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
Jul 24, 2009
Associates of the late Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa plotted to ambush a group of FBI agents during his 1962 trial in Nashville, newly released transcripts of federal grand jury testimony indicate.
Walter J. Sheridan, a Justice Department official, told the Nashville grand jury in March 1963 that Hoffa's supporters planned to trap the agents in an alley "and have a bunch of business agents waiting for them."
The grand jury testimony came at a time when the Justic
Source: AP
Jul 24, 2009
Crumbling sidewalks near the Jefferson Memorial are sinking into the Tidal Basin. Reflecting pools are filled with green, smelly water. And millions of visitors have trampled the soil into virtual concrete where grass can't grow.
The National Mall is in danger of becoming a national disgrace.
"It does not deserve the name 'National Mall,'" said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting member of Congress. "We ought to call it something else until it loo
Source: AP
Jul 24, 2009
The dispute between Southern Methodist University and condominium owners over land for the George W. Bush presidential library is over.
SMU reached an agreement Friday with Gary Vodicka, who alleged that the university forced him out of his condominium to make way for the project and lied about its intentions. A settlement reached a day earlier with fellow condo owner Robert Tafel also was announced Friday. Terms were not released.
Source: Times (UK)
Jul 24, 2009
The Panzers are beginning to roll as Germany mounts its biggest operation in Afghanistan ahead of next month’s presidential elections. Having faced sharp criticism for opting out of major combat missions in the region, Germany is now deploying heavy artillery, Marder tanks and mortar fire to support an Afghan army push around the city of Kunduz. German fighter jets have also been firing missiles at Taliban positions for the first time.
Germans, in short, are in the middle of a shoo
Source: BBC
Jul 24, 2009
A portrait of ex-serviceman Henry Allingham completed days before his death last weekend is being unveiled.
Artist Dan Llywelyn Hall, said it was an "enormous privilege" to have painted Mr Allingham, who at 113 was the world's oldest man.
His portrait will later be sold to raise funds for the ex-forces care home where Mr Allingham lived.
Source: BBC
Jul 24, 2009
Fragments of human and animal bones believed to be dating back to the time of the Blitz have been uncovered by children playing in Regent's Park.
The remains, along with burnt bricks, roof tiles and other debris were found in the central London park on 13 May.
Natural History Museum, which analysed the fragments, said the remains dated back to before 1941 and could have been deposited in the park after the Blitz.
Source: BBC
Jul 24, 2009
Old underground burial chambers in a Devon city could be used to store the bodies of swine flu victims if the outbreak worsens, a council has said.
Exeter City Council has identified the empty catacombs in Bartholomew Street as a potential mortuary.
The 19th century burial chambers are normally a tourist attraction.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 24, 2009
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has failed to declare the presence of 30 ancient tombs on his land, according to newly published recordings said to be of him.
The recordings allege Mr Berlusconi told escort Patrizia D'Addario of 30 Phoenician tombs at his Sardinia villa.
The tombs date from 300BC, a man said to be Mr Berlusconi was heard saying.
But officials say there is no record of him reporting any finds - a legal requirement for all Italians - and oppos
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 24, 2009
It was 100 years ago that Frenchman Louis Blériot became the first man to fly across the Channel.
The mustachioed aviation enthusiast and inventor was one of three pilots to respond to a public challenge to become the first man to achieve the feat.
The British newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe had offered a prize of £1,000 to the first person to make the flight in either direction. But his two competitors – Hubert Lartham, a Franco-British
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 24, 2009
The American Jewish Committee said on Friday it was suing the German branch of online retailer Amazon for selling books which it said questioned the Holocaust and "trivialised" the Nazis.
According to AJC research, around 50 works including "Der Auschwitz-Mythos – Legende oder Wirklichkeit ("The Auschwitz Myth – Legend or Reality") by Wilhelm Staglich were on sale on Amazon.de this month.
Some of these books, the AJC said, were classified by th
Source: AP
Jul 24, 2009
A Turkish official says restoration workers have uncovered the never-before-seen mosaic face of an angel at Istanbul's Haghia Sophia — a former Byzantine cathedral.
The cathedral's Christian mosaics were covered up in line with Muslim custom shortly after Constantinople — the former name for Istanbul — fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the cathedral was turned into a mosque.
Some of the mosaics were revealed after it was turned into a museum in 1935, but the angel image
Source: Politico.com
Jul 24, 2009
President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room Friday to address the spiraling controversy over his comments on the Monday arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Department.
Just hours after Cambridge police union officials called on Obama to apologize for saying the officers involved in the incident behaved "stupidly," Obama conceded that he erred in his "choice of words."
Obama said he
Source: Time
Jul 24, 2009
With the U.S. trillions of dollars in the hole, 70 cents an hour sounds like chump change. But it's a big boost for the millions of workers who earn that much extra as of July 24. The increase is the third and final uptick in a hike that has since 2007 boosted the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. In total, the extra $2 and change translates into a yearly raise of some $4,400 for a full-time minimum-wage worker, nosing his or her family of four above the poverty line.
The m
Source: LAT
Jul 24, 2009
U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have halted the practice of releasing the number of militants killed in fighting with American-led forces as part of an overall strategy shift that emphasizes concern for the local civilian population's well-being rather than hunting insurgent groups.
The decision has triggered a quiet but fierce debate among military officers comparing the current situation with the U.S. experience in Vietnam, when military officials exaggerated body counts an
Source: Times (UK)
Jul 24, 2009
Fragments of human bone believed to be the remains of victims of the London Blitz have been discovered by children near a playground in Regent’s Park.
The discovery, almost 70 years after German Luftwaffe bombs destroyed large tracts of the capital, suggests that victims’ remains may still lie beneath London’s open spaces, buried along with the rubble from their devastated homes.
Police were called to Regent’s Park when children digging in the soil near the Gloucester
Source: BBC
Jul 24, 2009
Soviet bullets were found with the remains at Glubokoye, a village which had been in Poland but fell into Soviet hands in 1939.
A youth group discovered the remains earlier this week, reports say.
Local historians said the victims had most probably been shot by the NKVD secret police between 1939 and 1941.
Source: TPM (Liberal blog)
Jul 23, 2009
On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image below. Above it, he wrote:"Funny stuff."Now, Tea Party activists trafficking in racist imagery are
Source: Huffington Post
Jul 23, 2009
Oliver Stone at the Huffington Post:
The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.
Today, more than 45 years lat
Source: NYT
Jul 23, 2009
HNN Hot Topics: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Ralph Medley, a retired professor of philosophy and English who is black, remembers the day he was arrested on his own property, a rental building here in Hyde Park where he was doing some repair work for tenants.
A concerned neighbor had called the police to report a suspicious character. And that was not the first time Mr. Medley said he had been wrongly appreh
Source: BBC
Jul 23, 2009
The Jewish Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism, says it recorded 609 incidents between January and June - up from 276 last year.
Most incidents were abusive behaviour, but there were also 77 violent acts.
The trust said the rise had been driven by anger over Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
That conflict, between December 2008 and January 2009, was followed by an almost immediate rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the U
