Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN -- Northern European countries have never been terribly tantalizing destinations for the food-obsessed voyager. When you think of the Continent's gastronomic hotbeds, a list of destinations always crops up, and Copenhagen isn't on it. Two Danes in Copenhagen, a city much better known for hot dogs and Hans Christian Andersen than top-flight food and drink, are working on the problem. A product-based food movement called New Nordic may be about to pick up the torch from Spanish chef Ferran Adrià of restaurant El Bulli and run in a new direction.

Danish shipper and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk says first quarter earnings of 8.5 billion kroner ($1.5 billion) were unsatisfactory and the result of low rates in the container and tanker markets. The world's largest container shipping company says revenues for the three-month period amounted to 81.2 billion kroner ($14 billion), up from 79.1 billion in the same period a year earlier. First quarter earnings a year ago were much higher at 15 billion kroner. CEO Nils S. Andersen said Wednesday that the company was attempting to increase container rates and that efforts "were paying off. " ...

Kathleen Keating is spending her junior year at Wellesley College studying child psychology in Copenhagen, where she has come to appreciate Danish hot dog stands and free university education. ONE NATION LEFT BEHIND: "Danish students work harder. Their level and quality of education starting from elementary school is much higher than the quality in the US. They take their work as seriously, maybe more seriously than we do. " SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT: "The Danes don't pay for school and university, and they get a $900 allowance every year.

COPENHAGEN - Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller, owner of the world's largest container-shipping company and the richest man in Denmark, has died. "On behalf of the whole family I wish to express our deepest sorrow at the loss of our father, grandfather, and great grandfather," his daughter Ane Maersk Mc-Kinney Uggla said in a statement to the Copenhagen stock exchange Monday. "My sisters and I have lost a father who never failed, neither his family nor his business. " Mr. Mc-Kinney Moeller, 98, ran Copenhagen-based A.P. Moeller-Maersk for 38 years before stepping down as chairman...

How to get there The lowest round-trip airfare between Boston and Copenhagen at press time was $521 on Icelandair. What to do HCA2005 www.hca2005.com A yearlong national celebration of the life and work of Hans Christian Andersen. Details are on the website. VisitDenmark www.visitdenmark.com The Danish tourist office. Where to Stay 71 Nyhavn Hotel 71 Nyhavn, Copenhagen 011-45-33-43-62-00 www.71nyhavnhotelcopenhagen.dk A boutique hotel in an atmospheric old neighborhood.

COPENHAGEN -- The romance began in a bar, and tomorrow it will bring this city to a standstill. Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark is marrying Mary Donaldson, an Australian, in a union of blue-blood and commoner that is typical of royal marriages in Europe today, but is still guaranteed, weather permitting, to put on a sumptuous Old World spectacle. Donaldson was a project consultant for a Microsoft subsidiary before quitting to marry Frederik, the heir to Europe's oldest throne.

knaekbrod SAKSKOBING, Denmark - More and more travelers are lured to Denmark today - where the streets are said to be paved with sea buckthorn, lumpfish roe, and ramson leaves - by the promise of new Nordic cuisine. Getting a reservation at any of the hottest new Copenhagen restaurants is about as easy as pronouncing the Danish vowels in their names. For those willing to go off the beaten path, there's a delicious reward. In the quaint, middle-of-absolutely-nowhere town called Sakskobing, a two-hour train ride (with one connection)

COPENHAGEN -- Even though I travel a lot, I'm a homebody at heart. So is my Danish friend Trine. She's an artist, and her current work involves photographing small things around her apartment. Actually, that's not completely accurate. Lately she's ventured out into her apartment building's courtyard. Trine was my guide on a recent visit to Copenhagen in which a kind of homebody-ness seemed a wonderful virtue. That's because, more than anything else, she wanted me to experience the Danish state of being called "hygge" (pronounced sort of like "hooga" if you form your mouth for...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Earlier this summer, I was eating lunch at the current No. 1-ranked restaurant in the world, and my appetizer was moving. Not a whole lot - perhaps slowed by its crushed ice bed, inside the covered Mason jar it had arrived in. I shouldn't have been that surprised. The server did introduce the dish as "very, very, very, very fresh" fiord shrimp. Was the head flavorful and the tail creamy, as the server promised? Was the accompanying brown butter emulsion the perfect foil?

Authorities say heavy rains have flooded hundreds of homes and several streets in Denmark’s capital, disrupting traffic and delaying trains. Jeppe Ilkjaer, a spokesman for the rescue services company Falck, says his organization has received calls from more than 1,000 home owners in Copenhagen whose cellars have been flooded following the rains late Saturday. The Danish Road Directorate says the floods have forced it to close four major freeways surrounding the city Sunday and have delayed trains in the region.

