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: ColorLines
March 30, 2011
It’s a heartbreaking, but often understated, reality that America’s criminal justice system imprisons black folks at astonishingly high rates. The U.S. Bureau of Justice estimated that as of 2008, there were over 846,000 black men in prison, making up 40.2 percent of all inmates in the system. But in a recent talk, noted author Michelle Alexander put those numbers in grave historical perspective.
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were ensl
Source: NYT
April 1, 2011
YORBA LINDA, Calif. — Most presidential libraries are as much celebrations of a president as historical repositories. They are packed with official papers, photographs, limousines, proclamations and baby shoes representing the president’s life and times; dark chapters are traditionally ignored or at least understated.
That tradition was exploded Thursday as the Watergate Gallery opened here at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. The unveiling ended a nearly yearlong s
Source: NYT
March 31, 2011
GANDHI is still so revered in India that a book about him that few Indians have read and that hasn’t even been published in this country has been banned in one state and may yet be banned nationwide.
The problem, say those who have fanned the flames of popular outrage this week, is that the book suggests that the father of modern India was bisexual.
The book’s author, Joseph Lelyveld, does write extensively about the close relationship Mohandas K. Gandhi had with a Germ
Source: David A. Walsh at HNN
March 25, 2011
[David A. Walsh is the associate editor of HNN.]MARCH 28 UPDATEMARCH 29 UPDATEMARCH 30 UPDATEThe Wisconsin Republican Party is filing legal documents to gain access to the personal emails of William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison and president-elect of th
Source: Nature
March 14, 2011
The logical argument that ancient human ancestors had to have mastered fire before departing balmy Africa for the often freezing climes of Europe is being challenged by a review revealing that there is no evidence to support the idea.
Exactly when fire became a tool in the hominin toolbox is a thorny issue. Unlike stone tools, which hold together reasonably well over the course of time and can be dated as having been in hominin hands for at least 2.6 million years, the ash and charc
Source: Global Arab Network
March 24, 2011
Syria (Swaida) - The small village unearthed in the archaeological site of Tel Qarasa (hill) in the west of Swaida province, dating back to around 11000 years constitute a clear example of the first models of urban life in the prehistoric times.
The excavations of the Syrian-French archaeological mission conducted at the site over the last two years showed that Qarasa region knew human presence in the form of tiny villages of 8 round houses whose inhabitants depended on fishing and
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 31, 2011
Scottish prosecutors have requested an interview with Moussa Koussa over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, following the Libyan foreign minister's apparent defection to Britain.
Mr Koussa, a former head of Libyan intelligence and one-time member of leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle, arrived unexpectedly in Britain on Wednesday and said he was resigning as foreign minister, the Foreign Office said.
His arrival was welcomed by relatives of those killed in the bombing
Source: AP
March 31, 2011
History is being restored at the Richard Nixon Library, where the Watergate exhibit once told visitors nearly four decades after the scandal led to his resignation that it was really a "coup" by his rivals.
For years the library exhibit that retraces the former president's notorious saga was a target of ridicule, panned for omissions and editing that academics and critics said shaped a legacy favorable to the tainted 37th president.
On Thursday, archivists wil
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
March 30, 2011
Local councils considering selling off their libraries and museums could be halted by a little-known Victorian law, it has emerged.
Hundreds of British libraries are thought to be under threat as local authorities are forced to reduce their budgets as a result of government cuts to public services.
But the sales could be worthless due to an 150-year-old law that means profits must be returned to the original landowners.
The Literary and Scientific Instituti
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
March 30, 2011
For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price.
This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity.
Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.
On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear
Source: Time.com
March 30, 2011
On a recent, unusually warm late-winter day, a young woman sat quietly at the foot of a white headstone at Arlington National Cemetery, among a cluster of graves of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The woman, maybe 25 years old, sat in the grass, hugging the headstone.
