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 17, 2007
JERUSALEM -- The e-mails from grateful students arrived soon after Liviu Librescu was shot to death, telling how the Holocaust survivor barricaded the doorway of his Virginia Tech classroom and saved their lives at the cost of his own.
Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer who survived the Nazi killings and later escaped from Communist Romania, was one of several foreign victims of Monday's shootings, which coincided with Israel's Holocaust remembrance day.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
April 17, 2007
Few colleges have ever had to cope with a violent tragedy even approaching the magnitude experienced at Virginia Tech Monday —- “thank God,” says Judy O’Rourke, who, as director of undergraduate studies at Syracuse University, can imagine the pain in Blacksburg today all too well.
For while the circumstances were very different, Syracuse too lost an overwhelming number of students to violence when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Thirty-five Syracuse Uni
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood, is published by the Federation of American Scientists
April 17, 2007
As the missions and budgets for U.S. Special Operations Command
steadily expand, a new official history looks back at the
origins and development of SOCOM.
"Since its creation in 1987, USSOCOM has supported conventional
forces and conducted independent special operations throughout
the world, participating in all major combat operations,"
writes SOCOM Commander General Bryan D. Brown.
The new account, prepared by the SOCOM hi
Source: AP
April 16, 2007
OSWIECIM, Poland -- The Jewish prayer for the dead echoed across the wooden barracks and barbed wire fences of the former Auschwitz death camp on Monday, as thousands gathered to mourn the victims of the Holocaust.
In Israel, a two-minute siren sounded at 10 a.m., bringing pedestrians to a halt on busy streets and causing cars to pull over on highways as the country paused to pay respects to the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.
Israeli leaders gat
Source: Times (of London)
April 17, 2007
JOHANNESBURG -- Nelson Mandela beamed yesterday as he watched Mandla, his grandson, invested with the royal chieftainship due him by blood and custom but stripped from the Mandela family nine decades ago by South Africa’s British colonial rulers.
The colourful ceremony was mainly in honour of the increasingly frail Mr Mandela, 88, who was walking with the aid of a stick and supported by his wife Graça and aides. But he waived his right to the restored kingship of his home village of
Source: New York Times (subscription required)
April 16, 2007
The street sign is the same, but nothing else is. Sullivan Place was outside the Brooklyn Dodgers’ clubhouse, under the stands along the right-field foul line, when Jackie Robinson arrived there for opening day on April 15, 1947. But yesterday, amid the wind and rain, Sullivan Place was next to a tree-lined courtyard of the 23-story yellow-brick Ebbets Field Apartments, around the corner from the Jackie Robinson Intermediate School on McKeever Place.
All over the major leagues, on t
Source: New York Times
April 16, 2007
COLUMBIA, Tenn. -— In early April, the mules rule this city 40 miles south of Nashville. Long ears twitch in trailers that bump through the streets, braying rings out in Maury County Park, and residents greet strangers with “Have a good Mule Day.”
Mule Day marks the arrival of spring and brings together family and friends for reminiscence and cookouts, mule sales and shows, even a liar’s contest. For many, the highlight is a parade of mule-drawn wagons, pixieish beauty queens and wa
Source: BBC News
April 16, 2007
Singer Bryan Ferry has apologised for an interview in which he praised the iconography of the Nazi party.
The UK star is reported to have told a German newspaper that the "mass marches and the flags" of Hitler's regime were "just fantastic -- really beautiful".
Jewish leaders in Britain condemned the comments, and called for Marks and Spencer to drop Ferry as a model.
"I apologise unreservedly," the singer said in a statement,
Source: Times (of London)
April 16, 2007
The rings of Uranus were discovered almost two centuries earlier than is commonly thought, according to new research by a British scientist.
Although the existence of rings around the seventh planet was not confirmed until 1977, the brightest one may have been seen in 1797 by Sir William Herschel then the Astronomer Royal.
Herschel, who discovered Uranus in 1781, presented a paper to the Royal Society, describing a possible ring, but was unable to confirm his observati
Source: AFP
April 16, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Thousands of Iranian surfers every month visit a new Holocaust Web site in Farsi run by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, despite their leadership's questioning the Nazi genocide of Jews, the museum said...
The Web site was put online by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in January, and has so far had some 25,100 visits, including 12,170 from inside Iran, spokeswoman Estee Yaari said...
