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: Time
Aug 26, 2009
There was a time 40 years ago, right after the assassination of his brother Robert, when it looked like Edward Kennedy would become President someday by right of succession. The Kennedy curse, the one that had seen all three of his brothers cut down in their prime, had created for him a sort of Kennedy prerogative, or at least the illusion of one, an inevitable claim on the White House. For years he seemed like a man simply waiting for the right moment to take what everybody knew was coming his
Source: CNN
Aug 26, 2009
Services for Sen. Edward Kennedy will be Saturday morning at a Boston church before his burial in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, his office announced Wednesday.
President Obama, who called Kennedy an "extraordinary leader," will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, according to several sources.
Before the funeral, Kennedy's body will lie in repose Thursday afternoon and Friday in the Smith Center at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Bost
Source: Global Post
Aug 26, 2009
Nowhere outside the United States is the passing of Senator Edward Kennedy being mourned as much as in Ireland, the country from where his ancestors emigrated during the potato famine of the 19th century and to which he helped bring peace in recent years.
President Mary McAleese said he would be remembered as a “hugely important friend to the country during very difficult times,” and Prime Minister Brian Cowen commented that Ireland had lost a true friend who “worked valiantly for t
Source: Deutsche Welle
Aug 26, 2009
An estimated 100,000 people were convicted as ”war traitors” by the Nazis. Some 30,000 of them were sentenced to death, and the death penalties were actually carried out in about 20,000 cases.
Laws on war traitors originated in 1872 following the Franco-German war and were adapted by the Nazis in 1934. Starting then, Germans could be convicted of treason for making negative comments about Hitler, treating POWs too well, helping Jews to flee, or possessing a leaflet calling for an e
Source: Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Aug 26, 2009
"The Obama administration, citing an economic downturn that has been deeper than it had first thought, raised its estimate on Tuesday of the government's deficit over the next decade to $9 trillion from $7.1 trillion," reports the New York Times.
"White House officials predicted that the budget deficit this year will peak at $1.5 trillion, though they said the 2009 shortfall will be about $261 billion lower than they had predicted in May. The main reason is that offi
Source: NYT
Aug 26, 2009
Senator Edward Kennedy's death marks the twilight of one of America's most fabled political families, with no heirs to the Kennedy name poised to emerge with the same mix of gravitas, ambition and celebrity.
Kennedy, 77, one of the most effective lawmakers in U.S. history and the brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, died late on Tuesday after battling brain cancer.
He died just weeks after his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympi
Source: NYT
Aug 26, 2009
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died Tuesday night. He was 77 .
The death was announced Wednesday morning in a statement by the Kennedy family.
“Edward M. Kennedy – the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply – died l
Source: Irish Sun
Aug 25, 2009
Archaeologists at the University of Bradford will be leading an exploration into how prehistoric people made their living in Italy at the end of the Ice Age. The research aims to find out how hunter- gatherers in Mediterranean Europe survived before farming became widespread and why the transition to agriculture was a smooth one.
Researchers will use high-precision dating to accurately age occupation layers in archaeological cave sites and identify which animals were being hunt
Source: Planet Earth Online
Aug 25, 2009
Shell beads newly unearthed from four sites in Morocco confirm early humans were consistently wearing and potentially trading symbolic jewellery as early as 80,000 years ago. These beads add significantly to similar finds dating back as far as 110,000 in Algeria, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, confirming these as the oldest form of personal ornaments.
A team of researchers recovered 25 marine shell beads dating back to around 70,000 to 85,000 years ago from sites in Morocco.
Source: BCC
Aug 25, 2009
In the fourth of a series of articles marking the outbreak of World War II 70 years ago, the BBC Russian Service's Artyom Krechetnikov assesses Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's motivations behind the 1939 Soviet-Nazi pact.
He predicted that the outcome would depend entirely on whichever strategic position the USSR decided to adopt.
Should the Soviet Union form an alliance with France and Britain, he opined, Germany would be forced to abandon its territorial demands on Pol
Source: NYT
Aug 25, 2009
Once the mad dog of the Middle East, as Ronald Reagan called him, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, has focused on shedding his outlaw status: He heads the African Union, attended a Group of 8 economic conference in Rome and is courted by Western powers hungry for Libyan oil.
But if the world thought the colonel had changed his views after 40 years in power, he proved otherwise with the hero’s welcome he gave Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the Lo
Source: The Daily Beast
Aug 25, 2009
Out with the old, in with the… old? President Barack Obama may say he’s against the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, but he’s just tapped a key Bush-era CIA insider, John Brennan, to oversee his new interrogation policies. Brennan, who was in the CIA for 25 years and who served as the CIA’s deputy executive director during the period of "enhanced interrogation techniques," will be Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser. He'll oversee a new interrogation corps, which will be
Source: Newsday.com
Aug 25, 2009
The Colorado History Museum is finding some history underneath the site where it's about to start building its new home.
Workers have been excavating the remains of some turn-of-the-century row houses, which have been well-preserved by a parking lot on top of the site. One cellar is nearly intact. Workers have also found dinnerware fragments, architectural hardware and old trash.
Source: The National Security Archive
Aug 25, 2009
Today, the National Security Archive posted a side-by-side comparison of two very different versions of a 2004 report on the CIA's "Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities" by Agency Inspector General John Helgerson. Yesterday, the Obama administration released new portions of the report including considerably more information about the use of torture and other illegal practices by CIA interrogators than a version of the report declassified by the Bush administration in
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Aug 25, 2009
Scottish lawmakers grilled the official who freed the Libyan agent convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, as support mounted for inquiries into both that decision and the original conviction.
In a special parliamentary session Monday, Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill defended his move to release terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi despite vehement opposition from the U.S., saying the decision was his alone and wasn't affected by political or economic concerns.
Source: Dallas News
Aug 25, 2009
A deal that was supposed to end a long-running lawsuit against SMU – and smooth the path for George W. Bush's presidential library – has fallen apart amid charges that both sides broke the terms of a confidential agreement.
Last month, Southern Methodist University and two former condominium owners announced that they had settled the bitter four-year fight over who is the rightful owner of land now slated for the grounds of the Bush library.
The lawyers hailed the deal
Source: BBC
Aug 25, 2009
A row has erupted in Mexico after the government distributed a history textbook to primary schools which makes no mention of the Spanish conquest.
The chronology of the text neatly avoids the issue by ending before the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s.
Some opposition figures have seized on what they see as a calculated omission.
The arrival of the conquistadors resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and the colonisation of M
Source: BBC
Aug 25, 2009
During the Troubles, Libya supplied guns and explosives to the IRA, and the families want the country to face up to its responsibilities.
They are calling on the Libyan leader to demonstrate the same compassion shown to Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi.
The terminally-ill bomber was released from a Scottish prison last week.
Source: Independent (UK)
Aug 25, 2009
Gordon Brown said today he was "angry" and "repulsed" at the reception given to the freed Lockerbie bomber in Libya - but still declined to say if he agreed with the decision to release him.
The Prime Minister insisted the British Government had "no role" in the decision to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi on compassionate grounds, but went on to say that his determination to fight terror remained "absolute".
He also dis
Source: Guardian (UK)
Aug 25, 2009
1974 was a terrible year for Manchester, with United relegated to the second division for the first time in four decades and power cuts forced by the three-day week declared by Edward Heath's collapsing Tory government.
But the city would have been even more jittery had it known that in Moscow Soviet generals were eyeing the A56 between Deansgate and Stretford and checking that T-72 battle tanks could use the Mancunian Way.
Leaving nothing to chance, maps for an armoure
