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: NYT
Apr 5, 2006
Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375 million-year-old fish, a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought "missing link" in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land.
In addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils are widely seen by scientists as a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who hold a literal biblical view on the origins and development of life.
Source: AP
Apr 5, 2006
Archaeologists are digging up a parking lot believed to have been the site of a slave holding pen whose artifacts could expose new facets of Richmond's slave past.
Researchers with the James River Institute for Archaeology will spend this week digging into a 90-by-90-foot patch of land behind the restored Main Street train station in Shockoe Bottom, one of the oldest sections of this former capital of the Confederacy.
Source: BBC
Apr 5, 2006
As the 25th anniversary of the Brixton riot approaches, BBC News examines the significance of the events of April 1981. The rioting which began in Brixton, in the south London borough of Lambeth, in April 1981 shocked the nation.
For three days, rioters - predominately young, black men - fought police, attacked buildings and set fire to vehicles.
More than 300 people were injured and the damage caused came to an estimated value of £7.5
Source: Yahoo News
Apr 5, 2006
An almost-forgotten story of a 1930s anti-immigrant campaign has been brought back into historical focus. Tens of thousands, and possibly more than 400,000, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were pressured - through raids and job denials - to leave the USA during the Depression, according to a USA TODAY review of documents and interviews with historians and deportees. Many, mostly children, were U.S. citizens.If their tales seem incredible, a newspaper analysis of the history t
Source: Yahoo
Apr 4, 2006
Laborers working on the infrastructure of a sewage canal network have unearthed a Roman-era burial cave from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. near the ruins of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, the official National News Agency reported Tuesday. Site supervisor Khaled al-Rifai said the cave contained one human skeleton, leaves made of gold, glass rings and other artifacts.
Al-Rifai was quoted as saying that representatives of the antiquities department accompanied th
Source: BBC`
Apr 4, 2006
A college lecturer believes he has found proof that the woman said to have played a key role in defeating the last army to invade Britain really existed. Pembrokeshire man Andrew Thomas claims he has found the baptism records of Jemima Nicholas, who tricked French troops into surrendering in 1797.
Nicholas told local women to dress in a black-and-red traditional costume, and the French thought they were soldiers.
But the origins of the heroine, who died in 1832, have
Source: BBC
Apr 4, 2006
Britain's only prime ministerial library is appealing for help in carrying out a major refurbishment programme. St Deiniol's Library in Hawarden, Flintshire, houses more than 30,000 books which once belonged to the former prime minister William Gladstone. The library needs £500,000 to complete the necessary improvements.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
Apr 4, 2006
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Monday to recommend that Education Department officials protect college students from anti-Semitism by "vigorously enforcing" Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also called on university leaders to denounce hate speech on their campuses and to ensure that all academic units, including departments of Middle East studies, "respect intellectual diversity."
Source: AP
Apr 4, 2006
The national memorial to honor Martin Luther King Junior is inching closer to reality.
State Farm Insurance has donated a million dollars toward the project. Edward Rust, the company's chief executive, is urging other businesses to support the memorial as well.A four-acre memorial honoring King is slated for the Tidal Basin near the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. So far $58 million has been raised for the $100 million project - a big jump from just the $5
Source: CNN
Apr 4, 2006
The only conscientious objector to receive a Medal of Honor in World War II has been buried at a national cemetery with a 21-gun salute.
Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, died March 23 in Piedmont, Alabama, where he and his wife, Frances, had been living with family.
A horse-drawn hearse delivered the flag-covered casket to the grave site Monday in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Military helicopters flew overhead in a tribute formation.
Source: Daily News
Apr 4, 2006
The Memphis Police Department dispatcher is calm, barking out orders even as the city outside begins to descend into chaos. It's shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, and unconfirmed reports have begun trickling in over the radio that something terrible has happened at the Lorraine Motel in Downtown Memphis.
"Reverend King has been shot ... confirm ... Rev. King has been shot," the dispatcher bellows on an excerpt from a police dispatch tape.
