Journalists often stand accused of neglecting good news in favor of bad. And on Monday evening, some of the most eminent names in British journalism seemed frankly perplexed at how to handle a piece of good news: namely, that their employer, the Observer, had been saved from the chop. They had called a meeting in London to plot a campaign to rescue the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. Despite news of the paper's reprieve, they assembled anyway. As the room filled to capacity and then filled beyond capacity, one Observer writer wondered aloud at the size of the turnout. "I didn't realize there were so many Observer people," he said. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to sack some of us."

The Observer had already been in business for almost two years when it reported the execution of French Queen Marie Antoinette in 1793. Observer journalists have filed dispatches from two world wars and multiple other conflicts. For more than two centuries, the paper has not only described and analyzed profound social and political upheavals, but also survived them. Yet the twin challenges of repositioning print media for the digital age and a global downturn in advertising threatened to deliver the coup de grâce. In August, word leaked of proposals to turn the Observer into a Thursday magazine. In keeping with the robustly competitive spirit of British newspaper journalism, the story was broken by the Observer's arch-rival, the Sunday Times, a weekly broadsheet owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp...

The news from this enterprise is nothing less than revolutionary. After nine years of trying to build the Center in Valley Forge, first on a site inside the national park, then on land they purchased for seven million dollars on the north side of the Schuylkill River, the new ARC president, Bruce Cole, and his board decided there was no hope of a solution to their differences with the officials of Valley Forge National Park. Cole announced they were moving to Philadelphia to build the Center on three acres at Third and Chestnut Street, within Independence National Historic Park.

Bruce Cole is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is an ideal choice to lead the ARC in this new environment. Cole called the new property "the perfect place. You’ve got the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - what’s missing down there? The full story of the Revolution." The New York Round Table and other believers in the relevance of the American Revolution wish the ARC well in their new location. The Center is still our best hope of seeing the entire story of the Revolution told in a single well-designed building, with ample use of artifacts and a narrative created by knowledgeable historians, such as Tom Fleming, who is on the ARC’s Board of Scholars.

Just days after its title was announced and almost two months before it will be released, Sarah Palin's memoir is already selling strong. Going Rogue: An American Life is now No. 1 at Amazon's and Barnes & Noble's online lists, topping even Dan Brown's blockbuster thriller The Lost Symbol. At Amazon, people who bought Going Rogue also appeared likely to have bought books by conservative pundits Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck or by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, giving Talking Points Memo the data to conclude, "it looks like Palin is preaching to the choir."

NEW YORK — Critics of China's communist government are protesting plans to light the top of New York's Empire State Building red and yellow to honor that nation's 60th anniversary.

Several supporters of Tibet protested Wednesday outside the iconic building, where a lighting ceremony is planned. The building often changes its lighting colors to mark holidays and big events.

Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner (WEE'-nur) of New York says the lights should not be used to pay tribute to what he called "a nation with a shameful history on human rights."

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — On the day Ray R. Moreno came home from Vietnam, the day antiwar protestors called him a baby killer, he decided to pack away his Army uniform for good. Memories and nightmares still intruded, but he rarely discussed them. Battle buddies were forgotten.

Until, that is, he started attending reunions of his troop a few years ago. Suddenly, a door reopened. “They were there; they understand,” Mr. Moreno, 58, said. “If we want to cry, we do. If we don’t, we don’t.”

For many members of his unit, Alpha Troop of the 11th Armored Cavalry, the annual reunions for veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia have become a form of therapy: a chance to reconnect, salve wounds and share bonds forged in an unpopular war.

But this year’s reunion was special for another reason.

At a hotel ballroom in September here, Alpha Troop unveiled a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest military honor for a unit, it received this year from the Army for “extraordinary heroism” in rescuing more than 70 soldiers from a larger North Vietnamese force on March 26, 1970. In the coming weeks, the veterans hope, President Obama himself will formally bestow the citation at a White House ceremony.

For the veterans at this year’s reunion, most in their late 50s and early 60s, the citation was a powerful bit of validation for actions some had tried to forget. “The hurt, the memories, they’re never going to go away,” said Mr. Moreno, of Orosi, Calif. “But it does make it feel a little better that you are recognized for something you did.”...

Once privately run, the Yorba Linda presidential museum is making a transition to government operation. And that has turned statues of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai into political footballs.

The statues depict two old men relaxing in easy chairs. As others mill about the drawing room, the men engage in conversation, one gesturing at the other to underscore a point. For nearly 20 years the likenesses of China's communist leaders Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai have sat perfectly still in the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda.

Now, they are creating a stir.

