Garrison

A military garrison of mud-brick and seashells unearthed in Egypt's Sinai desert may be key to finding a web of Pharaonic-era defenses at the northeast gateway to ancient Egypt, archaeologists said Thursday. Inscriptions at Luxor's Karnak temple may serve as a guide to finding other outposts. But knowing the location of the garrison at the ancient city of Tharu, in a formerly fertile area of Egypt where a branch of the Nile river once met the Mediterranean Sea, is key to understanding where to begin the search.

Even as he helped orchestrate the American Revolution and the creation of modern democracy, John Adams worried that the framers of history, more interested in portraiture than landscape, would choose one or two individuals - Benjamin Franklin, George Washington - to create a mythology of supermen who single-handedly built a nation. For years that fretful insight proved true, and though Adams eventually got his due, it certainly applies to other moments of cataclysmic change, none more so than the Civil War. Certainly in light of Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," one could be forgiven for believing that Abraham Lincoln was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in America.

West Virginia University President Michael Garrison resigned, seeking to end a scandal stemming from awarding an unearned degree to the governor's daughter. Garrison said he hoped his resignation, effective in September, would end the turmoil at the university.

STAGE Garrison Keillor, the beloved humorist and radio personality, hosts his show "A Prairie Home Companion" at the Hollywood Bowl featuring guest appearances by Martin Sheen, Sara Watkins and Ellie Dehn, as well as an upbeat mix of music and comedy. The Hollywood Bowl, 2301 North Highland Ave., L.A. 8 p.m. Fri. Ticket prices vary. (323) 850-2000. http://www.hollywoodbowl.com,

The Stone-"JFK" bashing appearing in The Times is becoming excessive. The latest attack comes from Mathews. After acknowledging that "JFK" has some merits, he can't restrain himself from attacking it, saying, in effect, "Do not trust this movie." Mathews fails to recall that the movie--in at least two places--clearly asks the audience to do just that! Garrison, addressing his staff, says: "Let's speculate." Mr. X, meeting with Garrison, admonishes: "Find your own facts; make your own decision."

A court found K mart partially responsible for injuries suffered by a customer who shot himself in the toe while examining a rifle he wanted to buy for his 6-year-old son as a first-grade graduation gift. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Edward Garrison ruled that K mart was negligent in the June, 1987, accident because a clerk handed Richard Rubin, 29, the gun without checking to see that it was loaded. The judge awarded Rubin $10,419 on Thursday. He had sued for $200,000. The jury originally awarded Rubin $16,000, but Garrison found he was 35% negligent, reducing the corporation's liability to 65%.

A court found K mart partially responsible for injuries suffered by a customer who shot himself in the toe while examining a rifle he wanted to buy for his 6-year-old son. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Edward Garrison ruled last week that K mart was negligent in the June, 1987, accident because a clerk handed Richard Rubin the gun without checking to see if it was loaded. The judge awarded Rubin $10,419.

The paid defenders of Mike Tyson had argued from the start that their client was not a very nice man. They said he was lewd, uncouth and untamed. He had a reputation with women, which was well known. So the young woman who was accusing this man of raping her, if indeed she was as smart as she claimed, should have known better, the defenders said. She should not have agreed to a "date." Unless, of course, she had a reputation herself. Insert here a knowing wink.

At Olympic High, Santa Monica's alternative school for students who have struggled in traditional programs, inappropriate behavior is not uncommon. But what a veteran English teacher saw on the computer screen of a student named John Zawahri stopped him cold. The solitary teen who regularly ditched class was surfing the Internet for assault weapons, the teacher recalled Monday. Alarmed, he sent Zawahri to the principal's office. Within days, the police were involved and Zawahri was admitted to UCLA's psychiatric ward.

