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: Telegraph (UK)
May 15, 2009
Italy has sanctioned the creation of vigilante patrols for the first time since Benito Mussolini's notorious Blackshirt volunteer militia.
A new law gives an official stamp of approval to vigilante groups that have sprung up in several Italian cities, especially in the northern strongholds of the Right-wing, anti-immigrant Northern League.
The vigilantes will be able to alert police to public order offences or suspected criminals but do not have the power of arrest.
Source: BBC
May 15, 2009
A World War II shell which was dug up by a herd of pigs in Wiltshire has been detonated by experts from the Explosives Ordnance Disposal Regiment.
The pigs made the discovery at West End Farm, near Bishops Cannings late on Thursday afternoon.
Farm worker John Russ noticed the tail fin of the device, which was about 1ft long, sticking out of the ground.
Source: BBC
May 15, 2009
For the first time in 30 years, wooden protective boards and a glass panel have been taken away to fully reveal a rare medieval artwork.
The paintings in the ruined church of St Nicolas in the Spanish town of Soria tell the story of the murder of the English Archbishop Thomas Becket.
The story of Becket is told in most British classrooms as part of medieval history lessons. He is remembered as the Archbishop of Canterbury who stood up to a king and for his trouble was
Source: Times (UK)
May 15, 2009
The American who swam to see Aung San Suu Kyi is a Vietnam veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to his ex-wife.
Yvonne Yettaw, the mother of six children with John Yettaw, said that her ex-husband received a disability pension from the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs because of his illness.
“You can’t raise your voice. You cannot touch him without startling him. I lived with the man. Yes, he has it,” she told The Times. “He also has bip
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 15, 2009
The White House attempted to forestall criticism from President Obama's liberal supporters by promising improved legal safeguards.
President Obama stopped military commissions, which were trying suspects in the September 11, 2001 attacks on America by al-Qaeda as soon as he took over from George W Bush. President Obama ordered a review of the procedures, declaring the system did not work. But he was careful not to rule out the use of a modified tribunal system in future.
Source: Spiegel Online
May 15, 2009
"Go ahead and write that we country bumpkins don't think much of this talk of graves," said Heinrich Keritz, a Jamlitz local in his mid-50s, leaning against the barbed wire fence holding a telescope. "All our taxes being are used and at the end, nothing will be found." Keritz looked angrily at the piles of earth, meter-high weeds and the backhoe.
Heinrich Keritz is the stereotype of a morose backwoodsman. To understand him, one has to know the story of his villag
Source: BBC
May 15, 2009
Mr Van Es' most famous picture showed US citizens queuing on a rooftop to board a US helicopter during the evacuation of Saigon in 1975.
The image came to be seen as a symbol of the failure of US policy in the war.
His wife of 39 years, Annie, said he had never regained consciousness after a brain haemorrhage last week.
Mr Van Es moved from the Netherlands to Hong Kong in 1967.
He covered the Vietnam War between 1969 and 1975, working first
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 15, 2009
When Nickie Dobo wrote a column in 2003 for her college newspaper — The Daily Collegian at Pennsylvania State University — decrying the "hook-up culture" on the campus, she never expected it to resurface years later in an attack on her professional credibility.
But that's what happened when Ms. Dobo, now a reporter for the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania, came under criticism by a white-supremacist group. A member of the group posted a link to her hook-up essay in an onl
Source: National Parks Traveler website
May 14, 2009
The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees is urging Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to intervene over development at Valley Forge National Historical Park. At issue is whether the American Revolution Center can turn private land that has historical ties to the Revolutionary War into a sprawling museum complex.
