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
Aug 14, 2009
When a small plane collided with a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River last week, it was only the second time in decades that crowded skies near Manhattan led to a midair crash.
But an Associated Press review of pilots' safety reports found many more near-misses in the same airspace in recent years, including several between small planes and helicopters flying the busy river corridor near the Statue of Liberty.
Almost all the incidents involved small aircraft f
Source: The Huffington Post
Aug 14, 2009
Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing."
Though income inequalit
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
The former general who ran a base that was the backdrop for multiple abuses during Argentina's 1976-83 dictatorship was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday for human rights violations.
Santiago Omar Riveros, 86, who commanded the Campo de Mayo barracks near Buenos Aires, was found guilty of torturing and beating to death 15-year-old Floréal Avellaneda, and abducting his mother, Iris
Some 5,000 prisoners were held at the Campo de Mayo barracks during Argentina's di
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
British prisoners of war condemned the Japanese government after it offered US veterans a full apology and invited them to visit the country while ignoring the plight of those from the UK.
Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan's ambassador to Washington, apologised for the "tragic experiences" of the American survivors of the Bataan Death March, in which 20,000 US servicemen died after Imperial forces overran their defensive positions in the Philippines in April 1942.
Speak
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
The contents of a briefcase belonging to a German who lived for years under an alias in an Egyptian hotel prove he was a fugitive Nazi war criminal known as "Dr Death", police say.
A German police statement said handwriting found on documents in the case was that of Dr Aribert Heim, accused of killing and performing experiments on inmates of concentration camps during the Second World War.
Analysis of dust showed the briefcase had been in North Africa for a n
Source: AP
Aug 14, 2009
Five private security guards have climbed to the top of the Colosseum in Rome to protest planned layoffs at their company.
Ambulances and a fire brigade crane arrived at the scene Friday evening. Police cordoned off the area. Below the ancient arena, some 50 other security guards backed the protest with cheers.
The protesters unfurled a banner that read "no to job insecurity" and received a megaphone and supplies attached to a rope by their colleagues.
Source: AP
Aug 14, 2009
Navy pilot Scott Speicher, the long-missing first casualty of the first Gulf War, was finally laid to rest Friday in his adopted hometown as thousands of people lined the streets to watch a funeral procession pass his school, church and former military base.
Speicher was shot down in 1991 on the first night of the Gulf War. For more than 18 years, no one knew if he was killed or being held prisoner in Iraq until his remains were discovered in the desert, west of Baghdad, earlier thi
Source: CNN
Aug 14, 2009
Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme was released from federal custody Friday, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said.
Fromme was convicted in 1975 of pointing a gun at then-President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, California.
She was released Friday morning from Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, said Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons in Washington.
Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, pointed a gun at For
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Aug 14, 2009
Just as raising temperature can change the properties of iron and other metals, early humans heated stone to make it easier to flake.
The process transformed a stone called silcrete into an outstanding raw material for tool manufacture.
Doctoral student Kyle Brown, who led the research at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said: "Our illumination of the heat treatment process shows that these early modern humans commanded fire in a nuanced and sophistica
Source: Guardian (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
Yale University Press has decided against reprinting the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in a book examining the controversy, after being advised by Islam and counterterrorism experts that doing so could incite violence.
As well as leaving out the 12 cartoons which provoked riots across the Islamic world in 2006, Yale also bowed to recommendations not to include any other illustrations of Muhammad, including a 19th century sketch by Gustave Doré of Muhammad in Hell from Dant
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, a senior CIA officer who is currently in jail for corruption has told The New York Times how he oversaw the construction of three identical prisons from his base in Frankfurt where he ran the spy agency's main European supply base.
Mr Foggo rose to become number three in the CIA, but pleaded guilty to fraud last year and now is serving time in a Kentucky jail.
The detention centres he built for "high value" terrorist detainees wer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 14, 2009
Lawyers for the 57-year-old, who is dying of prostate cancer, said he had taken the unexpected decision after his condition took a "significant turn for the worse".
He is expected to be freed next week on compassionate grounds, but relatives of the victims had expected his appeal to continue, even after his death.
They reacted to the latest news with dismay and immediately renewed their calls for a full public inquiry into the atrocity in which 270 people di
Source: BBC
Aug 14, 2009
Almost 100 years after it dipped below the waves of the Atlantic, the supposedly unsinkable ocean liner still exerts a powerful hold on our collective imagination. It was heralded as an engineering triumph, yet succumbed to the forces of nature on its maiden voyage. Among the 1,517 who perished were the rich, the poor, and those in between.
The fascination is such that recently an enthusiast wrote to [Millvina Dean ], offering 100 pounds for a lock of hair. Even she - a veteran of t
Source: MSNBC
Aug 13, 2009
Discovery points to breakthrough occurring earlier in Africa, not Europe.
Early humans crossed a threshold around 75,000 years ago, when they started painting symbols, carving patterns and making jewelry. A new study found they also began to use fire to make tools around that time.
Until now, this complex, multistep process for tool making was only known to occur as recently as 25,000 years ago in Europe. But the new findings show this breakthrough occurred much earlie
Source: Discovery News
Aug 13, 2009
An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.
Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.
Collins, who will detail his findings in the book "Beneath the Pyramids" to be published in September, tracked down the entrance to the mysteri
Source: CNN
Aug 13, 2009
Pan Am Flight 103 was 31,000 feet in the air, heading for New York City, when it exploded over Scotland on the longest night of the year, December 21, 1988, killing 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground below.
It was the world's deadliest act of air terrorism until the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to the FBI.
American and British investigators painstakingly pieced together the aircraft's wreckage and found it had been dest
Source: AP
Aug 13, 2009
The partial remains of an ancient toothed whale species that roamed the ocean 5 million years ago have been discovered on a California beach. Crews removing a 1,000-pound slab of sandstone off the Santa Cruz County beach Wednesday discovered the remains and called in paleontologists.
Frank Perry, a paleontologist with the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, says the remains are an important piece of a puzzle that will help understand what life was like when meat-eating toothed wha
Source: NYT
Aug 13, 2009
The German police confirmed Thursday that a briefcase filled with documents discovered in Cairo belonged to the Nazi fugitive and concentration camp doctor Aribert Ferdinand Heim. The police could not confirm that he had died in Egypt in 1992 as witnesses there and in Germany said.
Experts working for the police in the German state of Baden-Württemberg found evidence showing that the bag and the papers inside it, including personal letters, financial documents and medical records, m
Source: Palm Beach Post
Aug 13, 2009
A Fort Pierce museum dedicated to Navy SEAL history will receive the bullet-sprayed lifeboat where a sea captain captured by Somali pirates was held.
The National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum has thousands of items, including a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter. But the 20-foot lifeboat still battered and full of broken glass is a rare part of recent history. It is scheduled to arrive Friday.
U.S. Navy snipers shot and killed three of Capt. Richard Phillips's captors in April when hi
Source: PR-Inside.com
Aug 13, 2009
Since his death in 1945, the grave of Blind Willie Johnson, one of the greatest bottleneck-slide guitarists of all time, has been unmarked. Now, thanks to 18 months of research and a dozen visits to the Blanchette Cemetery in Beaumont, Texas by Austinite Jack Ortman, the final resting place of this influential Texas musician will get the recognition it deserves.
Johnson’s music has always been revered by his fellow musicians. His songs have been covered by Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton
