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: The Hill
Nov 14, 2007
The House on Tuesday approved renaming the Capitol Visitor Center’s (CVC) main hall Emancipation Hall.
Supporters said the name would memorialize the country’s struggle against slavery and honor slaves who helped build the Capitol.
“It is really the right thing to do and the right time in history,” said Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), the bill's sponsor. “It really speaks to freedom. When slaves were emancipated it was a defining moment in our history. It also honors slaves
Source: Daily Mail
Nov 14, 2007
A globe that once belonged to Adolf Hitler has sold at auction in San Francisco for £50,000 - more than five times its estimate.
An American soldier found the globe among the ruins of Hitler's "Eagle's Nest" in the Bavarian Alps in May 1945.
John Barsamian took it home and kept it for more than 60 years - along with all the military paperwork that allowed him to take the globe to the U.S.
Source: AFP
Nov 14, 2007
A SIGNED copy of Adolf Hitler's book and a rare Nazi bravery award are expected to fetch thousands of dollars at a charity auction in Brisbane this weekend.
The 1935 copy of Mein Kampf (My Struggle), personally signed by Hitler, is expected to fetch more than $2500 at the Brisbane Legacy Military Memorabilia Auction on Sunday.
However, the auction's showpiece is the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves and Swords, one of Nazi Germany's highest military honours.
Source: AP
Nov 14, 2007
Sixty-five years after it ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, an American P-38 fighter plane has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried — a World War II relic long forgotten by the U.S. government and unknown to the British public.
Source: http://www.topnews.in
Nov 14, 2007
Archaeologists have found ruins of a late-Roman-era fortress during an excavation in Svalenik village, nowadays Northern Bulgaria.
The ruin, which was a part of the defence system of the Romans, had been raised in the IV Century as a watch fortification, controlling the road in the River Valley of Malki Lom River.
Source: AP
Nov 14, 2007
Episcopal Church leaders yesterday argued that a Civil War-era Virginia law governing church splits does not apply to its dispute with 11 Northern Virginia congregations in their effort to leave the denomination in a dispute over biblical authority and homosexuality.
At issue is an 1867 state law saying that a majority vote determines whether a congregation can realign and keep its property when a church faces internal division. The 11 congregations voted to leave the denomination,
Source: Earth Times
Nov 14, 2007
The German government is open to the possibility of reopening the issue of Holocaust reparations if the Israeli government makes a formal request, an official spokesman said in Berlin Wednesday. Government spokesman Thomas Steg was responding to comments that Israeli Pensions Minister Rafi Eitan made to an Israeli newspaper last week.
"If the Israeli government wants to talk formally to the German government, we will not refuse to hold talks of this nature," Steg said in a
Source: AP
Nov 14, 2007
An 85-year-old man accused of being a Nazi dog handler has returned to Germany rather than fight to stay in the U.S., a federal prosecutor told a judge at a deportation hearing.
Paul Henss was accused of training and handling attack dogs at the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. U.S. Immigration Judge J. Dan Pelletier ordered him deported after a 30-minute hearing Tuesday conducted without Henss or an attorney on his behalf present.
Henss left Friday for his nat
Source: Reuters
Nov 14, 2007
Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney needs to assure evangelicals that his Mormon faith would not be his ultimate guide if he wants their support, an influential Southern Baptist official said on Tuesday.
"If Romney wants to get significant Southern Baptist and evangelical support he's going to have to give a Kennedy-style speech," said Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Land was ref
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE)
Nov 14, 2007
Enrollments in foreign-language classes at American colleges and universities have jumped 13 percent since 2002, with Arabic and Chinese showing the most dramatic increases, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Modern Language Association. The number of students studying Arabic soared 126.5 percent between 2002 and 2006, while the number studying Chinese grew by more than 50 percent. Korean also rose in popularity, with a 37.1 percent rise in enrollments.
Source: http://abc.net.au/
Nov 14, 2007
United States Democrats say the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost nearly $1.8 trillion - double the amount the Bush Administration has claimed.
The figure includes what the Democrats say are the hidden costs of higher oil prices and the long-term health care of wounded soldiers.
