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 10, 2009
Egyptian officials says archaeologists have found ancient golden jewelry in a pharaonic-era tomb that belonged to a senior official under Egypt's most powerful queen. The Supreme Council of Antiquities says five golden earrings and two rings were found in the tomb of Gahouti, the head of the treasury under Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt 3,500 years ago.
Source: Rasmussen Reports
Mar 10, 2009
Most Americans (53%) now think the United States is at least somewhat likely to enter a 1930’s-like depression within the next few years.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 39% think this outcome is unlikely.
Nineteen percent (19%) say a Depression is Very Likely while 7% say it is not at all likely.
The latest results are more pessimistic than those found in early January, when 44% said a 1930’s-like depression was likely in
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 10, 2009
A prostitute who campaigned for the rights of sex workers has been honoured with a burial plot in the same cemetery where Protestantism's John Calvin is buried, sparking criticism from women's rights activists.
Griselidis Real, who died in 2005, was buried on Monday at the Cemetery of the Kings, which is reserved for individuals that have profoundly marked Swiss or international history. Argentinian writer Jose Luis Borges and child psychologist Jean Piaget are among the luminaries
Source: WSJ
Mar 10, 2009
The Supreme Court narrowed the reach of the Voting Rights Act, ruling that a measure aimed at helping minorities elect their preferred candidates only applies in electoral districts where minorities number more than 50% of the voting-age population.
The decision could make it harder for some minority candidates to win election and for Southern Democrats, in particular, to draw friendly electoral boundaries after the 2010 Census.
Source: AP
Mar 10, 2009
Paramilitary police and soldiers swarmed cities and villages in Tibet and restive western China on Tuesday, on the alert for possible unrest on the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.
China sought to head off trouble on the anniversary of the 1959 abortive Tibetan revolt against Beijing's rule and a peaceful commemoration last year that spiraled into violent demonstrations by Tibetans. Troops have poured into Tibet and Tibetan communities in surrou
Source: AP
Mar 10, 2009
WASHINGTON –- For nearly 150 years, a story has circulated about a hidden Civil War message engraved inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch. On Tuesday, museum curators confirmed it was true. A watchmaker used tiny tools to carefully pry open the antique watch at the National Museum of American History, and a descendant of the engraver read aloud the message from a metal plate underneath the watch face.
"April 13 - 1861," the first line reads, "Fort Sumpter (sic) was a
Source: AP
Mar 10, 2009
WASHINGTON -– A collector believes a photograph from a private album of Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant shows President Abraham Lincoln in front of the White House and could be the last image taken of him before he was assassinated in 1865.
If it is indeed Lincoln, it would be the only known photo of the 16th president in front of the executive mansion and a rare find, as only about 130 photos of him are known to exist. A copy of the image was provided to The Associated Press.
Source: AFP
Mar 10, 2009
An 87-year-old alleged war criminal accused of murdering a young Jewish man in World War II said Tuesday he had taken a lie detector test to prove his innocence.
Charles Zentai is accused of beating to death teenager Peter Balazs in 1944 in Budapest while serving as a soldier in the army of his native Hungary, then allied with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Speaking ahead of a legal challenge to his extradition to Hungary, which was ordered last August, Zentai said he had
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 10, 2009
Two novels by the late Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, once hailed as "the finest writer of the present century", have reportedly been found among his papers in Spain.
The previously unseen manuscripts were entitled Diorama and The Troubles of the Real Police Officer, according to a report in La Vanguardia.
The newspaper said the documents also included what is believed to be a sixth section of the epic five part novel 2666, which created a stir when it was pu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 10, 2009
A prostitute who campaigned for the rights of sex workers has been honoured with a burial plot in the same cemetery where Protestantism's John Calvin is buried, sparking criticism from women's rights activists.
