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: http://www.mcclatchydc.com
Jun 26, 2008
A rare gold chalice from a Spanish fleet that sank in 1622 was unearthed Tuesday morning by a treasure diver who couldn't believe his find.
''Oh, my God,'' diver Michael DeMar said, describing his discovery of the chalice on the site where the Spanish galleon Santa Margarita is believed to have gone down during a vicious storm.
Dented on a few sides and encrusted with marine growth, the chalice weighs more than a pound is etched with scrollwork and boasts decorative han
Source: Independent (UK)
Jun 26, 2008
Paris has long been known to be a very old city but its history as a settlement has just been extended by more than 3,000 years.
An archaeological dig, whose findings were revealed yesterday, moves back Paris's first known human occupation to about 7600BC, in the Mesolithic period between the two stone ages.
An area about the size of a football field on the south-western edge of the city, close to the banks of the river Seine, has yielded thousands of flint arrowheads a
Source: NYT
Jun 26, 2008
T. Boone Pickens is not giving up his million dollars.
That’s how much he had offered to pay anyone who could disprove any of the accusations the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election – attacks Mr. Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman, helped finance.
A group of Swift boat veterans sympathetic to Mr. Kerry sent Mr. Pickens a letter last week taking him up on the challenge. In 12 pages, plus a 42-page attachment
Source: NYT
Jun 26, 2008
Divided Supreme Court Strikes Down D.C. Gun Ban.
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The 5-4 ruling was the first ever to directly address the meaning of the Second Amendment’s ambiguous text, but the decision left open the possibility that less restrictive state laws were permissible.
Source: Independent (UK)
Jun 26, 2008
New Zealand took a momentous step to address the historic grievances of its original Maori inhabitants yesterday, handing back nearly half a million acres of Crown forestry land in a settlement worth NZ$418m (£160m).
Hundreds of Maori, some wearing traditional feather cloaks, descended on the capital, Wellington, to watch the agreement being signed in parliament by the government and tribal leaders. Some wept during the ceremony, while others chanted, sang and blew conch shells.
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 25, 2008
The first Japanese warship to visit China since the Second World War docked in a southern Chinese port yesterday in a symbolic breakthrough in relations between East Asia’s two biggest powers.
The 4,650-tonne destroyer Sazanami pulled into Zhanjiang, a Chinese naval port in the southern province of Guangdong, with a cargo of relief supplies for victims of last month’s Sichuan earthquake. The Sazanami and its 240 crew will stay in China for five days as part of a ground-breaking mili
Source: Reuters
Jun 25, 2008
- Only World War III would prompt Republican presidential candidate John McCain to bring back the military draft, McCain said on Tuesday.
Many Americans are fearful the U.S. government will be forced to reinstitute the draft given the prolonged Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Asked about that possibility by a potential voter in Florida during a telephone "town hall meeting," McCain said: "I don't know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-ou
Source: NYT
Jun 25, 2008
TOMSK, Russia — The building at 32 Kartashov Street had had enough. It once served as home to a 19th-century merchant, a little log masterpiece with ornate doors and shutters carved like doilies and a structural swagger that said, “Look at me!”
But after the Soviet years, when the place became a woebegone flophouse, it was nearly dead. An engineer might have noted that its roof had wilted and that rot was chomping at its beams. The neglect, though, seemed to go deeper, as if the bui
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 25, 2008
More than sixty years after Nazi soldiers committed one of France's worst wartime atrocities, orphans of the country's "forgotten massacre" hope that justice will finally be done when German investigators arrive next month.
On August 25 1944, when most of France rejoiced in the Allied liberation of Paris, Serge Martin's 10-year-old world was torn apart.
One of the 600 inhabitants of Maillé, 25 miles south of Tours in the Loire valley, he had spent the day in a
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 25, 2008
Lech Walesa, the Polish shipyard worker with the trademark droopy moustache, is regarded as one of the heroes of modern Europe: the leader of the revolution that brought communist rule crashing down.
Now Poland is in uproar over an intriguing riddle: was communism actually destroyed by a communist agent? If so, why?
Two writers claim that Mr Walesa — the founder of the Solidarity movement, Nobel Peace prizewinner, former President of Poland - was a stooge of the communi
Source: http://www.kentonline.co.uk
Jun 24, 2008
A German submarine which sank off the coast of Folkestone in 1918 is to be moved because it poses a threat to shipping.
