Amid the publicity surrounding the start of Larry Adler’s sentence on perjury charges — he’ll finish his reduced 10-day jail term this week — it is easy to forget how close the former Winston Churchill High School student came to …

Students, researchers and other professionals have long had no-cost access to the global computer network called the Internet. But for everyone else, getting in meant getting out the wallet.

Now a growing number of "community" or "civic" computer networks are springing …

To reach Jim Cashel on the Internet, just drop him a line at his e-mail address "cashel@esquire.com."

You can’t call him at Esquire magazine, though. He doesn’t work there and never has, according to the company. Try some of his other …

THE NAVY COMMANDERS sent the letter to my mother, but they had really been after me.

In the fall of my junior year in high school, I took the standardized Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT), which most colleges use to identify …

I was disappointed that you would print a piece as disingenuous as Stewart Ugelow’s tale of his recruitment by the U.S. Navy ["Bombarded by the U.S. Navy," Outlook, Aug. 27]. While Ugelow professes that his story is told out of …

The sluggish manufacturing sector is showing signs of emerging from a recent slump even though overall new factory orders fell 0.1% in April, according to analysts. Many economists had estimated a drop of nearly 1%.

Factory orders fell slightly because reduced …

Alan Helfman has no doubts about the strength of the economy. He owns Ford and Chrysler dealerships in the affluent Houston suburb of River Oaks, Texas, and is selling vans, Jeeps and Ford Explorers like "gangbusters."

"We’re hot as fire down …

WASHINGTON — Despite controversy in recent years over members of Congress earning quick profits on hard-to-get new stocks, one senator and two representatives reported thousands of dollars in gains on initial-public-offering trades last year.

Republican Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Democratic …

How did federal air safety regulators fail so badly?

The Federal Aviation Administration’s shutdown of ValuJet Airlines — less than six weeks after FAA officials had insisted that the airline was safe — has raised questions about the agency’s ability to …

Imagine Burger King sponsoring a movie in which a lead character is told to choose any food in the world and asks for a Big Mac. Then you’ll understand why Apple computer users are miffed.

In May, Apple Computer launched a …

Carlton Hobbs, a 20-year-old math major at the University of Texas at Arlington, was cruising the Internet last September when he came across the web site for the Libertarian Party (http://www.lp.org).

Since then, he has spent more than $500 on books …

The gates are empty, the passengers are gone, but ValuJet Airlines has yet another problem: parking its 51 planes.

The Federal Aviation Administration forced the discount airline to cease operations indefinitely June 17. But early this week, about half of ValuJet’s …

RU-486, the abortion pill recommended for approval by a regulatory panel, isn’t the only new abortion option for American women. Two other pharmaceutical methods for ending or preventing pregnancy may soon come into wider use — in large part because …

WASHINGTON — New orders for durable goods fell 0.8% in June, the Commerce Department said, signaling that the economy’s strength isn’t unbridled.

June’s decline partially unraveled the huge 4.2% jump in May orders. That gain was just one piece of economic …

WASHINGTON — In another forecast of continued economic growth, the index of leading economic indicators rose a strong 0.5% in June, the Conference Board said.

The index’s rise was its fifth in a row, including a 0.3% gain in April and …

Despite surging second-quarter economic growth and tight labor markets, wholesale prices remained unchanged last month, the Labor Department said.

The stable prices at the producer level offer a further sign that inflation is under control, analysts said. Bonds were up sharply …

The nation’s drug users are getting younger, according to reports released Tuesday.

Teenage drug use has more than doubled since 1992, the Department of Health and Human Services said. Nearly 11% of 12-year-olds to 17-year-olds used drugs on a monthly basis …

President Clinton signed legislation Wednesday that will guarantee health insurance to people who change jobs.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act extends new protections to an estimated 25 million Americans in so-called "job lock," a situation in which employees don’t …

Over 71% of workers whose jobs were eliminated in the past three years found new ones by February, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

From January 1993 to December 1995, an estimated 8.4 million workers were displaced from their …

RALEIGH - Thanks to Ricky Rose, the phrase "This is a stick-up" has a whole new meaning in the Triangle.

