| Fast rail offering hip personalised travel
E-TICKETS, on-board DVD rentals, events, and even new encounters French rail's new iDTGV trains are testing a new way of travel. Music blares from a speaker in a bustling bar and conversations get louder as customers just out of Paris meetings trickle in, settle down and order drinks. The barman hands over a beer, spilling a little as the brightly-coloured buffet car on the top deck of a customised high-speed TGV train rolls into its three-hour journey to the Mediterranean port city of Marseille. Joined to a regular TGV train, this iDTGV, playing on the French word "idee" or "idea", is operated privately, but owned by the national SNCF rail company and designed as a laboratory for future rail travel. Planned party train on the way The iDTGV was launched in December 2004 and offers cheaper tickets, internet reservations, and services aimed at pleasing passengers, including a soon-to-be launched party train, to help the SNCF better compete with low cost airlines.
South Carolina Reshapes the Races
The movement toward McCain can also be seen in Rasmussen's national tracking. Before Christmas, McCain was running in the 8 to 15 percent range. After Christmas, when the Benazir Bhutto assassination pointed to international instability, McCain shot up to 17 percent. In polling after his New Hampshire victory, McCain has been polling in the low 20s. After his South Carolina victory, he has been in the mid-20s, 24 to 27 percent. It must be added that Mitt Romney has risen as well, from 21 percent in the January 25 results to 27 and 28 percent on January 27-28. Is this the result of votes moving to him from Fred Thompson, who withdrew January 21, and Mike Huckabee, whose support has been flagging from his pre-South Carolina numbers? It looks like it. A Florida victory would give either candidate a major leg up in the February 5 contests.
The Pilgrimage Home
Others have taken the opposite tack, juggling the academic calendar or dangling incentives to keep students on campus until classes officially end. "Giving tests and quizzes works. And the students love you for it, too," quipped Hank Gorman, an associate professor of psychology at Austin College, north of Dallas, Texas. Austin, which holds classes through noon today, will face the same challenges as other colleges during the rush home for the holiday. Some professors may make allowances for an absence on the day before Thanksgiving, and at least one Austin professor tries to lure students with cookies. (It’s not clear, however, whether those will win out over homemade pumpkin pie.) As a result, students are sometimes left with mixed messages; some professors cancel classes while others mandate them.
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