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: CNN
Apr 9, 2010
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his retirement Friday, has served as a central liberal voice on the high court, at times leading negotiations to sway opinions on critical cases -- and ultimately having a remarkable impact on the court and on society at large.
After joining the court in 1975, the choice of President Gerald Ford, a Republican, Stevens went on to become "an unexpected liberal -- someone who moved to the left as the court moved to the right,&
Source: BBC News
Apr 9, 2010
Germany has charged a former member of the radical far-left Red Army Faction (RAF) militant group over the 1977 murder of a federal prosecutor.
Verena Becker, 57, was arrested last August for her suspected role in the ambush of Siegfried Buback. Two men escorting him were also shot dead.
Ms Becker is accused of being an accessory to the murder - one of the RAF's most notorious attacks.
The RAF, also called the Baader-Meinhof gang, killed more than 30 people
Source: CS Monitor
Apr 8, 2010
What caused the great recession?
Theories abound. Some argue that poorly designed government policies and artificially low interest rates created a bubble, while others blame Wall Street's reckless lending practices.
Almost all, however, look to current or recent developments, not long-term historical trends. Yet the real story of the massive meltdown of 2008 starts not in the late 20th century but in the early 17th.
It was in the 1630s that the Puritan mig
Source: Science Daily
Apr 8, 2010
The discovery of a new fossil turtle species in Colombia's Cerrejón coal mine by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the Florida Museum of Natural History helps to explain the origin of one of the most biodiverse groups of turtles in South America.
Cerrejonemys wayuunaiki takes its genus name from Cerrejón, and emys -- Greek for turtle. Its species name is the language spoken by the Wayuu people who live on the Guajira Peninsula in northeastern
Source: BBC
Apr 8, 2010
A rare first edition of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, with a poignant handwritten note by the author to his young daughter, has been discovered.
The book was found by librarians at the National Trust's Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, where Kipling's eldest daughter, Elsie, lived.
The author wrote the inscription to his daughter Josephine, who died in 1899 aged six, said Trust officials.
The book is on display at Wimpole Hall, where Elsie lived from
Source: UPI
Apr 8, 2010
Searchers said they found five objects Thursday deemed possible remains of Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack victims in a former New York landfill.
The find follows the unearthing Wednesday of 20 other objects that could be human remains in what was once the Fresh Kills landfill on New York's Staten Island.
Forensic anthropologists will determine if DNA tests on the potential remains, found in debris excavated around Ground Zero, are warranted, officials said.
Source: Ottowa Citizen (Canada)
Apr 8, 2010
Canadian archeologists in Turkey have unearthed an ancient treaty written in cuneiform that could have served as a model for the biblical description of God's covenant with the Israelites.
The tablet, dating from about 670 BC, is a treaty between the powerful Assyrian king and his weaker vassal states, written in a highly formulaic language very similar in form and style to the story of Abraham's covenant with God in the Hebrew Bible, says University of Toronto archeologist Timothy
Source: Deutsche Welle
Apr 8, 2010
Adolf Hitler never made it as an artist, but his drawings and paintings have garnered increasingly high bids at auction. Apparently it's not neo-Nazis who are buying, but history buffs and art collectors.
It's no surprise when works by famous artists sell for prices in the tens of thousands. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that drawings and watercolors by Adolf Hitler have commanded similar prices at recent auctions.
The British auction house Mullock's offered 15 pi
Source: The Local (Germany)
Apr 8, 2010
Berlin's main international airport Tegel had to briefly halt operations for an hour after a World War II-era bomb was discovered on a building site, officials said.
Police bomb disposal experts were called in late on Wednesday afternoon to defuse the 250 kilogramme aerial bomb that was discovered by labourers in a northern section of the airport, Berlin airports spokesman Ralf Kunkel said.
Operations were suspended just before 6:00 pm "for safety reasons," Ku
Source: BBC News
Apr 8, 2010
China and Nepal have agreed a solution to a long-running disagreement over the height of Mount Everest.
They agreed that the world's highest mountain - which traverses the border of the two countries - should be recognised as being 8,848m tall.
The Chinese previously argued it should be measured by its rock height. Nepal said it should be measured by its snow height - this is four metres higher.
