Year 2000

In NBC's "Y2K," a nuclear power plant near Seattle is only seconds away from a potentially catastrophic meltdown. As revelers welcome the new year at Times Square in Manhattan, the entire Northeast suffers a paralyzing blackout. An airliner struggles to make a safe landing at a Southeastern airport where runway lights are suddenly dark. At a Texas prison, the cell doors swing open and rioting convicts burst out.

Gateway Inc. said Thursday that its fourth-quarter revenue grew 9.3%, bringing the third-largest U.S. maker of personal computers to its first profitable year since 2000. But the Irvine-based company said parts shortages kept it from filling enough orders to meet analysts' expectations about profit margins and direct sales to the public. "We are disappointed by our inability to manage gross margins," Chief Executive Wayne Inouye said on a conference call with financial analysts.

Gold is one holiday gift that has kept on giving for the last seven years. The metal's market price, which last month surged above $800 an ounce for the first time in nearly three decades, has risen every year since 2000. It has trounced the U.S. stock market in that period, rocketing 190%, compared with a 26% total return for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.

The number of firearm deaths in Los Angeles County rose nearly 9% in 2000 over the previous year, fueled by sharp increases in homicides among men and women of all age groups, according to a survey by a gun control group. Drawing on death certificates and other public records, the survey found that 1,067 county residents lost their lives in firearm homicides, suicides and accidental shootings--averaging more than 20 deaths each week.

Hidden from view in a bucolic grove about 20 miles from Baton Rouge, La., the only operating leper colony in the continental United States has been Jose Azaharez's home for a quarter of a century. "This is all I have in the whole world," said Azaharez, a former welterweight boxer from Cuba who was diagnosed with the disease in the 1950s and is now marginally disfigured. "If I had to leave here, where would I go? Who would I stay with? This is the only home I know."

Considering the enormous amount of pain and misery that mankind inflicted on itself in the 20th century, the obvious and much cheaper solution to the Y2K problem is this: Forget fixing it; let's just do the 1900s over again. LORI FONTANES Los Angeles

Southern California has seen its biggest ever one-month rise in gasoline prices, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's weekend gas watch. The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the varying regions of Southern California has now climbed 57 to 59 cents since last month. "We looked at all of the one-month spikes that could have been bigger since the year 2000 and this was bigger than any of those," said Marie Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the Automobile Club.

The call came on the eve of his Los Angeles concert, just as he was leaving his home in Mexico. We have your son. Follow our instructions. Don't make trouble. It was a year ago, and Vicente Fernandez was about to headline four sold-out shows at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena, his annual Memorial Day pilgrimage to the Eastside suburbs of L.A. Now this voice, saying his 33-year-old son, his namesake, was being held for a ransom of millions.

Your Oct. 16 editorial ("The IRS Wages War on the Millennium Bug") misses the point. The "Year 2000" problem is a blessing in disguise. Thanks to our computers we can relive the 20th century. Think of the mistakes we can correct this time around. We can prevent two world wars, find Amelia Earhart, vote for Hubert Humphrey in 1968, catch the Unabomber before he strikes and tell young Jeffrey Maier to stay in his seat! BILL SMART Santa Barbara

No doubt Henry Luce would have been pained to contemplate it, but the era that the founder of Time was pleased to dub the "American century" became the Jewish century in American history. Before the 20th century, the Jewish presence in America, although of long standing, was relatively small. It was 1654 when the first Jewish settlers arrived in North America. The 1820s brought the first large-scale migrations from Prussia, Bohemia and elsewhere in Central Europe.

Shares of Lucent Technologies Inc. fell sharply Friday after reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation of Lucent's accounting practices. An SEC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, subsequently confirmed that the agency is conducting an investigation but did not provide details.

The top network news story of the year 2000, according to two separate studies, was the presidential election in all its various guises, from campaign to post-election legal wrangling. In one study, done by Andrew Tyndall's New York-based ADT Research, the election accounted for 21% of weekday coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC nightly newscasts. Beyond that, though, the two surveys--the other was done by the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs--differ in their conclusions.

What kind of year was 2000 on the LPGA Tour? You could answer that question in two words: Karrie Webb. Actually, if you look at the last two years on the women's pro golf tour, the book on the LPGA has been stuck on a Webb page. Last year, Webb won six times and had 22 top-10 finishes, won her first major, won the Vare Trophy for the second time and was the player of the year for the first time. If last year was a Webb domination, this year was even more of the same.

It's not easy to spot, squeezed between international check-in counters here at Rome's busy airport. But for Roman Catholic sinners in transit, the tiny chapel near the VIP lounge offers quick-stop salvation. Catholic authorities have put the airport chapel on a temporary par with Rome's four great basilicas: St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Paul's Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major.

Even by Maui's standards, Tiger Woods is riding an incredible wave. And there's no indication he's about to get knocked off. Pushed into a heart-stopping playoff by two-time U.S. Open champion Ernie Els, Woods kept alive golf's longest winning streak in 46 years Sunday with a 40-foot birdie putt on the second sudden-death hole to win the Mercedes Championship.

As a senior, my big worry for year 2000 is our priorities for using our tax money. I am fed up with our feeding NASA's gluttonous appetite for federal funds while tens of thousands American children are not getting enough to eat every day, day after day. Indeed, feed NASA and fuel industrial/corporate America, but kids need help too. They are our future. DONALD H. STEVENSON Camarillo Re "From Wild to Mild," Jan. 1: The new millennium came not only to the cheering revelers around the globe.

Major corporations and public agencies resumed day-to-day operations Monday with only a smattering of minor problems from the year 2000 computer bug. Software makers reported below-average volume on their customer hotlines, the Federal Reserve began collecting the extra $10 billion it had distributed to banks in case of a cash panic, and the day seemed to unfold smoothly for most, with the exception of a few software makers, gun dealers, transportation firms and retail stores.