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: BBC News
February 11, 2011
An El Salvadorean immigrant has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 2001 murder of US intern Chandra Levy.
Ingmar Guandique was convicted of first-degree murder last November in the killing of Ms Levy, 24.
Her remains were found in 2002 in Rock Creek Park in Washington DC more than a year after she disappeared.
The case claimed the career of politician Gary Condit, once a suspect in the murder case, to whom Ms Levy was romantically linked.
Source: BBC News
February 12, 2011
Yale University has signed an agreement to return to Peru some 5,000 Inca artefacts removed from the famed Machu Picchu citadel nearly a century ago.
The relics - stone tools, ceramics and human and animal bones - will be housed in a new centre in the city of Cuzco.
The deal ends a long dispute over the artefacts, which were taken from Machu Picchu by American explorer Hiram Bingham in 1912.
Machu Picchu, high in the Andes, is Peru's main tourist attraction
Source: BBC News
February 14, 2011
US marine archaeologists have found the sunken whaling ship belonging to the captain who inspired Herman Melville's classic 19th Century novel, Moby Dick.
The remains of the vessel, the Two Brothers, was found in shallow waters off Hawaii.
Captain George Pollard was the skipper when the ship hit a coral reef and sank in 1823.
His previous ship, the Essex, had been rammed by a whale and also sank, providing the narrative for the book.
'Pretty amazing'
Source: BBC News
February 14, 2011
Hungarian prosecutors have charged former military officer Sandor Kepiro with a notorious 1942 massacre in the Serbian city of Novi Sad.
More than 1,200 Jewish, Serb and Roma civilians were murdered in the wartime raid, led by Hungarian forces.
Mr Kepiro is top of a list of most wanted Nazis compiled by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
He said he was "nowhere near the executions" and was "the only one who objected to the orders".
Source: BBC News
February 14, 2011
Ancient Britain was a peninsula until a tsunami flooded its land-links to Europe some 8,000 years ago. Did that wave help shape the national character?
The coastline and landscape of what would become modern Britain began to emerge at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago.
What had been a cold, dry tundra on the north-western edge of Europe grew warmer and wetter as the ice caps melted. The Irish Sea, North Sea and the Channel were all dry land, albeit it
Source: BBC
February 13, 2011
Bomb disposal experts have carried out a controlled explosion on a World War II mine off the Dorset coast.
The mine, which would have been dropped by air, was discovered about two miles outside Weymouth Harbour.
Royal Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal divers from Portsmouth were called to deal with the mine which was destroyed at about 1100 GMT on Saturday....
Source: Fox News
February 11, 2011
A fallen World War II airman from Green Bay is getting a major honor from the military this winter. Some of his remains and those of his crew-mates who crashed on Papua New Guinea in 1943 will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
A sister of one of those airmen, Joyce Clark, says she still fights back tears when she talks about her late brother. She was only 15 when Army Air Corps 2nd Lt. Robert Streckenbach Jr.'s plane went missing. But it wasn't until 2009, when she was 81, t
Source: CNN
February 13, 2011
At least 17 artifacts from the Egyptian Museum of Cairo are missing following a break-in, the country's minister of antiquities said Sunday.
The missing objects include a gilded wood statue of King Tutankhamun being carried by a goddess; parts of a a gilded wood statue of Tutankhamun harpooning; a limestone statue of Akhenaten; a statue of Nefertiti making offerings; a sandstone head of an Amarna princess; a stone statuette of a scribe from Amarna; 11 wooden shabti statuettes of Yuy
Source: NYT
February 13, 2011
You’ve been out of public sight for four years, writing your autobiography, “Known and Unknown: A Memoir.” Do you miss the action?
I just really loved serving in government, and I’ve also loved being out of government in business and doing other things, so I looked at it and what’s going on in current events and wish those folks well, but I have a distance from it.
What do you think of President Obama’s strategy in
Source: NYT
February 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — The anniversary will probably be observed in silence.
A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument.
If he is true to form, Justice Thomas will spend the arguments as he always does: leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes, whispering to Justice Stephen G. Breyer,
Source: NYT
February 12, 2011
How do you tell a dictator to get lost?
