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 21, 2007
NEW YORK -- Mass public shootings have become such a part of American life in recent decades that the most dramatic of them can be evoked from the nation's collective memory in a word or two: Luby's. Jonesboro. Columbine.
And now, Virginia Tech.
Since Aug. 1, 1966, when Charles Whitman climbed a 27-story tower on the University of Texas campus and started picking people off, at least 100 Americans have gone on shooting sprees.
And all through those years, t
Source: Reuters
Apr 21, 2007
TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Tokyo feels"responsible" for forcing women to work in brothels during World War II, Newsweek magazine has reported.
Abe's remark appears to be an effort to deflect U.S. criticism over comments he made last month that there was no proof the government or the military had forced the women, mostly Asian and many Korean, to serve Japanese soldiers in the brothels."We feel responsible for having forced these women to go through that hardsh
Source: CBC
Apr 21, 2007
An 18-line poem written by William Shakespeare is being published for the first time since it was discovered by American scholars. [It was apparently read Saturday on BBC Radio 4's"Today" program by actor Geoffrey Streatfeild.]"To the Queen by the Players" is believed to have been written for a performance at the court of Queen Elizabeth in 1599.
The poem was actually unearthed 30 years ago by Americans William Ringler and Steven May, who were searching through collectio
Source: Independent
Apr 21, 2007
SYDNEY -- The Australian War Memorial has unearthed what it believes is only the footage of Anzac Cove during the Gallipoli battle of World War One, an iconic event in Australian history that is commemorated each year on Anzac Day.
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) forces landed at Gallipoli in April 1915, part of a British-led campaign to confront Turkey and open up a sea route for Russia. Although the campaign was a disaster, with the two sides suffering more than 300,
Source: Los Angeles Times
Apr 21, 2007
FRESNO, Calif. — Rick Norsigian discovered the object of his obsession one sunny Saturday seven years ago at a garage sale.
A painter for the Fresno school district by day and inveterate antique buff the rest of his waking hours, Norsigian was combing through suburban castoffs when he came across a time-weathered wooden box. The crate was heavy with old glass-plate photographic negatives.
Frozen in early 20th century black and white were sharply detailed shots of Yosemi
Source: Toronto Star
Apr 21, 2007
The leader of an aboriginal blockade that paralyzed rail traffic between Toronto and Montreal for more than 30 hours promised this morning there will be more “economic disruptions” like the protest ended ahead of schedule...
Those targets are the railway, provincial highways and the town of Deseronto, Brant said as he puffed on cigarettes at the gravel quarry that is the heart of the dispute...
Condominiums are planned using gravel from the quarry for an area known as t
Source: Times (of London)
Apr 21, 2007
On a crisp spring morning in 1973 a pale and emaciated man made his way slowly across the Lo Wu bridge from China into Hong Kong. A British soldier at the frontier post saluted him as he approached. This was, the man later reflected, “the first act of dignity shown to him in 20 years”.
His name was Jack Downey. He was a CIA agent, and since 1952 he and a colleague, Richard Fecteau, had languished in a Chinese prison, often in solitary confinement, secret hostages in the Cold War bet
Source: Guardian
Apr 21, 2007
Winston Churchill We shall fight on the beaches June 4 1940
John F Kennedy Ask not what your country can do for you January 20 1961
Nelson Mandela An ideal for which I am prepared to die April 20 1964
Harold Macmillan The wind of change February 3 1960
Franklin Delano Roosevelt The only thing we have to fear is fear itself March 4 1933
Nikita Khrushchev The cult of the individual February 25 1956
Emmeline Pankhurst Fr
Source: Los Angeles Times
Apr 21, 2007
ROME —- Limbo has been in limbo for quite some time, but is now on its way to extinction.
A Vatican committee that spent years examining the medieval concept published a much-anticipated report Friday, concluding that unbaptized babies who die may go to heaven.
That could reverse centuries of Roman Catholic traditional belief...
The Vatican's International Theological Commission issued its findings —- with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI —- in a document
Source: Los Angeles Times
Apr 21, 2007
WASHINGTON —- It was the year 2000, and Rep. George P. Radanovich was on his way to the Capitol, expecting the House to pass a long-debated resolution he was sponsoring to recognize the Armenian genocide almost a century ago.
