OTTAWA (CBC) - They say one man's trash is another man's treasure, and treasure is exactly what Ed Wilson found when he tore open a garbage bag left outside the North Lanark Regional Museum in Appleton, Ont., on Monday.
Inside were historical artifacts stolen from the museum almost a year ago, including war medals, geology tools and three quilts.
Wilson, the museum's treasurer, had been working inside the museum building near Almonte, Ont., about 45 kilometres southwest of Ottawa.
He opened the back door to go outside, and found the large black plastic bag blocking his way.
Wilson pushed the bag out of the way for the time being, then returned about an hour later to take it home and throw out with the rest of his trash.
But he said he was curious about the contents of the bag because he presumed it was left behind after a euchre party at the museum, and those parties don't usually generate much garbage.
"I tore a small hole in the bag because I wondered what was being thrown out," Wilson recalled.
"Inside was a quilt - one of three quilts that were stolen."
He said had noticed that same quilt missing on Dec. 21, 2005, along with many of the other items found beneath it inside the bag.
Not all the stolen items were returned - a silver pocket watch is still at large.
But the artifacts that found their way home were in good shape, he said.
Police are investigating how the pieces were taken and who returned them.
From the AFP:LONDON - A leading London museum is to host an exhibition of outfits worn by Kylie Minogue, charting her rise from soap opera actress to multi-million selling pop princess, a spokeswoman said.
The Australian singer will be the subject of a show at the Victoria and Albert Museum featuring around 200 of her outfits, photographs and accessories which starts next February.
The golden hotpants she wore in the video for the 2000 hit "Spinning Around" and the overalls she wore to play Charlene Mitchell in "Neighbours", the soap which made her name, will both feature.
Visitors will also be able to see outfits made for her by designers including Dolce and Gabbana, Julien Macdonald and Manolo Blahnik.
The show, which features many objects donated by Minogue, was originally staged at the Melbourne Arts Centre before touring Australia.
Now it comes to Britain, where it will also take in Manchester in northwest England and Glasgow.
Minogue is due to restart her Showgirl world tour in Australia next month after being treated for breast cancer.
The exhibition runs from February 8 to June 10, 2007.
From the Baltimore Sun:ATLANTA // The Coca-Cola Co. announced yesterday that it is donating $10 million worth of prime downtown land to the city to develop a civil rights museum in the hometown of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Coca-Cola chairman and chief executive Neville Isdell said his company is donating 2 1/2 acres near the Georgia Aquarium and the new World of Coca-Cola, now under construction. Coke previously donated 9 acres for the aquarium.
"There is no more appropriate home for a civil rights museum than the cradle of America's civil rights movement," Isdell said. "This city is the principal guardian of Dr. King's dream. It's our duty -- as citizens of Atlanta -- not just to preserve his dream but to build upon it."
The civil rights attraction is expected to be a display site for King's papers, which a team of city leaders bought for $32 million this summer and donated to Morehouse College -- saving them from the auction block. A stipulation in the agreement with Morehouse allows the 7,000-document collection to be displayed at a future civil rights museum.
Coke gave $2 million toward winning the King papers, which trace his intellectual progression from college through the eve of his assassination in 1968.
The city is in the first stages of planning a civil rights attraction, which could cost as much as $100 million, funds likely to come from corporate benefactors and perhaps public coffers.
No money has been raised, but Mayor Shirley Franklin hopes to see such a venue within three to five years.
"This is a big step, to have a prime real estate in downtown Atlanta only blocks from where Dr. King lived and worked as a young man," she said. "I plan to put all the influences of my office to get it done," she said of the attraction.
Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who was a leading civil rights activist during the 1960s, said Atlanta is the "capital of the modern-day civil rights movement" and should have a civil rights museum, like other cities that were prominent in the movement, such as Birmingham and Montgomery in Alabama and Memphis, Tenn.
With King's papers now in Atlanta, Lewis expects more important collections to come to the city after a museum is built. "It will inspire other people that were involved in the civil rights struggle to donate their papers," Lewis said.
Franklin has been quietly working to build an Atlanta civil rights attraction for at least a year, she said yesterday.
The notion gained momentum after the city acquired the King papers, said A.J. Robinson, head of Central Atlanta Progress, a downtown business group that has committed several staffers to the mayor's effort.
A civil rights museum would not only honor the city's history and legacy, but it could bring tourists, hotel guests and dollars to the city's economy. Cities such as Baltimore, Cincinnati, Memphis and Detroit have destinations honoring civil rights and other aspects of African-American history. The Smithsonian Institution is planning a National Museum of African American History and Culture.
