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: ABC News
January 24, 2011
Egypt's antiquities chief says government asking Berlin to return Nefertiti bust
Egypt's top archaeologist has formally requested the return of the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti that has been in a Berlin museum for decades, the latest move in his eight-year-old campaign to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of the country during colonial times.
The bust dates back to the time of the 14th century B.C. queen and tops Egypt's wish list of artifacts that Zah
Source: BBC
January 23, 2011
Archaeologists are surveying the remains of Winston Churchill's secret headquarters in the hope of uncovering a new underground operations base.
The Coleshill estate was the English headquarters of a highly trained guerrilla volunteer force during World War II.
The house and its grounds, on the Oxfordshire/Wiltshire border, are now owned by the National Trust.
The survey has been organised by the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team.
The team was
Source: The Guardian (UK)
January 25, 2011
Scientists from the Space Research Centre are working with an art historian to reveal secrets of the Tudor Reformation
Cutting-edge space science technology of the sort used to analyse moon rock is being applied to fragments of 16th-century tombs. Scientists from the Space Research Centre in Leicester are working with an art historian from the nearby university as well as academics from Oxford and Yale in a three-year project that hopes to shed new light on our understanding of the
Source: BBC
January 24, 2011
A tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered in China with only a single claw on each forelimb.
Linhenykus monodactylus weighed no more than a large parrot and was found in sediments between 84 and 75 million years old.
The dinosaur belongs to a sub-branch of the theropods, the dinosaur group which includes T.rex and Velociraptor, and which gave rise to modern birds.
Details are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: BBC
January 25, 2011
A petition calling for an inquiry into the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber has been kept open despite an earlier refusal from the Scottish government.
The Justice For Megrahi (JFM) group handed over a petition to the Scottish Parliament in October last year.
It sought an independent probe into the case of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man to be convicted of the bombing which killed 270 people in 1988.
The petitions committee agreed to write to the gove
Source: BBC
January 25, 2011
A 1,700-year-old skeleton shows that people of African descent have lived in Warwickshire for far longer than was previously thought, experts say.
The skeleton of an African man was discovered buried in Tiddington Road, Stratford-upon-Avon, in 2009.
Archaeologists said they now believed the man may have been a Roman soldier who chose to retire in Stratford after serving in an African unit.
Investigations into the man's background are continuing.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 25, 2011
The largest Claude Monet retrospective the world has seen ended on a historic high as France's most visited art exhibition in more than 40 years.
In all 913,064 visitors flocked to Paris' Grand Palais on the Champs-Elysées to view 'Claude Monet (1840-1926)', gathering some 170 tableaux of the much-loved impressionist painter from around the globe. The show closed on Monday night.
The last time such attendance levels were beaten in France was for a 1967 exhibition on t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 25, 2011
It was the final act of compassion that seemed to epitomise the decency of President Abraham Lincoln.
On April 14, 1865, having steered the US through the horrors of civil war, he issued a pardon for Patrick Murphy, a mentally disabled private in the union army who had been sentenced to death for desertion.
He then headed to Ford's Theatre in Washington, to watch a performance of Tom Taylor's 'Our American Cousin', during which he was shot dead by John Wilkes Booth.
Source: AP
January 25, 2011
The U.N. chief says a U.N. appointed expert on Palestinian rights made preposterous remarks when he alleged an apparent cover-up by U.S. authorities involving the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Tuesday what he called the inflammatory rhetoric of Richard Falk, a U.N. special rapporteur appointed by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Falk suggested the cover-up in a blog post this month and criticized mainstream media for being un
Source: AP
January 25, 2011
An abandoned railway station outside Paris will be turned into a memorial for the tens of thousands of French and other European Jews who were deported from the site to death camps during World War II, an official said Tuesday.
The French national rail network, known as SNCF, is giving the former station in the Paris suburb of Bobigny to local officials as part of an agreement to create the memorial there.
SNCF last year for the first time expressed "sorrow and reg
Source: CNN
January 25, 2011
An exiled Rwandan rebel leader is being transferred to the International Criminal Court to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Paris prosecutor's office said Tuesday.
