- Everyone's Free to Wear Sunscreen
- MovieQuest, Exactis partner for cinema product
- Study: Caffeine May Be Good for You
- Superhacker Signs Plea Deal
- Feds Find Nursing Home Violations
- U.S. Prison Population Has Doubled
- Official: Alcoholism imperils Russia
- General Fined for Misconduct
- Win98 Update - More Like a New OS?
- Hackers Seize UK Military Satellite
- Microsoft to unveil reorganization
- N. Ireland Beatings on Rise

- Man's Arm Reattached in Florida
- Amtrak to unveil high-speed service
- Generational Effect on the Workplace
- Fans Mourn Baseball's DiMaggio
- Congressional Hearings on Veteran Hospital Deaths
- Computer Security Threat On Rise - U.S. Survey
- Anonymous posting under attack
- Chernobyl's only reactor restarted
- '60 Minutes' follows up suicide show
- Lewinsky says Clinton a 'liar'

(Real Audio Enabled)

DENVER - Exactis.com, the leader in e-mail communications services, is powering Tribune Media Services' MovieQuest Mail, a personalized weekly entertainment e-mail available to Tribune Media Services' MovieQuest subscribers. Exactis.com is providing this e-mail delivery service through its patented Customcast technology, which allows businesses to offer their customers the opportunity to self-select the information they want to receive through e-mail communications. The MovieQuest Mail service, launched in February 1999 in conjunction with Tribune Media Services' MovieQuest Web site (www.moviequest.com), the company's first movie-listings product, enables e-mail users to be notified via e-mail about movies playing at their favorite theaters. Once a subscriber signs up for the free service at the MovieQuest Web site, Exactis.com delivers the requested movie-listing news - including theater information, movies playing, show times, ratings and movie lengths - on a weekly basis.  If e-mail subscribers spot an interesting movie, they can click through to the MovieQuest Web site for a full description.

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LOS ANGELES (AP), Caffeine is not addictive for most people, a new study concludes, and has little effect on human health. No, really. According to a much-promoted French study released Monday during the American Chemical Society's annual meeting, drinking up to three cups of coffee a day has no effect on the part of the brain responsible for addiction. And it may actually be good for you. If you're a rat. After spending two years with 30 rodents, researcher Astrid Nehlig of the French National Health Medical Research Institute found that moderate consumption increases energy and renders addiction ``quite unlikely.'' The study was funded by the French coffee industry and her employer.

Bank loan officer Laura Comstock doesn't hesitate when asked if she agrees with Nehlig's conclusions. ``No,'' she replies flatly. Comstock must have at least two caffeinated drinks, usually tea or Diet Coke, to get through the day, plus a midmorning cup of joe. ``I get headaches if I don't drink coffee,'' she said, seated at a coffee house during lunch, a cup of decaf in hand. ``There's got to be something to that.''

According to Nehlig, seven or eight cups of java would have to be consumed in quick succession to create the same addictive brain activity as a low dose of, say, morphine. ``Addiction to caffeine is not the same as addiction to methamphetamines or cocaine or morphine,'' Nehlig said. ``I'm not denying that there can be a dependence on caffeine, I'm just saying that there is no adverse physical effects to using caffeine in moderate levels,'' the researcher said. Caffeine studies are all over the map when it comes to health effects. Some say the drug increases productivity.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group, said it may degenerate bone mass and endanger fetuses. Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, has done extensive research on caffeine. He's skeptical of Nehlig's conclusions. ``When you start extrapolating from rats to humans, all kinds of things change,'' he said. And ``there is pretty substantial literature in animals and humans showing chronic administration of caffeine produces acute dependency syndrome.'' Georgina Rocha, who operates an outdoor coffee stand in Los Angeles, sees some of that every day. Does she believe caffeine is healthy for her customers? ``When I drink it, I get all jumpy and hyper, so it can't be good for them, either,'' she said.

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LOS ANGELES (AP), Kevin Mitnick, a computer vandal whose exploits made him the FBI's most wanted hacker until he was arrested four years ago, has signed a plea agreement reportedly calling for one more year behind bars.  Donald Randolph, Mitnick's court-appointed attorney, confirmed Thursday a deal had been struck this week.  He would not discuss details of the agreement, which has been filed under seal for review by U.S. District Judge Marianna Pfaelzer. ``We don't want to say anything that would influence the court's decision,'' he said. ``We are cautiously optimistic that the court will accept the agreement.''