They are among 10 statues of former heads of state and government on display in the library's World Leaders exhibit. Others include Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Golda Meir, and France's Charles de Gaulle and Britain's Winston Churchill. Nixon chose them before his $21-million privately funded library opened in 1990.

A quote from Nixon on a wall explains his selections: "They are leaders who have made a difference. Not because they wished it, but because they willed it."

In recent months, though, a sign with an alternative message has greeted visitors, one Nixon most likely would not have approved:

"Why are these leaders here? The presence of the statues in this gallery does not imply that the United States government, which has operated this museum since July 2007, takes a position on their legacies."

The number of “supercentenarians” – people aged over 110 – will soar in coming years, according to official forecasts.

England and Wales will be home to around 100 people in the age group by 2034, a 14-fold increase, it was claimed.

The Office for National Statistics put the rise down to projected improvements in life expectancy combined with a dramatic “baby boom” after the First World War.

The rise comes despite concerns that the benefits system and health care is already struggling to cope with a rapidly aging population.

Last year, ministers warned that the pressure of an older population posed as big a threat to the country as climate change.

Republicans are likening Rep. Alan Grayson's remark to Rep. Joe Wilson's widely criticized shout of "You lie!" during President Obama's address to Congress earlier this month.

A Democratic congressman under fire for saying that Republicans want Americans to "die quickly" if they get sick fanned the flames further Wednesday by comparing the U.S. health care system to a "holocaust."

Taking a page from Democrats who disciplined Rep. Joe Wilson earlier this month, Republicans now are seeking their revenge on Grayson who said Tuesday that the GOP wants Americans to "die quickly" if they get sick.

Grayson,a first-term Democrat known for being provocative, refuses to apologize for the comments he made on the House floor Tuesday night while criticizing Republican health care proposals.

Count Sen. John McCain among those who are eagerly awaiting Sarah Palin's upcoming tell-all memoir.

During an event Thursday at Washington's Newseum, the Arizona senator was asked by NBC's David Gregory which part of the former Alaska governor's 432-page memoir he is looking forward to reading the most.

"The part I'm looking forward to most is the part where it energized our campaign and her selection put us ahead in the polls," McCain said of his vice presidential running mate.

One of next year’s most eagerly anticipated films, a star-studded thriller featuring a thinly disguised version of Tony Blair, is in jeopardy because of the arrest of Roman Polanski.

The Oscar-winning director had recently finished filming The Ghost, his adaptation of the bestselling novel of the same name starring Pierce Brosnan. But the film is without a musical score and needs sound mixing and extra dialogue before a distributor can be found. With Polanski, who is in Switzerland, awaiting extradition proceedings to the US for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, there are fears that the negative publicity will ruin the film’s chances at the box office.

Polanski co-wrote the script with the book’s author Robert Harris.

Sources on the production of The Ghost, about a British prime minister facing indictment for war crimes, played by Brosnan, told The Times that they were determined to complete the final steps of the production process.

A channel for Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who died in a Second World War Nazi concentration camp, has been launched on YouTube.

The site contains existing and new images, including the only known video footage of Anne - a shot a few seconds-long of her leaning out of an upstairs window during the wedding of a neighbour in July 1941.

It also includes an interview with her father, Otto Frank, a preview of the new virtual museum of the Anne Frank House, and a series of interviews with people who knew the girl, YouTube and the Anne Frank House announced.

Labour caused outrage yesterday by inviting Martin McGuinness to its annual conference in Brighton - the scene of the IRA's murderous attack on Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet.

The former IRA commander made clear that he had no remorse for the Grand Hotel bombing.

His visit came less than two weeks before the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Tory conference in Brighton.

Five died and 34 were injured in what was one of the worst Provisional IRA outrages on mainland Britain.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on “Advancing Freedom of Information in the New Era of Responsibility,” Archive General Counsel Meredith Fuchs reported on improvements in FOIA processing since the 2007 FOIA amendments went into effect, but said the most recent statistics demonstrated that excessive backlogs still plague the system. Citing requests as old as 17 years, Ms. Fuchs asked the Committee to look closely at FY 2009 data when it is reported to determine whether anything has improved.

Ms. Fuchs said the results of the new Obama administration transparency policies are mixed so far. She commented, “Have we entered a new era of open government? The door has been unlocked and pushed open, and I hope the Obama Administration walks all the way out into the sunshine with complete and improved policies on FOIA, state secrets privilege, classification and declassification, and sensitive but unclassified information.”

The Archive recommended that the committee use its oversight power to help ensure that agencies commit to mediation before the new Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). In her testimony, Fuchs also suggested further steps that the administration should take to fully implement the 2007 amendments and use technology to make FOIA processing more efficient and effective.