"We believe that making credible, comprehensive information about the
Source: Montgomery Advertiser
April 16, 2007
The public is invited to the grand opening of a new museum at Confederate Memorial Park, just off U.S. 31 in Chilton County.
The Alabama Historical Commission will open the museum at 10 a.m. April 28...The new museum serves as a showcase for Alabama's Confederate heritage and interprets the historic site for visitors. The exhibit uses the latest presentation technology in 35 separate cases and panels, along with six media stations...
Confederate Memorial Park is the sit
Source: AP
April 15, 2007
A vacant Sterling [Illinois] home that once played host to Abraham Lincoln will be restored and turned into a museum. The Sterling Rock Falls Historical Society has purchased the home in northwest Illinois.
Lincoln slept in the house in 1856 when he was a 47 year old lawyer. Lincoln was visiting Sterling to speak on behalf of John C. Freemont, the first presidential candidate for the Republican party.
At the time, the house was owned by William Manahan, who was the Whit
Source: Reuters
April 15, 2007
WASHINGTON -- It has taken a little over 200 years, but Washingtonians finally sense that their quirky status as citizens without voting representation in the U.S. Congress might just be coming to an end.
The self-styled "capital of the free world" has been a democratic black spot for the United States -- drawing sharp criticism from rights groups and even the United Nations.
Residents of the District of Columbia, which is not legally a state, have had to figh
Source: BBC News
April 16, 2007
An Irish village has cleared the latest hurdle in its campaign to change its names to [Dun Bleisce or] the Fort of the Harlot.
The loose translation of its old Irish title means "the stronghold of immoral women".
Many residents in the village of Doon in County Limerick...said the name referred to a strong woman and local women were noted for their beauty and culture.
The first mention of the name Dun Bleisce was in 774.
The name was c
Source: Sofia (Bulgaria) Echo
April 16, 2007
Scientific exploration of the Roman city of Nove, located near the town of Svishtov, will begin in June 2007.
One of the Bulgarian teams to work on the site will arrive in June. A team from Sofia University and one from the Warsaw University should arrive later, Focus news agency reported.
Exploration began in 1960, when a Bulgarian-Polish team started inspecting the region near Svishtov...
Svishtov mayor Stanislav Blagov said that urgent measures were need
Source: Discovery News
April 16, 2007
"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," says Isaac Newton, throwing his long wavy hair over a shoulder and adjusting the collar of his 17th-century shirt.
A 13-year-old boy wrinkles his brow and steps with baggy pants onto an orange skateboard.
"Don't understand? Let's use your skateboard as an example," says Newton, pointing toward the device invented centuries after his death.
These are not actors but rather a curio
Source: Live Science
April 16, 2007
North America's oldest church may lie beneath a small town in Newfoundland, according to information cobbled together from the research of a historian who recently died before publishing her seminal work.
An Italian friar and sailing companion of explorer John Cabot erected the church during his second trip to the continent in 1498, according to the late Alwyn Ruddock, said Evan Jones, a University of Bristol researcher who investigated and pieced together Ruddock's notes.
Source: Times (of London)
April 16, 2007
Some may find it strange that Prince William apparently decided to end his relationship with Kate Middleton after a meeting attended by his father and his grandparents. In a sense, though, any such gathering would have been not only constitutionally proper but a legal necessity.
Since the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the monarch of the day has had the right to veto the marriage plans of other members of the Royal Family (if they are under the age of 25, which William still is) or to re
Source: Christian Science Monitor
April 16, 2007
LAKE SEVAN, Armenia -- On a windswept peninsula that juts out into the blue-black waters of Lake Sevan, the ancient meets modern. Cassock-clad young seminarians wander through a sparkling new building wired for the 21st century and outfitted with a contemporary gym.
But the traditions here are among Christianity's oldest. In the corridor, between classes at Vaskenian Theological Academy, two students stop and bow to a bearded man with a large silver cross around his neck.
Source: Reuters
April 15, 2007
CANBERRA -- Australia's Serb community vowed on Monday to fund a battle in the country's highest court to stop the extradition of a former Serb commander accused of Balkan war crimes.
Dragan Vasiljkovic, 52, who lives in Australia and also has Serbian citizenship, was arrested in January 2006 and remains in jail pending an extradition request launched by Croatia...
Croatia holds Vasiljkovic responsible for torturing and killing Croat soldiers and civilians, as well as
