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: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Feb 10, 2011
It isn’t often that a map visually displays a moral issue facing a divided nation and then affects a President’s response. Yet nearly 150 years ago, the U.S. Coast Survey — NOAA’s predecessor organization — produced such a map that, according to historians, President Abraham Lincoln used to coordinate military operations with his emancipation policies.Created in September 1861, the map entitled “Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the s
Source: BBC
Feb 10, 2011
A memorial statue of Charles Dickens could be erected in Portsmouth despite the Victorian author requesting that none should be built.
Plans are in place as part of the bicentenary of the Oliver Twist creator's birth in April 2012.
His great-great grandson Gerald said the Dickens' family backed the plans.
The author was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812 where he spent the first three years of his life.
His birthplace has been turned into a
Source: BBC
Feb 10, 2011
A 15th century landmark in the Borders could be given a roof made from local turf in a bid to keep it watertight.
Smailholm Tower, between St Boswells and Kelso, has suffered damage to its upper floor with rain leaking through its stone flag roof.
However, trials over the past two years with turf and clay soft-capping have helped to address the problem.
Historic Scotland now hopes to make the arrangement permanent and is seeking permission to proceed with t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 10, 2011
The chances of finding accommodation in Rome for the beatification of the late John Paul II are dwindling fast, with as many as two and a half million pilgrims expected to throng the city for the ceremony.
Hotels in the capital have been criticised for taking advantage of the demand, with room prices tripling in some cases.
Modest two-star hotels are asking for 700 euros a night while some four-stars are charging up to 1,760 euros for a suite.
Hotels and
Source: CNN
Feb 10, 2011
During Donald Rumsfeld's first public appearance since the release of his new book, he praised many former elected officials and a surprising number of them were Democrats.
A man who has been a Republican during his entire political career told a crowd of some 700 people at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center that the first politician to influence him was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
A similar inspiration came just before his graduation from Princeton University,
Source: The Root
Feb 9, 2011
Sept. 3, 1944: It's a damp evening in the Alabama black belt, nearly midnight, but services at Rock Hill Holiness Church in the small town of Abbeville have just let out. Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old sharecropper, sets out along the town's fertile peanut plantations, accompanied for the walk home by two other worshippers from the African-American congregation. Moments later, a green Chevrolet rolls by -- and their routine journey takes a horrifying turn.
Wielding knives and guns, seve
Source: CounterContempt
Feb 9, 2011
...From at least 1984 through 1992, [Noam] Chomsky corresponded with a man who, during those time periods, was one of the leading authors and editors in the Holocaust denial movement. And it was a very friendly correspondence, complete with praise for the denier’s work, and an offer of assistance on Chomsky’s part.
The denier in question is L.A. “Lou” Rollins. At the time of the first Chomsky correspondence, Rollins was a writer and contributing editor at the Institute for Historica
Source: WaPo
Feb 9, 2011
The delegates used separate hotel entrances: Pennsylvania Avenue for Northerners, F Street for Southerners.
They shouted, argued and one day almost came to blows before their chairman, a former U.S. president, yelled, "Order!"
Then, the day before Valentine's Day 1861, one of the aged attendees passed away in his hotel room, begging colleagues from his deathbed to save the Union so he could die content.
They failed.
Indeed, there was
Source: AFP
Feb 9, 2011
ROME (AFP) – Archaeologists have unearthed a set of six marble sculptures in Rome that likely belonged to a high-ranking official of the Roman Empire, Italy's culture ministry said Wednesday.
Led by Roberto Egidi, the group of archaeologists dug up five marble heads representing members of the Severan imperial dynasty as well as a statue of the Greek god Zeus while excavating a public site.
The figures were buried in an ancient fountain of a lavish Roman villa along the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 9, 2011
The three surviving children of Ronald Reagan have rubbished efforts by Republican presidential hopefuls to claim his mantle as a conservative reformer, branding Sarah Palin "a soap opera".
Celebrations to mark the centenary of the late president's birth have coincided with the need of what critics call a mediocre group of candidates to burnish their reputations to send Reagan-fever jumping to unprecedented levels.
