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: Bradley Graham in the WaPo
Jun 21, 2009
Since leaving the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld has purposefully assumed a low
profile, giving few public speeches and granting few interviews. The
former defense secretary maintains an office in Washington that allows him
ready access to his Pentagon files and has facilitated his work with the
Library of Congress to archive his personal papers. But he spends large
chunks of his time at two other homes outside Washington - an old manor in
St. Michaels, Md., and a farm in Taos, N.M.
In m
Source: Reuters
Jun 21, 2009
Israeli archaeologists said on Sunday they had discovered the largest underground quarry in the Holy Land, dating back to the time of Jesus and containing Christian symbols etched into the walls.
The 4,000-square-meter (yard) cavern, buried 10 meters beneath the desert near the ancient West Bank city of Jericho, was dug about 2,000 years ago and was in use for about half a millennium, archaeologist Adam Zertal said.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jun 21, 2009
For decades the shadow of Nazism has hung over the descendants of Richard Wagner.
His monumental music was embraced by Hitler while, 50 years after his death, the composer's family were favourites of the dictator and his cronies.
Now Wagner's 31-year-old great granddaughter Katharina says she wants to establish the truth about her ancestors' links to the Nazis - most particularly whether her grandmother was the Fuhrer's secret lover.
Her decision has h
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jun 21, 2009
Some were able to march, others needed walking sticks or wheelchairs.
But all held their heads high as they paraded proudly in Whitehall to remember their fallen comrades.
Many of the veterans shed a tear yesterday as they attended the last memorial service the Normandy Veterans' Association will organise in London.
At least two collapsed as the humid weather and the long time they had to spend on their feet proved too much. Wr
Source: LAT
Jun 21, 2009
Corn was the royalty of Maya food crops, celebrated in religion and cosmology, but archaeologists have long suspected that a different crop, the lowly manioc plant, was the mainstay of Maya life, providing the basic sustenance that allowed their civilization to flourish in densely populated cities.
Now, Colorado researchers have provided the first direct evidence that manioc was indeed intensively cultivated by the Maya -- in quantities that would allow its use for many purposes.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 21, 2009
The sinister masks donned by furious protesters could have been calculated to strike fear into the heart of any representative of Iran's revolutionary regime.
But while most people would be alarmed by the blank faces alone, Iranian officials would be disturbed at the eerie resemblance to the upheaval that brought them to power 30 years ago.
Then, as now, people registered their defiance by calling "Allahu Akbar" from windows at rooftops at night. They also us
Source: BBC
Jun 21, 2009
A history project has uncovered evidence that a Soviet agent leaked atomic weapons research from a top secret munitions factory in Flintshire.
According to local historian Colin Barber, Klaus Fuchs was "leaking like a sieve" during his time at the Rhydymwyn Valley Works near Mold in the 1940s.
Mr Barber's believes his research into the base, which was originally set up to make chemical weapons, proves conclusively that Fuchs was supplying the Soviets with cla
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 21, 2009
The Arctic territory of Greenland has begun a new era of self-rule after 300 years under Danish authority, moving closer to independence with a potential oil bonanza below its icecap.
The new status took effect as Greenland celebrated its national day, six months after 75 per cent of voters approved a referendum to hand more power to the local government and take control of the island's vast natural resources.
Festivities began with a flag-raising ceremony, while Denma
Source: Honolulu Advertiser
Jun 20, 2009
Dive bomber will be put on display at Pearl Harbor
The Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor currently displays a full-size fiberglass model of a type of dive bomber that played a crucial role in World War II. Now that museum officials helped bring about the recovery of one of those historic planes from the bottom of Lake Michigan, the model will be replaced with the real thing.
A Douglas SBD Dauntless, one of several types of aircraft the U.S. Navy used to defeat the
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jun 20, 2009
Some 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the camp in southern Poland during World War II.
The foundation was set up after the Auschwitz museum made clear it was short of funds and called on the international community for help.
