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: Reuters
Mar 16, 2008
Horst Rippert, an 88-year old former pilot of Germany's Luftwaffe, has said in a forthcoming book that he may have killed French writer and war pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1944.
Saint-Exupery, who achieved worldwide fame with his fairy-tale-like book "The Little Prince," died in mysterious circumstances when his plane came down near Marseilles while on a reconnaissance mission. His body has never been found.
Extracts of the book "Saint-Exupery: The
Source: Reuters
Mar 16, 2008
Japanese survivors of atomic bombs and American war veterans calling for peace joined hundreds of villagers on Sunday in prayers to mark 40 years since the worst U.S. atrocity of the Vietnam War.
On March 16, 1968, the men of Charlie Company entered the hamlet of My Lai in central Quang Ngai province and killed 504 civilians, mostly women and children.
My Lai came to symbolize in the United States all that was wrong with the Vietnam conflict, which ended in 1975 when co
Source: AP
Mar 16, 2008
A search for an Australian navy battle cruiser lost in 1941 has led to the wreck of the German raider that sank it, the prime minister said Sunday.
Both the HMAS Sydney and the German vessel, the DKM Kormoran, sank after a battle off Australia's western coast on Nov. 19, 1941 during World War II.
None of the 645 men aboard the Sydney survived. But 317 of the Kormoran's 397 crew rowed to the Australian coast in life boats and were taken prisoner. The 9,500 ton Kormoran h
Source: AP
Mar 16, 2008
Bone-white stretches of salt, leached up from the lifeless soil, lay like a shroud over the high desert where a paranoid Charles Manson holed up after an orgy of murder nearly four decades ago.
Now, as then, few venture into this alkaline wilderness -- gold-diggers, outlaws, loners content to live and let live.
But a determined group of outsiders recently made the trek. They were leading forensic investigators searching for new evidence of death -- clues pointing to pos
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 16, 2008
An Egyptian mummy kept on display in a provincial museum for nearly 80 years has been identified as a son of the powerful pharaoh Ramesses II.
The 3,000-year-old relic was thought to have been a female temple dancer, but a hospital CT scan showed features so reminiscent of the Egyptian royal family that experts are 90 per cent sure it is one of the 110 children Ramesses is thought to have fathered.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Mar 16, 2008
After a long and grim period in which weddings and parties have generally been outnumbered by funerals, bookings are finally on the up again for Haider Salah, one of Baghdad's liveliest and loudest mobile disc jockeys.
Last Thursday, at a private club overlooking the Tigris, his huge outdoor speakers were booming Arab pop music across the riverbanks - where, five years ago this week, an even heavier baseline resounded as the opening salvoes of Operation Shock and Awe, the coalition
Source: NYT
Mar 16, 2008
MEMO to voters: Of the 46 vice presidents of the United States, 14 — nearly one out of three — have become president. Nine got the job without being elected.
One was Theodore Roosevelt. Thrust into the job after William McKinley was assassinated, he became one of America’s presidential greats. Another was Andrew Johnson, whose tenure went from bad (he was red-faced, incoherent and probably drunk when he took the vice presidential oath) to worse (after succeeding Abraham Lincoln, he
Source: LAT
Mar 16, 2008
Sen. John McCain is well-known for scorching denunciations of Democrats, who he says would raise the "white flag of surrender" by cutting off funds for U.S. troops in Iraq.
But 15 years ago, it was McCain himself who startled colleagues by proposing to cut off money for a struggling and embattled U.S. force in another perilous place: Somalia.
On the campaign trail today, McCain is seen as an unyielding hawk. But before his first presidential run in 2000, he de
Source: WaPo
Mar 16, 2008
There is no dispute, as a dramatic campaign ad from Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign suggests, that presidents get plenty of phone calls at 3 a.m.
A sleeping Ronald Reagan was alerted early in the morning to what turned out to be the accidental shoot-down of an Iranian passenger plane. George H.W. Bush was informed after he went to bed of an apparent coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Bill Clinton received word in the middle of the night that negotiations had broken down
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2008
Lawrence Colburn returned to My Lai and found hope at the site of one of the most notorious chapters of the Vietnam War.
On the 40th anniversary of the massacre of up to 500 unarmed Vietnamese villagers, the former helicopter gunner was reunited Saturday with a young man he rescued from rampaging U.S. soldiers.
