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: Yahoo News
Mar 23, 2011
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A sculpture of a Mayan warrior that sold for more than $4 million at a Paris auction house this week is a fake, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said.
The masked, stone figure, sold by a private collector, was billed as an impressive piece of Pre-Columbian art and was believed to be a unique work dating from around 550 to 950 A.D. It sold for 2.9 million euros ($4.1 million) on Monday.
But Mexican experts at the institute w
Source: Fox News
Mar 23, 2011
MUNICH – Relatives of people killed at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp and their lawyers said in closing statements at John Demjanjuk's trial Wednesday that the evidence shows he was a guard there and he should be convicted as an accessory to murder.
Ukraine-born Demjanjuk, 90, denies having ever served as a Nazi death camp guard, saying he was a soldier in the Red Army who was captured by the Germans and then spent most of the rest of the war as a prisoner himself.
But
Source: NYT
Mar 23, 2011
SIOUX COUNTY, Iowa — In the 1970s, the divorce rate was so low in this rural northwest Iowa County that it resembled the rest of America in the 1910s. Most of its 28,000 residents were churchgoers, few of its women were in the work force, and divorce was simply not done.
So it is a bitter mark of modernity that even here, divorce has swept in, up nearly sevenfold since 1970, giving the county the unwelcome distinction of being a standout in this category of census data....
Source: BBC
Mar 23, 2011
Bolivia has said it will take Chile to international courts to try to recover access to the Pacific Ocean, which it lost in a war 132 years ago.
President Evo Morales said Chile had failed to respond to a deadline he had set for progress in negotiations.
He said Bolivia would continue dialogue with Chile while seeking a legal solution to its landlocked status.
Bolivia's loss of the sea was an "open wound" that must be healed, he added.
Source: BBC
Mar 23, 2011
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has said he will formally ask the US for classified intelligence documents on human rights violations during the rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.
Mr Pinera was speaking a day after US President Barack Obama said he would consider any Chilean requests.
Mr Obama - who was visiting Chile - ducked a request that he apologise for US support for Gen Pinochet.
More than 3,000 Chileans were killed under military rule in 1973-90.
Source: BBC News
Mar 23, 2011
Dame Elizabeth Taylor, one of the 20th Century's biggest movie stars, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 79.
The double Oscar-winning actress had a long history of ill health and was being treated for symptoms of congestive heart failure.
Her four children were with her when she died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, her publicist said.
In a statement, her son Michael Wilding called her "an extraordinary woman who lived life to the fullest".
Source: ScienceNow
Mar 22, 2011
Piles of garbage left by humans thousands of years ago may have helped form tree-covered biodiversity hot spots in the Florida Everglades, according to a new study. The authors say the findings show that human disturbance of the environment doesn't always have a negative consequence.
The so-called tree islands of the Everglades are patches of relatively high and dry ground that rise from the wetlands. They stand between 1 and 2 meters higher than the surrounding landscape, can cover
Source: Fox News
Mar 22, 2011
A substitute teacher's letter to Arizona lawmakers has reignited the state's immigration debate after he wrote that his Hispanic students hate America and just want to be gang members, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported Tuesday.
The letter by substitute teacher Tony Hill was read aloud Thursday as the state Senate considered one of five bills on illegal immigration. Hill wrote that a majority of eight-grade students who he taught recently at an unnamed Glendale school refused to say the Pled
Source: Polskie Radio
Mar 22, 2011
The New York Times has become the latest media outlet in the US to order its journalists to refrain from using the phrase “Polish death/concentration camps” when referring to WW II German Nazi death camps in Poland.
Eileen M. Murphy, Vice President of Corporate Communications at the NYT has written to the Kosciuszko Foundation in the US – which has led the campaign against the use of what is seen in Poland as insulting and historically revisionist language – to inform them tha
Source: AP
Mar 22, 2011
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The United Nations has launched a new plan to teach the Holocaust in Gaza schools, drawing fierce condemnation from Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, school teachers — and even the body tasked with peace negotiations with Israel.
If implemented, it would be the first time most Palestinian children learn about Jewish suffering. But the outcry underscores how sensitive the issue is to Palestinians.
"Playing with the education of our children in th
Source: Lincolnshire News (UK)
Mar 22, 2011
THE last-standing remains of a medieval castle in Lincolnshire will be opened up to the public for the first time.
