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: The Gramophone (UK)
February 15, 2007
It was already one of the strangest stories the classical music world had witnessed. But the discovery of the late English pianist Joyce Hatto as the greatest instrumentalist almost nobody had heard of, appears to have taken a bizarre, even potentially sinister turn.
It was around a year ago that Gramophone’s critics began to champion this little-known lady, whose discs –- miraculous performances, released by her husband William Barrington-Coupe on the tiny label Concert Artist –- w
Source: AP
February 17, 2007
DALLAS -- The auction of a window advertised as Lee Harvey Oswald's sniper perch in the killing of President John F. Kennedy brought a bid of about $3 million, but the sale quickly fell through.
The window was up for auction Friday on eBay with a starting price of $100,000, and bidding quickly rose to seven figures. But 32 bids were either retracted by the bidders_ normally because a wrong price had been entered, including one for $17 million -- or canceled by the seller because a b
Source: AP
February 17, 2007
PARIS -- Maurice Papon, a former Cabinet minister who was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War II and became a symbol of France's collaboration with the Nazis, died Saturday. He was 96.
Papon, who underwent surgery on his pacemaker at a clinic east of Paris last week, died in his sleep on Saturday, said his lawyer, Francis Vuillemin.
Papon was the highest-ranking Frenchman to be convicted for a role in the pr
Source: NYT
February 17, 2007
A leader of the Texas House of Representatives apologized Friday for circulating an appeal to ban the teaching of evolution as derived from “Rabbinic writings” and other Jewish texts.
“I had no intention to offend anyone,” said the lawmaker, Warren Chisum, a Republican from the Panhandle who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Mr. Chisum said he had received the information from Ben Bridges, a Georgia legislator, and “I never took it very seriously.”
Source: Reuters
February 17, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO -- Police have issued an arrest warrant for a New Jersey man suspected of accosting Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel in the elevator of a San Francisco hotel in early February.
Eric Hunt, 22, was being sought on charges of attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and the commission of a hate crime, according to the warrant issued by San Francisco police on Friday.
Wiesel, 78, was attending the Worl
Source: New York Times
February 17, 2007
KAMPALA, Uganda -— This year, the Oscar buzz has made it all the way to Kampala.
On Saturday, Forest Whitaker, a leading contender for best actor, parted a crowd of paparazzi in front of a chic hotel here in Uganda’s capital, and he strutted down a red carpet for the official opening of “The Last King of Scotland.”
Official being the key word. Because the movie, about the blood-soaked reign of Uganda’s mercurial dictator, Idi Amin, actually arrived a few weeks ago, via
Source: AP
February 16, 2007
PHOENIX -- Researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Pittsburgh have mixed technology, art and science to re-create the real face of George Washington. Using anthropology, 3-D scanning and digital reconstruction, the 2-1/2-year project has culminated in new life-size figures of the nation's first president and some say the images are the most accurate yet of Washington at a younger age.
There is Washington at age 19 as a land surveyor, Washington at 45 during the
Source: BBC News
February 17, 2007
An item described as the window and frame from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot US President John F Kennedy in 1963 has been sold at auction on eBay.
A mystery bidder paid more than $3m (£1.5m) for the item, apparently from Oswald's shooter's nest at the Texas Schoolbook Depository.
The starting price was just $100,000 but bidding was brisk and the item eventually fetched $3,001,501.
The depository was owned by a local family that listed the item on eBay.
Source: Telegraph
February 17, 2007
Gladiatorial contests took place at the largest amphitheatre in Roman Britain, according to new evidence unearthed by archaeologists.
Finds at an excavation of the arena in Chester provide the most conclusive proof yet that it played host to grisly fights to the death for public entertainment, and reinforce the view of the town's importance in the Roman Empire.
A stone block with iron fittings was discovered at the centre of the two-storey amphitheatre, which dates back
Source: WaPo
February 14, 2007
That little spat between Oliver North and the Smithsonian? Everyone kissed and made up -- and now North has permission to film in front of the Enola Gay and can talk about nuclear weapons, reports our colleague Jackie Trescott. The Smithsonian originally rejected his request to film in front of the historic bomber for a Fox News docu-series, claiming the production wanted more than "incidental use" of the plane and the site; North countered that the decision was fueled by the Smithsoni
Source: Telegraph
February 16, 2007
A rare bottle of Nazi wine with a label bearing a photograph of Hitler and handed out to senior German officers during the Second World War is expected to fetch £500 at auction.
