MS. MAGAZINE HOPES TO AIM ITS APPEAL AT YOUNGER WOMEN
NEW YORK (AP) -- Ms. magazine is planning to add a little spirit.The new owners of the feminist publication, including co-founder Gloria Steinem, hope to resume publication next spring with an approach aimed at appealing to younger women.
MacDonald Communications Corp., which owned Ms. for about 2 1/2 years, agreed Monday to sell the bimonthly magazine to Liberty Media for Women, which is backed by more than a dozen female investors.
"We will be reaching out to younger women, and we hope to be funnier, livelier, surprising. We want to make it very clear that Ms., like feminism, is something that is moving into the future," Marcia Ann Gillespie, the editor in chief of Ms. since 1993 and part of the new ownership group, said Tuesday.
TEXAS AUTHORITIES HOPE SHIFT IN HUNT WILL FLUSH OUT KILLER
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Authorities combing 17,000 acres of woods and marshy creek beds for an escaped death-row inmate have shifted their search, hoping it will force the convicted killer to make a move.
Martin Gurule escaped Friday and has eluded capture by more than 500 people searching the Ellis I and Estelle prison units.
"We're going to discontinue most of the direct pressure within the containment area," prison official Wayne Scott said Tuesday. "If he sees the pressure diminished, he may decide it's time to move."
RANCHER ACCUSED OF BILKING $100 MILLION FROM INVESTORS
BURNS, Ore. (AP) -- A rancher charged with mail fraud and conspiracy is accused of bilking $100 million from thousands of investors in a scheme to sell cattle that investigators say never existed.
Walter J. Hoyt III and four other men were arrested Monday on a federal grand jury indictment.
Investigators said the scheme also involved tax deductions for cattle businesses the IRS disallowed, meaning the investors not only lost their savings but also faced tax bills that in some cases left them bankrupt.
The schemes defrauded 4,500 investors in 41 states, the government charged.
BEER CREDITED WITH KEEPING 2 OHIO BOYS ALIVE IN BOXCAR
HAMILTON, Ohio (Reuters) -- Beer kept two boys alive during an eight-day ordeal in a closed railroad boxcar, they told authorities Tuesday.
John Wayne Riley, 15, and Billy Grimes, 12, were rescued by workers who heard their shouts for help in a railroad yard at the Miller Brewing Co. in nearby Trenton, Ohio.
Both boys were given oxygen therapy and rushed to a hospital, where they were released after treatment for dehydration.
Riley said he and Grimes hopped on a slow-moving freight train in Hamilton on Nov. 23 when they were being chased by some other boys. He said they switched trains later, thinking they would get back to Hamilton but wound up trapped in the beer-laden boxcar.
"We did the only things we could do," Riley said. "We drank beer to stay alive and we talked about how we were going to change if we got out of there."
For young teenagers, two or three days is about the limit before the body becomes dehydrated, said Dr. Barry Staley of West Chester. Drinking the beer might have saved their lives.
STRIPPER DENIES KNOWING GIRLS AT PARTY WERE UNDERAGE
PLEASANTON, Calif. (AP) -- A male stripper has pleaded innocent to four felony counts of sexual contact with teenage girls, saying he didn't know the high school freshmen and sophomores at a Halloween party were underage.
Steven Schmitt was paid to perform a 45-minute routine for as many as 50 girls -- most of them 14 and 15 years old -- at the Oct. 30 party.
"He was exploited," his attorney, William Gagen, said after Monday's arraignment. "He wouldn't have been there or stayed there if he had thought the girls were underage."
Gagen and prosecutor Deborah Streicher both blamed Carye McGrath, the mother of the party's 15-year-old host, for sanctioning the party.
GEORGIA CARPET FIRM FINED FOR VIOLATING CAMPAIGN LAWS
ROME, Ga. (AP) -- A Georgia carpet company has been fined $1 million after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws during the 1996 presidential primary.
Thirty-six employees of Beaulieu of America Inc. were directed by company officials to attend a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner in March 1996 for Republican presidential candidate Lamar Alexander. They then were reimbursed by the company.
Carl Bouckaert, the company's chief executive, was one of the national finance co-chairs of Alexander's campaign. The campaign will not be fined.
EMORY TO PAY $66,400 FINE OVER FATAL SPLASH OF SCIENTIST
ATLANTA (AP) -- Emory University has agreed to pay a $66,400 fine for safety violations in the death of a scientist who contracted the herpes B virus when she was splashed in the eye by a laboratory monkey.
Elizabeth Griffin, 22, a researcher at the university's Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center, was helping move the caged monkey in 1997 when she was splashed with bodily fluids. She died weeks later.
MIAMI-DADE PANEL RESTORES BAN ON SEX-ORIENTATION BIAS
MIAMI -- More than 20 years after Anita Bryant's "save our children" crusade led to the repeal here of one of the country's first gay rights ordinances and galvanized the debate over gay rights in the nation, the Miami-Dade County commission Tuesday voted again to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The 13 commissioners voted 7-6 to amend the county's anti-discrimination law to prohibit unequal treatment of homosexuals in housing, employment, credit and finance and public accommodation.
PAKISTANI URGED TO BOOSTCOMMITMENT AGAINST N-ARMS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton, having fulfilled his promise to ease sanctions on Pakistan, is pressing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to strengthen his nation's commitment to nuclear nonproliferation.
In advance of Wednesday afternoon's Oval Office meeting with Sharif, Clinton signed papers waiving until Oct. 21, 1999, the sanctions he was statutorily obliged to impose after India and Pakistan tested nuclear bombs last May.