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: New York Times
Jan 22, 2010
The DiMenna Children’s History Museum, as it will be known, is part of the $60 million renovation of the historical society building on Central Park West, Louise Mirrer, the president and chief economic officer of the museum, said this week. The roughly 4,000-square-foot museum has been designed by Lee H. Skolnick Architecture & Design Partnership with a $5 million donation from Joseph A. and Diana DiMenna.
The new museum will focus on the stories of children, from famous figur
Source: CNN
Jan 22, 2010
Abortion rights supporters and opponents hit the streets of the nation's capital Friday to mark the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
Anti-abortion activists held a rally on the National Mall and marched to the Supreme Court, followed by a walk to Capitol Hill to urge legislative action.
An annual March for Life has been held in Washington since 1974.
Source: Spiegel Online
Jan 22, 2010
It's no secret in Germany that there are tens of thousands of former informants for the East German secret police still around. After all, over the lifetime of the communist German state, more than 100,000 people provided information to the so-called Stasi on either an official or unofficial basis.
Concern remains high, however, that some of those who collaborated with the Stasi have ended up in positions of political influence. And on Thursday, the parliament for the German s
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jan 22, 2010
The German case against Videla, whom Argentina refused to extradite in 2007, stems from the reopening in December of an investigation into the disappearance of a German citizen identified by German media as Rolf Stawowiok.
Some of Stawowiok’s remains were recently exhumed in Argentina, providing forensic evidence that he had been shot during Argentina’s so-called Dirty War of the late 1970s.
A spokesman for prosecutors in the city of Nuremberg, Thomas Koch, said the n
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 22, 2010
More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.
Areas in and near Iraq's largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five yea
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 22, 2010
Government officials withheld a document relating to the death of Blair Peach, the anti-fascist campaigner widely believed to have been killed by police in 1979, because they feared it would portray the coroner as biased and lend weight to calls for a public inquiry.
Peach, a 33-year-old teacher from New Zealand, died after being struck on the head at a demonstration against the National Front in Southall, west London. Witnesses said they saw him being attacked by police but after a
Source: BBC
Jan 22, 2010
Nicolas Sarkozy will travel to Rwanda next month to pay the first visit by a French president to Kigali since the 1994 genocide, Rwandan officials say.
Rwanda's foreign ministry made the announcement after the new French ambassador presented his credentials.
The states severed ties in 2006 after a French judge said President Paul Kagame helped spark the genocide, while Rwanda accused France of arming Hutu militias.
Rwanda and France agreed to restore rela
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 22, 2010
A company which supplies British forces with rifle sights has offered to remove controversial Biblical references from the equipment, it said today.
The Ministry of Defence has ordered 400 advanced combat optical gunfights (ACOGs) from US-based Trijicon but yesterday it emerged that they are routinely marked with the characters JN8:12, a reference to the book of John, chapter 8, verse 12.
Trijicon, which has used Biblical references for more than 20 years, said today t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 22, 2010
The remains of Claude Monet could be moved from his resting place in the village of Giverny to the Panthéon, the last resting place of France's official heroes.
Eighty-four years after the artist's death, President Nicolas Sarkozy is considering whether to honour a promise made by his predecessor, and move the remains of the Impressionist painter to the Panthéon, the Independent reports.
Eleven years ago, former President Chirac promised Mr Wildenstein's father, Daniel
Source: Fox News
Jan 22, 2010
Charges against 9/11 suspects were dropped "without prejudice" -- a procedural move that allows federal officials to transfer the men to trial in a civilian court and also leaves the door open to again bringing charges in military commissions.
Currently no suspects stand charged in the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11. U.S. officials sent notification to Congress and families of 9/11 victims Friday afternoon.
