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: NYT
May 25, 2011
ROME — The backdrop may be the Termini train station, but the chatter these days evokes a Damien Hirst opening. The object of the attention is a 17-foot-tall bronze sculpture of Pope John Paul II unveiled on May 18, his birthday.The verdict, at least as registered by the Italian news media and several online polls, is a merciless thumbs down.
Source: NYT
May 25, 2011
WASHINGTON — Several lawmakers from both parties on Wednesday accused President Obama of violating the War Powers Resolution by continuing American participation in
Source: NYT
May 25, 2011
Looking beyond poor eating habits and a couch-potato lifestyle, a group of researchers has found a new culprit in the obesity epidemic: the American workplace.
Source: NYT
May 26, 2011
PARIS — President Boris Tadic of Serbia announced at a news conference in Belgrade on Thursday that Ratko Mladic, the fugitive accused of masterminding the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, had been captured but refused to give details.
Source: CNN.com
May 24, 2011
(CNN) -- Plans to rename a street after Mexican-American labor organizer Cesar Chavez have sparked controversy in San Antonio, where a judge issued a temporary restraining order against the name change this week.City council members approved "Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard" in a 7-4 vote, but the San Antonio Conservation Society filed a lawsuit against the measure."We consider the name of a street historic," said Rollette Schreckenghost-Smith, the organization's president.
Source: The Atlantic
May 25, 2011
The space program is one of President John F. Kennedy's great legacies but he privately fretted that putting a man on the moon was not much more than a "stunt," according to a secretly-recorded Oval Office conversation finally going public Wednesday.
Source: Wired
May 23, 2011
Two ancient skeletons uncovered in 1976 on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, during construction at the home of a University of California chancellor, may be among the most valuable for genetic analysis in the continental United States. Dated between 9,000 and 9,600 years old, the exceptionally preserved bones could potentially produce the oldest complete human genome from the continent.But only if scientists aren’t barred from studying them.
Source: BBC News
May 25, 2011
It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an honor to have your face portrayed in the bottom of a chamber pot. But that was the fate of British Naval Capt. Basil Hall, and you can find the proof at Fort Stanwix National Monument in New York.The chamber pot is one of several 19th century artifacts that are on display at the monument from now through October 17th. The history of archeology at the park and the process of archeology are described in panels with pictures from the actual excavations.
Source: CNN
May 25, 2011
In 1985, Edmund White had five or six published books behind him, a Swiss lover with him and the outcome of an HIV test ahead of him. When the results came in, White told his partner:"I'm a good enough novelist to know how this is going to work out. I'm going to be positive, you're going to be negative, you're going to be very nice about it, but you're going to break up with me within a year."By many accounts, White is a good novelist -- a great one, actually, having written numerous acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction.
Source: BBC News
May 24, 2011
Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings.Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids.The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak.She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found.
Source: Daily Express (UK)
May 24, 2011
AT ABOUT 7pm on April 24, 1941, a familiar cut-glass English accent began its nightly broadcast from Nazi Germany. Six million Britons had tuned in to his sneering tones, some entertained, many frightened, others simply intrigued by the latest instalment of “Germany Calling” from Nazi propagandist “Lord Haw-Haw”.
Source: Monroe County News (MI)
May 21, 2011
With the smell of bonfire smoke wafting in the air and a warm sun finally revealing itself, Saturday turned out to be a perfect day to officially welcome visitors to Monroe's newly named national park visitor center.He attended Saturday's River Raisin National Battlefield Park open house, which marked the first official day that the visitor center opened as a federal park.
Source: Fredericksburg.com
May 16, 2011
Orange County's Payne's Farm battlefield is open for business.The scene of the heaviest casualties during the Union army's 1863 Mine Run campaign, the 685-acre battlefield is one of the most pristine on the East Coast--and least-known.
Source: TV.NZ
May 14, 2011
Some of New Zealand's very last surviving World War Two veterans flew to Greece today to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle for Crete.Nearly 8000 New Zealanders were on the island of Crete when the battle broke out in 1941, after Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion.More than 2000 Kiwi soldiers were taken prisoner and 671 died during the 12-day battle.Bill Bristow, 92, was one of the Kiwi soldiers who were captured. But after one month of imprisonment he managed to escape.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
May 11, 2011
TAIYUAN, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Authorities in north China's Shanxi Province said Wednesday that they are planning to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status for the ruins of a famous battlefield where the State of Qin won its decisive victory over the State of Zhao, which ultimately allowed for the unification of China over 2,000 years ago.
Source: Spiegel Online
May 19, 2011
Roland Jahn had only been in office as the new Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives for a month before he met with a select group of about 30 agency employees with special skills in matters of state security.The meeting was organized by Sigurd Schulz, a union official with a well-documented past. Indeed, Schulz's name appears on the list of former full-time employees of the Ministry for State Security, East Germany's notorious secret police more commonly known as the Stasi. He worked in the personal protection department.
Source: Medievalists.net
May 23, 2011
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of Westgate Castle in the northern English area of Weardale in the North Pennies region. The lost castle once was part of the Bishop of Durham’s great deer park of Stanhope.From the 13th century through until the early 17th, Westgate Castle served as the ‘west gate’ into the Bishop of Durham’s great deer park, and functioned as an administrative headquarters for the Bishop’s extensive estate encompassing the old Forest of Weardale. By the mid 17th century it lay in ruins and its masonry was quarried for new buildings.
Source: Medievalists.net
May 23, 2011
Twenty items have been selected from the UK’s libraries, archives and museums to represent the outstanding heritage of the United Kingdom, including several that date back to the Middle Ages. They new items listed in the UK Memory of the World Register include the Cura Pastoralis of Gregory, the Gough Map, Wakefield Court Rolls, Winchester Pipe Rolls and records of The Great Hospital in Norwich.
Source: Independent (UK)
May 24, 2011
It's one of the great questions of history, and indeed philosophy: what does it take to create a Hitler or a Stalin? What circumstances does it require to produce such evil? Newly released diaries from one of Joseph Stalin's personal doctors suggest that, in Stalin's case, illness could have helped to contribute to the paranoia and ruthlessness of his rule over the Soviet Union.
Source: Fredericksburg.com
May 17, 2011
A federal agency has ordered a Culpeper County man to stop building a pond on his property that has dammed a creek and affected part of the Brandy Station battlefield.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, via a letter sent Friday, instructed Tony Troilo to "cease and desist" bulldozing along Flat Run, a perennial tributary of Mountain Run, which feeds the Rappahannock River.
