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: Telegraph
Apr 24, 2007
The Church of England appealed to the Government yesterday for substantial funds for its ancient cathedrals so they can be better exploited as tourist attractions during the 2012 Olympic Games.
The appeal came after mounting criticism by members of the public about the "outrageous" entrance fees being charged by a number of cathedrals.
Daily Telegraph readers quoted Jesus's expulsion of the money lenders in support of their objections to the fees, which are no
Source: Guardian
Apr 24, 2007
German terrorists once planned to kidnap fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld as part of a scheme to free fellow guerrillas from jail.
A former member of the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, which terrorised Germany throughout the 1970s and 80s with murders, kidnappings and bank robberies, said Lagerfeld was viewed as a perfect target because of his personal wealth.
Convicted terrorist Peter-Jürgen Boock, who is out of prison having served 17 years, s
Source: New York Times
Apr 24, 2007
The bass player’s widow looked down Dean Street and remembered her neighbors by the work they did: a teacher, a letter carrier, a doctor, another jazz man. A subway conductor, a church lady. Across the street, there is a mansion, once a doctor’s home...
The name of the neighborhood came along only in the 20th century, after several lesser labels — St. Marks, Brower Park, Grant Square — for the inner Brooklyn sweep of farmland, mansions, brownstones and carriage houses had faded. The
Source: AP
Apr 23, 2007
A controversial mural that has angered some Idaho tribal leaders will be on display when the Legislature convenes next year.
The mural was painted in 1940 and depicts the lynching of an American Indian at the hands of white frontiersman.
For decades, it's been on display at the former Ada County Courthouse.
Its presence is now an issue for some because the courthouse will be the temporary home for state government and lawmakers during the state Capitol reno
Source: Islamic Republic News Agency (Tehran)
Apr 23, 2007
TEHRAN -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Monday expressed surprise over the European Union's biased approach to the historical event of holocaust.
The statement was made in an exclusive interview with the Spanish television broadcast, in response to the question about holocaust.
"I just raised two questions on the issue. Does EU consider questions as a crime. Today, anywhere in the world, one can raise questions about God, prophets, existence and any other issu
Source: AP
Apr 23, 2007
DENVER -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne signed the paperwork Monday to formally create the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, just days before its official dedication.
The memorial marks the massacre of nearly 160 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians by at least 700 volunteers of a Colorado regiment in an early morning raid on Nov. 29, 1864. Many of those killed in the unprovoked attack were elderly, women and children.
[The 12,500-acre site is] in Kiowa County, o
Source: BBC News
Apr 23, 2007
City planners in the Chinese capital, Beijing, have decided to bulldoze one of the oldest opera houses in the country, according to state media.
The Guanghe Theatre, in Beijing's historic Qianmen district, will be replaced with a more modern venue.
The theatre, constructed in the final years of the Ming Dynasty, continued to stage opera until the 1970s...
"It appears that yet another of the country's cultural heirlooms is doomed," the state-run ne
Source: Reuters
Apr 23, 2007
BRUSSELS -- Former Rwandan army major Bernard Ntuyahaga denied involvement on Monday in the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the country's prime minister in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, insisting he was an innocent bystander.
"I was at the bad place at the bad moment," he told the court on the second day of his trial.
Ntuyahaga is charged with murdering the Belgians and Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who they were trying to protect, on the day after
Source: AP
Apr 23, 2007
HARTFORD, Conn. -— When white masquerades as yellow and green might actually be blue, a call goes out to Henry DePhillips.
DePhillips, a Trinity College chemistry professor, is among a cadre of specialists using cutting-edge science to solve the color mysteries of paintings and other cultural treasures often several centuries old.
Art collectors and museums...increasingly are turning to DePhillips and other experts to analyze artwork that has deteriorated over time.
Source: Reuters
Apr 23, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- The last de facto president of Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship must stand trial on charges he kidnapped children born to parents killed during the country's "Dirty War," a judge ruled on Monday.
