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The Trump administration is launching its four-month review of 27 large national monuments designated since 1996 under the Antiquities Act, including two controversial monuments in Utah. That review formally kicks off this weekend with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's arrival in Utah to investigate Bears Ears National Monument, designated by President Barack Obama just a few weeks before he left office, and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. At the urging of Utah's political leaders, President Donald Trump ordered the review April 26, when he called out Bears Ears as a "land grab" that should not have happened.

A Civil War monument in Petersburg was vandalized at some point early Saturday morning. The Monument to Union Soldiers stands on Wakefield Street and is across from Walnut Hill Elementary School. Petersburg police and the National Parks Service are working together to investigate the damage. If you have any information that could help investigators, call Petersburg police at 804-732-4222 or Crime Stoppers at 804-861-1212.

New Orleans officials removed the first of four prominent Confederate monuments early Monday, the latest Southern institution to sever itself from symbols viewed by many as a representation racism and white supremacy. The first memorial to come down was the Liberty Monument, an 1891 obelisk honoring the Crescent City White League. Workers arrived to begin removing the statue, which commemorates whites who tried to topple a biracial post-Civil War government in New Orleans, around 1:25 a.m. in an attempt to avoid disruption from supporters who want the monuments to stay, some of whom city officials said have made death threats.

The Washington Monument and the World War II and Lincoln memorials were damaged by graffiti over the holiday weekend, officials said. U.S. Park Police and National Park Service officials said the three sites had graffiti markings that were similar in nature and not considered to be political or racial. Authorities would not release photos of the graffiti, saying the incident was still under investigation. They described it as being written in black ink, perhaps with a Sharpie pen, and slightly hard to read. One message said, “Jackie shot JFK.” Another message mentioned the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the...

President Obama on Tuesday created new national monuments in a sacred tribal site in southeastern Utah and in a swath of Nevada desert, after years of political fights over the fate of the sites. The designations further cement Obama’s environmental legacy as one of the most consequential — and contentious — in presidential history. He now has invoked his executive power to create national monuments 29 times during his tenure, establishing or expanding protections for more than 550 million acres of federal lands and waters. Environmental groups have praised the conservation efforts, but critics say they amount to a federal...

In 2004, when the comedian Dave Chappelle performed at UNO Lakefront Arena, he asked a white guy sitting in the audience to imagine that he and Chappelle could take a time machine back to colonial Virginia. He asked him to imagine them stepping out onto a road just as George Washington was approaching. "You might say, 'Look, Dave, there's George Washington, the father of our country. Let's go say hi.' And I'd say, "Run! It's George Washington!'"There might not be a better explanation for why some black Americans look askance at white Americans' heroes. How much should it matter to...

(CNSNews.com) – Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said on Tuesday at an event focused on Hispanic-American Entrepreneurship that the national monuments in the nation’s capital need to be more diverse. “If you drive around Washington, D.C., in every circle and every square you generally see a bronze white guy – sometimes on a horse, sometimes not - you have to work really hard – like in front of the Indian embassy you’ll find Mahatma Gandhi,” Jewell said.“A handful of women – maybe – if you look really hard – sprinkled around the city, but there are very few places and memorials...

NEW ORLEANS (WWL-TV) – The city of New Orleans has cancelled the start of the monument relocation bid process that was scheduled Monday as the matter continues to be stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The decision to remove four monuments that celebrate Confederate era figures or events and the bid process to have them removed has been marked by controversy and court hearings. The city council voted late last year to have the Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Circle, The P.G.T. Beauregard statue near City Park, the Jefferson Davis Memorial on Jefferson Davis Parkway and the...

