Blackout hits Los Angeles
A utility worker overloaded an electrical circuit and caused a massive power blackout across much of Los Angeles on Monday, snarling traffic, stranding office workers in elevators and sending fire trucks with blaring sirens racing around the city. Some 2 million people were hit by the outage, which plunged busy intersections into chaos, jammed cars on the freeways and sent office workers streaming out of downtown buildings to mill about on sidewalks. The utility worker "directed too much amperage into a circuit that did not have the capacity to handle it," a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said. Power was largely restored within 90 minutes.
■ Poland
DIY gets new meaning
A Polish do-it-yourself and hardware shop has offered an hour in a brothel to customers who spend more than 10,000 zlotys (about US$3,000) on construction material, the company said yesterday. "It's a case, if you like, of different strokes for different folks, in terms of doing business," said Roman Myszko, boss of the Bepol shop in Elblag, northern Poland. "Nearby, there is a house of leisure, which is where the idea for this special offer came from," he said. The owner of the brothel "came to our shop to buy some paintbrushes and paint. I knew immediately what her line of business was, and I talked with her [about proposing the special offer] and she agreed," Myszko told the Zycie Warszawy daily.
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