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, declined to comment. The plea deal was reported earlier in Thursday's Los Angeles Times. Mitnick, 35, had been scheduled to go on trial April 20 on charges of computer and wire fraud. However, the judge could set a hearing for another date in order to accept the deal. The agreement would require Mitnick to remain behind bars for another year and stay away from computers for at least three years after his release, according to a source, speaking on condition of anonymity.  Mitnick's formal sentence would be about five years imprisonment, but he would be credited with time served.  He has been accused of damaging computers, stealing millions of dollars in software from high-tech companies and using stolen computer passwords. 

At the time of his arrest in 1995 in North Carolina, Mitnick was identified by the FBI as the agency's most wanted hacker and as a ``computer terrorist'' by the Justice Department. Mitnick's exploits made him a legend among many other hackers. A Web site dedicated to freeing Mitnick counts _ to the second _ the time he has spent in jail. Last year, Mitnick supporters hacked into a New York Times Web page to post pro-Mitnick statements and criticize Times reporter John Markoff, who chronicled Mitnick's arrest in the book ``TakeDown.''

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ Each year, more than a quarter of nursing homes have health and safety violations that harm residents or place them at risk of death or serious injury, according to a survey by federal auditors. Government inspections and penalties have done little to correct serious problems in some homes for the elderly and disabled, the General Accounting Office said in a report released Thursday. ``Many nursing homes are very frequent offenders,'' said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, among lawmakers who requested the study. ``They mistreat residents, get a slap on the wrist and go right back to where they were.''

President Clinton announced a campaign last summer to improve enforcement of nursing home standards and has asked Congress for $60 million more for such efforts in 2000 than will be spent this year. Grassley, who chairs the Senate's Special Committee on Aging, said he has asked for monthly progress reports from the administration. The American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, said it welcomes closer scrutiny of the government oversight system.

``One of the biggest problems that we face is that the government inspection process simply doesn't work,'' said vice president Linda Keegan. ``The process is focused on punishing facilities rather than correcting problems. Inspectors cannot even give advice on how to fix a problem.'' The GAO surveyed government inspection reports from July 1995 to October 1998 for the nation's 17,000 nursing homes that receive federal Medicare and Medicaid money.

The auditors found that the percentage of homes with health and safety violations resulting in actual harm to residents, or posing the potential for serious injury or death, was virtually unchanged during that period, dropping to 27 percent from 28 percent. About 40 percent of the homes that had serious problems cited in the earliest inspection reports had equally serious deficiencies in the latest.  Among the most frequent violations: inadequate attention by staff to prevent residents from developing bedsores, and lack of supervision or special equipment such as alarms to prevent accidents. 

To determine whether government intervention led to improvement, the auditors chose 74 nursing homes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas and California that had been referred by state inspectors to federal regulators for possible sanctions. In many cases, the GAO found, the homes threatened with fines or denial of federal payments never actually received those penalties because the law allowed them a grace period of several weeks to correct problems. One Michigan home, for example, went unpunished after failing to prevent a confused resident from leaving unaccompanied. The patient's absence was not noticed until relatives returning from a vacation learned from police that their loved one had been stabbed to death while roaming the streets.

Even in cases where penalties were imposed on nursing homes, improvements were often only temporary. ``Many were again out of compliance by the time the next survey or follow-up inspection was conducted,'' the GAO said. Of the 74 troubled homes audited, 69 were referred for penalties again after subsequent inspections, and some went through this ``yo-yo pattern of compliance'' half a dozen times, the GAO found. Earlier this week, the federal Health and Human Services Department announced new regulations subjecting nursing homes to immediate fines of up to $10,000, instead of giving them time to correct problems before facing penalties as in the past.  Also, state inspection agencies will be required to respond more quickly, within 10 days, to complaints alleging harm to residents.

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WASHINGTON (AP) _ The number of American adults imprisoned has more than doubled over the past 12 years, reaching its highest level ever last year, the Justice Department said Sunday. The United States soon may surpass Russia as the country with the highest rate of incarceration.

