news server does not respond

Hi,

what's up with the news server? My reader can't connect since yesterday
evening (MESZ, UTC+2). Telnetting gives:

markus(at)macbook:~$ telnet news.postgresql.org nntp
Trying 200.46.204.72...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

A note about my current NNTP experience: I'm just about to switch back
to emails again because it seems more convenient to have it all in one
IMAP account with multiple folders. Especially when hopping between
different machines I've noticed it's better to use IMAP, which stores
what I have read on the server. The downside of course is having all the
mails on the server and having huge IMAP folders (i.e. for -hackers).

Is there something that stores flags (seen, responded, important, etc..)
for newsgroups on the server? Probably a NNTP to IMAP gateway, that
would at least solve problem no. 1 above...

Regards

Markus