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In Old England Christmas was a Religious Observance, gifts were given on Boxing Day, the Feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian to give his life for the Faith. So for our English, NZ, Canucitanians, Ozites, and parinoid Irishers out there, Happy St. Stephans Day.

WISH AN American a happy Boxing Day. He might look at you warily and put up his dukes. Or he says: "Isn't the Kawashima-Navarro fight next week?" (Yes, in Tokyo.) But Boxing Day has nil to do with boxing. Unless you still celebrate Jack Johnson beating Tommy Burns for the world heavyweight crown. In 1908. Nor does it celebrate the gift boxes scattered all over your living room floor. Or the ones you're returning to the Bay. Appearances aside, it does not celebrate shopping. Otherwise, it would be Bag Day. Or Shopping Cart Day. Or Gawdwhatalineup Day. So why do...

'I don't know who taught him to fly, but they didn't tell him to check the gas'. A 25-year-old man is facing several charges after his plane, reported stolen from an airfield in Maine, crashed into a Montérégie field yesterday morning. The man, a Livingston, Me., resident, suffered only minor injuries in the accident. He had been flying a Cessna without a pilot's licence or flight training, said Constable Manon Gaignard of the Sûreté du Québec. For unknown reasons, the man left a private airport, near Turner, Me., about 6:30 a.m., running out of gas three hours later above St....