At mid-1998, jails and prisons held an estimated 1.8 million people, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. At the end of 1985, the figure was 744,208. Viewed another way, there were 668 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents as of June 1998, compared with 313 inmates per 100,000 people in 1985.

In Russia, 685 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars, according to The Sentencing Project, a U.S. group critical of the general trend toward harsher sentencing of American criminals. A planned amnesty of 100,000 prisoners in Russia and the expectation of continued increases in the U.S. inmate population means the United States probably will become the world's leading jailer ``in a year or two,'' said Jenni Gainsborough, a Sentencing Project spokeswoman. The number of people imprisoned in the United States has grown for more than a quarter century, helped by increased drug prosecutions and a general get-tough policy on all classes of offenders.

More criminals serving longer sentences led the inmate population to top 1 million in 1990; it has continued to rise. About two-thirds of the nation's inmates are in state and federal prisons; the remaining one-third are in local jails. Prisons generally hold convicted criminals sentenced to terms longer than one year, while jails typically keep those awaiting trial and those sentenced to 12 months or less. In the June 1998 Justice Department survey, 1.2 million people were held in prisons, while local jails held about 600,000 men and women. Local jails also supervised more than 72,000 people under various outside work, treatment or home detention programs. The survey showed the total number of people behind bars grew by 4.4 percent from June 1997.

Between the end of 1990 and mid-1998, the incarcerated population grew an average 6.2 percent annually, said the report's author, statistician Darrell Gilliard. Although the total growth rate was slower last year, Gilliard said the difference is not statistically significant. ``The numbers have been pretty steady throughout the 1990s, with a pretty steady increase every year,'' he said. Gilliard's report showed the number of inmates in state prisons grew 4.1 percent last year; the number in federal prisons grew 8.3 percent; and the number in local jails grew 4.5 percent. The figures closely track numbers released last summer that showed a 5.2 percent growth rate in federal and state prison inmates by the end of 1997.

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MOSCOW (AP) - Alcoholism among Russian teenagers in on the rise, and drinking problems continue to afflict millions of Russians, a top health official said Wednesday. Some 2.5 million people, or nearly 2% of Russia's 146.3 population, are officially registered alcoholics, but the actual number is probably much higher, Deputy Health Minister Gennady Onishchenko told a news conference. "This is a frightening figure," he said, according to the Interfax news agency. Especially alarming is a growing number of alcoholics among teenagers, he said. There were 17.4 alcoholics per 100,000 teenagers five years ago, compared to 20.8 per 100,000 last year. In 1999, the figure may rise to 24.4, Onishchenko said.

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Retired Army Major General David Hale was sentenced late Wednesday after pleading guilty to several charges of having improper sexual relationships with wives of his subordinates. The general must pay a $10,000 fine, and his retirement pay will be docked a total of $12,000 in the next 12 months. The sentence could have included prison time. Hale, who was allowed to retire when the case became public, is the first general to be court-martialled in more than 45 years. The case has prompted complaints from some congressmen that Hale was treated differently than people of lower rank charged with similar misconduct. Listen as Tom Banse reports for All Things Considered.

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Next version of Windows 98 won't be a routine update. What Microsoft calls Windows 98 Second Edition will be a combination of its planned Service Release plus the Win98 OEM Service Release. According to Smart Reseller, there's talk Microsoft will sell the release at retail, which would be a strategic shift for the software maker. With Win95, Microsoft's two OEM service releases were only  available preloaded on new systems. Win98 Second Edition will be the first 9x-kernel-based updates to Win98. It will also include Internet Explorer 5.0 (which ships this week), plus more support for USB modems and a new version of Dial-Up Networking. The 'update' is now expected to ship in Q2. Jesse's take: If there's a way to make users pay for bug fixes to an OS they already paid for, Microsoft will find it. Click for more.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Hackers have seized control of one of Britain's military communication satellites and issued blackmail threats, The Sunday Business newspaper reported.  The paper, quoting security sources, said the intruders altered the course of one of Britain's four satellites which are used by defense planners and military forces around the world.

The sources said the satellite's course was changed just over two weeks ago. The hackers then issued a blackmail threat, demanding money to stop interfering with the satellite.

"This is a nightmare scenario,'' said one intelligence source. Military strategists said that if Britain were to come under nuclear attack, an aggressor would first interfere with military communications systems.  "This is not just a case of computer nerds mucking about. This is very, very serious and the blackmail threat has made it even more serious,'' one security source said.

