Cable television customers typically receive sex-oriented networks such as Playboy Television or Spice Entertainment only if they have paid for the programming. Customers who do not subscribe get a scrambled signal. But in many cases, according to court filings, cable operators lack the equipment to fully scramble the video portion of the signal or to scramble the audio signal at all.
The new law, part of a massive telecommunications overhaul approved by Congress and signed by President Clinton in February 1996, was intended to ensure that children in non-subscribing homes do not see shows intended for adult viewers. It requires an operator to completely scramble or block the signal or, if that is not feasible, to transmit sexually explict adult programming only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Playboy Entertainment Group and Spice Entertainment Companies had sought an injunction barring enforcement of the law while they challenged it on First Amendment grounds. The high court, without issuing an opinion or a recorded vote Monday, summarily affirmed a special three-judge panel's denial of the injuction. The panel had said the challengers were not likely to succeed on their constitutional claim.
Fed Chair Alan Greenspan seems bent on pre-emptive action - the economic equivalent of firing before the enemy actually gets to the battlefield.
The nation's inflation rate is actually lower so far this year: 2.3 percent for January and February compared with 3.3 percent for all of last year.
But based on Greenspan's public statements, economists believe a quarter-point increase in short-term rates is the nearly certain result of today's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the central bank's monetary policy arm.
In congressional testimony last week, Greenspan stressed the "importance of acting promptly - ideally pre-emptively - to keep inflation low."
"If this is not the handwriting on the wall, I don't know what is," said economist Sung Won Sohn of Norwest Corp. in Minneapolis.
If all goes as anticipated, the Fed will drain reserves from the banking system, pushing the rate charged among banks on overnight loans from 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent. It will be the first increase since Feb. 1, 1995.
Overall, the number of active tuberculosis cases in the United States declined by 7 percent between 1995 and 1996, with most states reporting decreases, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But reported cases in the District of Columbia rose from 102 to 139, more than in the entire state of Minnesota.