Iceland

BILL HOLM, 65 Noted writer Bill Holm, a poet and essayist who wrote about a dozen books and traveled the world, died Wednesday at Avera Heart Hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D. A cause of death was not given. Mr. Holm's books included The Windows of Brimnes, published in 2007 and named for his cottage near the small fishing village of Hofsos in Iceland, where he spent his summers in the land of his ancestors.

Alta Haywood of Perry Hall recalls watching the northern lights years ago in Gettysburg, Pa. She asks where to go "to have a good chance of seeing this incredibly beautiful sight again." Marylanders' last view of the aurora borealis was Nov. 7, 2004. Go north, closer to the geomagnetic pole, September to March. Alaska, Canada, Iceland and Finland offer aurora packages. Google "aurora borealis tourism."

For the last month in Newport, Ore., the Money Saver Motel has counted down the days until the departure of Newport's largest -- and most famous -- resident. Today, the number dropped to 1.Keiko, 5-ton star of the movie "Free Willy" and subject of worldwide attention, affection and controversy, will be flown by the U.S. Air Force to Iceland tomorrow to eventually be returned to the wild.Some other key numbers:4,000 Keiko pictures drawn by schoolchildren have arrived at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and are being added to a giant paper quilt to be sent to Iceland.

WASHINGTON -- Iceland has no military. Luxembourg has no air force. Greece doesn't want to bomb a neighbor. And the three other nations not contributing forces to the NATO air war against Serbia have only been alliance members for two weeks.But those six countries, including the new members -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- bridle at the suggestion that they are not full partners in the allied attack."What Greece is doing," said Alexander Philon, the Greek ambassador to the United States, "and what we decided a long time ago to do with the full agreement of NATO, is to open all of our ports, roads and airfields to the mission but not get involved directly in the actual bombing of our neighbor.

I recently tuned in a television show about Scotland in which the narrator was discussing the largest "military tattoo."Can you give me information about this event?The program was probably showcasing the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which is held every August in Edinburgh as part of the annual International Festival of the Arts. An extravagant combination of music and ceremony, it takes place on the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle in the city's Old Town.The term "tattoo" supposedly derives from the cries of 17th-and 18th-century Low Country innkeepers, who, as the fifes and drums of the local regiment signaled a return to quarters, would cry, "Doe den tap toe!"

FOR four decades, Iceland has been a place where many an American backpacker and budget traveler headed for Europe has spent a couple of hours in transit. That's because Icelandair, that Arctic island nation's carrier, is the closest to a Greyhound bus line in the skies, offering reliable albeit somewhat Spartan service at rock-bottom prices.A friend of ours decided to relive some of his youth and took an Icelandair flight to Reykjavik and beyond recently. Instead of a propeller flight that seemed to take forever, strong tailwinds blew him in a spanking new jet from the night of the Baltimore-Washington International Airport to the morning dusk of Iceland in 4 1/2 hours!

Gudrun Katrin Thorbergsdottir,64, the wife of Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, died Monday, officials of a Seattle cancer hospital confirmed yesterday.Raymond A. Myles,41, a popular gospel singer recently praised by Billboard magazine as being on the brink of mainstream success, was found dead Sunday of multiple gunshot wounds in New Orleans.Mr. Myles started his gospel career as a child, recording a single called "Prayer From a 12-year-old Boy." Among his recordings was last year's live album, "Heaven is the Place."

VATNAJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland -- Jim Garvin is working frantically in the bucking cockpit of a NASA research plane, preparing for Earth's next mission to Mars.A planetary scientist from the Goddard Space Flight Center, Garvin is using space technology to survey a landscape scoured by a catastrophic flood, maybe the biggest on Earth in 60 years.He and a team of NASA scientists are trying to study the effects of a rare but immensely powerful natural disaster, the eruption of a volcano under a glacier.

Hometown -- Baltimore Current members --Nate Lyttle, guitars; Jesse Lyell, vocals and guitar; Paul Gier, bass and vocals; Jeff Martin, drums Founded in --2004 Style --energetic indie/new wave/pop Influenced by --Gwen Stefani, the Birthday Party, Depeche Mode, Echo and the Bunnymen Notable --Martin, an Iceland lover, convinced his bandmates to fly to the country with him and play two short tours in the past year or so. While there, they landed a...

LONDON -- The International Whaling Commission dealt with one of the two major questions facing its Glasgow meeting by deciding yesterday to delay for a year its decision on whether to create an Antarctic sanctuary for whales.That out of the way, it now must consider whether to begin handing out quotas to whaling nations, thus ending the worldwide moratorium on commercial whaling, in place since 1988.But there is "another issue . . . clouding the debate," according to Martin Harvey, the executive officer of the IWC. "It has been raised by the techniques whalers use, like explosive harpoons; it is the humanitarian issue."