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: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Mar 2, 2011
The excavation of a 1,000-year-old canoe began at dawn Tuesday with a long trek through shallow water.
Rain poured. Smelly muck filled with sharp shells covered everything. Flesh-hungry sand gnats did what they do best.
And this was the fun part.
After years of anticipation, paperwork, fundraising and waiting for the tides to ebb just right, a small team of experts were finally ready to pull the prehistoric vessel from its grave at the Weedon Island Preserv
Source: BBC News
Mar 2, 2011
The man who assassinated US Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy has been denied parole.
Sirhan Sirhan says he does not remember shooting Kennedy at a Los Angeles hotel in 1968 on the day he won the California Democratic presidential primary.
Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian, was convicted in 1969 of murder.
The California parole board said it was his 13th effort to win release; he will be considered again in five years.
Ea
Source: BBC News
Mar 2, 2011
A congressional commission in Chile has blamed the mine owners for the rockfall which left 33 men trapped underground for 69 days last year.
The commission said Alejandro Bohn and Marcelo Kemeny were guilty of negligence, a charge they deny.
The investigation also concluded that the Chilean mine safety regulator bore some responsibility for failing to enforce its rules.
Workers said the mine lacked basic safety standards.
The commission unanimo
Source: BBC
Mar 2, 2011
More than 300,000 people a day pass through Milan's main railway station - the Stazione Centrale. Few are here for the history.
In the past, poor Italians arrived from the south, immigrants in their own land searching for a better life in the dank northern city. Today's arrivals are more likely to be tourists looking for a taste of Italian fashion and culture, or commuters from Milan's hinterland.
The current station was completed in 1931 during the heyday of Italian
Source: BBC
Mar 2, 2011
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has been given Russia's highest award, the Order of St Andrew, to mark his 80th birthday.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the award was for his "enormous work as head of state" when they met at a presidential residence outside Moscow.
Mr Gorbachev played a key role in dismantling the Iron Curtain.
But many Russians revile him for the economic meltdown and conflicts after the collapse of the USSR in 199
Source: BBC
Mar 2, 2011
A set of four Chinese stamps from the Cultural Revolution era has sold at auction in Hong Kong for more than $1.15m (£708,000).
The stamps, which were never issued for use, feature a design called Mao's 1968 Inscription to Japanese Worker Friends.
The set was bought by a collector in Hong Kong.
The 600-lot auction, which featured both pre- and post-revolutionary Chinese stamps and also issues from Taiwan, raised more than $12m.
The auctioneer
Source: BBC
Mar 2, 2011
School children in Clackmannanshire are hoping to solve the mystery of a wall apparently built by German prisoners of war in the 1940s.
The stone construction in Sauchie is known as the "German wall" - but the council said it had no records of Germans being held prisoner nearby.
Italians were held at a camp just half a mile away in Fishcross.
Pupils at Craigbank Primary School visited the wall as part of their studies on World War II.
Source: BBC
Mar 2, 2011
The historic green where Sir Francis Drake played bowls before defeating the Spanish Armada is under threat.
The lawn on Plymouth Hoe, Devon, is owned and operated by the city council and used by three bowling clubs.
The clubs fear they will not be able to afford to carry on if it is handed over to them under Big Society reforms.
Plymouth City Council said it was considering a proposal to transfer some playgrounds and bowling greens to local community owner
Source: Fox News
Mar 2, 2011
The Obama administration may seek the prosecution of Muammar Qaddafi for the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, following claims of some ex-Libyan officials that the embattled dictator personally ordered the airline attack that killed 270 people.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress this week that she has asked the FBI and Justice Department to look into the matter in response to lawmakers' requests.
But Clinton noted that some Libyan officials wh
Source: AP
Mar 2, 2011
One of the last two known veterans of World War I celebrated his 110th birthday Thursday with at least three generations of family and a contingent of navy officers in dress uniform. His daughter said he didn't want a fuss.
