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: AP
Jan 13, 2010
Parents, teachers and activists lined up Wednesday for the chance to help shape the way history — topics from the Roman Empire to Texas cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash — will be taught to millions of Texas children for the next decade.
The State Board of Education began taking testimony ahead of a tentative vote later this week on new social studies curriculum standards that will serve as the framework in Texas classrooms. But, as usual in votes before the conservative-led board, the w
Source: AP
Jan 13, 2010
Peter Garritano thinks it's time for Vermont to call it quits with America.
The way the 54-year-old automobile salesman sees it, the "empire" is about to implode and tiny Vermont can lead the way by becoming its own independent republic. So he's running for lieutenant governor, topping a slate of secession-minded candidates seeking statewide offices this year.
Their name: Vermont Independence Day.
"The only hope is to just say, 'Look, this is
Source: Time.com
Jan 13, 2010
The scandal has riveted Northern Ireland like few things before. First, Peter Robinson, leader of the province's Protestant-Catholic coalition government, admitted that his 60-year-old wife Iris had embarked on an affair with a teenager two years ago. Then came the allegations that she had obtained $80,000 from two property developers to help her lover set up a café and that Peter Robinson, upon learning of the deal, failed to report it. Now that the Evangelical base of Robinson's Democratic Uni
Source: ScienceDaily
Jan 13, 2010
The dreaded shipworm is moving into the Baltic Sea, threatening artefacts of the area's cultural heritage. Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, suspect that the unfortunate spread is due to climate change, and are currently involved in an EU project to determine which archaeological remains are at risk.
The shipworm is capable of completely destroying large maritime archaeological finds in only 10 years, and while it has avoided the Baltic Sea in the past, since it d
Source: Polskie Radio (Poland)
Jan 13, 2010
Police have found Claude Monet’s painting Beach at Pourville, stolen nine years ago and worth millions of dollars.
The painting has been found in Olkusz, southern Poland - 41-year-old Robert Z., suspected of the theft, has been detained.
Beach at Pourville was stolen on 19 September 2000 from the National Museum in the western city of Poznan. The painting, worth from 3 to 7 million dollars, located in the Monet exhibition room, was not properly protected – there were
Source: AP
Jan 13, 2010
The gunman who wounded Pope John Paul II said Wednesday he would answer questions about the 1981 attack after he is released from prison next week.
Little is known about what led Mehmet Ali Agca to shoot at the pope while he was greeting the faithful in St. Peter's Square, but that he has said that foreign powers had conspired to have the Polish-born pontiff killed.
"I will answer to all of these questions in the next weeks," Agca said in a letter written in E
Source: BBC News
Jan 13, 2010
A statue of Robert the Bruce has taken its place at a Scottish town hall following a 130-year delay.
A plinth was erected above the main entrance when the prominent building was constructed on Annan's High Street in the 19th Century.
However, because of financial problems, the statue was never commissioned.
A local committee started fundraising two years ago and a bronze image of Bruce, Lord of Annandale, has finally been put in place in the town.
Source: Artdaily.org
Jan 13, 2010
Remains of a prehistoric building, which is the earliest ever discovered in the Tel Aviv region and estimated to be c. 7,800-8,400 years old, were exposed in an archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority recently carried out prior to the construction of an apartment building in the “Green Fichman” project in Ramat Aviv. Ancient artifacts that are thought to be 13,000 and 100,000 years old were also discovered there.
According to archaeologist Ayelet Dayan, director
Source: Artdaily.org
Jan 13, 2010
Historian Dr David Starkey today made a passionate plea for funds to save the Staffordshire Hoard for the West Midlands . He is amongst a host of prominent public figures supporting the campaign, launched today by The Art Fund charity, to raise the £3.3m needed by 17 April to save this awe-inspiring find of Anglo-Saxon treasure for Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent.
The Art Fund’s new Director, Dr Stephen Deuchar, kick-sta
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
The Communist icon's corpse was buried in a tomb in Berlin where every year thousands of sympathisers have honoured her fight for a workers' paradise.
