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: BBC
Oct 20, 2009
The answer to one of Spain's great historical mysteries is believed to lie in an area of olive-clad mountainside, the size of half a football pitch.
The site has been fenced off and placed under 24-hour guard, such is the sensitivity of what is about to take place.
This remote spot, between the Andalucian villages of Viznar and Alfacar, is where the poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca was murdered before daybreak on 18 August 1936 - by gunmen loyal to General Fran
Source: BBC
Oct 20, 2009
Howard Barton Unruh, who shot and killed 13 people as he walked the streets of New Jersey 60 years ago, has died at the age of 88.
Diagnosed as mentally ill, he never stood trial. He is widely regarded by many as the first single-episode mass murderer in the United States.
Unruh, who was confined in a state psychiatric hospital after the rampage, died on Monday after a long illness.
Unruh had planned whom he was going to shoot for up to a year beforehand.
Source: Discovery News
Oct 19, 2009
Foot and sandal prints said to be 1,700 years old have emerged from one of Israel's largest and finest mosaics.
The markings reveal how ancient artisans could have crafted the mosaic during the Roman period.
Spreading over 180 square meters (215 square yards), the mosaic -- apparently the floor of a lavish Roman villa -- was uncovered 13 years ago at Lod, south of Tel Aviv, only three feet under an asphalt road not far from Ben-Gurion Airport.
Source: En Perú Blog
Oct 19, 2009
After three years of work in the town of Pacopampa, a team of archaeologists led by Yuji Seki have found the outlines of an ancient temple that would have formed part of a larger complex located 20 minutes from the modern town of the same name. But far more impressive is what they’ve found buried inside the temple. The team discovered the tomb of a woman, whose social position quickly became evident.
On the highest terrace of the San Pedro mountain in what is today Chota in Cajamarc
Source: Deutsche Welle
Oct 19, 2009
Scientists in the state of Saxony-Anhalt made the remarkable find at an ICE railroad construction site. Researchers believe that some of the skeletons could date as far back as the Bronze Age.
The graves are located just outside the city of Oechlitz, on the railroad track connecting the major eastern city of Leipzig with its neighbor to the southwest, Erfurt.
They were first discovered after construction had begun on an ICE express train line. Scientists have ascertaine
Source: NYT
Oct 19, 2009
He dropped out of the University of Texas at Austin in 1935 as a junior, because of what he called “awful grades,” to pursue a career in the news business, and what a career Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. had. But though he became a broadcasting legend, he never abandoned his Longhorn roots, as evident in his last will and testament now on file at Manhattan Surrogate’s Court.
The will bequeaths Mr. Cronkite’s personal papers to the university, a process that started before his death on
Source: CNSNews.com
Oct 19, 2009
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told high school students in May 2009 that one of her favorite political philosophers was Mao Tse Tung, the Communist dictator responsible for the death of millions of people, and she explained why his philosophy was important for achieving personal and political goals.
When questioned last week after a video of her speech surfaced, however, Dunn said she was using “irony” in reference to Mao. A leading expert on China told CNSNews.com
Source: Guardian (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
University College London has a jumbled collection of objects and is asking visitors to vote on what deserves to be kept
Agatha Christie's picnic basket – a wonderfully Miss Marple-ish object holding a bizarre assemblage including fragments of 4,000-year-old pottery, a door handle, a sheet of newspaper and a key – almost certainly did not belong to the world's most famous crime writer.
It is just one of myriad oddities that have ended up among more than 250,000 objects
Source: Live Science
Oct 19, 2009
A trick used by ancient Egyptians to exploit cracks in Earth to make tomb-digging easier has come back to haunt the Valley of the Kings, new evidence suggests.
While the natural fractures were followed to carve out burial sites, several instances show, rare heavy rainfall events can flood the tombs. Archaeologists are racing to map and photograph the tombs to better preserve their contents and figure out ways to divert the rain.
