The school board here decided Friday to fire a science teacher accused of burning a cross on a student's arm and teaching creationism in his class. The board, however, will give John Freshwater, 51, of Mount Vernon Middle School two weeks to appeal the decision to end his contract and argue his case before the firing is made official on July 7.

A survey of 2,520 executive made by a New York-based online job search website said office cursing topped the reasons why bosses fire employees. According to TheLadders. com, 38 percent of the respondents to the online survey pointed to violation of office etiquette, primarily using cuss words, as their number one reason for terminating workers.

Almost six thousand emailed responses favoring the retention of the Lord's Prayer in Ontario's Legislature's opening ceremony is not convincing enough for Premier Dalton McGuinty to change his mind. He is still determined to remove the Pater Noster, even if one of those opposed to his move is his mother, a staunch Roman Catholic.

It all began 30 years ago today. The mother lode of all spam - the bane of everyone's online existence - was first sent out via the U. S. Defense Department's Arpanet by a salesman named Gary Thuerk. The first junk mail or "Spam" as we know it today, was an invitation for a demo of the new system-20 mini computers being marketed by the Digital Equipment Corp.

Amid Earth Day celebration and despite a memo from county officials reminding employees to save on energy, the Bronx County Hall of Justice was brightly lit at the wee hours of the morning. The New York Daily News published photos and ran a story on the brightly lit public building as proof of the apparent lack of environmental consciousness among its occupants and users.