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: WaPo
January 31, 2011
Archaeologists expressed deep concern on Sunday that many of Egypt's historical treasures were threatened by looters after the political uprising, while Egypt's top antiquities official said that all 24 national museums are now under the protection of the Army and that damage to the main Cairo museum housing thousands of priceless artifacts appears limited.
Officials in Egypt and American Egyptologists said they were worried, however, about reports of ongoing looting at Saqqara, an
Source: AOL News
January 30, 2011
On a dusty patch of road just north of Los Angeles, one man's dream of honoring an era of cinema is about to become a reality.
Charlie Chaplin's bumbling, lovable "Little Tramp" character is arguably the most famous icon of the silent film era. Today, the Tramp remains popular all over the world. Chaplin first brought the character to life in 1914, helping launch the silent era. Interestingly, when Chaplin retired the character in 1936, the silent film era ended.
Bu
Source: Hampton Roads Pilot Online
January 27, 2011
Each day, when the General Assembly is in session, 81-year-old Bud Roderick slips on a pair of white gloves.
At precisely three minutes before the gavel bangs in the House of Delegates, Roderick - dressed always in a blue blazer, gray slacks, white shirt - opens a glass case, tenderly removes a golden mace and carries it on extended arms into the chamber.
In a Capitol rich with pomp, few things embody it more than Virginia's solid silver, 24-karat-coated ceremonial mace
Source: SC Now
January 27, 2011
The long and controversial road to bring a statue of Revolutionary War Gen. Francis Marion to Johnsonville may be nearing its end.
Johnsonville City Administrator Scott Tanner said fundraising for the statue is closing in on its original goal of $100,000.
As of Dec. 8, the total amount of pledged funding reached $82,981 with the total amount received being $65,481. The funding includes major donations from Florence County and Santee Cooper.
“We’re getting t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 27, 2011
Google has partnered with Israel’s Yad Vashem museum, to help digitise the largest collection of Holocaust photos and documents in the world, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The search giant is working with the Jerusalem-based archive to properly index and store in Google’s cloud 130,000 photographs, some of which are currently available on Yad Vashem’s website, but until now have been difficult to locate and discover online....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 27, 2011
An association fighting for the stolen children and their families, Anadir, presented the demand at the Madrid attorney general's office with evidence including DNA tests and testimony from nurses who admitted stealing babies.
The demand was made on behalf of the victims and families of 261 snatched babies. Anadir lawyer Enrique Vila said many others are expected to join the complaint.
"We get more and more calls from people who have doubts about their origins, bec
Source: NYT
January 29, 2011
WASHINGTON — Hours before President Obama delivered his State of the Union address, a senior adviser to the president confided that his tone would be “self-consciously optimistic.” And so it was....
It was perhaps no accident that Mr. Obama took Lou Cannon’s biography of that other optimist and purveyor of American exceptionalism, Ronald Reagan, with him to Hawaii over Christmas. Or that one of the Washington wise men the president consulted recently was Kenneth M. Duberstein, a chi
Source: AFP
January 27, 2011
A French architect campaigning for a new exploration of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza said on Thursday that the edifice may contain two chambers housing funereal furniture.
Jean-Pierre Houdin -- who was rebuffed three years ago by Egypt in his appeal for a probe into how the Pyramid was built -- said 3-D simulation and data from a US egyptologist, Bob Brier, pointed to two secret chambers in the heart of the structure.
The rooms would have housed furniture fo
Source: The Independent (UK)
January 31, 2011
Penny Feiwel was the last of the British women who served as volunteers on the side of the Spanish Republic during the civil war of 1936-39.
She was one of about 75 women from Britain who joined the International Brigades following the military coup launched by Francisco Franco and other generals with backing from Hitler and Mussolini. Like Feiwel, known in Spain by her maiden name of Phelps, most of them were nurses and worked in makeshift frontline hospitals in conditions of great
Source: Rianovosti (Russia)
January 30, 2011
Authorities in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, have unveiled a plan to turn the remains of Hitler' Eastern Front military headquarters into a tourist attraction.
The museum is planned to be established by May 9, the anniversary of the Victory Day over Fascism.
