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: WaPo
Jan 9, 2013
LONDON — Busy, congested, stressful. This is how the world’s first subway system was depicted by London newspapers in 1863. It’s a situation that would be familiar to nail-biting passengers of the present as the Tube turned 150 years old Wednesday.“The constant cry, as the trains arrived, of ‘no room,’ appeared to have a very depressing effect upon those assembled,” The Guardian newspaper reported on the public opening of London’s Metropolitan Line on Jan. 10, 1863. The first stretch of rail had opened the day before, on Jan. 9.The line — the first part of what is now an extensive London transport network that has shaped the British capital and its suburbs — ran 120 trains each way during the day, carrying up to 40,000 excited passengers. Extra steam locomotives and cars were called in to handle the crowds....
Source: Religion News Service
Jan 9, 2013
Whether by accident, serendipity or divine design, four future heavyweights of American Catholicism found themselves in the Class of 1962 at St. John’s Seminary.Momentous societal changes were surfacing all around the young men, but seminary life for George Niederauer, Roger Mahony, William Levada and Tod Brown continued much the same as it had for centuries. The four friends — a pair of cardinals-to-be, a future archbishop and bishop — were assigned alphabetically to desks and dorms. They arose at 5:30 a.m. and, within a half hour headed to the chapel for prayers and Mass. Silence was required during meals and after 7:30 p.m. Moral theology and philosophy classes were taught in Latin.The priests-in-waiting had neither televisions nor telephones and were forbidden to leave the campus in Camarillo, Calif., without permission. They could read about current events — such as the 1960 election of the first Catholic to the White House — but only in clips from approved newspapers....
Source: WaPo
Jan 9, 2013
Martin Luther King Jr. carried a black leather King James Bible on his journeys as a young pastor starting out in Montgomery, Ala. He turned to this “traveling Bible” for inspiration, his family says, as he fought for freedom and equality.President Obama will put his hand over King’s well-worn Bible at his public swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, the holiday celebrating the birthday of the slain civil rights leader. King’s Bible will be stacked with the burgundy velvet and gilded Bible used by President Abraham Lincoln at his first inauguration.Obama chose the Lincoln Bible for his inauguration in 2009, making him the first president to do so since it was initially used in 1861. President Harry S. Truman also used two Bibles, as did Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon.....
Source: WaPo
Jan 9, 2013
MERRILLVILLE, Ind. — A World War II veteran who served in France during the war has been reunited with his Army-issued duffel bag nearly seven decades after it went missing.Ninety-two-year-old William Kadar of Merrillville opened a carefully wrapped package Tuesday to find his drab green duffel bag inside. The folded up bag is still stenciled with his name and serial number....
Source: WaPo
Jan 9, 2013
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Oakland Museum of California offered a $12,000 reward Wednesday for the safe recovery of a stolen gold-encrusted jewel box — the latest in a series of thefts involving Gold Rush-era artifacts across the region.The box stolen Monday depicts images of early California history and was originally a wedding anniversary gift from a San Francisco pioneer to his wife in the 1800s, museum director Lori Fogarty said.It’s the size of a small shoebox and weighs about three pounds.Oakland city officials have said the box was valued at more than $800,000, but Fogarty said it was difficult to put a price on the artifact....
Source: WaPo
Jan 9, 2013
WASHINGTON — A Jewish group and the Justice Department argued in court Wednesday about the best way to get Russia to return the group’s historic books and documents.The group, Chabad-Lubavitch, wants the judge to impose civil fines on Russia. The department says fines won’t help resolve the dispute and in fact would be counterproductive....Chabad-Lubavitch, based in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, has already convinced Lamberth that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group’s core teachings and traditions. The judge ruled the records are unlawfully possessed by the Russian State Library and the Russian military archive. And in 2010, he ordered the Russian government to turn them over to the U.S. embassy in Moscow or to Chabad’s representative. The lawsuit is more than eight years old....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 9, 2013
It was not immediately clear how much damage the water may have caused, and searchers could not definitively say what was inside the crate.But British aviation enthusiast David J. Cundall, who is driving the hunt for the rare Spitfires, called the results "very encouraging.""It will take some time to pump the water out ... but I do expect all aircraft to be in very good condition," Mr Cundall said from Rangoon, Burma's main city.The single-seater Spitfire, which helped Britain beat back waves of German bombers during the war more than six decades ago, remains the most famous British combat aircraft....
Source: WaPo
Jan 8, 2013
The death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was savagely beaten and gang-raped on a moving bus in New Delhi last month has spurred widespread protests and debate about violence against women. Here are some other past high-profile rape cases in India, as reported in Indian news media:Hetal Parekh, 14, was raped and killed by Dhananjay Chatterjee, a guard in her apartment building, in Kolkata. Chatterjee was hanged in 2004.1992Bhanwari Devi was gang-raped in Rajasthan as a punishment for protesting the traditional practice of child marriage. The case is still dragging on in court. Two of the accused have died....
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2013
HANOI, Vietnam — School authorities in Vietnam have suspended an eighth-grade student for one year after she posted a parody of a speech by revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh on Facebook.State-controlled media said Tuesday that the girl’s post used language from a famous speech by Ho Chi Minh in 1946 appealing for resistance against French colonialists.The post joked about never having to take exams again....
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2013
WARSAW, Poland — Vladimir Lenin is not considered funny in Poland.A Polish mobile phone operator that used a cartoon image of the Russian communist revolutionary found itself barraged by angry feedback and responded this week by stopping its advertising campaign.Older Poles remember the late Soviet leader for shaping a communist regime that killed millions and imposed mass terror in the Soviet Union. A communist regime was later imposed on Poles against their will by the Soviets after World War II.... [HNN editor's note: The AP neglected to mention the Soviet-Polish War of 1919-1921, which Lenin was more directly involved in, as he had the distinct advantage of being alive when it broke out.]