Speaking at a dinner to honour the 40th pre
Source: CNN
Feb 9, 2011
Missing out on the chance to learn about Egypt's ancient wonders firsthand is disappointing, but Tanis Miller isn't taking any chances with her 14-year-old daughter's safety.
"Unfortunately, I really think that the tourist season for my family to Egypt is closed this year. There's just too much instability," said the 35-year-old mother from northern Alberta.
Miller and her daughter were among a handful of travelers scheduled to go on a school trip to Egypt in
Source: BBC News
Feb 9, 2011
It was 50 years ago today that The Beatles played their first gig at the Cavern Club in Liverpool - the venue where the band built their reputation and where Beatlemania was born.
Alex McKechnie, then 16, was in the crowd for that first show and went on to be a regular at the club:
"I saw The Beatles a few times in the north end of Liverpool and was working in Liverpool city centre as a messenger boy in a printing works when I heard that they were on at the Cavern
Source: BBC News
Feb 9, 2011
The war crimes trial of ex-Liberian leader Charles Taylor has been adjourned until Friday after he failed to attend the court in The Hague.
He and his lawyer walked out of proceedings on Tuesday during the closing arguments of the trial.
The prosecution has finished its oral submission and the defence was due to start its arguments.
Mr Taylor denies fuelling Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s by arming rebels.
He is charged with 11 counts of
Source: NYT
Feb 9, 2011
A feud over the estate of Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, has created divisions among the couple’s six daughters and has resulted in something none of them had intended: keeping part of their father’s legacy from the public.
The daughters have traded accusations of irresponsibility, mental incapacity and fiscal mismanagement of the estate, which is worth about $1.4 million. But the greater value may reside in a trove of unpublished works from Malcolm X and Dr. Shabazz.
Source: The Independent (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
For 200 years, the silver coins settled silently into the Atlantic seabed, 3,000 feet beneath the waves. They gathered in clumps like rocks across a vast swath of ocean floor near southern Portugal, crusting over with sediment and weighing a total of 17 tonnes.
The coins were certainly of no use to the 250 sailors who carried them from Peru on what was probably the Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, which sank in 1804, torn apart by British cannon fire. But now, transpo
Source: KBTX
Feb 8, 2011
The Texas Historical Commission and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department are two other state agencies bracing for cuts.
From the Wilkerson and Waldrop Houses to the La Salle Hotel, these are just a few of the 272 Historical Markers in Brazos County.
Cathy Nolte, with Washington on the Brazos, said, "Its a process. Its not something that happens very quickly."...
Source: Guardian (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
When they first took to the stage at the Cavern club on 9 February 1961 – 50 years ago today – they were a ragtag bunch of skinny Scousers looking for laughs. But that first gig in the Liverpool venue was at the start of an extraordinary journey that would see the band become, as John Lennon once put it, "more popular than Jesus".
Fans are planning to gather at the basement club to mark the half century since that initial appearance. Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison
Source: Yahoo News
Feb 8, 2011
What are the laws that govern royal marriages? Peter Hunt, BBC's royal correspondent, looks at the rules that bind Prince William and Kate Middleton as they prepare to walk down the aisle.
For a young man who craves a "normal" life, it was yet another reminder of just how abnormal his existence can sometimes be. Last year, Prince William had to check that his grandmother wouldn't object to him marrying Kate Middleton. It was both a formality and a requirement under British
Source: Ynet News
Feb 8, 2011
John Demjanjuk's attorney says he has obtained new evidence that throws into question the statement of a key witness that the defendant killed Jews at the Nazi's Sobibor death camp.
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is standing trial on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly having been a guard at Sobibor. He denies the charges....
Source: BBC News
Feb 8, 2011
Film fans have been given their first glimpse of Hollywood actress Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in upcoming film The Iron Lady.
Shooting has just begun on the film, written by Sex Traffic's Abi Morgan and directed by Mamma Mia's Phyllida Lloyd.
The film follows Baroness Thatcher as she broke through class and gender barriers to become prime minister.
The film also stars Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. The cast also includes Richard E Grant and Anthony