The unopened bottle of red Fuhrerwein dates back to 1943 when it would have been presented to a high-flying Nazi general to mark Hitler's 54th birthday.
A label around the bottle, a 12 per cent Schwarzer Tafelwein, features a photograph of Hitler dressed smartly in suit and tie.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
February 16, 2007
The University of Illinois was planning today to announce that it was ending the use of Chief Illiniwek — a student dressed as an Indian who performs at athletic events — but may be forced to change its plans because of a lawsuit, The Chicago Tribune reported. The mascot’s use has been controversial for years, with American Indian groups calling its use offensive and athletic boosters calling the American Indians and their supporters politically correct or overly sensitive. But Illinois official
Source: Boston Globe
February 16, 2007
JERUSALEM -- Israel activated webcams yesterday at the site of a controversial building project in Jerusalem's Old City as part of an effort to refute accusations by Muslims that the work is threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque...
Islamic leaders denounced the streaming video as" cosmetic," and said they would organize massive demonstrations in Jerusalem after prayers today...
Yechiel Zeligman, the Israel Antiquities Authority archeologist overseeing the excavation, s
Source: UPI
February 16, 2007
URBANA, Ill. -- After years of debate, the University of Illinois is retiring Chief Illiniwek, its American Indian sports team mascot.
Illinois was one of 18 universities sanctioned by the NCAA in 2005 for keeping mascots and imagery deemed "hostile and abusive." By dropping the American Indian mascot, who has danced at athletic events since 1926 in a feathered headdress and Indian regalia, the university regains eligibility to host NCAA championship events.
C
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
February 15, 2007
On the same grounds that once served as the Capitol of the Confederacy, the past seeped into the present yesterday as a House panel discussed Abraham Lincoln and slavery.
The House Rules Committee tabled a measure pushed by state Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, that sought to establish a commission to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the 16th president's birth, which will occur Feb. 12, 2009.
"Lincoln is regarded by many as the most outstanding president of
Source: Detroit Free Press
February 15, 2007
If you were an African American in one of a number of predominantly white, Detroit-area towns in the late 1890s, you probably knew the tacit rule: Get out of town before sunset.
Today you'll still see the legacy of these so-called sundown towns, thousands of which sprang up all over the United States after Reconstruction and flourished through the civil rights era.
Such towns have been documented by sociologist James Loewen in his 2005 book "Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimen
Source: New York Times
February 16, 2007
No United States senator has been elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960, but former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is challenging an even more formidable historical hurdle: No former mayor has been elected president since Grover Cleveland of Buffalo in 1884 and Calvin Coolidge of Northampton, Mass., in 1924.
And no mayor has ever become president without serving first in some other elective office beyond City Hall.
“Should Rudolph Giuliani attain the presidency in
Source: Washington Post
February 16, 2007
During floor debate on the Iraq war yesterday, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) quoted Abraham Lincoln as advocating the hanging of lawmakers who undermine military morale during wartime.
"Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs, and should be arrested, exiled or hanged," Young declared.
One problem: Lincoln never said such a thing.
Conservative scholar J. Michael Waller did, in an
Source: National Geographic News
February 15, 2007
In the crystal-clear waters of a Florida spring, decades-old remains are defying identification, tantalizing experts who are trying to solve a Suwannee River mystery.
Local legend has it that the remains are all that's left of the steamboat Madison, a floating general store that chugged up and down the Suwannee in the mid-19th century...
The river touches eight Florida counties as it meanders from its source in the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia to the Gulf of Mex
Source: Independent
February 16, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Four decades after he was executed by Bolivian troops and 10 years after scientists claimed to have discovered his remains, doubts have been raised over whether the bones and skeleton interned in the mausoleum in Cuba are really those of Che Guevara.
An investigation carried out by a Spanish-Mexican magazine claims that Cuban specialists were not telling the truth when in, 1997, they said that they had discovered the revolutionary's remains, along with those of six of
