Int'l banditry--You think grand larceny at the gasoline pump or energy meter is peculiar to your state or to the USA? Check out this recent headline from the Times of London: "Anger as oil giants triple pump profits." The story includes a cartoon of a man at a pump, phone in hand, saying, "Police, I'd like to report a robbery."

Time-tested capitalist priorities-- "Multiple sclerosis sufferers will have to wait six months to discover whether they can get two new drugs from the [United Kingdom's] National Health Service. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence will not decide before July whether [the two drugs] are cost effective."--The Times. London.

'School days'--Two classrooms in New York's East Bronx were slated to reopen this month after being shut down last fall. Students had complained of a foul stench in the two rooms.

Health workers determined that the odor came from mold on the walls, the product of rain seeping through leaky ceilings. To make do, two bus-shaped mobile "classrooms" were parked on a heavily trafficked street outside the school. The principal says they may be kept there to cope with overcrowding.

Brass Heads Inc.--"An Army of One." That's the slogan dreamed up by a Chicago ad agency as the centerpiece of a fresh batch of Army recruiting hype. It replaces the slogan, "Be all you can be." The new slogan is intended (How? Don't ask us.) to respond to the finding that youth see Army life as dehumanizing.

Which is which?--"The U.S. Justice Department is issuing stricter guidelines for handling underworld informants--rules prompted by allegations that FBI agents in Boston [Just Boston?] were overly cozy with mobsters."--News item.

Taking care of business--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is "considering" listing a Nevada mine as a Superfund cleanup site. The former Anaconda copper mine has been leaking toxins into area drinking water. A demand for federal action was pressed by two Paite tribes that say state officials have refused to act for 20 years.

Who do they think they are, senators?-- Lawyers for Mississippi's lieutenant governor told the state supreme court there was no need for it to intervene in a state legislature tussle over a demand by senators who are Black that bills be read before a final vote on them.  
 
 
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