It’s in the Cards: Good Wishes for Lebanon Hostages

--More than a simple “Happy Birthday” seemed called for, so the students at St. Francis DeSales School embellished their cards with hearts and family pictures and other messages of love and hope. After a week, the Philadelphia students had 500 cards prettily wrapped in yellow ribbon for Terry Anderson and other American hostages being held in Lebanon. The cards were presented with a chorus of “Happy Birthday” to Peggy Say of Batavia, N.Y., sister of Associated Press correspondent Anderson, who turned 39 on Monday. While making the cards, the children spent a week learning about the hostages, and many could empathize with their plight. “We have children from Vietnam, Cambodia, Korea and Ethiopia,” said Sister Constance Marie, principal of the school. “Some of those children wrote in their cards: ‘I know what it’s like to be afraid.’ ”

--Officials in Wilkinsburg, Pa., searching for a time capsule buried in 1962, unearthed another time capsule of sorts--a black box stuffed with faded documents, commemorative silver medals and pennants from 1912. “We’ve been checking out every rumor and lead as to the whereabouts of the missing ’62 capsule,” said Alice Sapienza-Donnolly, Wilkinsburg’s centennial coordinator. It was suggested that the capsule was stored in the borough building basement, where searchers found the 1912 collection of memorabilia.

--Hoping to become the first woman to reach the South Pole on foot, Norwegian explorer Monica Kristensen boarded a ship in Christchurch, New Zealand, for the Antarctic. “It’s quite normal to want to visit the South Pole,” said the 36-year-old explorer, who has a doctorate in glaciology from Cambridge University. She will retrace the route taken by Roald Amundsen in 1911.

--A shirt worn by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer sold for $32,000--a bargain price--at an auction of Little Bighorn artifacts that included arrows taken from bodies of soldiers at the battle in eastern Montana. The shirt was appraised at $40,000 to $60,000 by the Riba-Mobley Gallery of Glastonbury, Conn., sponsors of the auction.