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: Yahoo News
March 21, 2011
ABBEVILLE, Ala. – Nearly 70 years after Recy Taylor was raped by a gang of white men, leaders of the rural southeast Alabama community where it happened apologized Monday, acknowledging that her attackers escaped prosecution because of racism and an investigation bungled by police.
"It is apparent that the system failed you in 1944," Henry County probate judge and commission chairwoman JoAnn Smith told several of Taylor's relatives at a news conference at the county courth
Source: American Catholic
March 14, 2011
VATICAN CITY (CNS)—Being the point person for promoting a sainthood cause requires the combined qualities of a private investigator, a theologian, a lawyer, a historian and a medical examiner.
But, most of all, it seems, patience and attention to detail are what's needed to be a postulator -- the key person promoting and shepherding the cause through each stage of the process, which often takes decades.
Teaching future postulators to navigate the process is the job of t
Source: NYT
March 20, 2011
Henry James condemned it a century ago as a “primal topographic curse.” Rem Koolhaas, the architect and urbanist, countered that its two-dimensional form created “undreamed-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy.” More recently, two historians described its map, regardless of its flaws, as “the single most important document in New York City’s development.”
Two hundred years ago on Tuesday, the city’s street commissioners certified the no-frills street matrix that heralded New Yor
Source: NYT
March 20, 2011
John Randel Jr., the secretary, surveyor and chief engineer for New York City’s street commissioners, was hardly the most popular public servant of his day.
Beginning in 1808, Randel and his colleagues were pelted with artichokes and cabbages; arrested by the sheriff for trespassing (and often bailed out by Richard Varick, a former mayor); sued for damages after pruning trees; and attacked by dogs sicced on them by property owners irate at the prospect of streets’ being plowed throu
Source: Cincinnati
March 24, 2011
Damage caused by vandals at the Harrison Tomb last week will be repaired quickly, according to officials from the Ohio Historical Society.
The Harrison Tomb is the final resting place of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States of America. His family is also buried in the mausoleum within the tomb. The memorial on Cliff Road is a 60-foot marble obelisk in a 14-acre park.
On March 17, Bev Meyers, a member of the Harrison-Symmes Memorial Foundation
Source: BBC
March 24, 2011
British observational documentary maker Richard Leacock, who filmed John F Kennedy on his 1960 presidential campaign, has died at the age of 89.
Leacock, a pioneer of unobtrusive camera technique Cinema Verite, died at his home in Paris on Wednesday.
He solved the puzzle of how to sync speech and video by inventing a system using US-made Bulova watches.
His work on films like the 1960 Kennedy film Primary paved the way for new wave directors such as Jean-Lu
Source: AP
March 24, 2011
The spokesman for the Norwegian Nobel Committee says the panel is very concerned over the lack of information about Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Permanent Secretary Geir Lundestad says the committee hasn't received any updates about Liu's whereabouts or wellbeing since October, when the prize was announced and Liu's wife went to visit him in prison.
Liu won the prize for his nonviolent struggle for human rights in
Source: CNN
March 24, 2011
An Argentine Dirty War-era general has been sentenced to life in prison for the killing of five people during the dictatorship.
Luciano Benjamin Menendez, former head of the Third Army Corps, was already serving a life sentence for violating the human rights of four others.
A panel of judges on the Argentine court handed down the sentence Wednesday.
Sentenced along with Menendez was former policeman Roberto Heriberto Albornoz, who was also sent to prison fo
Source: NYT
March 23, 2011
SIOUX COUNTY, Iowa — In the 1970s, the divorce rate was so low in this rural northwest Iowa County that it resembled the rest of America in the 1910s. Most of its 28,000 residents were churchgoers, few of its women were in the work force, and divorce was simply not done.
So it is a bitter mark of modernity that even here, divorce has swept in, up nearly sevenfold since 1970, giving the county the unwelcome distinction of being a standout in this category of census data....
Source: NPR
March 22, 2011
Among the casualties of Egypt's revolution are many of its famous historical sites and artifacts.
Vandalism and looting at these sites skyrocketed in the weeks after the Egyptian police force — including those responsible for tourism and antiquities — vanished from their posts.
Even now, as the security forces resume their duties, archaeologists and experts complain that far more needs to be done by Egypt's new government to protect the country's heritage.
