This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: AP
April 4, 2008
A leading anti-Semitism watchdog group called Friday for a South Korean cosmetics company to halt an ad campaign with Nazi references.
The Coreana Cosmetics Co. television ad for a skin lotion shows a young woman in a short skirt and military-style trench coat, holding a soldier's cap that appears to have the swastika-gripping eagle Nazi insignia. Background noises of an explosion and crowds cheering in response to a man's unintelligible speech are heard.
A version show
Source: AP
April 5, 2008
Germany's foreign minister has suggested that Germany and Poland could organize an exhibition that would examine "the whole spectrum" of the two neighbors' history.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier suggested in an article for Saturday's edition of the Polish daily Dziennik that the show could mark the 40th anniversary in 2010 of a groundbreaking visit to Poland by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt.
Brandt dropped to his knees at the Warsaw Ghetto monument in a dramat
Source: Reuters
April 6, 2008
Vandals desecrated 148 graves in the Muslim section of a military cemetery in northern France, hanging a pig's head on one of the headstones, police said on Sunday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the attack "a hateful act" and around 100 police were sent to the Notre-Dame de Lorette cemetery near Arras to hunt for clues.
State prosecutor Jean-Pierre Valensi said the vandals struck overnight, daubing insults on the graves.
"They direc
Source: International Herald Tribune
April 6, 2008
ROME: In ancient times the Appian Way, which links Rome to the southern city of Brindisi, was known as the regina viarum, the queen of the roads. But these days its crown appears to be tarnished by chronic traffic congestion, vandalism and, some of its guardians grumble, illegal development.
"Look at this!" bristled Rita Paris, the Italian state archaeological official responsible for the Appian Way, peering through a weathered bamboo screen lining the road while bumpily m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 7, 2008
The earliest-known printed book bearing the stamp of William Caxton, the father of British printing, has been saved for the nation by the National Trust at a cost of almost £500,000.
The book, dated 1487 and printed in Latin, is the only surviving example of the earliest edition of the Sarum Missal, the most commonly used rite for celebrating Mass in pre-Reformation Britain.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 7, 2008
Gordon Brown is considering repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement as a way of healing a historic injustice by ending the prohibition against Catholics taking the throne.
But doing so would have the unforeseen consequence of making a 74-year-old German aristocrat the new King of England and Scotland.
Without the Act, Franz Herzog von Bayern, the current Duke of Bavaria, would be the rightful heir to the British Crown under the Stuart line.
The bachelor, who l
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 7, 2008
Margaret Thatcher at her peak would sweep to power in a general election held today, according to an opinion poll for The Daily Telegraph.
The YouGov survey emphatically confirms the enduring political appeal of the country's first woman prime minister, who left office undefeated 18 years ago.
Baroness Thatcher comfortably surpassed Tony Blair when people were asked who they would pick to lead the country at the height of their powers if they had the choice. David Camer
Source: Reuters
April 7, 2008
A large cache of stone tools estimated to be up to 35,000 years old has been discovered on the site of one of Australia's largest iron ore mines, sparking calls on Monday for the site's preservation.
Archaeologists uncovered the tools on the site of the A$1 billion ($920 million) Hope Downs iron ore mine, about 310 kilometres (192 miles) south of Port Hedland, in western Australia's ore-rich Pilbara region.
Source: NYT
April 7, 2008
Few scandals in recent years have provoked as much anger and dismay across Europe as the saga of Max Mosley, the overseer of grand prix motor racing who made tabloid news last weekend in a front-page exposé and accompanying Web video showing him in a sadomasochistic orgy with five supposed prostitutes in a London sex “dungeon.”
But beyond the licentiousness of the episode, it was the suggestion of Nazi undertones in the role-playing during the session in a basement in London’s fashi
Source: WaPo
April 6, 2008
T he intersection where it all began that catastrophic night, the once-ragged corner of 14th and U streets, is now a crossroads at the center of Washington affluence.
