| Town's Mardi Gras fun is fit for king
GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Mardi Gras celebrations in places such as New Orleans and Mobile, Ala., are well-known. But a Missouri village with French roots has its own pre-Lenten party -- a traditional ball that dates back more than 250 years. On the first Saturday of February, the people of Ste. Genevieve and their out-of-town visitors don French colonial costumes and dance at the annual King's Ball. Dancers of all ages, from little kids and spirited teenagers to those well in their 70s, will crowd the floor on Saturday to dance reels and other old-time line dances. ''Ste. Gen,'' as the locals call it, was settled by the French in the early 1700s, making it one of Missouri's oldest settlements. The town of 4,400 people on the Mississippi River is 64 miles south of St. Louis.
Bank's Sentance says market ignoring inflation risks
In his first news agency interview since joining the MPC in October 2006, Sentance also said that while the fall in the pound increased upward pressure on prices, it could also help rebalance the economy. So far, the economy was slowing much as expected and a cooling had been necessary, he said. "We were looking for a slowdown and the question for us is not is the economy slowing and should we react to it, the question is: is the economy slowing in the right way that is appropriate to keep inflation on track," he said at his BoE office. Sentance has a reputation as something of a hawk, but he said he agreed with Governor Mervn King's assertion that current interest rates of 5.5 percent were bearing down on demand, suggesting he might back a February rate cut. But he suggested market expectations for as many as four quarter-point reductions over 2008 may be overdone.
Arena packed as Bathurst students' funeral begins
Thousands of mourners filled a Bathurst, N.B., hockey arena Wednesday for an emotional funeral service for seven teenage basketball players who were killed in a weekend crash. A soloist sang Ave Maria as people occupied the last empty seats in the K.C. Irving Civic Centre, before municipal and school officials greeted the assembled crowd. Hearses travel the snow-covered streets in Bathurst on Tuesday morning, carrying the students' caskets to the civic centre for a public wake in advance of Wednesday's funeral.(CBC) Community members started lining up early in the day outside the civic centre, which has a seating capacity of 3,500. To deal with a crowd expected to reach up to 6,000, officials set up an overflow area at a smaller, nearby rink where about 700 people could watch the funeral service on closed-circuit television.
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