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
January 17, 2011
The impact of the King James Bible, which was published 400 years ago, is still being felt in the way we speak and write, says Stephen Tomkins.
No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they've ever opened a copy.
The Sun says Aston Villa "refused to give up the ghost". Wendy Richard ca
Source: WaPo
January 16, 2011
Chris Sharp was standing at a copying machine in the Vermont high school where he teaches art when the White House security people called: Was he the guy who sent the heavy bronze sculpture of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the homemade wooden packing crate?
Absolutely, Sharp replied. He was the guy who at his own expense sculpted, cast and was shipping in carpet-lined crates his 60-pound statues of King to President Obama and 16 other destinations across the country.
Source: NYT
January 17, 2011
It was rolled up among other yellowed maps and prints that came off a delivery truck at the Brooklyn Historical Society’s stately office near the East River. Carolyn Hansen, the society’s map cataloguer, began to gently unfurl the canvas.
“You could hear it rip,” said Ms. Hansen, 29, still cringing at the memory. She stopped pulling. But enough of the map, browned with age and dry and crisp as a stale chip, was open to reveal a name: Ratzer.
“We have a Ratzer map,” sai
Source: NYT
January 17, 2011
MEXICO CITY — Haiti’s political crisis took a stunning turn on Sunday when Jean-Claude Duvalier, the dictator known as Baby Doc who was overthrown in 1986, arrived unexpectedly in the capital from exile in France.
Haitian television and radio stations reported that Mr. Duvalier, dressed in a blue suit, landed shortly after 6 p.m. in Port-au-Prince on an Air France flight and told reporters that he had simply come to help Haiti, moved by images of the first anniversary of the earthq
Source: AOL News
January 15, 2011
Archaeologists who have been searching the sunken Queen Anne's Revenge for more than a decade found a gilded sword hilt that may have belonged to the infamous 18th-century pirate Blackbeard.
National Geographic published photos released by the team, which has been excavating the sunken ship off the coast of North Carolina since 1997. The Queen Anne's Revenge was the flagship of Edward Teach, known as Blackbeard, until it ran aground in an inlet in 1718.
The sword hilt w
Source: BBC
January 15, 2010
A rare folio of Shakespeare's work is being displayed at Durham University.
The 1623 first edition of the bard's work was stolen from the university in 1998. Its bindings and some pages were removed to try to disguise its origins.
Visitors to the exhibition at the new Wolfson Gallery at the university can view it in its current condition.
It will be conserved to protect it from damage after the exhibition. It is one of the earliest examples of a gathering
Source: CNN
January 14, 2011
Some school districts in the South are making up for days missed because of this week's snow and ice by requiring students to attend class on Monday's Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, a decision that does not sit well with some parents and community leaders.
The issue is especially sensitive in King's home state of Georgia, where administrators in two rural districts - Fannin and Gilmer counties - have canceled the school holiday.
Both districts are considering canceli
Source: CNN
January 14, 2011
Most would not consider civil rights the top concern of the nation's spies, but it was standing room only this week as hundreds gathered in the Central Intelligence Agency auditorium attentively listening to speeches on the civil rights movement.
Even the CIA commemorates the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It was one of several agencies remembering the civil rights hero in advance of the federal King holiday on Monday.
Director Leon Panetta told the intelligence officers
Source: CNN
January 14, 2011
Former President Ronald Reagan's youngest son suggests in a new book that his father showed signs of Alzheimer's disease while he was in the White House.
Former president Reagan disclosed he had Alzheimer's disease in 1994, five years after he left the White House. Questions have been raised in the past about whether he developed the disease while he was still in office, but suggestions that he did have been widely dismissed.
In an effort to set the record straight, fo
Source: BBC News
January 14, 2011
An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe's climate.
A team of researchers based their findings on data from 9,000 wooden artifacts from the past 2,500 years.
They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability.