Police said they would not comment as the investigation was at too sensitive a stage. The Ministry of Defense made no comment.
Source: Reuters

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The restructuring plan, the brainchild of Microsoft's president, Steve Ballmer, seeks to organize the company around the needs of broad groups of Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) customers, rather than around particular product lines and engineering efforts.

Separately, Microsoft said Thursday that product revenue in the current quarter will be $400 million below expectations, because of the need to provide coupons so buyers of its Office software can upgrade when the new version of the program comes out next quarter. The $400 million, however, will show up in next quarter's results. And Microsoft's chief financial officer, Greg Maffei, said the shortfall this quarter, equal to about eight cents a share in net income, is likely to be offset by investment gains from Microsoft's huge cash horde.

Microsoft disclosed the revenue issue after stock markets closed Thursday. In earlier trading, its stock rose 6.25 cents to $161.4375 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. After the announcement, its shares declined to $160.25, according to Instinet.

Microsoft's changes come as the company is on trial in Washington, D.C., for alleged antitrust violations. If the company loses, government prosecutors may seek remedies that include the forced restructuring of the company into several pieces. Microsoft's own plan is not thought to be related to its legal challenges.

The main driver of the changes has been the need to fill the vacancy at the top of Microsoft's underperforming Interactive Media Group, which includes Microsoft Network and may be renamed the consumer division. Mr. Ballmer has overseen the division, which occupies a separate campus west of Microsoft's main campus in Redmond, Wash., since the resignation of Senior Vice President Pete Higgins in November. The company has sought to reach outside its ranks for an executive with broad media experience, and also discussed the job with Brad Silverberg, the programming whiz who has been on leave since 1997.

Turned down job
Those executives and a Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment on the changes. But people familiar with the situation say Mr. Silverberg turned down the job and is expected to resign from the company. Other high-ranking executives at several big media companies reportedly refused the position, also.

So, the company has decided at least temporarily to divide responsibilities for the unit between Jon DeVaan, who has overseen development of Microsoft Office, the suite of software applications that includes Word and Excel; and Brad Chase, a top marketing manager who masterminded the launch of Windows 95 and Internet Explorer. Others say the decision is not yet final, and an outsider may yet be picked for a high-level position.

The other personnel surprise involves Paul Maritz, who has overseen nearly all software development at the company and is widely regarded as Microsoft's third-most-powerful executive after Mr. Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates. Mr. Maritz, who testified during the antitrust trial, is expected to head a new division aimed at software developers, whose loyalty is vital to Microsoft's efforts to exert control over the evolution of computing.

Mr. Maritz's new job would seem to be something of a demotion, though some of his associates say he is delighted to be shedding some of his extensive responsibilities. He wasn't available for comment, and a Microsoft spokesman declined to comment on the entire reorganization effort.

The other two divisions will remain largely unchanged, with Senior Vice President Jim Allchin heading an "enterprise" unit aimed at selling products to corporate chief information officers. Mr. Allchin will retain responsibility for the forthcoming Windows 2000 operating system, as well as the successor to Windows 98. Windows 2000, which Microsoft considers one of the most important products in its history, and which is the successor to Windows NT, is more than a year behind schedule and is not expected to be released before the end of this year.

The bulk of the applications group, headed by Robert Muglia, will become a new unit targeted at "knowledge workers" -- the analysts, administrators, writers and researchers who make up the work force of the information economy. Mr. Muglia's group will have responsibility for updating the Office suite, as well as fostering greater integration of those programs with BackOffice software, such as databases and messaging systems.

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Since the Good Friday peace accord was signed last year in Northern Ireland, the British province has seen its murder rate drop drastically, but a traditional form of violence known as "punishment beatings" is on the rise. It was hoped that the accord would bring peace, and an end to the vigilante beatings by paramilitary groups, to the province, but punishment attacks are at their highest level in 10 years -- almost one per day. Hear more as Weekend All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden speaks with David McKittrick, Belfast correspondent for The Independent of London.