Source: NYT
March 22, 2011
Fifth Avenue, the glittering central spine of Manhattan, is the undisputed divider of the city’s famous street grid: east of Fifth is East, and west of Fifth is West. Been that way since 1838.
So when Scott M. Stringer, the borough president of Manhattan, was walking along Fifth Avenue by Central Park this week, he noticed something peculiar: every bus stop sign on the sidewalk seemed to be wrong.
A stop across the avenue from East 84th Street was identified as “5 Ave
Source: BBC
March 23, 2011
Bolivia has said it will take Chile to international courts to try to recover access to the Pacific Ocean, which it lost in a war 132 years ago.
President Evo Morales said Chile had failed to respond to a deadline he had set for progress in negotiations.
He said Bolivia would continue dialogue with Chile while seeking a legal solution to its landlocked status.
Bolivia's loss of the sea was an "open wound" that must be healed, he added.
Source: BBC
March 23, 2011
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has said he will formally ask the US for classified intelligence documents on human rights violations during the rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.
Mr Pinera was speaking a day after US President Barack Obama said he would consider any Chilean requests.
Mr Obama - who was visiting Chile - ducked a request that he apologise for US support for Gen Pinochet.
More than 3,000 Chileans were killed under military rule in 1973-90.
Source: NYT
March 22, 2011
One hundred years after the Triangle Waist Company fire, the fashion that employed small armies of seamstresses at the turn of the last century endures.
The American shirtwaist was a trend that, quite literally, had legs. This brash but sensible pairing of tailored shirt and skirt offered a glimpse of the ankles, which was as rare in its day as it was freeing.
Designed for utility, the style was embraced at the turn of the 20th century by legions of young women who pref
Source: NYT
March 22, 2011
Laying bare the country’s most startling example of modern urban collapse, census data on Tuesday showed that Detroit’s population had plunged by 25 percent over the last decade. It was dramatic testimony to the crumbling industrial base of the Midwest, black flight to the suburbs and the tenuous future of what was once a thriving metropolis....
Nearly a century ago, the expansion of the auto industry fueled a growth spurt that made Detroit the fourth-largest city in the country by
Source: NYT
March 22, 2011
HENDERSON, Nev. — Tom Stevens sat at a Starbucks in this Las Vegas suburb and watched his grandfather, Babe Ruth, cavort across the computer screen.
“I haven’t seen anything like that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that there isn’t other stuff out there, but I haven’t seen it.”
There are so few moving images of Babe Ruth that even Major League Baseball’s monstrous archive contains less than an hour’s worth. The bulk of Ruth footage may, in fact, still be buried in basement
Source: BBC News
March 23, 2011
Dame Elizabeth Taylor, one of the 20th Century's biggest movie stars, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 79.
The double Oscar-winning actress had a long history of ill health and was being treated for symptoms of congestive heart failure.
Her four children were with her when she died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, her publicist said.
In a statement, her son Michael Wilding called her "an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest".
Source: BBC
March 22, 2011
German prosecutors have called for a six-year jail term for John Demjanjuk, saying there is "no reasonable doubt" that he participated in the Nazi slaughter of Jews in World War II.
The 90-year-old is accused of having helped to murder 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.
A verdict is expected in May. Mr Demjanjuk denies the charges.
Born in Ukraine, he was extradited to Germany from the US in 2009.
T
Source: BBC
March 22, 2011
An archaeologist believes he has discovered the remains of a Roman quarry in the old harbour at Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Karl-James Langford says the pottery find reinforces his belief that beach man-made walls may be 1,900 years old.
The quarry was operational until the 19th Century but its origins were unknown.
He believes the quarry to be the source of limestone used for the Roman fort whose remains can be seen in the walls around Cardiff Castle,
Source: BBC
March 22, 2011
An investigation ordered by the Ulster Museum has quashed speculation that an Old Master hanging in Belfast was part of a haul looted by Nazis.
A Dutch art historian was called in to carry out an inquiry into the history of the ownership of the painting.
The Ulster Museum bought the painting in 1966 for £9,000. But in recent years, questions began to surface about the provenance of the masterpiece when it was linked to the Dutch Jewish art collector Jacques Goudstikker.