COPENHAGEN - Four men charged with plotting a terror attack in Denmark were probably targeting an event that the crown prince was attending to retaliate for newspapers publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, prosecutors said. At the start of a trial Friday, prosecutors said evidence suggests the four men - three Swedish citizens and one Swedish resident - were planning a shooting spree at a newspaper building in Denmark during an annual sports award ceremony in December 2010.

Hans L. Martensen, 84, Denmark's 2d Catholic bishop COPENHAGEN - Bishop Hans Ludvig Martensen, who led Denmark's Catholic diocese for 30 years, has died. He was 84. Denmark's Catholic Church said Bishop Martensen died Tuesday in Copenhagen. The cause of death was not given. Ordained in 1956, Bishop Martensen served in the position from 1965 to 1995, when he retired. He became Denmark's second Catholic bishop since the Scandinavian country became a diocese in 1953.

COPENHAGEN - Danish prosecutors yesterday charged four people with terrorism for allegedly planning a shooting attack on a newspaper that had printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The four men - Swedes living in Denmark - wanted "to seriously frighten the population" and destabilize Denmark by planning a shooting spree inside the Copenhagen offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, said Denmark's top prosecutor, Svend Ulrik Larsen. Larsen said the group traveled to Copenhagen with arms and ammunition, aiming to kill "a larger number of people.

COPENHAGEN - Danish trombonist and bandleader Arne Bue Jensen, known as Papa Bue, has died. He was 81. Mr. Jensen's son, Theis Bue Jensen, said his father died Wednesday in his Copenhagen home after being bedridden for several months, including with pneumonia. Mr. Jensen was chiefly associated with Dixieland jazz. He led his own New Orleans Jazz Band and later the Papa Bue Viking Jazz Band, the only non-American ensemble to play at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1969. He made dozens of recordings, including with New Orleans jazz legend George Lewis.

COPENHAGEN - The smorrebrod are presented on a polished board: glistening cured salmon topped with shredded cabbage, feathery fennel fronds, and rye bread crumbs crisped in butter; pale gold potatoes flecked with spices, topped with crunchy white onion rings, paper-thin radish slices, and crumbled bacon. "Lunch is where we Danish really have something to offer," says Adam Aamann, chef-owner of Aamanns Smorrebrodsdeli in the Osterbro neighborhood. These smorrebrod, the open sandwiches that are the signature Danish lunch, are on a different plane than ordinary bread topped...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Earlier this summer, I was eating lunch at the current No. 1-ranked restaurant in the world, and my appetizer was moving. Not a whole lot - perhaps slowed by its crushed ice bed, inside the covered Mason jar it had arrived in. I shouldn't have been that surprised. The server did introduce the dish as "very, very, very, very fresh" fiord shrimp. Was the head flavorful and the tail creamy, as the server promised? Was the accompanying brown butter emulsion the perfect foil?

COPENHAGEN - Danish trombonist and bandleader Arne Bue Jensen, known as Papa Bue, has died. He was 81. Mr. Jensen's son, Theis Bue Jensen, said his father died Wednesday in his Copenhagen home after being bedridden for several months, including with pneumonia. Mr. Jensen was chiefly associated with Dixieland jazz. He led his own New Orleans Jazz Band and later the Papa Bue Viking Jazz Band, the only non-American ensemble to play at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in 1969. He made dozens of recordings, including with New Orleans jazz legend George Lewis.

COPENHAGEN - Danish prosecutors yesterday charged four people with terrorism for allegedly planning a shooting attack on a newspaper that had printed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The four men - Swedes living in Denmark - wanted "to seriously frighten the population" and destabilize Denmark by planning a shooting spree inside the Copenhagen offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, said Denmark's top prosecutor, Svend Ulrik Larsen. Larsen said the group traveled to Copenhagen with arms and ammunition, aiming to kill "a larger number of people.

COPENHAGEN - A Danish yachting family held hostage by Somali pirates for more than six months has been released and is returning home after enduring "the most horrible ordeal one can imagine," government officials said. Jan Quist Johansen, his wife, Birgit Marie, and their three teenage children were captured along with two Danish crew members on Feb. 24 as their 43-foot yacht was seized by pirates in the Indian Ocean. All seven were released Tuesday, said Charlotte Slente, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

knaekbrod SAKSKOBING, Denmark - More and more travelers are lured to Denmark today - where the streets are said to be paved with sea buckthorn, lumpfish roe, and ramson leaves - by the promise of new Nordic cuisine. Getting a reservation at any of the hottest new Copenhagen restaurants is about as easy as pronouncing the Danish vowels in their names. For those willing to go off the beaten path, there's a delicious reward. In the quaint, middle-of-absolutely-nowhere town called Sakskobing, a two-hour train ride (with one connection)