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
Apr 20, 2008
Could it be the "vast right wing conspiracy" is having second thoughts? Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton was endorsed Sunday by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, whose owner and publisher, billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, personally funded many of the investigations that led to President Clinton's impeachment in 1998.
It was one of a handful of endorsements the New York senator has received from Pennsylvania newspapers before the state's primary Tuesday. Most of the state's
Source: NYT
Apr 20, 2008
A new study by a Defense Department contractor shows that divided loyalty, usually on the part of naturalized Americans with roots in a foreign land, has become the dominant motive [for spying against the US, a historic shift].
From 1947 to 1990, the study found, fewer than 1 in 5 Americans charged with spying were acting solely or primarily out of patriotic, as opposed to ideological, loyalty to a foreign country. Since 1990, according to the study’s author, Katherine L. Herbig, di
Source: NYT
Apr 20, 2008
THE bluebonnets are beginning to bloom here on the central Texas prairie, just in time for Jenna Bush’s wedding on May 10 at her parents’ 1,600-acre ranch. The kitschy tourist shops on Main Street, hoping for an influx of visitors, have ordered commemorative coffee mugs featuring Ms. Bush and her fiancé, Henry Hager — a fresh addition to the Luvya Dubya bumper stickers, Western White House coasters and President Bush bobble-head dolls....
The May issue of Vogue, on the stands last W
Source: LAT
Apr 19, 2008
Survivors, relatives and officials gather in Lebanon to honor the 63 killed in the suicide bombing, which ushered in an era of similar attacks.
***
The explosion shook the earth. And it wouldn't be the last one.
Twenty-five years ago Friday, a suicide bomber drove a pickup truck full of explosives into the U.S. Embassy in downtown Beirut, killing 63 people. It heralded the rise in the Middle East of a soon-to-be common tool in the arsenal of radicals: the s
Source: Time
Apr 19, 2008
The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, that secretive band of Pentagon geeks that searches obsessively for the next big thing in the technology of warfare, is 50 years old. To celebrate, DARPA invited Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Defense Secretary well aware of the Agency's capabilities, to help blow out the candles. "This agency brought forth the Saturn 5 rocket, surveillance satellites, the Internet, stealth technology, guided munitions, unmanned aerial vehicles, night visi
Source: AP
Apr 19, 2008
A ticket for the Titanic's ill-fated voyage that belonged to the last survivor with memories of the disaster sold to a collector from the United States at a British auction Saturday.
Lillian Asplund, who died in 2006 at the age of 99, was 5 years old when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank during its maiden voyage from England to New York. Her father and three siblings were among the 1,500 people who died.
She was the last American survivor of the disaster and the last
Source: Salon
Apr 19, 2008
Intrigue. Power. Corruption. Death. Sex. The history of oil has nothing on that of the yellow fruit.
***
On a trip to Honduras, journalist Dan Koeppel caught the banana bug. Researching an article for Popular Science about attempts to breed a disease-resistant banana, the American journalist wandered the grounds of the old Chiquita compound, amid the fading colonial mansions and golf course, where he stumbled upon the cheery yellow fruit's unsavory past.
&q
Source: AP
Apr 19, 2008
The story of Israel at 60 is the tale of a little town named Sderot whose children play indoors because of Palestinian rockets, of a world-class tech industry that pioneered Wi-Fi and instant messaging, of a nation filled with pride and fierce patriotism, yet living in fear of annihilation from abroad and of a demographic time bomb at home.
Six decades after fighting six Arab armies to realize the ancient dream of a Jewish return to Zion, Israel is still searching for its identity a
Source: http://www.tfponline.com
Apr 18, 2008
At a time when many Civil War battlefields and even national parks are squeezed by outside development, Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park is growing.
Park officials and the Trust for Public Land received federal support to purchase 382 acres in March to add to the western flank of the Lookout Mountain Battlefield.
Source: AFP
Apr 18, 2008
France has returned to Burkina Faso a haul of stolen archaeological treasures discovered in a northern French port, the Burkinabe culture minister told AFP Friday.
Filippe Sawadogo said 262 items of "national archaeological and cultural significance" to the landlocked west African nation were returned via the French embassy in Ouagadougou on Wednesday.
