Taunting

A U. S. Border Patrol agent in San Diego spent more than an hour Sunday evening taunting hundreds of Mexican migrants with slurs--many of them sexually explicit--that were amplified over his vehicle's public address system at the U.S.-Mexico border. Michael D.

The group that claims it massacred 58 foreign tourists this week mocked Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday, saying his shake-up of security services will not prevent further attacks. But Gamaa al Islamiya, or Islamic Group, said in a statement faxed to a news agency that it will agree to a truce "for a while" if Mubarak's secular government accepts its demands--including stopping the campaign against Islamic Group members and breaking off relations with Israel.

Steven Spielberg was certain his copy of "Paranormal Activity" was haunted. It was early 2008, and the director's DreamWorks studio was trying to decide whether it wanted to be a part of the micro-budgeted supernatural thriller. As the story goes, Spielberg had taken a "Paranormal Activity" DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, and not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith. While Spielberg didn't want the "Paranormal Activity" disc anywhere near his home -- he brought the movie back to DreamWorks in a garbage bag, colleagues say -- he very much shared his studio's enthusiasm for director Oren Peli's haunting story about the demonic invasion of a couple's suburban tract house.

Jose Canseco of the Oakland Athletics threatens to go after a fan taunting him from a box seat. Charles Barkley of the Philadelphia 76ers takes it one step further, responding to a heckler by spitting at him. And the Cleveland Indians' Albert Belle further escalates the burgeoning war between the fans and the players by throwing a ball into the stands, hitting a spectator. In the old days, the cry was, "Kill the ump." Now it seems, everybody in the ballpark is fair game.

Vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle campaigned through the South on Friday, taunting Michael S. Dukakis and his running mate for failing to attract support in what is expected to be a solidly Republican region. "You know, they used to have a 50-state strategy," Quayle said here. "Now they have a new Southern strategy: south Massachusetts, south New York and southern Illinois."

Ila Borders doesn't want to be in a league of her own. It's not what she's about. She's not looking to break barriers, or to be one of a kind. She doesn't wish to be a symbol. But sign a letter of intent with a collegiate baseball team--as Borders did with Southern California College--and suddenly you're more than just another recruit. You're big news, a front-page story, a female pitcher with a cause. You're the Whittier Christian senior doing all you can to strike out sexism.

FT. BRAGG, N.C. -- Sgt. Adam Holcomb bombarded Danny Chen, a shy, 19-year-old Army private, with racial slurs and bloodied Chen's back by dragging him across rocky ground for disobeying a platoon rule, several former members of Holcomb's platoon testified at his court-martial Wednesday. Military prosecutors elicited the testimony in the second day of the proceedings to buttress charges that Holcomb hazed and hounded Chen, a Chinese American, into committing suicide at a remote combat outpost in Afghanistan on Oct. 3. Holcomb, one of eight soldiers charged in connection with Chen's death, faces charges of negligent homicide, assault, reckless endangerment and other counts.  Holcomb, 30, is the first to face court-martial in a case that has focused renewed attention on allegations of hazing and racism in the Army, where Asian Americans are a distinct minority.

Hundreds of angry AIDS activists armed with sirens, air horns, whistles and weary vocal cords, drowned out the country's top health official Sunday as he called for cooperation, understanding and a willing ear during the closing ceremony of the Sixth International Conference on AIDS. Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, carried on stoically through the ear-splitting din.

A truck driver committed suicide after passing motorists used citizens band radios to egg him on during a three-hour standoff with police. Crisis teams trying to talk David Carroll out of killing himself inside the cab of his 18-wheeler heard several radio taunts prodding him to do it, officials said Friday. Carroll, 32, shot himself to death with a rifle Thursday in the cab of his truck, parked at a convenience store about 180 miles east of Charlotte.

Police seized a shirtless man who climbed atop a zoo exhibit where a worker was mauled to death last month, thumped his chest and traded growls with two agitated Bengal tigers. The incident, which occurred Monday before about 100 spectators, came a day after two of the zoo's 15 tigers were returned to view for the first time since the May 12 mauling of keeper Ricardo Tovar. Robert Lavoie, 27, was charged with criminal trespass and jailed in lieu of a $1,000 bond, police said Tuesday.