The Christian Science Monitor, March 31, 2006 Newseum Image

March 31, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Christian Science Monitor:

Jill Carroll: finally free

By DAN MURPHY and SCOTT PETERSON 

CAIRO AND BAGHDAD -- Katie Carroll went from a deep sleep to instantly awake when she saw the Iraq country code on her caller ID.

She grabbed the phone. It was 5:45 a.m. and the ringing heralded the news about her twin sister, Jill, who had been held hostage in Iraq for nearly three months. "Katie, it's me," said the voice on the other end of the line. "I'm free."

It was Jill herself, safe after 82 days.

"Then she burst into tears and I did, too,'' says Katie.

Journalist Jill Carroll was freed in Baghdad Thursday ending a period of captivity marked by an enormous global outpouring of support and calls for her release.

"I'm just really grateful. The overwhelming emotion is gratitude. I am glad this day has arrived and thank whatever forces, divine and otherwise, that helped bring about this day," says Jill.
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The Washington Post, March 30, 2006 Newseum Image

March 30, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Washington Post:

Abramoff Is Sentenced For Casino Boat Fraud

By PETER WHORISKEY and WILLIAM BRANIGIN  

MIAMI -- Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful Washington lobbyist whose downfall has propelled a far-reaching congressional corruption investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to five years and 10 months in prison for his role in the fraudulent purchase of a fleet of casino cruise boats.

U.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck sentenced Abramoff, 47, and his former partner Adam Kidan, 41, to the shortest possible prison terms under sentencing guidelines after prosecutors affirmed that both men have been aiding the ongoing investigations and had expressed remorse. Abramoff's attorneys said he has reviewed "thousands of documents" in the inquiry, which could reach members of Congress, congressional staff members and employees of federal agencies, including the Interior Department.
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Maariv, March 29, 2006 Newseum Image

The Tel-Aviv, Israel newspaper, Maaariv, reports on acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party win in yesterday's election.

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Diario do Comercio, March 28, 2006 Newseum Image

March 28, 2006: Here is a headline about the resignation of Brazil's finance minister Antonio Palocci. The story comes from Sao Paulo, Brazil's Diario do Comercio.  (You may need to use a language translation site.)

CAI MAIS UM PILAR DO GOVERNO. MANTEGA É O SUBSTITUTO DE PALOCCI

"Nao vou colocar sujeira embaixo do tapete (sobre a possibilidade de preservar Palocci)."
Jorge Mattoso, da Caixa
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El Diario, March 27, 2006 Newseum Image

March 27, 2006: This excerpt deals with a recent immigration protest. The story comes from New York City's El Diario. (You may need to use a language translation site.)

Inmigrantes protestan en calles de Manhattan   

By JAVIER CASTANO

NUEVA YORK -- Los inmigrantes de la ciudad de Nueva York se estan calentando y tienen la bendicion de la iglesia. "Si firman la ley antiimigrante, sera el cuchillo de su propia garganta", dijo ayer el pastor Luis E. Espinosa en la Iglesia Presbiteriana Fort George.
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Star-Ledger, March 24, 2006 Newseum Image

March 24, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger:  

With a 'Have you heard?' friends share grief

By BRAD PARKS and NAWAL QAROONI

At the gated community called the Ponds, Marvin and Shirley Bier, Marian Diamond, Hans and Maria Eggers, Arthur and Frieda Kovar, Barbara and Robert Rubin and Carole Ruchelman aren't just names on a list.

They're neighbors, friends, members of the book club, Italian-American Club. They're fellow splashers in the water aerobics class.

"One of the blessed things about living here is that we all know each other," resident Mickey MacDonald said. "But right now that means we've all lost a friend."

Ten residents of the Ponds died together Wednesday, along with two other sightseers, when their tour bus ran off a mountain road in Chile.
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El Mundo, March 23, 2006 Newseum Image

March 23, 2006: Here is a headline from the Madrid, Spain newspaper, El Mundo, about the Basque separatist group ETA's declaration of a permanent cease-fire. (You may need to use a language translation site.)

