Word: smokings
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Cooley was one of the original smoke jumpers, firefighters who parachute into remote blazes, often in deep wilderness. His first attempt was less than perfect--which was perhaps not surprising, considering that he had never been in an airplane before he took his practice runs. In July 1940, Cooley and a colleague leaped out of a plane over a fire in Idaho. Cooley's parachute lines became tangled on the way down, and he landed in the branches of a spruce tree. But the pair brought the blaze under control by the following morning...
...feat marked the beginning of the Forest Service's smoke-jumpers program, and Cooley became the group's first superintendent. His career wasn't flawless; in 1949, Cooley directed the crew battling the Mann Gulch fire in Montana, at which 12 smoke jumpers lost their lives...
Companies have long promoted healthier behavior by subsidizing gym memberships and smoking-cessation classes. But several private and public employers have started tying financial incentives to their health-insurance plans. North Carolina this year became the second state to approve an increase in out-of-pocket expenses for state workers who smoke and don't try to quit or who are morbidly obese and don't try to lose weight. Alabama was the first to pass what critics call a fat fee, in 2008, and several state insurance plans have started imposing a $25 monthly surcharge on smokers...
...goes according to plan, the E.U. could know who its President will be following a gathering of E.U. leaders on Thursday night in Brussels. (One almost expects a cloud of white smoke to rise from the Justus Lipsius building when a candidate is chosen.) But it won't be a straightforward process: the leaders are likely to haggle until the final moment on the decision of the President and the new E.U. Foreign Minister in an attempt to strike a balance in politics, gender and geography in the appointments - quite possibly at the expense of qualities like talent and merit...
...course, backroom dealmaking doesn't usually lead to swift decisions. E.U. officials are already dropping hints that the new leaders may not be selected at Thursday's dinner after all. That puff of white smoke may not come until Friday morning or even later. It's likely that few Europeans are waiting with bated breath...