"Death on the Rock" was a 1988 British television documentary produced by Thames Television as part of the current affairs series This Week on ITV. It examined the shooting deaths of three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members by the British Special Air Service in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The series' editor, Roger Bolton, had dispatched journalists to Gibraltar and Spain to interview witnesses to the shootings and Spanish police officers who had surveilled the IRA team. The documentary presented evidence that the team were unarmed, and were shot without warning or while attempting to surrender. The British government denounced the programme, and Geoffrey Howe, the foreign secretary, tried to get the broadcast postponed by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. An independent inquiry, the Windlesham–Rampton report, found that the documentary was made in "good faith and without ulterior motives". It was praised within the television industry and won that year's BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. (Full article...)
... that Bobby Egan, the owner of a New Jersey roadside barbecue restaurant, has been criticized for participating in diplomatic negotiations between North Korea and the United States?
... that a tiny embryonic skeleton found inside the fossil dinosaur eggContinuoolithus died approximately 8 to 10 days into development, making it the youngest fossil vertebrate ever discovered?
In the news
The Leekfrith torcs
Scientists announce the discovery of possible microfossils within rocks dated between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years old from Northern Quebec, Canada, potentially making them the oldest known fossils of life on Earth.
The discovery of the Leekfrith torcs(pictured), believed to be the oldest Iron Age gold jewellery found in Britain, is announced.
Mahanoy Creek looking downstream, below all its named tributaries
There are eleven officially named tributaries of Mahanoy Creek, a 51-mile-long (82 km) tributary of the Susquehanna River in Schuylkill County and Northumberland County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. Of these, six are direct tributaries and five are sub-tributaries. These include seven creeks and four runs. The largest tributary by both length and watershed area is Schwaben Creek, which is 10.7 miles (17.2 km) long and drains an area of 30.2 square miles (78 km2). The second-largest by these measures is Zerbe Run, which is 8.3 miles (13.4 km) long and drains an area of 13.1 square miles (34 km2). Many of the tributaries of Mahanoy Creek have been impacted by mining, including Zerbe Run, Shenandoah Creek, and North Mahanoy Creek. Schwaben Creek and Little Mahanoy Creek are the only large tributaries that are not affected by mining. Many of the upper tributaries are in the Western Middle Anthracite Field. In March 2001, the pH ranged from 4.7 for Lost Creek to 8.4 for Schwaben Creek. Some streams were downstream of abandoned mine drainage discharges accounting for their acidity. (Full list...)
