News In Brief
Classes resumed at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., two days after the shooting incident on campus that killed two students and wounded 13 others. Three students remained hospitalized. The Los Angeles Times reported that freshman Charles Williams, accused in the shooting, will not face the death penalty, if convicted, but could be sentenced up to 25 years in prison for each of two murder charges.
The Supreme Court intervened to stop the execution of a borderline mentally disabled man by the state of Missouri. The decision came shortly before Antonio Richardson, convicted of the rapes and murders of two sisters, was to die by lethal injection. The high court first vacated a stay by a state appeals court, then later issued its own stay in response to an appeal by Richardson's lawyer.
An employee at a media company that produced ads for George W. Bush was indicted by a federal grand jury for secretly sending a videotape of the Texas governor's debate preparations to Vice President Gore's campaign. Juanita Yvette Lozano, of Austin, Texas, was charged with mail fraud, making false statements to the FBI, and perjury. She faces 15 years in prison and a $750,000 fine if convicted. According to the indictment, she secretly copied 120 pages of debate preparation documents and a 60-minute videotape of Bush practicing for a debate with Gore.
Once the record industry provides lists of copyrighted songs to be blocked from Napster, the Internet song-swapping site has 72 hours to comply, according to terms of a federal injunction. Meanwhile, Napster took another legal hit when the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the producers of the Grammy Awards, filed a suit seeking to prohibit the site's users from downloading and sharing recordings of performances during the 43rd annual awards show last month.
The House was poised for its turn to vote on repealing a controversial new regulation intended to curb repetitive motion injuries in the workplace. The Senate already has voted to kill it. A repeal could be Bush's first substantive legislation since taking office. The last-minute rule, signed by outgoing President Clinton, is costly and extreme, business groups complain. (Story, page 1.)
Most online shoppers worry about credit card fraud, but phony auction websites and online shopping centers that never deliver goods are the most common form of Internet fraud, the first FBI report on the subject said. The report recorded 20,000 complaints in six months, 5,273 of which were classified as fraud.
(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor