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Iditarod 2023: Co-founder's Grandson Wins
March 16, 2023
Ryan Redington won the 2023 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, finishing in 8 days, 21 hours, 12 minutes, and 58 seconds. It was a close finish, as Redington edged out 2019 winner Pete Kaiser by an hour and 24 minutes. Coming in third was Richie Diehl, a further hour behind. Redington mushed on ahead when Kaiser rested at the Elim checkpoint, putting him in to the next checkpoint, White Mountain, with a four-hour lead. In the end, it was more than enough. Redington's grandfather Joe Redington was one of the founders of the iconic adventure race.
Chiefs Cap Super Bowl Comeback with 38–35 Victory
February 12, 2023
The Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl LVII, defeating the Philadelphia Eagles 38#8211;35 on a 27-yard field goal by Harrison Butker with 11 seconds remaining. Chiefs Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, playing on an injured ankle, directed a drive all the way down the field, pulling off a 26-yard scamper of his own at one point to get his team in field goal range. Then, after winding down the clock, the team turned over to Butker, who had missed a 42-yard attempt earlier in the game. Mahomes was named the Super Bowl MVP. He was 21-of-27 passing for 182 yards and three touchdowns. He threw no interceptions. In defeat, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts scored four touchdowns, three rushing and one passing. The Eagles led 24–14 at the half.
Team Fluff Repeats as Puppy Bowl Champs
February 12, 2023
In an extremely close battle, Team Fluff repeated as Puppy Bowl champions, winning the 2022 edition by defeating Team Ruff 87–83 and winning the Lombarky Trophy. The Most Valuable Pup was Pickle, a Pomeranian (right), who scored his team's first two touchdowns. For the first time ever, the Puppy Bowl went into overtime. Team Fluff built up a 14-point lead in the first half and then reeled off another handful of scores in building a really big lead, but Team Ruff stormed back from a 31-point deficit and evened the score. Scoring the winning touchdown for Team Fluff was Vivianne, a bulldog mix from Colorado. The all-dog precursor to the Super Bowl was in its 19th year. The contest featured 122 dogs from 34 states and 67 shelters. All dogs, including 11 with special needs, have been adopted. Familiar faces included longtime referee Dan Schachner and the kitty cheerleaders, who performed at halftime. The featured performer was Furianna (a nod to the Super Bowl's halftime performer, Rihanna).
Crownless Charles III on New Postage Stamps
February 9, 2023
Beginning on April 4, Royal Mail stamps will have the face of King Charles III, without a crown. The king himself approved the minimalist design, which features a profile view that will be familiar to fans of the stamps featuring Charles's mother, Queen Elizabeth II. That monarch ascended to the throne; that stamp dates to 1967. Charles's profile, however, has no crown or other trappings of monarchy. He is looking left, and the background is plain purple. A design by sculptor Martin Jennings is the basis of new coins featuring King Charles, and U.K. officials will use that same image for the new stamps. Existing stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth will be sold and accepted, officials said.
Egyptian Battle Dig Site Tied to Rosetta Stone
February 6, 2023
Archaeologists have connected the dots from a long-running Egyptian dig to the Rosetta Stone. The dig is Tell el-Timai, on the site of what in ancient times was the city of Thmouis, on the Nile delta. The city was a territorial capital for a time and was later an important Roman city. Archaeologists from the University of Hawaii began excavating there in 2009. In the intervening years, they discovered expected signs of previous inhabitation, such as the remains of buildings and weapons and a kiln complex. The more the team dug, the more they discovered evidence of buildings that had been burned to the ground and of the remains of many people scattered throughout, suggesting that the site was one of a lost battle. Among the weapons found are arrowheads, ballista stones, and sling pellets. The discovery of the kilns, which the Egyptians abandoned after a time, convinced the archaeologists that the remains that they had encountered were the results of a conflict during the Great Revolt, a time of uprisings mentioned on the Rosetta Stone.
Hercules Statue Found in Sewer along Rome's Appian Way
January 29, 2023
Rome archaeologists have unearthed a life-size marble statue reminiscent of Hercules that they say dates to the Roman period of empire. The location of the statue: a sewer. The dig was part of work to repair damaged sewage pipes in Parco Scott, which is in the Appia Antica Archaeological Park, a popular destination for both historians and tourists because of its remains of monuments, tombs, and villas. Officials stressed that the statue had probably been prominently displayed elsewhere but had been left there when the sewer system was completed, in the early part of the 20th Century. Convincing the team that the statue was indeed suggesting Hercules were the marble inclusions of a lion's coat covering the statue's head and the traditional giant club associated with the legendary Greek demigod whose exploits included the famous Twelve Labors.
