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AT&T may pull the plug on some DSL customers
by Elizabeth Douglass
Los Angeles Times
March 27, 2001
More than 100,000 customers surf
ing the Internet through high-speed
phone lines may be disconnected from
their service this week after AT&T
Corp. decided not to pick them up
when it bought bankrupt North Point
Communications’ equipment and net
work.
The deal, struck in bankruptcy court
late last week, has sent the affected con
sumers - and their Internet service pro
viders - scrambling to line up new car
riers for their digital subscriber line ser
vice, or DSL.
DSL, a service typically offered by
phone companies in partnership with
Internet service providers, carries data
signals over standard copper phone
lines at speeds up to 25 times faster than
a typical dial-up modem.
More than 20 Internet service pro
viders nationwide provide DSL service
to customers using North Point’s net
work, including Telocity, MSN.net,
Mega Path, XO Communications,
IntemetConnect, Verio and others.
The group of ISPs is trying to head
off mass customer disconnections by
raising the money to fund North Point's
DSL operations until customers can be
switched to another network.
Rough times ahead for welfare recipients?
by Charles Babington
The Washington Post
March 28, 2001
WASHINGTON - Since Congress and President Clinton
ended “welfare as we know it" in 1996, hundreds of thou
sands of Americans have moved from the dole into jobs.
Some politicians, in fact, have declared welfare reform an
unqualified success.
But rough times could lie ahead for many low-wage work
ers because of changes in the welfare law that drew little
attention during the recent go-go economy. If the current
economic slowdown continues and drives unemployment
up, many thousands of low-income workers could fall back
into a federal welfare system that now cuts off individuals
after five years and limits payments to states no matter how
many poor residents they have.
Moreover, some analysts say, the sharp drop in welfare
caseloads may result more from the robust economy (un
employment recently hit a 30-year low) than from the 1996
Jaw’s celebrated “welfare-to-work" programs. And what a
strong economy gives, they say, a weak economy can take
away.
Welfare reform “was implemented during a period of ex
traordinary economic growth,” which "led to a decline in
caseload” and overall spending, says a recent report by the
bipartisan Congressional Research Service. The new sys
tem “has yet to be tested by a recession.”
That test could come soon. The Economic Cycle Research
Institute, among other groups, says a recession is likely this
year. But even a less dramatic, gradual-yet-steady loss of
jobs could result in a substantially bleaker welfare picture.
“In an era when jobs may not be so plentiful as they cur
rently are, the ‘safety net’ available to those who cannot
find jobs may have some significant
gaps in it,” Harry Holzer, a
Georgetown University public policy
professor, wrote in December.
People with marginal skills and
modest job experience often are among
the first workers let go when times get
tough. Therefore, said Holzer, a former
chief economist for the Labor Depart
ment, “recent estimates suggest that the
welfare rolls will rise by 5 to 7 percent
for each percentage-point increase in
the national unemployment rate.”
If the unemployment rate, now 4.2
percent, should return to the 7.1 per
cent level of eight years ago (when the
nation was pulling out of the last re
cession), that could mean a 15 to 20
percent rise in welfare cases - or
roughly 400,000 new families on pub
lic assistance.
Such gloomy talk may seem anach
ronistic to those who feel the welfare
reform act of 1996 wiped away the
welfare system’s least savory aspects.
But some economists contend the na
tion has a false sense of well-being be
cause the strong economy has delayed
the law’s full impact.
“Welfare reform... would have been
a disaster in the absence of the surge
in demand for low-wage labor,” Jared
Bernstein of the Economic Policy In
stitute said in a recent speech to the
National Urban League. “Now that the
economy appears to be slowing, many
of us who have tracked the impact of
welfare reform are thinking, and wor
rying, about how the program will fare
in a recession.”
Two new aspects of the law, he said,
could prove especially worrisome: A
60-month lifetime benefit limit for in
dividuals; and capped federal pay
ments to the states, even those that
"That means new Internet addresses, it means new
stationary, new paper, and possibly changes toyour
own Web site.”
