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: Live Science
May 9, 2009
Modern Australia lacks big land predators, but until about 30,000 years ago, the continent was ruled by Thylacoleo carnifex, the marsupial "lion."
Several well-preserved skeletons of the leopard-size beast have been found. Now, a newly discovered cave painting offers a glimpse of the animal's external appearance.
In June 2008, Tim Willing, a naturalist and tour guide, photographed an ancient painting on a rockshelter wall near the shore of northwestern Austra
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 9, 2009
Based on secret KGB documents, it names Engelbert Broda, an Austrian physicist and secret communist sympathiser, as a mole who worked at Britain's Cavendish nuclear laboratory.
Codenamed "Eric" by his Russian handlers, he is believed to have passed thousands of pages of top secret documents about British and American atomic research to Moscow, and was regarded as one of the Soviet Union's most valuable moles. He demanded no payment for his services, and would meet his han
Source: Deutsche Welle
May 9, 2009
Even as it worked to reduce the size of the military, Russia celebrated its victory in World War II with a parade in Red Square that featured 10,000 soldiers, and a display of the latest military hardware. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev honored the veterans in a speech and said that the nation is ready to repel aggression.
"We are sure that any aggression against our citizens will be given a worthy reply," Medvedev said. "The victory over Fascism is a great example
Source: WaPo
May 9, 2009
As U.S. health officials consider rolling out a plan to inoculate the nation against swine flu in the next several months, they are haunted by the events that unfolded the last time the government stepped in to head off a surprise flu outbreak.
In the fall of 1976, dozens of Americans died within 48 hours of receiving a swine flu vaccine. To allay the public fears that threatened to unravel the mass inoculation program, President Gerald Ford rolled up his shirtsleeve and received hi
Source: AFP
May 9, 2009
Israel razed their ancestral village 56 years ago, but some Christians are determined to preserve its heritage by keeping alive the language that Jesus spoke."Shlomo malfonito" --"Hello teacher" -- intone some 20 pupils in the Arab-Israeli village of Jish, where half the population is Maronite, a people who for centuries have lived in the mountains of Lebanon and nearby.
The children get free lessons in Aramaic, an ancient tongue spoken during the time of Jesus Christ and kept alive down th
Source: NYT
May 9, 2009
Israel is quietly carrying out a $100 million, multiyear development plan in some of the most significant religious and national heritage sites just outside the walled Old City here as part of an effort to strengthen the status of Jerusalem as its capital.
The plan, parts of which have been outsourced to a private group that is simultaneously buying up Palestinian property for Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, has drawn almost no public or international scrutiny. However, certain
Source: NYT
May 9, 2009
As a freshman senator, Barack Obama accused one of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees of changing her approach from case to case to ensure outcomes favorable to powerful parties, like property owners. That one-sided record, he said, showed a mission of “not blind justice, but political activism.”
But in another floor speech soon afterward, Mr. Obama seemed to emphasize a different ideal than blind justice. Judges should “recognize who the weak are and who the strong are in
Source: Independent (UK)
May 9, 2009
In the wake of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, military commanders gave soldiers carte blanche to shoot hostages should nuclear weapons be the target of terrorists. The murder of Israeli athletes at the Games sent a wave of panic through Western governments at the bloody arrival of a new breed of terrorism. In Britain, the atrocity struck such fear into the hearts of military chiefs that they believed their nuclear weapons could be the next target.
A top-secret document obtained
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 9, 2009
When a "self-portrait" of Adolf Hitler was sold amid much fanfare last month for 10 times its reserve price, the auctioneer's historical documents expert boasted about the amount of interest that it had received. The same "expert" has, however, now admitted that the painting, signed "A. Hitler 1910", might be a fake after Mandrake pointed out to him that it was, in fact, likely to be a painting of Clapper Bridge on Dartmoor.
"It's impossible to kn
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 9, 2009
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, has warned at a military parade in Red Square that Moscow will teach foreign aggressors the "lessons" of the Second World War.
