"I'm not trying to be evasive," Stuart E. Madnick, a computer and software expert and professor at MIT, said at one point during Wednesday's testimony. "I'm just trying to be precise."

Hodges hammered away at Madnick throughout the day, leaving the weary academic floundering at times.

Asked to evaluate language in the proposed settlements, Madnick studied the documents, then shook his head and said, "I somehow think there's something I'm missing, but I can't spot it at the moment."

MIT professor fumbles answers as states attorney grills him on proposed settlement.

ARRINGTON COMMUNITY — Note to all damsels in distress: Knights in shining armor arrive this weekend.

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival opens Saturday and will cast its 16th-century spell every weekend during the month of May.

An enchanted forest surrounding the Castle Gwynn in Arrington — called Covington Glen — is the setting for ye olde festival. In this Tudor realm, visitors can expect to find magicians, musicians, manpowered rides, a variety of crafts, balladeers, falconers, jugglers and (gasp!) jousting by mounted knights in full combat armor.

Fairy sprites make merry by surprising revelers as they walk along woodland paths, and fortune tellers with tarot cards are on hand to make remarkable predictions about what life will be like in, say, the upcoming 17th century.

This weekend is ''Maidens and Masters — Children's Weekend'' at the festival. Kids ages 12 and younger will be admitted free with a paid adult. (Limit of two.) Next weekend is ''Mistress of the House — M'Lady's Days'' in honor of Mother's Day. The first 500 medieval moms will receive festival souvenirs.

May 18-19 is ''Making Merry for Many'' weekend. Each visitor who brings a sack of canned goods for the Second Harvest Food Bank will receive a festival souvenir and a coupon good for $2 off any purchase at the information booth.

And the final weekend of the festival is Celtic Music Weekend, in which several local Celtic and other period bands and musicians will share the sounds of centuries past.

Castle Gwynn opens this weekend for jousting, merriment

FRANKLIN — Woody's Smokes & Brews is going beyond beer and cigars as the Cool Springs store adds live music three days a week

Every Wednesday, Woody's Brewgrass Band entertains the crowd from 7-9 p.m. More commonly known as Full Force Gale, the band will showcase acoustic bluegrass.

On Thursdays nights, jazz is the word when Terry Kinakin and the Cats Pajammers swing from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

''We're hoping to get the drive-home crew to come in have a beer or a cigar and listen to some good music,'' LeMay said.

Fridays will be the big night, when Woody's showcases variety with writers' night from 8-10 p.m.

Musical entertainment on Fridays begins May 10 with folk blues artists Buddy Greene, Kenny Meeks and Dave Dillard. On May 17, Bethany & Jesse Thouin and Kelly Green play a full night of acoustic pop.

For more information, visit the Woody's Web site at www.coolspringswines.com/woodys.htm.

Music joins eclectic lineup at Woody's Smokes & Brews

How do you tell the difference between the companies that are going to survive the shakeout among telecommunications service providers and those that will go belly-up?

Every CEO running a phone company has studied the problem. When some number of customers stops buying, a company's remaining customers often come looking for discounts. It's exactly this double whammy of falling demand and falling prices that has hit telecommunications providers from WorldCom to Verizon.

Only Some Will Survive the Telecom Shakeout

Lipscomb University plans to start an engineering school that will offer two kinds of undergraduate degrees this fall.

The school will award bachelor's degrees in computer engineering and engineering physics, and it hopes to enroll up to 275 students within a few years, said Ralph Butler, chairman of Lipscomb's department of physics and engineering.

Lipscomb to create engineering school

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival is held 10 a.m.-6 p.m. every weekend in May and Memorial Day in Triune. Ticket process are $14 for adults, $6 for children 6-12, $11 for seniors and ages 5 and younger are free. Presale tickets end Friday at participating H.G. Hills stores. Additional information at 395-9950

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival

WASHINGTON, April 30 — Senators seeking to encourage high-speed Internet access introduced a bill Tuesday that would subject all services to the same regulatory constraints, regardless of how they are delivered.

THE BILL, DRAFTED by Louisiana Democrat John Breaux and Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles, seeks to boost competition by easing regulations on digital subscriber line, or DSL, services, which provide speedy Internet connections over telephone lines.

Senators seek deregulated broadband

Universal Music is in talks with its best-selling rap artist Eminem to incorporate copy-protection technology into all upcoming CD releases of "The Eminem Show," marking the biggest move yet to protect its top acts from music piracy, a label representative said Wednesday.

Universal and Eminem would need to strike an agreement on whether to release the security-enhanced CDs in the next two weeks to meet manufacturing deadlines for the June 3 release date outside the United States, a Universal representative said.

w1ld: LAME

Eminem may wrap CDs in copy controls

LONDON (Reuters) - Icelandic singer Bjork, one of the most unorthodox figures in pop, is five months pregnant, her London management company said Wednesday.

The former singer of indie-band "The Sugarcubes," who had a string of solo hits in the 1990s and is renowned for her kooky dress sense, is expected to give birth to American boyfriend Matthew Barney's child in September.

Icelandic Singer Bjork Is Pregnant

Roger Dowdy, director of engineering for television station WTVF-Channel 5, has been where many of his colleagues must still go.

When Dowdy's station started carrying a digital TV signal in November, it was the first in town to do so. Now, with other area stations scrambling to meet a government-imposed May 1 deadline to go digital, Dowdy is resting easy.

w1ld: good read for other local nashville networks

Government's push to promote digital TV has stations scrambling