But just as the Republican from Mariposa prepared to step onto the House floor, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) called off the vote because President Clinton personally had warned him that the symbolic but emotion-charged resolution could damage national sec
Source: AFP
Apr 21, 2007
Archaeologists in northeastern Greece have unearthed eight tombs containing the remains of men and women who lived more than 2,000 years ago, along with jewellery, weapons and agricultural tools.
The tombs, dating from the fifth to third centuries BC, were dug into rock, were probably covered with stone slabs and may have lain beside an ancient road, the Culture Ministry said.
They were discovered between Salonika and Edessa during road construction.
Source: Times (of London)
Apr 21, 2007
Decades of controversy over the right to one of the grandest aristocratic titles in the British Isles has finally been settled, after the Lord Chancellor ruled in favour of a gardener instead of a builder.
Paul Fitzgerald, the Californian head of a construction company, claimed that he was the rightful 9th Duke of Leinster, an Irish title granted by George III in 1766. But Lord Falconer of Thoroton decided that the title should remain with Maurice FitzGerald, whose father inherited
Source: AAP (Australia)
Apr 20, 2007
It was the biggest museum theft in the nation's history, with more than 2,000 specimens, including a skull from the now-extinct Tasmanian tiger, stolen from Sydney's Australian Museum.
Former museum pest controller Hendrikus van Leeuwen, convicted of the theft, was today jailed for up to seven years for what a judge described as "enormous, incalculable harm".
Source: AP
Apr 20, 2007
NEW YORK -- It started with a clogged dust mask that fell onto the desk of Jan Ramirez on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. A friend had used the paper mask to breathe while fleeing downtown Manhattan as the air was filled with grit and smoke from the World Trade Center towers.
"That dust mask is going to be an important artifact some day," Ramirez recalled the friend telling her.
Today, the mask has become a museum piece, one small part of the largest records
Source: BBC
Apr 20, 2007
The legend of Atlantis, the country that disappeared under the sea, may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami.
Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers, while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts.
But around 150
Source: Houston Chronicle
Apr 20, 2007
Glaucus and Scylla, a 1841 oil on wood by J.M.W. Turner that the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth returned to the heirs of British collectors John and Anna Jaffé last summer, is back at the Kimbell —- which paid $5.7 million for it at auction.
The painting had been in the Kimbell's collection for 40 years until Alain Monteagle, a Jaffé descendant, proved it had been unlawfully seized by France's pro-Nazi Vichy government in 1943.
The gold and russet Turner shows a lovestruck s
Source: Reuters
Apr 20, 2007
HANOI -- Internationally renowned Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh on Friday led larger-than-expected crowds in a ceremony intended to heal wounds of the Vietnam war that ended 32 years ago this month.
In a sermon near Hanoi, Nhat Hanh advised thousands of monks and lay people to pray equally for those who fought and died on both sides, the communist north and the U.S.-backed south.
"We know that you fought courageously for our nation," said Nhat Hanh, a resident of F
Source: Houston Chronicle
Apr 20, 2007
The attack on Mexican troops at the Battle of San Jacinto came at just the right time and place 171 years ago today, leading to a "Texian" victory that secured independence from Mexico.
If re-enacters wanted to replicate the battle today on the same ground, they'd have to wade through a reflecting pool at the base of the towering San Jacinto Monument. Officials now want to restore the landscape of the San Jacinto Battleground State Historical Park to resemble the way it wa
Source: BBC News
Apr 20, 2007
A 76-year-old professor who was killed while protecting his students during the Virginia Tech shooting has been buried in Israel, his adopted home.
Romanian-born Holocaust survivor Liviu Librescu was hailed a hero for holding the gunman at bay as his class escaped.
Romania awarded Mr Librescu its highest medal and officials attended the burial in the central Israeli town of Raanana...
Jewish human rights organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has highlighted the"unbelievable" irony th
Source: U.S. European command press release
Apr 20, 2007
STUTTGART ARMY AIRFIELD, Germany —- A survivor of seven Nazi labor and concentration camps made good on a promise he made years ago to fellow prisoners when he gave the closing prayer at a Holocaust mass grave here April 15.
Benjamin Gelhorn, 86, said he was the “most happiest man” to give the Kaddish prayer at the placement of gravestones ceremony for 34 Jewish victims at the former World War II forced labor camp known as KZ (concentration camp) Echterdingen...
The 86-