'Unknown Wreck' off English Coast Is 17th-Century Dutch Warship
January 28, 2023
Archaeology officials have concluded that an underwater wreck found off the coast of southern England is that of a 17th-Century Dutch warship that featured in one of a series of wars between the two countries. A local dive operator found the 105-foot-deep wreck in 2019 near the seaside resort Eastbourne, in East Sussex, between Brighton and Hastings. Subsequent work shared by amateur and professional divers has proved that the ship was the 44-gun Klein Hollandia, which was attacked and sunk in 1672, while it was sailing home from the Mediterranean to deliver a cargo of marble tiles for homes. The two countries were not at war at the time but had been twice before that and the Dutch ship had featured heavily in the second of those wars, which the Dutch won. The peacetime attack, which killed Dutch commander Jan Van Nes and some of his crew, along with a number of English sailors who had boarded the ship, was one of the causes of the Third Anglo-Dutch War later that year. The two countries fought four wars in all, striving for dominance on the high seas and in overseas colonies.
4,700-year-old Tavern Found at Ancient Sumerian City Lagash
January 26, 2023
Archaeologists have unearthed what they say is remains of a 4,700-year-old tavern from ancient Sumeria. Penn University's Holly Pittman, director of the project, has given details of the find, near the remains of Lagash, one of antiquity's super-cities. The focus of the digs has been the daily lives of ordinary individuals, and so the find of a place at which such people met and ate has been exciting to the team, led in the field by Sara Pizzimenti from the University of Pisa. Details of the find include remnants of the building's framework–walls and shelves–along with what is left of a zeer, an ancient underground refrigerator-equivalent used to store food and beverages. The circular system featured an outside layer of clay that was lined with wet sand, enclosing a clay pot that contained whatever was meant to be kept cold. The discovery of an oven, benches, and a large number of pots and potsherds within the general area confirmed the purpose of the building, which the team dated to 2700 B.C.
Giant Boston Monument Immortalizes Embrace of MLK, Wife
January 15, 2023
Dominating a public square in Boston now is a giant monument celebrating the relationship of famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King. The 20-foot-tall, 40-foot-wide statue, titled The Embrace, is in the 1965 Freedom Plaza on Boston Common, site of a speech that King gave in that year to a crowd of tens of thousands, after leading a march from nearby Roxbury. King was an assistant minister at Roxbury's Twelfth Baptist Church for a time. It is the first monument in some time to appear on Boston Common, America's first public park. The bronze monument shows a giant pair of hands, symbolizing the hug that the Kings shared after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
How McCarthy's Speaker Battle Compares to Other Historical Fights
January 7, 2023
Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, is now Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. His ascension from Minority Leader was a rocky one, as an in-party revolt against his candidacy forced a protracted struggle for supremacy. It took 15 ballots, the fourth-highest total in history, for McCarthy to achieve the needed majority of votes. Each new session of the House of Representatives opens with the election of the Speaker. 
Congressional rules require that a Speaker be in place to drive the business of the House. The naming of that Speaker has, for the vast majority of the history of the country, been a formality because the majority party knows in advance who the Speaker will be and the necessary vote of approval is ceremonial. Because of the nature of that vote, it usually takes just a small amount of time, with the Speaker being elected on the first ballot needed to do so, as one of the first things that the new House does. Even the swearing-in of other Representatives cannot be done until the Speaker is elected because the Speaker is the one who does that swearing-in. This time around, nearly two dozen ultra-conservative Republicans refused to vote for McCarthy as Speaker, instead voting for other members of the House. As the ballots continued, McCarthy acquiesced to more and more of the holdouts' requests, including agreeing to unlimited amendments to bills, committing to considering some of the holdouts for plum positions on congressional committees, and allowing what amounts to a Parliament-equivalent of no confidence in the Speaker if just one Representative calls for it. According to House records, McCarthy's election was the 15th such time that more than one ballot was needed to elect the Speaker. Some were more contentious than others.
Washington's Murray Senate's First Female President Pro Tempore
January 5, 2023
Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, is the first woman to be elected as President Pro Tempore of the Senate. According to the government rules of succession, Murray is third in line for the presidency, after the Vice-President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Vice-president is the Senate's presiding officer and is technically that body's highest-ranking official; the president pro tempore has the second-highest rank and has many high-profile responsibilities, including swearing in new members, opening each Senate session, maintaining oversight over floor operations, and signing bills that the Senate passes, to go the President for signing into law or to the House of Representatives if that house hadn't already approved. Murray, who had been the Assistant Majority Leader since 2017, is the Democratic Party's second-most senior member, behind California's Dianne Feinstein.
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David White
