"After six years, escalating legal fees and a celebrated trial in the heart of Texas cattle country, a federal judge has dismissed a lingering lawsuit accusing Oprah Winfrey of maligning the beef industry," reports the Associated Press. After Winfrey did a show in April 1996 about mad cow disease, a group of Texas cattlemen sued her and vegetarian activist Howard Lyman under the state's "agricultural product disparagement" law.

"We're getting the band together," White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett told the group on their first conference call last week. "The 'Band' is made up of the people who brought you the war in Afghanistan -- or at least the accompanying public-relations campaign," explains Martha Brant.

"Some leading members of the American Academy of Pediatrics are expressing outrage that the group is allowing the maker of Similac infant formula to print its corporate logo on the cover of a special edition of the academy's book on breast-feeding," reports the New York Times. "The academy, whose members include 57,000 pediatricians and other pediatric specialists, has long recommended that most mothers breast-feed because of the myriad benefits over formula." Dr. Lawrence M.