Jockstrip: The world as we know it

Portland rated cleanest U.S. city

NEW YORK, June 17 (UPI) -- Reader's Digest has ranked Portland as the cleanest city in the country and Chicago as the filthiest.

Behind Portland in the top 5 are San Jose, Calif., Buffalo, N.Y., Columbus, Ohio, and San Francisco. New York gets the nod as the second dirtiest.

Reader's Digest said it used several databases to get information on environmental factors like air and water quality, the presence of landfills and other toxic hazards -- and on whether streets and parks are free of litter.

New York officials are not happy about the Big Apple's ranking.

"It's a silly report. It really is," Kathy Dawkins, a spokeswoman for the Department of Sanitation, told the Daily News.

Dawkins said recent surveys show more than 90 percent of the city's streets are satisfactorily clean compared to just over half in 1980.

Grand jury foreman turns out to be ex-con

BEATTYVILLE, Ky., June 17 (UPI) -- Authorities in a Kentucky county may have to throw out 78 indictments because the grand jury foreman had a criminal record.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Dwight Harrison, shop foreman for a Beattyville lumber company, thought he had put his youthful indiscretion behind him. He served a 10-month jail sentence for robbing an Oklahoma convenience store with a toy gun in 1978 when he was 19.

Under Oklahoma law, most of Harrison's civil rights were restored when he completed his time, including the right to vote. But that apparently does not extend to the right to serve on juries.

Officials in Lee County are now trying to determine whether Harrison's legal status invalidates the grand jury's work while he was foreman.

Man gets probation for killing goose

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., June 17 (UPI) -- A Michigan parks and recreation worker has been sentenced to probation and community service for shooting a goose on a public golf course.

WDIV-TV in Detroit reports that Michael Orzechowski of Livonia pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm illegally and hunting without a license. He admitted using a handgun to shoot the goose at the Farmington Hills Golf Club and Driving Range.

Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer said that while other parks workers agreed that the goose was an aggressive and possibly dangerous bird, Orzechowski endangered others by the way he dealt with the animal.

Judge allows Maryland to kill swans

BALTIMORE, June 17 (UPI) -- A federal judge has given Maryland permission to start killing mute swans, ending two years of legal challenges from animal rights groups.

The first swans were imported to the Chesapeake Bay in the 1950s by an estate owner who thought they would beautify his property. Since then, they have multiplied, and the Department of Natural Resources says they are destroying native plants and threatening migrating waterfowl that use the bay.

"I'm not going to be very specific about when we are going to start, because we don't want to have someone get in the way and make this any less safe or less humane than it can be," Jonathan McKnight, DNR's associate director for habitat conservation, told the Baltimore Sun. "It will be this year. We think we've held off for too long."

Two years ago, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the swans were covered by laws protecting migratory birds. A member of Maryland's congressional delegation -- Republican Wayne Gilchrest -- last year put language in a federal spending bill that removed the protection.