North Point has said it needs $2.4 mil
lion per month to keep its network run
"We are working diligently and
around the clock to have the bank
ruptcy of North Point have as little im
pact on our customers as possible," said
Ned Hayes, chief financial officer at
Telocity, which uses DSL connections
from North Point, as well as from ri
vals Rhythms Net Connections, Pacific
Bell and other companies.
The bankruptcy judge, along with
North Point’s bankers, could decide
Wednesday whether the ISP funding
is sufficient to stave off the network
shutdown for at least 30 days.
Meanwhile, Internet providers are
warning customers that the
North Point’s network shutdown is "im
minent,” and that their high-speed con
nection could be lost. Several compa-
might eventually see welfare rolls soar.
Congress approved the 60-month limit in response to com
plaints that too many Americans saw welfare as a way of
life. In most states, individuals who have failed to find jobs
even in the recently strong economy could begin hitting the
cutoff sometime next year.
Some states opted for faster cutoffs of welfare. Indiana,
for example, allows a person a lifetime total of 24 months of
welfare benefits. The curtain began falling in July 1997, and
thus far 14,300 families have hit the cutoff, said James
Hmurovich, director of Indiana’s Division of Family and
Children. Of those, 129 received extensions, which the fed
eral law allows for up to 20 percent of all welfare families.
The new law also changed welfare from an open-ended
"entitlement” program to a block-grant system of fixed pay
ments to states. It gave the states considerable leeway to use
the money for cash assistance, job-training programs, child
care, transportation aid and other purposes.
But the new law won’t provide extra funds to the states when
welfare roles start to rise. That means states eventually may
have to shift money from worker-assistance programs into
direct cash payments to newJy unemployed poor people.
Even if former welfare recipients temporarily lose their
jobs, they will be well served by the job-training programs
established under the 1996 law, Bush administration offi
cials say.
"The important thing to know is that former welfare re
cipients will be better positioned to weather an economic
downturn,” said Tony Jewell, spokesman for Health and
Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. “People who
have been trained to work and have found work thanks to
welfare reform or their own initiative-are better positioned
to find a new job, should they lose a job for any reason.”
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WORLD & NATION
-Peter Meade, president of
Teleßesearch Inc., a DSL considtinx
Jinn based in Carlsbad. Calif.
nies have offered compensation and in
structed customers to set up standard
dial-up accounts to use while they work
to find replacement providers.
AT&T did not elaborate on its rea
sons for not absorbing North Point’s
customers
"This is the deal that made the best
sense for us and our needs,” said Mark
Siegel, an AT&T spokesman. “We un
derstand that there are some issues re
maining for North Point and its custom
ers ... and that it’s a difficult time for
both, but it's something that only
North Point can resolve.”
Industry analysts believe AT&T
wants to avoid having to offer DSL ser
vice at the prices and terms set by
North Point, especially since the com
pany prefers to sell services in a bundle
that includes long-distance phone ser
vice. In addition, since AT&T has its
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own Internet service provider, the com
pany is probably reluctant to act as a
wholesaler to competing ISPs like
MSN and Telocity, according to Dave
Burstein, editor of the industry news
letter, DSL Prime.
For many customers, the lost service
comes after months-long waits for in
stallation, and after pitying a hefty price
for a special DSL modem. In most
cases, the DSL modem sold for use
with North Point’s network cannot be
used with rival carrier's equipment -
which could force customers to buy yet
another modem.
About 60 percent of the affected cus
tomers are small- and medium-sized
companies, for whom the high-speed
connection has quickly become an in
tegral part of their business. In many
cases, replacement DSL service will
cost more and could take several weeks
to establish - if it's available at all.
"The bottom line is that businesses
cannot do without broadband high
speed Internet access, and if you're all
of the sudden without it, you have to
find a way immediately to get it again,"
said Peter Meade, president of
Teleßesearch Inc., a DSL consulting
firm based in Carlsbad, Calif.
"That means new Internet addresses,
it means new stationary, new paper, and
possibly changes to your own Web
site."
New DNA testing urged in case of executed man
by Brooke A. Masters
The Washington Post
March 28, 2001
GRUNDY, Va. - As Roger Keith
Coleman was strapped into Virginia's
electric chair in 1992, he proclaimed
his innocence and said Americans
would rethink their support for the
death penalty if they knew the truth.
