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: BBC News
Feb 8, 2011
A portrait of the muse who transformed painter Pablo Picasso's life has sold for £25.2m ($40.7m) at Sotheby's auction house in London.
La Lecture went to an anonymous phone buyer after six minutes of bidding.
The masterpiece depicts Picasso's secret lover, Marie-Therese Walter, who was 17 when Picasso, then 45, met her in Paris for the first time.
Their relationship was kept secret for many years because of her age and because Picasso was married.
Source: WaPo
Feb 8, 2011
NEW YORK -- Nearly a decade after it was badly damaged by the falling south tower of the World Trade Center, a 41-story bank tower has finally been dismantled down to street level.
John DeLibero, a spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., said the above-ground portion of the structure was gone as of Monday. It will take a few days to remove the basement of the former Deutsche Bank building situated across the street from the trade center site, he said.
The p
Source: Fox News
Feb 8, 2011
A pawn shop in El Paso, Texas is selling for more than $9,000 the right index finger of Pancho Villa, one of the leading figures of the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution.
"Years ago someone offered us this finger, and though we don't know if it's the real thing or not, we thought it was interesting and decided to preserve it here in our shop," David Delgadillo, manager de Dave's Pawn Shop in El Paso, said.
The body of the man born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula was d
Source: Wired (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
Archaeologists have expressed their concerns about legislation that requires human remains discovered in ancient settlements to be reburied within two years.
In a series of letters to justice secretary Ken Clarke, leading archaeology professors and members of RESCUE, The British Archaeological Trust, explain how the legislation is causing "severe damage to research and the advancement of knowledge".
The concern stems from changes to the conditions of licenses
Source: BBC
Feb 8, 2011
A new exhibition in Great Yarmouth is examining whether Admiral Lord Nelson was a philanderer or a family man.
Nelson infamously had an affair with Lady Emma Hamilton while still married to his wife Fanny.
The Nelson Museum's exhibition, which features items from his private life, will allow visitors to examine his life and draw their own conclusions.
Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, north Norfolk, in 1758 and his most notable achievement was leading th
Source: BBC
Feb 8, 2011
Samples of the world's oldest beer have been taken in a bid to determine its recipe - and brew it again.
In July 2010, a Baltic Sea shipwreck dated between 1800 to 1830 yielded many bottles of what is thought to be the world's oldest champagne.
Five of the bottles later proved to be the oldest drinkable beer yet found.
The local government of the Aland island chain where the wreck was found has now commissioned a scientific study to unpick the beer's origin
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
The “dirty stones” allegedly given to Naomi Campbell by Charles Taylor, the African warlord, have dominated his UN trial for crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone.
The incident at a star studded gala banquet hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997 has overshadowed harrowing testimony from victims linking the former Liberian president to war crimes and mass amputations carried out by Sierra Leone’s RUF rebels.
The link is critical because Mr Taylor, 63, is accused by prosecu
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
David Cameron came under intense pressure from America last night to call an inquiry into Gordon Brown's role in the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber.
Senior US politicians accused the former prime minister of "cutting deals to release terrorists" after an official report detailed how ministers pushed for the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The criticism was made after Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, admitted that Mr Brown's administ
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 8, 2011
Sotheby's, the auction house, has been accused of forging a document to cover up the fact that it damaged a painting of the Jacobean spymaster Robert Cecil, a senior aide to both James I and Elizabeth I.
Sotheby’s staff are alleged to have added a hastily-written damage report - backdated to the day they collected the portrait, suggesting it was already damaged - to the painting’s paperwork.
Yet it is alleged they overlooked the fact that the owner, Aila Goodlin, had
Source: AFP
Feb 8, 2011
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted in an interview that the country "would've been better off" if he had quit after the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal and spared no criticism of his colleagues in his new memoir published Tuesday.
In "Known and Unknown," Rumsfeld defends his handling of the war and recounts his government career serving Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.
