Canada Switching to Plastic Currency

OTTAWA – Get ready to have a little more plastic in your wallet.

Starting in November, new polymer bank notes will start to replace paper-cotton bills that wear and tear more easily.

The first bills to go plastic will be the $100 notes. The $50 notes will follow next March. The rest of the plastic money will be in circulation by the end of 2013.

The polymer bank notes are more durable than paper money. The Bank of Canada expects the new bills to last 2.5 times longer than the paper ones.

They’re also harder to fake than paper money. Some of the security features built into the new notes include raised ink, hidden numbers and metallic images in see-through windows.

The bills feel smooth and slightly waxy. They don’t crumple easily, but they do crease when you try, and they don’t seem to tear in half.

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USS Carl Vinson may host first NCAA game on aircraft carrier

Hoops games happen all the time on aircraft carriers, but Tuesday officials from the Navy, the NCAA and Morale Entertainment met to discuss staging a major college basketball game on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.

The Carl Vinson has played key roles in the fight against terrorism almost since day one. The ship launched the first wave of air attacks on al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 and most recently it was the ship from which Osama bin Laden was buried at sea.

Now the Carl Vinson is on track to make sports history, as the first ever carrier to host an NCAA basketball game.

The final deal hasn’t been reached, but the plan, being promoted by Morale Entertainment, calls for the Michigan State Spartans to play the University of North Carolina Tar Heels on Veterans Day, November 11, on the top deck of the Carl Vinson at the U.S. Naval Base in San Diego at about 4 p.m. PT.

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