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
February 1, 2011
The world's oldest person, as verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, is dead at the age of 114, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
Eunice Sanborn of Jacksonville, Texas, died quietly in her home on Monday, the research group said.
Sanborn was born July 20, 1896, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which said it based her birth date and age conservatively on census records from the time. Her obituary in the Jacksonv
Source: Reuters
January 31, 2011
Looters have pillaged a number of warehouses containing ancient Egyptian artifacts, stealing and damaging some of them, archaeologists and warehouse workers said on Monday.
A group of looters attacked a warehouse at the Qantara Museum near the city of Ismailia on the Suez Canal that contained 3,000 objects from the Roman and Byzantine periods, a source at the tourism police said.
Many of the objects had been found in Sinai by the Israelis after they occupied the peninsu
Source: Discovery News
January 30, 2011
Egyptians are bravely defending their cultural heritage, according to a statement from Ismail Serageldin, librarian of Alexandria and director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
“The young people organized themselves into groups that directed traffic, protected neighborhoods and guarded public buildings of value such as the Egyptian Museum and the Library of Alexandria,” he said.
“The library is safe thanks to Egypt’s youth, whether they be the staff of the Library or the
Source: AP
January 29, 2011
Ancient artifacts at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum are safe from looters but could still be damaged by the potential collapse of a neighboring building gutted by fire, the head of the country's antiquities chief said Saturday.
The ruling party headquarters building next door to the museum was still in flames and billowing black smoke into the sky on Saturday, a day after protesters torched it during mass anti-government demonstrations.
"What scares me is that if th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 30, 2011
It’s a masterpiece of design but, says Hugh Aldersey-Williams, the familiar grid of elements has ruined many a chemistry lesson.
All children have posters on their bedroom walls – favourite bands, favourite teams, cars, animals. Not me. I had the periodic table of the elements. In fact, I went one better. My periodic table was a 3D affair with little cubicles for actual specimens of the chemical elements themselves, which I began to collect. I found quite a few around the house. Cop
Source: Ocala.com (Florida)
January 30, 2011
Sixty-six years ago, during World War II, Everett Harris saw something he only spoke of sparingly to family members and a few close friends. EV, as he is known around the Summerfield retirement community where he lives, thought it might be time, at age 89, to reveal his experience without reprisal.
Calling it "The Mystery Spheres," Harris composed a three-page account of that experience. Part of the account reads, "... another pilot and I were flying in close formatio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2011
It is a secret code that has confounded some of the finest minds of the past 150 years, and proved irresistible to hundreds of conspiracy theorists.
Explanations for the eight-letter inscription on the 18th century Shepherd's Monument, at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, have ranged from a coded love letter to Biblical verse.
Some have even suggested that the letters OUOSVAVV – framed at either end by DM – were a sign left by the Knights Templar pointing to where the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2011
The intriguing story of the world’s first known celebrity stalker, who once stole Queen Victoria’s knickers, has been revealed for the first time.
Edward Jones, 14, broke into Buckingham Palace at least three times between 1838 and 1841 and managed to get within yards of the young monarch, sitting on the throne, reading books in the library and even entering her private apartments.
He claimed to have slept in a servant's bed, eaten in the kitchen, explored the drawing r
Source: FoxNews
January 2, 2011
An ancestor to the horned dinosaur Triceratops roamed the earth millions of years before its famous descendant, making it the earliest discovered member of the family, scientists say.
The newly named species, Titanceratops, weighed in at around 15,000 pounds and had an 8-foot-long skull. The ancient dinosaur lived during the Cretaceous period, about 74 million years ago in the American Southwest.
The finding, which will feature in the journal of Cretaceous Research, sug
Source: Newsweek
January 30, 2011
This article is being written on a brand-new MacBook Air. It is a gorgeous thing, all crisp edges, sleek surfaces, and continuous flow. In recent days, as pundits have speculated about the future of Apple under an ailing Steve Jobs, one constant has been praise for his eye for design—and concern for what the company might become without it. Since Jobs’s return to Apple in 1997, his designers have won all sorts of awards.
