Most gamblers die broke, which is probably their own affair. But according to testimony last week before the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, gambling is also expensive to the nongambling citizen who has never filled an inside straight or placed a bet with a bookie. Appearing as a subcommittee witness, U.S. Internal Revenue Commissioner Mortimer Caplin estimated that $25 billion in income goes unreported every year—and a healthy slice of the money is earned from gambling. Subcommittee Chairman John McClellan concluded ...

Conrad Black, the press baron accused of looting his Hollinger International media empire, began his current trial in Chicago with at least one thought on his mind. "The prosecutors will soon, finally, have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of completely innocent people," he wrote recently. "They will fail, and justice will be done." Well, maybe. The strength of the government's case against him and his co-defendants aside, "beyond a reasonable doubt," the level of proof required to ...

More than a quarter-century after the glaring headlines, former State Department Official Alger Hiss finally found the answer last week to a much disputed mystery in one of the most celebrated spy cases of the cold war era. On being denounced in 1948 as a Communist, Hiss filed a libel suit against his accuser, Whittaker Chambers, who thereupon dug out some evidence that a relative had hidden for him in an abandoned dumbwaiter in New York City. As he later told it in his book Witness, ...

A second witness in the Donovan probe is murdered In most ways it was a rather standard gangland slaying. The victim was driving his 1977 Lincoln Continental through The Bronx in New York City one evening last week when a passenger in the car suddenly placed a .38-cal. pistol to the back of his head and fired a single shot. The Continental swung out of control and smashed into a parked car. The assassin jumped out and climbed into a ...

A new study delays doomsday, but there is still a crisisThe visions of an imminent energy Armageddon that seemed so plausible right after the 1973 Arab oil embargo have gradually faded, but the serious questions remain: How much oil does the world have left? When will it run out?Firm answers are difficult to come by; witness the Central Intelligence Agency's forays into the slippery field of oil forecasting. In his drive for a conservation-oriented energy program early last year, President Carter leaned heavily on a CIA ...

Burma has been rendered in journalism, activism and art as a country of plain dichotomies: good vs. evil, liberty vs. suppression, the saintly Aung San Suu Kyi vs. the brutal monolith of the military junta. By its very premise, Burma Soldier, which airs this evening on HBO, muddies this picture. The documentary's subject, Myo Myint, is a former soldier who gave his adolescent years to the regime but came in adulthood to join the democratic opposition against it. ...

California police investigating the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl have arrested five people, a police spokesman said Wednesday.Charles Ramsey, a member of the Richmond school board, said the school district bears some responsibility for the attack. School administrators and police apparently weren't watching the area as they should have, Ramsey said. The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the alleged assault. The victim was found unconscious under a bench ...

A radio without any knobs. A bathroom where a clear display wirelessly streams vital statistics on your health. And a user interface that takes brain waves and translates them into commands for a computer.Charles Ramsey, a member of the Richmond school board, said the school district bears some responsibility for the attack. School administrators and police apparently weren't watching the area as they should have, Ramsey said. The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students ...

Even a popular president who still seems to enjoy the general goodwill of the American public can have a bad week. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Even a popular president who still seems to enjoy the general goodwill of the American public can have a bad week. In no particular order, the administration has taken fire on these fronts: the deficit, health care reform, the effectiveness of the stimulus package, the message on Iran and, of course, the economy. Sure, ...

The Obama administration is in the process of establishing new procedures that could allow prisoners to challenge their detentions at a U.S. facility in Afghanistan, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. For the first time at the Bagram Air Base detention facility, detainees will be given representatives who will help them prepare their cases. Under the new policy, which was decided in July, a first review of a detainee's status will come within 60 days of detention, Whitman explained. ...