He praised the "perspicacity" of French customs officers at the French city of Rouen, on the River
Source: International Herald Tribune
Apr 18, 2008
Western politicians who take the longer view sometimes wonder why they get it so wrong with the "Islamic world." They might learn a thing or two by glancing at what happens on the auction scene.
The round of sales that began at Christie's King Street on April 8, went on at Sotheby's April 9 and ended at Christie's South Kensington two days later were enlightening on that score, if not quite as much about the works of art. These belonged to five or six cultures more differe
Source: BBC
Apr 18, 2008
An evil tyrant or the father of democracy?
That's the debate splitting opinion in Coleraine, after a row broke out between local councillors over the legacy of Oliver Cromwell.
During the meeting of the Council's Policy and Resources Committee on Tuesday, the DUP's Samuel Cole said Cromwell was a defender of democracy.
But Sinn Féin councillor Billy Leonard said Cromwell's record in Ireland made him "no father of democracy".
The English leader is
Source: LAT
Apr 18, 2008
Evidence linking him to the ex-leaders of the Weather Underground is thin. But a YouTube video is making noise.
Democrats have tried to heal their party's angry passions ever since violent protesters disrupted the Democratic National Convention here in 1968, a shock to America's collective psyche that helped Republican Richard Nixon capture the White House.
But some of the old fault lines were visible again Thursday as Sen. Barack Obama's suddenly defensive presidential
Source: Spiegel Online
Apr 18, 2008
Scrap metal thieves are becoming increasingly audacious, with some even stealing from cemeteries and memorials. Now some 1,000 bronze plaques have gone missing from the former concentration camp at Theresienstadt [in the Czech Republic].
Semi-precious metal, as it happens, is everywhere. It can be found on church roofs; copper pipes run through many a house wall; and wiring is almost ubiquitous. Scrap metal thieves, though, have recently discovered a valuable new source of copper: C
Source: AP
Apr 18, 2008
A federal judge has denied a bid by Florida deep-sea explorers to keep secret the details of a 19th-century shipwreck that has yielded $500 million in treasure, a ruling the Spanish government applauded Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo threw out Odyssey Marine Exploration's request Thursday to keep information including the identity of the ship sealed as the company argues with Spain over ownership of the 17 tons of silver coins and other artifacts retrieved last year.
The
Source: BBC
Apr 18, 2008
A homeless man has found confidential blueprints for New York's new Freedom Tower dumped in a city rubbish bin.
Mike Fleming handed the documents - marked "Secure Document - Confidential" in to the New York Post newspaper.
The Freedom Tower is being built at Ground Zero, to replace the World Trade Centre towers destroyed on 9/11.
A spokeswoman apologised for the security breach and said that anyone found responsible would be liable for "serio
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/
Apr 18, 2008
Though Louisville has never been the epicenter of an earthquake, that doesn't mean those living in the area should ignore the possibility of a big one coming and causing major damage to homes and businesses.
That's the message delivered by emergency-planning professionals and those selling insurance in the state.
Instead, they say, buying earthquake coverage should be something that is considered when purchasing property insurance because Louisville is situated near the New Madrid fa
Source: AP
Apr 17, 2008
In the eyes of the law, the worshippers were criminals. But to the rabbi who served them, they were simply Jewish men in search of faith and spiritual guidance.
The synagogue behind the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary was a place for inmates to reflect and, perhaps, seek forgiveness. But after the prison closed in 1971, the room remained forgotten even as work began to preserve other parts of the decaying historical site.
Now, officials at the 179-year-old landmark prison
Source: Times (UK)
Apr 17, 2008
Prehistoric treasures unearthed in the Alps as melting glaciers recede are under threat from looters who are removing many of them.
Such is the concern for the newly revealed objects - which include weapons, clothing and tools - that a task force of archaeologists, anthropologists, mountain climbers and Alpine rescue teams has been formed in an attempt to salvage them.
Franco Nicolis, an archaeologist from Trento, said: “We must be ready to intervene as if we were deali
Source: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg
Apr 17, 2008
Artefacts immersed in the Nile at Aswan and a 19th-Dynasty funerary collection in Luxor are the most recent discoveries in Egypt, as Nevine El-Aref reports.
***
It is surely in the quiet and relaxing city of Aswan that the Nile is at its most beautiful. The river flows through an amber desert, past granite rocks and round emerald islands smothered in palm groves and tropical plants. This peaceful scene, however, was disturbed last week by archaeologists shouting and yel
