News In Brief
BY CAR IT TAKES HALF AN HOUR
It could have been an item on the society page of a small-town newspaper: Christopher Grimes of Point Clear dropped in on Brightlingsea Saturday afternoon. But what happened to the British youth was more a rude surprise than anything else. As we pick up the story, Grimes was flying his new stunt kite, a 10-foot-wide device controlled from the ground by ropes and handles, when a powerful gust of wind lifted him 25 feet in the air over the frigid water separating the towns. He landed on the opposite bank, soaked and minus his pants, but unhurt. The unintended try at hang-gliding, he said, was his first - and last.
TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT
In a more down-to-earth adventure, volunteers are being recruited via the Internet for a 240-mile trip across Britain beginning next week. Using only technology available to the builders of Stonehenge, they'll try to move a four-ton monolith over land and water from western Wales to the world-famous prehistoric site in time for the autumnal equinox Sept. 23. But authorities vetoed plans for them to dress in animal skins and eat roots and berries.
No kidding, Cisco now is the most valuable company
"The changing of the guard took place today," analyst Michael Cristinziano of New York-based Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co. said. He meant that last Friday, Cisco Systems Inc. topped Microsoft as the world's most valuable company. Analysts heralded the development as part of a shift from the era of the personal computer to the information age: While Microsoft's operating system runs more than 80 percent of the world's PCs, Cisco is the biggest maker of equipment that powers the Internet. The list below, of companies with the most market capitalization, was compiled using company reports on outstanding share prices and official closing stock-market prices. The top five, with figures in billions:
1. Cisco Systems Inc. $579.1
2. Microsoft $578.2
3. General Electric $521.9
4. Intel Corp. $486.4
5. Exxon Mobil $271.9
- Reuters
(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society