The South Kyme Tower once formed one of the four corners of a castle, which was built on a Saxon site.
It is believed that the 14th century castle was once visited by Robin Hood and was built by a knight whose signature is on the Magna Carta.
The tower stands on private land and for years has been closed....
Source: Yahoo News
Mar 22, 2011
NEW YORK – It was a warm spring Saturday when dozens of immigrant girls and women leapt to their deaths — some with their clothes on fire, some holding hands — as horrified onlookers watched the Triangle Shirtwaist factory burn.
The March 25, 1911, fire that killed 146 workers became a touchstone for the organized labor movement, spurred laws that required fire drills and shed light on the lives of young immigrant workers near the turn of the century.
The 100th annivers
Source: NPR
Mar 22, 2011
Among the casualties of Egypt's revolution are many of its famous historical sites and artifacts.
Vandalism and looting at these sites skyrocketed in the weeks after the Egyptian police force — including those responsible for tourism and antiquities — vanished from their posts.
Even now, as the security forces resume their duties, archaeologists and experts complain that far more needs to be done by Egypt's new government to protect the country's heritage.
Source: NYT
Mar 22, 2011
Fifth Avenue, the glittering central spine of Manhattan, is the undisputed divider of the city’s famous street grid: east of Fifth is East, and west of Fifth is West. Been that way since 1838.
So when Scott M. Stringer, the borough president of Manhattan, was walking along Fifth Avenue by Central Park this week, he noticed something peculiar: every bus stop sign on the sidewalk seemed to be wrong.
A stop across the avenue from East 84th Street was identified as “5 Ave
Source: NYT
Mar 22, 2011
One hundred years after the Triangle Waist Company fire, the fashion that employed small armies of seamstresses at the turn of the last century endures.
The American shirtwaist was a trend that, quite literally, had legs. This brash but sensible pairing of tailored shirt and skirt offered a glimpse of the ankles, which was as rare in its day as it was freeing.
Designed for utility, the style was embraced at the turn of the 20th century by legions of young women who pref
Source: NYT
Mar 22, 2011
Laying bare the country’s most startling example of modern urban collapse, census data on Tuesday showed that Detroit’s population had plunged by 25 percent over the last decade. It was dramatic testimony to the crumbling industrial base of the Midwest, black flight to the suburbs and the tenuous future of what was once a thriving metropolis....
Nearly a century ago, the expansion of the auto industry fueled a growth spurt that made Detroit the fourth-largest city in the country by
Source: NYT
Mar 22, 2011
HENDERSON, Nev. — Tom Stevens sat at a Starbucks in this Las Vegas suburb and watched his grandfather, Babe Ruth, cavort across the computer screen.
“I haven’t seen anything like that,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that there isn’t other stuff out there, but I haven’t seen it.”
There are so few moving images of Babe Ruth that even Major League Baseball’s monstrous archive contains less than an hour’s worth. The bulk of Ruth footage may, in fact, still be buried in basement
Source: Discovery News
Mar 22, 2011
King Tut's grandmother was a legendary beauty, but high-resolution images of her mummified face suggest her complexion wasn't perfect.
King Tut's grandmother, the powerful and beautiful Queen Tiye, might have had an unattractive flat wart on her forehead, according to a mummy expert.
Located between the eyes, the small protuberance was found on the mummy of the so-called Elder Lady (KV35EL). Boasting long reddish hair falling across her shoulders, the mummy was identifi
Source: BBC
Mar 22, 2011
German prosecutors have called for a six-year jail term for John Demjanjuk, saying there is "no reasonable doubt" that he participated in the Nazi slaughter of Jews in World War II.
The 90-year-old is accused of having helped to murder 27,900 Jews at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943.
A verdict is expected in May. Mr Demjanjuk denies the charges.
Born in Ukraine, he was extradited to Germany from the US in 2009.
T
Source: BBC
Mar 22, 2011
An archaeologist believes he has discovered the remains of a Roman quarry in the old harbour at Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan.
Karl-James Langford says the pottery find reinforces his belief that beach man-made walls may be 1,900 years old.
The quarry was operational until the 19th Century but its origins were unknown.
He believes the quarry to be the source of limestone used for the Roman fort whose remains can be seen in the walls around Cardiff Castle,
