No matter if children are naughty or nice, they won't get a reply from Santa this year, as the US Postal Service has blocked mail to a tiny Alaska town that answered Christmas letters for decades. Since 1954, thousands of volunteers in the Christmas-crazy town of North Pole have run the heart-warming tradition of replying to letters addressed "Santa ...

The 2010 Vancouver Olympics torch relay, already the longest in Games history, will break another record on Sunday when it visits the North Pole. The torch will be carried across Inuit territory by 22 runners to Alert, the Canadian army and weather station which is also the world's northernmost, permanently-inhabited site. The torch, specially-built to resist temparatures of minus-50 ...

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday. Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short ...