But anyone committed to cutting-edge contemporary art and desi
Source: Tablet Magazine
February 1, 2011
Never have so many Jews lost so much sleep over the fate of one ailing Arab dictator.
This would be the opening line to a Jackie Mason monologue if it wasn’t a pretty valid description of the way most Israelis spent their weekend. Judging by the extensive (if not borderline compulsive) manner in which the Israeli media has been covering the recent events in Egypt, one would be correct to assume that in a very strange, if not ironic, twist, Israel has come to see its own fate as tied
Source: Telegraph (UK)
February 1, 2011
A mother who lost her daughter in the Lockerbie attack has condemned the “cold, callous and brutal” behaviour of British ministers after WikiLeaks documents revealed how they secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the bomber.
Documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that a Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on com
Source: CNN
February 1, 2011
Feb. 1, 2003: Space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing 7 astronauts. Here's how the news broke on CNN.
Source: MNN
February 1, 2011
Before we received weather reports from rodents and life lessons from time loops, Groundhog Day evolved for centuries into the bizarre holiday it is today.
For one day each year, people across North America count on a network of groggy groundhogs to rise at dawn and issue a six-week weather outlook. It's a popular tradition from Punxsutawney, Pa., to Vancouver, B.C., with crowds often braving bitter cold on Feb. 2 just to see the furry forecasters in action.
But why? Ho
Source: BBC News
February 1, 2011
BP has reported a loss of $4.9bn (£3.1bn) for 2010, its first annual loss since 1992.
The company said the replacement cost loss reflected a sum of $40.9bn set aside for charges relating to the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The loss compares with a profit of $13.9bn that BP had recorded in 2009.
The company's chief executive, Robert Dudley, said BP would restore its dividend payment to shareholders, paying seven cents a share.
The divi
Source: BBC News
February 1, 2011
For the first time since the Soviet era, a statue has been erected to a Russian political leader. The monument in Yekaterinburg, Boris Yeltsin's home city, is the centrepiece of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of his birth.
Until recently, state-owned channels had been emphasising the out-of-control criminality associated with the Yeltsin years, but this week his official reputation appears to have been re-evaluated with the broadcast of stirring TV documentaries.
Source: BBC News
February 1, 2011
A portrait of the muse who transformed painter Pablo Picasso's life and art is to go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London next week.
La Lecture depicts his secret lover, Marie-Therese Walter, who was 17 when Picasso, then 45, introduced himself as she stepped off a Paris train.
Their relationship was kept secret for many years because of her age and because Picasso was married.
The 1932 painting is expected to fetch between £12m and £18m.
Ms
Source: NYT
January 31, 2011
Brooklyn College on Monday reversed an earlier decision not to hire an adjunct professor to teach a seminar on Middle East politics, a decision that the professor and others called politically motivated.
In a statement issued Monday evening, Karen L. Gould, the college’s president, said she had endorsed a recommendation from the political science department that the adjunct, Kristofer Petersen-Overton, teach the class this spring.
On his Web site, Mr. Petersen-Overton,
Source: NYT
January 31, 2011
CHICAGO — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking at a law school here on Monday, said she had “taken heat” at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings two summers ago in part because she was the first Hispanic nominee.
“People have views of me and expectations of me that are based on stereotypes,” she said.
In her most candid and extensive public remarks since joining the court in 2009, Justice Sotomayor reflected on the advice she had received from colleagues, her discomfor
Source: NYT
January 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — A video that outraged some Roman Catholics and some members of Congress was suitable for inclusion in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, a member of board that reviewed a decision to pull it from the show said Monday. But museum officials’ insufficient explanation of the work led to its hasty withdrawal, he said.
John W. McCarter Jr., a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, who led a review of the decision, said the Dec. 1 removal of the vi
