Lead Stories
According to a December lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission, Mark Nutritionals Inc. of San Antonio, Texas, earned $190 million in four years selling a solution that would supposedly help customers to permanently lose up to 40 pounds, even if they ate lots of pizza, beer, tacos, and doughnuts and didn’t exercise. And at a December press conference in Boise, Idaho, spokespeople from Genesis World Energy introduced the Edison Device, which they claim can convert a bathtub full of water into enough electricity to last an average household 20 years. (Reporters were not allowed to examine the device, and Genesis declined to answer most of their questions.)
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In December in Manchester, England, 30-year-old Thomas Clark was convicted in the stabbing death of a 71-year-old man. Described by his lawyer as “intelligent” and “responsible” but deeply depressed since being assaulted himself two years earlier, Clark had conducted an “Ask Jeeves” Internet search on his computer before the murder: “What sentence would I get for stabbing somebody in an unprovoked attack?” (The correct answer, it turns out, is “Life in prison.”)
