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: BBC News
May 3, 2007
Vandals who desecrated the grave of Hungary's last communist ruler stole some of his remains, police in Budapest have confirmed.
One report said Janos Kadar's skull and several other bones, along with an urn with his wife's ashes, were missing.
Graffiti reading "a murderer and traitor may not rest in holy ground" was daubed nearby...
The vandals removed a marble cover stone and broke into the coffin.
[AP: Kadar was installed as Hungary's leader after t
Source: Steven Aftergood, Secrecy News (Federation of American Scientists)
May 3, 2007
Los Alamos National Laboratory will no longer permit
historians and other researchers to have access to its archival records because Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the private contractor that now operates the Lab, says it has "no policy in place" that would allow such access.
"Policies that had previously applied to the University of California relating to the disclosure of information directly to you are no longer applicable," wrote Judy Archuleta of the Los Al
Source: New York Times
May 2, 2007
Little, Brown & Company has moved up to June 19 the publication date for Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., both reporters for The New York Times.
The new date coincides with the publication of a rival biography of Senator Clinton by Carl Bernstein, the journalist who, with Bob Woodward, uncovered the Watergate scandal for The Washington Post more than three decades ago. Last month Alfred A. Knopf announced that it wo
Source: USA Today
May 2, 2007
ST. LOUIS -- When Clayton David bailed out of his bomber over Nazi-occupied Holland in World War II, he didn't know that beyond the blanket of clouds stretching as far as he could see was a young woman he had never met who would risk everything to save him.
But after a couple of weeks in which some of his crewmates were executed or captured by the Nazis, he was led to freedom by 20-year-old Joke Folmer, a member of the Dutch underground.
On Wednesday, David and others w
Source: Reuters
May 3, 2007
KATHMANDU, Nepal -- Explorers have discovered a series of caves decorated with ancient Buddhist paintings, set in sheer cliffs in Nepal's remote Himalayan north, leaving archaeologists excited and puzzled.
An international team of scholars, archaeologists, climbers and explorers examined at least 12 cave complexes at 14,000 feet near Lo Manthang, a mediaeval walled city in Nepal's Mustang district, about 125 km (80 miles) northwest of Kathmandu.
The caves contain painti
Source: AP
May 2, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- Archeologists digging at a site where George Washington and his slaves once lived have unearthed portions of the ''President's House'', a long-shot discovery that is already changing ideas about how the house was built.
Officials from Independence National Historical Park and the city announced Wednesday that a section of the kitchen wall as well the foundation walls from the main house had been unearthed at the site, about a block from Independence Mall.
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 3, 2007
A "digital dissection" using sophisticated CT scanning technology yesterday changed the way scientists viewed a 2,000-year-old mummy of an Egyptian child.
They now suspect that the youngster was a boy about 4 or 5 years old who was missing a right front tooth and was around 2-1/2 feet tall. He appeared to be developing normally and likely died of an acute cause, perhaps an infection.
Before the scan was conducted, experts at the Carnegie Museum of Natural Hist
Source: Vanity Fair
June 1, 2007
All the qualities that made Ronald Reagan one of the most popular presidents in modern American history are reflected in the diaries, to be published this month, that he kept throughout his eight years in office. Here he is, losing his temper with the Soviets (and his son Ron), cracking jokes about Castro, protecting Nancy, holding the weeping mothers of Marines killed in Beirut. An exclusive excerpt, edited and introduced by Douglas Brinkley, recalls the turbulent sweep of the era Reagan domina
Source: Los Angeles Times
May 3, 2007
Saying that its right to a nearly 500-year-old depiction of Adam and Eve is ironclad, the Norton Simon Art Foundation on Tuesday challenged an ownership rival to a federal court showdown over the work, which has hung in the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena since 1976.
The suit is a preemptive strike against Marei von Saher of Connecticut and her family; the museum says she first came forward in 2001 to claim the diptych and has threatened to sue in recent press interviews.
Source: UPI
May 3, 2007
PRAGUE -- Legislation is moving forward in the Czech Republic Parliament to form an institute to study crimes committed during World War II and the communist era.