Nuclear missile launchers and battle tanks were driven through the centre of Moscow, while air force bombers flew above the city's skyline, as Russia celebrated victory over Nazi Germany 64 years ago. Mr Medvedev ordered the Soviet-style parade of might to remind the world that Russia remained a powerful milita
Source: AP
May 9, 2009
The mayor and a top state lawmaker on Friday called for a meeting to resolve a power struggle at ground zero, with growing momentum to build fewer skyscrapers than planned in an uncertain economy.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg invited the governors of New York and New Jersey, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the agency that owns ground zero and trade center developer Larry Silverstein to a meeting at his mansion next week.
The developer and the Port Authority of New York and
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 9, 2009
Albert Einstein's phone number - Berlin 2807 - has been published online.
Ringing it, for a spot of help with your eldest's science homework perhaps, wouldn't do a great deal of good, however.
The number has long since been replaced and, in any case, Einstein died in 1955.
But, while his number might not be so useful, there are millions of others posted alongside it on the internet that will help thousands of Britons trace their ancestors.
In f
Source: The Local (Sweden)
May 8, 2009
Marine archaeologists in Sweden have discovered what they believe to be the wreck of a Viking ship at the bottom the country's largest lake.
A team of 50 divers from the Swedish coastguard happened upon the 20-metre long wreck by chance on Wednesday afternoon.
A few Viking boats have previously been discovered in Sweden, but earlier finds were made on dry land, Peterson explained. One of the ship's ribs was discovered protruding from t
Source: Andina (Peru)
May 8, 2009
Authorities in the Peruvian department of Ancash announced Friday the discovery of a number of tenon heads believed to be some 4,000 years old.
According to the Mayor of Huaylas district, Jose Espinoza Caballero, these ancient stone carvings were found in the Chupacoto town and would be older than the famous tenon heads of Chavin de Huantar Archaeological Complex.
He noted that the discovery shows the district’s great tourist and scientific potential, as it is consider
Source: AP
May 8, 2009
A historian says the Mormon church is working diligently on an application to secure National Historic Landmark status for Mountain Meadows, the southern Utah site of a pioneer wagon train massacre.
Assistant Church Historian Richard Turley says initial feedback from National Parks Service staff to a summary proposal has been positive. The final proposal will be submitted to a U.S. Interior Department committee.
In 1857, 120 men, women and children from an Arkansas wago
Source: Time Magazine
May 8, 2009
For the past two weeks, posters celebrating the Soviet triumph in World War II have been taped to the windows of every store in Russia, proudly displaying the date "9 May" and the orange and black striped ribbon of victory. Red banners have been draped across the fronts of apartment buildings all along the central Moscow parade route. And in the lead-up to the country's annual Victory Day celebrations, the Kremlin has made a move that it touts as yet another display of Russia's patriot
Source: AFP
May 8, 2009
When Ayad Tariq paces the dusty ruins of the ancient citadel towering over the disputed city of Kirkuk he sees a dazzling new tourist attraction just waiting to rise from the ruins.
"We are going to make this a tourist citadel. So a house like this could be a museum," the city's antiquities director explained as he strode through the ruins of a 19th century mansion that belonged to a wealthy Christian family.
Tariq wants visitors from around the world to see t
Source: China View
May 8, 2009
GUIYANG, May 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of construction workers have accidentally stumbled upon a prehistoric man's cave underneath a Buddhist temple in southwest China's Guizhou Province, archaeologists said here Friday.
The stone structure, containing hundreds of mammal fossils and stone implements, was between 10,000 and 40,000 years old and presumably dated back either to the end of the Old Stone Age or the start of New Stone Age, said Cai Huiyang, a top archaeologist with the Gui
Source: NYT
May 8, 2009
With health authorities now gearing up for what could be a huge vaccination campaign against a new strain of swine flu, the experience of 1976 is raising a note of caution.
The feared swine flu epidemic of 1976 never materialized. And several hundred people, including Ms. [Janet] Kinney, who is now 68 and lives in Gig Harbor, Wash., developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition that causes temporary muscle weakness or paralysis. More than 30 of those people died.
Source: AFP
May 8, 2009
Sixty-five years ago Waclaw Sobczak hid a message in a bottle between the bricks of a wall in a building of the Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, a last sign of life as he prepared to die.
"It was an attempt to leave a trace of our existence as we thought we were going to die," said Sobczak, sent to Auschwitz in 1943 as a slave labourer.
Since, it has emerged that three of the men on the list are still alive.
