Don't Panic! Lighten Up!
BRATTLEBORO, Vermont - Spring has arrived in this southeastern Vermont town known for its live-and-let-live culture. The trees are less bare, and some local residents are more so.
Around 2,500 post offices are to close under plans to put the network on a sustainable footing for the "email age", the Government confirmed today.
Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling told MPs that the current size of the network could not be maintained after revealing that losses had grown to £4 million a week.
The Government also unveiled a £1.7 billion package, including an annual subsidy of £150 million, to prevent further closures and help the Royal Mail attract new business.
No details of where the cuts will fall were given on Thursday but consultations will now be held to identify branches which will close.
Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling told MPs that the current size of the network could not be maintained after revealing that losses had grown to £4 million a week.
The Government also unveiled a £1.7 billion package, including an annual subsidy of £150 million, to prevent further closures and help the Royal Mail attract new business.
No details of where the cuts will fall were given on Thursday but consultations will now be held to identify branches which will close.
BEIJING - It's a dog's life for three newborn tiger triplets in eastern China. The cubs, whom officials at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong province are so far just calling "One," "Two" and "Three," have been nursed by a dog since they were rejected by their tiger mother shortly after birth, said Paomaling manager Chen Yucai.
|
| ©n/a |
Hundreds of Indian rail passengers got more than they had bargained for when the driver of their train asked them to get out and push.
It took more than half an hour to move the stalled electric train 12 feet so that it touched live overhead wires and was able to resume its journey, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred in the eastern state of Bihar on Tuesday after a passenger pulled the train's emergency chain and it halted in a "neutral zone," a short length of track where there is no power in the overhead wires.
It took more than half an hour to move the stalled electric train 12 feet so that it touched live overhead wires and was able to resume its journey, officials said on Wednesday.
The incident occurred in the eastern state of Bihar on Tuesday after a passenger pulled the train's emergency chain and it halted in a "neutral zone," a short length of track where there is no power in the overhead wires.
Quick: Name the four Gospels. How about the Ten Commandments? The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? Seven Catholic sacraments? Hello? Anybody?
America purports to be a religious nation, yet what we know about religion is, well, sinful. In his new book, "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't," Stephen Prothero, head of Boston University's religion department, says it's time to teach religion in America -- not devotion, but religion.
America purports to be a religious nation, yet what we know about religion is, well, sinful. In his new book, "Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know -- And Doesn't," Stephen Prothero, head of Boston University's religion department, says it's time to teach religion in America -- not devotion, but religion.
BUFFALO, N.Y.- The "Hugging Bandit" - the plus-size pickpocket who put the squeeze on tipsy men and their wallets in upstate New York - is behind bars, police said. Myra Castleberry, 48, was being held without bail and police hoped they had seen the last of a decade-long spree of thefts.
May 16, 2007 | Eight years ago the Rev. Jerry Falwell warned parents that BBC children's television star Tinky Winky was a hidden symbol of homosexuality. Falwell died Tuesday at 73, and the world wanted to talk to Tinky Winky.
"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.
"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.
"They're calling again, again, again," he said by phone from his home in Islington, in London. A spokesman said the former "Teletubbies" costar got more than 100 calls from reporters in the hour following news of Falwell's death.
"Oh dear, it's easy to say the wrong thing here," he said. "Tinky Winky sad whenever someone dies, but ..." He left it hanging there.
PITTSBURGH - A zombie-preparedness study, commissioned by Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and released Monday, indicates that the city could easily succumb to a devastating zombie attack. Insufficient emergency-management-personnel training and poorly conceived undead-defense measures have left the city at great risk for all-out destruction at the hands of the living dead, according to the Zombie Preparedness Institute.
A rare Canadian landscape painting has gone from a table at an Ontario yard sale to attracting the attention of art connoisseurs across the country - and will go a long way toward the future education of an unborn child.
A painting by British Columbia artist E. J. Hughes will come under the hammer next week at Heffel Fine Art Auction House, six years after an enterprising art collector found it at a rural yard sale.
The painting, originally purchased for $200 cash, is expected to fetch more than $100,000 at auction.
|
| ©CP |
| Lake Okanagan was painted during E.J. Hughes's prime period after a 1958 Canada Council-funded visit to the B.C. Interior. Paul Martin bought it for $200 six years ago. |
A painting by British Columbia artist E. J. Hughes will come under the hammer next week at Heffel Fine Art Auction House, six years after an enterprising art collector found it at a rural yard sale.
The painting, originally purchased for $200 cash, is expected to fetch more than $100,000 at auction.
Studs Terkel, the great journalist, raconteur and listener, turns 95 this week. He was born in New York City on May 16, 1912, to a tailor and a seamstress. He says: "I was born in the year the Titanic sank. The Titanic went down, and I came up. That tells you a little about the fairness of life."
