TWO WINGS OF THE SAME BIRD?
"Puerto Rico and Cuba are two wings of a bird -- they receive flowers and bullets in the same heart, wrote Lola Rodriguez de Tio, the Puerto Rican poet and separatist, in 1893. The verse immortalizes the bond between her native and adopted islands, the last two Spanish colonies in the New World. Like Rodriguez de Tio, I am a Puerto Rican in Cuba, where I've lived for the past two years."
(ORLANDO SUN SENTINEL)

C-MURDER FOUND GUILTY
"Rapper Corey Miller, better know as C-Murder and the younger brother of mogul Master P, was convicted of second-degree murder yesterday in Louisiana. The conviction carries an automatic life sentence."
(ROLLING STONE)

MEDIA FLAP
"Carlson gave out a number, but it was for the Washington bureau of Fox News, CNN's bitter rival. The bureau was deluged with calls. To get back at him, Fox posted Carlson's unlisted home number on its Web site. After his wife was inundated with obscene calls, Carlson went to the Fox News bureau to complain. He was told the number would be taken off the Web site if he apologized on the air. He did, but that didn't end the anger. In an interview with The Washington Post, Carlson called Fox News 'a mean, sick group of people.'"
(FINDLAW)

COLIN POWELL STATEMENTS GO UNCHALLENGED BY MEDIA
"If New York Times editors were interested in correcting the record, all they would have to do is re-print a correction they ran over three years ago (2/2/00): 'A front-page article yesterday... on Iraq misstated the circumstances under which international weapons inspectors left that country before American and British air strikes in December 1998. While Iraq had ceased cooperating with the inspectors, it did not expel them. The United Nations withdrew them before the air strikes began.' "
(FAIR)

COURT RULES RIGHTS NOT GARBAGE
"The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled Monday that garbage is private, even when it has been put out near the street for collection.
The 4-1 decision runs counter to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and high courts in most other states. But the court said New Hampshire's constitution provides a stronger expectation of privacy than the U.S. Constitution."
(FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

UP IN SMOKE
"Police say 59 pounds of marijuana disappeared from a police evidence room and may have been inadvertently burned, forcing prosecutors to drop charges against three Houston men."
(HOUSTON CHRONICLE, unearthed by Bill Messick)