Law `n order - Enforcing a zero-tolerance ban on weapons, school officials in Providence, Rhode Island, suspended a kindergartner for 10 days. He had brought a table knife to school to cut cookies.
McMicro - McDonald's is moving toward preparing its food in central locations and reheating it in restaurants. They say this will boost profits and improve safety. Folks with big vocabularies would call that an oxymoron.
Think you've seen everything? - A Panamanian company is marketing a new beer in Britain - "Che Fruta." The company hopes to cash in on the name of the Cuban revolutionary leader, plus a hint of natural fruit flavor. Because the fruit flavor is imported from Cuba, it runs into the U.S. embargo. So the label proclaims: "NOT FOR THE U.S.: Fruit lager."
How about a Che pamphlet with each six-pack? - "The problem with fruity beers is that they have an awful image. We think that combining the fruitiness with a revolutionary figure like Che gives the beer a seriousness." - The European sales director for "Che Fruta."
Sure, give `em a promotion - In Cincinnati, 250 cops marched on city hall protesting the five-day suspension of two officers who were filmed beating and kicking a teenager and spraying him with Mace.
Hey man, it's a free market - Washington agreed to buy $12 billion worth of weapons-grade uranium from Russia and resell it as nuclear reactor fuel. Now the U.S. government is trying to chop the agreed-on price. Viktor Mikhailov, Russia's atomic energy minister, threatened to ice the deal. He said, "I tell them, `Excuse me, this is robbery in broad daylight.' "
Greatest thing since Chernobyl - Meanwhile, U.S. and Russian representatives met in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to discuss the future of plutonium. Declared a Russian rep: "We consider plutonium the top achievement of mankind. On the one hand its a great danger. On the other, it's a great asset."
Sweet - The prices are reported daily in the Wall Street Journal, but the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority paid the Wall St. firm Lazard Freres $7.5 million over the market price for government securities. In one deal, MTA paid Lazard $2.6 million extra for a packet and then sold them back for $1.6 million less than the going price. At the time, Lazard was financial adviser to the MTA.
Still on her toes - Leona Helmsley, the New York hotel operator who was jailed for tax fraud, was ordered to do community service, which she delegated to the servants at her Arizona home.
They wrapped hundreds of small boxes for a local hospital fund pitch. One worker said Helmsley asked how long it took to wrap each box.