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 3, 2010
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $50 million to the Smithsonian Institution, the national museum announced late Wednesday.
The money will go principally to the Youth Access Endowment, a new entitly created by the Smithsonian. Gates is giving $30 million of the gift to "reach underserved students" in the United States. The endowment targets students in grades K-12, and will create a series of interactive Web sites and online conferences....
Source: Informed Comment Global Affairs (Blog)
November 5, 2010
China, Japan, Russia and America are vying to assert influence over a handful of disputed isles and islets lying off East Asian shores.
At first glance, the recent China-Japan spat concerning a boat collision followed by a Russia-Japan spat concerning a presidential visit to a remote outpost, seem like much ado about nothing; but they follow in the wake of a smouldering US-Japan conflict over the disposition of US forces in Okinawa.
Disputed islets may appear to be mere
Source: NPR
November 4, 2010
Nowhere is the Volga River more hallowed than in the city named after it: Volgograd, better known to history as Stalingrad.
During World War II, perhaps the bloodiest battle in history took place there. A total of 2 million people were lost on both sides in the fighting from the summer of 1942 to February 1943. Hitler's army, fighting to reach the Volga and seize the country's energy resources to the south in the oil-rich Caucasus, was met by the tenacious Soviet Red Army and a city
Source: Deutsche Presse
November 4, 2010
Polish workers on Thursday moved a World War II-era German bunker weighing some 500 tons that was obstructing the construction of an expressway linking Warsaw and Gdansk.
Two cranes were used to move the massive war shelter in Witramowo, northern Poland. The bunker - one of the best-preserved structures of its kind in the country - was part of a 100-kilometre-long defense line built by Germans before the outbreak of World War II in 1939.
The bunker was moved some 50 me
Source: NY Times
November 5, 2010
Italians took everything from Ursula Korn Selig’s family during World War II, including a hotel the family owned on the Riviera and the money they carried after fleeing Germany’s persecution of Jews in 1938.
Italians also saved her family from almost certain death in Nazi concentration camps, Mrs. Selig said, hiding them in a succession of secret shelters in Italy between 1938 and 1944, often at the risk of the Italians’ own lives.
The two faces Italy displayed toward
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 4, 2010
The significance of poppies to Remembrance Sunday is largely the result of Canadian physician and Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae’s poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, believed to have been written on 3 May 1915.
The first two lines of the poem – ‘In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row’ – records the growing of the poppies across some of the bloodiest battlefields of World War I.
An overseas American YWCA worker, Moina Michael, later published a po
Source: FoxNews
November 5, 2010
The 6-foot-tall block of granite is etched with 13 names, each a victim in the shooting rampage at Fort Hood one year ago.
"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal -- Love leaves a memory no one can steal" is engraved at the top of the rectangular marker that will be unveiled near other post memorials on Friday, the one-year anniversary of the shooting. Until now, the only outward reminders of the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base have been several wreaths and c
Source: Fox News
November 4, 2010
...When Congress passed the economic stimulus package in 2009, it promised billions of dollars to “shovel ready” government projects that could get up and running quickly. But the scramble for the flood of money led to some shortcuts being taken to meet start-up deadlines -- leaving problems that will have to be dealt with later.
And that is exactly what the Quechan Indians are charging in a federal suit filed Wednesday in the Southern District of California. They allege that the De
Source: CHE
November 4, 2010
If history is any guide, colleges may have less to fear from last week's Republican surge in Congress than they think.
Sure, party leaders have promised to slash spending on domestic programs—a category that includes student aid and research. But Republicans made similar threats 16 years ago, and the cuts weren't as severe as many had expected.
After Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the arts and humanities endowments took big hits. But science budgets conti
Source: AP
November 5, 2010
Tom Dempsey resigned himself long ago to the idea that he would one day see his NFL record-long field goal surpassed.
Four decades since his 63-yard boot lifted the New Orleans Saints to a 19-17 victory over the Detroit Lions in old Tulane Stadium, Dempsey and his famously clubbed right foot still have yet to be outdone.
