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: Chicago Tribune
Aug 18, 2005
Within days of a very risky--and perhaps unprecedented--heart operation, the Chicago icon is once again ready to take on the world.Bowed a bit but not at all broken, and almost giddy at the prospect of returning to work, Studs Terkel walked gingerly out of Rush University Medical Center Wednesday afternoon after adding another item to his lengthy list of accomplishments.
The 93-year-old Terkel--lawyer, actor, radio host, best-selling author, activist, Puli
Source: NYT
Aug 17, 2005
For a man so seemingly intent on turning back time, there could be no better symbol than the one that Maulavi Qalamuddin has chosen for his campaign for Parliament: a clock.
Once, as the chief of the Department for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, Mr. Qalamuddin, a Muslim cleric, was the notorious face of Taliban-era moral policing. It was his men who cruised through town ordering the floggings of women who did not cover themselves from head to toe, or of men who dare
Source: NYT
Aug 17, 2005
A judicial inquiry here is turning up evidence that Canadian police and intelligence agencies solicited and used information that was obtained from at least four Canadian citizens under torture by foreign intelligence agencies.
The main purpose of the inquiry is to explore the Canadian role in the case of Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who has emerged as perhaps the most infamous example of the United States policy of rendition, the transfer of terrorism suspects to other nation
Source: Washington Post
Aug 17, 2005
Declaring "I am here as your warrior," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Friday that he will seek reelection in 2006, hoping to reverse a months-long slide in the polls and rejuvenate his campaign to pass three controversial ballot initiatives in November.
Girding for the toughest battle of his fledgling political career, the action-hero-turned-Republican politician came here -- the one major California city where his poll numbers have not plummeted -- and told a hand-p
Source: Washington Post
Aug 17, 2005
The rise of China as a regional force has shaken assumptions that had governed this vast region since the end of World War II, including that of uncontested U.S. naval and air power from California to the Chinese coast. With those days soon to end, senior officers said, the U.S. military in Asia is retooling to reflect new war-making technology, better prepare for military crises and counter any future threat from the emergent Chinese navy and air force.
Some U.S. specialists have p
Source: Washington University in St. Louis
Aug 17, 2005
Those high-tech, air-filled, light-as-a-feather sneakers on your feet are a far cry from the leather slabs our ancestors wore for protection and support. But believe it or not, our modern day Nikes and Reeboks are direct descendents of the first supportive footwear that new research suggests came into use in western Eurasia between 26,000 and 30,000 years ago. Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Physical Anthropology, derived those dates by an
Source: Gazette (Montreal)
Aug 17, 2005
Newly released British archival documents are prompting calls for the Canadian government to investigate whether previously unidentified war criminals were sent to this country in the 1940s after Home Office officials in London tried to "get rid of" certain "less desirable" Ukrainian prisoners who had fought with a notorious Nazi unit during the Second World War.The documents, brought to light by British amateur historian Stephen Ankier while resear
Source: NYT
Aug 17, 2005
It was July 1985 and the newly confirmed attorney general, Edwin Meese III, was preparing to address the American Bar Association. Trouble was, he was conflicted about what to say. A 17-day hostage crisis involving a hijacked American airliner had just ended, and Mr. Meese felt obliged to discuss terrorism. But the Supreme Court had just delivered a series of decisions that infuriated conservatives and reinforced President Ronald Reagan's resolve to steer the judiciary rightward. In the end, Mr.
Source: Bulgarian News Network
Aug 17, 2005
Bulgarian archeologists have discovered more than 15,000 gold jewellery items, which likely belonged to Thracian rulers, who reigned on the Balkans in the third millennium B.C., an official said Wednesday."The golden objects unearthed near the village of Dabene in central Bulgaria are not just pieces of Thracian jewellery. They are objects of exquisite regal ornamentation," National Museum of History Director Bozhidar Dimitrov told the AFP.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
Aug 17, 2005
A Duke University doctoral student was freed Tuesday, after an Armenian court found him guilty of illegally trying to take books out of the country but suspended his two-year prison sentence.Yektan Turkyilmaz had been held since June 17, when authorities at Yerevan Airport in Armenia yanked him off an airplane as he prepared to leave the country. They seized about 100 books that he had bought at secondhand stores and compact disks that contained notes from resear
Source: CNN
Aug 17, 2005
Coretta Scott King was hospitalized in fair condition Wednesday and a family friend said the 78-year-old widow of Martin Luther King Jr. had suffered a stroke.King was admitted to Piedmont Hospital on Tuesday, and the family released a statement Wednesday saying she was resting comfortably. It expressed thanks for the "outpouring of care and support that's being sent from around the world."