ETA declara un 'alto el fuego permanente' para conseguir la autodeterminacion
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Asahi Shimbun, March 22, 2006 Newseum Image

March 22, 2006: The Tokyo, Japan newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, reports on their country's win over Cuba in the World Baseball Classic final. Here is an excerpt from a story on their english language Web site:

WORLD CHAMPIONS!

By ROB SMAAL

World Baseball Classic: Japan 10, Cuba 6

SAN DIEGO -- National honor restored, and then some!

After a dismal showing at the recent Turin Winter Olympics, Japan's baseball team did the nation proud Monday, beating Cuba 10-6 in the final of the inaugural World Baseball Classic.
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Townsville Bulletin, March 21, 2006 Newseum Image

March 21, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Townsville (Australia) Bulletin:

Like a 'war zone'

By DANIEL BATEMAN

North Queensland's community leaders described scenes of total devastation in the wake of Cyclone Larry yesterday.

In Innisfail, the worst-hit area, Kennedy MP Bob Katter described the town and its surrounds as 'a war zone'.

"It's not much less than horrific. Everywhere you look here there's towers tumbled over, there's roofs off, there's trees uprooted, smashed windows and buildings," Mr Katter said.
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San Antonio Express-News, March 20, 2006 Newseum Image

March 20, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the San Antonio Express-News:

Iraq Boils, 3 years Later

FROM WIRE REPORTS

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Clashes between U.S. forces and suspected insurgents -- and fresh allegations of American troops killing Iraqi noncombatants -- marked the third anniversary Sunday of the start of the 2003 American-led Gulf War II. 

President Bush marked the anniversary by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence that rages three years after he ordered the invasion.

The president didn't utter the word "war."

The war began on March 19, 2003, Washington time -- early morning March 20 in Baghdad -- when Bush authorized an early strike by U.S. fighter-bombers and offshore Tomahawk cruise missiles on a Baghdad bunker where Saddam Hussein was reported to be sleeping.
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International Herald Tribune, March 19, 2006 Newseum Image

March 19, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Paris edition of the International Herald Tribune:

For Serbia, a death that transforms -- but how? 

By NICHOLAS WOOD

BELGRADE -- With Slobodan Milosevic being buried this weekend, the vision that he used to propel himself to power also appears to be dead.
 
The idea, exploited to his own ends, was a Greater Serbia, which would unite Serbs across a crumbling Yugoslavia. But the Serb-inhabited areas in Bosnia and Croatia are long separated from the government in Belgrade after the deaths of close to 250,000 in the Balkan wars in the 1990s. And now, possibly by year's end, two other parts of Serbia -- Montenegro and Kosovo -- will probably be severed.
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Chicago Sun-Times, March 17, 2006 Newseum Image

March 17, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Chicago Sun-Times:

A round-the-clock rush of St. Patrick's Day fun

By MISHA DAVENPORT

Chances are, if you're like me, you're waking up today after eight days of celebrating your Irishness.

Though the official parades have literally passed you by -- St. Patrick's Day merriment isn't over. There's still plenty of opportunity for some good craic (Irish for a good time). A timeline for how to spend the day:

9 a.m.

After sleeping in late, get up, shower and put something green on. Any other color with the green is fine, except orange. Do not under any circumstance wear orange on St. Patrick's Day (I make an exception, of course, for my orange hair).
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The State Journal Register, March 16, 2006 Newseum Image

March 16, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Springfield, Illinois, State Journal Register:  

After the Storm
Still looking for light
Electricity is all some need to recover

By SARAH ANTONACCI

Tracee Simmons' apartment in the 2200 block of East Laurel Street escaped Sunday's tornadoes virtually unscathed. But her life has been turned upside down nonetheless.

The daily challenges are stacking up. She relies on family members to take in her, her mother, and Tracee's 6-year-old daughter and 5-month-old baby at night. She runs back and forth to her house to get bottles and clothes. She has the added expense of eating out, and she's had to keep lots of gas in the car. Simmons is ready for things to get back to normal.
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Dose, March 15, 2006 Newseum Image

March 15, 2006: An excerpt from a story in Toronto's Dose:

Google Fights the Law

Seek, and ye shall be found out. That's the gist of a move by a U.S. federal judge yesterday to support the Justice Department's demand that Google Inc. turn over data on its users' search habits.

