Copyright 2000 P.G. Publishing Co.
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
April 11, 2000, Tuesday, SOONER EDITION
SECTION: NATIONAL, Pg. A-8, NATIONAL BRIEFS
LENGTH: 608 words
HEADLINE: NO
HEADLINE
BODY:
CHILD STARVER GETS 18 MONTHS
SALT LAKE CITY -- An Altoona man who with his wife starved their son for
religious reasons and then kidnapped the malnourished boy from a hospital was
sentenced yesterday to 18 months in jail.
Authorities said Christopher
and Kyndra Fink believed their son, David, was the "Christ child" and fed him
only watermelon and lettuce to keep him pure.
The Finks -- now divorced
-- sparked a nationwide manhunt in 1998 when they took their 21-month-old boy
from a Utah hospital, where he had been taken by relatives for treatment of
severe malnutrition. Police found the couple 16 days later, in a tent in the
mountains of Montana.
Judge Roger Bean ordered Fink to take any
necessary medication to deal with a possible "major thought disorder."
Low-power FM backed
WASHINGTON -- Federal
Communications Commission Chairman William Kennard will tell broadcasters today
they should drop their opposition to potentially competitive low- power
FM radio stations.
Kennard said he will also tell the National
Association of Broadcasters at their meeting in Las Vegas that television
stations should move without delay into the digital age.
Congress, with
a strong push from broadcasters, is working on a bill to delay noncommercial
low power FM stations and may vote on it this week.
Pandas to D.C.
WASHINGTON -- The Chinese government has agreed
to lend a pair of rare giant pandas to the National Zoo for 10 years, sources
said yesterday, raising hopes that the popular Panda House will be occupied once
more and that cubs might again be born there.
Pandas are so rare that
there are only about 125 in zoos around the world and an estimated 1,000 in the
mountains of China.
Indefinite detention
A federal appeals court
in San Francisco ruled yesterday that it is illegal for the Immigration and
Naturalization Service to indefinitely imprison immigrants convicted of crimes
who cannot be deported because their native lands, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and
Cuba, will not take them back.
The 3-0 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals has immediate ramifications for about 790 detainees in
California and ultimately could affect more than 3,800 detainees nationwide.
The 9th Circuit's ruling is at odds with decisions rendered by federal
appeals courts in New Orleans and Denver. That makes it likely the U.S. Supreme
Court will ultimately reconcile the conflict.
Mrs. Clinton law license
WASHINGTON -- The disciplinary arm of the Arkansas Supreme Court, which
already is looking into a complaint seeking to disbar President Clinton, said it
will review one against first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton for her actions in the
Whitewater venture.
A conservative group, Landmark Legal Foundation,
cited "credible information suggesting that Mrs. Clinton may have violated" the
Arkansas code of conduct requiring lawyers to act with honesty and integrity.
Supreme Court online
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is joining
the Internet age, opening its own Web site next Monday to provide public access
to its decisions, argument calendars and other information.
Decision
texts are to be made available online by around noon on the day they are
announced.
Also available will be the court's argument calendar,
schedules, rules, visitors' guides and bar admission forms.
The site is
www.supremecourtus.gov
Also in the nation
Jenny Craig, the diet
center chain that stirred controversy when it hired Monica Lewinsky to be its
television spokeswoman, relaunched its television campaign yesterday without the
former White House intern but said they were still good friends.
LOAD-DATE: April 13, 2000 