Hospital spokeswoman Diana Lewis and the family wouldn't discu
Source: BBC
Aug 17, 2005
A major Hollywood studio is to make a film about the fourth plane which was hijacked on 11 September 2001. Universal will begin filming its account of Flight 93 in October, which crashed after passengers attempted to overcome the hijackers. The movie, to be directed by British film-maker Paul Greengrass, will be a real-time account of the plane's hijack until its crash 90 minutes later. A documentary about Flight 93 is due to be shown on US television next month.According to
Source: NYT
Aug 17, 2005
It is the ultimate Washington story, told by the ultimate Washington chronicler. But in Washington and just about everywhere else, sales of "The Secret Man," Bob Woodward's story of the source known as Deep Throat, have been underwhelming.At Politics and Prose, a well-known independent bookstore in Washington, sales were "not very good, compared to expectations," said Mark LaFramboise, who ordered 400 copies of the book for the store. As of last week, Pol
Source: NYT
Aug 17, 2005
Under the Japanese occupation in World War II, Hong Kong's domed Legislative Council building was a torture center. But today hardly anyone seems to remember.From the graceful dome of the Legislative Council building to the gaudy entertainment district of Wan Chai to the touristy warren of small shops in Stanley, Hong Kong seems as peaceful and prosperous a city as any in Asia.
Muknam Chan/Getty Images, for The New York Times
Cai Song-ying, now 80, was a
Source: NYT
Aug 16, 2005
Chile's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the acquittal of former dictator Augusto Pinochet on charges that he ordered political abductions and murders as part of a conspiracy among South American dicatorships.
The high court upheld a decision by the Santiago Appeals Court in favour of the ailing ex-dictator, 89, who ruled with an iron fist from 1973-1990. But it is only one of dozens of investigations he faces.
Source: Advocate
Aug 16, 2005
This provocative headline appears on the current website of the gay periodical, the Advocate. It refers to a claim by Douglas Caddy, the attorney who first represented the defendants in the Watergate break-in, that he was singled out by prosecutors as a possible weak link in the Watergate cover-up because he was gay. Prosecutors wanted Caddy to identify the person who hired him to represent the Watergate defendants. When he refused to say--it was E. Howard Hunt, the former
Source: University Newswire Ascribe
Aug 16, 2005
The site of the first U.S. town founded by an African American, New Philadelphia, Ill., has been added to the National Register of Historic Places - the nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. A former slave founded New Philadelphia in 1836 as a bi-racial community 25 miles from the slave trade along the Mississippi River. The community survived into the twentieth century, and an archaeological team is excavating in the 42-acre field where the town once stood.
Source: NYT
Aug 16, 2005
Quipus are the mysterious bundles of colored and knotted threads that served as the Inca empire's means of recording information. The code of the quipus has long since been forgotten, and the only major advance in understanding them was the insight, made in 1923, that the knots were used to represent numbers.The quantity and positioning of the knots, at least in certain quipus, is agreed to represent a decimal system.
A new and possibly significant a
Source: NYT
Aug 16, 2005
Only an indistinct portrait of the young John G. Roberts Jr. emerged in thousands of pages released on Monday by the National Archives from the Supreme Court nominee's years in the Reagan White House. But the documents do provide a vivid reminder of the debates that consumed official Washington in those days.Some of the issues remain pertinent, while others are long forgotten. Anyone expecting the nearly 5,400 pages of documents, dating from late 1982 to mid-1986, to c
Source: Toronto Star
Aug 16, 2005
British spies asked Canada to help infiltrate the Cold War-era government of what is now the South American country of Guyana, a newly declassified study reveals.Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, sought assistance in placing a Canadian as "special economic adviser" to Dr. Cheddi Jagan, prime minister of British Guiana in the 1950s, says the study.
"The British hoped that the Canadians might be able to provide an economist
