The University of Missouri has agreed to set aside $10 million for a scholarship fund to settle a class action lawsuit that the school violated state law for 15 years by charging tuition to in-state, undergraduate students.

Between 1986 when the University's Board of Curators broke a 1939 law by charging educational fees based on credit hours until 2001 when the legislature repealed the 72-year-old statute, Mizzou was breaking the law at its campuses in Columbia, Rolla, St. Louis and Kansas City, Herman alleged and Romines ruled in December 2002. Since then, higher courts upheld the ruling.

So keep an eye on it, gentle reader: when the dog bites man, it will be news in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch if it's a pit bull doing the biting, and it will be one more anecdote to drive bad legislation.

While the family and friends of the victims of two pit bull attacks in St. Charles County try to understand what caused the animals to snap, experts are divided about how to prevent maulings.

Even pit bull advocates admit the dogs have an image problem.

Unlike Missouri, Illinois law makes it illegal to enact breed-specific ordinances that would allow the state's cities to ban certain breeds. A bill currently in the Illinois House, however, would change the law.

Merritt Clifton, of Clinton, Wash., editor of the newspaper Animal People, disagreed and cited laws banning pit bulls in Denver and one being enacted in Ontario.

He said that dog-related legislation had historically allowed the dog one free bite before it was deemed a dangerous animal.

"The problem with pit bulls and also with Rottweilers is that the first dangerous incident is very often the first fatality or life-threatening injury," he said. "So that one free bite doesn't work when you've got that level of capacity to injure, and the issue is no longer whether the dog bites often but whether the dog bites at all."

He said that pit bulls made up about 5 percent of the dog population in the United States, but that more than 50 percent of the dogs involved in fatal attacks or maimings have been pit bulls.

Delise calculates that pit bulls are involved in 21 percent of fatal attacks, the highest of any breed.

Six people on the westbound train, which had a total of 23 passengers and crew on its engine and three passenger cars, were taken to Barnes-Jewish Hospital with bumps and bruises, said Kim Bacon, a spokeswoman for EMS. [Emphasis added.]

Five civil rights, animal rights and environmental groups are joining together to sue the FBI to release records about monitoring of anti-war and other political activities by federal agents assigned to counterterrorism duties.

The American Civil Liberties Union said the decision to file a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington came after the FBI ignored Freedom of Information Act requests for the documents. The other organizations involved are the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee, Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and United for Peace and Justice.

Ordinance 106-2.1, which was passed in 1980, is the one we've been blissfully ignoring out there. It says it shall be unlawful for anyone to drink the strong stuff in public parking lots or parking structures. The fine is $50 to $250, probably depending on how much abuse is heaped on the arresting officer.

Schrimpf remembers reading the ordinance several years back when there was talk of building Miller Park downtown.

It struck him that popping a cold one in a downtown parking structure or doing it in the sprawling lots around the ballpark were no different under the law. But he always thought there must be some exception for tailgating, which he himself has enjoyed.

But there was no exception under the city ordinances, nor is there any county ordinance that says go ahead and imbibe in the shadow of your vehicle.

"The answer is yes. It was illegal," Schrimpf said.

So at Murphy's request, the council recently voted to allow tailgate drinking for this season as a "special event" under the ordinance. And last week the Public Safety Committee recommended to the council to make it permanent.

Sometimes this job is too easy. That whooshing noise you heard Tuesday was every pundit north of St. Louis lunging for a keyboard to heap ridicule on Gov. Blagojevich for his "testicular virility" quip.

The two-mile pursuit ended on west 56th Street, but Martin refused to get out of the car. One deputy broke out a window and used a taser on him.

Early in the morning of September 24, 1994, they were engaged in consensual sexual intercourse. The plaintiff was lying on his back while the defendant was on top of him. The defendant's body was secured in this position by the interlocking of her legs and the plaintiff's legs. At some point, the defendant unilaterally....

Reznor said he began to grow worried about finances when he was told during a meeting with Malm and a lawyer in 2002 that there was "cause for alarm."

The following year, he said, he asked Malm to tell him how much money he had. He said he was sent a financial statement that revealed he had at most $3 million in total assets and as little as $400,000 in cash.

A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday.

The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it.

Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August.

Kylie Clem, a spokeswoman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said the reserves would last well beyond the scheduled mid-June arrival at the station of a Russian space freighter with additional supplies.

As it stands, oxygen supplies in a Progress cargo carrier now at the outpost will last until May 22 or May 23.

The crew also is equipped with oxygen generators that work like drop-down emergency air supplies on commercial airliners. Supplies from those would last until early July. Beyond that, there is a 100-day oxygen supply in tanks attached to the station U.S. Quest airlock.

Total air supply now onboard: About 140 days.