The question is not why she was doing that (that's easy to understand); the question is whether the headstone she was hugging was the right one. Last summer, an Army inspector general's investigation confirmed
Source: Press Release
March 31, 2011
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/30/2011) —U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank today dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Turkish Coalition of America against the University of Minnesota. The lawsuit arose from materials posted on the university’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) website, including a list of websites CHGS considered “unreliable” for purposes of conducting scholarly research. The Turkish Coalition claimed the university violated its constitutional rights, and committed
Source: ScienceNow
March 22, 2011
Piles of garbage left by humans thousands of years ago may have helped form tree-covered biodiversity hot spots in the Florida Everglades, according to a new study. The authors say the findings show that human disturbance of the environment doesn't always have a negative consequence.
The so-called tree islands of the Everglades are patches of relatively high and dry ground that rise from the wetlands. They stand between 1 and 2 meters higher than the surrounding landscape, can cover
Source: Science News
March 24, 2011
Finds unearthed in southeastern India offer a cutting-edge revision of hominid migrations out of Africa more than 1 million years ago that spread pivotal tool-making methods.
Makers of a specific style of teardrop-shaped stone hand ax, flat-edged cleavers and other implements that originated in Africa around 1.6 million years ago (SN: 1/31/09, p. 11) reached South Asia not long afterward, between 1.5 and 1 million years ago, say archaeologist Shanti Pappu of the Sharma Center for He
Source: This is Somerset (UK)
February 21, 2011
Stone will continue to be quarried from Ham Hill Country Park near Yeovil, Somerset, for the next 80 years after planning permission to extend the site was agreed.
The Iron Age hill fort, near Norton sub Hamdon, is the only place in the country where ham stone can be quarried but as of July 2010 it was estimated the current reserve would only last for 18 months.
With much of the remaining stone to the south of the park being deemed unusable, a new source was needed.
Source: AFP
March 31, 2011
A US federal appeals court has sided with Iran in a long-running legal battle over whether Persian artifacts in Chicago museums can be seized as compensation for victims of a terror attack in Israel.
Tuesday's ruling overturns a lower court's rejection of Iran's sovereign immunity and order that Iran must provide the victims with a list of all its US assets.
However, the ruling will make it harder for the victims to find other assets which could be considered exempt fro
Source: Discovery News
March 31, 2011
The thigh bone of a huge extinct mammal may have helped inspired a beast or two in classical mythology.
The bone of a large extinct creature, once treasured by the ancient Greeks, has finally found a permanent home in England.
Known as the Nichoria bone, the blackened fossil is part of the thigh bone of an immense extinct mammal that roamed southern Greece perhaps a million years ago. The bone was collected by ancient Greeks and may have even helped inspire certain beas
Source: Fox News
March 30, 2011
A German expedition team assembled to find a lost $290 million Maya treasure allegedly submerged underneath Guatemala’s Lake Izabal has returned home empty-handed, but controversy continues to grow over the treasure adventure and its motives.
Joachim Rittstieg, a retired 74-year-old mathematician claiming to have deciphered the famous Dresden Codex, a 400-year-old Mayan book, says he discovered information on page 52 leading to "a giant treasure of eight tons of pure gold"
Source: BBC
March 31, 2011
A memorial to the Royal Marines who canoed almost 100 miles behind enemy lines to blow up ships in a daring World War II raid has been unveiled in France. But what did the secret mission entail, and why was it so important?
For 10 marines in December 1942, their secret mission was so daring and dramatic they were hailed as the Cockleshell Heroes and in 1955, immortalised in film.
Unbeknown to them when they signed up for "hazardous service", their job was to t
Source: BBC
March 31, 2011
A giant predatory theropod dinosaur, similar in size and stature to Tyrannosaurus rex, has been identified by palaeontologists.
The new dinosaur, named Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, probably stood four metres tall, was 11 metres long and weighed around six tonnes.
Like T. rex, it was a carnivore with huge powerful jaws.
It ran on strong back legs, with puny front limbs, scientists report in the journal Cretaceous Research....