Battery maker Exide Technologies filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, citing the forced suspension of operations at its Vernon lead-recycling plant and other economic factors. Exide, one of the world's largest makers and recyclers of lead-acid batteries, said in court papers that since the plant's April 24 closure by state regulators, the Georgia company has had to tap other sources of lead, driving up costs and cutting earnings. "As a result of the Vernon shutdown and the company's poor financial performance in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2013, it became apparent that a successful out-of-court restructuring was unlikely," Chief Financial Officer Phillip Damaska wrote in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Tom Keith, who created an astounding array of captivating, hilarious, bawdy sounds and voices as longtime master of radio sound effects for Garrison Keillor's nationally syndicated "A Prairie Home Companion," has died. He was 64. Keith, who also co-hosted a weekday morning program on Minnesota Public Radio, died Sunday after having a heart attack at his home in Woodbury, Minn., a St. Paul suburb. Keith last performed Oct. 22 at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater with the cast of "A Prairie Home Companion" and guest John Lithgow, playing "a zombie and a beery Elizabethan bartender, [doing]

A military garrison of mud-brick and seashells unearthed in Egypt's Sinai desert may be key to finding a web of Pharaonic-era defenses at the northeast gateway to ancient Egypt, archaeologists said Thursday. Inscriptions at Luxor's Karnak temple may serve as a guide to finding other outposts. But knowing the location of the garrison at the ancient city of Tharu, in a formerly fertile area of Egypt where a branch of the Nile river once met the Mediterranean Sea, is key to understanding where to begin the search.

Actor Lane Garrison, who was serving a 40-month prison sentence for a drunken driving crash that killed a 17-year-old Beverly Hills High student, was released Wednesday after about 21 months behind bars. The former star of the Fox TV series "Prison Break" was released from the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi before serving his full sentence because he received credits for good behavior, Lt. Jon Bartelmie said. Garrison was charged after a December 2006 crash in which he rammed his Land Rover into a tree, killing Vahagn Setian and injuring two teenage girls.

West Virginia University President Michael Garrison resigned, seeking to end a scandal stemming from awarding an unearned degree to the governor's daughter. Garrison said he hoped his resignation, effective in September, would end the turmoil at the university.

A suicide bomber on a motorbike rammed into a minibus carrying Pakistani security personnel today in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, killing at least eight people, police said. The bus was destroyed and several other people were wounded in the blast near the offices of the army's National Logistics Cell, said Bisharat Abbasi, the local police chief. In recent months there have been a series of suicide bombings in Rawalpindi. On Dec. 27, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and about 20 others were killed there.

They gathered in the hallway outside Department 1 in the Beverly Hills courthouse -- dozens of teenagers in gym shoes and Uggs and sandals, heads bent over their BlackBerries and cellphones, their easy chatter belying the gravity of the event that had brought them there. Many announced it, though, on the T-shirts that bore on the front a silk-screened photograph of Vahagn Setian with his birth and death dates. On the back it read: "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."

They were a couple of auto mechanics with a pronounced Boston brogue and, improbably, degrees from MIT. They hadn't a clue how to perform on radio, much less public radio. So Tom and Ray Magliozzi just decided to have a good time. The result was "Car Talk," which shattered the perception that public radio is inaccessible to the masses and became National Public Radio's top-rated weekend show. "They never developed that affect of sonorousness and seriousness and gravitas public radio is known for," said the show's executive producer, the man Tom and Ray would identify on air as Doug "Not-a-Slave-to-Fashion" Berman.

In the heart of the Ethiopian community here, a group of friends gathered after work in an office to chew on dried khat leaves before going home to their wives and children. Sweet tea and sodas stood on a circular wooden table between green mounds of the plant, a mild narcotic grown in the Horn of Africa. As the sky grew darker the conversation became increasingly heated, flipping from religion to jobs to local politics. Suddenly, one of the men paused and turned in his chair.

Police stepped up security and put this capital on high alert Tuesday after apparent twin suicide bombings in a nearby army garrison city killed 25 people and injured more than 60. The double blasts struck at the heart of Pakistan's military establishment in Rawalpindi, which adjoins Islamabad and is home to President Pervez Musharraf and other senior government figures.

WHAT is it about the works of Garrison Keillor that keeps readers and listeners coming back for more? It's maddeningly impossible for this reader to drive around town on a Saturday afternoon and not tune in to Keillor's radio show, even when I've heard the same tales (or variations of them) countless times before. Especially because I've heard them before.