Seventh Street is a neon-lit pathway lined with boutiques, taverns, restaurants serving fusion cuisine and a world-class convention center.
On H Street, east of Union Station, condos sell for more than $1 million, and new nightclubs throb with the young and hip.
Forty years ago, the conditions
Source: AP
April 5, 2008
One of Quebec's most historic buildings was caught up in a massive fire and collapsed late Friday. No injuries were reported, police said.
Witnesses said there was a fire followed by an explosion at the Quebec City Armory, which was built in 1884 and houses the Voltigeurs, a Canadian Forces reserve unit and the oldest French infantry regiment in the country.
Source: AP
April 3, 2008
Answers to the mystery of what befell the heirs of the last czar of Russia nearly a century ago may rest behind locked laboratory doors in Moscow and New England.
DNA test results to be announced within months on bone fragments found in Russia last year could prove that none of Czar Nicholas II's family escaped execution in the Bolshevik Revolution — not even Anastasia, the teenage princess whose identity various women have claimed over the decades.
Evgeny Rogaev, who h
Source: Memphis Magazine
April 1, 2008
The civil rights struggle in Memphis during the late 1960s is usually defined by two names: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the world-famous practitioner of nonviolent protests, and Henry Loeb, the stubborn mayor who opposed him during the sanitation workers' strike.
But many others — men and women, white and black — played key roles in the battle for human dignity. Some worked behind the scenes; others stood at King's side. For the first time in our magazine's long history, we tracked
Source: AP
April 4, 2008
A remote-controlled submarine scouring the shipwrecked remains of an Australian warship has revealed new clues to a World War II battle that cost more than 700 lives. But the mystery persists: What caused Australia's worst maritime tragedy?
Source: NBC News
April 3, 2008
Related Links
Jeff Cohen: This NBC report leaves out the media's attacks on MLK in the last year of his life
Source: Dallas Morning News
March 31, 2008
While President Bush's advisers were taking offers on an ideal spot for his library and museum, they probably should have paid more attention to the virtual real-estate market.
Officials finally settled on Southern Methodist University in Dallas to house the $250 million complex.
But online, some of the very best addresses are gone — snapped up for a mere fistful of dollars by squatters who have no connection to the library yet hope to make fun of the president, protect
Source: PRweb
April 3, 2008
Bob Skilnik, author of "Beer & Food: An American History" (ISBN 0977808610, Jefferson Press, Hardcover, $24.95), argues that industry embellishments and poor research have distorted the true date of Repeal on December 5, 1933, which signified the revocation of the 18th Amendment and the enactment of the 21st Amendment and brought back the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages.
"Congressional events leading up to April 7, 1933 allowed only the resumption
Source: AP
April 3, 2008
A lawyer for one of three white teens accused of defacing a Confederate monument at the state Capitol says his client will admit to the vandalism, which he says was done as a statement against slavery.
The three males, who were all 17 at the time of the crime, are scheduled to go to trial in juvenile court on April 10. They were charged with first-degree criminal mischief and their names have not been released because of their age.
Source: WaPo
April 4, 2008
The peace symbol -- three simple lines within a circle -- turns 50 today. It's had a colorful and often turbulent life, which is odd considering that it's supposed to symbolize, you know, peace.
Unveiled at a British ban-the-bomb rally on April 4, 1958, the peace symbol's peak of potency was in the 1960s, when it was the emblem of the anti-Vietnam War movement and all things groovily counterculture. (Said its late creator, British graphic designer Gerald Holtom: "I drew myself
Source: NYT
April 4, 2008
ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C. — In the hour between sunset and nightfall, the view from this slate-blue cabin consists of a steadily darkening palette. The salt marsh silvers into stone gray, the grassy hummocks ash away into soft black. A blue heron, perhaps feeling conspicuously colorful, flies away.
The scene was intended to soothe the sore eyes of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But as evidence of just how much he needed the kind of solace it offered, Dr. King died before the cabi
