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: CNN
Sep 16, 2009
Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office.
Carter made similar remarks at an event at his presidential center in Atlanta, Georgia, The Associated Press reported Tuesday, pointing to some protesters who have compared Obama to a Nazi. "Those kind of things are not just casua
Source: BaltimoreJewishTimes.com
Sep 15, 2009
A new project will survey mass graves and Jewish cemeteries in the Baltic states where Jewish communities were largely destroyed during World War II.
The aim is to identify and repair the neglected sites from the Holocaust era, which often are the last reminder of once-vibrant Jewish communities, according to a statement released Monday by Lo Tishkach-Do Not Forget, a project coordinated by the Conference of European Rabbis, the continent’s main Orthodox rabbinical association, and
Source: NYT
Sep 15, 2009
Roy Langbord had guessed that someone in his family might have hidden away a great treasure decades before, but not until his mother had him check a long-neglected safe-deposit box did he realize just how great it was.
Inside the box, opened in 2003, he found an incredibly rare coin, wrapped in a delicate paper sleeve. It was a gold $20 piece with Lady Liberty on one side, a bald eagle flying across the other and, at Liberty’s left, the four digits that made it so valuable: 1933.
Source: MSNBC
Sep 15, 2009
"Resolutions of disapproval" have been used several times in the U.S. House's history. But they're not always used to discipline a member, as Democrats are set to do shortly for Rep. Joe Wilson.
The last time one that was introduced as a disciplinary action, according to the House Historian's office, was in 2003 by Nancy Pelosi against California Republican Bill Thomas. Thomas, then the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, "called the U.S. Capitol
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Sep 15, 2009
Public historically black colleges and universities have become increasingly diverse over a 20-year period, according to a new report by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
The proportion of Hispanic, Asian, and multi-ethnic students enrolled in the organization's member institutions jumped from 6 percent of the student population in 1986 to 8 percent in 2006. The total number of nonblack students of color increased by 64 percent. The organization represents 47 public historically b
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Sep 15, 2009
Responding to objections from American Indian students and staff members, the University of Michigan will remove a set of dioramas depicting scenes of Native American life from its natural history museum, Indian Country Today reported. Some American Indian professors at Michigan said they found it insulting for them and their culture to be represented as miniaturized dolls amid the museum's dinosaur bones and fossils. “We are living, breathing, contemporary human beings,” Margaret Noori, a profe
Source: Time
Sep 15, 2009
The first town of freed African slaves in the Americas is not exactly where you would expect to find it — and it isn't exactly what you'd expect to find either. First, it's not in the United States. Yanga, on Mexico's Gulf Coast, is a sleepy pueblito founded by its namesake, Gaspar Yanga, an African slave who led a rebellion against his Spanish colonial masters in the late 16th century and fought off attempts to retake the settlement. The second thing that is immediately evident to vistors who r
Source: BBC
Sep 15, 2009
US President Barack Obama has extended the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba for another year.
In a statement, Mr Obama said that it was in the US national interest to extend the Trading With The Enemy Act which covers the trade embargo.
It is largely a symbolic step because the final decision rests with Congress.
Under legislation from 1996, the Helms-Burton Act, the embargo can only be lifted when Cuba is deemed to have begun a democratic transitio
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
The Cuban government has given permission for religious services to be held in the island's prisons for the first time in 50 years, a church official said on Tuesday.
The services will be allowed in all prisons where the inmates request them, said Marcial Miguel Hernandez, president of the Cuban Council of Churches.
The communist government's relations with the religious world have been rocky since the 1959 revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.
But te
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
The Colosseum in Rome is in desperate need of almost £5 million of restoration work, the Italian government has announced.
Rome is calling for international sponsors to help fund the restoration of the 2,000-year-old amphitheatre's crumbling facade, with the project expected to cost at least £4.5 million.
The restoration of the Colosseum is part of a broader plan to spruce up the nearby Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, the jumbled collection of ruined temples and palaces
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
A leading international human rights group has suspended a senior researcher who frequently criticised Israel's military conduct after it emerged that he was a collector of Nazi memorabilia.
