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
November 16, 2010
BERLIN -- A long-secret report on the U.S. Department of Justice's Nazi-hunting unit that was made public over the weekend could help get John Demjanjuk out of jail, his attorney has told The Associated Press.
Defense attorney Ulrich Busch said he will submit a motion after the trial resumes next week, relying on the report, that was posted Saturday by the New York Times, arguing that Demjanjuk should be given credit for time he served in Israel where he was tried in the 1980s and 1
Source: Fredericksburg.com
November 16, 2010
Expert witnesses for the Orange County Board of Supervisors will remain part of the defense according to a ruling yesterday in the case brought by plaintiffs trying to keep a Walmart from being built near the Wilderness Battlefield.
The plaintiffs, Friends of the Wilderness Battlefield and six nearby residents, wanted seven of the county's eight experts stricken--a ruling Circuit Judge Daniel R. Bouton refused to make.
But he did direct Walmart attorney Jonathan Blank t
Source: Chattanooga Times Free Press
November 15, 2010
DALTON, Ga. -- Nearly 150 years ago, Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman stood atop Blue Mountain north of Dalton and plotted his Union Army's advance from Tunnel Hill to Atlanta.
Back then, Sherman had a perfect view of Dalton, a heavily fortified Confederate stronghold.
"That site has an impressive vista and, from that view, you can really tell the story of the action Dalton saw," said Jim Ogden, historian for the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park
Source: Inside Higher Ed
November 16, 2010
Stephen A. Douglas, the"Little Giant" who served in the U.S. Senate and debated Abraham Lincoln, is still much-honored in some quarters. Douglas, Wyo., and Douglas County, Nev., are among a number of localities that boast of being named for the"noted statesman from Illino
Source: AFP
November 15, 2010
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a sphinx-lined road in Luxor that led to the temple of Mut, the ancient goddess worshipped as a mother, the culture minister said on Monday.
Faruq Husni said in a statement that 12 sphinxes were found along the road, which runs east to west adjoining the already discovered Kabash path that connects the temples of Luxor and Karnak from north to south.
The sphinxes were inscribed with the name Nectabo I, the founder of the last Pharaonic
Source: Discovery News
November 15, 2010
Researchers are uncovering the secrets of ancient civilizations who built fun house-like temples that may have scared the pants off worshipers with scary sound effects, light shows and perhaps drug-induced psychedelic trips.
The emerging field of acoustic archaeology is a marriage of high-tech acoustic analysis and old-fashioned bone-hunting. The results of this scientific collaboration is an new understanding of cultures who used sound effects as entertainment, religion and a form
Source: London Evening Standard
November 16, 2010
Remains of a Roman village have been discovered only half a metre below the ground in west London.
The site has remained undisturbed partly because it lies in the Grade I listed Syon Park and has been protected against ploughing in recent centuries. But it might never have come to light without plans to build a new Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
The hotel now plans to incorporate some of its Roman heritage into the finished building.
Archaeologists from the Museum
Source: National Parks Traveler
November 16, 2010
The boyhood home of a future U.S. president wouldn't normally be associated with buried treasure, but there must be something intriguing about the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site.
In recent weeks three individuals have been cited by park rangers for using metal detectors to search the grounds of the site for significant artifacts.
According to a park release, two "relic hunters" were apprehended a week ago with metal detectors and shovels on the not-quit
Source: Alabama local
November 15, 2010
Peenemunde was a practice test.
It was a practice test for the real thing – Redstone Arsenal.
Today, more than 60 years after Dr. Wernher von Braun and the German rocket team left the isolated and guarded 50,000-acre military post in northeastern Germany, most of the evidence of Peenemunde – its laboratories, test stands, factories, living quarters, roads and infrastructure — is gone.
But for Ed Buckbee, a picture that superimposed the Peenemunde of the e
Source: telegraph (UK)
November 16, 2010
Kate Middleton will permanently change the Royal family when she becomes Britain’s first middle class queen-in-waiting.
For a future king to marry a woman from such an ordinary background amounts to a revolution in Royal terms.
