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: BBC News
Feb 27, 2006
Descendants of a Scottish clan have launched a bid to reclaim ownership of a tiny island in Loch Lomond. The Clan MacFarlane Society is worried about the condition of Island I Vow between Tarbet and Ardlui, which was once an ancestral stronghold.
It said the island, which is barely the size of a football pitch, was suffering at the hands of vandals.
But a couple from Bo'ness, who are also Macfarlanes, believe they have the best claim on the island
Source: Washington Times
Feb 27, 2006
Choked in ivy, its balconies and pillars crumbling, the once-imposing villa looks as if it were abandoned years ago. A curtain twitches. A dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses peers out before whipping it back. She lives in just two rooms of the spacious property and one of those has a hole in the ceiling. The others are uninhabitable owing to damp, mold and broken windows.
There has been no heating for 25 years. Water has to be heated on a stove.
Source: Wa Po
Feb 27, 2006
Previously unpublished photographs from the civil rights era were discovered in an equipment closet at the Birmingham News and appeared for the first time Sunday in a special section of the newspaper.The cardboard box with thousands of negatives, marked "Keep. Do Not Sell," was discovered in November 2004 by a photo intern, Alexander Cohn, who went through the files and interviewed people in the pictures to help produce the eight-page section, "Unseen. U
Source: NYT
Feb 26, 2006
CHINA will soon release statistics showing it has passed Japan as the biggest holder of foreign currency the world has ever seen. Its reserves already exceed $800 billion and are on track to reach $1 trillion by the end of the year, up from just under $4 billion in 1989.
But China, it turns out, has held a similar position before. History offers parallels to the yawning United States trade deficit and the resulting accumulation of dollars in China. China
Source: chron.com
Feb 26, 2006
SELMA, ALA. - The Museum of Slavery and Civil Rights plans to offer a new frontier in "experiential tourism" this spring: a day as a slave. "In order to heal, we must embrace the history of slavery here in America," said Afriye We-kandodis, the museum's director.Not everyone is so excited. George Swift steers visitors to the National Voting Rights Museum, but he's not as enthusiastic about its sister attraction.
"Some things
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Feb 26, 2006
One month ago, a historic event took place in Buenos Aires when the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo staged their 1,500th, and last, demonstration.Crowds had been arriving since the day before, and tents littered the grass. Left-wing political factions had set up booths and were distributing literature. Images of Eva Peron and Che Guevara mixed with banners carrying slogans. Vendors on the outskirts hawked their wares to passers-by and tourists.
It was a festival,
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2006
The Public Broadcasting Service's plan to show a debate after its documentary in April on the Ottoman Turks' massacres of Armenians has infuriated Armenian-Americans. The debate, which includes two people who deny that the massacre constituted genocide, has ignited an aggressive campaign against the network.This week, United States Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of Pasadena, Calif., whose Southern California district includes parts of the largest ethnic Armeni
Source: NYT
Feb 25, 2006
From 1996 to 1998, Burt Neuborne represented Holocaust survivors in a historic lawsuit that accused Swiss banks of helping the Nazis loot hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Jewish holdings. His labors helped win a $1.25 billion settlement.A respected civil rights lawyer and law school professor, Mr. Neuborne did the work without asking a fee, and was widely praised for his central role in the case.
Then in 1999, Mr. Neuborne took on an expanded role — as l
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 24, 2006
Many of those who were present recall the "deathly silence" that fell across the hall. It was the evening of February 25 1956. Unexpectedly, delegates at the 20th congress of the Communist party had been ushered into a final, closed session at central committee headquarters in Moscow. When the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, took the tribune and began to speak, some members of the audience fainted. Others clawed their heads in despair. Most could not believe their ears.
