I ask Carter Brown where he wants to take his Lazer Vaudeville troupe. "Australia," he says. I clarify the question: artistically. He thinks for a moment and says that he and his two collaborators have been working on a piece that is as much about percussion as it is juggling, "actually creating music" with the objects being juggled and a sound processor.

The refrain has gotten pretty old, to the point that most people react with indifference. Crime is down. Crime falls even more. Crime drops again. That's true nationwide, in Illinois and Iowa, and in the Quad Cities.

The Iowa Supreme Court has overturned a nearly $17 million award against BRK Brands, Incorporated, manufacturers of the First Alert smoke alarms, in a case involving the death of a three-year-old Davenport boy. Nathan and Jennifer Mercer had sued BRK Brands, claiming the BRK model 83R ionization smoke detector was defective and failed to go off in time when a fire, sparked by a faulty baby monitor, killed their three-year-old boy Bradley and severely burned their 18-month-old son Travis in January 1993.

U.S. Representative Jim Leach (R-IA) is the sponsor of bill HR 3886, the International Counter-Money Laundering and Foreign Anti-Corruption Act of 2000. Despite the title, one provision gives U.S. Treasury officials the specific power to impose "Know Your Customer-style regulations on U.