"We have seen evidence of seven se
Source: BBC
Oct 19, 2009
China is planning to send teams of experts to the United States, Europe and Asia to find looted treasure.
The teams will be looking for precious items stolen from Beijing's former Summer Palace nearly 150 years ago.
Chinese experts believe 1.5 million items could have been taken from the site, which was destroyed by British and French troops.
Over recent years, China has become increasingly active in its efforts to raise the issue of stolen treasures.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The Prince of Wales joined World War Two veterans on Sunday to mark the restoration of a famous Army memorial.
The service, held on Powrie Brae on the outskirts of Dundee, included a re-dedication for a bronze statue of a Black Watch soldier.
It came 50 years after the Queen Mother unveiled the original memorial.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, has boasted of how Barack Obama's presidential campaign managed to "absolutely control" the press during the 2008 election.
The top campaign strategist who has shot to attention recently as President Obama's main attack dog against Fox News, the conservative-leaning cable network, was speaking at a conference in the Dominican Republic in January.
"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we did
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 19, 2009
KASESE, Uganda – For years, Charles Wesley Mumbere worked as a nurse's aide in Maryland and Pennsylvania, caring for the elderly and sick. No one there suspected that he had inherited a royal title in his African homeland when he was just 13.
On Monday, after years of political upheaval and financial struggle, Mumbere, 56, was finally crowned king of his people to the sound of drumbeats and thousands of cheering supporters wearing cloth printed with his portraits.
At a
Source: Bloomberg.com
Oct 19, 2009
The commander-in-chief hugged a grieving mother, telling her to be proud of her fallen son, a Marine killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
Lisa Xiarhos also had a message for President Barack Obama: “Be strong and get the job done,” she recalls telling him. “Don’t back down. Send more troops. Support the ones that are there and do whatever you can.”...
... In some cases, parents have urged him to provide the troops with better equipment or more re
Source: Huffington Post
Oct 19, 2009
GENEVA — The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush leaned back in his chair and soaked in the round of applause.
This was not Baghdad or Damascus or Beirut. This was Geneva, where Muntadhar al-Zeidi was given a hero's welcome Monday far warmer than the subdued reception in his own homeland.
Source: Haaretz
Oct 19, 2009
The Ministry of Education has taken the unusual step of collecting all copies of the history textbook, "Nationalism: Building a State in the Middle East" which was published about two months ago by the Zalman Shazar Center. They will be returned to the shelves only after corrections are made to the text, particularly with reference to the War of Independence.
The book had already been approved by the ministry.
"Collecting the books from the shops is an un
Source: Time (for the week of Oct 26th)
Oct 19, 2009
Anyone walking through Prashant Thakare's freshly planted cotton field in the central Indian village of Takarakhede Shambhu could easily mistake a 65-ft.-wide (20 m) pool of murky water for, well, a pool of murky water. Yet that simple pond has transformed Thakare's 22-acre (9 hectare) farm and, indeed, his life.
Thakare, like nearly all the farmers in this arid region of Vidarbha in the state of Maharashtra, is dependent on India's annual monsoon to provide the water necessary to
Source: Company homepage
Oct 19, 2009
Drawing on the archives of Historic Map Works, the world's largest online collection of geo-coded historic maps, Historic Earth allows you to virtually travel back through time in many U.S. cities and states. Geo-coding allows the maps to closely overlay a modern map, so that the same locations can be compared in various time periods.
Launching with 32,000 high-resolution maps covering several cities and states (including NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Maine, and Illinois
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors on Monday.
Two Justice Department officials said prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.
The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insist
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 19, 2009
The British Museum is to be asked to open up its archives to allow teams of Chinese investigators to document "lost" Imperial treasures which China claims were taken from Beijing's Old Summer Palace when it was burned and looted by British troops almost 150 years ago.
The teams will form part of an international mission to demand the inspection of 1.5 million artefacts mostly held by museums in Britain and France.
China has moved to reassure countries that th
