Los Angeles: Hollywood star Alec Baldwin has appealed to Pope John Paul II asking him to condemn "shocking cruelty" to animals on factory farms that produce food products, activists said Tuesday. The 45-year-old star of such movies as "Hunt for Red October" (1990) and 1998's "Mercury Rising" wrote to the pontiff on Friday pointing out that Catholic teaching requires people to treat animals kindly. "In a clear violation of this teaching, modern factory farms greedily produce the greatest possible amount of meat, milk, and eggs while using the least possible amount of space, time, and money," he wrote. "I am...