Following daylong heated debate, the lower house of Parliament passed legislation Wednesday that would create the institute...CeskeNoviny.cz, the Czech online news service, said the Social-Democrat and Communist Party lawmakers object to provisions that would deny employment to anyone allied with the f
Source: Irish Times (subscription required)
May 3, 2007
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche has already issued draft directions that would allow for the destruction of the recently discovered "henge" along the route of the M3 in Co Meath, it was claimed yesterday.
The environmental group TaraWatch said Mr Roche had sent draft directions to the National Museum to preserve the henge "by record", a process that would facilitate photographs and written records being made before the henge is removed...
Mr
Source: AP
May 3, 2007
WASHINGTON -- The name of Army Sgt. Richard M. Pruett is now etched into the glossy black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — nearly four decades after he was wounded during a combat mission in South Vietnam...
Richard Pruett, who was from Sherman, Texas, died in 2005 from complications related to wounds received during the war, making him eligible for inclusion on the memorial on the National Mall.
Also joining those honored on the wall are Navy Fireman Apprenti
Source: Los Angeles Times
May 3, 2007
"A combined throng of 600 dance lovers jammed the coronation ballrooms...""On tiny suede match covers bearing the inscription, 'It's a match — Ruby and George,' the engagement of Miss Ruby Kanaya to Pfc. George K. Suzuki of Ft. Sam Houston, Tex...."
The items are redolent of Small Town U.S.A., but the newspapers that carried them weren't exactly published in Mayberry.
They were written and edited in the desolate internment camps of World War II —- fenced-off patches of dese
Source: Christian Science Monitor
May 3, 2007
EDINBURGH -- Scottish voters go to the polls Thursday for what the First Minister, Jack McConnell, has described as the "most important election in Scotland in at least a generation."
At stake, whether the country –- which this week marked the 300th anniversary of its union with England –- will vote on independence from the rest of the United Kingdom within the next three years.
At the headquarters of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Edinburgh the yellow w
Source: Washington Post
May 3, 2007
Rebuilding the fire-ravaged Georgetown public library could cost between $15 million and $20 million, a sum that D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty yesterday committed to allocating without delay so that the doors can reopen "as quickly as possible."
Fenty (D) has drafted emergency legislation to direct all excess revenue in fiscal 2007 and 2008 toward the library and historic Eastern Market, which also was hit by a three-alarm blaze Monday. One city official estimated yesterday t
Source: Times (of London)
May 3, 2007
MOSCOW -- Russia’s conflict with Estonia over the removal of a monument to the Red Army escalated yesterday after pro-Kremlin activists in Moscow tried to assault the Baltic republic’s ambassador.
The EU entered the confrontation, calling on Russia to uphold commitments to protect foreign diplomats. A mob also attacked a car carrying Sweden’s representative in Moscow as it left the Estonian Embassy. [And the state-owned Russian Railways suddenly halted oil deliveries to Estonian po
Source: Times (of London)
May 3, 2007
The rise of the e-mail over the written letter has prompted the British Library to open an archive for the electronic word. The library’s collection of letters, which includes correspondence between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, will be joined by a database of emails submitted by the public.
The venture is designed to take a snapshot of the British public’s writing habits. The archive is designed to hold more than a million emails. Curators at the library hope to capture blun
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
May 2, 2007
The ax-cut timbers arranged vertically along the interior wall of Fort Pitt provided a barrier during frontier battles, but will be little more than a speed bump for the state's ongoing renovation of Point State Park.Workers discovered the posts two weeks ago, while cutting an electrical trench in the area next to the Portal Bridge and reflecting pool on the city side of the park.
Following a course of action recommended by on-site archeologists, and supported b
Source: VOA News
May 2, 2007
The United Nations war crimes tribunal says it will consider a prosecutor's request to lift the confidentiality on some documents linked to the war crimes trial of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
The announcement follows a request from chief war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte. It is not clear what documents she wants made public.
Del Ponte has denied accusations she made a deal with Belgrade to keep some documents confidential in return for Serbian help i
Source: International Herald Tribune
May 1, 2007
BERLIN -- In a city abundant with the architectural relics of a tumultuous last century, the pickings are ripe for people like Dimitri Hegemann.
In 1990, the self-described "space researcher" opened up an art gallery in a one-story building near where the wall once carved Berlin in two...The location would become the legendary techno nightclub Tresor, a symbol for the chaos and creativity of post-reunification Berlin...
[Now he] has his sights set on something
