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: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 10, 2010
She was the mystery figure at Hitler's side that the world never knew about during the lifespan of the Third Reich.
Now the first comprehensive biography of Eva Braun reveals how the hidden First Lady of Nazism was the polar opposite of everything her beloved Adolf decreed should be found in a woman.
'Eva Braun: Life With Hitler,' by renowned German historian Heike B. Goertemaker, paints Eva not as an air-head besotted by a dominant man, but a fiercely loyal, independe
Source: BBC News
Feb 10, 2010
A Swiss art collection that has been under lock and key since thieves stole its most-prized painting two years ago is to be open to the public again.
Four paintings worth $160m (£103m) were stolen from Zurich's Emil Buehrle Collection by an armed gang in February 2008.
Although two paintings were later recovered, two are still missing.
The Kunsthaus Museum will reopen the collection of 180 paintings and sculptures from Friday.
The show will m
Source: BBC News
Feb 10, 2010
DNA analysis of human hair preserved in Greenland's permafrost has given clues as to what the owner looked like.
A study, published in the journal Nature, says the individual's genome is the oldest to have been sequenced from a modern human.
The researchers say the man, who lived 4,000 years ago, had brown eyes and thick dark hair, although he would have been prone to baldness.
They say the genome also shows that his ancestors migrated from Siberia.
Source: BBC News
Feb 10, 2010
Nelson Mandela's release from prison 20 years ago opened negotiations which finally ended the racist segregation of the apartheid system. The BBC's diplomatic editor James Robbins, who was in Cape Town to report on the release, has been back to talk to key figures in the country's transformation.
"Nelson Mandela's first steps back to freedom..."
I can vividly remember the excitement of being able to say those words as I reported on the moment that transformed
Source: AP
Feb 10, 2010
A hospital spokeswoman says former Rep. Charlie Wilson of Texas has died at the age of 76.
The spokeswoman says Wilson died Wednesday of cardiopulmonary arrest.
Wilson represented Texas' 2nd District in the House from 1973 to 1996 and was nicknamed "Good Time Charlie" for his partying ways.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 10, 2010
Alexandre Dumas has a special place in France's literary hall of fame as the father of great swashbuckling historical epics.
But a leading academic has cast doubt on how much of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo he actually penned. A new film will also suggest they were largely written by an unsung assistant.
The importance of the author's "nègre" – the French term for ghost writer – is explained by Claude Schopp, France's leading Dumas exper
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 10, 2010
The former Guantanamo Bay detainee says he was tortured in Pakistan while held by the CIA, with the knowledge of the British.
Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones want to disclose summaries of information held by the British security services.
Mr Miliband, branded them "irresponsible" in an unprecedented attack on the judiciary, but today three of the country's highest-ranking judges rejected both the minister's accusations and his appeal.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 10, 2010
The petition asks Britain to review the trials of lieutenants Harry "Breaker" Morant and Peter Handcock who were found guilty of the murder of 12 prisoners of war in the dying days of the Boer War.
The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, sent the petition, written by a military lawyer, Commander James Unkles, last week.
"We don't express a view either way on it," said Mr McClelland's spokesman.
"We sent it because we don't have any
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Feb 10, 2010
A tsunami of smoke, dust and debris roars down the streets of New York City as the World Trade Centre towers collapse.
These dramatic images were taken by police photographers in helicopters and it is the first time they have been seen, having been released under a Freedom of Information request made by America's ABC News.
Burning buildings can be seen crumpling in on themselves as plumes of smoke rise up over the New York skyline that terrible September morning.
Source: Niagara Falls Review (CA)
Feb 9, 2010
Just the thought of moving is enough to stress most people out. Imagine having to pack up more than 20,000 artifacts - including a large moose head, among all the pieces -from a museum.
It's a big job that was put into the hands of professionals, but it also took plenty of help from dedicated volunteers and staff at the Niagara Falls Historical Museum.
