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
October 21, 2006
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- In 1970, nine black Syracuse University football players became rebellious outcasts when they quit the team to protest racial injustice.
Now, 36 years later, the university is officially recognizing them for their courageous stand.
On Friday, they received Chancellor's Medals, one of the university's highest honors. Chancellor Nancy Cantor called the men "emblematic of the values we want for our students and for ourselves when we face critical i
Source: German Press Agency
October 18, 2006
Controversy erupted Wednesday after Poland's Roman Catholic Church silenced a priest investigating clergy who allegedly spied for the communist-era secret service. Catholic priest Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski was ordered by decree to keep quiet about information he has gathered regarding Roman Catholic clergy who are alleged to have acted as agents for communist-era intelligence services prior to 1989.
"This is very painful," Isakowicz-Zaleski told Poland's commercial Tok Ra
Source: Breitbart
October 23, 2006
Dozens of world leaders were set to join Hungarians to mark the 50th
anniversary of the anti-Soviet uprising, as bitter domestic political
divisions threatened to overshadow the celebrations.
The main right-wing opposition party, the anti-communist Fidesz, was to
boycott commemorations attended by the governing Socialist party, which
was the successor to the Communist party after transition to democracy in
1989.
The move torpedoed efforts to use the 50th anniversary to unite the
cou
Source: Reuters
October 23, 2006
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at
thousands of anti-government protesters on Monday, marring commemorations
of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule.
Police also used water cannon and some protesters lobbed stones and other
missiles at them. The ambulance service said 40 people had been injured
although there were no life-threatening injuries. A policeman was stabbed
in the hand.
Protesters took to the streets more
Source: BBC
October 21, 2006
In Timbuktu, camel trains, that for millenia have been trudging around the Sahara with their valuable cargoes, are being replaced by the much less exotic lorry.
Source: AP
October 23, 2006
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Prosecutors won't seek charges against two men who exhumed the remains of a man who claimed to be the outlaw Billy the Kid.
Tom Sullivan, former sheriff of Lincoln County, N.M., and Steve Sederwall, former mayor of Capitan, N.M., dug up the bones of John Miller in May 2005. Miller was buried at the state-owned Pioneers' Home Cemetery in Prescott nearly 70 years ago.
"It appears officials in charge of the facility gave permission and the people
Source: Times Online (UK)
October 23, 2006
CHRISTIAN and Muslim armies clash in Spain today in a titanic battle for control of the Costa Blanca, just miles from the tourist towers of Benidorm.
After a spectacular Moorish landing on the beaches the Christians will emerge victorious, as they did in Calpe in 1240. But there will be no crowing, and the end of the “battle” will be accompanied by speeches about civilisations living together in harmony.
Welcome to Spain in the era of cultural nervousness.
Source: ABC.net.au
October 19, 2006
Charles Dickens was so good at describing neurological disease in his characters that the symptoms were used word-for-word in medical text books of the day, says an Australian neurologist.
The 19th century novelist's interpretations of diseases of the nervous system even predated formal medical classification, some by more than a century.
In a paper to be published in the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience, Dr Kerrie Schoffer of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne says his o
Source: Hartford Courant
October 23, 2006
In Carol and Thomas Kaput's 18th century home, two tombstones - one etched with "In Memory of Isaac Griffin" - lie side-by-side on the basement floor. A small stone that appears to have been carved for an infant rests nearby against the water heater.
"They're all over the place," Carol Kaput said of the tombstones in her house. "We're just waiting for the next one to pop up somewhere."
At least a half-dozen Suffield families have discovered
Source: Inside Bay Area
October 23, 2006
The unheralded removal of hundreds of ancient bodies at a Brentwood construction site this year illustrated how secretive — and political — American Indian excavations can be.
When Shea Homes dug up about 500 bodies to make way for a road through its new Trilogy subdivision, the developer set in motion a governmental process steeped in confidentiality.
