Parents are keeping their kids out of the public pools now, after a youngster with diarrhea spread a dangerous strain of E. coli in Marietta, Georgia. Nine children so far have turned up sick, with two in critical condition. It is hoped that parents have learned from this not to take their kids to public pools when they're ill, but not that they should avoid the pools. They cited the benefits of children in active recreation vs. the fear of something that is an extremely rare event. The pool was properly chlorinated but was unable to kill the bacteria in time to prevent infections because it can take longer if the contamination is big enough. The sick children must have swallowed the pool water because the bacteria can only be transmitted through ingestion, either in food or water, health officials said. Five of the children developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can cause kidney failure, and were being treated with respirators, blood transfusions and dialysis.

According to the CIA director, China and other countries have started to focus on computer networks as a target for possible attack. Nations developing these programs recognize the value of attacking a country's computer systems both on the battlefield and in the civilian arena. Unspecified foreign countries have begun to include information warfare in their military doctrine as well as war college curricula. The director said the "battle space" of the information age would surely extend to domestic infrastructure, such as electric power grids and telecommunications networks.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minihan, head of the National Security Agency, also testified to the same panel that U.S. networks are attacked "every day." He says even when the attacks are detected and reported, they rarely know the attacker's identity. A research fellow at the National Defense University who wrote a Pentagon study of China's interest in information warfare, said Beijing had the world's largest program of its type. In a phone interview, he said, "Judging by their military writings, they are saying that information warfare is the core of what they want to do."

For the first time since a construction site in New Jersey began hearing complaints from workers about an illness that turned the tongue yellow, a resident who lives four houses away from the site is now struck by the mysterious disease. She has all the symptoms - headaches, abnormal enzyme levels in the liver and the telltale yellow tongue. Workers now take precautions, wearing hazmat suits and dust masks, but residents now fear that the airborne dust is settling over their residential neighborhood as the trucks roll past. A housewife and mother, the woman went to her doctor where he tried to scrape the yellowish coating from her tongue. "It doesn't come off. He doesn't know [what it is]," she said. The disease causes the tongue to crack, bleed and turn yellow. The town council held a special meeting but little was resolved because soil samples are being tested and may take weeks to return.

Nearly one in four Americans believes the year 2000 problem could directly affect their lives, according to a poll released yesterday at the World Congress on Information Technology. "If you think the American people are not paying attention, you're wrong," said the president of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), which commissioned the telephone poll of 1,000 people. He said this should be a wake-up call to the political leadership.

If prosecutors are right, the wild, lawless lifestyle of motorcycle gangs has collided with the serene, conservative Amish culture. Tuesday two Amish men were indicted on charges of buying drugs from a local motorcycle gang, called the Pagans. The drugs were distributed at dances in their Lancaster County communities. At the time of their indictment, the two Amish men were participating in a "timeout," a period where young men and women between the ages of 16 and 24 are allowed to explore the outside world before deciding to join the Amish church. Multiple kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamines valued at about $1 million were distributed to youth groups known as the Crickets, the Antiques, and the Pilgrims between 1993 and 1997. It is believed to be the first charge against an Amish person for drug crimes.

Scientists have discovered evidence that Neptune's largest moon is warming up. Using data collected by the Hubble telescope, they found that the density of the atmosphere has signicantly increased since the Voyager's visit in 1989. Despite the warming, it's not likely anyone will plan a summer vacation on Triton, which is a bit smaller than the Earth's moon. The five percent increase in temperature means it has gone from -392 degrees Fahrenheit to a less-than-temperate -389 degrees Fahrenheit. However, if Earth experienced a similar change in global temperatures over a comparable period, it could lead to significant climactic change. Triton is a very different and simpler world than Earth, with a thinner atmosphere, no oceans, and a surface of frozen nitrogen. Like us, though, they are experiencing changes in the Sun's heat output, changing how much sunlight is absorbed and reflected by their surfaces, and the amount of methane and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere.

A mysterious, new fungus has been identified that may be the cause of a major decline in the global frog population. They think the fungus suffocates the amphibians by coating their undersides and legs. Frogs breathe through their skin. The fungus was discovered independently by researchers in the United States and Australia. It belongs to a new genus of chytrid, thought to be related to the earliest fungus. The scientists don't know yet if the fungus is the primary cause of death, or if the frogs are also weakened by ultraviolet radiation penetrating the thinned ozone layer, or agricultural chemicals. The fungus has been in American zoos since 1988, and was found in Australia in 1993