Electronic Lockdown

India's President Pratibha Patil's trip to China faced a breach in protocol when her flight was delayed as one of the parliamentarians accompanying her arrived late to the airport. Mr.Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said that he was delayed because he could not understand how to use the electronic key to the executive hotel room he was staying in.

"I was not informed about what time I had to board the plane and I couldn't handle the electronic key to the lift and the room," the former rural development minister said.Official sources said Singh, along with the president and the official delegation, were staying at the super-deluxe Raffles Beijing Hotel where access to restricted VIP floors was through an electronic key that the minister found difficult to handle. 

President Patil was to take the flight at 9 a.m. but was delayed by 20 minutes. Since the special Chinese flight could not take off on time, other flights at the busy Beijing airport also got delayed, officials said.

Superbowl Delay

A New Orleans judge has postponed a trial because he is convinced that everybody in the city will be too distracted by the local American football team's forthcoming performance in the Superbowl championship. Judge Michael Bagneris ordered a delay in a hearing of an asbestos lawsuit until so-called Saintsmania -- local excitement over the Superbowl contenders, the New Orleans Saints -- had died down. "Many prospective jurors for the parish of Orleans, several attorneys involved in this litigation and court personnel plan on travelling to the promised land-the Superbowl in Miami, Florida," the judge wrote in his court order.