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The demand was initiated following a request from school senior Duane Naquin for admittance into the course. After Daly's refusal, Naquin contacted the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C. The Center subsequently threatened to sue Boston College for violating Title IX, a federal statute forbidding educational discrimination on the basis of gender.

Daly filed suit after the school offered her a retirement package in December, 1998.

The symbolic ritual involves no real money. Worshippers instead received a packet of "lucky money" containing a red slip of paper on which an amount was written. This amount is symbolically "borrowed" from the goddess in the hope that real money will follow.

Hong Kong is currently undergoing a severe economic recession.

Russell told emergency workers, "No blood," at least ten times, and attempted to remove the intravenous tube attached by paramedics.
 

The Watchtower Society distributed 12 million copies of a special tract, People of France, You Are Being Deceived! in an attempt to rebut the accusations of financial misdeeds made in the French parliament on December 15, 1998. The tract labels the accusations as "false, slanderous and absurd," and encourages French citizens to "protest against the scheming of [the Watchtower's] detractors who have based their media success on hurling abuse at Jehovah's Christian Witnesses."

The legal charges against the Watchtower Society remain at this time. The tract can be found online at

http://www.temoinsdejehovah.org/english/trompe/default.htm.

Jay Scott Ballinger, 36, was arrested in late February after checking into a hospital to be treated for serious burns, allegedly suffered during a church burning. Accomplices in at least one fire have admitted scrawling satanic symbols on churches.
A police spokesman said Ballinger would have young people sign contracts saying they were giving their souls to Satan.
Police recognized Ballinger's name from a previous church arson investigation after receiving a call for medical aid from his home shortly after a church fire.

Ballinger has been charged in seven church arsons in the Indiana area, but is a suspect in up to 50 church fires in 11 states. Authorities say Ballinger has admitted setting fires in churches.

Ballinger is a suspect in five church fires on consecutive days that occurred within a two-hour drive of what was then his home in Georgia. A volunteer fireman died in one of the fires, making that crime felony murder as well as arson.

National Council of Churches General Secretary Joan Campbell hailed Ballinger's arrest. "When arson destroys a church, it devastates the congregation and damages the surrounding community," Campbell noted. "Rebuilding can bring back the physical church, but rebuilding is more than physical repair. Rebuilding includes crisis intervention when souls are shattered by fire, are isolated by the interruption of worship or stunned by the anger expressed by the arson."

The National Church Arson Task Force, created in 1996 to investigate church fires, issued a report in October saying it had convicted 235 arsonists in 173 church burnings. The number of church fires, bombings and bombing attempts have declined in recent years. The task force looked for, but did not find, evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to burn African-American churches.
 

O'Hair and two family members vanished in 1995, reportedly taking with them hundreds of thousands of dollars from the non-profit atheist organizations she founded. Various possessions were auctioned Jan. 23 to pay back taxes and other debts totaling $250,000. The auction was conducted by the Internal Revenue Service.

Items sold at the auction included a penny with the words "In God We Trust" crossed out (sold for $10) and a Bible given to O'Hair by Oklahoma schoolgirls in 1968 (sold for $2,000).

The IRS also seized O'Hair's diaries, and plans to sell them separately. In her diaries, O'Hair wrote about financial problems and of her desire for money and power. In one entry she wrote, "I want money and power and I am going to get it. By age 50, I want a $60,000 home, a Cadillac car, a mink coat, a cook, a housekeeper. In 1974, I will run for the governor of Texas and in 1976, the president of the United States."

But in 1977, she was losing hope. She wrote, "I think atheism is done for this time. I have failed in marriage, motherhood, as a politician. ... At age 58, I have never had a bedroom of my own."

At least a half-dozen times, sometimes set off in a box, she wrote, "Somebody, somewhere, love me."

Meanwhile, a San Francisco home that once belonged to Anton LaVey, head of the Church of Satan, may be torn down to create room for an apartment complex.

LaVey died of heart disease in 1997. Six years earlier he sold the Richmond District home to a real estate developer friend after being ordered to liquidate his assets and share them with his estranged wife. LaVey's friend allowed him to live in the home until his death. The current owners of the property say they've tried to sell it as a house, but have been unable to because of the trash and disrepair.

LaVey's final companion, Blanche Barton, launched a fundraising campaign to buy the house back and turn it into a historic landmark, but her efforts fell far short of the $400,000 needed to buy the property.

In a related matter, attorneys for Barton and two of LaVey's daughters reached an agreement for the three to share royalties from LaVey's published works, including Satanic Rituals and The Devil's Handbook. In return, the daughters agreed to "release any and all right to operate, manage or direct the operations of the nonprofit corporation known as the Church of Satan."
 

The former Satanist became a Christian while in prison. As the drugs from a lethal injection began flowing into his veins, Sellers began to sing, "Set my spirit free that I might praise thee. Set my spirit free that I might worship thee."