Nation briefs

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jun 13, 1999

Miamin Season's first tropical storm forming -- Arlene, the season's first tropical storm in the Atlantic, formed far out at sea Saturday with 40 mph wind and signs it would strengthen slightly.

"The primary good news is that it's no threat to anyone" for now, said John Guiney, forecaster at the National Hurricane Center.

Saturday afternoon the storm was about 510 miles southeast of Bermuda, or about 1,200 miles off the mid-Atlantic Coast. It was moving toward the west-northwest at 3 mph. Arlene was expected to strengthen with sustained wind reaching 52 mph today and to drift slowly northwestward, taking it slightly closer to Bermuda. Storms aren't called hurricanes until sustained wind reaches 74 mph. New Yorkn Tech support services get break -- Nervous calls to computer support lines dropped off sharply Saturday after two frenzied days of combat against a software bug that attacks with the speed of the Melissa virus and the destructiveness of the Chernobyl. Computer experts, however, feared the spread of Worm.Explore.Zip will pick up again when employees return to work Monday, adding to the tens of thousands of machines infected with the file-eating bug. The virus, first detected June 6 in Israel, did most of its damage Thursday and Friday, infecting computer systems at several big corporations. The virus disguises itself as a timely e-mail reply from an acquaintance, inviting the recipient to open an attached file that sends the virus worming into each computer's hard drive and ricocheting around companies connected to that machine by a network. The virus is known to attack only those computers using Microsoft operating systems Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. Minneapolisn Man, 'mall-order bride' celebrate one year -- A year after David Weinlick had a contest for friends and family members to pick a wife for him, he and his bride are happily celebrating their first anniversary. Weinlick and his wife, Elizabeth, both 29, say they are surprised how smoothly they adjusted to married life -- especially considering they first met about a week before the wedding. "I thought it would be a lot more difficult," Weinlick said. The anniversary is today. Weinlick gained renown when he let 55 of his friends and family members choose his bride through a democratic voting process. Elizabeth, a student at the University of Minnesota, was chosen out of 28 candidates. The two met when Weinlick was courting brides at a mall by passing out fliers. New Yorkn Pop star buys 'Gone With the Wind' Oscar -- Michael Jackson got an Oscar for best motion picture Saturday. The film was "Gone With the Wind," and he had to pay $1.5 million for it. The entertainer phoned in his bid to Sotheby's to purchase the statuette awarded to David O. Selznick for the 1939 movie, Sotheby's officials said. Before the auction, the Oscar had been estimated at a value of up to only about $300,000. Also sold on Sotheby's auction block Saturday was the film's final shooting script. The dog-eared script, with last-minute changes scribbled on pink and cream pages, was sold to an unidentified New York collector for $46,000, against a pre-sale estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. -- The Associated Press