Yellow Submarine

PHILADELPHIA --Everyone seems to be taking a ticket to ride on the new round of Beatlemania. In September, the three surviving Beatles re-released the movie "Yellow Submarine" and a new accompanying CD. A few months later, Paul McCartney played a concert at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, the site of the Beatles' early rise to fame. During the summer, the Beatles provided "Help!" (the movie) to be part of a Beatles movie collection on DVD. Paul's forthcoming album will include "Free Now," which was released to British radio stations recently, includes outtakes from the Beatles' recording sessions in the late 1960s.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- What do you know about the First Amendment? That it protects freedom of religion and speech? What else? That it protects freedom of the press and the right of the people to peacefully demonstrate when they object to something their government is doing, or trying to do? If you know all of these things about the First Amendment, you are more knowledgeable than most of your fellow citizens. According to an annual poll conducted by the First Amendment Center and American Journalism Review (AJR)

WITH LESS than two months to go before Baltimore's Planet && Hollywood opens at Harborplace, representatives for the theme restaurant chain have come up with a new batch of Maryland-related film memorabilia to display there.They also are finalizing the design for the exterior of the Pratt Street Pavilion, which will feature larger-than-life images of the four celebrity investors who founded Planet Hollywood and other personalities.Known for its elaborate displays of movie costumes, props and other artifacts, Planet Hollywood typically tries to localize its restaurants by showcasing memorabilia used in films shot on nearby locations.

If the bidding goes his way at Merry-Go-Round's auction Saturday, Jim Hibler of Dundalk plans to take home a 1950s red Mobilgas pump for his living room.Richard Albersheim of Pikesville has his sights on a Stairmaster, and maybe even the framed "Blue Meanie" celluloid art from the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" movie.And both men have looked longingly at the 1972 blue-and-white Harley-Davidson motorcycle that's included in the liquidation of thousands of the company's assets at its Harford County headquarters.

BOSTON - Think of this as old news. After all, the demographic has matured along with Dan, Tom and Peter. Advertisers now target an audience that has aged from Pop-Tarts to Vioxx, from the yellow submarine to the little purple pill. Yet sometimes even a senior media has its moment. Consider health-care coverage. Nightly news reports on the patients' bill of rights have been interrupted by words from a sponsor about heartburn and Nexium. Background pieces on rising health-care costs have been punctuated by pitches about aches, pains and Celebrex.

Israel's four seas -- the Red, the Dead, the Bread and the Med -- are the stuff miracles are made of. At Israel's southern tip, the Red Sea, of Cecil B. DeMille fame, is host to tropical fish, coral reefs and dolphins that commune with humans. At 1,300 feet below sea level, the Dead Sea not only rests in the lowest place on earth; its unique, mineral-rich waters also offer unparalleled relief to skin and respiratory ailments. The freshwater Sea of Galilee, where the miracle of the loaves and fishes was recorded, draws Christian pilgrims to its many holy sites.

HOLIDAYS ARE still a time for families, though they sometimes get lost amid the hassles. Adults are harried, their voices rising as a dozen cousins argue over which Nintendo cartridge to play next. Grandparents make their once-a-year appearances, bearing gifts and often leaving with a bit of melancholy.OK, so maybe Barry Levinson is right: We can't go back to ''Avalon,'' to the days when kids crowded around Grandfather to hear stories about the family's history.Yet even if it's too late to save the extended family from extinction, it couldn't hurt to bring back a storytelling tradition.

While Facebook took a few years to grow from adolescent chat site to its current broader appeal (no doubt to the displeasure of the college kids), Twitter has leaped into the public consciousness in a much shorter time. About a year ago, the free micro-blogging service got about 100 mentions in all media in a given week. Maybe a dozen or so of those were in major newspapers and magazines. Last week, by comparison, Twitter was mentioned more than 1,000 times in all media, and more than 200 times in major publications.

Eilat, many an Israeli will tell you, isn't the real Israel.It's too new, too comfortable. In spirit and in geography, Eilat can seem far removed from the struggles that have defined Jerusalem, Gaza and the disputed territories at the northern end of the country.But Eilat, Israel's southern toehold on the Red Sea, is almost certainly the country's comfort capital. Israelis and foreigners come for its resort hotels, its beachfront promenade, its top-notch diving and snorkeling.And on Eilat's inland side, they can find the red, beige and gray expanses of the Negev desert, dotted by the occasional kibbutz.

One week into the conflict in Kosovo, and the one thing television news operations know for sure is that covering this war is one of their toughest assignments in recent memory. That's especially the case for CNN, the leader on international stories."It's extremely challenging for us," Eason Jordan, president of international networks and global newsgathering for the CNN News Group, said in a telephone interview."First of all, elements of the government and elements outside of government are truly hostile toward journalists and CNN in particular.