"You have FOUR STAR WARS?" Gnat asked. "Wow."

There are actually five – well, six. But I sold the first one.

"Why?"

"Because it was an embarrassing piece of tripe."

"What’s tripe?"

"It’s a kind of fish."

A software problem is causing some Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid cars to stall or shut down while driving at highway speeds, according to a published report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the problem involves Priuses from the 2004 model year and some early 2005 models.

The newspaper reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has logged 13 reports of the engine shutdowns, while Edmunds.com, a popular vehicle-information and shopping site, has had 13 individuals post complaints in a Prius forum. Some of the cars that shut down had to be towed to the shop before they could be restarted.

A police officer, aided by a drug-sniffing German shepherd named Bella, parks his cruiser on the side of the expressway three or four days a week, looking for any vehicle that seems suspicious — a broken taillight, an expired license plate or simply a car that changes lanes excessively.

That is all it takes to pull over someone who might be a drug courier. If the officer is lucky, he confiscates not only drugs but bundles of money.

Frightened, exhausted and thankful — that’s how a St. Charles County man and his 13-year-old stepson described their feelings a day after surviving a viscous [sic] attack by a relative’s pit bull at their home.

T-bone, a 3-year-old, 90-pound pit bull, was still biting Gary Wetteroff’s leg when sheriff’s deputies got to his home near St. Peters late Saturday night. The dog was trying to pull him to the ground.

"It’s trying to kill me; kill the dog," Wetteroff yelled.

A deputy used a Taser to try to stop the animal, but one of the electrodes missed. The second officer pushed Wetteroff against the wall near the stairwell and told everyone else to get away. He fired one round from his .40-caliber Glock, killing the dog.

The incident was the second severe attack by a pit bull in St. Charles County in less than a week. Last Thursday, authorities said an autopsy revealed that Lorinze Reddings, 42, had been killed by his two pet pit bulls, who delivered a “sharp force and crushing injury to the neck,"[sic]

She [Theresa Williams, director of St. Charles County Animal Control] said that St. Charles County’s laws are not breed-specific in their enforcement of dangerous animals because they can come in many different shapes, sizes and forms.

Marquette Wild

Students attending the University of Texas at Austin will find something missing from the undergraduate library this fall.

Books.

By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library's 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.

"In this information-seeking America, I can't think of anyone who would elect to build a books-only library," said Fred Heath, vice provost of the University of Texas Libraries in Austin.

Their new version is to include "software suites" - modules with computers where students can work collaboratively at all hours - an expanded center for writing instruction, and a center for computer training, technical assistance and repair.

Spending by public libraries in the Milwaukee area increased by 12% from 2000 through 2003, and more than half of the area's libraries raised operating expenditures by more than double the rate of inflation, a new analysis shows.

The spending increases come as municipal governments - the primary source of library funding - are under growing pressure to hold down costs and taxes. But an unusual state law governing the funding of libraries makes it nearly impossible for local officials to make significant cuts in library budgets.

"It is a bone of contention, especially in an environment where the Legislature is talking about things like tax levy freezes and spending limits," said Curt Witynski, assistant director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, which has sought to have the law repealed.

Last Thursday I was in a cab crossing Michigan Avenue. There was a temporary backup because of a truck backing into a garage just east of Michigan, and we found ourselves right next to a traffic cop. She could clearly see that my guy was gabbing away on his hands-free phone, but she didn't say a word to him about it. So I spoke up -- and he reluctantly hung up, just as he was sailing past the address I had given him in the first place.

If cops don't care about the thousands of cabbies using hands-free phones, are they really going to direct their energies toward finding motorists using hand-held phones? Are they going to position themselves at the city limits, just waiting for an unsuspecting motorist to cross 87th Street while still on the phone?

Lucas, speaking to reporters, emphasised that the original "Star Wars" was written at the end of the Vietnam war, when Richard Nixon was U.S. president, but that the issue being explored was still very much alive today.

"The issue was, how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship?" he said.

"When I wrote it, Iraq (the U.S.-led war) didn't exist... but the parallels of what we did in Vietnam and Iraq are unbelievable."

He acknowledged an uncomfortable feeling that the United States was in danger of losing its democratic ideals, like in the movie.

"I didn't think it was going to get this close. I hope this doesn't come true in our country."

Two members of the Federal Communication Commission called upon the public Saturday to help their agency resist new efforts to relax rules allowing big corporations to own more television and radio stations.

Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, the commission members, spoke before an overflow crowd to the National Conference for Media Reform at the Millennium Hotel in downtown St. Louis. More than 2,200 people from across the country are attending the three-day conference.

The federal agency voted to relax its rules on media consolidation two years ago, but Congress and the courts intervened to stop it.

