Going Postal
The Post Office lost another $2.2 billion from January through March. But postal executives say they plan to avoid paying the huge bill by claiming it was lost in the mail.



Oil Hearings
Senate Democrats have subpoenaed the top 5 oil company executives to a hearing on Capitol Hill. They're expected to make the trip to D.C. as soon as they can save enough to pay for the gas.



Bank Deal?
The biggest U.S. banks say they're willing to pay $5 billion to cover the damages related to the foreclosure mess. Incidentally, $5 billion should be just enough to buy two or three foreclosed families a one bedroom apartment in Manhatttan.



Connecticut Layoffs
4,700 unionized state workers in Connecticut are getting sent layoff notices. But they're not expected to to get those notices until they return from their 16 weeks of paid vacation.



March Madness(tm)
Top NCAA officials spent more than $17 million to keep sole control over the term "March Madness." That may seem like a lot, but they blew twice that much betting on Duke in the office pool.





May 11th


1792: Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River. Historians know this because he had the only boat that wasn’t pumping up the bass on the sound system.


1942: William Faulkner's collections of short stories, Go Down, Moses, is published. It is later mistaken for a porno version of The Ten Commandments.


1997: IBM Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov and then nails his girlfriend with its hard drive.