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: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 1, 2011
A mother who lost her daughter in the Lockerbie attack has condemned the “cold, callous and brutal” behaviour of British ministers after WikiLeaks documents revealed how they secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the bomber.
Documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that a Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on com
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 1, 2011
The FBI has launched a manhunt for a previously unknown team of men suspected to be part of the 9/11 attacks, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Secret documents reveal that the three Qatari men conducted surveillance on the targets, provided “support” to the plotters and had tickets for a flight to Washington on the eve of the atrocities.
The suspected terrorists flew from London to New York on a British Airways flight three weeks before the attacks.
They
Source: CNN
Feb 1, 2011
Though he died nearly a century ago, the legendary illusionist Harry Houdini remains one of the best-known magicians of all time.
His infamous escapes -- from straitjackets while suspended high in the air, and from coffins, locked trunks and outsize milk cans -- made him a household name across the world at the beginning of the 20th century.
On view at the Jewish Museum are two diaries kept by Houdini, both of which are from private collections and have never been disp
Source: CNN
Feb 1, 2011
The world's oldest person, as verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, is dead at the age of 114, according to the Gerontology Research Group.
Eunice Sanborn of Jacksonville, Texas, died quietly in her home on Monday, the research group said.
Sanborn was born July 20, 1896, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which said it based her birth date and age conservatively on census records from the time. Her obituary in the Jacksonv
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 1, 2011
It is a secret code that has confounded some of the finest minds of the past 150 years, and proved irresistible to hundreds of conspiracy theorists.
Explanations for the eight-letter inscription on the 18th century Shepherd's Monument, at Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, have ranged from a coded love letter to Biblical verse.
Some have even suggested that the letters OUOSVAVV – framed at either end by DM – were a sign left by the Knights Templar pointing to where the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 1, 2011
The intriguing story of the world’s first known celebrity stalker, who once stole Queen Victoria’s knickers, has been revealed for the first time.
Edward Jones, 14, broke into Buckingham Palace at least three times between 1838 and 1841 and managed to get within yards of the young monarch, sitting on the throne, reading books in the library and even entering her private apartments.
He claimed to have slept in a servant's bed, eaten in the kitchen, explored the drawing r
Source: Tablet Magazine
Feb 1, 2011
Never have so many Jews lost so much sleep over the fate of one ailing Arab dictator.
This would be the opening line to a Jackie Mason monologue if it wasn’t a pretty valid description of the way most Israelis spent their weekend. Judging by the extensive (if not borderline compulsive) manner in which the Israeli media has been covering the recent events in Egypt, one would be correct to assume that in a very strange, if not ironic, twist, Israel has come to see its own fate as tied
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Feb 1, 2011
A mother who lost her daughter in the Lockerbie attack has condemned the “cold, callous and brutal” behaviour of British ministers after WikiLeaks documents revealed how they secretly advised Libya on securing the successful early release of the bomber.
Documents obtained by the Daily Telegraph show that a Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on com
Source: CNN
Feb 1, 2011
Feb. 1, 2003: Space shuttle Columbia broke up during re-entry, killing 7 astronauts. Here's how the news broke on CNN.
Source: MNN
Feb 1, 2011
Before we received weather reports from rodents and life lessons from time loops, Groundhog Day evolved for centuries into the bizarre holiday it is today.
For one day each year, people across North America count on a network of groggy groundhogs to rise at dawn and issue a six-week weather outlook. It's a popular tradition from Punxsutawney, Pa., to Vancouver, B.C., with crowds often braving bitter cold on Feb. 2 just to see the furry forecasters in action.
But why? Ho
Source: BBC News
Feb 1, 2011
BP has reported a loss of $4.9bn (£3.1bn) for 2010, its first annual loss since 1992.
The company said the replacement cost loss reflected a sum of $40.9bn set aside for charges relating to the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The loss compares with a profit of $13.9bn that BP had recorded in 2009.
The company's chief executive, Robert Dudley, said BP would restore its dividend payment to shareholders, paying seven cents a share.
The divi
Source: BBC News
Feb 1, 2011
For the first time since the Soviet era, a statue has been erected to a Russian political leader. The monument in Yekaterinburg, Boris Yeltsin's home city, is the centrepiece of the celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of his birth.
Until recently, state-owned channels had been emphasising the out-of-control criminality associated with the Yeltsin years, but this week his official reputation appears to have been re-evaluated with the broadcast of stirring TV documentaries.
Source: BBC News
Feb 1, 2011
A portrait of the muse who transformed painter Pablo Picasso's life and art is to go under the hammer at Sotheby's in London next week.
La Lecture depicts his secret lover, Marie-Therese Walter, who was 17 when Picasso, then 45, introduced himself as she stepped off a Paris train.
Their relationship was kept secret for many years because of her age and because Picasso was married.
The 1932 painting is expected to fetch between £12m and £18m.
Ms
Source: NBC Washington
Jan 31, 2011
Arlington National Cemetery is making management and technology changes in the wake of the mishandled gravesites and remains that cast a shocking and disappointing shadow over the hallowed grounds.
A report from the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) is blaming the cemetery's severely outdated paper record keeping system for the mix-ups, which came to light last summer.
Speaking at a press conference on the findings Monday, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he face
Source: Physorg
Jan 31, 2011
An archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument less than one kilometre away from the iconic Stonehenge.
History is set to be rewritten after an archaeology team led by the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria discovered a major ceremonial monument
Source: Reuters
Jan 31, 2011
Looters have pillaged a number of warehouses containing ancient Egyptian artifacts, stealing and damaging some of them, archaeologists and warehouse workers said on Monday.
A group of looters attacked a warehouse at the Qantara Museum near the city of Ismailia on the Suez Canal that contained 3,000 objects from the Roman and Byzantine periods, a source at the tourism police said.
Many of the objects had been found in Sinai by the Israelis after they occupied the peninsu
Source: NYT
Jan 31, 2011
Brooklyn College on Monday reversed an earlier decision not to hire an adjunct professor to teach a seminar on Middle East politics, a decision that the professor and others called politically motivated.
In a statement issued Monday evening, Karen L. Gould, the college’s president, said she had endorsed a recommendation from the political science department that the adjunct, Kristofer Petersen-Overton, teach the class this spring.
On his Web site, Mr. Petersen-Overton,
Source: NYT
Jan 31, 2011
CHICAGO — Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking at a law school here on Monday, said she had “taken heat” at her Supreme Court confirmation hearings two summers ago in part because she was the first Hispanic nominee.
“People have views of me and expectations of me that are based on stereotypes,” she said.
In her most candid and extensive public remarks since joining the court in 2009, Justice Sotomayor reflected on the advice she had received from colleagues, her discomfor
Source: NYT
Jan 31, 2011
WASHINGTON — A video that outraged some Roman Catholics and some members of Congress was suitable for inclusion in an exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, a member of board that reviewed a decision to pull it from the show said Monday. But museum officials’ insufficient explanation of the work led to its hasty withdrawal, he said.
John W. McCarter Jr., a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, who led a review of the decision, said the Dec. 1 removal of the vi
Source: NYT
Jan 31, 2011
Theirs was a partnership built on vision and pride and rooted in a building at the very heart of black America.
In 2002 the National Black Theater, a cultural anchor of Harlem, invited the owners of Nubian Heritage, a growing beauty-care company with an African pedigree, to invest in its sprawling building at Fifth Avenue and 125th Street.
The theater, created in the turmoil of the civil rights movement, had owned the building for 19 years. But now it faced foreclosure