The US Congress is gearing up for yet another war funding showdown with the Bush Administration, just as the US military begins winding back the so-called troop surge in Iraq.
Source: NYT
Nov 14, 2007
The box had sat untouched in the attic of a Washington house until recently, when the sale of the house forced some cleaning out, some poking around in long-overlooked places.
Inside the box was a manila file folder headed: “Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Inside the folder was a handwritten letter that Oswald had sent from Russia, complaining that the Soviet Union would not grant him an exit visa to the United States. It was addressed to Senator John Tower of Texas, who had lived
Source: Boston Globe
Nov 13, 2007
A dispute over limits that Bill and Hillary Clinton have placed on the National Archives' ability to release their White House records is highlighting a consequence of family dynasties in contemporary American politics: A president has sweeping power to keep potentially embarrassing documents from past administrations a secret.
When George W. Bush became president in 2001, one of his first acts was to slow the scheduled release of his father's papers from the Reagan-Bush and Bush-Qu
Source: http://www.topnews.in
Nov 13, 2007
Athens | A wrestling school said to have been a part of Greek philosopher Aristotle's famous Lyceum, has fallen victim to the ravages of time and official apathy.
Unearthed in 1996, the wrestling school and other institutions in the Lyceum was a significant centre of study and research in diverse fields.
Opened in 335 BC, the school promoted the development of Western science and philosophy and was named for its sanctuary to Apollo Lykeios. Alongside these intellectual
Source: AP
Nov 13, 2007
The chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while she hid from the Nazis during World War II will be cut down Nov. 21 because it is too diseased to be saved, the city said Tuesday.
The 150-year-old chestnut, familiar to the many readers of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” suffers from fungus and moths that have caused more than half its trunk to rot.
“The state of this monumental chestnut is a real danger for its surroundings,” including the “secret annex” atop the canal-side
Source: Baltimore Sun blog
Nov 13, 2007
President Bush calls his failure to win Social Security reform “the biggest disappointment’’ of his presidency.
In an interview with the Fox Business Network, Bush said: “The biggest disappointment is not getting a Social Security package, Social Security reform, because that truly is the big deficit issue. I'm sorry it didn't happen. I laid out a plan to make it happen, to enable it to happen. I'm the first president to have addressed it as specifically as I did. I wish Congress wa
Source: NYT
Nov 13, 2007
Athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs. Growing concern about a reliance on pills for relief from pain, stress and anxiety. Medical leaders alarmed about drug fads, calling on doctors to exercise restraint when prescribing.
Headlines from 2007? Try 1957. Today, the drugs are OxyContin, steroids and Ritalin. Fifty years ago, they were tranquilizers, sedatives and amphetamines: America was a Cold War nation in need of both pep and relief.
And while the context is dif
Source: NYT
Nov 13, 2007
Buried deep in the largest domestic spending bill of the year is money for a library and museum honoring first ladies. The $130,000 was requested by the local congressman, Representative Ralph Regula, Republican of Ohio. The library was founded by his wife, Mary A. Regula. The director of the library is his daughter, Martha A. Regula....
Senators John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, both Republicans, cited the first ladies library as one of the more egregious. Mr. McCa
Source: Salina Journal
Nov 13, 2007
At times, Barry Landau feels like a real-life Forrest Gump.
Like the fictional Gump, a man who found himself blending into the major historical events of the late 20th century, Landau has been on the periphery of history since he was a small boy.
In 1958, Landau, then 10, met President Eisenhower and was invited to the White House for milk and cookies. At 18, he became a White House intern, helping plan state dinners and other social events for the Lyndon Johnson presid
Source: Reuters
Nov 13, 2007
Researchers unveiled a 10-million-year-old jaw bone on Tuesday they believe belonged to a new species of great ape that could be the last common ancestor of gorillas, chimpanzees and humans.
The Kenyan and Japanese team found the fragment, dating back to between 9.8 and 9.88 million years, in 2005 along with 11 teeth. The fossils were unearthed in volcanic mud flow deposits in the northern Nakali region of Kenya.
The species -- somewhere between the size of a female gor
