Sunday, November 1, 2009

October 31 News Briefs

SYDNEY, Oct 31: An Australian woman who spent a record-breaking 60 years in an iron lung after contracting polio died on Saturday in a Melbourne nursing home, aged 83. June Middleton was paralysed when she entered the respiratory chamber in 1949 at age 23.

WASHINGTON DC, Oct. 28: The Washington Archdiocese said in written testimony that it opposes legislation to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in the District of Columbia and is concerned the bill "would restrict the free exercise of religious beliefs if it is passed as drafted."

George Conger reporting: Fifty per cent of US Episcopal churches saw a decline in attendance in 2008, while only 35 per cent registered growth. The median average Sunday worship attendance was 69. For the first time the church’s income fell, with recorded “pledge and plate” income falling by 0.2 per cent.

National Geographic News: Scientists have discovered 40 "mummified" trees near a fjord in southwestern Norway. The dead Scotch pines date to the early 1200s and were found scattered among living trees in what was once a dense forest. The trees are not petrified, thus the term "mummified". Scientists hope to learn how the pines have survived without rotting in this wet area.

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