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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A doctor reattached a man's left arm after he fell off a ladder while trimming a tree and severed the limb with a chainsaw.  Mariano Mergarejo, 66, lost his balance and fell almost 20 feet Sunday. The chainsaw cut off his forearm. As he lay dazed on the ground, his wife wrapped the limb in a towel and his 30 year old son called paramedics.  ``I was very sad, more sad than frightened,'' Mergarejo said. ``I didn't want to lose my arm.''

Dr. Joanne Werntz, the trauma surgeon on call at Orlando Regional Medical Center, performed the nine-hour operation, getting to work minutes after the accident. In such cases, time is crucial to success. ``You only have one chance,'' Ms. Werntz said. ``It's worth putting the limb back on and it's better to at least try.''  Mergarejo must undergo another operation and six months of physical therapy. Ms. Werntz said it may be two years before he regains feeling in his hand. ``It was significant damage, but he will have feeling,'' she said. ``The emotional and psychological aspects are better than having to deal with an amputation and prosthesis.''

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NEW YORK (AP) _ Amtrak is betting much of its future, and that of high-speed rail in the United States on the premise that its soon-to-be-unveiled 150 mph trains will be competitive with airplanes and automobiles in the Boston-New York-Washington Northeast Corridor.

The long-awaited new trains, whose secret name and other vital statistics were being released at a news conference today, will start running in October along tracks that Amtrak currently uses. By electrifying the entire 470-mile route, straightening curves and using 20 new trains sets that incorporate tilt technology, Amtrak figures to chop as much as 90 minutes off its 4-hour Boston-to-New York service and up to a half-hour off its current three-hour Washington-to-New York service.

As added incentives, the fare will be about 30 percent less than the current $199 walk-up air shuttle rate, and Amtrak will expand some of its current amenities, which include more spacious business-class seats, power outlets for computers, a dining car and full lavatories.

Amtrak views the Northeast Corridor as a model for other high-speed rail proposals in the Great Lakes, along the Southeast and Gulf Coast and throughout California and the Pacific Northwest. It also is hoping that America will finally follow Europe's lead toward a transportation system that offers an alternative to congested highways and crowded airport terminals. The national railroad refused all comment before today's unveiling of the new $2 billion service. ``It provides a reasonable and perhaps better third option for travel in the area,'' said Anne Chettle, spokeswoman for the High-Speed Ground Transportation Association, a Washington rail organization. ``The train is already popular in the Northeast. In other areas of the country, they are committed to their cars or airplanes. This way trains will seem less pie-in-the-sky to them,'' Chettle said.

Amtrak has not turned a profit since it was founded in 1971. The General Accounting Office reported that the railroad lost an average of $47 per passenger in fiscal 1997. In 1997, Congress said Amtrak must become self-sufficient by 2002. It provided a $2.2 billion cash infusion and a steadily declining annual subsidy that ends in three years. Last year the railroad topped $1 billion in revenues for the first time, propelled by the best ridership in a decade and its best on-time performance in 13 years. It views high-speed rail as the final piece of its more toward profitability.

Amtrak currently transports about 9 million people each year along the Northeast Corridor, some 7 million between New York and Washington and an additional 2 million between New York and Boston. There will be a minimum time-savings with the upgraded service between Washington and New York because that route already is electrified. The Achilles heel of the Boston-to-New York service, however, has been the requirement that diesel trains switch to electric locomotives for air quality reasons before completing the trip into New York City. That adds about a half-hour to the journey.

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Older workers are often assumed to be less valuable in today's fast-paced, high-tech world. Younger workers - those in their 20s and 30s - are considered to be more energetic, more driven and more adept at learning new technologies. But a new survey of thousands of senior level executives worldwide finds older workers possess qualities that give them an edge over young people. Older workers often bring wisdom and judgment to the job, characteristics that can only be honed through age and experience and may give people in their 50s and 60s an edge in the workplace. Hear more as NPR's David Molpus reports for Morning Edition.

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Fans Mourn Baseball's DiMaggio

March 9, 1999 - Baseball fans are mourning one of the game's all-time great players - Joe DiMaggio, who died yesterday at age 84. The Yankee Clipper underwent surgery for lung cancer in October and suffered from complications ever since.

DiMaggio's legacy is multi-layered. On the field, he was a hitting powerhouse who redefined the game. But he was also a cultural icon. He was mentioned in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and in Paul Simon's lament to lost heroes, the song-- Mrs. Robinson. His marriage to Marilyn Monroe further captivated the American public.

