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: NYT
Mar 12, 2010
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.
The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.
Source: NYT
Mar 12, 2010
At Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s funeral, one of his grandsons, an Army captain also named Augusto Pinochet, gave a eulogy so defiant and aggressive that he was cashiered the next day. Earlier, as the general lay in state in his dress uniform and Chileans filed by his casket to pay their last respects, the grandson of another general, assassinated by Pinochet’s secret police, spat on the former dictator’s cadaver full in the face.
That was barely three years ago, and it suggested that the
Source: NYT
Mar 12, 2010
Brash and young though it is, the Tea Party movement has already added something distinctive to contemporary political discourse. It has made the Constitution central to the national conversation.
The content of the movement’s understanding of the Constitution is not always easy to nail down, and it is almost always arguable. But it certainly includes particular attention to the Constitution’s constraints on federal power (as reflected in the limited list of powers granted to Congre
Source: Discovery News
Mar 12, 2010
George Mallory's camera may contain photographic evidence of whether he and Andrew Irvine were the first to summit Everest.
Tom Holzel really wants a camera. The problem is, the only camera that he'll settle for was lost somewhere on Mount Everest 86 years ago.
The lost camera is a Vestpocket Kodak that belonged to George Mallory, the climber who died just 2,030 feet below Everest's summit in 1924.
If the camera is intact, there is a possibility its photog
Source: New York Times
Mar 12, 2010
Richard Stites, who opened up new territory for historians with a landmark work on the Russian women’s movement and in numerous articles and books on Russian and Soviet mass culture, died on Sunday in Helsinki, where he was doing research. He was 78 and lived in Washington.
The cause was complications from cancer, his son Andrei said.
Mr. Stites made a practice of seeking out unexplored historical byways. After publishing “The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Fem
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
A lawyer asked one of his clients if he could borrow £350,000 to retrieve a stolen painting, a trial has been told.
Roy Radcliffe, 60, told the High Court in Edinburgh that he was promised a 10% profit but he dismissed lawyer Marshall Ronald's proposal as ludicrous.
Mr Ronald, 53, is one of five men accused of demanding £4.25m for the safe return of a stolen Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece.
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder was taken from Drumlanrig Castle in 2
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
Burglars have broken into the home of French Resistance heroine Andree Peel, it has emerged.
Mrs Peel, who died last week aged 105, helped save more than 100 Allied pilots and spent her final years in Long Ashton, near Bristol.
A police spokesman said Mrs Peel's house in the village was broken into some time after she died at her care home.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 12, 2010
A notorious Cypriot villain, known as "Al Capone", is suspected of ordering the theft of the corpse of the former president Tassos Papadopoulos.
Antonis Kitas is suspected of giving the order to snatch the body from his prison cell and had hoped to use it as a bargaining tool to secure his release.
Police are questioning Kitas, who is serving a double life sentence in Nicosia prison for multiple rape and murder, about the theft.
Mr Papadopoulos
Source: CNN
Mar 12, 2010
A New York judge Friday postponed a decision on a proposed $657 million settlement for people who became ill after working on the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The settlement, announced Thursday, would cover about 10,000 plaintiffs, said Marc Bern, one of the lawyers representing the workers.
The postponement appeared to take attorneys -- and Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- by surprise. Attorneys for both sides and the mayor earlier made statement
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
A tiny portrait of a Scottish naval officer who helped set the White House ablaze is estimated to fetch up to £15,000 at auction next month.
The miniature of Sir Pulteney Malcolm (1768-1838), from Dumfriesshire, measures just 10cm in height.
In August 1814 Sir Pulteney was third in command of a fleet which set fire to several public buildings in Washington, including the White House.
The miniature portrait has been in the Malcolm family since 1806.
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
A new exhibition will showcase for the first time the art that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert collected and presented to each other.
The display at Buckingham Palace reveals the couple's enthusiasm for paintings, sculptures and jewellery.
The 400-piece royal collection is expected to "challenge attitudes towards the monarch," its curator said.
Victoria's most glamorous surviving dress, worn at a Buckingham Palace ball in 1851, is part of the e
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might include unpublished works by the celebrated 20th Century writer Franz Kafka.
Kafka became famous in spite of himself. Just before he died in 1924, the young novelist, who suffered from various mental and physical illnesses, entrusted his friend, Max Brod, with a collection of handwritten documents.
He asked him to
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
New York City officials have agreed to pay up to $657.5m (£437m) to thousands of rescue and clean-up workers after 9/11.
The settlement would compensate more than 10,000 plaintiffs who say they were made sick by dust at the Ground Zero site of the attacks.
At least 95% of the plaintiffs must approve the deal for it to take effect. The money would come from a federally financed insurance fund of almost $1bn that the city controls.
Source: BBC
Mar 12, 2010
Winnie Mandela, the former wife of ex-President Nelson Mandela, has denied giving an interview accusing him of letting down black South Africans.
Ms Madikizela-Mandela said the article, published in London's Evening Standard newspaper this week, was a fabrication.
The article was written by Nadira Naipaul, the wife of Nobel prize-winning author VS Naipaul.
The Mandelas, who were both leaders in the struggle against South Africa's minority white rule, divo
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 12, 2010
An atheist has claimed in court that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on US currency should be removed on the grounds they breach his constitutional rights as a non believer.
The San Francisco-based 9th U S Circuit Court of Appeals panel rejected two legal challenges by Michael Newdow, a doctor, who said the references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his religious beliefs.
The same appeals court ca
Source: BBC News
Mar 12, 2010
Imagine a number of safety deposit boxes, in different banks in different countries. No-one is quite sure what's inside them.
Yet private individuals, state bodies and commercial institutions are locked in a seemingly endless legal battle to own their contents.
Sounds like a Kafka novel? Well, almost.
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 12, 2010
Germany is fighting to keep sealed the Eichmann files detailing the years the Holocaust's chief logistics organiser spent on the run before he was captured by Mossad agents.
Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom.
The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany's domestic intellig
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 12, 2010
Candid pictures of John Lennon which have never been seen in public have been found after being kept hidden in a photographer's drawer for more than 40 years.
The extraordinary photos of the musician and Yoko Ono, taken during their famous Bed-in for Peace in Montreal in 1969, snapped by Life photographer Gerry Deiter.
He was the only photojournalist allowed to witness and document the bed-in for the full eight days and managed to capture pictures of the couple totally
Source: BBC News
Mar 12, 2010
Imagine a number of safety deposit boxes, in different banks in different countries. No-one is quite sure what's inside them.
Yet private individuals, state bodies and commercial institutions are locked in a seemingly endless legal battle to own their contents.
Sounds like a Kafka novel? Well, almost.
This is a struggle between Israel and Germany, between a Jewish refugee family from Prague and Israeli public opinion over a collection of papers that might i
Source: BBC News
Mar 12, 2010
Fifty-one decapitated skeletons found in a burial pit in Dorset were those of Scandinavian Vikings, scientists say.
Mystery has surrounded the identity of the group since they were discovered at Ridgeway Hill, near Weymouth, in June.
Analysis of teeth from 10 of the men revealed they had grown up in countries with a colder climate than Britain's.
Archaeologists from Oxford believe the men were probably executed by local Anglo Saxons in front of an audience