The ruling against Reynaldo Bignone marks the first time a member of Argentina's military junta will be tried publicly since military rulers were put on trial in 1985 on charges of human rights abuses.
Bignone and six other high-ranking office
Source: Reuters
Apr 23, 2007
Court rules Italy should return Venus to Libya
Mon Apr 23, 1:09 PM ET
ROME (Reuters) - Italy can return to Libya an ancient statue of Venus taken to Rome during Italian colonial rule in 1912, after a court ruled on Monday it was not part of Italy's cultural heritage.
The headless "Venus of Cyrene" was carried away from the town of Cyrene -- an ancient Greek colony -- by Italian troops and put on display in Rome.
Former prime minister
Source: Reuters
Apr 23, 2007
Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward helped expose the Watergate scandal, has spent eight years researching the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton and will publish a 640-page biography of her in June, the publisher said on Monday.
The book, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf, is called "A Woman in Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" and will have a first printing of 350,000 copies in the United States, a Knopf spokesman said.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com
Apr 23, 2007
For some time, the United States had had an emergency plan to attack Israel, a plan updated just prior to the 1967 war, aimed at preventing Israel from expanding westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank.
In May 1967, one of the U.S. commands was charged with the task of removing the plan from the safe, refreshing it and preparing for an order to go into action.
This unknown aspect of the war was revealed in what was originally a top-secret study conducted
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Apr 23, 2007
RICHMOND, Calif. -- Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."
Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.
But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hit
Source: Americans United for Separation of Church and State press release
Apr 23, 2007
The Bush administration has conceded that Wiccans are entitled to have the pentacle, the symbol of their faith, inscribed on government-issued memorial markers for deceased veterans, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today.
Wicca is a nature-based religion grounded in pre-Christian beliefs. Circle Sanctuary says the Wiccan religion honors the Divine as both Mother and Father, encompasses love and respect of Nature, celebrates the cycles of Sun and Moon, a
Source: University of Pennsylvania press release
Apr 23, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- A University of Pennsylvania scholar has pinpointed 1616 as the year of the first European voyage up the Delaware River.
Jaap Jacobs, a senior fellow at Penn's McNeil Center for Early American Studies, detailed his findings in a paper, "Truffle Hunting with an Iron Hog: The First Dutch Voyage up the Delaware River," presented to the McNeil Center Seminar Series on April 20...
Historians acknowledge that while earlier European explorers may have
Source: BBC News
Apr 23, 2007
Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea.
This lost landscape, where hunter gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age.
University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe".
This large plain had disappeared below the water more than 8,000 y
Source: New York Times
Apr 23, 2007
Boris N. Yeltsin, the burly provincial politician who became the first freely elected leader of Russia and a towering figure of his time when he presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Communist Party, has died at the age of 76, the Russian government said today.
A Kremlin spokesman confirmed Mr. Yeltsin’s death but gave no details about the circumstances or cause. The Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified medical source as saying the former pre
Source: Telegraph
Apr 23, 2007
BERLIN -- A building in Berlin that was once a headquarters of the Hitler Youth is to re-open as a British-owned members' club for the rich and famous.
The imposing eight-storey former department store near the German capital's trendy eastern districts has been unloved and crumbling for decades.
But now it has been snapped up by the owners of Soho House, London's fashionable media hang-out, and will be transformed into an exclusive club with a swimming pool, cinema and
Source: Los Angeles Times
Apr 23, 2007
MALYY GORODOK, Russia —- The painting exudes the sweet softness of idyllic village life: A mother, towel wrapped around her head, braids her daughter's hair while a young woman draws a red comb through her own tresses. A girl in a dark dress carries a samovar for tea, a little girl drinks from a white cup, and a cat makes its presence known.
Yuri Kugach, 90, still remembers the inspiration for one of his most famous paintings. He was visiting the home of a fisherman when he saw the
