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
Jun 27, 2012
"Who do I call if I want to call Europe?"Variations of that question have been attributed for decades to Henry Kissinger, but the former U.S. secretary of state says he doesn't think it originated with him.The 89-year-old, who served as America's top diplomat under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s, said Wednesday that he thinks an Irish foreign minister first used the expression in describing a meeting between the two."I am not sure I actually said it," Kissinger told an audience that included diplomats and academics. He then drew laughs when he added, "But it's a good statement so why not take credit for it?"...
Source: Nature
Jun 27, 2012
An eerie "red crucifix" seen in Britain's evening sky in ad 774 may be a previously unrecognized supernova explosion — and could explain a mysterious spike in carbon-14 levels in that year's growth rings in Japanese cedar trees. The link is suggested today in a Nature Correspondence by a US undergraduate student with a broad interdisciplinary background and a curious mind1.A few weeks ago, Jonathon Allen, a biochemistry major at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was listening to the Nature podcast when he heard about a team of researchers in Japan who had found an odd spike in carbon-14 levels in tree rings. The spike probably came from a burst of high-energy radiation striking the upper atmosphere, increasing the rate at which carbon-14 is formed (see 'Mysterious radiation burst recorded in tree rings').
Source: NYT
Jun 27, 2012
WASHINGTON — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is not known for delivering laugh lines. But she drew chuckles from a group of liberal lawyers not long ago while recalling how Justice Elena Kagan, 52, had suggested during an oral argument before the Supreme Court that people born before 1948 were old.“Next year I will turn 80, God willing,” Justice Ginsburg said. “ ‘I’m not all that old,’ I told my youngest colleague.”Justice Ginsburg is the eldest member of a court that includes four justices in their 70s, making it among the oldest courts since the New Deal era. Its decisions during this historic “flood season,” as Justice Ginsburg described the end-of-term rush, are likely to make the panel — and the tenure of some of the justices — a significant issue in the presidential campaign....
Source: CBS News
Jun 27, 2012
Today Congress took a step to right an injustice.They awarded the Congressional Gold Medal -- the highest civilian honor -- to the Montford Point Marines, the first African-Americans to serve in the corps. Their sacrifices were long overlooked.
Source: WaPo
Jun 27, 2012
For decades, McGuinness was an avowed enemy of the British empire — a representative of a paramilitary group that in 1979 killed the queen’s beloved cousin Louis Mountbatten with a bomb planted on his fishing boat.But in a potent sign of just how far the peace process in Northern Ireland has come, the queen and McGuinness, now deputy first minister in Northern Ireland’s provincial government, exchanged pleasantries at a meeting in Belfast that would have been difficult for McGuinness’s Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, to stomach even a few years ago.“You could see it as a last piece in a jigsaw peace process which has been very slowly and carefully put together over 20 years,” said Diarmaid Ferriter, a professor of modern history at University College Dublin....
Source: United States Naval Institute
Jun 27, 2012
While publicly claiming neutrality between Argentina and the U.K. during the 1982 Falklands War, President Ronald Reagan’s administration had developed plans to loan a ship to the Royal Navy if it lost one of its aircraft carriers in the war, former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, told the U.S. Naval Institute on June 26.Lehman and then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger agreed to support U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with the loan of the amphibious warship USS Iwo Jima , he said.“We agreed that [Weinberger] would tell the President that we planned to handle all these requests routinely without going outside existing Navy channels,” Lehman said in a speech provided to the U.S. Naval Institute he made in Portsmouth, U.K. “We would ‘leave the State Department, except for [Secretary of State Al] Haig, out of it.’”...
