WANT TO SUBSCRIBE?

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jun 24, 2008

A 7-day subscription by carrier in Shawnee County is $14.84 tax per month, a 6-day (Monday- Saturday) subscription by carrier is $10.38 tax per month, a 5-day (Monday- Friday) subscription by carrier is $9.91 tax per month, a 3-day (Friday-Sunday) subscription by carrier is $9.91 tax per month and a Sunday-only subscription is $7.40 tax per month.

A 7-day subscription by carrier outside of Shawnee County is $16.24 tax per month, a 6-day (Monday- Saturday) subscription by carrier is $11.77 tax per month, a 5-day (Monday- Friday) subscription by carrier is $11.31 tax per month, a 3-day (Friday- Sunday) subscription by carrier is $11.31 tax per month and a Sunday-only subscription is $8.79 tax per month.

Call (785) 295-1133 to subscribe or for mail rates.

Weekend subscribers will receive delivery of The Topeka Capital- Journal on the following days: Graduation Feature: Monday, May 19, 2008; Memorial Day: Monday, May 26, 2008; Independence Day: Friday, July 4, 2008; Back to School Feature: Thursday, July 24, 2008; Primary Election Feature: Monday, July 28; Labor Day: Monday, Sept. 1, 2008; Columbus Day: Monday, Oct. 13, 2008; Veterans Day: Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2008; Thanksgiving Day: Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008; Christmas Day: Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008.

Periodical-class postage paid at Topeka, KS (USPS 633540).

Postmaster: Send address changes to Mail Subscriptions, The Topeka Capital-Journal, 616 S.E. Jefferson, Topeka, KS 66607.EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - When floodwaters knocked out the water treatment plant in Mason City, Iowa, the Federal Emergency Management Agency rolled into town and promptly set up an account with a Pepsi bottler to supply bottled water. Then FEMA officials moved into a vacant store and began handing out the stuff.

"We really started seeing FEMA people showing up to see what was going on in town and putting out the word on flood assistance," City Administrator Brent Trout said.

Nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina turned FEMA into a punchline, many home-owners, politicians and community leaders in the flood-stricken Midwest say that so far, the agency is doing a heckuva job - and they mean it.

NATION

RELIGIOUS AMERICANS SAY THEIR FAITH ISN'T THE ONLY WAY: America remains a nation of believers, but a new survey finds most Americans don't feel their religion is the only way to eternal life - even if their faith tradition teaches otherwise.

The findings, revealed Monday in a survey of 35,000 adults, can either be taken as a positive sign of growing religious tolerance, or disturbing evidence that Americans dismiss or don't know fundamental teachings of their own faiths.

Among the more startling numbers in the survey, conducted last year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: 57 percent of evangelical church attendees said they believe many religions can lead to eternal life, in conflict with traditional evangelical teaching.

MAYOR SAYS NO PROOF OF PACT: The city's mayor said Monday there is no evidence a group of 17 young girls made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together, seeking to dispel an explosive theory put forth by Gloucester High School principal Joseph Sullivan.

"Any planned blood-oath bond to become pregnant - there is absolutely no evidence of," Mayor Carolyn Kirk said after a closed- door meeting with city, school and health leaders. Sullivan didn't attend.

COURT REBUFFS BORDER FENCE CHALLENGE: The government's plan to build a 670-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border took another step forward Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court turned away a legal challenge from environmentalists.

The court's action clears the way for U.S. officials to press ahead with the project with little fear that judges will be able to halt the effort.

Three years ago, Congress gave Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff the power to "waive all legal requirements" that could stand in the way of building the barrier. These requirements included the nation's environmental protection laws.

MORE PEOPLE LIVING OUT OF THEIR CARS: Having lost her job and her three-bedroom house, Darlene Knoll has joined the legions of downwardly mobile who are four wheels away from homelessness.

She is living out of her shabby 1978 RV, and every night she has to look for a place to park where she won't get hassled by the cops or insulted by residents.

"I'm not a piece of trash," the former home health-care aide said as she stroked one of five dogs in her cramped quarters parked in the waterfront community of Marina del Rey.

Amid the foreclosure crisis and the shaky economy, some California cities are seeing an increase in the number of people living out of their cars, vans or RVs.

LITTLE BULLIES A CONCERN: Bullying among adolescents has captured the attention of researchers, educators and parents alarmed by a parade of mean girls and cyber-bullies caught in mid-punch on viral video. But such aggression may not just happen in a whirl of adolescent hormones, some in the growing anti-bully movement argue.

Meline Kevorkian, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., researcher and public speaker on bullying, surveyed 167 educators last year and 25 percent indicated bullying occurs most in elementary schools. Research also indicates three-quarters of 8- to 11-year-olds report they have been bullied, with more than half identifying it as a "big" problem, she said.