People

Meagan Duhamel packs her suitcases for competitions like she’s about to board a boat for a desert island.
Among her skating dresses and track suits she’ll tuck carefully wrapped cartons of almond milk, homemade bread, and enough nuts and seeds to satisfy a family of squirrels.
It’s not easy being a “Skinny Bitch.”
“It does make my luggage very heavy,” Duhamel said, laughing.

LONDON — Prince Charles led ceremonies Tuesday to mark the 200th birthday of novelist Charles Dickens — a writer as popular today as he was during his lifetime.
The heir to the British throne laid a wreath on the writer’s grave in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner, in front of an audience containing dozens of Dickens’ descendants.

MONTREAL — Spanking, yelling at, or shaking children could tend to make them more aggressive toward others, a review of 20 years of studies into physical punishment says.
Researchers say in an article published Monday that children who are physically punished tend to be more aggressive toward their parents, siblings, friends and, later, their spouse.

LONDON — Tributes poured in to Queen Elizabeth II on Monday as she marked 60 years on the throne with a message vowing to continue serving the British people.

WAYNESBURG, Pa. — Police say a woman who appeared to not have any teeth in surveillance photos from a bank robbery last month has confessed, apologized and said she planned the heist because she needed the money for dentures.
-nine-year-old Evelyn Marie Fuller was arrested Tuesday by police in Pennsylvania, where she’s charged with robbing a First National Bank on Jan. 20.

LONDON — Prince Harry will combine sports, military exercises and meetings with school children and locals on his first-ever trip as an official representative of Queen Elizabeth II, palace officials said Wednesday.

LONDON — Britain’s Prince Harry says be believes the Queen’s husband is so important to her that she could not carry out her public duties without him.

TAMPA, Fla. — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid about $3 million in federal income taxes in 2010, having earned more than seven times that from his investments. Those earnings, $21.7 million, put him among the wealthiest of American taxpayers.

WASHINGTON — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona announced Sunday she intends to resign from Congress this week to concentrate on recovering from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt a little more than a year ago that shook the country.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — British adventurer Felicity Aston completed her crossing of Antarctica on Monday, becoming the first woman to ski across the icy continent alone.
She did it in 59 days, pulling two sledges for 1,084 miles (1,744 kilometres) from her starting point on the Leverett Glacier on Nov. 25.