News In Brief

Sleep well, DID WE?

Lifting boxes all day can be tiring. But despite long hours of labor, a United Parcel Service loader learned the hard way why dozing off on a break is a no-no. The man, who worked at the Anchorage, Alaska, airport, apparently fell asleep inside a Boeing 747 filled with packages bound for Asia. Hours later, he awoke over the Pacific Ocean - on his way to Hong Kong. Said a UPS official: "It wasn't like ... the pilot could just turn around." The worker soon returned home. No word on what sort of reception the boss prepared for him.

CALL IT A RETURN ENGAGEMENT

With an Elvis impersonator crooning "Fools Rush In," Las Vegas celebrated its 3 millionth exchange of marriage vows last week. Well, actually, Marlen and Alberto Recio of Miami were invited to tie the knot a second time after the county recorder's office belatedly discovered their first wedding last February had set the milestone. So they tied the knot again in the pink neon "We've Only Just Begun" chapel of the Imperial Palace hotel-casino as other brides and grooms looked on. Las Vegas averages 450 weddings a day.

Retailers, carmakers among most popular places to work

Wal-Mart Stores, the US's largest retailer in terms of annual sales, also has the most employees of any nongovernmental organization - more than 1.2 million, according to a new Financial Times survey. General Motors is a distant second, with 386,000 employees, about one-third as many. The 10 largest US nongovernmental employers, according to the Financial Times:

1. Wal-Mart Stores 1.24 million

2. General Motors 386,000

3. McDonald's 364,000

4. United Parcel Service 359,000

5. Ford Motor Co. 345,991

6. Sears Roebuck 323,000

7. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 316,303

8. General Electric 313,000

9. Kroger 305,000

10. Citigroup 242,000

- Reuters

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Monitor