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
Mar 14, 2009
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip a "holocaust" and lashed out at Arab governments that he said failed to stop the bloodshed in an audio recording broadcast Saturday.
Bin Laden, whose message was released in excerpts on Al-Jazeera TV, called Arab leaders hypocrites and accused them of sacrificing the Palestinians in Gaza and collaborating with Israel. The three-week offensive, which ended on Jan. 18, killed about 1,300 Palestinians
Source: IHT
Mar 14, 2009
The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration's term "enemy combatant" as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies.
But in a much-anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terror suspects there without criminal charges, much as
Source: http://www.gettysburgtimes.com
Mar 13, 2009
Battlefield tree removal in Gettysburg is officially underway this year, with the clearing of 19 acres of woodland along the Baltimore Pike.
Non-historic trees were removed near Colgrove Avenue just south of town, adjacent to the new Battlefield Visitor Center.
The project is part of a multi-year plan to transform the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Military Park to its Civil War-era appearance.
Source: CBS News
Mar 13, 2009
Scientists Scan Charleston Harbor Looking For Ships, Fortifications And Torpedoes.
A University of South Carolina archaeologist is scanning the bottom of Charleston Harbor for Civil War artifacts, using a twin-outboard motor boat and a clutch of scientific equipment.
James Spirek of the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology has been on the water this week putting together the first comprehensive historical scan of the harbor bottom.
Fr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 13, 2009
The families of millions of soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the First World War could be able to locate their relative's burial place after the British historian Peter Barton found a vast untapped archive in Geneva, Switzerland.
Mr Barton said it was the conflict's equivalent of the discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian boy-king Tutankhamen.
He unearthed the archive hidden deep under the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, where shelf after shelf of boxed, typed rec
Source: The DC Examiner
Mar 13, 2009
On this day, March 15, 44 B.C. (the Ides of March), Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of plotting Roman senators.
Historians differ on the exact details of the assassination. Some say Caesar was outside the Senate when he was stabbed by the senators, others have him inside.
More recently, some historians have argued Caesar was attacked by the senators before he arrived at the Senate.
Either way, the death blow came after friction grew between the s
Source: NYT
Mar 13, 2009
When Frank S. Hogan left his post as the Manhattan district attorney after 32 years, few thought anyone would match his longevity. Then came Robert M. Morgenthau, who recently announced that this year, his 35th, would be his last.
But neither of these legal titans can come close to the remarkable career of Ida Van Lindt, their secretary.
She is in her 53rd year at the district attorney’s office, a tenure that has taken her through eras of raging street crime and sophist
Source: BBC
Mar 13, 2009
A retired doctor has built a replica of a Spitfire fighter in the front garden of his home.
Former GP Hamish MacLeod had the model delivered in sections to his house in Moffat, in Dumfries and Galloway.
Dr Macleod, who has had a life-long passion for the iconic World War II fighter, then put it together with the help of friends.
He said he was delighted to have "the most fabulous looking aircraft ever" taking pride of place on his lawn.
Source: CNN
Mar 13, 2009
Elisa Schindler says she is relieved her father, the late Rabbi Alexander Schindler, didn't live to see the destruction caused by Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.
Rabbi Schindler, who died in 2000, was a prominent clergyman who was a leader of Reform Judaism in the U.S. His eldest of five children, Elisa, says he invested his life savings with Madoff in 1996 but never met him.
With everything wiped out, Schindler's widow, Rhea, now must sell their family home in Con
Source: CNN
Mar 13, 2009
With Americans confronting an economic crisis, public interest in the nearly 6-year-old war in Iraq has dropped off over the past few years as conditions on the ground there have improved and the relevance to the average American family's pocketbook wears thin.
But based on recent polling and exit results from the November presidential elections, the war isn't a big concern for Americans.
The economy was the top issue in the election for 62 percent of voters questioned
Source: Bloomberg News
Mar 13, 2009
China will use “all necessary means” to repatriate the two Qing Dynasty bronze heads that were auctioned last month in Paris, state-run China Daily reported, citing Deputy Culture Minister Ouyang Jian.
