News In Brief

THE OLD HOMETOWN By a 250-vote margin last week, residents of Leisure World, a gated enclave in Orange County, Calif., won a local referendum that entitles them to incorporate. Their new entity is believed to be the nation's first city exclusively for senior citizens. Passing over a tongue-in-cheek proposal to rename the place Geezerville, the voters chose instead to call it Laguna Woods.

A BLT, PLEASE; NO MAYO Next time you hear about members of Congress delivering pork for their constituents, think of Phil Howerton. He's a Missouri hog farmer, who, when visiting Capitol Hill late last year, was taken to lunch in the House Dining Room by Rep. Ike Skelton (D) of his state's delegation. Howerton noticed there were no pork dishes on the menu. Skelton complained, and now the chefs offer everything from pork-sausage links for breakfast to bacon bits in the Cobb salad.

Safe children's sites honored by Internet-watchdog group

Four Web sites for children have received Kids Best of the Web Awards from Cyberangels, an all-volunteer group formed in 1995 by Curtis Sliwa, New York founder of the Guardian Angels anticrime patrols. CyberMoms, a group of 71 Internet-surfing mothers, reviewed suggestions from about 600 children and narrowed the list down to six, before Cyberangels executive director Parry Aftab picked the final four. The sites, their addresses, and what they offer:

Curiocity's FreeZone (www.freezone.com) - chat online, create your own home pages, write articles - all monitored by adults.

Sports Illustrated for Kids (www.sikids.com) - Online counterpart of adult magazine has special articles for kids and helps them create fantasy basketball, hockey, and NASCAR racing teams.

Nickelodeon Online (www.nickelodeon.com) - Internet outpost of children's cable-TV channel has "A Byte-Size Online Safety Guide."

Bonus.com (www.bonus.com) - Games, educational articles, opinion polls.

- Reuters