' People late for school or work because of New York City subway delays can get notes from the transit agency to give to their teachers or bosses. The New York City Transit division says it gives passengers the notes so they can prove they're not lying about being delayed while riding the subway. Passengers request the delay verification letters over the phone. NYC Transit verifies the date and time of the delay and sends an official note in the mail in one or two weeks. It mails 34,000 notes a year. Each letter shows the subway line taken and the durations of the trip and the delay. NYC Transit is working on an online system so it can accept Internet requests and e-mail the excuse letters. '
SPACE.COM "Spectacular Sky Scene Monday Evening " Clear skies, chance of UFO's, winds from the NE at 9mph, precipitation probability near zero, seasonable temperatures. Dress warmly and leave a note before you go.
' Every once in a while, something will appear in the night sky that will attract the attention of even those who normally don't bother looking up. It's likely to be that way on Monday evening, Dec. 1. A slender crescent moon, just 15-percent illuminated, will appear in very close proximity to the two brightest planets in our sky, Venus and Jupiter. People who are unaware or have no advance notice will almost certainly wonder, as they cast a casual glance toward the moon on that night, what those two "large silvery stars" happen to be? Sometimes, such an occasion brings with it a sudden spike of phone calls to local planetariums, weather offices and even police precincts. Not a few of these calls excitedly inquire about "the UFOs" that are hovering in the vicinity of our natural satellite. '
' Cancer researchers have known for years that it was possible in rare cases for some cancers to go away on their own. There were occasional instances of melanomas and kidney cancers that just vanished. And neuroblastoma, a very rare childhood tumor, can go away without treatment. But these were mostly seen as oddities — an unusual pediatric cancer that might not bear on common cancers of adults, a smattering of case reports of spontaneous cures. And since almost every cancer that is detected is treated, it seemed impossible even to ask what would happen if cancers were left alone. Now, though, researchers say they have found a situation in Norway that has let them ask that question about breast cancer. And their new study, to be published Tuesday in The Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that even invasive cancers may sometimes go away without treatment and in larger numbers than anyone ever believed. '
' Jim turned up at the ward about four years ago and has been a ‘‘cat among the patients'' ever since, ward receptionist Ruth Blick said. ‘‘He is very good with patients who are unwell or unsettled,'' Miss Blick said. ‘‘He seems to know who needs attention and time.'' Instead of being frightened by distressed people, Jim seeks them out and calms them down, leaving them ‘‘feline'' good. It could be said Jim is a ‘‘purrfect'' companion. ‘‘He certainly seems to help patients in their recovery, or at least gives them some comfort.'' He now lives on the ward, sleeps on patients' beds and roams at large. Sam Shepherd, a patient at Isis, met Jim five weeks ago. ‘‘Sir James is a true gentleman,'' Mr Shepherd said. ‘‘He's fantastic to have around. ‘‘He's so in tune with people's moods and knows exactly what's required.'' '
' A dog waiting in a car while at a car wash slipped the vehicle into gear and drove in a loop before the car came to a stop. Pryor police officer Brent Crittenden said the dog's owner was washing the vehicle when the 70-pound pit bull jumped on the dash and somehow shifted the car into reverse. The car backed out of the car wash bay, continued onto a highway and then looped around before coming to a stop at an automated car wash lane. Crittenden said the vehicle was impounded because its owner was unable to provide proof of insurance. Because the dog was registered with the city, Crittenden said the owner was allowed to walk the pooch home. '
' A 9-year-old boy was caught driving his parents' car alone after police received a report about an unmanned vehicle moving down the street. The boy took the car, which had been parked with the key in the ignition at his family's home in Gifu, central Japan, on Monday to visit his grandmother's house, a police spokesman said. "I learned from my father's driving and at game arcades," Kyodo News quoted the boy as telling police. The police received a call from a passer-by who reported having seen a driver-less car running down the street, as the boy was apparently too short to be seen from outside the vehicle, the spokesman said. The police found the car in a convenience store parking lot, after the pint-sized motorist had lost his way. They warned the boy's parents to keep a closer eye on their car, the spokesman added. '
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' An influential psychiatrist who was the host of the popular public radio program “The Infinite Mind” earned at least $1.3 million from 2000 to 2007 giving marketing lectures for drugmakers, income not mentioned on the program. The psychiatrist and radio host, Dr. Frederick K. Goodwin, is the latest in a series of doctors and researchers whose ties to drugmakers have been uncovered by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Dr. Goodwin, a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is the first news media figure to be investigated. Dr. Goodwin’s weekly radio programs have often touched on subjects important to the commercial interests of the companies for which he consults. In a program broadcast on Sept. 20, 2005, he warned that children with bipolar disorder who were left untreated could suffer brain damage, a controversial view. '