Callixte Mbarushimana was arrested in Paris in October under an ICC warrant involving allegations of mass rape and other crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mbarushimana, a leader of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), is charged with 11 coun
Source: CNN
January 25, 2011
The Bush administration used a White House political office as a "boiler room" to support Republican congressional candidates in violation of federal law, a report released Monday by an independent government watchdog agency concludes.
The findings of the report by the Office of Special Counsel echo those of a 2008 House Oversight Committee investigation, which concluded that the activities of the Office of Political Affairs during the administration of President George W.
Source: CNN
January 25, 2011
A Spanish-language newspaper in Georgia has drawn bipartisan criticism for publishing a doctored photograph depicting the state's new governor as a Nazi.
El Nuevo Georgia Editor Rafael Navarro said the picture was meant to call attention to Hispanic issues -- and grab the attention of residents and politicians who often ignore the Hispanic community.
The photo illustration, published in the paper's January 6 edition, shows Republican Gov. Nathan Deal wearing a Nazi unif
Source: Wired (UK)
January 18, 2011
We try and maintain a laserlike focus on the future at Wired, but sometimes it's worth taking a look back at the innovations of the past. On August 16, 1858, the first message was sent across the Atlantic by telegraph cable, reading "Glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace and good will toward men". The transmission marked the culmination of 19 years of dreams, plans and hard work, bridging the economic and political systems of both the UK and the USA.
The idea of a t
Source: Fox News
January 25, 2011
After the mayor of a small Arkansas town flew the confederate flag in observance of Robert E. Lee’s birthday, the city council passed an ordinance Monday saying only the U.S. flag and Arkansas flag can be flown on city property.
Mayor Jim Smithson flew the flag above Marshal City Hall from the 14th to the 18th of January. It resulted in numerous phone calls, e-mails, and an emergency meeting to make sure it does not happen again....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
January 25, 2011
Germany's central Nazi war crimes body said on Tuesday it had launched an inquiry after an envelope with photos of killings in the Soviet Union in World War II was handed in anonymously.
"In total there are 50 photos, some of which show very drastic deaths, such as hangings, as well as corpses on the ground and bodies piled into German army trucks," spokesman Andreas Brendel said.
"There are German army soldiers in some of the photos but it is unclear if
Source: Stars and Stripes
January 24, 2011
ARLINGTON, Va. – The Pentagon likes to put up huge commemorative posters and placards reminding Defense Department employees to celebrate things like Black History Month, Asian-American Diversity Week, even Holocaust Remembrance Day – pretty much name it, and they’ve got a sign for it.
Not appearing on any Pentagon hallway: a call to remember the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell speech, warning of the “military-industrial complex.”
The pos
Source: WaPo
January 24, 2011
The United States Mint, whose job it is to create coins, this week is issuing a quarter that honors Gettysburg National Military Park, site of a famous battle of the Civil War....
The Gettysburg coin shows the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument, which is located on the battle line of the Union Army at Cemetery Ridge....
Source: The State (SC)
January 21, 2011
For the past two days, a sign on the cafeteria door at Hammond School read, “Jews and dogs not allowed.”
The sign was part of the sixth-grade’s simulation of 1930s Germany in which students were divided into two groups – Nazis and Jews.
The students portraying Nazis spent a day as a privileged class, sitting in front rows, serving as teachers’ pets and being told they were smart. Meanwhile, the students who portrayed Jews ate in silence in the hallways, sat on the floor
Source: Kansas City Star
January 25, 2011
Super Mom ruled the '80s. She was to motherhood what the Virginia Slims chick was to cigarettes. She could do it all, be it all and have it all, all at the same time. She retired at the end of the decade, weary, exhausted, suffering from water retention and plantar fasciitis from spiked heels.
Soccer Mom ruled the '90s. She lived in the 'burbs, drove the kids to games in a minivan, had a lawn chair permanently stashed in the cargo hold, took snacks for the team, told her littlest on
