News In Brief

GOLIATH VS. DAVID It helps the needy with loans and expert economic advice. A noble mission, right? So why is IMF the target of a lawsuit? No doubt you're thinking the International Monetary Fund has angered some developing country's government. Not this time. Instead, it's the mega- billion-dollar institution that is aiming its legal guns - at a Campbell., Calif., finance agency. IMF Loans Inc., whose clients are mostly Hispanic first-time home-buyers, is accused of engaging in "unfair competition." The small mortgage firm's name is taken from the initials of its founders.

OH NO YOU DON'T From the start, the taxi driver in Nordhorn, a town in northwestern Germany, was uncomfortable about the fare he'd just picked up. He grew even more-so when he noticed a knife handle protruding from one of the fellow's pockets. Said the cabbie: "You aren't planning to rob me now, are you?" Answer: As a matter of fact, yes. Thinking fast, he delivered his passenger to an unscheduled destination - police headquarters.

Nation's biggest challenge is prejudice, new poll indicates In a recent survey about the problems that Americans are likely to confront in the next millennium, respondents mentioned the twin problems of racism and prejudice more than all others. The telephone survey conducted by ABC pollster Gary Langer was unusual in that it asked only "open-ended" questions of 500 adults and did not ask them to select their answers from pre-existing lists. When the responses of racism (14 percent) and prejudice (9 percent) were combined, it was noted that one-quarter of the participants raised the challenge of people living together in harmony as one of the biggest on the nation's agenda. The problems cited most frequently as in urgent need of solution during the next millennium:

Living together in harmony

Pollution

Violence

Overpopulation

War

Immorality

Food shortages

- Associated Press

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society