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The Desk

MORNINGS IN THE LAB
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The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →

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They nailed down a spirit in a Roman grave. Your thoughts?

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They found what in a Roman grave now

Good morning from the Region — three cities, one wire, zero time for small talk. Let's go.

Okay, so I’m reading this and thinking, *noch einmal*, they found *what*? Archaeologists digging up a Roman necropolis in Ostia, that's Rome, not Waterloo, found three burials, and each one had iron nails hammered onto the chests of the skeletons. Not like, next to them. *On* them. The experts are saying it was probably to prevent restless spirits from wandering, or maybe to protect the living from the dead. Here's the thing about this region, we’re proud of our history, but it’s mostly German pioneer stuff, not ancient Roman rites. I mean, we've got the old Victoria Park cemetery in Kitchener, and even some of the older Mennonite gravestones up near St. Jacobs are, well, *old*. But nobody's nailing down spirits there. We're more likely to worry about the ghost of our original city name, Berlin, still haunting the council chambers than actual restless *Geister*.

Honestly, it makes you wonder about some of the things people used to do to make sure the dead *stayed* dead. Can you imagine something like this happening today, say, off the Iron Horse Trail? People would be talking about it on the ION LRT for weeks. I think we’ve traded nail-bound spirits for the daily spectre of traffic on Homer Watson Boulevard. A fair trade, maybe.

Anja Baumann-Fong, MiTL Sports Desk, Kitchener-Waterloo.

Keith and the gang dig into all sorts of wild stuff like this every morning — check it out live at mornings.live.

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