News In Brief

Next time send it express

A woman in Fort Smith, Ark., recently received a pewter clown she had ordered through the mail. No, it wasn't supposed to be a Christmas present. The order, in fact, had been placed in June 1995. The clown arrived basically intact, although its packaging - which had no postmark - was torn and had strange markings on one edge. "It looked like someone ran over it," Peggy Shopfner says. Since the clown wouldn't play "Small World" as had been advertised, she called Windsor Collection, which had taken the order. A credit was in the works.

Anyone have a better idea?

City Hall in Auburn, N.Y., has a pesky problem on its hands: crows in nearby trees that are leaving a, well, mess on cars parked below. Officials tried to scare them away with six balloons that resembled big-eyed owls, but the black birds didn't budge. Says city manager John Salomone: "These are tougher crows, urban crows, street-smart crows."

National Archives to pack up for a century down the road

Two exhibit cases of artifacts, which were suggested by distinguished Americans and selected schoolchildren, are on display at the National Archives in Washington. On Jan. 21, they'll be sealed in a climate-controlled room for 100 years as part of the National Millennium Time Capsule project. Each item is meant to reflect what is significant to Americans at this point in history. Among the items are:

Concrete that President Reagan chiseled out of the Berlin Wall

Library card from the Boston Public Library

Alphabet of the Cherokee language

William Faulkner's 1950 acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Hubble space telescope photo

- Associated Press

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