| The big McMakeover
The US-based chain is now selling more burgers than at any time since it arrived in Britain 34 years ago. Last month, there were more than 88 million visits to its 1,200 high-street restaurants and drive-throughs in this country - 320,000 more people each day than in December 2006. Sales are growing almost as quickly as in the 80s boom, and this year will help fund a $2bn expansion around the globe. Its popularity and profits signal a remarkable comeback. At the end of the 1990s, the company - founded when Ray Kroc teamed up with Dick and Mac McDonald to open the Des Plaines restaurant in 1955 - was in trouble. Following the McLibel case, in which two environmental activists were sued by the coorporate giant and (in the end) won, its golden arches had become emblematic of all that was rotten in capitalism; an obesity crisis in the western world loomed large; there was disdain for the dead-end McJob; and Britain's BSE scare recruited an army of vegetarians.
Bigger-than-ever Halloween parade set for Thursday
The 12th annual Haunted Happenings Grand Parade, expected to draw as many as 15,000 onlookers, will start from Shetland Park at 6:30 p.m. "The Wizard of Oz" inspired the theme of this year's parade. Mayor Kim Driscoll will be walking with the Lion, Scarecrow, Dorothy and the Tin Man.
They will have plenty of company along the parade route.
"We're going crazy this year," Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Rinus Oosthoek said, describing the overflowing interest in the parade.
Seventy groups, including schools, businesses, civic organizations and city officials, have signed up to march. Last year, 49 groups took part.
Marching bands from Salem, Beverly, Swampscott and Saugus high schools will provide the musical accompaniment.
Ex-BB housemate Lisa's libel appeal
The 39-year-old model, who featured in the 2003 series of the reality show, wants to sue over publications on the cover of Love it! magazine and in the News of the World in May 2006. She is complaining about the words: "BB's Lisa 'the geezer'. My fake boobs fell out on date with James Hewitt!" She says the innuendo - against rumours that there was to be a transsexual contestant - was that she was really a man posing as a woman, a transgender or transsexual. News Magazines Ltd and News Group Newspapers, who deny libel, argue that the words complained of taken in their proper context could not bear her "far-fetched" meaning. Last April, High Court judge Mr Justice Eady dismissed her claim, ruling that no reasonable reader could conclude that the words complained of bore the meaning she alleged.
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