Tens of thousands of people visit the site of the Auschwitz Birkenau camp each year to find out more about the Nazi killing machine.
Source: http://hamptonroads.com
Jun 20, 2009
A much-maligned proposal to eliminate the standardized history test for Virginia's third-graders is being withdrawn by the state superintendent of public instruction.
"I believe we need to continue to discuss the testing burden for teachers and young students," State Superintendent Patricia I. Wright said Friday. But she said she understood the concerns of the educators, legislators and others who disagreed with eliminating the test, which would have saved the state about
Source: AP
Jun 20, 2009
With an old fireplace shovel that may have stoked fires at Brigham Young's home, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned over a patch of earth to dedicate the site for a 250,000-square-foot church history library.
''The first shovel full of dirt,'' President Gordon B. Hinckley said Friday.
The 95-year-old Hinckley then grabbed a full-size, gold-painted shovel and cracked, ''And now for the real thing,'' drawing laughter and applause
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2009
In 1936, Atlanta built Techwood Homes, the nation’s first housing project. By the 1990s, a greater percentage of the city’s residents were living in housing projects — sprawling red-brick barracks that pockmarked the skyline — than in any other city in America.
Now, Atlanta is nearing a very different record: becoming the first major city to knock them all down. By next June, officials here plan to demolish the city’s last remaining housing project, fulfilling a long and divisive ca
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2009
Monday is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, when oil-soaked debris floating on the river’s surface was ignited, most likely by sparks from a passing train.
The fire was extinguished in 30 minutes and caused just $50,000 in damage. But it became a galvanizing symbol for the environmental movement, one of a handful of disasters that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and to the passage of the Clean Water Act.
“The Cuyahoga Ri
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2009
He is deceptively unassuming, a small man in a neat white shirt, sometimes wearing reading glasses as he studies the stack of legal documents he brings with him every day from his cell to the courtroom.
He gives the judges a humble greeting, both palms pressed together, an obsequiousness that has begun to be annoying to some who once suffered at his hands and now sit across the courtroom from him.
But in nearly three months of trial proceedings, a harder man has emerge
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2009
BLANDING, Utah — For 30 years Dr. James Redd was always on call to care for the Mormon and American Indian families who share the remote canyon lands here in southeastern Utah. Upon his death on June 11, people found themselves mourning a man who provided not just medicine but a measure of common ground....
Yet even as residents of Blanding have joined in grief, the circumstances of Dr. Redd’s death have shocked this tidy little town and threatened the delicate cross-cultural balanc
Source: NYT
Jun 20, 2009
Every so often, the American social order is reshuffled. And that upheaval is typically accompanied by a prominent face.
Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became the spokeswomen for the modern women’s movement.
Yet the gay rights movement, which is about to enter its fifth decade, has never had a such a leader despi
Source: Boston Globe
Jun 20, 2009
Korean War regiment to be lauded in Worcester.
The Army’s 65th Infantry Regiment, almost exclusively from Puerto Rico, took part in some of the most brutal battles in Korea. General Douglas MacArthur called them “heroic,’’ but inside the Army the soldiers faced their own battles: Some officers questioned their patriotism, derided them with ethnic slurs, or worse, sent them into battle dangerously unprepared.
Today, officials from the federal, state, and Puerto Rican gov
Source: New York Times
Jun 20, 2009
Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became the spokeswomen for the modern women’s movement.
Yet the gay rights movement, which is about to enter its fifth decade, has never had a such a leader despite making remarkable strides in a relatively short period of time.
One explanation is that gay and lesbian activists lear
Source: BBC
Jun 20, 2009
Some will argue as to whether Iolo Morganwg was a fantasist, or a genius and champion for Wales.
But one thing is certain, in 1792, the stonemason from the Vale of Glamorgan presided over the first gathering of the Welsh bardic order, the Gorsedd.
Now, after years of campaigning a plaque in his honour has been unveiled at Primrose Hill in London.
Born Edward Williams in 1747 in the small parish of Llancarfan, Morganwg was a founder member of the Unitarian
