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: LAT
Jan 19, 2009
Like so many presidents before him, Barack Obama has invited a revered guest to his inauguration: God.
Although the Constitution forbids the government from establishing religion, faith is once again figuring prominently into the nation's grandest political pageant, just as it has over the course of American history.
Whether Republican, Democrat or Whig, presidents from the nation's beginnings have invoked the Almighty's powerful hand to convey their visions in times of
Source: VOA
Jan 19, 2009
More than two million Cubans have left the island since Fidel Castro took power 50 years ago and turned Cuba into a communist country.
One of the first waves of migration started shortly after he took over, and included more than 14,000 children traveling without their parents.
The trips that began in 1960 evolved into a massive operation that became the largest migration of unaccompanied children in U.S. history.
A Cuban passport is one of the few things S
Source: The Clanton Advertiser (Alabama)
Jan 19, 2009
About 30 people gathered at the Confederate Monument on the state Capitol grounds Monday to mark the part of Alabama's dual state holiday that attracts the smallest crowds and least attention.
The group came to honor Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The third Monday in January was a state holiday recognizing Lee long before the Legislature made it a dual holiday also honoring civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
The event, organized by the Alabama Division of th
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2009
Ancient Persians were the first to use chemical warfare against their enemies, a study has suggested.
A UK researcher said he found evidence that the Persian Empire used poisonous gases on the Roman city of Dura, Eastern Syria, in the 3rd Century AD.
The theory is based on the discovery of remains of about 20 Roman soldiers found at the base of the city wall.
The findings were presented the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting.
Source: Mercury News
Jan 19, 2009
Think of it as a back-to-the-future road trip. To attend the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president, a group of San Jose students piled into a van and revisited the landmarks of the past — the Southern bridges, churches and lunch counters that were the backdrop of the country's civil rights struggle.
The journey began in Memphis, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr - whose birthday is observed the day before Barack Obama is sworn in - was assassinated. It continue
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2009
BBC World News America has unearthed a fascinating clip of Dr Martin Luther King speaking to the BBC's Bob McKenzie in 1964 in which Dr King predicts an African-American president "in less than 40 years."
[HNN Editor: The BBC headline uses the timeline of 40 years. King himself in the clip says less than 25 years. Click on the SOURCE link to watch the clip.]
Source: Slate
Jan 19, 2009
Bill Clinton is sworn in for his second term as president of the United StatesBarack Obama will be sworn in as president Tuesday with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for his first inauguration. As his transition team noted in its press release, "President-elect Obama will be the first President sworn in using the Lincoln Bible since its initial use in 1861." Why haven't other presidents used the historic artifact?
Because the Library of Congress didn't offer it up
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2009
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge ruled Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney has broad discretion in determining what records created during his eight-year tenure must be preserved.
Absent any evidence that Cheney's office is failing to safeguard records, it is up to the vice president to determine how he deals with material, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled.
"Congress drastically limited the scope of outside inquiries related to the vice president's
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2009
China has declared a new annual holiday in Tibet called Serfs' Emancipation Day, to mark the end of what it says was a system of feudal oppression.
The local parliament in Tibet has passed a bill which declares 28 March as the new holiday.
The announcement comes in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of the escape into exile of the Dalai Lama.
It was on March 28th 1959 that the Communist Party announced the dissolution of the existing local government in
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2009
When Peter Sachs was only a year old in 1938, the Nazis seized his father's collection of 12,500 rare posters on the orders of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
Sachs' father, Hans — a Jewish dentist — was then thrown into the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin. After his wife managed to secure his release, the family fled to Boston — leaving the posters behind.
Today, some 4,000 of the posters, worth at least euro4.5 million ($5.9 million), are in the
Source: Foxnews
Jan 19, 2009
To mark the 200th anniversary of writer Edgar Allan Poe's birth, a mysterious visitor again placed three red roses and a half-filled bottle of cognac at Poe's grave in Baltimore before quietly slipping away.
The curator of the Poe House and Museum, Jeff Jerome, said about 50 people waited outside the cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church, hoping to catch a glimpse Monday of the elusive man known as the "Poe toaster." The man returns each year in the early morning dar
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2009
This is the print preview: Back to normal view »
Salman Rushdie: Fatwa "The Albatross Around My Neck"
NEW YORK — Nearly 20 years after being driven underground by a religious decree, he is now Sir Salman Rushdie, properly famous and free, yet still burdened by his status as a symbol of persecution.
"This is the albatross around my neck," the novelist said Sunday night during a conversation with author-activist Irshad Manji at the 92nd S
Source: LiveScience
Jan 19, 2009
A choice few inaugural speeches are remembered in the annals of history, some for particularly stirring turns of phrase and others for striking just the right note for the nation at the time.
Others are totally forgotten, or at best remembered for how bad they were.
These worst inaugural addresses in U.S. presidential history represent a laundry list of what not to do on your big day, from boring the crowd with administrative details to droning on for two hours in the b
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2009
WASHINGTON –- Nature turned against one of America's early civilizations 3,600 years ago, when researchers say earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru. "This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement.
Source: AP
Jan 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden's wife said Monday that he had his pick of being Barack Obama's running mate or the secretary of state nomination that eventually went to Hillary Rodham Clinton, a slip that the vice president-elect immediately tried to shush.
Jill Biden's comment came during an appearance with her husband on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," taped at Washington's Kennedy Center on the eve of the inauguration.
"Joe had the choice to be secretary of state or
Source: AFP
Jan 19, 2009
ROME -– Italian scientists are trying to get Galileo's DNA in order to figure out how the astronomer forged groundbreaking theories on the universe while gradually becoming blind, a historian said Monday.
Scientists at Florence's Institute and Museum of the History of Science want to exhume the body of 17th Century astronomer Galileo Galilei to find out exactly what he could see through his telescope.
The Italian astronomer -- who built on the work of predecessor Nicola
Source: CNN
Jan 19, 2009
More than two-thirds of African-Americans believe Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for race relations has been fulfilled, a CNN poll found -- a figure up sharply from a survey in early 2008.
The CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey was released Monday, a federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader and a day before Barack Obama is to be sworn in as the first black U.S. president.
The poll found 69 percent of blacks said King's vision has been fulfilled in the more
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2009
Americans are marking the annual public holiday in memory of black civil rights leader Martin Luther King - on the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration.
The US president-elect will spend the day attending community projects in Washington in memory of Dr King, who was assassinated in 1968.
Mr Obama told hundreds of thousands at a rally on Sunday that "the dream of our founders will live on in our time".
Washington is braced for unprecedented crowd
Source: BBC
Jan 19, 2009
Kaing Guek Eav - better known as Comrade Duch - will be the first in the dock, facing charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
He ran Tuol Sleng prison, where detainees were tortured and executed.
As many as two million people are thought to have died during the Khmer Rouge government in the late 1970s.
The process of bringing the regime's leaders to court has suffered years of procedural delays, and no major figures have yet stood trial.
Source: IHT
Jan 19, 2009
The destruction of this 800-year-old city usually proceeds as follows: the Chinese character for "demolish" mysteriously appears on the front of an old building, the residents wage a fruitless battle to save their homes, and quicker than you can say "Celebrate the New Beijing," a wrecking crew arrives, often accompanied by the police, to pulverize the brick-and-timber structure.
But before another chunk of ancient Beijing disappears entirely, a hospice administra