"It is my intent to grant some relief to the government," said Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in a hearing on whether Google must comply to a subpoena demanding the information.

Washington had originally sought data on millions of search requests, but scaled back its request to a random selection of 50,000 web addresses in Google's index and 5,000 search queries.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 14, 2006 Newseum Image

March 14, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

It's back to bidding for city's papers

By JOSEPH N. DISTEFANO and THOMAS GINSBERG 

The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and 10 other Knight Ridder Inc. papers are back on the auction block, with a Colorado media mogul, a national journalists' union, and some hometown hopefuls among the potential bidders.

Other bidders could yet emerge after McClatchy Co., of Sacramento, Calif., said it would break up the 32-paper Knight Ridder chain that it agreed on Sunday to buy for $67.25 a share, or $4.5 billion in cash and stock plus $2.0 billion in assumed debt.

Newspaper officials and analysts cautioned that months of negotiation and uncertainty could lie ahead for readers and employees of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., the Knight Ridder subsidiary that publishes the region's dominant newspapers, the philly.com Web site, and several community newspapers.

"It's been a very tumultuous time," Inquirer executive editor Amanda Bennett said to Inquirer staff members yesterday. "We've all felt the effects of the uncertainty, and, unfortunately, we're going to have to deal with that uncertainty a little longer."
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Akron Beacon Journal, March 14, 2006 Newseum Image

March 14, 2006: An excerpt from a story in the Akron Beacon Journal:

Knight Ridder has its own branch on Beacon journalist's family tree

By MARY ETHRIDGE 

When the executives of Knight Ridder and the Akron Beacon Journal handed out fact sheets about the sale of our company at a meeting Monday morning, I couldn't think. I just felt. And I felt miserable.

While the suits outlined facts about 401(k) plans, pensions and stock options in a corner of the Beacon Journal building, my mind tuned it all out. I turned back to my toddler years when I first visited my father's office at the Detroit Free Press, which at that time was a Knight Newspaper.

I remember the clack of the Teletype machines, the cups of blue pencils, stacks of paper and the sense of purpose there that seeped into my pores.

Knight Ridder has been a part of my life for 45 of my 46 years.
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San Jose Mercury News, March 13, 2006 Newseum Image

March 13, 2006: An excerpt from an updated story in the San Jose Mercury News:

Knight Ridder sold to McClatchy

By PETE CAREY 

McClatchy Co. announced today that it will acquire Knight-Ridder for approximately $6.5 billion, and plans to sell 12 of the San Jose newspaper company's 32 papers, including the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times.

The deal was valued at $67.25 a share -- $40 of that in cash and the rest in McClatchy shares. The Sacramento-based company is also assuming $2 billion in Knight Ridder debt.

McClatchy chief executive Gary Pruitt called the deal "a vote of confidence in the newspaper industry."

Tony Ridder, charman and chief executive of Knight Ridder, called the deal a good outcome for shareholders and said he is glad the period of uncertainty that began when a dissident shareholder forced Knight Ridder to offer itself for sale is over for many of the company's employees.
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The Baltimore Sun, March 10, 2006 Newseum Image

March 10, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Baltimore Sun:

Dubai firm to shed stake in U.S. ports

By GWYNETH K. SHAW and JULIE HIRSCHFELF DAVIS 
 
WASHINGTON -- Bowing to extreme public and political pressure, a United Arab Emirates company said yesterday that it would give up its management stake in U.S. seaports, including Baltimore's, rather than continue to fight what increasingly appeared to be a lost battle.

