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Part of my genealogy experiments. Jack Bell, father's father, won and lost fortunes from Alaska down through Central America. His story is like something out of an old western. Stetson and 45.

by Jim Clayborn | RNNHere's a touching palate cleanser to start the day. The Kentucky Wildcats hosted their annual "blue-white scrimmage" when a father and son caught the eye of Coach John Calipari. The father, a coal miner, sat there with his face still covered in coal dust while his son looked excited to be at the game and with his dad.Coach Calipari snapped a photo and tweeted "My family’s American dream started in a Clarksburg, WV coal mine, so this picture hits home. From what I’ve been told, after his shift, he raced to be with his son &...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – At most workplaces, Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day comes once a year. But at the law department in Syracuse City Hall, every day is Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. The emphasis is on daughters. Of the seven city lawyers hired since Mayor Stephanie Miner took office in January 2010, all but one are daughters of city employees or prominent Democratic politicians with ties to Miner. In addition to those full-time lawyers, the city corporation counsel this month hired Meghan Ryan, the 26-year-old daughter of Miner’s chief of staff, Bill Ryan, to...

A number of miners in southern West Virginia employed by Mechel-Bluestone have received news this week not to come back to work until further notice, WVVA News has learned. A miner at one of the affected mines -- Double Bonus Mine on Pinnacle Creek Road in Pineville -- tells WVVA News that the miners there were told Thursday the mine was being idled until further notice. The miner says the affected workers were told they could file for low-earning unemployment and that a timetable for return was uncertain. At least four other underground and surface mines in the area were...

One of the trapped Chilean miners is dreading his rescue after his wife met his secret mistress at the entrance to the San Jose mine, The Sun reported Thursday. Yonni Barrios' wife, Marta Salinas, and Barrios' lover, Susana Valenzuela, were both holding vigils for him outside the mine. Salinas was stunned when she heard Valenzuela shouting his name amid a crowd of miners' loved ones. Salinas, 56, is said to be "horrified". However, she is determined not to give up her man to her love rival.

Miners celebrate independence while trapped underground By Karl Penhaul, CNN September 19, 2010 -- Updated 0204 GMT (1004 HKT) Copiapo, Chile (CNN) -- Half a mile underground, the hollow echo of the Chilean national anthem rings out. And slowly, the red, white and blue Chilean flag is hoisted up a makeshift metal flagpole. These are the opening images of a new, nine-minute video the 33 miners sent Saturday from the cavern where they're trapped 700 meters (2,300 feet) down. They were putting a brave face on disaster to celebrate Chile's Independence Day in their own way. It was left to...

The Subprime home mortgage collapse...a Primer. It's ALL about the CRA of 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977 - This required banks to offer credit throughout their entire market area for “underserved” populations and small businesses. The CRA gave incentives to help low income borrowers become “home owners”. Liberals call this group “low income borrowers”. Conservatives call them a RISK!The CRA was passed by the Carter administration. In 1995 the Clinton administration authorized subprime loans under the CRA. Democrats added these provisions for the securitization of subprime loans and then ENFORCED the lending to high risk individuals. By 2000,...

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to...

CUCUMBER, W.Va. (AP) -- An emergency dispatcher says two coal miners have been trapped at a mine in southern West Virginia.

One dead, 23 trapped after Polish coal mine blast Tue Nov 21, 2006 3:14 PM EST By Wojciech Zurawski RUDA SLASKA, Poland (Reuters) - A gas explosion killed at least one miner and trapped 23 others underground in a deep coal mine in southern Poland on Tuesday, police said. A police spokesman said the blast, which was probably caused by methane, occurred at around 4:30 p.m. (1530 GMT) in a shaft about 1 km below ground. "Some 23 people are (down) there right now and there is absolutely no contact with them," he said. A spokesman for the coal mine...

Rescuers have reached the two men trapped in the Beaconsfield Gold mine for the past 14 days. Brant Webb, 37, was the first to be rescued at 4:47am AEST. At 4:54am, 34-year-old Todd Russell was plucked from the cage the two men have been crouching in. The Australian Workers Union's Bill Shorten says the men are well and are being taken to a special crib. "These people are going to speak for themselves but as I understand, they're in remarkably good shape," he said. The head of the Minerals Council in Tasmania, Terry Long, says the two men have...