The retirees and the National Parks Conservation Association long have lobbied against the development, saying it's inappropriate for the setting. Also on record opposing
Source: http://weekly.ahram.org
May 14, 2009
Geotechnical studies and mapping, restoration, conservation and site management, that's what's going on -- and a great deal more, says Jill Kamil
We all know that the "mansions of millions of years", the tombs and temples built by the ancient Egyptians that were meant to last forever, are seriously threatened -- and have been for a long time now. Among the many causes are subsoil water seepage, infrastructure development, unrestricted housing, and that greatest menace of
Source: CNN
May 14, 2009
Finding a "smoking gun" linking Iraq and al Qaeda became the main purpose of the abusive interrogation program the Bush administration authorized in 2002, a former State Department official told CNN on Thursday.
The allegation was included in an online broadside aimed at former Vice President Dick Cheney by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. In it, Wilkerson wrote that the interrogation program began in April and May of 2002, and
Source: BBC
May 14, 2009
After Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait in August 1990, hundreds of Kuwaitis and nationals of other countries went missing.
The Kuwaitis have built a museum in memory of those who were killed. Around the walls are the portraits of all those who went missing.
That is a sentiment echoed by the United Nations. Last month, the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, expressed concern that despite some progress the remains of 369 Kuwaiti and third country nationals had not yet been i
Source: VOA
May 14, 2009
Over the nation's first 150 years, most towns, cities and early suburbs grew along fairly rigid grids where the topography permitted it. Smaller avenues crossed one or more long, main streets. This made access to and among all the streets fairly fluid.
It also made for a lot of traffic, noise and accidents at intersections. So new, planned housing subdivisions, which appeared with the return of millions of servicemen and women from World War II in the 1940s, followed quite a differe
Source: AP
May 14, 2009
North Dakota's Board of Higher Education has agreed to drop the University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname and Indian head logo, a move intended to resolve a decades-long campus dispute about whether the name demeans American Indians.
The name and logo, which is a profile of an American Indian man with feathers and streaks of paint on his face, could still be saved if North Dakota's Standing Rock and Spirit Lake Sioux tribes agree by Oct. 1 to give the university permissio
Source: NYT
May 14, 2009
Under fire from Republicans for what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged that she had learned in 2003 that the C.I.A. had subjected suspects to waterboarding, but she asserted that the agency had misled Congress about its techniques.
At a tense press conference, Ms. Pelosi said for the first time that a staff member alerted her in February 2003 that top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee had been briefe
Source: http://www.wsmv.com
May 14, 2009
While digging near a Burger King restaurant at the corner of Columbia Pike and Southeast Parkway, the body of a Civil War Union soldier was uncovered.
The remains of the soldier were found scattered in a 2-foot grave.
Source: AP
May 14, 2009
The California Senate has approved legislation that would designate a day each year to honor slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk.
The bill by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would designate each May 22 — Milk's birthday — as a "day of special significance" to recognize the late San Francisco supervisor's contributions to the state.
It would not be an official holiday so there would be no cost to state government. The bill encourages but doesn't require school
Source: WaPo
May 14, 2009
Deterred by immigration laws and the lackluster economy, the population growth of Hispanics and Asians in the United States has slowed unexpectedly, causing the government to push back estimates on when minorities will become the majority by as much as a decade.
Census data being released today also showed that fewer Hispanics are migrating to suburbs and newly emerging immigrant areas in the Southeast, including Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. Instead, Hispanics are staying in tra
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 14, 2009
The Kimbell Art Museum will soon be the only US museum to display a Michelangelo painting after acquiring his earliest known work, a rare treasure that was tucked away and doubted as authentic for more than a century.
The museum declined to disclose how much it paid for "The Torment of Saint Anthony," a 15th-century oil and tempera painting on a wood panel that depicts scaly, horned, winged demons trying to pull the saint out of the sky. Experts believe he painted it when
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 14, 2009
In a new book, "40 More Years – How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation", he writes in typically barnstorming fashion: "Republicans shouldn't be worried. They should be in agony. They should be throwing up. The Republican brand is the worst political party brand in history."
History, he argues, is on his side.
"There have been long periods where one party generally has the upper hand. You never win every election – the Democrats won't wi