For more than three weeks, the pending sale of British-owned Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. to state-owned Dubai Ports World has generated controversy, splitting many congressional Republicans -- especially in the House of Representatives -- from President Bush, who had said repeatedly that he supported the deal.
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The Birmingham News, March 9, 2006 Newseum Image

March 9, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Birmingham News:

3 set church fires as joke, agents say

By CAROL ROBINSON and VAL WALTON

Three Birmingham college students charged in a spree of church burnings set the first two fires at rural Baptist churches "as a joke" and, thrilled by the sound of firetrucks, torched three more, investigators say.

Four days later, on Feb. 7, four more churches were burned in an attempt to distract investigators, a federal complaint says.

Russell Lee DeBusk Jr., 19, of Hoover and Benjamin Nathan Moseley, 19, of Grayson Valley, both students at Methodist-affiliated Birmingham-Southern College, were arrested early Wednesday at the college campus and are being held in federal custody without bond.
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The Wichita Eagle, March 8, 2006 Newseum Image

March 8, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Wichita Eagle: 

An Icon, A Pioneer
Gordon Parks 1912-2006

"He excelled in photography, movie directing, movie score writing, autobiographies, poetry, painting, and the list goes on and on. What drove him was the fear of failure."
John Edgar Tidwell, Associate professor of English at the University of Kansas

By BECCY TANNER and CHRISTINA M. WOODS

Gordon Parks, who rose from extreme poverty and segregation in Fort Scott to become one of the nation's most distinguished artistic icons, died Tuesday in his apartment in New York City.

He was 93.

"We've lost a fantastic person, and I just hope that we're all better for him being here," said Wichita architect Charles McAfee, a close friend of Mr. Parks.
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Argus Leader, March 7, 2006 Newseum Image

March 7, 2006: An excerpt from a story in Sioux Falls, South Dakota's Argus Leader:

Governor signs abortion ban

By TERRY WOSTER and NESTOR RAMOS

PIERRE -- Gov. Mike Rounds signed a bill Monday making nearly all abortions illegal and putting South Dakota at the top of a short list of states challenging the 30-year-old law of the land.

The bill flies in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade and is almost certain to be challenged in what could be a long and expensive federal lawsuit or a direct referendum at the polls.
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The Orange County Register, March 6, 2006 Newseum Image

March 6, 2006: An excerpt from a story in California's Orange County Register:

Spreading the wealth

The Academy Awards did not play favorites Sunday night, giving no more than three Oscars to any one movie and parceling out the top six categories to six films -- only the third time that has happened in the past 70 years and the first since 1956.  The ensemble drama "Crash" and the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain" shared the lead in total awards with bigger-budget projects "King Kong" and "Memoirs of a Geisha," with the last two winning only in technical categories.
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The Wall Street Journal Asia, March 3, 2006 Newseum Image

March 3, 2006: An excerpt from a story in Hong Kong, China's  Wall Street Journal Asia:

India and U.S. finalize landmark nuclear accord
Pact and trade deals also aim to broaden often tense relations

By JOHN D. MCKINNON and JOHN LARKIN

U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sealed a landmark nuclear deal and a range of trade and other cooperation agreements meant to greatly broaden the often tense relations between the remaining superpower and the world's most populous democracy.
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The Telegraph, March 2, 2006 Newseum Image

March 2, 2006: An excerpt from a story in Calcutta, India's newspaper, The Telegraph:

Long night of nuke talks

New Delhi -- President George W. Bush landed here just before 8 pm and launched into some vigorous pumping of hands with Manmohan Singh who was also subjected to rounds of back-thumping.

From the evidence of bonhomie, at least on the American leader's part -- the Prime Minister also broke protocol to receive his guest at the airport -- it appeared the nuclear deal had been done.

But it was not so as delegations from the two sides worked into the night to smooth the crimps.
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The Times-Picayune, March 1, 2006 Newseum Image

March 1, 2006: An excerpt from a story in The Times-Picayune:

Rolling with the Punches
Battered and bruised, New Orleans puts on a show for the world

By STEVE RITEA

The battered, bruised Big Easy proved no amount of floodwater could dampen its spirit on Fat Tuesday, as healthy crowds lined parade routes and Katrina-themed costumes brought satire to new heights in the French Quarter.