Human Rights Watch, a group whose global reputation rivals that of Amnesty International, said it had sent Marc Garlasco home on full pay pending an investigation into his hobby.
Last week, pro-Israeli websites disclosed that Mr Garlasco, a former Pentagon intelligence officer, was
Source: Reuters
Sep 15, 2009
THE Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal in The Hague has granted a request for the early release of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic after serving two-thirds of an 11-year sentence for war crimes.
Plavsic was convicted in February 2003 of persecuting Bosnian Muslims in the 1992-95 Bosnian war, but will have served two-thirds of her sentence in October, making her eligible for parole under laws in Sweden, where she is being detained.
Judge Patrick Robinson at t
Source: CNN
Sep 15, 2009
The Iraqi man who threw his shoes at then-President George W. Bush last year said Tuesday that he was beaten and tortured while he was detained.
Muntadhar al-Zaidi told reporters after he was released that he was beaten with cables and pipes and tortured with electricity immediately after guards removed him from a news conference for hurling both shoes at Bush.
He said he was taken into another room and beaten even as the press conference continued.
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
In the second half of the 19th century most of the world may have been coloured Victorian pink on the maps, but Henry Harrison managed to capture it in its vibrant kaleidoscope of colours.
Harrison travelled the world in his capacity as a paymaster-general in the Royal Navy, taking his camera everywhere. The enthusiast, who was also a talented marine artist, turned his photographs into slides for the magic lantern by painstakingly tinting each one by hand. Because he was on the spo
Source: Times (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
Some of Jack the Ripper’s most notorious victims appear to be living respectable domestic lives in census records that went online today.
At least five women, all working as prostitutes, were murdered by a Victorian serial killer whose identity has been a matter of speculation for more than a century.
But some only turned to prostitution later in life after the break up of their marriages. Records from the 1881 census, which go online today, show several living with h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
He faces murder charges connected with the execution of the seven at the Medininkai border crossing with Belarus on the night of July 31, 1991.
The Lithuanians, a mixture of border guards and police officers, were captured by men of the Soviet interior ministry's Special Purpose Police Squad.
Ordering their prisoners to lie on the ground they then killed them with shots to the head.
One man survived but was left in a wheelchair by the severity of his inj
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 15, 2009
It's considered to be one of the more recent innovations to help the hapless traveller.
But the satnav system may not be as modern as we think.
According to a new theory, prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a similar system based on stone circles and other markers.
The complex network of stones, hill forts and earthworks allowed travellers to trek hundreds of miles with 'pinpoint accuracy' more than 5,000 years ago, amateur historian To
Source: Sky News
Sep 15, 2009
A government-backed drive is promoting textbooks which say his reign of terror was entirely rational and necessary to make Russia great.
We visited a school in Volgograd - formerly Stalingrad - and found patriotism and pride for Russia and its pivotal role in the Second World War are still strong.
During a history lesson pupils learned about Joseph Stalin the hero - not the villain.
The students are bright and engaged - the Kremlin's initiative to reinterpr
Source: BBC
Sep 15, 2009
New York-based Human Rights Watch said Marc Garlasco was on suspension with pay "pending an investigation".
Mr Garlasco's hobby was revealed by Mere Rhetoric, a pro-Israeli blog which said the activities reflected "an anti-Israeli bias".
Mr Garlasco said he was interested in military history and was not pro-Nazi.
He said his interest sprang from the fact that his grandfather had been conscripted into the Nazi army.
Source: NYT
Sep 15, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected comparisons on Monday between the war in Afghanistan and the conflict in Vietnam a generation ago, but he expressed concern about “the dangers of overreach” and pledged a full debate before making further decisions on strategy.
The president’s comments, in an interview at the White House with The New York Times and CNBC, appeared to be a response to rising unease within his own party in Congress about the possibility of the United States becomin