Governor Joe Manchin is calling for a mine safety stand down. It's a call for a cease of production which means all safety procedures must be thoroughly reviewed before production continues. The announcement follows the deaths of two coal miners in three separate incidents today in West Virginia. "Mine companies, supervisors and the miners themselves are to engage in a thorough review of safety procedures before any work or production is to continue," says Governor Manchin in a Wednesday afternoon press conference. Massey Energy is confirming one death at its Black Castle surface mine in Boone County Wednesday afternoon. That...

(KDKA/AP) MORGANTOWN Doctors today delivered some discouraging news about the sole survivor from the tragic accident at the sago mine in West Virginia. They say Randal McCloy Jr. did suffer some brain damage from his 42 hours being trapped in the Sago Mine. From brain scans, the carbon monoxide seems to have injured the cable system deep in the brain, called the white matter. KDKA’s Medical Correspondent Dr. Maria Simbra says this area connects brain cells together. The coating of these nerves has been damaged. Dr. Simbra says the nerve coating are like the outside of an electric cord. If...

A US coalminer left a detailed note showing that he and other trapped workers were alive at least 10 hours after an underground explosion, a family member said. The daughter of 61-year-old Jim Bennett, who was a shuttle car operator in the West Virginia mine, said the note has three or four entries, the first coming on Monday at 11.40am and the last, in words that trailed off the page, at 4.25pm, nearly 10 hours after the blast. "Each time he documented, you could tell it was getting worse," Ann Merideth told The Associated Press. "Later on down the note...

Chivalry Now A review of The Compleat Gentleman: The Modern Man's Guide to Chivalry, by Brad Miner By Terrence O. Moore   Edmund Burke's famous pronouncement that "the age of chivalry is gone" was perhaps premature. Sure, ten thousand swords did not leap from the scabbards of the French nobility to defend Marie Antoinette, but such a betrayal did not mean that "the unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise" was forgotten in Britain, or America. More than two centuries later, the spirit of chivalry has not been entirely...

For Immediate Release – July 19, 2004 From the desk of Linda Shaw, RNC National Committeewoman: Miner Ignores RNC Requests to 'Cease and Desist;' Hijacks President’s Voice Richard Morgan also told to 'cease and desist' RALEIGH On Friday, July 16, 2004, Representative David Miner was contacted by the Republican National Committee Counsel’s Office regarding the unauthorized use of President Bush's voice in an automated phone call. Miner was told to "immediately cease and desist from any further use of the President's voice." Miner ignored the request and continues to use the President's voice in his automated calls to voters of...

'It just looked like somebody had tortured him' LESLIE MINE INSPECTOR DIES; SISTER SAYS BITE MARKS ARE HUMAN By Valarie Honeycutt Spears And Lee Mueller HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS HYDEN - A state surface-mining inspector died yesterday, more than two weeks after he was found at his Leslie County home beaten and unconscious, suffering from a head wound and what his sister described as several human bites. No one has been arrested in the death of John K. Slone, 60, who was found Nov. 29 at his home on old Ky. 80, about a mile east of Hyden, said Perry County...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - A drawing showing a Gold Rush miner, a redwood tree and a bear was the most popular design among Californians who participated in an Internet poll on what the state's commemorative quarter should look like.</p> <p>Running a close second was a scene that includes the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hollywood sign, palm trees and redwoods, state librarian Kevin Starr said Tuesday.</p>

SOMERSET, Pa. –– Rescue workers on Sunday pulled all nine miners one by one from the watery, 240-foot-deep shaft where they had been trapped for three days, a jubilant reward for an effort fraught with one gut-wrenching setback after another. After three grim days of frantic drilling delayed by broken bits and busted seals, defiant crews – with no signs of life to encourage them since Thursday – bored a giant auger through the ceiling of 4-foot high chamber at 10:16 p.m. Saturday. The breakthrough allowed workers to drop a telephone line to the miners through a small air pipe....