News

Top News

• President Clinton played host today at a wide-ranging White House discussion on the economy, where several specialists warned that unstable stock prices and other economic balances could hurt the current expansion."
• The federal judge who found Microsoft Corp. in violation of antitrust law today set an expedited schedule to sanction the company just a day after telling attorneys he wanted to put an appeal of his verdict on "a fast track" to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Nation

• Genetically engineered crops appear to be safe but the government should better coordinate how it regulates them to make sure they don't pose a danger to the environment or human health, a National Academy of Sciences report concluded Wednesday."
• Around the country, traffic engineers, soccer moms, senior citizens and environmentalists are teaming up in a new crusade for the safety of a forgotten, vulnerable tribe on the frantic byways of American life: pedestrians."

World

• Russia detained a U.S. citizen and a Russian associate on spying charges, the Federal Security Service announced Wednesday, the first such incident since former intelligence agent Vladimir Putin became Russia's president."
• Within hours of his election Wednesday, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori moved to assure the world that the government and its policies had barely broken stride as he replaced the critically ill Keizo Obuchi."
• As China's government attempts to shut bloated state-owned enterprises in order to become competitive in world markets, it is idling millions of laborers. And in one isolated city, 20,000 of them recently battled police and soldiers for three days."
• If Syria and Syrian-backed groups in Lebanon attack Israel after its troops withdraw from southern Lebanon this summer, they will face harsh retaliation, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak warned Monday."
• The militant Shiite organization Hezbollah has sustained a political importance in southern Lebanon by playing down some of its most conservative aims. It has shown independence from Iran and a willingness to get along with Lebanon's Sunni Muslims and Christians."

Metro

• A jury has ordered Pr. George's County and three police officers to pay a Temple Hills man $4.1 million, finding that the officers violated the man's civil rights when they beat him so badly that he lost his right eye and partial use of his left hand."
• Two construction workers were hurt, one seriously, after a wall in a two-story row house collapsed Wednesday morning, according to D.C. fire officials."
• Prince George's police shot Elmer Clayton Newman Jr. in the face with pepper spray, broke two bones in his neck, fractured two of his ribs and beat him until his eyes filled with blood, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Washington Post."
• The District's notoriously slow Department of Motor Vehicles has been the bane of car owners and a focus of the mayor's push to improve city services. Now the agency has a new problem: long lines at its only inspection station, with delays of up to two hours."
• They were old flying buddies, Gus and Doug. One, a veteran who'd been in the air since he was a Mississippi teenager. The other a more recent pilot, who often flew traffic reporters around for a living."

Business

• President Clinton played host today at a wide-ranging White House discussion on the economy, where several specialists warned that unstable stock prices and other economic balances could hurt the current expansion."
• The federal judge who found Microsoft Corp. in violation of antitrust law today set an expedited schedule to sanction the company just a day after telling attorneys he wanted to put an appeal of his verdict on "a fast track" to the U.S. Supreme Court."
• The stock market calmed down today and technology stocks moved up, helped by President Clinton's observation that the U.S. in undergoing "an economic transformation as profound as that the led us into the industrial revolution.""
• With the emergence of these new high-tech entrepreneurs and the extraordinary money they bring to the party, this could be a transformational moment in the history of Washington."

Style

• In selling 2.4 million albums in a seven-day period, more than any other act, the boy band 'N Sync prove their 'no scrubs.'"
• With the emergence of these new high-tech entrepreneurs and the extraordinary money they bring to the party, this could be a transformational moment in the history of Washington."

Health

• The House voted Tuesday to overturn new federal rules aimed at ensuring that the sickest patients get the first chance to use donated organs, as lawmakers debated how best to share the scarce resources and save the most lives."
• Scientists have reported success against cancer using a technique called antisense technology that zeros in on a cancer gene to halt malignancy at its roots."