Opinion is sharply divided over whether her marriage to Prince William will rejuvenate or diminish the monarchy in the public’s eyes. Some commentators have suggested Miss Middleton will bring stability to the monarchy, while others believe she will re
Source: BBC News
November 15, 2010
The body of a 16th Century Danish astronomer is being exhumed in Prague to confirm the cause of his death.
Tycho Brahe was a Danish nobleman who served as royal mathematician to the Bohemian Emperor Rudolf II.
He was thought to have died of a bladder infection, but a previous exhumation found traces of mercury in his hair.
A team of Danish and Czech scientists hope to solve the mystery by analysing bone, hair and clothing samples.
Tycho was bor
Source: BBC News
November 16, 2010
The idea that human ancestors were using stone tools about 3.4 million years ago has been challenged by a Spanish-led team of researchers.
The original claim was based on what were purported to be butchery marks on animal bones found in Ethiopia.
It pushed back the earliest known tool-use and meat-eating in our ancestors by some 800,000 years.
But Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo and his team tell PNAS journal that the marks are more likely to be animal scratches.
Source: AFP
November 10, 2010
Peruvian archaeologists have discovered six mummified dogs, all dating from the 15th century and apparently presented as religious offerings at a major pre-Columbian site just south of Lima.
The mummified remains of four children were also found at the site, archaeologists said.
The experts believe the dogs are neither Hairless Peruvian Dogs -- an ancient native breed -- nor sheepdogs found at gravesites of the Chiribaya culture, which flourished in southern Peru betwee
Source: National Geographic News
November 8, 2010
...As in cities today, the earliest towns helped expose their inhabitants to inordinate opportunities for infection—and today their descendants are stronger for it, a new study says.
It's basic evolutionary theory: People who survive infection stand a better chance of having children and passing along disease-resistant genes. So groups from regions where urbanization has existed for thousands of years should be more disease resistant.
The trick was finding proof.
Source: AP
November 5, 2010
Below Slovenia's cornfields, ski slopes and school yards lie skulls, bones and teeth — the remains of thousands of people whose fates have been lost for decades.
In 1945, enraged anti-Nazi fighters slaughtered suspected collaborators, fascists and panicked civilians who tried to flee through the region to the West, leaving graves scattered from a spree of vengeance that turned the tiny country into what historians call the biggest post-WWII killing site in Europe.
Slove
Source: BBC
November 15, 2010
Investors who helped bankroll a salvage expedition to recover sunken gold off the coast of Anglesey claim they were misled by the project leader.
Veteran diver Joe McCormack sought the cash after finding what he claimed was evidence of a wrecked galleon intended for Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746.
But his salvage bid was stopped in late 2009 after running out of money - without unearthing any gold.
Mr McCormack said investors who spoke to the BBC had "a
Source: BBC
November 15, 2010
A fake ancient Egyptian statue will return to a museum in Greater Manchester which displayed it believing it was genuine.
Bolton Museum bought the Amarna Princess for £440,000 in 2003 after the British Museum authenticated it.
Forger Shaun Greenhalgh made the statue in a shed in the back garden of his Bolton home. He was jailed in 2007 for conning museums and art houses.
The statue will return to the museum in April as part of a collection of fakes.
Source: BBC
November 15, 2010
London's Natural History Museum has suspended a planned expedition to a remote region of Paraguay after protests that it might disturb one of the world's last uncontacted tribes.
Campaigners had warned that the expedition to the Chaco region was likely to encounter the Ayoreo people.
Contact might expose them to infectious diseases that could wipe them out.
The 100-strong expedition was due to set off in the next few days in search of new species of plant
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 15, 2010
The British Museum has said it would welcome a joint investigation with Chinese researchers into controversial artefacts that were looted by British and French troops from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing 150 years ago.
Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, said he hoped British and Chinese researchers would work together on the controversial collections which are a continuing source of national resentment in China.
Last year China announced plans to sen
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 15, 2010
The first British warship to visit Cuba since before the 1959 revolution sailed into Havana Bay on Monday, where it was greeted by a Cuban Navy band playing "God Save the Queen."
With its colours flying and bright red Sea Dart missiles poised on deck, the destroyer HMS Manchester pulled into port opposite Old Havana, the historic centre of the Cuban capital, at the start of a five-day visit to the Communist-led island.
The ship's officers were to meet with t
