Saturday, June 18, 2011
US to stop accepting most mail to Canada
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Postal Service says it will stop accepting most mail to Canada effective tonight.
Postal officials said they were acting because it appears labor problems being experienced by Canada Post will continue at least into sometime next week.
The post office will continue to accept items to Canada sent by its premium Global Express Guaranteed service, which is delivered in Canada by FedEx Express.
Emergency landing on Midway Atoll
HONOLULU
A Delta Air Lines 747 with nearly 380 passengers and crew made an emergency stop at the Midway Atoll wildlife refuge part of the way between Hawaii and Japan after the plane developed a crack in the cockpit windshield.
The airplane was flying from Honolulu to Osaka Thursday when pilots noticed the crack and landed at the former military base about 1,300 miles northwest of Oahu. Midway is home to about 1 million Laysan albatross seabirds.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the refuge, said Friday that Delta kept the passengers on board until a second 747 arrived from Japan to fly the passengers to Osaka.
Giffords returns to hometown of Tucson
PHOENIX
Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was back in her hometown Friday, visiting Tucson for Father’s Day weekend in her first time back to the city since she was shot in January.
“We’ve been dreaming of this trip for some time,” Giffords’ astronaut husband, Mark Kelly, said in a news release. “Gabby misses Tucson very much, and her doctors have said that returning to her hometown could play an important role in her recovery.”
16 die as Syrian forces open fire
BEIRUT
Syrian security forces fired on thousands of protesters Friday, killing a teenage boy and at least 15 other civilians as accounts emerged of more indiscriminate killing and summary executions by the autocratic regime of President Bashar Assad, activists said. Human-rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained in the three-month uprising as Assad desperately tries to maintain his grip on power.
Bristol Palin calls ex a ‘gnat’ in book
NEW YORK
Bristol Palin writes of losing her virginity to boyfriend Levi Johnston on a camping trip after getting drunk for the first time.
Later, she got pregnant while on birth-control pills she took to control cramping.
Palin is the daughter of former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and is a 20-year-old single mother. She tells a story of “deception and disappointment” in her new book, “Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far.”
Her book is scheduled for publication next week. It covers growing up with her family and the excitement of her mother’s political life.
But the main theme is her now-estranged relationship with Johnston, the father of her son. She calls him “the gnat.”
Ore. pot operation stretched 1 mile
PORTLAND, Ore.
A tip from hunters led police to a marijuana growing operation stretching across about a mile of a remote ravine on public land, leading to a raid that netted six arrests and more than 91,000 marijuana plants.
Miles of plastic irrigation tubing lined the terraced ravine in the northeast corner of Oregon. Authorities found weapons, food and supplies at campsites that could support growers for weeks, the Oregon State Police said.
Associated Press