Source: NYT
Apr 4, 2006
Only a few months ago Mariwan Halabjayi was an obscure 42-year-old Kurdish writer. Now he is a famous fugitive who moves from house to house, not daring to go near the windows for fear that assassins will catch sight of him.
Mr. Halabjayi denies that he was hunting for fame or political asylum. He said his book, "Sex, Legislation and Women in Islamic History," was an honest effort to examine questions that matter deeply to him.
Source: NYT
Apr 4, 2006
Egypt's leading Islamic jurist has issued a fatwa that declares the exhibition of statues in homes un-Islamic. The religious edict by the grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, overturning a ruling issued more than 100 years ago, did not mention statues in museums or public places but aroused fears among art lovers that it might prompt extremists to attack thousands of ancient statues on view at tourist sites across the country, Agence France-Presse reported.
Source: NYT
Apr 4, 2006
During the heated immigration debate on Capitol Hill, some Republicans have portrayed immigrants as invaders, criminals and burdens to society. But for Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, the image that comes to mind is that of his mother and the day the authorities took her away.
It was 1943, World War II was raging, and federal agents were sweeping through Albuquerque hunting for Italian sympathizers. They found Mr. Domenici's mother, Alda V. Domenici, a curly-hair
Source: NYT
Apr 4, 2006
There's another battle brewing in Gettysburg, and this one has to do with whether gambling is fitting and proper for the historic Pennsylvania community.
The area, site of the most decisive battle of the Civil War more than a century ago, is fighting over a proposal to build a 3,000- slot machine parlor about two miles from its center.After a contentious two-hour meeting Monday night, the borough council voted 6 to 3 to support the application of Cro
Source: Haaretz
Apr 4, 2006
In 1943, at the height of World War II and the systematic annihilation of European Jewry, Gitl Lerner, a 45-year-old Jewish woman, hid with five of her children in the home of a Polish farmer. The six managed to escape a transport to the Majdanek death camp and found shelter along with two Jewish youths. On the night of October 30, Polish farmers in the area stabbed Lerner and the five children to death.
Sixty years later Roni Lerner, an Israeli businessman and Gitl's grandson, set
Source: Yahoo News
Apr 4, 2006
Sweden helped the Nazis stop Germans and Jews marrying and suppressed criticism of Hitler and reports of atrocities, says new research suggesting neutral Sweden accommodated the Nazis more than previously thought. "We are finding new areas of collaboration which we didn't know about," said Stockholm University historian Klas Amark, who coordinated the research commissioned by Prime Minister Goran Persson in 2000 in connection with a Holocaust conference.
Source: Yahoo News
Apr 4, 2006
Southeast Asia's richest underwater archeological find are stashed at a site that is at the center of a shadowy scandal entwining accused modern-day pirates, booty worth millions of dollars, stern diplomatic protests and murky corruption allegations. At risk, experts say, is priceless Indonesian history.Timber and iron beams from a 10th-century wreck -- which could provide information about ancient trading routes and the arrival of Islam in Indo
Source: MSNBC
Apr 4, 2006
For centuries, historians have portrayed Mozart as poor, but new documents suggest the composer was not nearly as hard-up for cash as many have believed.Scholars who combed through Austrian archives for an exhibition opening Tuesday on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s later years in Vienna found evidence that he was solidly upper-crust and lived the good life.
Letters show that Mozart repeatedly borrowed money from friends to pay for his travels and his social ob
Source: BBC
Apr 3, 2006
A garter worn by King Charles I on the day of his execution has been bought by a private collector for £4,400.
The blue ribbon belonging to the son of James VI of Scotland was sold at Shapes Auctioneers in Edinburgh on Saturday.
After the English Civil War, Charles was found guilty of treason by one vote and was beheaded at Whitehall in 1649.
During his reign as King of England, the Fife-born monarch caused unrest north of the border by trying to force a new p