Source: CS Monitor
Jun 27, 2012
It was a moment pregnant with symbolism, but one that remained closed to the public and was initially intended to not even be photographed: a senior Irish republican shaking the hand of the British Queen.The deputy first minister of Northern Ireland shaking the hand of the monarch who remains head of state of Northern Ireland would normally be a fairly mundane affair. But the office is held by Martin McGuinness – not just a Sinn Féin politician, but also a leader of the Irish Republican Army, which fought a three-decade bloody civil conflict against British forces.Given who he is, the handshake is being hailed as the final major act of the Irish peace process....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 27, 2012
Poppies bloom in the fallow fields of Lincolnshire, sudden outbreaks of red in a verdant landscape – nature’s unintended tribute to the thousands of young men who flew from this place into the dark heart of Nazi Germany, never to return.The Second World War lingers here, in bomber country. Small memorials commemorating long-disbanded squadrons mark rural crossroads, and white headstones adorned with the Royal Air Force crest dot medieval churchyards. Lincolnshire is far from prairie flat but it enjoys a big sky. It needed to be big in the years 1942 to 1945 when, as the epicentre of RAF Bomber Command, the county was home to hundreds of Avro Lancasters.“There were 46 military airfields in the county by 1945 and 24 of them were devoted to the strategic air offensive,” says Patrick Otter, who has made a study of Lincolnshire’s bomber past. “You couldn’t drive seven miles without bumping into the RAF.”...
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 27, 2012
Nearly 50,000 coins thought to have been hidden away from Julius Caesar's advancing army have been found on Jersey.The trove was found by local metal detector enthusiasts Reg Mead and Richard Miles, who had been hunting for them for nearly 30 years."We hit something hard. We just put the shovel in here and moved it. We hear that grinding noise of metal rubbing against metal. Just flicked and out came five Iron Age coins. You just go numb. You say: isn't that lovely? And it's a very quiet feeling, isn't it? Wow," Mr Mead said on the discovery....
Source: WaPo
Jun 26, 2012
The life of Carl Sagan now fills the tabletops of two vast rooms in the Madison Building of the Library of Congress. The life arrived in recent weeks at the building’s loading dock on 41 pallets containing 798 boxes.Sagan famously talked about billions of stars and billions of galaxies, and it appears that he saved roughly that many pieces of paper.The material documents Sagan’s energetic career as an astronomer, author, unrivaled popularizer of science and TV star, and it ranges from childhood report cards to college term papers to eloquent letters written just before his untimely death in 1996 at age 62. Also in the mix are files labeled F/C, for “fissured ceramics,” Sagan’s code name for letters from crackpots.And there’s this, from Johnny Carson, after Sagan declared that he’d never actually used the much-satirized phrase “billions and billions” on “The Tonight Show”: “Even if you didn’t say ‘billions and billions’ you should have. — Johnny.”...
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jun 26, 2012
Staring into the camera, some with defiance and others in child-like wonder, these scruffy boys and girls look like any other group of Victorian urchins.But while some of the children may appear to be a picture of innocence, the gallery is in fact a collection of young criminals from the 1870s.The rogues' gallery of offenders, some as young as 11, includes thieves and pickpockets who stole anything from cash to clothes and even odd pieces of metal.The fascinating Victorian images, which all feature children from the Newcastle area, have been released today by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums.The petty criminality detailed in the charges may be the same as in Britain now, but the mixture of scruffy clothing and more formal Victorian street attire worn by the children is a world away from the hoodies, trainers and sportswear of many of today's lawless youths....
Source: Independent (UK)
Jun 26, 2012
Archaeologists in Greece's second-largest city have uncovered a 70-metre section of an ancient road built by the Romans that was city's main travel artery nearly 2,000 years ago.The marble-paved road was unearthed during excavations for Thessaloniki's new underground system, which is due to be completed in four years.The road in the northern port city will be raised to be put on permanent display when the metro opens in 2016....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 26, 2012
According to tradition, true Cockneys must be born within earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside.In days gone by, they could be heard across much of north and east London and as far south as Southwark, meaning any baby born within earshot was defined as a Cockney.Now, research by 24 Accoustics suggests the noise of the bells only reaches the city of London and Shoreditch....
