Modernist poet Barbara Guest, the best-known woman in the influential New York School of avant-garde poets and a winner of the prestigious Robert Frost Medal, has died. She was 85. Guest, who wrote more than 20 books of poetry, essays, plays, fiction and biography, died on February 15 in a Berkeley hospital.
A man who collected 540kg of rattlesnakes was first in line on Friday morning for the annual Rattlesnake Roundup in the small West Texas town of Sweetwater. The event, officially known as the World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup, started as a way to control the snakes in the area but has grown into a four-day attraction.
Opera singer Anna Moffo, a soprano hailed for her glamorous looks as much as her singing, has died, the Metropolitan Opera said on Friday. She was 73, according to the Grove Dictionary of Music. Moffo made her debut as Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in a 1955 television production.
The Nasdaq electronic stock exchange confirmed on Friday it had made a bid for the London Stock Exchange (LSE), calling it an ”attractive offer” for shareholders. The news came hours after the LSE said it had rejected the unsolicited offer from the United States group as one that ”substantially undervalues” the company.
A record amount of spending in February pushed the United States government’s Budget deficit to the highest level to date for a single month, the Treasury Department reported on Friday. The government had a record monthly deficit of ,2-billion in February.
Behind a vale of trees lies the largest leper colony in the Middle East, a virtual oasis in Egypt for those who have been ostracised by society. The Abu Zaabal centre in the governorate of Qaliubiya, north of Cairo, hosts a hospital, pre-school, a prison and the adjoining village of Abdel Moneim Riad. It is home to 3 000 people.
The body of a dead United States hostage, abducted in November, has been found in Iraq as US President George Bush acknowledged the gravity of mounting unrest there and called on Iraqi leaders to form a national unity government quickly. The body was that of Tom Fox, a 54-year-old peace activist from Virginia.
The West Indies on Saturday batted and bowled themselves into a position to break a streak of six straight Test-match losses. On the third day of the first cricket Test against New Zealand, openers Chris Gayle and Daren Ganga kept their wickets intact for more than an hour before stumps to leave the tourists 48 without loss when play ended.
The Dolphins have taken a stranglehold on the second day of the Supersport cricket match against the Warriors at Mercedes-Benz Park. By close of play on Friday, the home team were struggling on 84 for three wickets, still 428 runs behind the Dolphins’ mammoth 512 for seven wickets declared.
Ralf Schumacher admitted in Manama on Friday that the lack of a third driver in Friday practice sessions could cost Toyota this season. Toyota finished fourth in last year’s constructors’ world championship, which disqualifies them from running a third car in Friday testing.