DiMaggio is a hero for baseball fans for his hitting ability and a 56-game hitting streak during the summer of 1941. "The Streak," as it is known, is still considered one of baseball's most unassailable records. After The Streak, DiMaggio came back and hit in 16 straight games - meaning that the real streak was batting safely in 72 of 73 games.

DiMaggio intensified the public's fascination with him when he married Marilyn Monroe in 1954. Their short-lived union continues to be talked about some 40 years later. After the screen goddess died in 1962, DiMaggio sent roses to her grave. But he has never spoken publicly about their marriage.  DiMaggio's body is being flown to California, so he can be buried in his hometown of San Francisco.

Hear more about the life and career of Joe DiMaggio as NPR's Tom Goldman reports for Morning Edition.

Teammates remember DiMaggio as a player of consummate elegance and grace. Others remember him as an icon - especially Italian-Americans.  Listen as NPR's Melissa Block reports.

Richard Ben Cramer is the author of a forthcoming biography, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life, about the baseball legend's early years in San Francisco. Listen as All Things Considered host Noah Adams talks with Cramer.

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A panel of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Thursday will begin reviewing cases of wrongful death and mismanagement at Veterans Affairs hospitals throughout the United States in the past few years. Suspicious deaths at V.A. hospitals number in the dozens, the most recent case resulting in a guilty verdict for a former V.A. nurse in Massachusetts convicted of murdering three patients and attempting to kill two others. The Congressional hearings will commence with testimony on the V.A.'s treatment of staff members and patients who called attention to suspicious activities. Listen as Pippin Ross reports for All Things Considered.

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Forget the stereotype of the teen hacker.  Sophisticated cyber crooks caused well over $100 million in losses last year, and the trend toward professional computer crime is on the rise.

In its fourth annual survey, the San Francisco-based Computer Security Institute reported Friday that corporations, banks, and government agencies all face a growing threat from computer crime -- committed both inside and outside their organizations.   ``It is clear that computer crime and other information security breaches pose a growing threat to U.S. economic competitiveness and the rule of law in cyberspace,'' the survey said, summarizing its findings. ``It is also clear that the financial cost is tangible and alarming.''

The survey, conducted jointly by the CSI and the FBI's San Francisco Computer Crime Squad, polled more than 500 information security professionals.   Almost one-third of the respondents reported that outsiders had penetrated their computer systems in the past year, most frequently through an Internet connection.  While about half of the respondents acknowledged that the computer break-ins resulted in financial losses, 163 organizations, or a third of those polled, could say how much money had been lost -- $123 million for them alone.

The most serious losses occurred through the theft of proprietary information and financial fraud, the survey said, although it added that other computer crimes ranged from data sabotage to laptop theft.

CSI director Patrice Rapalus said indications of rising levels of computer crime belied the popular notion of computer hackers as bored teen-agers looking for a little excitement.  ``It's not simply teen-agers coming in and spray painting a Web page,'' Rapalus said. ``It's not just the stereotypical hacker. People are seeing financial losses due to various different kinds of attacks.''

In an encouraging note, the CSI study found a ``dramatic increase'' in the number of computer security breaches which had been officially reported to law enforcement -- a sign that the problem was being taken seriously.  ``They are more aware of the problem,'' Rapalus said. ``A lot of people are finding out that they need to report in order to avoid liabilities.''

Michael Vatis, director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the CSI/FBI study illustrated the need for more coordinated efforts to fight cyber crime.  ``Only by sharing information about incidents and threats and exploited vulnerabilities can we begin to stem the rising tide of illegal activity on networks and protect our nation's critical infrastructure from destructive cyber attacks,'' he said in a news release.

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Anonymous Posting Under Attack

Two recent lawsuits against anonymous contributors to Yahoo! Inc.'s financial bulletin board have intensified the stormy debate over how far free-speech protections extend to the Web. While Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) is not named as a defendant in either suit, the outcome of the cases will have a direct impact on the Web powerhouse, observers said.  And as the cases move ahead, those accustomed to using the Web anonymously have a few things to think about, not all of them comforting, according to some First Amendment experts.