"It is time to make the Wehrwolf headquarters a tourist destination, a memorial to the victims of fascism," the head of the local administration, Mykola Djiga was quoted by UNIAN news agency.
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Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 31, 2011
Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has likened the values of the whistle-blowing website to those of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America.
In a CBS interview with 60 Minutes aired on Sunday night Mr Assange, who is currently under US criminal investigation over the leaking of hundreds of thousands of secret military reports and diplomatic cables, also denied that he was motivated by a dislike of America.
“Our founding values are those of the US r
Source: AP
January 30, 2011
Southern Sudan's referendum commission said Sunday that more than 99 percent of voters in the south opted to secede from the country's north in a vote held earlier this month.
The announcement drew cheers from a crowd of thousands that gathered in Juba, the dusty capital of what may become the world's newest country.
The weeklong vote, held in early January and widely praised for being peaceful and for meeting international standards, was a condition of a 2005 peace ag
Source: BBC News
January 28, 2011
Hundreds of people have attended an event at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to mark the 25th anniversary of the space shuttle Challenger explosion, in which seven astronauts died.
Special guests at the Cape Canaveral visitor's complex included the widow of Challenger's commander.
The event comes one day after a national day of remembrance for those killed in the 1986 incident.
Flags flew at half-mast at Nasa centres across the country on Thursday.
Source: BBC News
January 31, 2011
Composer John Barry, famous for his work on Born Free, Out of Africa and the James Bond films, has died in New York of a heart attack aged 77.
Born John Barry Prendergast in 1933, the York-born musician first found fame as leader of the John Barry Seven.
His arrangement of Monty Norman's James Bond theme led to him composing scores for 11 films in the series, among them Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice.
His work saw him win five Oscars, while he received
Source: Star Telegram
January 29, 2011
Texas proudly cloaks itself in history, but one of the most momentous anniversaries in state history will pass this week without a whisper of official acknowledgment.
One hundred and fifty years ago, on Feb. 1, 1861, Texas seceded from the Union, joined the Confederacy and marched headlong into the Civil War.
Tuesday will be just one historic milepost among hundreds of big days over the next four years as the nation continues its struggle to understand -- and quarrels
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 30, 2011
One of only seven surviving vessels which took part in the Normandy landings sank last night with one of its crew missing.
The Yarmouth Navigator, a former Navy minesweeper and patrol boat, was being moved to a new mooring after a campaign to save it which lasted several years.
Rescuers were searching for one missing person after three people were saved from the waters of Plymouth Sound shortly after 6.30pm.
A major search and rescue operation was launch
Source: Salon
January 29, 2011
Would-be looters broke into Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, ripping the heads off two mummies and damaging about 10 small artifacts before being caught and detained by soldiers, Egypt's antiquities chief said Saturday.
Zahi Hawass said the vandals did not manage to steal any of the museum's antiquities, and that the prized collection was now safe and under military guard.
With mass anti-government protests still roiling the country and unleashing chaos on the streets, f
Source: Boston Globe
January 29, 2011
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—The Rhode Island Black Heritage Society has announced the release of a booklet chronicling a Rhode Island black church's early years that was originally published in 1906.
The "History of the Olney Street Baptist Church," released this week by the society, is a 12-page historical record compiled by A.A. Wheeler, who served as the church historian and assistant superintendent of its Sunday school....
Source: BBC
January 29, 2011
New research suggests that the language Gulliver's Travels author Jonathan Swift used in a series of letters to two women reflects the way babies talk.
Dr Abigail Williams - of St Peter's, Oxford University - has studied the early 18th Century correspondence sent by Swift from London to the women in Dublin.
She said her son had helped solve some of the mysteries of Swift's text.
Dr Williams claims that the only way to understand Swift's letters was to read
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 29, 2011
Margaret Thatcher held secret meetings with a controversial Indian mystic soon after she became leader of the Tory opposition.
The Iron Lady, who was renowned for her no-nonsense direct approach, conversed with self-proclaimed faith healer and preacher Sri Chandraswamy in 1975 in her Commons office.
And the future Prime Minister was so impressed with his apparent powers that she agreed to his request to wear a special red dress and a battered talisman around her wrist