The U-boat is a designated war grave and saw the loss of 28 crewmen when it collided with a mine.
It currently lies near the Varne bank just 23 metres below the surface.
Although the wreck has been undisturbed since it sank the increasing number of vessels operating in the Channel means the wreck is reducing the avaliable sea room.
Source: History Today
Jun 24, 2008
A gift of £3.3million to save the historic Cutty Sark was announced this week (June 24th). The donation from shipping magnate Sammy Ofer closes the funding gap for the Cutty Sark Trust, allowing the 19th-century sailing ship to be restored by 2010. Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, stated: ‘The Heritage Lottery Fund has given more than £23 million towards the repair bill, and £8 million in donations have already been received. Mr Ofer's philanthropic contribution wil
Source: Seattle PI
Jun 24, 2008
Here in Seattle, Elly DeWolfe Hale was far removed from her early American ancestors, a wealthy, illustrious family whose legacy still colors life in Bristol, R.I.
Then came a letter that unmasked a shameful secret:
Hale's storied forebears, the DeWolfs, weren't just distillers and merchants, they were human traffickers who built their fortune on the slave trade. In fact, as Hale and other relatives were to discover, the DeWolfs were the largest slave-trading family in
Source: CNN
Jun 24, 2008
It's earth's most remote inhabited land, a South Pacific speck of volcanic rock so isolated the locals call it "Te Pito O Te Henua," or "The Navel of the World."
But Easter Island is a bellybutton experiencing a tourist boom -- and some are worried the onslaught of outsiders could take a toll on the very things they come to see, the gigantic stone heads known as Moais.
"More tourism, more deterioration. More visitors, more loss," said Susan
Source: Ap
Jun 24, 2008
Ohio Historical Society officials are considering the possible transfer of a 2,000-year-old American Indian earthworks site in central Ohio to the National Park Service because more money is needed to maintain and manage the site.
On Friday, the society's Board of Trustees will meet to decide whether to authorize a study by the National Park Service on the benefits and costs involved in transferring ownership of the Newark Earthworks. The Columbus-based society owns the site that in
Source: WaPo
Jun 24, 2008
Four major Washington institutions are jointly pursuing an extensive collection of materials related to Abraham Lincoln and his times with hopes of bringing it to the capital.
The Library of Congress, the National Museum of American History, Ford's Theatre and President Lincoln's Cottage have formed a partnership to obtain the collection of the privately owned Lincoln Museum in Fort Wayne, Ind. The museum is closing next week after 77 years of operation.
The Fort Wayne
Source: NYT
Jun 24, 2008
At Angkor Wat, the dancers’ feet are crumbling.
The palatial 12th-century Hindu temple, shrouded in the jungles of Cambodia, has played host to a thriving community of cyanobacteria ever since unsightly lichens were cleaned off its walls nearly 20 years ago. The microbes have not been good guests.
These bacteria (Gloeocapsa) not only stain the stone black, they also increase the water absorbed by the shale in morning monsoon rains and the heat absorbed when the sun come
Source: Breitbart
Jun 24, 2008
London Mayor Boris Johnson poured scorn Tuesday on a "ludicrous" police investigation into how he came into possession of a cigar case belonging to former Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz.
Johnson, who took office last month as the opposition Conservatives' most powerful politician, accused the governing Labour Party of triggering the probe, which he jokingly likened to a "war crime".
The former journalist admitted to having found the red leather ciga
Source: Boston Globe
Jun 24, 2008
Last year England lavishly celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolishment of the slave trade. Although the system of purchasing human beings for money ended, slavery continued in British colonies. The country marked the bicentennial with a service at Westminster Abbey attended by the queen. The city of Liverpool, a former slave trading capital, opened the International Slavery Museum. Another British city, Bristol, spent almost $800,000 to commemorate the end of this lucrative business.
Source: FoxNews.com
Jun 24, 2008
NEW YORK — A black Columbia University professor who made headlines after a noose was found hanging on her door was suspended indefinitely for plagiarism and likely will be fired.
The termination of Madonna Constantine, a psychology professor with a focus in racial issues at Columbia’s Teachers College, is effective Dec. 31, 2008, pending an appeal.
"I can confirm that Madonna Constantine has been terminated subject to a hearing before a faculty committee," T