A proposal to stop the teardown of Louisiana’s Confederate monuments and step into an ongoing fight in New Orleans has failed to win support in the state Senate, blocked by Democratic lawmakers. Sen. Beth Mizell, a Republican who lives 70 miles north of New Orleans, sought to create a state commission to sign off on monument removals. She told senators: “History is bigger than a single community or the mood of a moment.” The argument failed to sway Democrats on the committee, all of whom are black. …

A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday denied a request for an injunction to stop the city from removing four monuments related to the Confederacy. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that the New Orleans City Council's 6-1 vote in December to take down monuments to Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T Beauregard and a white militia group that led a rebellion against the state's integrated, Reconstruction-era government did not break the law or violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

The world cringed when the Taliban destroyed ancient Buddhist Statues in Afghanistan. The Taliban destroyed the historic artifacts because Buddhist statues represented something the Taliban considered immoral. They didn’t want people to be reminded that people in the region had at one time been involved in something that was no longer considered morally acceptable. Buddhist statues were not “politically correct” under the Taliban’s view of the Muslim religion. Allowing the statues to stay advertised that Afghans had once behaved in what the Taliban regarded as an immoral fashion. Recent reports claim that ISIS may be doing the same thing to...

Mayor Landrieu created a firestorm, stoked racial divisions, and attacked the city’s history, all to promote his political career. Yesterday, in the “City that Care Forgot,” New Orleans politicians displayed very little care for their city’s history, but showed they cared a great deal for political correctness. In a 6-1 vote, City Council members passed an ordinance supported by Mayor Mitch Landrieu to declare four historic Confederate monuments “nuisances” and remove them from the city landscape. It was a big political victory for Landrieu who created this controversy after the murder of nine African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina, by...

he Thomas Jefferson Memorial, which has stood near the banks of the Potomac River in Washington for more than 70 years, is a classical tribute to the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third U.S. president.. This week, the Jefferson Memorial was drawn into the national debate about race following the shooting deaths of nine people in a predominantly black church in South Carolina last week. It joins other public statues depicting Southern or Confederate figures, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, that some are arguing represent the country's racist past and should be removed. CNN anchor...

In Part 1 we considered the Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox accounts of the origins of the Church of England. The information provided in Part 1 was taken from official websites of each of these branches of the catholic Faith. There is only point on which all three accounts agree: Augustine was the official representative of Rome and was based in Canterbury. So it is that the Britons were claimed as a Roman franchise. That historical reality has had ramifications beyond Henry VIII and the Reformation. The Roman narrative has dominated the conversation for so long that the deficiencies...

HONOLULU (AP) - Two Honolulu city councilmen have dropped plans to rename a popular beach for President Barack Obama. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports Councilman Stanley Chang and Council Chairman Ernie Martin decided to withdraw the proposal after hearing from the public.

Everything from streets to a parasitic hairworm have been named in honor of President Obama, but the effort to immortalize him is causing a backlash in one New Jersey town, .... ...Mount Obama on the island of Antigua; a Barack Obama petrol station in Ireland; and a parasitic hairworm, “paragordius obamai,” an all-female species that is able to reproduce without a male.

NPS Director Discussed Plan To Close Monuments With White House (October 16, 2013)

Most of you know that the NPS backed off today and allowed the veterns from the Honor Flights to access the WWII Memorial - as it should have all along. The NPS has reasoned that the vets are asserting their 1st Amendment assembly rights. It will also allow subsequent Honor Flights the same access for the rest of the week. HOWEVER, the NPS has declared [on orders from the Obama Admin.]that OTHER tourists and visitors DO NOT have the same 1st Amendment assembly rights. THEREFORE, the NPS has prohibited them from accessing the WWII Memorial. A politico has vowed to...

Just heard on the radio that the WH may be directly responsible for the closing and barricading of the open air National Monuments. Inquiries to the Dept of the Interior, etc, were intentionally vague.

President Barack Obama has designated five new national monuments, using executive authority to protect historic or ecologically significant sites. Vice President Joe Biden and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar joined Obama Monday in the Oval Office as he signed five proclamations designating the sites under the Antiquities Act. The ceremony was closed to reporters. The sites are Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico; First State National Monument in Delaware; Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument in Maryland; Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio; and San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington state.