Griselidis Real, who died in 2005, was buried on Monday at the Cemetery of the Kings, which is reserved for individuals that have profoundly marked Swiss or international history. Argentinian writer Jose Luis Borges and child psychologist Jean Piaget are among the luminaries
Source: BBC
Mar 10, 2009
A French minister has criticised a film maker for likening his government to France's Nazi-backed Vichy regime over its treatment of illegal migrants.
Immigration Minister Eric Besson said the comparison was "intolerable", and that Director Philippe Lioret had "crossed the line".
Mr Lioret made the comparison about a law making it a crime to help illegal immigrants, which he called "crazy".
In the last five years, UK officia
Source: BBC
Mar 10, 2009
One of the biggest exhibitions of mummies ever staged is opening in the northern Italian town of Bolzano.
The show, called the Dream of Eternal Life, features more than 60 mummies from Egypt, Asia, Europe and South America, assembled from 27 museums.
They include animals as well as humans, and the artefacts connected with them.
Among the mummies will be the world-famous 5,300-year-old "Iceman" known as Oetzi, a mummified Neolithic hunter who wa
Source: BBC
Mar 10, 2009
US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke says the world is suffering from the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
Mr Bernanke argues that the roots of the current global economic downturn stem from global imbalances in trade and flows of capital in the late 1990s.
In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, he argues that the US and its trading partners did not do enough to redress these imbalances.
He also says future economic recovery depends on
Source: Fox news
Mar 10, 2009
The five detainees at Guantanamo Bay charged with plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks have filed a document accepting responsibility for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and expressing pride at their accomplishment, The New York Times reported late Monday.
The document, which the newspaper said may be released publicly on Tuesday, describes the five men as the "9/11 Shura Council," and says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document r
Source: Washington Post
Mar 10, 2009
BOGOTA, Colombia -- In a new book titled "Out of Captivity," three Americans describe being chained at the neck by rebel guards during five years of imprisonment in Colombia's jungles, and reveal tensions among themselves and their fellow hostages.
Another former hostage, Fernando Araújo, recounts in his book the anguish of finding his wife with another man after his escape from the guerrillas' clutches.
Luis Eladio Pérez writes that during the years he was he
Source: LAT
Mar 10, 2009
Americans are becoming less religious, increasingly turning away from many denominations that once served as their spiritual homes, according to a major national survey released Monday.
The percentage of people who do not claim a religious identity has nearly doubled since 1990, growing to 15% of Americans last year, researchers with the American Religious Identification Survey found.
Mainline Christian denominations, once bulwarks of the religious landscape, have suff
Source: Reuters
Mar 9, 2009
Feminists of the world sit down before you read this. The Vatican newspaper says that perhaps the washing machine did more to liberate women in the 20th century than the pill or the right to work.
The submission was made in a lengthy article titled "The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax."
The article was printed at the weekend in l'Osservatore Romano, the semi-official Vatican newspaper, to mark interna
Source: EdWeek.org
Mar 9, 2009
Margo M. Loflin teaches sophomores in Oklahoma, a state that was once part of the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression era. But most school years, her high school students don’t find the struggles of Oklahoma farmers to combat drought and financial hardship in the 1930s relevant to their lives. That's not true this year.
"I've taught [the Great Depression] for a long time. Usually, kids are not interested at all. They were very interested this year," she said recently.
Source: International Herald Tribune
Mar 9, 2009
For Turkey, the number should have been a bombshell.
According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916.
In Turkey, any discussion of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians can bring a storm of public outrage. But since its publication in a book in January, the number - and its Ottoman source - has gone virtually unmentioned. Newsp
Source: BBC
Mar 9, 2009
It has been through three phases. The first was an over-ambitious attempt to subtly continue the British Empire by other means.
The second saw it torn apart by divisions, often over white rule in southern Africa, and was also marked by coups and chaos in many member states.
It wasn't until the third phase that it emerged into what it is today - a middle-ranking, reasonably useful organisation with a formal commitment to democracy and good governance and able to bring
