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: Reuters
Jul 11, 2008
The Austrian city of Linz has removed a statue of Aphrodite from a park after learning that it was a present from Hitler, officials said on Friday.
Authorities in Austria's third largest city said they checked the origins of the bronze statue after someone left an unsigned note on it stating that the statue of the Greek goddess of love was a gift from the Nazi leader.
Research in Linz's city archives determined that the claim was correct and the statue was immediately r
Source: http://dcist.com
Jul 11, 2008
Wednesday afternoon, the Smithsonian announced a call for architects to design the upcoming National Museum of African American History and Culture, to be erected in the five-acre space on Constitution Avenue between the Washington Monument and the Museum of American History. The building, which will occupy approximately 350,000 square feet, is expected to take three years to complete and cost $500 million. The full announcement is posted on FedBizOpps.gov.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jul 11, 2008
More than 30,000 people gathered on Friday, July 11, to remember the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and attend a funeral for 308 recently identified victims.
The massacre of at least 8,000 Muslim men and boys took place while the entire enclave was under the protection of the United Nations as a "UN safe zone" during the 1992-1995 Balkans conflict.
Soon after troops led by Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic captured Srebrenica, Dutch UN troops left the area, leaving
Source: NYT
Jul 11, 2008
Generations of recovering alcoholics, soldiers, weary parents, exploited workers and just about anybody feeling beaten down by life have found solace in a short prayer that begins, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”
Now the Serenity Prayer is about to endure a controversy over its authorship that is likely to be anything but serene.
For more than 70 years, the composer of the prayer was thought to be the Protestant theologian Reinhold Nieb
Source: NYT
Jul 11, 2008
Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.
The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, t
Source: NYT
Jul 11, 2008
In the most detailed examination yet of Senator John McCain’s eligibility to be president, a law professor at the University of Arizona has concluded that neither Mr. McCain’s birth in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone nor the fact that his parents were American citizens is enough to satisfy the constitutional requirement that the president must be a “natural-born citizen.”
The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over
Source: Time
Jul 11, 2008
At its annual meeting in Quebec City this week, UNESCO's World Heritage
Committee added another 27 sites to its already burgeoning list of places
of"outstanding universal value." Now wooden churches in Slovakia,
Weimar-era housing projects in Berlin, and Armenian monasteries in Iran
have been granted the same hallowed status as the Statue of Liberty,
Stonehenge, and the Temple of Angkor Wat. And why not? There are plenty of
ways to define"a human masterpiece of creative genius," one of the
Source: AP
Jul 11, 2008
Thieves have stolen files on the mysterious desecration of former Argentine strongman Juan Peron's grave from the home of a judge investigating the case.
La Nacion newspaper says a laptop and an electronic planner were also taken in Sunday's break-in of judge Alberto Banos' home.
Banos told the newspaper he was seeking access to classified government documents on the case and he believes the robbery was meant to intimidate him.
Source: CNN
Jul 11, 2008
Two children of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are suing their brother, saying he took money from the civil rights icon’s estate “for his own benefit.”
The suit also alleges that Dexter King wrongfully took money from the estate of his mother, Coretta Scott King.
The suit, filed by Bernice King and Martin Luther King III, names Dexter King and their father’s estate as defendants.
Dexter King controls and “makes all decisions concerning” their father’s estate,
Source: CNN
Jul 11, 2008
A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7.
That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home.
"I remember it well because I kissed him good-bye, and he pushed me away," she said of her brother. "I asked, 'Why did you do that?'
Source: BBC
Jul 11, 2008
Archaeologists excavating one of the most important Roman sites in Britain have made an"extremely rare" find.
The team digging at part of the Roman fortress in Caerleon near Newport found what they believe is a legionary's ceremonial lance.
Dr Peter Guest said he thought the iron staff, broken into three pieces, was the first of its type found in the UK.
Source: Independent (UK)
Jul 11, 2008
Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the restrictions endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.
Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using ro
Source: AP
Jul 11, 2008
The 600-mile route taken by the armies of Gen. George Washington and his French partner in the climactic campaign of the Revolutionary War would become a national historic trail under legislation passed by the House Thursday.
The trail, along existing roads and waterways in eight states from Rhode Island to Virginia, commemorates the 1781 march of Washington's Continental Army and the Expedition Particuliere of French Count Rochambeau that culminated in the surrender of British Gen
Source: LAT
Jul 11, 2008
The nature and timing of his divorce from Carol Shepp alienated key friends -- and his version doesn't always match that in court documents.
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Outside her Bel-Air home, Nancy Reagan stood arm in arm with John McCain and offered a significant -- but less than exuberant -- endorsement.
"Ronnie and I always waited until everything was decided, and then we endorsed," the Republican matriarch said in March. "Well, obviously this is the nominee o
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 11, 2008
A pair of Queen Victoria's bloomers have been discovered which show that Britain's longest-reigning monarch had a 50-inch waist .
The size of the underwear supports the theory that the Queen had become morbidly obese towards the end of her life.
The drawers - which dwarf the average British woman's 33 inch waist today - will be auctioned along with a selection of other Royal undergarments.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jul 11, 2008
On the day of France's liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944, German troops decimated a small French village. A German prosecutor is now trying to track down surviving suspects -- with slim hope for success.German investigators are to look for evidence next week in the central French village of Maille in the hope that they can spot connections between the massacre of August 25, 1944, and documents on German troop movements at the time.
The troops, described by
Source: cbs news
Jul 10, 2008
Ukraine plans to open a formal investigation into a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people to see if it can prove the famine was an act of genocide.
The 1932-33 famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to force peasants to give up their private plots of land and join collective farms.
Ukraine, which has rich farmland, suffered the most of all Soviet regions and President Viktor Yushchenko has led efforts to win international recognition of the tra
Source: AP
Jul 10, 2008
A former Alabama state trooper is scheduled to go on trial in October for a slaying that occurred on darkened streets during a historic civil rights demonstration in Marion in 1965.
Circuit Judge Tommy Jones declined to dismiss an indictment against former trooper James Bonard Fowler and scheduled his trial for the week of Oct. 20.
"We look forward to having this matter resolved after 43 years," District Attorney Michael Jackson said Thursday.
A P
Source: AP
Jul 10, 2008
Ukraine plans to open a formal investigation into a
Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people to see if it can prove
the famine was an act of genocide.
The 1932-33 famine was engineered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to force
peasants to give up their private plots of land and join collective farms.
Ukraine, which has rich farmland, suffered the most of all Soviet regions
and President Viktor Yushchenko has led efforts to win international
recognition of the tragedy as
Source: Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Jul 10, 2008
On July 9, 2008, the House of Representatives passed the “Electronic Message Preservation Act” (H.R. 5811) by a vote of 286-137, despite a threatened veto by the White House. The bill would direct the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to establish standards for the capture, management, preservation and retrieval of federal agency and presidential electronic messages that are records in an electronic format.
The National Coalition for History endorsed the passage of H.R.