Tuesday, four newspapers and a New
Jersey charity asked a Buchanan
County judge to allow them to test
whether Coleman was right. The pa
pers and charity asked for the evidence
left over from the 1981 rape and mur
der of Coleman's sister-in-law, Wanda
McCoy, so they could perform DNA
analysis.
‘The people of this commonwealth
have an important interest in knowing
that our system functioned properly and
resulted in a guilty verdict for a guilty
man or that... it somehow failed and
executed an innocent man,” said Mar
garet Stone, the Radford, Va., lawyer
representing The Washington Post and
the other newspapers. “It’s historical
evidence that could be so important to
our current debate on the death pen
ally.”
But state Senior Assistant Attorney
General Katherine Baldwin told Circuit
Court Judge K.R. Williams that neither
[tuition].
GUI YOHANAN/KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
Four dead, dozens hurt as bombs go off in Israel
by Tracy Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times
March 28, 2001
JERUSALHM, March 28 - Three ter
rorist bombings in less than 24 hours
left four' people dead and dozens of
Israelis injured Tuesday and early
Wednesday, while Jews and Palestin
ians clashed in the volatile city of
Hebron, inflaming tensions to the
breaking point.
With Israelis almost universally pro
claiming that their patience has run
out, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon came
under increased pressure to strike back
hard at Palestinian militants who the
army said also shot and killed a 10-
month-old Jewish girl Monday.
the media nor the charity, Centurion
Ministries, had standing to ask for test
ing, “Continual reexamination of con
cluded cases brings about perpetual un
certainty ... and disparages the entire
criminal justice system,” she said.
Tuesday’s hearing comes at a time of
growing national consensus that inmates
who maintain their innocence should
have access to DNA testing. The Vir
ginia legislature this year passed a bill
that would make such tests available,
and Congress is considering providing
that protection nationwide.
Although about 95 people have been
freed from death row nationwide since
the death penalty was restored in the
19705, no one has ever been proven in
nocent after execution. Williams would
be only the second judge to order DNA
tests in such a case. Tests performed last
year on the material left over from the
case of Ellis Wayne Felker in Georgia
have been inconclusive. Virginia judges
have rejected similar requests in the
capital cases of Joseph R. O’Dell and
Derek R. Bamabei.
DNA tests recently exonerated
Florida inmate Frank Lee Smith, 11
months alter he died of natural causes
while awaiting execution. At Tuesday’s
hearing, both sides noted that the
Coleman case has roiled Virginia for
years. Coleman, who lived and worked
Talk to art
FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 2001
"We simply have to chop off these
murderous arms and to hit at those
who come to strike at us and at those
who send them," Education Minister
Limor Livnat said, voicing a sentiment
heard from the streets to the halls of
government
In addition to two bombings Tues
day in Jerusalem, an apparent suicide
bomber early this morning killed him
self and two Israelis at a gas station
between the West Bank town of
Kalkilya and the central Israeli city of
Petah Tikva, Israeli television re
ported. Up to seven Israelis were re
portedly wounded. Police said they
also defused a bomb in a downtown
market in the coastal city of Netanya
Wednesday morning.
as a coal miner in this small Southwest
Virginia town, was convicted of rap
ing and killing McCoy based largely
on hair evidence and a jailhouse in
former. But he said he had an alibi, and
his claims of innocence drew national
attention, including a cover story in
Time magazine a week before his ex
ecution.
In 1990, Williams’ predecessor or
dered an early version of DNA testing
as part of the appeals process. That lab
work found that a genetic marker found
in McCoy’s body matched Coleman
and about 2 percent of the general
population. But Paul Enzinna, an at
torney for Centurion, which investi
gates convictions it thinks tire question
able, introduced an affidavit Tuesday
from a new expert who said the par
ticular DNA marker might be signifi
cantly more common in Grundy's ho
mogeneous population.
Current DNA tests are significantly
mote exact. “This testing has the abil
ity to tell us precisely who killed Wanda
McCoy. The state should be interested
in that,” Enzinna told the judge.
Coleman’s uncle, Roger Lee
Coleman, 59, said he hopes Williams
will allow the lab work. “If hfe does,
it’ll change everything. All I can hope
for is the truth.”
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