Harry in School (All three of the following paragraphs are from the same article): Elementary school principal Mike Davis made his singing debut Friday in front of an audience of more than 4,000 chanting students and educators at the Lloyd Noble Center… Davis challenged his students to read 1,300 books by the end of February. …read more!

ODEON is drawing up plans to issue cinema bonds as part of a £300m refinancing of the country’s biggest cinema business on the back of a boom in box office spend. Cinema operators are confident that a strong release schedule over the next year will continue to drive increased audiences. Kobayashi points to the domination …read more!

An odd snippet from The Times: “The popularity of Harry Potter books has led to a wave of owl thefts, presumably because of the boy wizard’s pet owl, Hedwig. Paula Bilsby, general manager of Exotic Direct, a specialist pet insurer, says: “Lots of owls have gone missing since Harry Potter stories appeared.” Er… how do …read more!

It was Potter mania all over Pune on Friday, as kids thronged Alka talkies to make it for the first day first show that got all sold out in the first hour itself! Trafalgar Tours is offering two specialized eight-day tours this year, including a Best of Holland visit to the Floriade horticultural exhibition. The …read more!

John Hurt (Mr. Ollivander) will take the stage at this year’s Spoleto Festival U.S.A. (Charleston, S.C.), appearing in the American premiere of “Afterplay” by Irish playwright Brian Friel. As the DVD release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone draws ever closer it seems inevitable that discs relating to the Harry Potter phenomenon would appear. …read more!

An original prop from the first Harry Potter film is to be put up for auction by a kind-hearted teenager who has been doing charity work since she was at nursery school. (Thanks to TWW for the head’s-up.)

In the land of fantastic “skazky,” the popular Russian fairy tales, Harry Potter has found himself a comfortable niche. The film “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” has drawn unprecedented audiences to Russian movie theaters, breaking national records not seen since mega-productions “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.”

Ain’t It Cool News has a report from a source on the set of Chamber of Secrets. (Thanks to TWW for the link.) If they could, a small group of Puebloans would like to make the mystical Harry Potter books disappear from District 60 schools. Led by the Rev. Cheryl Hernandez of Highest Praise Fellowship, …read more!

The Flying Scotsman will pull the Orient Express into Oxford on Sunday to launch a series of literary tours. The steam train will arrive at noon, from London Victoria, with about 100 passengers. The tour party will be taken to Christ Church, in St Aldate’s, to see the haunts of Alice in Wonderland author and …read more!

Thanks the multiple readers that sent this in: Countingdown.com has posted a link to Sunday Express article which confirmed that Zoe Wanamaker is out of Harry Potter 2. [If anyone was wondering why this wasn’t posted a week ago, it’s because it was not confirmed]