Word: islandness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Iceland knows a bit about kicking the fossil-fuel habit. At the turn of the last century, life on the isolated island was bleak. It had been among the poorest nations in Europe for centuries, and a smoky haze choked Reykjavik, thanks to the coal inhabitants burned during the interminable winters. In the 1930s, Icelandic engineers successfully diverted underground water to heat an elementary school, and the rest of the capital slowly followed suit. When the global oil crisis hit in the 1970s, efforts to turn this local resource into electricity - by drilling holes into underground heat pockets and reservoirs...
...millions of Italians tuned into the ever-popular local version of Celebrity Survivor, or Isola dei Famosi ("Island of the Famous"). The show was wrapping up its sixth season with the coronation of the latest champion, Vladimir Luxuria, a former cabaret performer and Refounded Communist party member. In 2006, the unlikely politician became the first transvestite to be elected to Italy's parliament...
...dozens of clothing retailers touted their "door buster" sales of 50% or more off everything from diamond jewelry to cotton hoodies. Crowds even broke one of the doors at Macy's Men's Store. That paled in comparison to the death of a Wal-Mart worker in Long Island who reportedly got trampled to death by bargain hunters. But by mid-morning on 34th Street, many stores were half empty and some sales staff said they had noticed that shoppers were holding back this year. (Looking for the perfect Black Friday purchase? See TIME's list of the 10 best...
...even with the recession, some folks were still making big purchases. Millicent Davis, a nighttime home health aide in Long Island City, says she hits the Black Friday sales every year. Her hours got cut back from seven days a week to just three this year, but she still bought a $300 North Face jacket for her son at Macys. She decided to pass on a $128 handbag for herself, however. Across the street at Old Navy, Viviana Alonso, 26, was packing a red Samsonite suitcase full of handbags, sweaters, socks and shirts inside the entrance. On vacation from Caracas...
Analisa,* a writer in Rhode Island, has just embarked on an intercontinental coupling with a Parisian illustrator who responded to her profile on an online personals site. "He said he found the French dating sites very depressing, so he was poking around the Anglo sites and saw me," she says. "He said he could tell from what I'd written in my ad that I was a good person, so he sent an e-mail on a whim...