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
February 7, 2011
FRESNO, Calif. — If Vang Pao had died a simple farmer like so many other Hmong here, his funeral would have been an elaborate affair.
For three days, as Hmong custom has it, his family and friends would have mourned in high-pitched chants, feasted on freshly slaughtered beef and burned a giant pile of paper money to buy his soul into the spirit world.
But Gen. Vang Pao was no plain Hmong elder, and his death last month at age 81 has brought forth no ordinary grief. He
Source: KBTX
February 8, 2011
The Texas Historical Commission and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are two other state agencies bracing for cuts.
From the Wilkerson and Waldrop Houses to the La Salle Hotel, these are just a few of the 272 Historical Markers in Brazos County.
Cathy Nolte, with Washington on the Brazos, said, "Its a process. Its not something that happens very quickly."...
Source: AP
February 7, 2011
People can buy alcohol in one Ohio town for the first time since Prohibition took effect in 1920.
Russell Township voters in northeast Ohio's Geauga County said no to going "wet" several times since Prohibition's repeal in 1933. The most recent rejection at the ballot box came in 2000.
But last fall voters approved a measuring allowing one convenience store to sell alcohol. The Circle K store began offering beer and wine last week.
Source: Southcoast Today
February 6, 2011
Right now it's just a small cemetery surrounded by a whitewashed fence with a few overgrown spots where the ruins of former houses once stood.
But the archeological site at "Parting Ways" on the town line of Plymouth and Kingston is arguably every bit as important as the Plimoth Plantation historical site across town.
Parting Ways is the name for a settlement that was home to four African-Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War.
The men — Pl
Source: AP
February 7, 2011
The mud-hut town of Juba has earned a promotion to world capital later this year. Only Southern Sudan needs far more than its own currency and a national anthem: Most of the roads here are dirt and even aid workers live in shipping containers.
In a little more than five months, Southern Sudan is slated to become the world's newest country. Final results from last month's independence referendum announced on Monday show that 98.8 percent of the ballots cast were for secession from Su
Source: AP
February 6, 2011
This is a town taken over by neo-Nazis.
Wooden signposts by the main road point to Vienna, Paris, and Braunau am Inn — the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. A far-right leader runs his demolition company from home, its logo featuring a man smashing a Star of David with a sledgehammer.
Every few months, townsfolk host outdoor parties where guests sing "Hitler is my Fuehrer" to chants of "Heil" around a massive bonfire....
Source: BBC
February 7, 2011
The previous UK government did "all it could" to help facilitate the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, a report on the case says.
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the country's most senior civil servant, said there was an "underlying desire" to see Megrahi released before he died.
But his report concluded that it was made clear to Libya that the final decision was up to Scottish ministers.
And there was no evidence of Labour press
Source: BBC
February 5, 2011
Birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation.
The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One.
Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds.
Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability.
The discovery
Source: BBC
February 7, 2011
Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency has named former military ruler Pervez Musharraf as "an accused" in an interim criminal charge-sheet.
He is said to have appointed two senior police suspected of not giving adequate protection to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at the time of her murder.
Mr Musharraf is accused of giving the pair their orders.
Legal experts say the mention of Mr Musharraf's name in a prosecution report does not mean he is i
Source: Reuters
February 7, 2011
Top British archaeologists are urging the government to rethink a law requiring human remains be reburied, warning it risks undermining years of research into the island's ancient peoples and study of their DNA.
The row stems from the reinterpretation of a law introduced in 2008 by the Ministry of Justice. The rule states human bones discovered in England and Wales since that time, regardless of their age, must be re-interred after two years.
In a letter to Justice Secr
Source: CNN
February 9, 2011
Missing out on the chance to learn about Egypt's ancient wonders firsthand is disappointing, but Tanis Miller isn't taking any chances with her 14-year-old daughter's safety.
"Unfortunately, I really think that the tourist season for my family to Egypt is closed this year. There's just too much instability," said the 35-year-old mother from northern Alberta.
Miller and her daughter were among a handful of travelers scheduled to go on a school trip to Egypt in
Source: Guardian (UK)
February 8, 2011
When they first took to the stage at the Cavern club on 9 February 1961 – 50 years ago today – they were a ragtag bunch of skinny Scousers looking for laughs. But that first gig in the Liverpool venue was at the start of an extraordinary journey that would see the band become, as John Lennon once put it, "more popular than Jesus".
Fans are planning to gather at the basement club to mark the half century since that initial appearance. Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison
Source: Yahoo News
February 8, 2011
What are the laws that govern royal marriages? Peter Hunt, BBC's royal correspondent, looks at the rules that bind Prince William and Kate Middleton as they prepare to walk down the aisle.
For a young man who craves a "normal" life, it was yet another reminder of just how abnormal his existence can sometimes be. Last year, Prince William had to check that his grandmother wouldn't object to him marrying Kate Middleton. It was both a formality and a requirement under British
Source: Ynet News
February 8, 2011
John Demjanjuk's attorney says he has obtained new evidence that throws into question the statement of a key witness that the defendant killed Jews at the Nazi's Sobibor death camp.
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is standing trial on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly having been a guard at Sobibor. He denies the charges....
Source: Live Science
February 3, 2011
Before dog was man's best friend, we might have kept foxes as pets, even bringing them with us into our graves, scientists now say.
This discovery, made in a prehistoric cemetery in the Middle East, could shed light on the nature and timing of newly developing relationships between people and beasts before animals were first domesticated. It also hints that key aspects of ancient practices surrounding death might have originated earlier than before thought.
The ancient
Source: CNN
February 8, 2011
In all the interviews and conversations, it hadn't come up. To the sisters, it was just a job they'd held a long time ago, when they were teens with a talent for numbers.
To filmmaker LeAnn Erickson, it was history rediscovered.
It was 2003 and Erickson was interviewing sisters Shirley Blumberg Melvin and Doris Blumberg Polsky for her documentary, "Neighbor Ladies," about a woman-owned real estate agency that helped to peacefully integrate a Philadelphia neigh
Source: Fox News
February 8, 2011
Chile's president vowed Tuesday to help find out what really killed one of his predecessors during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Sebastian Pinera said his Interior Ministry will join and support an independent judicial probe of the 1982 death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, a former president and prominent Pinochet critic who died suspiciously after a routine hernia operation.
Six people, including doctors and former Pinochet spies, were charged in December 2009
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 8, 2011
Sotheby's, the auction house, has been accused of forging a document to cover up the fact that it damaged a painting of the Jacobean spymaster Robert Cecil, a senior aide to both James I and Elizabeth I.
Sotheby’s staff are alleged to have added a hastily-written damage report - backdated to the day they collected the portrait, suggesting it was already damaged - to the painting’s paperwork.
Yet it is alleged they overlooked the fact that the owner, Aila Goodlin, had
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 8, 2011
David Cameron came under intense pressure from America last night to call an inquiry into Gordon Brown's role in the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Senior US politicians accused the former prime minister of "cutting deals to release terrorists" after an official report detailed how ministers pushed for the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The criticism was made after Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, admitted that Mr Brown's administ
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 8, 2011
The “dirty stones” allegedly given to Naomi Campbell by Charles Taylor, the African warlord, have dominated his UN trial for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.
The incident at a star studded gala banquet hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997 has overshadowed harrowing testimony from victims linking the former Liberian president to war crimes and mass amputations carried out by Sierra Leone’s RUF rebels.
The link is critical because Mr Taylor, 63, is accused by prosecu