The findings have been published online by the journal Scie
Source: Wall Street Journal
January 12, 2011
The scandal over conditions at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii has yet to die down since a structure known as the "School of the Gladiators" collapsed there in early November. At least three other major collapses occurred in the past two months. Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano has called the situation a "national disgrace"; opposition parliamentarians continue to press for Culture Minister Sandro Bondi's resignation; and in mid-December, prosecutors announced that they
Source: National Parks Traveler
January 14, 2011
A campaign to forever save from development a nearly 50-acre parcel of Virgina land that witnessed pitched fighting during the Civil War has succeeded. The land eventually will be turned over to the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, which surrounds the acreage.
“Saving critically important landscapes like this is precisely why this organization exists,” said Civil War Preservation Trust President James Lighthizer. “Generations of Americans will now have the opp
Source: Stuff
January 13, 2011
A Russian film crew is in Wellington researching a little-known Kiwi war hero awarded a rare medal by the former Soviet Union.
Wing Commander Henry Ramsbottom-Isherwood, who was born in Petone in 1905, led a RAF fighter wing from inside the Arctic circle at Murmansk after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
Russian state television company Rossiya-1, which broadcasts to up to 140 million Russians, is making a documentary and book that will include his story as par
Source: Live Science
January 13, 2011
What may be the earliest known relative of T. rex and all meat-eating dinosaurs has been discovered.
The dog-sized mini-predator would've made its future relatives proud as it fed on small dinosaurs and the young of other reptiles, and is now shaking up what scientists had previously learned about the evolution of those extinct giants.
The small, lanky, two-legged carnivore named Eodromaeus murphi -- Eodromaeus being Greek for "dawn runner," murphi in honor o
Source: CNN
January 13, 2011
Members of the Senate and House armed services committees currently are talking to the Pentagon about the next round of hearings on Afghanistan, trying to coordinate sessions with the U.S. commander there, Gen. David Petraeus.
When Petraeus, probably the best-known military man in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, returns to answer questions, the television lights will shine on the four stars he wears on each shoulder.
Now a new debate is swirling in Washington, thanks
Source: CNN
January 14, 2011
The abandoned ruins of the town of Pripyat near the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine, have been crumbling away for almost a quarter of a century.
The absence of humans has seen nature seemingly flourish in the town's deserted streets, squares and buildings, apparently defying the radiation that leaked out when reactor number four exploded on April 26 1986.
But how true is this picture?
New research is showing that some
Source: BBC News
January 14, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI has formally approved a miracle attributed to his late predecessor, paving the way to John Paul II's beatification on 1 May.
The process of beatification, or declaring the late pontiff to be "blessed", is a crucial step towards making him a saint.
John Paul II died in 2005 after a papacy of nearly 27 years.
The Vatican credits him with the miraculous cure of a nun said to have had Parkinson's Disease.
Church official
Source: Commercial Appeal
January 13, 2011
NASHVILLE — Members of Tennessee tea parties presented state legislators with five priorities for action Wednesday, including “rejecting” the federal health reform act, establishing an elected “chief litigator” for the state and “educating students the truth about America.”...
Regarding education, the material they distributed said, “Neglect and outright ill will have distorted the teaching of the history and character of the United States. We seek to compel the teaching of students
Source: The Atlantic
January 13, 2011
The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston unveiled a massive digital archive that will preserve the legacy of one of America's most beloved presidents.
The Archive contains 200,000 scanned document, 1,245 recordings of telephone conversations and speeches, 72 reels of movies, and 1,500 photos. It's the country's largest digital presidential collection, and opens up the details of the life of the former President to a wider audience than could ever touch the physical collecti
Source: Huffington Post
January 12, 2011
In trying to bat away criticism for violent rhetoric, Sarah Palin accused critics of "blood libel," and with it, referenced a legacy of hate -- a reference used by Adolf Hitler.
Palin released a statement and gave extended remarks about the weekend shooting in Arizona, first sending her condolences to the families of the victims and then fiercely responding to those blaming her campaign map -- which contained a bullseye over Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' congressional district