Ouyang didn’t specify the measures China would take. Ouyang said the sale has violated international conventions and will affect the development of Christie’s International, which hosted the Paris auction, the English-language daily reported.
The dragon head, from the s
Source: VOV News (Vietnam)
Mar 13, 2009
Archaeologists from the Hoa Binh Museum and the Southeast Asia Prehisory Centre have found more than 4,000 ancient artifacts of stone and bone at the Xom Trai archaeological site in Tan Lap commune, Lac Son district in northern Hoa Binh province since 2001.
At a press briefing in Lac Son district on March 11, scientists said Xom Trai Cave, recognised as a national archaeological site in 2001, is believed to be a tool workshop as well as a habitat for people of the Hoa Binh civilisa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 13, 2009
Barcelona's famous cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudí is finally ready to host its first service – nearly 130 years after building work began.
Architects labouring to finish the city's most famous landmark, the church of the Sagrada Familia, have said the monumental basilica will hold its first service next summer.
Gaudí began work on his most ambitious project in 1882 but his death in 1926 beneath the wheels of a tram in the Catalan capital meant completion of his op
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 13, 2009
A collection of rare and historic cars is to be auctioned after being hidden for more than 50 years in overgrown wilderness.
It is thought that more than 30 cars, including a rare 1930s Morris Minor convertible, are among the collection discovered in Long Stratton, Norfolk.
They were found outside a rural cottage, whose owner, Jimmy Blanche, an eccentric former mechanic and bodywork repairer, died aged 80 in January.
Among the marques found were Austins, R
Source: AP
Mar 13, 2009
A Boston real estate investor believes so strongly that his grandfather was a famous Chicago gangster that he legally changed his last name to Capone six months ago.
Christopher Capone on Thursday laid the legal groundwork to get DNA samples that he hopes will prove Al Capone is his grandfather.
Capone, formerly Christopher Knight, has tried without success to obtain DNA samples from known male descendants of the man known as "Scarface."
But the 3
Source: Huffington Post (Blog)
Mar 13, 2009
[By Ryan Grim, the senior congressional correspondent for the Huffington Post.]
When President Obama ventured to Capitol Hill to meet with House Republicans shortly after Inauguration, he was met by a barrage of questions about the deficit and out of control spending.
Obama's response reached back to the Great Depression. According to several Republicans in the room, Obama raised the specter of 1937, the year President Franklin Roosevelt succumbed to conservative press
Source: St. Petersburg Times -- politifact.com
Mar 13, 2009
At the halfway point in President Obama's first 100 days, here's the score on our Obameter:He's got 17 Promises Kept, 7 Compromises and 2 Promises Broken.We've rated 2 as
Source: DCExaminer
Mar 13, 2009
For many Irish-Americans, John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960 was the defining moment in their history.
“The election of Kennedy was a deeply satisfying accomplishment in which every Irishman could take vicarious pleasure,” wrote historian William V. Shannon.
“It removed any lingering sense of social inferiority and insecurity.”
But the Irish put their mark on Washington from the very beginning.
Source: TheDailyBeast.com
Mar 13, 2009
The stock market may be in a rally this week, but the recession still stings like no other in generations. In one of the clearest illustrations yet of how badly the bubble has burst, the Federal Reserve released data yesterday documenting an 18 percent loss of wealth in the U.S. last year. The net worth of U.S. households dropped $11 trillion, "a decline in a single year that equals the combined annual output of Germany, Japan and the U.K," the Wall Street Journal reports. The losses r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 13, 2009
Viking warriors who raided and colonised Britain in the 11th century went on to form harmonious relationships with our ancestors, scientists claim.
The Scandinavian invaders are remembered in history books as barbaric savages who pillaged towns and villages, and raped their women.
But new evidence shows that following their violent arrival, the Vikings lived in relative harmony with their Anglo-Saxon and Celtic counterparts.
