North America

A discovery of microscopic diamonds a few feet beneath the surface of North America reveals that a comet caused a cataclysm of fire, flood and devastation nearly 13,000 years ago that extinguished mammoths and mastodons and dealt a blow to early civilization, scientists said Friday.

For the second time in a year, the Canadian maker of the popular BlackBerry e-mail and phone device suffered a major breakdown Monday that cut off wireless e-mail throughout North and Central America. Research in Motion Ltd. said in a message to corporate customers that a "critical severity outage" left users with no ability to send or receive e-mail messages. The company didn't explain what caused the outage. E-mail service stopped before 1 p.m.

DNA from fossilized human feces found in an Oregon cave is 14,300 years old, at least 1,200 years older than previous evidence for humans in North America, researchers said Thursday. The find provides the strongest evidence in an archaeological controversy about whether people of the Clovis culture, which manufactured distinctive stone tools and weapons, were the first to populate the Americas. The new evidence, reported online in the journal Science, indicates they were not.

Retained by none other than Sir Walter Raleigh, John White first traveled to North America in 1585, landing on the shores of what is now North Carolina. In a series of watercolors, he opened up the New World: Algonquin Indians and their villages, the local flora and fauna. White became, in effect, the eyes of the British empire, influencing how Europe saw the unexplored land.

"Pathfinder" is one of the funniest films of the year. That's not good news for this attempted action-adventure, which clearly lost its way in its own copious fog. The setup is good: One of the Viking expeditions to reach North America hundreds of years before Columbus leaves as its only survivor a 10-year-old boy. The child is raised by Indians, who call him "Ghost," either because of his pale skin or because they know the film will be haunted by cliches from a thousand other movies.

Yahoo Inc. will close its online auction service for North America next month, signaling the Internet powerhouse's intention to focus on more profitable endeavors as it tries to snap out of a financial malaise. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's auctions in the U.S. and Canada will end June 16, although some tools will remain accessible until Oct. 29. The closure won't affect Yahoo's auction services in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

Since West Nile virus began to spread across North America in 1999, it has ravaged seven different bird populations, according to a study published today. Of the 20 species included in the study, American crows were the most affected, declining by as much as 45% in some regions from 1998 to 2005. Populations of American robins, chickadees, Eastern bluebirds, blue jays, tufted titmice and house wrens also dropped, the study said.

Re "The Seven Wonders of the World, 2.0," July 8 With the new "Seven Wonders of the World," there is nothing represented in North America. The No. 1 item is the Great Wall of China. It is 4,000 miles long. May I suggest the "Great Wall of North America." It would be more than 700 miles along the U.S.-Mexican border. It could be the eighth wonder of the world. SCOTT BRYANT \o7Lake Forest \f7

General Motors Corp. is the second U.S. automaker to report surprisingly strong results for the second quarter. GM, the No. 1 U.S. car company, posted its third straight quarterly profit Tuesday, blowing away Wall Street forecasts a week after Ford Motor Co. reported a profit when analysts had expected a loss. Excluding one-time items such as charges related to the bankruptcy of its former auto parts subsidiary Delphi Corp., GM said it earned $2.48 a share.

In 1901, a group of English miners found themselves working in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, several hours by horse and cart from Mexico City. For amusement, they founded a soccer club and named it after the town in which they lived. They called it Pachuca. Now, 106 years later, Pachuca is arguably the best soccer team in North America.