However the former Pentagon chief also admit
Source: Fox News
Feb 8, 2011
Chile's president vowed Tuesday to help find out what really killed one of his predecessors during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Sebastian Pinera said his Interior Ministry will join and support an independent judicial probe of the 1982 death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, a former president and prominent Pinochet critic who died suspiciously after a routine hernia operation.
Six people, including doctors and former Pinochet spies, were charged in December 2009
Source: CNN
Feb 8, 2011
In all the interviews and conversations, it hadn't come up. To the sisters, it was just a job they'd held a long time ago, when they were teens with a talent for numbers.
To filmmaker LeAnn Erickson, it was history rediscovered.
It was 2003 and Erickson was interviewing sisters Shirley Blumberg Melvin and Doris Blumberg Polsky for her documentary, "Neighbor Ladies," about a woman-owned real estate agency that helped to peacefully integrate a Philadelphia neigh
Source: Newsweek
Feb 7, 2011
TunisiaTyrant:Zine al-Abidine Ben AliYears in Power:
1987–2011Method of Toppling:
Twitter-fueled youth revoltThe Aftermath:
Whoever thought Washington’s man in Tunis would fall and take the Arab world with him? The former intel chief was a CIA favorite, but his family’s extravagance led to his downfall. The future is far from clear.
Source: Star Tribune
Feb 7, 2011
The ad, published in the Minneapolis Star-Journal, succinctly captured the pent-up demand among ration-weary consumers in the months following the end of World War II.
"This May Please You, But We're Scared," intoned the Dayton Co. on Feb. 5, 1946.
Rightly so. The city's leading department store was heralding its miraculous inventory of 60,000 pairs of nylon stockings, quietly amassed over a three-month period and going on sale the following morning.
Source: NPR
Feb 7, 2011
Some of China's most treasured antiquities — the mummies of Xinjiang — have been museum-hopping in America for the past few months. It took decades of negotiations to get them here. And they've been seen by tens of thousands of visitors at museums in Santa Ana, Calif., and Houston.
But a much-anticipated final stop in Philadelphia — where the mummies were meant to headline the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology —
Source: WaPo
Feb 7, 2011
This week marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth. When it comes to federal employee issues, he's probably most remembered as a big union-busting president.
In August 1981, just months after Reagan took office, air traffic controllers began an illegal strike. Reagan warned them to return to work or he would fire them. When most of them didn't, he kept his word and terminated about 11,000 strikers.
Two months later, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2011
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust said on Monday they had jointly acquired a huge collection of the prints, negatives and letters of Robert Mapplethorpe, further strengthening California’s position as a major center for 20th-century photography.
The acquisition is the first time the two institutions have collected works of art to share, in a partnership they formed to compete more effectively against other major museums being considered by the Robert M
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2011
LOS ANGELES — The Watts Towers rose up against a clear blue sky as James Janisse unlocked the 10-foot-high gate that surrounds the soaring outdoor sculpture. “Behold the work of the man,” said Mr. Janisse, a tour guide, and his audience took it in: the Gaudiesque mashup of towers, cathedrals, fountains and ships, constructed from pipes, broken bottles, seashells and cracked ceramic, climbing 100 feet into the air.
The towers are an iconic work of folk art with a back story — built
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2011
New genetic research reveals that the migratory story of the Polynesians may be more ancient and complicated than previously thought.
For years, it was generally accepted that Polynesians originated in modern-day Taiwan and began moving south and east about 4,000 years ago. This migration account is based on the research of linguists, the findings of archeologists and some genetic analysis.
But a new study in The American Journal of Human Genetics reports that Polynesi
Source: NYT
Feb 7, 2011
Q. You didn’t start out as a geneticist, but as a medical doctor. I take it your research career was accidental?A. Absolutely. For much of the late 1950s, I worked a few days a week as a medical doctor at a Cook County Hospital clinic for retarded children. With young children at home, I would only work part time. Then in 1961, my husband had a sabbatical from the
