United Kingdom

NEXT time you hear a lobbyist for the tobacco industry complain about the proposed $2-a-pack increase in federal taxes on cigarettes, consider this: The United States, with a federal tax of 56 cents a pack, is one of the lowest-taxing nations in the industrial world.In three countries, according to the Worldwatch Institute, taxes are now above $3 a pack -- Denmark ($3.68), Norway ($3.33) and Canada ($3.01.). In several others they are between $2 and $3, including Sweden ($2.87), the United Kingdom ($2.55)

International investing by Americans is on a roll, and it involves a lot more than just stock mutual funds.Trading in American depositary receipts, which represent individual shares of foreign companies, is setting records. The .. $200 billion in ADR volume in this country last year was 60 percent higher than three years ago.One hundred twenty-four ADRs were introduced in the United States last year to push the total number past 1,200, according to the Bank of New York.The opportunities are intriguing.

Wales is known as the land of the Celts, of vast green meadows and coal mines, of poet Dylan Thomas and actor Richard Burton, and of towns with tongue-torturing names such as Merthyr Tydfil and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrn-drobwllllantysiliogogogoch- no kidding.Raymond Carignan and Barry Bogage are selling a different vision of Wales: It's an image of the land of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Hoover vacuums, Ford automobiles and more Japanese manufacturing investment than in any other country outside of the United States.

LONDON -- Where are you, Albert Pierrepoint, now that they need you?Dead, are you? Well, good news for Tony Teare. With the royal neck-stretcher gone to his reward, that would seem to leave nobody around to do that which Judge Deemster Callow says must be done.Will the shade of Corrine Bently have no rest? Will justice be stood up?Two weeks ago, Judge Callow sentenced Mr. Teare to be hanged by the neck until dead for having murdered Ms. Bently. It was a contract job, for money -- particularly loathsome.

Stock in Giant Food Inc. isn't on many "buy" lists.The Landover-based grocer isn't opening many new stores. Its sales are under attack by Wal-Mart and club warehouses. Its profit margin has shrunk by more than a fourth since 1990. Its share price has never beaten a high set five years ago.J. Sainsbury PLC thinks Giant is a great prospect.Last week, the big British retailer said it will spend $325 million to buy out Giant's co-founding Lehrman family, acquiring a 16 percent ownership stake and half its voting stock, along with three seats on its seven-person board.

Europe is looking forward to a huge influx of Americans this summer, more than last year and perhaps more than in 2000, when a record 13.1 million traveled to Britain, Ireland and the Continent, according to the European Travel Commission. With the euro and the pound a bit weaker against the dollar, Americans might be able to save a few bucks as they tour this summer. What could break the piggy bank, however, are airfares, which are higher. Here, in several nutshells, are some coping tips for Europe-bound travelers.

As Marxism sinks into history, perhaps the bloodiest monster on earth is tribalism. Yugoslavia is a daily-deepening bloodbath. Israelis and Arab Palestinians go on savaging each other. In Sri Lanka, once a paradise of peace, slaughter abounds. And so it goes, across the globe, in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and beyond.Is there a more maddening example of that monster at work than in Northern Ireland? There, about 1 million nominally Protestant people of Scottish or English origin and something more than a half-million predominantly Roman Catholics of Gaelic roots are -- to most outsiders anyway -- indistinguishable in appearance, language and way of life.

The two lacrosse teams lined up across from each other at midfield. But instead of a scrimmage ending with a terse "good game," players from the Hero's Tournament Lacrosse Club and Caterham School taught one another their team cheers. The Caterham Cats - visiting from the United Kingdom - giggled as their American opponents tried to mimic British accents. And so it was Wednesday evening at Old Liberty Park in Sykesville, where the teams played for an hour, then began getting to know one another as a five-day international exchange began.

Mycah Berryman, who has hardly ever left Anne Arundel County, will get to see what life is like beyond the Chesapeake this summer.The eighth-grader at Severn River Junior High School is to spend 22 days traveling in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland as part of the People to People Student Ambassador Program. But before she can fly away, she has to raise $4,000 to pay for the trip and other expenses.Mycah, 13, and her parents began a letter-writing campaign this month to help her raise the money.

Eminently civilized, but not as buttoned-down as England; fanciful, but not as ephemerally as Ireland; witty, but not as barbed as Scotland, Wales has its own buzzwords.Portmeirion Hay-on-Wye Cardiff Castle.These are just three of the whimsical and amazing landmarks you'll find in this part of the British isles that will tickle your fancy in ways you won't find anywhere else. And many of these locations have a man-made wackiness and inventiveness about them that reveal imagination, wit and the occasional sense of sheer lunacy.