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
May 27, 2008
Germany unveiled a memorial Tuesday to the Nazis' long-ignored gay victims, a monument that also aims to address ongoing discrimination by confronting visitors with an image of a same-sex coup
Source: New Zealand Herald
May 27, 2008
A New Zealand archaeologist has uncovered an untouched "time capsule" of Maori life almost 200 years ago.
The remains have lain hidden beneath the impenetrable undergrowth of the Poor Knights' northern island, Tawhiti Rahi, since December 16, 1823.
On that day, or in the few days prior, a raiding party from Northland's Hikutu hapu landed at the island's only safe landing spot - choosing a time when the island's Ngatiwai iwi chief and men were off on their own
Source: Independent (UK)
May 27, 2008
"I feel like I'm taking care of a herd of cows," says Bill Huber as he gently nudges his pick-up truck along muddy, gouged-out tracks to check on his precious charges, scattered through the woods. "Every day there's something to be done. A problem with a drill pipe, a bearing to replace, or something wrong with a pumping jack."
Which is not surprising, given that some of the venerable contraptions in question first started to extract oil a century or more ago, an
Source: Independent (UK)
May 27, 2008
A wealth of new information about the way of life of early man in the eastern Mediterranean, long before the invention of the wheel, is likely to be uncovered after the startling discovery of a cave inhabited by hunter-gatherers between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Workers constructing a sewage line through a forest in northern Israel stumbled across a large cave containing stalactites and strewn with discarded fragments of prehistoric tools and the burnt bones of animals which have
Source: AP
May 27, 2008
There's been a Clinton running for the
White House or living in it for approximately forever.
Bill, it could be said, was born to run. Running
became Hillary's destiny, too.
One quarter of Americans have never known life without
a Clinton trying for or having the presidency.
Millions have gone from diapers to diplomas in the
time of the Clintons.
When Hillary Rodham Clinton finally exits the 2008
Democratic presidential
Source: AP
May 26, 2008
As the nation marks Memorial Day, New York City officials have unveiled a newly refurbished Civil War monument in Manhattan's Riverside Park.
The city and the private Riverside Park Fund have paid more than $1 million for new plantings, chess tables, lighting and other improvements to the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. The work included cleaning and restoring a pair of 1865 U.S. Army cannons.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 26, 2008
The body of a womanising 19th century Australian statesman has been dug up in order to resolve a paternity case.
The remains of Charles Cameron Kingston, whose behaviour caused a scandal when he was the premier of South Australia in the 1890s, were exhumed from a cemetery in Adelaide and will be subjected to DNA testing.
The unusual exhumation was requested by a prominent businessman and his sister, who believe that they are descendants of an illegitimate child believed
Source: Times (UK)
May 26, 2008
A new book which suggests that the German occupation of France encouraged the sexual liberation of women has shocked a country still struggling to come to terms with its troubled history of collaboration with the Nazis.
Like a recent photographic exhibition showing Parisians enjoying themselves under the occupation, the book's depiction of life in Paris as one big party is at odds with the collective memory of hunger, resistance and fear.
"It is a taboo subject, a
Source: BBC
May 26, 2008
Forensic investigators in Peru say they have recovered the remains of at least 25 people from a mass grave, which could be the site of a 1984 massacre.
A group for the victims' families says it believes the grave contains more than 125 people killed by the military.
The search for mass graves follows a government-approved truth commission into atrocities committed by both the military and Shining Path rebels.
The insurgency of the Maoist guerrillas lasted two decades, ending
Source: BBC
May 26, 2008
Given pride of place in an unassuming museum on the East Coast of America is a pair of 200-year-old duelling pistols shrouded in mystery.
The intricately decorated guns were said to have been forged from the iron of a fallen meteorite.
They were a unique gift from the commander of a South American region, which would later become Argentina, to the fourth US president, James Madison.
"Permit me therefore to present to your Excellency... a specimen of the firs
Source: AFP
May 26, 2008
An alabaster head of Cleopatra and a
mask thought to belong to her lover Mark Antony have
been found near Egypt's Mediterranean city of
Alexandria, antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on
Monday.