Copps said the three Republican members of the commission, a majority, are ready to try again. He expects big media companies to bring "a lot of pressure" on the commission to allow more consolidation of newspapers and radio and television stations.

With American dissatisfaction over the conflict in Iraq reaching its highest level since the invasion two years ago--and the initial reasons for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein undermined by the discovery that he possessed no weapons of mass destruction--Bush has set out this year with carefully scripted tours of the recently liberated nations of Europe to cast all of these events as chapters of one great world saga.

But the peaceful, homegrown movements of these nations bear little resemblance to what Bush has dubbed "Purple Revolution" of Iraq--named for ink-stains on the fingers of Iraqis who voted in January for a new government.

Critics contend that the president is masking the original, and later discredited, reasons for invading Iraq with his vow to end world tyranny, a theme Bush voiced in his second-term inaugural address and has repeated across Europe.

The Department of Agriculture is caring for 206 animals living at the Pampered Pets store in Alton Square mall while the shop's ownership is resolved in court.

Management at Alton Square mall learned this week just how messy a business breakdown can be when pets are the merchandise.

Matthew and Jessica Buckingham, the owners of the Pampered Pets store on the mall's second floor, defaulted on a loan and abandoned the store, said Jeff Squibb, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Agriculture. The agency regulates such businesses.

When the store did not open for business on Thursday, mall officials notified Alton authorities.

"We arrived and found horrible conditions," said James Greer, Alton assistant chief of animal control. "When animals are unattended like that, even for a short time, things get filthy fast."

Two men each received two life sentences plus 512 years in prison on Friday for robbing a grocery store in St. Charles.

"Everyone was screaming and jumping up and down. It was mass hysteria," claims a graduate of a women's liberal arts college in Decatur, GA, site of Sen. Hillary Clinton's commencement day address this weekend.

Who will be the Greatest American? Political giant Abraham Lincoln or Bill Clinton? Sports legend Babe Ruth or Tiger Woods? Media mogul Oprah Winfrey or Walt Disney? These remarkable people, and many more, have been named by America as some of the top 100 Greatest Americans.

Abraham Lincoln
Albert Einstein
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Hamilton
Amelia Earhart
Andrew Carnegie
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Audie Murphy
Babe Ruth
Barack Obama
Barbara Bush
Benjamin Franklin
Bill Clinton
Bill Cosby (William Henry Cosby, Jr.)
Bill Gates
Billy Graham
Bob Hope
Brett Favre
Carl Sagan
Cesar Chavez
Charles Lindbergh
Christopher Reeve
Chuck Yeager
Clint Eastwood
Colin Powell
Condoleezza Rice
Donald Trump
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eleanor Roosevelt (Anna Eleanor Roosevelt)
Ellen DeGeneres
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Frederick Douglass
George H. W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Lucas
George Patton
George Washington
George Washington Carver
Harriet Ross Tubman
Harry Truman
Helen Keller
Henry Ford
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Howard Hughes
Hugh Hefner
Jackie Robinson (Jack Roosevelt Robinson)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Jesse Owens
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Stewart
John Edwards
John Glenn
John F. Kennedy
John Wayne
Johnny Carson (John William Carson)
Jonas Edward Salk
Joseph Smith Jr.
Katharine Hepburn
Lance Armstrong
Laura Bush
Lucille Ball
Lyndon B. Johnson
Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone)
Malcolm X (Malcolm Little)
Marilyn Monroe
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
Martha Stewart
Martin Luther King Jr.
Maya Angelou
Mel Gibson
Michael Jackson
Michael Jordan
Michael Moore
Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.)
Neil Alden Armstrong
Nikola Tesla
Oprah Winfrey
Pat Tillman
Dr. Phil McGraw
Ray Charles
Richard Nixon
Robert Kennedy
Ronald Reagan
Rosa Parks
Rudolph W. Giuliani
Rush Limbaugh
Sam Walton
Steve Jobs
Steven Spielberg
Susan B. Anthony
Theodore Roosevelt
Thomas Edison
Thomas Jefferson
Tiger Woods
Tom Cruise
Tom Hanks
Walt Disney
Wrights Brothers (Orville & Wilbur Wright)

As I checked other sites for ideas, I now realized that I didn't need only new information. I needed a gimmick - a motif or a running joke that would keep the blog rolling all week. All of a sudden, I was reading other blogs, not for what they had to say, but for how they said it.

It's not that the readers were dim. Some forced me to refine or clarify my arguments. But the responses certainly got reductive, very quickly. And for all the individuality that blogs are supposed to offer, there was an amazing amount of groupthink - since some of them were getting their talking points from ... other blogs.

By the end of the week, with other deadlines looming and my patience exhausted, I began to post less and less. There was a piece for Slate due, a book chapter to finish, my baby boy, Leo, to entertain and a piece to write for the Week in Review.

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