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: CNN
May 18, 2011
Israeli authorities arrested a retired American university lecturer this week on suspicion of selling ancient artifacts illegally to U.S. tourists, they said Wednesday.The suspect, a tour guide, is accused of selling ancient coins and 1,500-year-old clay lamps, and pocketing the equivalent of $20,000.He admitted attempting to smuggle antiquities, selling suspected stolen antiques and trafficking in antiquities without a permit, the authorities said.
Source: Edinburgh News
May 18, 2011
THE hands of time are stuck at 5.40, the leather strap is long gone and the watch Dr Tom Renouf keeps tucked inside a small brown box lined with cream satin appears just an unremarkable, old, broken timepiece.It hasn't worked since 1946. "I used to wear it," he says with a shrug of indifference. "Then I dropped it on a marble floor. Took it to a couple of local watchmakers for repair but they didn't have the spare parts. Shame. The Germans made very good watches."
Source: AP
May 18, 2011
United Airlines is apologizing for briefly restarting use of flight numbers of two planes that crashed after being hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001.United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson says the airline regrets the recent use of flight numbers 93 and 175, and has taken steps to remove the numbers from the airline’s computer system.Johnson says the flight numbers probably went back into use just in the past few days, and he attributes it to a technical error.
Source: Irish Times
May 18, 2011
THE VISIT of Queen Elizabeth II to Trinity College Dublin yesterday reflected a a strong historical and symbolic connection between the royal family and the university that extends back over 400 years to Queen Elizabeth I.In 1592, Queen Elizabeth I provided the legal charter to establish the university. Yesterday, the Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, viewed the original charter in the college’s Long Room.
Source: CNN
May 18, 2011
It looked like two two-by-fours nailed together.But it had nails sticking out of it, and Gary Wright, standing in the parking lot of his Salt Lake City computer company, thought he should move it. When he picked it up, it exploded.It was February 20, 1987, when Wright, then 25, became a member of a dubious club: victims of the so-called "Unabomber."Wright's secretary helped police put together a composite sketch of the suspect -- a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses -- that was distributed nationwide.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 15, 2011
A dozen years ago, Alf Seegert was into playing solo video games, and his wife-to-be was feeling left out. "Can't we play something together?" she asked Mr. Seegert, who works today as an assistant professor/lecturer in the University of Utah's English department.
Source: Time
May 18, 2011
Why does people's skepticism go out the window when it comes to military matters -- especially any that are secret? Granted, the recent dispatch of Osama bin Laden does make the U.S. military look all-but-omnipotent. But it's important to note that grand success was striking...because it was so rare.
Source: Truthdig
May 16, 2011
From May through November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives by simply traveling together on buses and trains as they sojourned through the Deep South.
Source: BBC News
May 18, 2011
Museum officials at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland have restored the metal entrance sign damaged in a theft 17 months ago.The "Arbeit macht frei" (work sets you free) sign was stolen by a gang of Polish thieves acting at the behest of a Swedish far-right-winger.Technicians unveiled the restored sign in the laboratory of the camp museum.More than one million people, mostly Jews from across Europe, were murdered by the Nazis at the camp.
Source: NYT
May 17, 2011
A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame.Instead, the report says, the abuse occurred because priests who were poorly prepared and monitored, and were under stress, landed amid the social and sexual turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.
Source: WaPo
May 17, 2011
LONDON — Wearing a green hat and coat, Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday became the first British monarch in a century to set foot on Irish soil, during a trip designed to celebrate improved Anglo-Irish relations.
Source: NYT
May 15, 2011
The president needed an increase in the federal debt limit. His partisan adversary, a powerful Ohio congressman, wanted something in return: deep spending cuts.The president was Richard M. Nixon, the congressman was Charles A. Vanik and the year was 1970. Mr. Vanik, a Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, did not win his $6 billion in spending cuts (equivalent to $34 billion today).But Congress raised the debt limit anyway — as it has 78 times since 1960 in what has become a familiar Washington ritual. This spring, the debt limit has become a burden that
Source: Oakland Tribune (CA)
May 16, 2011
A relic of America's naval history has been stolen.Somehow, a team of thieves broke and later made off with a giant metal ring weighing more than a ton from a public park Friday night, officials believe.The giant brass ring was once used to port torpedoes on the USS Maine, a battleship that sank in Havana harbor in 1898, helping draw the United States into the Spanish-American War.
Source: Prague Monitor
May 16, 2011
Two powerful cranes lifted a fifty-tonne military bunker from the Sverma coal mine Monday and a lorry will drive it to the Military Technical Museum in Lesany, central Bohemia, Oldrich Obermajer, from the Regional Military Transport Office, has told CTK.No fortification from the interwar Czechoslovakia has been ever before moved to such a distance. It is also the heaviest transported military bunker, Obermajer said.The weight of the bunker posed the biggest problem, he added.
Source: BBC News
May 17, 2011
Former Rwandan army chief Augustin Bizimungu has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide.The UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda also convicted ex-paramilitary police chief Augustin Ndindiliyimana but released him for time already served.Two other senior generals were each sentenced to 20 years in prison.Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day genocide.
Source: BBC News
May 17, 2011
A court in northern Argentina has sentenced eight ex-army officers to life in jail for killing unarmed activists during military rule.Twenty-two people, mostly members of the Montoneros rebel group, were tortured and killed on 13 December 1976 after surrendering to the army.The massacre is named after the town of Margarita Belen where it happened.The killings are among the most prominent cases of abuse from the 1976-1983 Dirty War era.
Source: 5-16-11
BBC
Historians have uncovered evidence that the English believed William Wallace wanted to be King of Scotland.
Accounts of King Edward I's Exchequer for 1304-1305, describe the Scots patriot as someone who "falsely sought to call himself King of Scotland".
Researchers described his find as "startling" but urged caution, saying the English may have misinterpreted Wallace's role as Guardian of Scotland.
Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered in 1305 for high treason....
Source: 5-16-11
BBC
The Queen is the first British monarch to visit what is today known as the Republic of Ireland in 100 years, but is this a sign of the end of centuries of resentment, asks historian Diarmaid Ferriter.
When the Queen's grandfather, King George V, arrived in Dublin in July 1911 he subsequently recorded his "feelings of joy and affection" inspired by the "wonderful reception" he was given by people lining the streets.
Over the course of the next decade, however, the political situation in Ireland was transformed, as were Anglo-Irish relat
Source: BBC
May 16, 2011
Chinese officials have denied the Beijing palace that was once home to China's emperors is being used as a club for the rich.
Chinese media reports claim wealthy people can buy access to a restored section of the Forbidden City to entertain family and friends.
The reports have led to widespread criticism on the internet.
This is more bad publicity for the palace, following a break-in last week in which valuable items were stolen.
Media reports suggest wealthy people can buy membership to the exclusive club for $150,000
Source: CNN
May 16, 2011
Judge me by what I can do for America now, rather than only by my mistakes in the past, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday.
The former House speaker, who announced his candidacy last week, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he has made mistakes in life, including an adulterous affair that led to one of his two divorces.
Now the American people must decide whether he's the right person to lead the country at what Gingrich called a crucial moment in its history.
Gingrich, who turns 68 in