On March 16, 1968, Colburn found 8-year-old Do Ba clinging to his mother's corpse in a ditch full of blood and the bodies of more than 100 people who had been mo
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2008
The smuggling of stolen antiquities from Iraq's rich cultural heritage is helping finance Iraqi extremist groups, says the U.S. investigator who led the initial probe into the looting of Baghdad's National Museum.
Marine Reserve Col. Matthew Bogdanos claimed both Sunni insurgents such as al-Qaida in Iraq and Shiite militias are receiving funding from the trafficking.
Bogdanos, a New York assistant district attorney, noted that kidnappings and extortion remain the insurg
Source: BBC
Mar 15, 2008
A classic sports car, once owned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, has been sold for a record price for the model of vehicle.
The 1935 two-seater Pescara Spyder, one of only 60 made, attracted just a few bids when it went under the hammer in Cheltenham in February.
The best offer reached just over half the expected £800,000 and the owner chose not to sell at the time.
A private buyer has now bought it for £550,000, H&H Classic Auctions said.
Source: HNN Staff (Click here for BBC story)
Mar 15, 2008
The National Archives has released 48 hours of previously classified (and lost) recordings of interviews with witnesses to the My Lai massacre.
The BBC has broadcast selections in a documentary prepared by Celina Dunlop, 40 years after the event.
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2008
Archaeologists have discovered the ruins of an ancient temple, roadway and irrigation systems at a famed fortress overlooking the Inca capital of Cuzco, according to officials involved with the dig.
The temple on the periphery of the Sacsayhuaman fortress casts added light on pre-Inca cultures of Peru, showing that the site had religious as well as military aims, according to researchers.
It includes 11 rooms thought to have held mummies and idols, lead archaeologist Os
Source: AP
Mar 15, 2008
That would be Ralph Archbold, Philadelphia's best-known Franklin portrayer, and Linda Wilde, who's been at his side lately, portraying the flag-stitcher.
The couple met Sept. 1 after Wilde hired Archbold for a friend's wedding toast. Archbold had initially declined the gig.
"I don't do weddings," Archbold recalled telling Wilde. "It's the bride's day to shine."
But Wilde begged, and he relented. During the appearance, Wilde told Archbold
Source: WaPo
Mar 15, 2008
G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been named the 12th secretary of the Smithsonian.
Clough, 66, president of Georgia Tech since 1994, was introduced at a news conference in the Smithsonian castle building this morning. Roger Sant, chairman for the Smithsonian board of regents, said Clough was selected because he brought "a unique combination of academic achievement, talent, leadership skill, and experience in public service, science, managem
Source: Adam Clymer in an NYT op ed
Mar 15, 2008
THIRTY years ago tomorrow, the conservative movement lost a major battle on the way to winning a larger war. On March 16, 1978, the Senate approved — 68 to 32, with just a single vote to spare — the first of two treaties that transferred the Panama Canal to Panama. Conservatives lamented the result, saying it threatened national security and might put the canal in Communist hands.
But losing the canal led to important victories for conservatives. The transfer of the canal to Panama
Source: WaPo
Mar 15, 2008
Grim-faced and sorrowful, former soldiers and Marines sat before an audience of several hundred yesterday in Silver Spring and shared their recollections of their service in Iraq.
The stories spilled out, sometimes haltingly, sometimes in a rush: soldiers firing indiscriminately on Iraqi vehicles, an apartment building filled with Iraqi families devastated by an American gunship. Some descriptions were agonized, some vague; others offered specific dates and locations. All were recor
Source: Deborah Lipstadt at her blog
Mar 15, 2008
MEMRI reports that on a recent appearance on Al Aqsa TV the Saudi "scholar" Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi announced that the death toll of the Holocaust was 50-60 people. Rashudi is the head of the Department of Islamic Studies at King Saud University. You can view a clip of Rashudi sharing his wisdom with viewers
Source: Boston Globe
Mar 14, 2008
Hillary Clinton, who has frequently described herself on the campaign trail as playing a pivotal role in forging a children's health insurance plan, had little to do with crafting the landmark legislation or ushering it through Congress, according to several lawmakers, staffers, and healthcare advocates involved in the issue.
In campaign speeches, Clinton describes the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, as an initiative "I helped to start." Addressing Iow
