Archive for August 14th, 2003

Reuters Reports Lightning the Cause

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glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 8:49 pm · ESL Links

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A lightning strike caused massive power outages in New York and other cities across the northeastern United States and Canada on Thursday, trapping thousands in crowded subways and forcing millions of evacuated office workers onto the streets.

from Reuters

Power Grid, Air Travel Shut Down

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glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 7:19 pm · ESL Links

NYC Braces for Looting

A massive power blackout hit the
east coasts of the United States and Canada, plunging over 40 million
people
into
gathering
darkness.

Air travel has been paralyzed, first on the East Coast then cascading
throughout the continent as airports are unable to screen passengers.

An uneasy
apprehension grows in NYC as darkness gathers and millions try to flee
Manhattan. CNN-developing….

French Fry: Heat deaths up to 3,000

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glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 4:10 pm · ESL Links

The
French health ministry has said the deaths of up to 3,000 people in recent
weeks could be attributed to the European heat wave.

The announcement came as the government extended throughout the country
an emergency hospital plan originally introduced in the Paris region to
deal with the medical crisis….

from the BBC

Bilingual Teachers Seek Injunction

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glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 9:34 am · ESL Links

17 bilingual teachers from the embattled Lawrence MA public schools, due to lose their jobs at the end of the year due to state mandates eliminating bilingual education and forcing the teachers to pass English fluency tests before moving to regular classrooms, are seeking an injunction to save their jobs.

The question is expecially dicey due to the fact that the Superintendent of the Lawrence Schools, Wilfredo T. Leboy, has failed the test three times himself. Lawrence is one of the poorest school districts in the state and has a majority of non-native speakers of English in its student population.

NE Aquarium Decertified

1

glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 9:18 am · Wacky News

The financially struggling New
England Aquarium has lost
its accreditation from the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, making
it apparently the only major aquarium in the country that does not have
the blessing of the organization.

Aquarium officials are attempting to organize
a fundraiser. Invitations have reportedly gone out to Flipper, Little
Nemo, Mike
Nelson, the Submariner, Free Willy, Moby Dick and Shamu the Killer Whale.
From the Boston Globe

Mummy Makeover Reconstructs Queen

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glasscastle - August 14, 2003 @ 8:09 am · ESL Links

Cosmetic Surgeons
Searching for her Secret

Damian Schofield of Nottingham University and Martin Evison
of Sheffield University, both in the United Kingdom, reconstructed the
face of this bronze-skinned beauty from a 3,400-year-old unidentified
skull discovered in 1898 and forgotten for nearly 100 years. They applied
their
forensic expertise in examining digital X-rays of skulls, the same science
used to identify unknown murder victims. 

Neither scientist was given any indication of whose face they were reconstructing
before they started. Schofield and Evison generated this image by first
making a 3-D computer grid of the woman’s skull.  from
BET