[Archive 2007-03-15] Wikinews Shorts: March 15, 2007

Historical archive — originally published 2007-03-15. This report records what was known on that date. It is not current news; subsequent events may have changed the situation. Wikinews closed in May 2026.

12 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be printed by American publisher Scholastic, a record setting number for the first edition of any book.

The immensely popular book series will break Scholastic's previous record first printing, for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which sold 6.9 million copies in its first 24 hours of release.

The Harry Potter characters have appeared on stamps in Australia, the Isle of Man, and Taiwan, as well as numerous smaller nations that depend on stamp sales to foreigners. Canada has issued non-circulation coins of many of the characters, based on the movie actors' appearances.

After launching its Packaging Scorecard initiative on February 1, Wal-Mart has released its first in-store packaging reduction results.

On February 1, Wal-Mart announced that its trying to reduce packaging by 5% as of 2013. Their vendor site has been visited by 2268 companies, and 117 products have been entered into their sustainability calculator. It determines the score based on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions created by production, materials, product-to-packing ratio, and "cube utilization", how space efficient the product can be shipped.

Beyond attracting environmentally conscientious customers, this move will save Wal-Mart USD$3.4 billion over the next five years.

European trading card game-turned-television series Chaotic will air in North America for the first time March 16. Canada's Teletoon animation channel has scheduled the series to appear regularly Sunday mornings.

The series helps viewers learn game strategies for the game. Unlike most card games, kids are encouraged to play virtually; once they purchase a pack, they type in special codes on the cards to access those characters online.

The plot of Card Captors Sakura was based around a card game, while the Pokemon game is a famous spin-off products, based on the series and video game.

Chaotic was also the name of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's reality television series.

Source and licence

Text adapted from Wikinews Shorts: March 15, 2007 by Wikinews contributors under CC BY 2.5. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. Contributor history.