Or so everyone thought.
It turns out that a previously unidentified body that was found two years ago in a wooden coffin in a basement room at Berlin's Charite hospital, could be Luxemburg, according to the head of the institution's forensic medicine department.
Michael Tsokos says that the body, which is
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
The discovery of the long-lost report has reopened an investigation into the killings which inspired Louis de Bernieres’s book.
The find has raised hopes in Italy that there might finally be some justice for the 6,000 Italian officers and men who were slaughtered by German forces in a savage reprisal for a revolt on the idyllic Greek island of Cephalonia in Sept 1943.
Italian investigators are said to have stumbled across a dispatch allegedly written by a military cha
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
Jordan has tried to reclaim the Dead Sea Scrolls from Israel, an official said.
In a complaint made to the United Nations Jordan said that the ancient texts were seized from the Palestinian Museum when Israel captured east Jerusalem in the Six Day War.
“The Government has legal documents that prove Jordan owns the scrolls,” Rafea Harahsheh, of the country’s antiquities department, said.
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
Alastair Campbell demonstrated yesterday that he had lost none of the confrontational style and robust confidence that had made him such a crucial aide to Tony Blair.
He did, however, acknowledge that more could have been done to instil public trust in the process that led to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
As the first political witness before Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the Iraq war, Mr Blair’s former communications and strategy director was questioned on his
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where one million Jews were slaughtered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it.
The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free) has underlined the vulnerability of the Nazi death camp, stretching over 20 hectares (50 acres) of southern Poland.
“Nobody could have imagined such a h
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
Tony Blair may have withheld key information from senior UK Cabinet colleagues by not telling them that he wanted to include the Lockerbie bomber in a deal with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, Alex Salmond suggested yesterday.
The Scottish First Minister made the comments during an appearance before the Commons Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which is examining relations between the UK and Scottish governments after controversy over Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi’s release from life impr
Source: Times (UK)
Jan 13, 2010
Auschwitz is still largely intact, but it is crumbling. Knowledge of the Holocaust among the young is patchy and getting thinner by the year.
So the question arises: is it better to use resources to prop up the buildings of an evil place in southern Poland — or into education to improve the understanding of the Nazis’ systematic massacre of Jews and other minorities?
A survey found that one in six British 9 to 11-year-olds thought that Auschwitz was a theme park. We hav
Source: CNN
Jan 12, 2010
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed Monday night in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo for the first leg of a diplomatic swing through three Balkan states.
After visiting Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, Clinton is expected to conclude her visit with a stop in Brussels, Belgium, where she is scheduled to meet with high EU and NATO officials, including U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
The U.S. secretary of state's agenda focuses on the U.S. commitment to all Balkan st
Source: AP
Jan 12, 2010
Authorities are offering up to a $1,500 reward for information leading to the identification and prosecution of those responsible for vandalism at the Sears Point archaeological site in Yuma County.
Arizona Bureau of Land Management rangers discovered the vandalism late last year at the large rock art site located on BLM-administered lands. They say the damage includes rolled boulders and fractured petroglyphs.
Archaeology located on public lands is protected by federal
Source: CBC News
Jan 12, 2010
An iconic Canadian history magazine is changing its name to avoid a variety of misunderstandings.
The current issue of the 90-year-old Winnipeg-based bi-monthly, The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine, is the final one to have that name on the cover.
Effective with the April issue, the magazine will be known as Canada's History.
"Use of the word 'beaver' on the internet has taken on an identity that nobody could have perceived in 1920," said Debora
Source: AP
Jan 12, 2010
Yale University says a lawsuit by Peru seeking the return of thousands of Inca artifacts removed from the famed Machu Picchu citadel nearly a century ago should be dismissed because a statue of limitations expired.
Peru rejects the argument, saying Yale never owned the artifacts and that its claim is not subject to a statute of limitations under Peruvian law. Peru also says Yale did not assert ownership of the artifacts until late 2008.
"The artifacts are of immens