State policymakers have spent years fine-tuning what must be done after such discoveries, but many tiptoe around volatile que
Source: AP
October 22, 2006
The arrest of tomb robbers led archaeologists to the graves of three royal dentists, protected by a curse and hidden in the desert sands for thousands of years in the shadow of Egypt's most ancient pyramid, officials announced Sunday.
The thieves launched their own dig one summer night two months ago but were apprehended, Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, told reporters.
That led archaeologists to the three tombs, one of which included an ins
Source: Independent (UK)
October 22, 2006
When the disgraced ex-US president Richard Nixon, conceded he had deceived the nation and "let down" his people, David Frost was assured a place in television history.
Now, for the first time, Sir David has revealed just how much it cost him, financially, to secure the interview. He believes he would now be some £37m richer had he not humbled Nixon on TV, but says he has no regrets.
Writing in a new book, Shooting Stars, Sir David described it as "one of
Source: Independent (UK)
October 22, 2006
Forget Orville Wright and his brother Wilbur. Start thinking instead of Alberto Santos Dumont, the Brazilian pioneer aviator and the man who really invented the aeroplane
That is the attitude here in Brazil, as the country prepares to celebrate the centenary tomorrow of the world's first powered flight. On the afternoon of 23 October 1906 in Paris, in front of an expert panel from the Aéroclub de France, the son of a coffee magnate from Sao Paulo took to the air in the 14bis, or 14
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2006
Art restorers in Italy have launched a desperate appeal for money to help rescue hundreds of works of art still caked in mud from devastating floods in Florence 40 years ago.
The frescoes, paintings, statues and wooden crosses, some dating back to the Renaissance, are lying in crates in cavernous storerooms across Tuscany.
They have been untouched since they were rescued from galleries and churches in Florence in 1966, after water from the River Arno swept through the c
Source: BBC
October 22, 2006
Dozens of heads of state and government are arriving in Hungary to mark the 50th anniversary of the uprising against Soviet rule.
Major events are planned for Monday, including the unveiling of a huge monument in Budapest's Heroes Square to those who died in the events of 1956.
Bloody battles were fought in the streets of Budapest as Soviet troops quelled the uprising.
Source: AP
October 21, 2006
A Brigham Young University physics professor who suggested the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives has resigned, six weeks after the school placed him on leave.
"I am electing to retire so that I can spend more time speaking and conducting research of my choosing," physics professor Steven Jones said in a statement released by the school.
His retirement is effective Jan. 1, 2007.
Jones recently published theories about U.S. govern
Source: AP
October 21, 2006
Two decades after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, city officials opened a playground dedicated to an astronaut killed in the accident.
The ribbon cutting took place Friday, on the eve of Ronald E. McNair's birthday. The $2 million playground in Harlem is near where McNair grew up. His father owned an auto body shop next door to the site.
The one-acre McNair Playground has a space theme. Jupiter is represented by a granite ring circling the park's green turf. A
Source: Guardian
October 21, 2006
On February 19 1945 Thomas McPhatter found himself on a landing craft heading toward the beach on Iwo Jima.
"There were bodies bobbing up all around, all these dead men," said the former US marine, now 83 and living in San Diego. "Then we were crawling on our bellies and moving up the beach. I jumped in a foxhole and there was a young white marine holding his family pictures. He had been hit by shrapnel, he was bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth. It frightened me
Source: Guardian
October 21, 2006
Conservation experts from the United Nations are visiting the Tower of London to judge whether it should be placed on its Heritage in Danger list, Unesco has said.
Unesco, the UN's cultural organisation, fears that the 900-year-old Tower has become so overshadowed by skyscrapers and other modern buildings that its historic value is being damaged.
They have warned the UK to make greater efforts to protect the Tower, which is one of just 830 locations around the globe to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2006
Villagers were celebrating victory yesterday in a "feudal" row with a baron's son who fenced off a common and claimed it as his own.
The two-year battle between Robert Harbord-Hamond – son of the 11th Baron of Suffield and a descendant of William the Conqueror – and the 100 villagers of Hanworth Common, Norfolk, ended with a judge deciding the people had won "hands down".
Judge Patrick O'Brien ruled at Norwich county court that not only did the villa
