California eliminates rule barring gays from adopting
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California has quietly eliminated a regulation that required state government to automatically oppose adoptions of foster children by gay and other unmarried couples.Attorneys representing gay and lesbian groups challenged the regulation earlier this year, and the state Department of Social Services concluded the policy "did not go through the proper legal process," agency spokeswoman Sidonie Squier said Wednesday.
The change, approved by the Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, rescinds a 1995 order by then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican.
Yet that doesn't mean Davis supports adoption by gay couples, said spokesman Michael Bustamante.
Denver seeks FBI assistance after finding 2 more bodies
DENVER (Scripps Howard News Service) -- The discovery of the bodies of two decapitated homeless men has prompted Denver Mayor Wellington Webb to ask the FBI for help.
The gruesome discoveries in a field Wednesday brings to seven the number of homeless men who have died brutal deaths in Denver's lower downtown area since Sept. 7. Three were decapitated. Only one of the heads has been found.
The find Wednesday was all the more shocking because it came after Denver police arrested seven homeless youths on various charges, prompting confidence among many transients that they were once more safe on the streets.
"I thought the crimes had been solved," Webb said. "With the two additional bodies that popped up today, this obviously means we need additional resources to safeguard the people of the city."
NBC, Washington Post Co. to share news in 3 media
NEW YORK (AP) -- NBC and The Washington Post Co. have formed a partnership to share news reports in print, on TV and on the Internet.
NBC News, the MSNBC cable network and Internet site will contribute to the alliance, along with print and Web operations of The Washington Post and its sister publication, Newsweek magazine.
In addition to newsgathering, the partners will share technology and offer joint advertising packages in a variety of media. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.
The partnership announced Wednesday is the latest of several newsgathering alliances as media companies seek to boost their brand names at a time of heightened competition.
Female N.Y. golfer takes sex-bias battle to court
NEW YORK (AP) -- A female golfer who claims 17 years of sex discrimination by the swanky Westchester Country Club has taken her battle to court.
Nancy Saunders testified Wednesday before Administrative Judge Denise Washington of the state Division of Human Rights in Manhattan.
She said that when she joined the club in 1982, as a single mother, she paid the same initiation and dues as any man her age, and, "I just assumed I would be treated the same."
But she quickly learned that on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays there were many hours during which women were barred from the club's prestigious West Course, where the PGA Tour plays the Buick Classic each year.
In addition, she was barred -- all the time -- from the apparently aptly named Men's Grill.
Scholars doubt authenticity of 28 O'Keeffe paintings
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The authenticity of 28 Georgia O'Keeffe watercolors purchased for $5.5 million has been questioned by scholars producing the definitive catalogue of her work.
The works -- vivid, abstract images of the Texas desert -- are known as "The Canyon Suite" and hang in the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art here.
R. Crosby Kemper, the banker who purchased the works for display in his museum, was told about a month ago that they would be omitted from the "catalogue raisonne" of O'Keeffe's work.
The omission renders the works -- which were worth approximately $8 million -- virtually worthless in the art world.
The catalogue is being produced by the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation of Abiquiu, N.M.
Researchers believe the paper the watercolors are painted on is not authentic and that their style does not seem to conform with the work of O'Keeffe, who died in 1986.
Number of probes targeting IRS agents expected to soar
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Treasury agents are planning such a sharp increase in Internal Revenue Service probes that the number of IRS inspectors under investigation will soon nearly equal the number of Americans suspected of tax crimes, the New York Times reported Thursday.
The Treasury Department's new inspector general for tax affairs, David Williams, has set a goal of 4,000 investigated IRS workers for the 2000 fiscal year, which began last month, the Times reported.
That's 50 percent higher than last year, and Williams plans to increase that to 5,000 in 2001, the Times said.
The goal has caused concern, even among the inspector general's staff, that investigators are being forced to search for more misdeeds, ranging from harassing taxpayers to theft, than may exist, and will be under pressure to trump up cases, the paper said.
N.Y. mall pays $2.55 million to settle lawsuit over death
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A suburban mall has paid $2.55 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit accusing it of having a racist policy designed to keep inner city buses off its property.
Cynthia N. Wiggins died in 1995 after being hit by a dump truck on her way to work at the Walden Galleria mall in suburban Cheektowaga. The 17-year-old was crossing a busy seven-lane roadway that separated her bus stop from the mall.
Under the settlement, announced Wednesday, neither the mall, the bus company nor the dump truck driver -- all named as defendants in the lawsuit -- admitted any wrongdoing in the young woman's death.
The Wiggins family sued mall owner Pyramid Cos. after it was revealed that the mall did not allow buses from predominantly black neighborhoods to drop passengers at the mall.
The Wiggins family contended that the highway served as a "moat" to keep black inner-city residents away from the mall.
Photographer says musician, entourage attacked him, wife
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A celebrity photographer has accused Latin music star Alejandro Fernandez of choking him and alleges the artist's entourage shoved his pregnant wife.
A spokeswoman for the Mexican star's record label, Sony Music International, declined comment Wednesday. Fernandez had Billboard Magazine's No. 1 Latin album last year.
Photographer Angel Mora said that after he took Fernandez's picture Monday behind the Sony Music building in South Beach, the star chased him and choked him. Other members of the entourage beat him, Mora said.
Regan says he still hates Japanese he fought in WWII
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Former Treasury Secretary Donald Regan says he still feels hatred for the Japanese soldiers he fought in World War II.
"I hated them all, and I still do," Regan told several dozen College of William & Mary students Wednesday at a seminar on the war in literature and film.
"I won't buy a Japanese product," he said. "I lost a lot of friends. I can't forgive them."
Regan, who now lives in Williamsburg, also served as President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. He was a Marine in the war, fresh out of Harvard University, and served in the South Pacific.
"I went into Okinawa with 900 men under me. I was a major, and I was 25 years old," he said. "That's war for you. It makes an old man out of you fast.