Rose, a 34-year-old homeless man, will appear in court today on armed robbery charges. Police say Rose took $19.31 from a …

With her father David in tow, Sarah Chappell looked across The Disney Store at Raleigh’s Crabtree Valley Mall, spied the Pocahontas birthday party set she had been searching for and smiled.

"Here it is. I want it," the 3-year-old girl announced …

Lovers of Michael Jackson, Hootie and the Blowfish and other major recording stars will soon get more music for their money: Prices for some compact discs are plunging across the Triangle as the region’s record stores prepare for a major …

Last week the nation’s doctors finally confessed: They haven’t been washing their hands often enough.

Medical insiders say the problem has existed for years, but the doctors’ admission at the American Medical Association convention in Chicago is still hard to believe.

Reminding …

RALEIGH - On a grassy field along Garner Road, a sleek UH-1 Huey helicopter swathed in the black and silver of the N.C. State Highway Patrol sits with its nose pointed due south.

Decades ago and thousands of miles away, Sgt. …

RALEIGH - On a sun-streaked weekday evening at the playing fields of Laurel Hills Park, the bases are loaded, the game’s on the line, and Jon Shaw is following the ball.

From the moment the baseball leaves the pitcher’s hand, its …

RALEIGH - Spare us the arguments.

You’ve seen everything that’s playing at the movie theaters. There’s nothing good on TV. The clubs are too crowded, the bars too boring.

So you go bowling Friday night.

Over on lane four of the Western Lanes …

In high school civics classes, they don’t mention the shrink-wrapped Monopoly board games in how a bill becomes a law.

A coalition of long-distance telephone carriers has sent the popular board game to every member of Congress and to newspaper editors …

No matter how hard you try to convince it otherwise, your computer won’t cook for you.

But it may become one of the most important tools in your kitchen.

Long before there was cyberspace or the information superhighway, computer makers had food …

Selecting recipes or nutrition information from the Internet isn’t like consulting your favorite cookbook. Most of the information has been placed there by individuals and the quality varies.

Some sites are lovingly crafted tributes to favorite foods that are rich in …

There are three types of food information resources on the Internet:

Mailing lists, essentially an ongoing conversation by electronic mail. You need to sign up for these, and messages are delivered directly to you via e-mail.

Newsgroups, the equivalent of a global …

ZEBULON - A 6-foot foam cylinder called the Funnoodle could be the Hula-Hoop of the 1990s. Or so its makers hope.

The packaging of the buoyant water toy says it’s from Tennessee, but the Funnoodle is really made right here in …

The Internet could be the newest commercial frontier, where pioneers strike gold every place they tread.

Or it could be a treacherous and deadly landscape, swallowing up trailblazers and setting in motion costly financial flops.

Welcome to the world of cyberbusiness.

It’s easy …

When Paul Jones has a particularly thorny matter on his mind, he leaves his Durham office and plays a few holes of golf across the street.

He doesn’t have to worry about what his co-workers might think. Since July, he’s worked …

RALEIGH - Vernita Evans’ business strategy looks remarkably simple:

Keep people in stitches. Laugh all the way to the bank.

No, she’s not a comedienne. She’s a seamstress. Evans owns Sew Well Learning Center & Manufacturing, a North Raleigh company that teaches …

The longest waiting game in software history comes to an end today. But the frenzy has just begun.

Microsoft Windows 95, possibly the most heavily promoted computer product ever, officially went on sale throughout the Triangle at midnight.

The newest version of …

The battle is on to see if there will ever be a tobacco road in cyberspace.

As the White House leads a campaign to lower underage smoking rates by placing sweeping restrictions on cigarette advertising, giddy anti-smoking activists hope to stub …

At the intersection of Antitrust Exemption Way and Your Tax Dollars Not at Work Boulevard lies the finest baseball diamond in all the land.

Nestled along the Anacostia waterfront, the House that Bud Built has proven once and for all that while you can take baseball out of the Beltway, you can’t take the Beltway out of baseball.