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2013
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Elvis Presley fans from as far as Japan and Brazil gathered Tuesday in Memphis to sing “Happy Birthday” to the late rock ‘n’ roll icon on the day he would have turned 78.Hundreds of Elvis devotees watched as 13-year-old Isabella Scott cut a birthday cake on the lawn at Graceland, the singer’s longtime Memphis home. Scott, of Bonifay, Fla., heads an Internet-based Elvis fan club with more than 2,000 members....
Source: AP
Jan 8, 2013
Slavery-era action figures tied to Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” are raising questions about whether they’re appropriate.A line of figures of the movie’s main characters are on sale online, manufactured by toy maker NECA in partnership with the Weinstein Co.Najee Ali, director of the advocacy group Project Islamic Hope, plans a news conference Tuesday with other Los Angeles black community leaders calling for the removal of the toys from the market....
Source: WaPo
Jan 8, 2013
Wherever he goes, 11-year-old Adam Webb looks for Civil War artifacts to collect. In his bedroom, he displays 150-year-old Civil War items, including buttons and bullets. He also has a collection of books about the war. He sketches pictures of Civil War heroes and uses Lincoln Logs to build replicas of homes from the 1800s.“I love learning about the history of the Civil War,” says the Ashland Elementary School fifth-grader. Growing up in Manassas, he says, he has been surrounded by Civil War history his entire life....
Source: WaPo
Jan 8, 2013
It’s hard to find a city with a more complicated history than Cape Town, South Africa’s second-largest and one of the continent’s spots most affected by colonialism. Several moments in that long history come crashing together in the city’s annual new year’s celebrations, some of which are still going strong.Technically, the Cape Town holiday of Tweede Nuwe Jaar, which is Afrikaans (the language used by mostly Dutch descendants of European settlers in South Africa) for “second new year,” takes place on Jan. 2. But it can continue for days or even weeks in some parts of the city. It’s about partying, yes, but also street performances and marches from groups called “Klopses,” face-painted troupes that might look familiar to anyone who has seen Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans.The story of Tweede Nuwe Jaar goes back to the early Dutch settlers. Specifically, it has to do with the city’s history as a slave trading port. That’s right: This fun, free-wheeling holiday has its roots in the slave trade and in Cape Town’s history as an economic center of colonialism’s worst practices. Dave Mayers, with the CBS-affiliated news site SmartPlanet, runs down the origin of the story as it’s commonly told....
Source: The Root
Jan 8, 2013
Anonymous (Bohemia), Queen of Sheba.Illustration in Bellifortis by Conrad of Kyeser; before 1405.(The Root) -- This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Click here or on the SOURCE link to read more about the image.
Source: TheRoot
Jan 7, 2013
We've all heard the story of the "40 acres and a mule" promise to former slaves. It's a staple of black history lessons, and it's the name of Spike Lee's film company. The promise was the first systematic attempt to provide a form of reparations to newly freed slaves, and it was astonishingly radical for its time, proto-socialist in its implications. In fact, such a policy would be radical in any country today: the federal government's massive confiscation of private property -- some 400,000 acres -- formerly owned by Confederate land owners, and its methodical redistribution to former black slaves. What most of us haven't heard is that the idea really was generated by black leaders themselves....
Source: Discovery News
Jan 7, 2013
An ancient doctor likely knew the composition of the medicines loaded aboard a doomed ship preparing to sail into the Mediterranean. But it would be another approximately 2,200 years until anyone else learned the ingredients of the six grey pills, which were lost beneath the waves along with the rest of the ship, known as the "Relitto del Pozzino."A team of Italian archeologists, chemists and biologists deciphered the chemical clues to the composition of an ancient medicine packed in the cargo of a ship sunk in 18 meters (59 feet) of water off the coast of Tuscany.The six flat disks were held in a tin container which was probably once held in a larger wooden box that rotted away. Other medical implements of the time were found nearby.Discovery News reported on an earlier study that discovered the medicine contained a mixture of mineral and plant materials, but not exactly which chemicals....
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jan 7, 2013
A high-street clothing retailer is selling a T-shirt which features some of the world's most notorious dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.Urban Outfitters - which is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has 24 stores across the UK - is selling the white T-shirt for £32 and it features the black heading of 'D.W.A. - Dictators with Attitude'.The T-shirt, which is listed as an ‘online exclusive’ on the company’s website, jokes that Gaddafi, Hitler and Hussein are in the ‘world's most notorious rap group’ along with Idi Amin and Kim Jong-Il....
Source: WaPo
Jan 7, 2013
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Artists often put oil to canvas at this time of year to render the official portrait of a governor or legislative leader who’s coming or going from office.Oil paintings of American politicians go back to George Washington. It’s a tradition that’s been made largely immune to budget pressures thanks to private funding.But the practice isn’t without its challenges. The commissioning and placement of the portraits — most consistently governors, but also legislators, justices and other statewide officials — can raise quirky questions.What of the Ohio governor whose portrait probably took longer to paint than her 11-day tenure in office? Or the image of an Oregon governor whose past misdeeds were later revealed?...
Source: WaPo
Jan 7, 2013
President Obama has picked Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights icon Medgar Evers, to deliver the invocation at his public swearing-in later this month. It is believed to be the first time a woman, and a layperson rather than a clergy member, has been chosen to deliver what may be America’s most prominent public prayer.The inaugural committee Tuesday plans to announce that the benediction will be given by conservative evangelical pastor Louie Giglio, founder of the student-focused Passion Conferences, which draw tens of thousands of people to events around the world.The contrasting choice of speakers are typical of a president who has walked a sometimes complicated path when it comes to religion — working to be inclusive to the point that critics at times have questioned his faith....
