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Cubs Lose Wood - Nothing good ever happens to the Chicago Cubs, so why should 1999 be any different? On Tuesday, baseball's perennial saps found out that they have lost pitcher Kerry Wood for the season, and possibly two seasons. Wood, the 1998 National League Rookie of the Year, blew out his arm in an exhibition game. According to the Cubs, the hard-throwing righthander damaged the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow after throwing just 26 pitches against the Anaheim Angels on Sunday. Although Wood has yet to undergo an MRI, the Cubs have written him off for the '99 campaign. So has the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported Tuesday that Wood will need the "Tommy John" surgery, an elbow-reconstruction job. [Wired News]
Cupboard Is Bare - Light-years from the world of inflated stock values and overnight millionaires, an estimated 1.5 billion people -- a quarter of the world's population -- live on less than a dollar a day. A United Nations report released Thursday said that while the gross domestic product rose about 2 percent in developed nations in 1998, the GDP rose only 1.7 percent in poorer countries, meaning that the gulf between rich and poor is widening. "Adjustments in real economic sectors will take a much longer period of time to be implemented and to bear fruit than changes in financial and monetary indicators," it said, meaning that the little guy takes it in the shorts again. [Wired News]
Dark Cloud - With the economy booming, Americans are living large right now. However, there's a downside to all this conspicuous consumption: Americans are cramming their driveways with BMWs and piling Sony stereo equipment on their shelves faster than the Germans or Japanese or anyone else is stocking up with American-made consumer goods. That's called a trade deficit, folks, and economists are alarmed after watching the US deficit bloat to a record $24.62 billion at the end of June. The biggest trade gap still exists with Japan, but the latest figures established all-time highs with Western Europe and Mexico as well. [Wired News]
De-Evolution - While Kansas was busy Wednesday deleting the teaching of evolution from the state's science curriculum, schools in rural eastern Kentucky began posting the Ten Commandments in every classroom to begin countering what some local ministers described as the nation's "moral decline." The plaques, paid for and installed by volunteers, went up with virtually no opposition. One school superintendent defended the decision as an antidote to "all the violent issues that have been showing up." Odd, then, that the idea of gun control hasn't really caught on the Bluegrass State. [Wired News]
Deadly Copycat - A 14-year-old boy is in custody after shooting two students at a rural high school near Calgary, Alberta, Wednesday in what witnesses described as a copycat attack that mirrors the massacre at Columbine High School last week. One victim died and the other is in critical condition following the noontime shooting at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, a small farming community 275 kilometers southeast of Calgary. The suspect, who was not identified because of his age, was wearing a blue trench coat, which he used to conceal a .22 caliber, sawed-off rifle. He was described to a reporter from the Calgary Herald as "a real loser type." The dead teen was identified as Jason Lang, 17. Shane Christmas, also 17, was wounded in the attack. [Wired News]
Death Penalty Ban? - What's up with Boris Yeltsin and this bucking of tradition all of a sudden? First he wants to pull Lenin out of his mausoleum and bury him in the ground. And now he wants to get rid of capital punishment, which has a tradition of what, 600 years in Russia? Although Russia pledged to abolish the death penalty within three years of joining the Council of Europe in 1996, the average Russian supports capital punishment -- traditionally carried out by a single shot to the back of the head -- believing it a deterrent to violent crime. Yet interestingly enough, violent crime has surged in Russia since a moratorium on executions was imposed in 1996. So if Yeltsin has his way, will it be a kinder, gentler Russia -- for criminals, anyway? [Wired News]
Defining 'Hate' - President Clinton on Tuesday urged Congress to expand the list of hate crimes covered under federal law to include cases involving sexual orientation, gender, and disability. "The Hate Crimes Prevention Act would ... send a message to ourselves and to the world that we are going into the 21st century determined to preach and to practice what is right," he said. Currently, only crimes based on a victim's race or religion can be prosecuted as hate crimes. And while most states have hate-crime laws, only 21 include sexual orientation. Twenty-two cover gender, and 21 cover disability. Clinton drew parallels between the hatred in the United States and the religious and ethnic persecution in Kosovo, and urged Congress to support the initiative. "We should remember that each of us ... wakes up every day with the scales of light and darkness in our own hearts, and we've got to keep them in proper balance." [Wired News]
Dennis the Menace - The bad boy of basketball has played just nine games for the Los Angeles Lakers. But Dennis Rodman apparently feels he's earned some time off. He's taken an indefinite leave from his new team, citing personal reasons. Club management knew taking on the rainbow-haired Rodman was a gamble, that the NBA rebound wizard marches to his own drummer. Says Lakers head coach Kurt Rambis, "It's just something we're going to have to deal with." [Wired News]
Desperate Times - A former Russian army colonel walked into a branch of Rossiisky Kredit in downtown Moscow Friday, brandished a rifle, grabbed a hostage, and demanded money. From his own account, that is. Turns out the ex-colonel wasn't a whacko at all, but merely another poor Russian mired in his country's financial morass. Rossiisky Kredit is one of many Russian banks that blocked depositors' access to certain accounts after last August's financial crisis. The man's wife needed surgery, and he couldn't retrieve the money to pay for it. He released his hostage and surrendered after being promised funds from his account. Police quickly arrested him. [Wired News]
