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: NYT
May 4, 2008
AS this historic Democratic primary season enters its next grueling phase, the party has become embroiled in a conflict between antagonists who would seem better cast as allies. Senator Barack Obama is a black candidate who has built his career on de-emphasizing race, while Senator Hillary Clinton is a white liberal who has been sensitive to minorities, and the issues facing them, during her long years of political activism.
And yet, in contest after contest, particularly in large s
Source: AP
May 4, 2008
Documents released Monday show how the British government tried to send thousands of Palestine-bound Jewish survivors of the Nazi genocide back to postwar Germany without inflaming world opinion.
Could it be done? The answer was no. It was just two years after the end of the war and the world was outraged by the systematic murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in what became known as the Holocaust.
Despite the best efforts of early spin doctors to portray the move in th
Source: AFP
May 4, 2008
A new, simplified family tree of
humanity has dealt a blow to those who contend that
the enigmatic hominids known as Neanderthals
intermingled with our forebears.
Neanderthals were a separate species to Homo sapiens,
as anatomically modern humans are known, rather than
offshoots of the same species, the new organigram
published Sunday by the journal Nature declares.
The method, invented by evolutionary analysts in
Argentina, marks a break with the conventional
technique by w
Source: AP
May 4, 2008
Mildred Loving, a black woman whose
challenge to Virginia's ban on interracial marriage
led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling striking down
such laws nationwide, has died, her daughter said
Monday.
Peggy Fortune said Loving, 68, died Friday at her home
in rural Milford. She did not disclose the cause of
death.
Loving and her white husband, Richard, changed history
in 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld their right
to marry. The ruling struck down laws banning racially
Source: BBC
May 4, 2008
The threat of a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s caused concern over the supply of tea, top-secret documents which have now been released reveal.
Government officials planning food supplies said the tea situation would be "very serious" after a nuclear war.
"It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they stated.
The papers were released under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Archives at
Source: WaPo
May 4, 2008
Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.
Source: NYT
May 4, 2008
Sometimes, as Senator Barack Obama seemed to argue earlier this year, a flag pin is just a flag pin.
But it can never be that simple for anyone with direct experience of the 1988 presidential campaign. That year, the Republicans used the symbols of nationhood (notably, whether schoolchildren should be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance) to bludgeon the Democrats, challenge their patriotism and utterly redefine their nominee, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts.
Source: NYT
May 4, 2008
SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. — When Wevonneda Minis first came to this marshy barrier island where her ancestors had been rice-cultivating slaves, she learned of the dream her great-great-grandfather, Liberty Handy, had the night before he died. In the dream, people told her, a black cat scratched him.
The handing down of stories like that through the generations lies at the very marrow of life here among the rutted dirt roads and palmetto fronds of Hog Hammock, a community of about 400 acres
Source: http://www.canada.com
May 3, 2008
There was nothing special to distinguish the casually dressed, middle-aged woman and man who arrived in Ottawa one morning this week on a flight from Washington. That's just the way they wanted it.
The woman, a conservator from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), was carrying one of the most important documents from American history. The man walking nearby was a NARA security officer on hand to make sure it arrived safely at its destination -- an exhibition hall
Source: Toronto Star
May 3, 2008
Israeli historian Yosef Gorny owes his life to three strokes of good fortune, or so he says.
First, an errant German bomb destroyed his family's home near Warsaw in 1939, sending him fleeing with his parents into Russian-occupied Poland.
Next, Russian dictator Josef Stalin decided to transport 200,000 Jews from Poland to Siberia – the Gorny family among them.
By these fortuitous means, the trio managed to avoid the fate of millions of other Jews who perishe
Source: http://www.independent.ie
May 3, 2008
ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche knew a month ago that the site of a possible pre-historic 'temple' had been unearthed on the route of the controversial M3 motorway.
The National Roads Authority alerted his department early last month that a pagan site - the size of three football pitches - dating from 3,500 BC had been discovered at Lismullen, Co Meath. It had not shown up in initial surveys.
Experts believe that the find could be one of the most significant archaeolo
Source: Reuters
May 3, 2008
British police have discovered forged documents were planted in the National Archives alleging top Nazi Heinrich Himmler was murdered on Winston Churchill's orders, the Public Record Office said on Saturday.
The investigation identified 29 forgeries that had been slipped into 12 files after 2000. The office said it would introduce improved security measures, including cameras in research areas, to ensure there is no repeat of the forgery.
Forensic examination revealed l
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com
May 3, 2008
Little Saigon loses again.
After a six-and-a-half hour meeting, the San Jose City Council early this morning rescinded its controversial decision to call a Vietnamese retail area "Saigon Business District." But council members stopped short of renaming it "Little Saigon," as hundreds of speakers had implored.
The vote, which came at 1:30 a.m., was 7-4 to set up a process for naming business districts in the future and give business owners and other stakeho
Source: History Today
May 2, 2008
A 16th-century shipwreck is thought to be the oldest uncovered in Sub-Saharan Africa. The 500-year-old treasure ship was discovered off the Atlantic coast of Namibia on April 1st by diamond company Namdeb. Human remains, thousands of Spanish and Portuguese gold coins, and elephant tusks have been found already. Three bronze canons are thought to originate from early 16th-century Spain. Experts from Spain and Portugal are due to arrive at the site amidst speculation that the ship may be linked to
Source: AP
May 2, 2008
The Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II is applying for Polish citizenship because he wants to live in the country of the late pontiff, whom he called his "spiritual brother."
But the Polish Foreign Ministry said the chances of Mehmet Ali Agca getting citizenship are "minimal" since he hasn't provided any "good service" to John Paul's mostly Catholic homeland.
Agca also wants to be transferred to a prison in Poland to serv
Source: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com
May 2, 2008
As governments, Jewish communities and Israeli embassies across Europe prepare to celebrate Israel’s 60th birthday, a cadre of Israel critics is making a push to be heard.
Muslim organizations across Europe are expected to mark the day as the anniversary of the Nakba — the Arabic term meaning “catastrophe” commonly used to refer to Israel’s independence and subsequent displacement of Palestinian Arabs.
“We expect some kind of demonstration in every European capital,” sa
Source: AP
May 2, 2008
- Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown.
As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms.
But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A ca
Source: NYT
May 2, 2008
A book published on Thursday asserts that a black radio journalist convicted of murdering a white Philadelphia police officer more than 26 years ago is not guilty of the crime and that it was actually committed by another man who is now deceased.
The book, “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal,” by J. Patrick O’Connor, asserts that Officer Daniel Faulkner died on Dec. 9, 1981, from shots fired by Kenneth Freeman, a business partner of the brother of the convicted man, Mr. Abu-Jamal, who h
Source: WaPo
May 2, 2008
The Senate has unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States.
That is the good news for the presumptive Republican nominee, who was born nearly 72 years ago in a military hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, then under U.S. jurisdiction. The bad news is that the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars f
Source: Guardian
May 2, 2008
The images of voters celebrating the recent election results in Italy were as eloquent as they were alarming: amid the sea of tricolour flags were hundreds of people raising their right arms to the skies, their fingers tense and straight. Everywhere you could see the old fascist salute. It is back in fashion and many are now wondering if the boot-boys themselves are back in power.
t is never easy to understand what is happening in Italian politics, but the past fortnight has been un