"These lawsuits are intended to intimidate people from speaking negatively about certain companies," said Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union.  Steinhardt said he believes this is true even in the most recent case, that of Seattle-based Wade Cook Financial Corp. The company sued 10 "John Does" Monday for making allegedly defamatory comments about it on the Yahoo! board.  One contributor named in the suit, who went by the pseudonym "Delusional5," posted an erroneous allegation that the company's founder had been arrested for accepting kickbacks, according to the lawsuit.   "Delusional5" and the other defendants "used the anonymity of the Internet to damage the reputation and undermine the business of a legitimate company," Wade Cook attorney Paul Anderson told Reuters.  Falsely claiming in public that a CEO had been dragged off in handcuffs -- regardless of the forum -- would clearly be defamatory, the ACLU official and other observers said.  But they said they are disturbed by the possibility that a flood of litigation against people who participate in online discussion boards could stifle meaningful debate on the boards.

When rights collide
The tension lies between companies' legitimate need to protect themselves from disgruntled employees or ex-workers who make scurrilous postings in order to drive down stock prices, and the legitimate reasons for online anonymity, said David Sobel, general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.  Wade Cook suit and a similar suit filed last week against 21 "John Does" by Raytheon Corp. In the Raytheon suit, the Lexington, Mass. based company alleges the John Does are Raytheon employees who leaked proprietary technical and financial data on the boards.  While a worker's contract with his employer may bar him from discussing company secrets in public, the First Amendment may give him the right to do so, Sobel said.

Anonymous communiques protected
"The Supreme Court has said the First Amendment protects the right to communicate anonymously, so I do see a First Amendment problem with these cases," he said.  One problem is that under current law, there's no mechanism for notifying people who have made anonymous postings that a company is seeking their identity, Sobel said.  "A subpoena is required only when a government agency is seeking your identity," he said.
While Yahoo! officials said in both cases they would divulge the posters' names only if ordered to do so by the court, there's no law preventing them from doing so without a subpoena -- a potential violation of users' privacy rights, Sobel said.

Can't shout 'fire'
"There's no clear-cut procedure for how this would be resolved in court," he said. But the First Amendment, as the famous saying goes, doesn't allow Americans to shout "fire" in a crowded theater unless the theater really is on fire, another expert said. "Individuals have always had to take responsibility for what they say," said Liza Kessler, a staff attorney at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Just because the statement is made on the Internet, that doesn't mean it's protected by the First Amendment if it is libelous, said Kessler.

"Presumably if you're just a crank and you're just posting lies about a company to get back at somebody, it eventually comes out," she said. "But people have to realize the Yahoo! financial boards are not the Wall Street Journal."

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KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - The only operational reactor at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986, was restarted Saturday after lengthy repairs. Chernobyl's reactor No. 3 was shut down Dec. 15 for repairs that were initially delayed because of energy shortages in the former Soviet republic. It was to have been restarted Feb. 16, but the state nuclear energy company Energoatom said it needed more time to fix it. Repairs included safety upgrades and a check of the reactor's regular and emergency cooling systems, which had 50 defects, the report said. Reactor No. 3 is the only one remaining of four originally operating at the plant.

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DETROIT (AP) - Relatives of a man whose suicide at the hands of Dr. Jack Kevorkian was aired on "60 Minutes" last fall said they were upset with the show's follow-up segment, which focused on sick people who oppose assisted suicide. The CBS newsmagazine show has come under fire from all sides. Many viewers spoke out against the November segment, which aired a video of Kevorkian apparently giving a lethal injection to Thomas Youk, a Waterford Township man with Lou Gehrig's disease. Now some are questioning the timing of the Sunday night segment, which came less than a week after "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace said at a symposium that he had second thoughts about airing the suicide.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Disclosing an abortion and thoughts of suicide, Monica Lewinsky gave the world an unabashed account of her life Wednesday and unleashed her long-pent-up loathing for Kenneth Starr's investigation. And she said she now regards President Clinton "to be a much bigger liar than I ever thought." In a TV interview and a book, the 25-year-old former White House intern spoke openly of sexual encounters with the president and several other men. But she saved some of her sharpest words for the prosecutor who transformed her affair with Clinton into an impeachment crisis. Lewinsky said in her book, "Monica's Story," Starr's office "was sick" for asking so many detailed questions about her sexual encounters with the president.