From Our Vault: Busy Postman on Break, 1951

The United States Post Office announced this week that it intends to stop Saturday letter delivery beginning in August, 32 years after Congress mandated a sixth day of mail service.First class mail volume has been dropping by about five billion pieces annually since 2007. And the USPS operated almost $16 billion dollars in the red in 2012.In the 1950s, when this photo was taken, the federal...

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Blizzard of 2013 May Bring More Than 2 Feet of Snow

A blizzard of possibly historic proportions is set to strike the Northeast, starting today and could bring more than two feet of snow and strong winds that could shut down densely populated cities such as Boston and New York City.A storm from the west will join forces with one from the south to form a nor'easter that will sit and spin just off the East Coast, affecting more...

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Tennis: Injured Li Na out of Qatar Open

DOHA: China's Li Na has pulled out of next week's $2.3 million Qatar Open after failing to recover from the ankle injury she suffered in her Australian Open final defeat to Victoria Azarenka."Li Na has withdrawn from QatarTennis due to her ankle injury from the Australian Open final. #WTA #tennis," the WTA said on its Twitter account.The Qatar Open starts on Monday.- AFP/de !-- Zone...

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Nanded police book Pravin Togadia for hate speech

AURANGABAD: The Nanded police on Thursday booked Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Pravin Togadia under various sections of the IPC for allegedly delivering a hate speech at Bhokar town in the district last month. Deputy superintendent of police (Bhokar), Yashwant Solanke, told TOI on Thursday that Togadia is accused of making the provocative speech was made during a VHP programme at Bhokar on...

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Severed Heads Were Sacrifices in Ancient Mexico

Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of more than 150 skulls from an ancient shrine in central Mexico—evidence of one of the largest mass sacrifices of humans in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica.The skulls, many facing east, lay beneath a crude, slightly elevated mound of crushed stone on what was once an artificial island in a vast shallow lake, now completely dry."The site is barely a bump...

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Alleged Cop-Killer Has Calif. Region on Edge

Police officers across Southern California are on the defensive and scaling back their public exposure today, no longer responding to "barking-dog calls" and donning tactical gear outside police stations as former-cop-turned-alleged-gunman Christopher Dorner, armed and apparently on the hunt for cops, remains at large.Dorner is suspected of killing one cop and two civilians...

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Euro slips ahead of ECB meeting

NEW YORK: The euro slipped against the US dollar on Wednesday ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting, expected to keep monetary policy on hold.Meanwhile, the Japanese currency pulled higher after hitting three-year lows on Tuesday.The euro fell to $1.3519 at 2200 GMT, from $1.3582 late Tuesday, nearly two cents below its 14-month high of $1.3710 hit on Friday.The slip came...

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Rajnath Singh will contest again from Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat

GHAZIABAD: Quelling speculations over its choice of candidate for the Ghaziabad Lok Sabha seat, the BJP in a meeting on Wednesday clarified that party president and sitting MP Rajnath Singh will contest the 2014 general elections from the constituency. The announcement has been made in the light of recent conjectures by rival political parties - particularly after Singh was elevated to the post...

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Confirmed: Couch Potatoes Have Lower Sperm Counts

Men, here's another reason to work up a sweat: It boosts your sperm count. According to new research, couch potatoes who watch lots of TV have fewer sperm than men who exercise moderately or vigorously each week.Sperm count is a measure of semen quality, which has mysteriously declined in U.S. men in recent decades. Low sperm count is linked to infertility as well as testicular cancer,...

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Galaxy May Be Full of 'Second Earths'

You may look out on a starry night and get a lonely feeling, but astronomers now say our Milky Way galaxy may be thick with planets much like Earth -- perhaps 4.5 billion of them, according to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.Astronomers looked at data from NASA's Kepler space telescope in orbit, and conclude that 6 percent of the red dwarf stars in the Milky...

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