Development Canned - Even though John Steinbeck wouldn't recognize the place anymore, the city council in Monterey, California decided to save what little remains of the original spirit of Cannery Row by voting down a major development there. The US$50 million plan would have plunked down a complex of ocean-view condos, restaurants, and shops into the heart of what was once a bustling canning industry, immortalized in Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row. A small victory, perhaps, for those who prefer their historical places to resemble something other than a shopping mall. [Wired News]
DiMaggio 'Grave' - When Joe DiMaggio walked out of a Florida hospital on his own last week, it appeared that a miracle had occurred. But like most miracles, this one turned out to be illusory. DiMaggio, 84, was released because the hospital could do nothing else for him. He has lung cancer, but doctors say he's too weak to undergo chemotherapy. So it appears that time has nearly run out for one of America's last genuine heroes. In fact, Dateline NBC thought it had: It reported late Sunday that DiMaggio had died, then retracted the report 20 minutes later. [Wired News]
Dial Tone - After more than a century on hold, residents of Kennedy Meadows, California, have finally placed their first telephone calls. It was a big event for the Tulare County community: Folks gathered at Grumpy Bear's Tavern over the weekend to watch Jan Gant dial the first number and hear her leave a message when she reached an answering machine. Five residents are connected to the new phone system, which comes 123 years after the invention of the telephone. [Wired News]
Ding-a-Ling - Mental health hospitals have more to worry about than just monitoring their patients' moods and medications; they should also be keeping tabs on their employees' phone use. A secretary in the Los Angeles County Mental Health department pleaded guilty Thursday to making 2,600 county-billed phone calls to a "Psychic Hotline," totaling US$118,000 in charges, prosecutors said. Cheryl Burnham pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft in Los Angeles Superior Court. Deputy District Attorney Robert Dver said Burnham will be sentenced to 30 days in jail, ordered to pay restitution, and placed on five years' probation. Burnham made most of her calls on nights and weekends, using a computer to bypass a county block on such calls. [Wired News]
Diplomatic Mess - Was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's father an art thief? According to a story in the Times of London, Albright's father, Czech diplomat Josef Korbel, stole paintings worth millions of dollars, along with antique furniture and silver, from the house of an ethnic German who left Prague as World War II drew to a close. Descendants of Karl Nebrich appear ready to sue Albright's family for the return of the artwork, which may have been smuggled out of Czechoslovakia in a diplomatic pouch. The paintings are by European masters, and some date from the 16th century. An Albright family attorney denies that the paintings were obtained illegally. [Wired News]
Diplomatic Precautions - Like antelopes downwind from a prowling leopard, the United States and Great Britain are bolting for safety. Both nations have shuttered several embassies or diplomatic missions in Africa for the weekend after receiving information leading them to believe that a terrorist attack may be imminent, the International Herald Tribune reported. The United States closed six embassies -- in Gambia, Togo, Madagascar, Liberia, Namibia, and Senegal -- while the British shut down missions in Gambia, Madagascar, Namibia, and Senegal. A US State Department spokesman said a decision would be made over the weekend whether to reopen the embassies on Monday. The British, meanwhile, declined to say when their facilities might reopen. [Wired News]
Disney's Secret Porn URL? - Who owns the domain name "mybigstiffy.com?" Would you believe Disney? A faxed statement from Disney's Touchstone Pictures said Buena Vista Pictures Marketing -- Disney's film distribution arm -- says that Walt Disney registered the name "at the request of one of our filmmakers" that worked on a PG-13 rated movie Mafia. "It referred to a joke in the end credits" of the movie, said the spokesperson, who asked not to be identified. But don't look for Walt's Stiffy Site anytime soon. "After careful review, the name was deemed inappropriate and the link to the 'Mafia' Web site has been discontinued." [Wired News]
Ditto, Baby! - Dr. Evil's got nothing on Madeline Albright. The US Secretary of State took a page from the Austin Powers villain's playbook this week, cloning herself to perform for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference while she jetted off to the Balkans. In a videotaped address preceding the typically zany dinner skit, the original Albright introduced Madeline II -- actually Assistant Secretary of Defense Kurt Campbell in drag -- as melding "the modesty of [ex-Secretary of State] Henry Kissinger with the shyness of Madonna." In a parting jab, sung to the tune of "Home on the Range," Not-So-Mini-Madeline sang, "And to old North Korea/We really don't fear ya/'Cause your missile is called the No Dong." [Wired News]
Dogfight - More shooting in Iraq, this time between US and Iraqi warplanes. Four US jets from the carrier USS Carl Vinson fired missiles at Iraqi planes, defying the so-called no-fly zone in southern Iraq. No planes were hit, but one Iraqi jet may have crashed after running out of fuel. It marked the first time since the Gulf War in 1993 that the two sides have engaged in aerial combat. [Wired News]
Dogged Research - We knew those Harvard docs were smart cookies, but who could have anticipated this? Now they're growing fully functional dog bladders using tissue engineering and can report that they're still working a year after being implanted in subject animals. That's good news for people with elderly dogs, of course, but it may also be a harbinger of better days ahead for the estimated 400 million people worldwide who suffer from bladder disease. The study was published in the current issue of Nature Biotechnology. [Wired News]
Don't Lose Heart - Mom always threatened dire consequences if you flunked out of high school. But death? Maybe, according a study by the American Medical Association. Researchers found an increased risk of congestive heart failure in people who, for one reason or another, failed to complete high school. While the education level itself was not seen as a factor, the poor socio-economic conditions often associated with a substandard education are. High blood pressure, excessive weight, smoking, and physical inactivity are all contributors to congestive heart failure, the study said, and all are associated with people on the lower rungs of the education ladder. [Wired News]
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