"I'm proud of the record and I realize someday it's going to be broken, because kickers are better now than when I played," Dempsey said Thur
Source: AP
November 5, 2010
A Holocaust-era mass grave containing the bodies of an estimated 100 Jews killed by Romanian troops has been discovered in a forest, researchers said Friday, offering further evidence of the country's involvement in wartime crimes.
The find in a forest near the town of Popricani, about 350 kilometers (220 kilometers) northeast of Bucharest, contains the bodies of men, women and children who were shot in 1941, the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Roman
Source: BBC News
November 4, 2010
History is being made in Germany with the ordination of the first female rabbi since World War II. Alina Treiger came to Germany from Ukraine, as the BBC's Stephen Evans reports from Berlin.
Why would a Jew migrate to Germany? You would think the ghosts would be too powerful.
Not so, according to those who have made the trip and those who welcomed them.
They are migrating for the main reasons that people in peaceful times pack their bags and seek a new star
Source: Deseret News
November 4, 2010
PROVO — Human skulls mailed to Brigham Young University have been examined by the state archaeologist, who determined they date to between 1100 and 1300 A.D.
The examination determined the bones were from three skulls, not two, as originally thought....
Source: Newsweek
November 4, 2010
Early in 1923, the London Daily Express ran a front-page story under the headline:
‘UNCROWNED KING’ AS
PRIVATE SOLDIER
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Famous War Hero Becomes a Private
Seeking Peace...
Lawrence was the most visible, and certainly the most romantic, hero to emerge from World War I. His daring exploits in the desert on the eastern front gained him not only the respect of his peers and commanding officers but the adulation of a public greedy
Source: Guardian (UK)
November 3, 2010
Evolutionary advance saw stone-age humans master the art of hand-toolmaking and paved the way for language to develop.
Stone-age humans mastered the art of elegant hand-toolmaking in an evolutionary advance that boosted their brain power and potentially paved the way for language, researchers say.
The design of stone tools changed dramatically in human pre-history, beginning more than two million years ago with sharp but primitive stone flakes, and culminating in exquis
Source: BBC
November 4, 2010
An archaeological treasure has been unearthed on a golf course in Bedfordshire.
A quern stone was found by greenkeepers at Leighton Buzzard golf course as they dug out a new tee.
Mr Bagshawe is an amateur archaeologist, but said that while he is very interested in the subject, he took advice from local expert Bernard Jones to assess what had actually been found.
He also explained how the stone could date back over 2,000 years from what was already known a
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
November 4, 2010
...Now archaeologists say the Romans were also the pioneers of the eco-friendly home.
A study by Oxford University researcher found that a typical Roman Villa built 2,000 years ago has environmental features that many greens would die for.
The academics, from the Institute of Archaeology, compared the attributes of a Roman villa and a 1930s semi - the most common form of housing in the UK.
While the typical British semi has radiators placed underneath windo
Source: BBC
November 4, 2010
The Afghan government and the UK have signed an agreement allowing a priceless gold collection to go on display at the British Museum.
The "Lost Treasures of Afghanistan" or Bactrian gold will be revealed to the British public next year.
The gold jewellery, glassware and funeral ornaments were hidden by Kabul museum staff during the civil war and were only rediscovered in 2003.
They have been touring the world since 2006 and are currently in Bon
Source: Telegraph (UK)
November 5, 2010
Germany ordained its first female rabbi since the Holocaust on Thursday, marking a major step in the reintegration of Jews into modern German life.
In the glare of international media, Alina Treiger followed in the footsteps of Regina Jonas, who in 1935 was the first female to be appointed a rabbi in Germany.
Ms Jonas, from Berlin, was murdered by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland in 1944.
The Ukrainian-born Ms Treiger said she was
Source: CNN
November 4, 2010
Eugenie Blanchard, considered the world's oldest person, died Thursday at 114, news agencies reported.
Blanchard was born in February 1896, the sixth of 13 children, on the French Caribbean island of Saint-Barthelemy, but moved to Curacao and became a nun in 1920, according to Le Figaro.
A woman named Antisa Khvichava in the Republic of Georgia is said to be 130 years old, but her birth date cannot be independently verified, several news outlets reported.....
