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: Dallas Morning News
Jun 12, 2008
The state fire marshal confirmed Thursday that surveillance video shows a person igniting something and hurling it onto the front porch of the mansion moments before a four-alarm fire at the historic Texas Governor's Mansion.
State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado said state and federal investigators were working to enhancing the video footage and the image of the individual’s face. Officials said Thursday the video would not be made public at this time.
Mr. Maldonado said t
Source: NYT
Jun 12, 2008
The government of Canada formally apologized on Wednesday to Native Canadians for forcing about 150,000 native children into government-financed residential schools where many suffered physical and sexual abuse.
The system of schools, which began shutting down in the 1970s, after decades of operations, was dedicated to eradicating the languages, traditions and cultural practices of Native Canadians and has been linked to the widespread incidence of alcoholism, suicide and family vio
Source: http://www.wenportal.org (date uncertain)
Jun 12, 2008
On April Fools Day 2007, Kenny Molzahn and Bill Downy formed Historical FishwrapT, a newspaper reproduction company based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. These two high school teachers were no fools in believing that the teaching tool that had been so effective in their own classrooms could inspire students and appeal to history buffs throughout the country.
Historical Fishwrap recently announced that its 16-page historical front-page reproduction newspapers will be carried in 40 Barnes &a
Source: The Globe and Mail
Jun 12, 2008
The government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others neve
Source: The Oregonian
Jun 12, 2008
Three years after the Civil War ended and Lake Oswego, Ore., was simply Oswego, and the lake was Sucker Lake, folks here decided to start a school district.
Like all law-abiding school boards, they kept notes, but nobody knew the 140-year-old records existed until a school custodian found them tucked deep inside the school district's underground vault. The faded, cursive script written with an ink-dipped pen and occasional misspelled words stick to the highlights, but they reveal t
Source: Spiegel Online
Jun 11, 2008
Researchers in the decidedly un-tropical German city of Chemnitz are uncovering spectacular remains of a petrified rainforest. The forest was preserved under a thick layer of ash after a volcanic eruption 290 million years ago.
Source: WaPo
Jun 11, 2008
In the fall of 1964, 102 students enrolled as freshmen at all-black Douglass High School in Leesburg. By the end of senior year, most had dropped out.
Some were forced to leave school so they could tend to family farms. Others were called to a faraway war.
The resilient corps of 44 students who stayed at Douglass through the spring of 1968 lived through a graduation season of tumultuous change. In addition to the events that helped define that year for all Americans --
Source: Telegraph
Jun 11, 2008
British Muslim parents are to blame for leaving their children open to the lure of Islamic extremism, according to an influential academic
Dr Farhan Nizami CBE, a key adviser on Islam to the Prince of Wales, accused British Muslims of failing to make sure their children learn to speak English or supporting them in their education.
He said this leaves them alienated from mainstream society and exposed to being groomed by radical Islamic groups.
It is the fir
Source: Telegraph
Jun 11, 2008
A leading university has been forced to extend degree courses by 12 months because students are poorly educated.
Imperial College London has added a year to engineering degrees to teach the basic skills that students failed to learn at school and college.
Most of the first year is now spent going over remedial mathematics and science.
An admissions tutor at Imperial - ranked the world's fifth best university last year - said many "spoon-fed" stude
Source: AP
Jun 11, 2008
Archaeologists in Jordan continued to say Tuesday they'd discovered a cave underneath one of the world's oldest churches that may have been an even more ancient site of Christian worship, but an outside expert expressed caution about the claim.
Archaeologist Abdel-Qader Hussein, head of the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies, said this week that the cave was unearthed in the northern Jordanian city of Rihab after three months of excavation and shows evidence of early Christian
Source: AFP
Jun 11, 2008
Nepal's former king Gyanendra left his palace in Kathmandu late on Wednesday for the last time to live as a commoner in a former hunting lodge on the outskirts of the capital.
Gyanendra and his wife Komal Shah left in the back of a black Mercedes as hundreds of riot police surrounded the main gate of the sprawling Narayanhiti palace complex in the heart of the ancient temple-studded city.
Shouts of "long live the republic" rang out from a crowd of about 500 pe
Source: Yemen Observer
Jun 11, 2008
Any official proved to be involved in archeology crimes must be removed from his position and charged with the crime of defiling Yemen’s historical identity and cultural heritage, stated one of the recommendations that participants agreed on during a symposium called “The Protection of Yemen’s Archeology and the Preservation of its Civilization Heritage,” organized by the Progress and Advancement Forum on Sunday.
Under the sponsorship of Yahya Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, Chairmen of th
Source: National Security Archive
Jun 11, 2008
Washington, DC, June 11, 2008 - An American spy plane went missing over the Soviet Union at the height of the Cuban missile crisis for one and a quarter hours without the Air Force informing either President Kennedy or Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, according to a new book by Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs (drawing on documents posted here today by the National Security Archive.)
The accidental intrusion into Soviet air space by a U-2 belonging to the Strategic A
Source: WaPo
Jun 11, 2008
A lawsuit over billions of dollars in royalties collected from oil and gas companies that leased Native American land has meandered through the court system for so long that a federal judge recently compared the case to Charles Dickens's "Bleak House," a tome about a long-running and convoluted legal dispute.
"The 'suit has, in course of time, become so complicated' that 'no two lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to al
Source: Times (UK)
Jun 11, 2008
President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.
In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a differe
Source: International Herald Tribune
Jun 10, 2008
Mexican archaeologists said Monday they have unearthed the remains of an Aztec palace once inhabited by the emperor Montezuma in the heart of what is now downtown Mexico City.
During a routine renovation project on a Colonial-era building, experts uncovered pieces of a wall as well as a basalt floor believed to have been part of a dark room where Montezuma meditated, archaeology team leader Elsa Hernandez said.
Montezuma's palace complex — known as the Casas Nuevas, or
Source: http://www.eveningsun.com
Jun 10, 2008
Gettysburg Borough officials intend to sell the Lincoln Train Station to the National Park Service, and they've set the minimum price for the historic structure at $722,000.
The sale is not yet final, but action taken by the Gettysburg Borough Council essentially excludes any other parties from negotiating a purchase of the property at 35 Carlisle St.
At Monday's council meeting, a 7-2 vote authorized President Dick Peterson to sign and deliver a letter of intent to the
Source: AFP
Jun 10, 2008
Heir to the throne Prince Charles on Tuesday paid off a family debt incurred more than 350 years ago -- but was spared the accumulated interest that could have run into tens of thousands of pounds.
Charles handed over 453 pounds and 15 pence (572 euros and 20 euro cents, 885 dollars and four cents) which King Charles II failed to pay to the Clothiers Company in Worcester, central England, in 1651.
The king had commissioned uniforms for his troops to fight the republican
Source: AFP
Jun 10, 2008
A dinosaur bone discovered in Australia has defied prevailing wisdom about how the world's continents separated from a super-continent millions of years ago, a new study published on Tuesday said.
The 19-centimetre (eight-inch) bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago.
The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropo
Source: Politico.com
Jun 10, 2008
Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy.
Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sens
