are empty and there's little gasoline available. Can it get worse? Yes. Greenville, a city of 44,000, faces still worse flooding when the Tar River crests...

 Floyd Heads Inland - September 16, 1999 -- Hurricane Floyd is heading north through the southeastern United States after hitting land early this morning near Cape Fear, North Carolina. The storm has cut power to hundreds of thousands of people, uprooted trees and caused widespread flooding after dumping more than 12 inches of rain. It made a northward turn that spared the state catastrophic damage. Listen as NPR's Melissa Block in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, describes the scene to Morning Edition host Bob Edwards...

 Hurricane Gert Looms in Atlantic - As Hurricane Floyd pounded the Carolinas today, Hurricane Gert whipped up 145 mph winds about 2,200 miles from the East Coast. Gert -- the fourth Category 4 hurricane of the Atlantic season -- was about 630 miles east of the Leeward Islands and traveling northeast of Floyd's path on a track that should curve it east of Bermuda...

 Buchanan Might Be Reform Candidate - GOP presidential contender Pat Buchanan came closer than ever to saying he would quit the Republican race and campaign for the Reform Party's nomination. ``The door really is wide open,'' Buchanan said. ``We are very close to making that decision...''

 PC Use by Ethnicity - "One of the factors found most interesting is that the latest huge wave of home PC penetration has not only been found in one or two ethnic groups. Rather, nearly all ethnicity’s called out in our sample saw huge increases the PC ownership level within homes. Every group showed double-digit increases in home penetration for combined consumer and self-employed usage patterns. This shows there is likely to be less of a schism in PC ownership among ethnic groups, based on the recent price declines and new "free PC" programs..."

 Neighbors Wary in Child Abuse Case - For years, a little girl lived chained to a bed in a darkened room so filled with trash and feces that her mother tried to blanket the putrid smell with baby powder.  So repulsive was the home, officials said, that paramedics eventually rescued the girl last week through a window, because they couldn't bear walking back through the stench...

 Frankel Will Fight Extradition -  Martin Frankel, the American financier arrested in Germany on allegations that he swindled clients out of huge sums of money, has decided to fight his extradition to the United States, his lawyer said. The move is likely to lead to weeks of extradition proceedings against Frankel, who has been held in a Hamburg jail since German police nabbed him Sept. 4 on a tip from the FBI, ending a four-month international manhunt. Frankel rejected the option of a voluntary extradition, his lawyer Thomas Piplak said in a telephone interview. Piplak said U.S. authorities now have up to two months to file an extradition request listing detailed charges against Frankel. Any decision on extradition would ultimately be decided by the Hamburg state court. Frankel ran his empire from a heavily protected mansion in Connecticut and allegedly swindled clients out of at least $218 million, possibly much more...

 Survey: Software pirates go online - THE WEEKLONG audit, taken between Aug. 15 and Aug. 20 by the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), found that software programs that usually sell for hundreds of dollars were being hawked at bargain-basement prices.  The organization’s anti-piracy unit conducted the survey, which was released Tuesday. In all, 20 different programs from software companies such as Macromedia, FileMaker, Visio and Adobe were being auctioned on 221 separate occasions on eBay, ZDNet Auctions and Excite Auction Web sites...

 Y2K Expert Warns of Minor Problems - The White House pointman on the Y2K computer glitch said Sunday that Americans shouldn't worry about accidental nuclear launches or erased bank records, but should prepare for some minor inconveniences. John Koskinen, head of the White House panel on the year 2000 computer problem, emphasized that with four months left before the new year, federal government computers were ready and the national infrastructure was in good shape. People should know that it was safe to take planes or trains on Jan. 1, he said...

 China Fought Bombs with Spam - Hackers with Chinese Internet addresses mounted a cyber blitz against US and allied forces in May, after NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, a top US Air Force officer said. Lt. Gen. William Donahue, commander of the Air Force Communications and Information Center at the Pentagon, said hackers "came at us daily, hell-bent on taking down NATO networks..."

 Funds sought for tech future - As the 30th anniversary of the Internet's first heartbeat approached, high-tech leaders and a top Clinton administration official warned that Congress is being dangerously shortsighted in failing to pay for the type of federal research that helped bring the Information Age to life...

 Of Fact, Fiction and Medical Web Sites - "You name it, and chances are you'll find it on the Internet. This year some 25.5 million Americans are expected to turn to computers for answers to their health questions. When the Federal Government established an on-line health information initiative several years ago, 4.8 million people visited the site in its first 30 days of operation. Health issues, not weather or stock reports, are a major reason people now log on to the Internet. But chances are that much of the information and advice they glean from the computer screen will be biased, inaccurate and, in some cases, downright dangerous..."

 Most Wanted U.S. Fugitive Is Nabbed - An alleged cocaine kingpin and the No. 1 fugitive on the Marshal Service's ``15 Most Wanted'' list was arrested at an Atlanta airport. Peter Paul Zink, charged with running a cocaine ring in Wisconsin, had been a fugitive since 1988...

 Drunk Driver Who Killed 27 Freed - The man convicted in the nation's deadliest drunken driving accident, a fiery, head-on collision that killed 27 people on a church bus, was released from prison after 9 years and is free to get another driver's license...

 Alcohol-Linked Road Deaths at Low - The number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the United States dropped to 15,935 last year, the lowest level in the 17 years the government has been keeping the statistic. The figure dropped 1.5 percent from the year before, when alcohol was involved in 16,189 crash deaths, federal officials said...

 Asian Women Hail UN Sex-Slave Ruling - Supporters of Asian women forced into sexual slavery by Japan's army during World War II praised on Saturday a U.N. resolution urging compensation from Tokyo. In a 15-2 resolution, the U.N. Subcommission on Human Rights stressed that under international law, governments are responsible for war crimes and other rights violations committed by their soldiers...

 Some Egypt Weddings Eyed As Shams - Two weeks after they met, the 17 year-old Egyptian girl and the wealthy Saudi businessman were married. A month later, the husband returned to Saudi Arabia, leaving the young woman abandoned and pregnant. One more marriage that masked little more than the sale of a girl to a tourist had begun and ended...

 Let old folk work - WHEN that Grand Old Man of Victorian England, William Ewart Gladstone, was in his 85th year, he was steering the second home-rule bill for Ireland through a recalcitrant parliament and going home to translate the odes of Horace at night. When Ronald Reagan reached the tender age of 73, he was fighting his second presidential election campaign. Alan Greenspan, the world’s most successful central banker, is also 73. Politics and economics are plainly jobs that the old can do well. They are not alone. The boardrooms of the world’s big companies are full of non-executive sages, telling whippersnapper 40-something's how to run their firms...

 "A full life" - JOE CLARK is a happy man. Eighteen months ago, he might not have expected to be. After 21 years as an industrial engineer at a division of Harvard Industries in Tennessee, he found himself, when the plant shut down, out of a job at the age of 62. “I tried retirement,” he recalls. “But I was just piddling about the house. So I went to a job fair and left my résumé with several temporary-employment agencies.” Within six weeks he was on the payroll of Manpower Technical. Now Manpower is employing him to look at ways to cut packaging costs for a car-parts firm. “I really look forward to coming to work.”

 

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