When schools become academies, they become semi-independent and outside of local authority control.

BBC: Education & Family

Sip a well-balanced IPA, an organic aged porter, or a semi-sweet cider while listening to some live local music.

BBC: A craft beer road trip in America��s northeast

Their new 12-day trek is not a cushy luxury trip, but rather a high-altitude hiking adventure and a cultural adventure, since guests spend their nights camping in tents or staying in the homes of local villagers, including the semi-nomadic Merak people, who hold deep animist beliefs and make their living herding sheep.

FORBES: Trekking in Bhutan

Staff at a local hospital treated the injured outside the semi-collapsed building as bodies of the dead lay in makeshift morgues.

CNN: Hundreds still missing in aftermath of Indonesia quakes

The only bit of semi-good news for Wisconsin taxpayers is that state and local bureaucrats are not as lavishly over-compensated as federal bureaucrats.

FORBES: The Chart That Tells You Everything You Need to Know About Whether Public Workers Are Over-Compensated

Local radio stations will offer commentary on qualifying games, with the semi-finals to be broadcast on 5 Live Sports Extra and the final on the main Radio 5 Live network.

BBC: Crash bang cricket nets sponsors

The scheme has been welcomed by local residents, including 55-year-old Irene Hogg who lives in a Victorian semi in Maghull which was once home to legendary toy-maker Frank Hornby.

BBC: News | Entertainment | Blue plaque to honour Lennon

The backstory: since the 1970s the Land and Water Conservation Fund (which, only semi-ironically, gets its money from federal royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling) has given money to local governments for parks.

FORBES: Leslie Knope, Call Your Office