For two days last week, moving trucks were loaded with boxes and wooden crates of all sizes and shapes from the former
Source: AP
Feb 9, 2010
Relatives in eastern Cuba claim to have held a 125th birthday party for a woman named Juana Bautista de la Candelaria Rodriguez, but it is not clear if she is really that old.
The agency added that civil registry documents confirm she was born on Feb. 2, 1885, in the village of Santa Rosa, where she continues to live.
The highest fully authenticated age was 122 years, 164 days by Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in 1997 in Arles, France.
Source: NYT
Feb 9, 2010
For the debut of his latest weighty title, “On War in Philosophy,” the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy made the glossy spreads of French magazines with his trademark panache: crisp, unbuttoned white Charvet shirts, golden tan and a windswept silvery mane of hair.
But this glamorous literary campaign was suddenly marred by an absolute philosophical truth: Mr. Lévy backed up the book’s theories by citing the thought of a fake philosopher. In fact, the sham philosopher has never been a
Source: Discovery News
Feb 9, 2010
A new fossil skull of a bull confirms that beef has been "what's for dinner" since the dawn of humans.
The discovery of a new "missing link" species of bull dating to a million years ago in Eritrea pushes back the beef steak dinner to the very dawn of humans and cattle.
Although there is no evidence that early humans were actually herding early cattle 2.5 million years ago, the early humans and early cattle certainly shared the same landscape and b
Source: BBC
Feb 9, 2010
Two boats that were used by the Allied forces in World War II have been saved from the scrapyard or sale abroad and will go on display in Portsmouth.
One of the vessels, a Royal Navy MGB81 motorboat, was used at the D-Day landings and is thought to be Britain's last surviving WWII gunboat.
The other one is an RAF rescue boat, high-speed launch 102.
Both have been restored by enthusiasts and bought with money from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and do
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 9, 2010
Falklands veteran Simon Weston believes that the only similarity between the battle he was involved in 28 years ago and the one raging in Afghanistan today is the number of those who have now died in each.
Weston, who was left badly scarred by burns when the ship he was serving on was bombed by Argentine forces in 1982, said he and his comrades had at least faced a conventional enemy fighting the same way that they were.
By contrast, he said, those serving in Afghanis
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 9, 2010
The ''War on Terror'' is likely to last as long as the Cold War, a senior Government security official has warned.
Charles Farr, the head of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, said that while the names of terror groups threatening the UK were likely to change, the threat itself would continue for decades.
Within ten years al-Qaeda could have been replaced by a different group with a similar ideology, he said.
His comments came in private evid
Source: AP
Feb 9, 2010
The man who took hostages at a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign office in 2007 cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet Tuesday, then fled, and he is considered dangerous, authorities said.
Leeland Eisenberg cut off his monitor just after 10 a.m., one day after being given a "last chance" at freedom by a judge who released him despite multiple probation violations, Strafford County Attorney Thomas Velardi said.
Velardi cautioned the public not to
Source: CNN
Feb 9, 2010
A political mystery of sorts in Minnesota may have been solved.
A billboard popped up north of Minneapolis on I-35 featuring former President George W. Bush's image next to the words "Miss Me Yet?" last December. But until Tuesday it wasn't known who paid for it.
While the identities of the sign owners are still unclear, the general manager of the advertising company who owns the billboard space told Minnesota Public Radio it was financed by "a group of s
Source: China Daily
Feb 9, 2010
More than 700 km of ancient Great Wall has been discovered in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, as a result of the third national survey on cultural relics started in April, 2007 and will end in December, 2011.
"We found 15 sections with a total length of 26 km of ancient wall and three beacons built in Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 24) in our county recently during the nationwide survey," said Liang Shilin, deputy director of the culture bureau and director of the Museum in
Source: culture24.org.uk
Feb 8, 2010
The convoluted campaign to restore the Cutty Sark, Greenwich's 19th century naval icon, is expected to be completed in time for the 2012 Olympics in London after the government confirmed the final funds for the £46 million rebuild had been secured.
A £3 million grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will complete the project to re-open the Grade I listed ship to the public for the first time since November 2006.
Led by National Maritime Museum Chairman L