Source: LA Times
Jun 25, 2012
They might well be the most powerful men and women in the nation, but most Americans probably couldn't pick the members of the U.S. Supreme Court out of a lineup. (Unless perhaps they were the only ones wearing long black robes.)......[A]ccording to a Pew Research Center Poll, a majority of Americans cannot name the court's chief justice. (The survey was taken in 2010, but there's little to suggest that Americans have been boning up on their Supreme Court knowledge since then.)From the survey: Only 28% correctly identified John Roberts as the chief justice of the Supreme Court. More than half said they didn't know....
Source: NYT
Jun 25, 2012
Over the past five years or so, the Romanian Cultural Institute has become an important force in global cultural exchanges, promoting writers, artists and especially the critically acclaimed cinema movement known as the Romanian New Wave. But the coalition government that recently came to power in Romania has ordered an end to that international focus as it tightens its political control over the institute, actions that have set off protests among arts groups throughout Europe and the United States.Under an “emergency decree” handed down on June 14, the institute, a non-partisan entity that formerly reported directly to the president, now responds to a Senate riven by partisanship. Its new mandate: to direct its activities at the Romanian diaspora community. As a result, collaborations with American arts institutions — including Lincoln Center, co-sponsor of an annual Romanian film festival, and publishing houses specializing in translated literature — could be in jeopardy. And in recent days, organizations including the Museum of Modern Art, Film Forum and Melville House have sent letters to the new prime minister and other government authorities, urging them rescind the measure....
Source: NYT
Jun 25, 2012
BATTIR, West Bank — In this scenic Palestinian village in the West Bank hills near Bethlehem, just south of Jerusalem, a week is said to last eight days, not seven. That is because Battir’s eight extended families take daily turns watering their crops from the natural springs that feed their ancient agricultural terraces, a practice they say has worked for centuries....
Source: Politico
Jun 25, 2012
Anyone who’s been a seventh-grader knows all about tours of Washington: the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Washington Monument and so on. It’s enough to put your civic pride into overdrive.Sean Williams has a different type of tour for you.While the company he founded, DC Walkabout, offers seven different tours, one has been a crowd favorite since he launched it earlier this summer: the American Scandal tour.For two hours, Williams takes a group on a walk highlighting the infamous side of Washington — from Marion Barry to Richard Nixon and Monica Lewinsky to Eliot Spitzer. On DC Walkabout’s website, the tour is referred to as “ recommended for adults” and “rated R (for ridiculous).”...
Source: AP
Jun 25, 2012
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — You may not recognize a Gadsden flag by name, but you've probably seen one — a banner with a coiled rattlesnake and the warning "Don't tread on me" that was flown by colonists rebelling against British rule.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Jun 23, 2012
A landmark townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a rare example of the opulent Gilded Age, has been sold for a staggering $42million.The mansion, located on a tree-lined block of Fifth Avenue, was designed by famed architect Stanford White and built for the banker and railroad tycoon Henry H. Cook.Though it was sold to an undisclosed buyer for $7million less than the asking price, the new owner bought a mansion full of history - much of the property has remained unchanged since its construction more than a century ago....
Source: NYT
Jun 23, 2012
Seventy years ago, on Aug. 9, 1942, the stadium became the site of one of soccer’s most infamous and disputed games, the so-called Death Match. With Kiev under Nazi occupation during World War II, a group of Ukrainian players defeated a military team of Germans thought to be from artillery and perhaps Luftwaffe units.According to legend, the Germans warned the local team beforehand or at halftime that it had better lose the match, and when the Ukrainians ignored the threat and prevailed, key members of the team were killed in retribution.The final score was 5-3. That much seems widely agreed upon. And four or five Ukrainian players did die within six months of the game, according to various accounts. Were they killed because they won a soccer match? All the participants are believed to be dead. The truth remains elusive. One player who popularized the legend seemed to tell as many versions of the story as there were goals in the match, both burnishing the myth and betraying it.That long-ago game is gaining renewed attention as Ukraine serves as a co-host for Euro 2012....