During talks in Nepal's capital Kathmandu, China accepted that
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Apr 8, 2010
The first pictures have been released of two-million-year-old fossils which could help scientists understand how man evolved from our apelike ancestors.
The two partial skeletons, found in a South African cave, are a previously unknown species, say the team who discovered them.
They contain elements of both the apelike hominids from which man is believed to be descended, known as Australopithecus, and modern humans.
Experts described the find as “rare” and
Source: CNN
Apr 7, 2010
Thomas Hagan pleaded his case for freedom: To return to his family, to become a substance abuse counselor and to make his mark on what time he has left in this world.
He was dressed in prison greens as he addressed the New York parole board. He had been before that body 14 other times since 1984. Each time, he was rejected.
He was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment after being found guilty at trial with two others in 1966. Since March 1992, Hagan has been in a f
Source: Indiana University News
Apr 7, 2010
A visit to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, Va., is a trip back into the world just as Jefferson knew it. Or not.
Over the centuries various landscaping efforts have obscured and buried features of the original Monticello landscape, so today, members of the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology at Indiana University Bloomington are working with Monticello archaeological staff to help restore Monticello to its appearance as it was during Jefferson's l
Source: Metro (UK)
Apr 7, 2010
Witness statements from 1944 have been uncovered which detail the violence unleashed on residents of a north Italian village.
The accounts were taken down by Sgt Charles Edmonson, a British policeman who was determined to bring the culprits to trial.
Retelling the start of the murders, he wrote: ‘Refugees, mostly women and children, were awakened by the sound of machine gun fire.
‘The Germans knocked on the doors and ordered everyone outside.
‘
Source: BBC News
Apr 7, 2010
Global culture officials are meeting to discuss how to recover ancient treasures which they say have been stolen and displayed overseas.
Twenty countries are represented at the two-day conference in Cairo.
It has been organised by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), which wants many pharaonic items returned by Western museums.
The SCA said the forum would discuss "the protection and restitution of cultural heritage."
Represe
Source: CNN
Apr 7, 2010
A rare letter evincing a display of affection between President Theodore Roosevelt and his youngest son is up for sale by a dealer who obtained it from a Roosevelt family friend.
Roosevelt sent the letter to his 6-year-old son, Quentin, during a trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1903. It is the only letter from the trip to his family to reach the market, and its existence was unknown to scholars and institutions until its discovery in the possession of a family friend, said Natha
Source: CNN
Apr 7, 2010
An African-American Virginia lawmaker said Wednesday that he is not yet ready to accept an apology from Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, suggesting McDonnell’s misstep regarding Virginia’s confederate history is part of a pattern which calls the governor’s sincerity into question.
The Republican governor apologized earlier Wednesday after coming under criticism for issuing a proclamation that declared April to be Confederate History Month in the state but which made no mention of slaver
Source: WaPo
Apr 7, 2010
Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, reviving a controversy that had been dormant for eight years, has declared that April will be Confederate History Month in Virginia, a move that angered civil rights leaders Tuesday but that political observers said would strengthen his position with his conservative base.
The two previous Democratic governors had refused to issue the mostly symbolic proclamation honoring the soldiers who fought for the South in the Civil War. McDonnell (R) revived a pract
Source: Discovery News
Apr 7, 2010
In an unprecedented diplomatic show, the Russian and Polish prime ministers on Wednesday honored 22,000 Poles murdered 70 years ago by Soviet forces in the Katyn Forest.
Russia's Vladimir Putin and Poland's Donald Tusk are the first leaders of their countries to attend a joint ceremony honoring victims of the notorious World War II massacre ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. The event has cast a long cloud over their bilateral relations.
The two leaders laid the
Source: Discovery News
Apr 7, 2010
The first detailed analysis of sandals buried with the boy king suggest the sometimes elaborate footwear was made to accommodate his club foot.
King Tutankhamun might have worn some sort of orthopedic shoes specially designed to cope with his club foot condition, an investigation into the pharaoh's footwear has suggested.
Published in the book, "Tutankhamun's Footwear: Studies of Ancient Egyptian Footwear," the research is the first detailed analysis of the 3,