The answer, in Egypt, was with poetry, tech lingo, hieroglyphics and more.
For weeks, in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, demonstrators were telling President Hosni Mubarak to leave, playfully using a variety of dialects and languages to get the idea across.
And on Friday, Mr. Mubarak finally got the message and resigned.
In countries under authoritarian rule, “speaking truth to power” typically takes the for
Source: NYT
February 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — The cheers of Tahrir Square were heard around the world. But if you listened carefully, you might have heard cheering from another quarter 7,000 miles from Cairo as well, in Dallas.
The revolution in Egypt has reopened a long-simmering debate about the “freedom agenda” that animated George W. Bush’s presidency. Was he right after all, as his supporters have argued? Are they claiming credit he does not deserve? And has President Obama picked up the mantle of democracy a
Source: Yale News
February 11, 2011
Yale and the leader of the Peruvian National University of San Antonio Abad in Cusco will sign an agreement today outlining the future of Inca artifacts whose 100-year stay at Yale is quickly coming to a close.
Rector Victor Aguilar will join University President Richard Levin at 11:30 a.m. in Woodbridge Hall to sign an agreement about housing the artifacts at a new collaborative center at the Peruvian university. Vice President and General Counsel Dorothy Robinson said in an e-mail
Source: BBC
February 11, 2011
The war crimes trial of Liberia's former President Charles Taylor has been extended after judges said they would decide on a defence appeal.
Friday was due to be the last day of the trial, which began in 2007.
But defence lawyer Courtenay Griffiths stormed out of court this week after judges refused to accept the late submission of a document.
Mr Taylor denies 11 counts - including murder, rape, and using child soldiers during the civil war in Sierra Leone.
Source: BBC
February 10, 2011
New fossil evidence seems to confirm that a key ancestor of ours could walk upright consistently - one of the major advances in human evolution.
The evidence comes in the form of a 3.2 million-year-old bone that was found at Hadar, Ethiopia.
Its shape indicates the diminutive, human-like species Australopithecus afarensis had arches in its feet.
Arched feet, the discovery team tells the journal Science, are critical for walking the way modern humans do....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 11, 2011
Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, could have as much as $400 million hidden away out of reach of prosecutors, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.
US officials were told that if Mr Taylor is found guilty of war crimes, the international court in The Hague might only be able to recover a fraction of his wealth.
On Friday judges in The Hague adjourned indefinitely the three-year-old trial of Mr Taylor on charges of arming rebels who killed and maimed S
Source: CNN
February 10, 2011
Albert Einstein made many contributions to modern science, but it's the videos, bobblehead dolls and Halloween masks using his image that continue to generate millions of dollars long after his death.
But his granddaughter, Evelyn, said she hasn't received a dime from the marketing and sales of Einstein merchandise, while others have profited.
Her grandfather, the German-born physicist who formulated the general theory of relativity, bequeathed the literary rights for
Source: CNN
February 10, 2011
The U.S. Department of Defense on Thursday identified remains discovered in the South Pacific seven years ago as those of 11 airmen who had been missing since World War II.
The remains of Army Air Force Tech. Sgt. Charles A. Bode of Baltimore are to be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery. Bode was 23 when he was declared missing. A second burial service for the remaining 10 servicemen is scheduled to take place at the same site March 24.
The 11 servicemen had b
Source: Lee P. Ruddin
February 11, 2011
As Americans mark the Civil War Sesquicentennial, historians are fighting a battle over the reputation of the nation’s sixteenth president.
Featuring leading historians such as Eric Foner, Jay Sexton, and Lerone Bennett, JR., Abraham Lincoln: Saint or Sinner? unearths another Lincoln: a politician rather than a statesman; a pragmatist as opposed to a visionary; and a war criminal instead of a war leader.
The Lincoln presidency was previously considered beyond scholarly
Source: WaPo
February 10, 2011
The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday unveiled a new stamp commemorating Ronald Reagan, just days after what would have been the 40th president's 100th birthday.
The stamp is affixed with the mail agency's new "Forever" price denomination. Reagan was previously honored with stamps in 2005 and 2006....