The Obama administrati
Source: Time.com
Jan 22, 2010
Use of the word Negro to describe a black person has largely fallen out of polite conversation — except on the U.S. Census questionnaire. There, under "What is this person's race?" is an option that reads, "Black, African Am., or Negro." That has raised the ire of certain black activists and politicians as the Census Bureau gears up to mail out its once-a-decade questionnaires. The controversy has been cast by many as an instance of a tone-deaf agency not keeping up with the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
It's a crisp, sunny day and retired church minister Peter Twinn is out with his metal detector unearthing evidence of Roman occupation beneath the bare fields of South Gloucestershire.
"Over there is the Roman temple and just beyond those trees is the villa," he says. "No one knew about this site before I came up here – it's all new discoveries."
As we walk he sweeps the detector back and forth in front of him as it chatters away in a series of clic
Source: Reuters
Jan 21, 2010
Giant marsupials, reptiles and flightless birds that once roamed Australia became extinct about 40,000 years ago, later than had been thought and some 5,000 years after humans arrived, a new study suggests.
Controversy has long surrounded when such creatures became extinct in Australia. New equipment that can date teeth and bones has solved the puzzle, Australian researchers said in the latest issue of the journal Science.
They analyzed surrounding sediments and found t
Source: WKRG News
Jan 21, 2010
A Jacksonville State University professor says an ancient American Indian site Oxford city officials agreed not to disturb has been destroyed, but he does not know by whom.
City officials say they have done nothing to harm the site.
JSU professor of archaeology and anthropology Harry Holstein said the site at the historic Davis Farm property in Oxford contained remnants of an American Indian village and the 3-foot-high base of a once 30-foot-high temple mound, which he
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
A sixteenth century edition of predictions by Nostradamus has become the first book from France's vast archive of literature to be digitally preserved by Google.
The collection of prophecies is from a vault containing 500,000 classic French books stored at the Municipal Library of Lyon.
Nostradamus is best known for The Prophecies, the first edition of which appeared in 1555 and has rarely been out of print since his death.
France has a 750million euro (£65
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 21, 2010
A 600-year-old skull believed to be that of a legendary German pirate has been stolen from a museum in Hamburg.
Klaus Stoertebeker was the most famous German pirate of the Middle Ages. He is believed to have been beheaded by authorities in 1400 in Hamburg, together with 30 of his followers.
The heads were nailed on pillars at the entrance of the Hamburg harbour in an effort to deter would-be pirates.
Source: Vancouver Sun
Jan 21, 2010
The plan to change the title of The Beaver after 90 years to avoid online porn blockers has made Canada's top history magazine an international media sensation — first as joke fodder for Jay Leno and now as the subject of an editorial printed Thursday in another venerable publication: the British-based newsweekly The Economist.
"The Beaver website was attracting (albeit briefly) readers who had little interest in Samuel de Champlain's astrolabe or what Prairie settlers ate for
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
Jan 21, 2010
Hitler's Gestapo arrested thousands of women for admitting they had affairs with foreign forced laborers in Germany, despite many confessions being false and made under duress. Men were often executed and women sent to concentration camps for the crime of "racial defilement." Some continued to suffer the consequences long after the end of the war.
On Sept. 19, 1941, Maria K. signed the record of her interrogation. In her written statement to the police detective, the 14-ye
Source: CNN
Jan 21, 2010
Passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 could soon have a unique souvenir from their harrowing flight that ended in New York's Hudson River -- although it would be quite a large one.
The plane famously landed with 155 people aboard in the frigid river waters by Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger last January after a bird strike disabled its engines is up for auction.
The plane, an Airbus A320-214, is listed for sale "AS IS/WHERE IS" at a salvage yard in
Source: BBC News
Jan 21, 2010
Ten of the pioneering photos of snowflake crystals US farmer Wilson A Bentley began taking more than a century ago are to be sold in New York.
Bentley (1865-1931) is credited with capturing the first images of single snowflakes on camera. He made thousands of the jewel-like prints, no two alike.
His photomicrography technique involved a microscope and a bellows camera.
He caught pneumonia in a blizzard and died just weeks after the publication of his book S