Source: Times-Picayune
Feb 24, 2006
DAUPHIN ISLAND, ALA. -- Armed with a short shovel, Glenn Forest crouched in the sand under one of the hundreds of Hurricane Katrina-wrecked homes on this island's west end. He uncovered a section of wooden hull here, a length of iron-ringed mast there -- indications, he said, of a possibly historic 45-foot ship fragment.
Hours earlier, he had stopped a repair crew at the house from breaking up the structure.
"They were going to cut it up and
Source: ansa.it
Feb 24, 2006
The forthcoming publication of the 'Gospel of Judas' has sparked fears among some Catholic theologians that it could give people wrong ideas about the man who is famous for betraying Jesus Christ .The second century text, which was believed lost for over a thousand years, reportedly argues that Judas Iscariot was an essential part of God's design and, as such, almost a hero. Without his betrayal, Jesus would not have been crucified and so, the argument goes, God's plan
Source: Romanesko
Feb 24, 2006
Jay Rockefeller, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made that charge Thursday in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. Murray Waas asks: Did those leaks to Bob Woodward damage national security?
Source: AP
Feb 24, 2006
The Hyatt hotel chain has come under fire for agreeing to host a conference this weekend sponsored by a white supremacist group. The conference in the Washington suburb of Herndon is sponsored by the Oakton, Va.-based New Century Foundation, whose leader says the white race is losing its identity in the United States because of multiculturalism and immigration.
Students at George Mason University organized a phone campaign to urge the Hyatt to
Source: Japan Focus
Feb 24, 2006
South Korea’s Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under Japanese Imperialism, working closely with Japanese activist groups, is currently trying to get the government to remit the unpaid wages and other benefits owed hundreds of thousands of Koreans who had been conscripted for military service or labor in wartime Japan.
Source: Seattle Times
Feb 24, 2006
The story his bones tell has no clear beginning yet. But the end is coming into sharp focus, say scientists who have been studying the controversial skeleton for the past six months.It's now clear the man Native Americans call the Ancient One was deliberately buried — not just covered over with sediment, said Doug Owsley, leader of the team that first examined the skeleton last summer and returned for another round of study this month.
Owsley, a phys
Source: Seattle P-I
Feb 24, 2006
Mayor Ken Livingstone refused to apologize for comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi camp guard, and now he's facing four weeks off the job - suspended for bringing his office into disrepute.The famously combative mayor said Friday's ruling by a disciplinary panel struck a blow against democracy, but many wondered why he couldn't just say sorry.
"Had the mayor simply recognized the upset his comments had caused, this sorry episode could have been avoi
Source: BBC News
Feb 24, 2006
A repairs package aimed at restoring the nation's damaged war memorials has been unveiled by English Heritage. Forty memorials will receive handouts for work including stonework repair, cleaning and metal conservation.
Among the memorials which benefited this year are one outside Sheffield City Hall, a village cross in Devon and one destroyed by vandals in Merseyside.
The award is the largest in the history of the six-year-old scheme run by the Wa
Source: WSBTV
Feb 23, 2006
ALBANY -- Authorities in southwest Georgia are investigating after a Civil War-era cemetery was plowed under by workers at a plantation.The site is next to the Ecila Plantation in western Dougherty County near Albany. Sheriff's investigators say the manager of the plantation told them workers harrowed the area in May or June of 2004 -- NOT knowing the graves were there.
Sheriff's Lieutenant Craig Dodd tells WALB-TV that the area had become "something of an
Source: Romanesko
Feb 23, 2006
Not terrorism, says Bob Woodward. He also notes that Republicans have a long track record of nominating "old war horses." Given that, and depending on how things go in Iraq, "You're going to think I'm crazy, but you heard it here first. I think they could nominate Dick Cheney."
Source: Romanesko
Feb 23, 2006
Mike Wallace's collection includes transcripts of "60 Minutes" broadcasts and interviews with participants, viewer correspondence, background research, newspaper clippings and photographs, and story ideas in various stages of development that were dropped or never aired. Wallace is a 1939 University of Michigan graduate.