The two treasures, a bronze statue of Goddess
Aphrodite and a headless royal statue from the
Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt between 323 and
30 BC, were discovered by a joint Egyptian-Dominican
Republic team of archeologists in the
Source: Independent (UK)
May 26, 2008
The former US president Jimmy Carter has called for his country to resume trade relations with Iran, which he described as a "rational" nation. Speaking at the Hay Festival yesterday, Mr Carter also suggested the US should provide nuclear power technology and fuel to Iran as a show of goodwill.
"What happens if, in three years time, Iran has a nuclear weapon," Mr Carter asked. "I'm not sure that is going to happen, but if it does, what do we do? They are rat
Source: Independent (UK)
May 26, 2008
Stone Age Britons had a sophisticated knowledge of geometry to rival Pythagoras – 2,000 years before the Greek "father of numbers" was born, according to a new study of Stonehenge.
Five years of detailed research, carried out by the Oxford University landscape archaeologist Anthony Johnson, claims that Stonehenge was designed and built using advanced geometry.
The discovery has immense implications for understanding the monument – and the people who built it.
Source: Jonathan Alter in Newsweek
May 26, 2008
After pledging to abandon Bush's pernicious habit of attaching signing statements to bills and once again promising weekly press conferences, McCain came out for a truly big idea that almost no one noticed: "I will ask Congress to grant me the privilege of coming before both houses to take questions, and address criticism, much the same as the prime minister of Great Britain appears regularly before the House of Commons."
As C-Span viewers of the weekly British Question T
Source: Japan Focus
May 25, 2008
While much of Japan was enjoying the extended holiday of Golden Week this year, supporters of Article 9, the war-renouncing clause of Japan’s constitution, were hard at work. The first Global Article 9 Conference to Abolish War drew 15,000 people to its plenary session and concert outside of Tokyo on May 4th, while 7,000 gathered on May 5th to participate in a day of symposiums and workshops. The crowds far surpassed the expectations of the organizers, who hastily staged an ad hoc rally in a nea
Source: http://www.allheadlinenews.com
May 25, 2008
Lovers of historical homes and buildings could be tested on how much they truly appreciate authenticity, that is, if they are interested in buying a Georgian style home that was recently put on the market, because it comes complete with a human skeleton entombed in the basement.
When the home was built in the Georgian era, part of the basement was found to be the remnants of a Roman burial chamber. Workers built around it, and today the skeleton is visibly entombed in an archway.
Source: http://www.canada.com
May 25, 2008
"Such an act cannot be held to belong to civilized war. It is an outrage against humanity calling for, and will receive, the universal execration of mankind."
- Gazette, Saturday, May 27, 1865
By early 1864, the U.S. Civil War was starting to swing decisively against the Confederacy. In desperation, a well-respected doctor from Kentucky, Luke Blackburn, hatched what he called "an infallible plan directed against the masses of Northern people solely to create de
Source: http://www.wgal.com
May 25, 2008
The Gettysburg Country Club may be getting a little smaller.
Board members said they may consider selling land to the National Park Service because the club is facing foreclosure.
Current and former board members will be responsible for $30,000 in back taxes if the foreclosure goes through.
Source: The Age (Australia)
May 25, 2008
Ninety-two years ago, Australia reeled as news filtered through from the World War I battlefields of France that 5,533 diggers had been either killed, wounded or taken prisoner in one night.
Of the 1,719 Australian diggers who died during the notorious Battle of Fromelles against some very well-prepared German forces in July 1916, the bodies of 170 were never found.
However, those diggers who have remained missing for more than nine decades have never been forgotten.
Source: http://www.news.com.au
May 25, 2008
THEY play golf on the dunes behind the invasion beaches these days. The thwack of golf balls and cries of the gulls carry on the brisk breeze to tourists idling by the pool at the Hotel Mercure Omaha Beach.
It could be any beachside hamlet on any part of the holiday coast overlooking the English Channel -- except it isn't. It's Normandy, scene of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
We were savouring a bowl of steaming mussels, surrounded by the chatter and cla