' When's the last time you sent an email or paid a bill online? Now how about the last time you sent a letter? This year, the U.S. Postal Service will deliver eight billion fewer letters than it did seven years ago. This sharp decline is why blue mailboxes are disappearing from America's postal landscape. National Postal Museum Historian Nancy Pope says when blue mailboxes disappear, Americans lose part of their heritage. "You're taking something away that is part of their memory, part of their history, part of their community" she says. "And whether they use it on a regular basis or don't, when something is gone that used to be there, there is a pang there, a nostalgia that just hits in automatically." Nostalgic or not, the postal service says in a time of economic distress and rapidly decreasing revenue, warm fuzzies can't trump the bottom line. '
' Inside the space station, astronauts spent a fourth day Sunday trying to get a urine processor working. The processor is part of the newly delivered $154 million system that converts urine, sweat and condensation into drinking water. Fincke and shuttle astronaut Donald Pettit tried to fix the problem by changing how a centrifuge in the urine processor is mounted, but the machine stopped running after 3 1/2 hours during a test run. During previous tests, the urine processor has worked for just two hours at a time before shutting down. A normal run is about four hours. "It looks like we made things better, but we're maybe not there yet," Fincke told Mission Control. Parts of the system that recycle sweat and condensation are working without problems. Endeavour undocks from the space station on Thanksgiving Day and returns to Earth on Saturday. '
' Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a gritty, working-class town outside Barcelona, has placed a sea of solar panels atop mausoleums at its cemetery, transforming a place of perpetual rest into one buzzing with renewable energy. "The best tribute we can pay to our ancestors, whatever your religion may be, is to generate clean energy for new generations. That is our leitmotif," said Esteve Serret, director Conste-Live Energy, a Spanish company that runs the cemetery in Santa Coloma and also works in renewable energy. '
' An Israeli court jailed eight Jewish teenagers on Sunday for carrying out neo-Nazi attacks in a case that sparked revulsion in a state that was a haven for Jews after the Holocaust. Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zvi Gurfinkel sentenced the teenagers, aged 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison for a "shocking and horrifying" year-long spree of attacks that targeted foreign workers, ultra-Orthodox Jews and homeless men. The court said the group also planned to attack Arabs. The youths videotaped and posted on the Internet some of their attacks. The charges against them included painting swastikas in a synagogue and planning a birthday party for Hitler, court documents showed. '
' "Palestinian police surround the house of suspected militants and knock, demanding to be let in. Normally, they'd kick in the door if it didn't open immediately, but today they have the thing that every home is said to need: a woman's touch. As part of a new Palestinian Authority (PA) security initiative, this unit, like every Hebron unit that searches houses, has two female officers to bring a gentler side to long-stigmatized house raids. We talk to them gently," says Ms. Farraj, a lean, muscular woman who wears an Islamic head scarf that matches her camouflage suit of green and brown. "We address them with the same terminology you would use for your mother, your sister, or your aunt." Or, in the words of Capt. Mohammed Il-Jabari, who runs such raids several times a week: "As soon as we walk in, the women are in charge." By using female police officers on housing searches, "we have preserved our customs and morals," says General Safy. "Every time we arrest, we take some policewomen with us." '
' US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday. Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. "How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added. '
' Lithuania's newly elected parliament has chosen as its new speaker a popular television talent show host once convicted of placing a prank call about a bomb in a hotel. The speaker is first in line to lead the ex-Soviet state, which joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, if the president dies in office or is dismissed. '
' A maverick Thai general who has threatened to bomb anti-government protesters and drop snakes on them from helicopters has been reassigned as an aerobics teacher, the Bangkok Post said on Friday. Major-general Khattiya Sawasdipol, a Rambo-esque anti-communist fighter more commonly known as Seh Daeng, reacted with disappointment to his new role as a military instructor promoting public fitness at marketplaces. "It is ridiculous to send me, a warrior, to dance at markets," he said, before launching an attack on his boss, army chief Anupong Paochinda. "The army chief wants me to be a presenter leading aerobics dancers. I have prepared one dance. It's called the 'throwing-a-hand-grenade' dance," he said. His predictions of grenade attacks against People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters occupying Government House made headlines last month, especially when they turned out to be correct. One protester was killed and 23 wounded by a grenade blast on Thursday. Seh Daeng has denied any involvement. '
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