Claude "Chuckles" Choules, who sneaked into the British navy in 1915 aged just 14, has lived quietly in Australia for more than 80 years, though his longevity has brought him closer to history with the passing of each comrade who fought the war that was
Source: AP
Mar 2, 2011
John Demjanjuk's defense team is asking for more evidence to be sought in his trial on charges he served as a guard in the Nazi's Sobibor death camp.
In a summary read aloud by judges on Wednesday, he asked for the court to find a statement from former Sobibor prisoner Dov Freiberg from 1976. Freiberg allegedly says that he was assigned to clean the Sobibor barracks where the Ukrainian guards were housed, and that he does not remember any Demjanjuk.
It was not clear whe
Source: LA Times
Mar 2, 2011
A recent photo of Sirhan Sirhan, 66. A California parole board on Wednesday will consider whether the man who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy at a Los Angeles hotel should be set free.
Sirhan Sirhan has spent 42 years behind bars for the assassination in 1968 at the Ambassador Hotel. This will be his 13th parole hearing.
The parole board has repeatedly rejected Sirhan's appeals for release for failing to accept responsibility or show remorse for Kennedy's death....
Source: Vice magazine
Mar 2, 2011
Uwe Boll’s Auschwitz came out of nowhere. The German director, widely reviled for his video game adaptations, once again faced the wrath of the internet when he stuck a teaser trailer online the other day, featuring himself as a Nazi guard standing in front of a gas chamber.
The general consensus is that the film will be tasteless and exploitative. Critics don’t like Uwe Boll. I’ve never seen any of his films but wanted to know what he was doing with Auschwitz, so last night I got i
Source: Imperial War Museum (UK)
Mar 2, 2011
In 1939, the Government began the mass evacuation of children (as well as some recent or expectant mothers) from cities seen as being in danger of being attacked by enemy bombers. Although most evacuees ended up in the British countryside, more than 15,000 children were sent to safety abroad. A new exhibition, Oceans Apart: stories of children evacuated overseas, at the Imperial War Musem North, takes a closer look at their experiences....
Source: AP
Mar 2, 2011
Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ in a new book, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity.
In "Jesus of Nazareth" excerpts released Wednesday, Benedict uses a biblical and theological analysis to explain why it is not true that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.
Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecut
Source: CNN
Mar 2, 2011
One of the surviving shooting victims in the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy said he will not object to Sirhan B. Sirhan's release if a parole panel OKs it.
Sirhan, who was convicted of the slaying, will appear before a California parole board for the first time in at least nine years on Wednesday, supported by two psychologists' reports saying he no longer poses a threat to society, his attorney said.
Retired TV journalist William Weisel, who shared with CNN hi
Source: BBC News
Mar 2, 2011
The management of a popular Japanese boy band has apologised after they appeared on national television dressed in uniforms resembling Nazis.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organisation based in Los Angeles, said it was shocked and dismayed by the broadcast.
The band, Kishidan, wore the uniforms - complete with iron crosses and red armbands - for an interview on MTV.
Sony Music Artists said there was no ideological meaning to the outfits
Source: The Root
Mar 1, 2011
When Lonnie G. Bunch III outlines plans for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the historian can barely sit still. This is a buoyant man on the move, overseeing the design for what could be the last major building on the National Mall; urging citizens to bring their family mementos out of the attic; deciding which stories out of more than 400 years of American history should be told; and preaching the necessity of this enterprise.
"This is a museum abo
Source: National Parks Traveler
Mar 1, 2011
Ken Wild knew that somewhere in Virgin Islands National Park's tangle of mango, lime, and tamarind trees, intertwined with various palm species and thick, cloaking pockets of Sansevieria, was an ancient carving in rock. An old roll of film confirmed as much.
But where?
The images, taken from the roll that had itself gotten overlooked for an unknown period of time -- in the park's archives, not within its lush tropical forests -- included some of the well-known Taino car
Source: AP
Mar 1, 2011
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- Savannah's city manager has granted an exemption for Girl Scouts to sell cookies outside the historic mansion of the woman who founded the organization nearly a century ago.
A complaint had halted the longtime practice of selling cookies on the public sidewalk outside the home of Juliette Gordon Low near a busy Savannah intersection. Savannah has an ordinance banning peddling on public sidewalks....
