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: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
The Royal Bank of Scotland is to open its art collection – one of the largest in private hands and including work by David Hockney and LS Lowry – to the public.
The bank, which is 70% owned by the state, has more than 2,200 works of British art in offices and branches around the country, including rare 19th century pieces by Joshua Reynolds and Johann Zoffany.
It has come under pressure from art charities to display the works after it was saved from going bankrupt wit
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
A previously unknown portrait by Leonardo da Vinci potentially worth tens of millions of pounds is thought to have been discovered thanks to a fingerprint.
The painting, titled Young Girl in Profile in Renaissance Dress, recently sold for a mere £12,000 ($19,000). It was billed at a Christie's sale in 1998 as "German, early 19th century".
A Paris laboratory discovered that a fingerprint from the tip of an index or middle-finger, found on the top left of the
Source: AP
Oct 12, 2009
Britain's Foreign Secretary says his country's interests would have suffered had the Lockerbie bomber died in prison.
David Miliband said in a statement before lawmakers Monday that British authorities believed the U.K.'s economic and security cooperation with Libya would have been damaged if Abdel Baset al-Megrahi died from cancer while he was still behind bars.
However Miliband says that those considerations played no role in the decision by Scottish authorities to re
Source: AP
Oct 12, 2009
More than four decades after he allegedly hijacked a jetliner from a New York airport to Cuba, Luis Armando Pena Soltren voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face prosecution, authorities said Monday.
Pena Soltren, who was arrested Sunday at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from Havana, was expected to be arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan on a 1968 indictment. The Cuban government authorized his departure, authorities said Monday.
Source: CNN
Oct 12, 2009
Jury selection is set to start Monday in a trial pitting two children of Martin Luther King Jr. against their brother, whom they accuse of mishandling the late civil rights leader's estate.
Bernice King and Martin Luther King III issued their brother Dexter King in July 2008, one month after accusing him of converting "substantial funds from the estate's financial account at Bank of America" for his own use, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit contends Dexte
Source: CNN
Oct 12, 2009
Richard Strandlof said he survived the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon. He said he survived again when a roadside bomb went off in Iraq, killing four fellow Marines. He'd point to his head and tell people he had a metal plate, collateral damage from the explosion.
None of it was true. On Friday, the FBI arrested him on the rare charge of "stolen valor."
Strandlof, 32, was held "for false claims about receipt of military decorations or medals," an FBI ne
Source: CNN
Oct 12, 2009
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill commemorating Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected to public office in the state, a spokesman for the governor said Monday.
Under the measure, the governor each year would proclaim May 22 -- Milk's birthday -- as a day of significance across the state.
The bill was one of 704 signed Sunday -- most of them near the midnight deadline -- by Schwarzenegger, said spokesman Aaron McLear.
The
Source: Times (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
The 400-year-old mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed play about Edward III may have been solved by a computer program designed to detect plagiarism.
Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, believes that a comparison of phrases used in The Reign of King Edward III with Shakespeare’s early works proves conclusively that the Bard wrote the play in collaboration with Thomas Kyd,
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
Speaking to a group of about 300 supporters in a small town outside Johannesburg, he used rousing sentiments from the past to call white farmers and their families to action.
"Now is not the time to be afraid," he shouted, to murmurs of approval from the audience.
"Now all true Afrikaners must reach out to each other and fight to the bitter end.
"Our country is being run by criminals who murder and rob. This land was the best, and they
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
But since the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, the former jewel in the Communist crown has become symbolic of everything that is wrong with modern east Germany - with poverty, high unemployment and a dwindling population.
The town, around 100 miles south of Berlin, has lost almost half of its former population of 68,000 since 1989. For eastern Germany as a whole the figure is just nine per cent.
Since the coal industry collapsed in the wake of the reunification of Germa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 12, 2009
The proposals for the centre at Airman's Corner, 1.5 miles west of the prehistoric stones near Amesbury in Wiltshire, and plans to close the nearby A344 have been submitted to Wiltshire Council.
The centre, designed by architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall, is ''sensitive to its surroundings and to the significance of the monument'', English Heritage said.
English Heritage's Stonehenge project director, Loraine Knowles, said: ''The new centre is designed to blend
Source: Deutsche Welle
Oct 12, 2009
Porsche says it is taking the allegations seriously after a report published by a German economics journalist suggested that hundreds of people were forced to work at Porsche for little or no pay.
Porsche's head archivist confirmed that the company had commissioned an external expert to investigate the allegations.
"We need to process the subject; we are just at the start of the procedure" a Porsche spokesman said.
Source: BBC
Oct 12, 2009
A Tudor fiddle and a leather "manbag" are just a few of the items The Mary Rose Trust has allowed to be filmed.
The move marks the launch of the Mary Rose 500 appeal to raise the remaining £4m needed to build the £35m museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
It also marks the 500th anniversary of the commissioning of the warship.
The Mary Rose sank on 19 July 1545 with the loss of more than 400 lives, after 34 years of service.
The
Source: WSJ
Oct 12, 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama waves as he arrives at the 13th Annual National Dinner of the Human Right Campaign. Mr. Obama's comments could spark criticism from conservatives and some supporters who say the administration must set different priorities.
WASHINGTON -- Congress could be receptive to President Barack Obama's pledge to end a 16-year-old policy banning gay people from serving openly in the military, a top Democratic lawmaker said. The Pentagon also signaled openness to a c
Source: Crain's Detroit Business
Oct 11, 2009
With the city facing a financial crisis, Detroit's mayor assembled a volunteer team of business and community leaders, led by a retired Ford Motor Co. executive, to help chart a course through murky fiscal waters.
Mass layoffs were looming, revenue was shrinking, and the city's budget deficit had exceeded $200 million.
After months of study, the crisis team advised the mayor to re-engineer city government: privatize or regionalize some services, cut wages for unionized
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Oct 11, 2009
Kids these days. Just look at them. They've got those headphones in their ears and a gadget in every hand. They speak in tongues and text in code. They wear flip-flops everywhere. Does anyone really understand them?
Only some people do, or so it seems. They are experts who have earned advanced degrees, dissected data, and published books. If the minds of college students are a maze, these specialists sell maps...
... Everyone in higher education has pondered "the M
Source: Fox News
Oct 11, 2009
MEXICO CITY — Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring e
Source: NYT
Oct 11, 2009
TOKYO — Growing up in prewar Tokyo, Makoto Kaneko recalls that the perfectly shaped, snow-capped cone of Mount Fuji was like a constant companion, visible on the horizon from the narrow streets of his hilly working-class neighborhood. The most majestic view was from a steep hillside affectionately named Fujimizaka, “the slope for seeing Mount Fuji.”
Today, Mr. Kaneko’s cramped 80-year-old shop selling foods cooked in soy sauce is one of several old wooden stores and Buddhist temples
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Oct 11, 2009
The tradition of honoring Christopher Columbus for sailing the ocean blue in 1492 is facing rougher seas than the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria.
Philadelphia's annual Columbus Day parade was canceled. Brown University this year renamed the holiday "Fall Weekend" following a campaign by a Native American student group opposed to celebrating an explorer who helped enslave some of the people he "discovered."
And while the Italian adventurer is generally t
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 11, 2009
TAMPA, Fla. – Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.
Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.
"I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize wh
