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
Jan 25, 2011
A tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered in China with only a single claw on each forelimb.
Linhenykus monodactylus weighed no more than a large parrot and was found in sediments between 84 and 75 million years old.
The dinosaur belongs to a sub-branch of the theropods, the dinosaur group which includes T.rex and Velociraptor, and which gave rise to modern birds.
Details are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: Reuters
Jan 24, 2011
A German foundation rejected Monday an Egyptian request to return the 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, a sculpture which draws over one million viewers annually to a Berlin museum.
Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) sent the request to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which runs the Neues Museum in the German capital where the bust is kept.
Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, appealed to the foundation seeking the return of the bust, famed
Source: ABC News
Jan 24, 2011
Egypt's antiquities chief says government asking Berlin to return Nefertiti bust
Egypt's top archaeologist has formally requested the return of the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti that has been in a Berlin museum for decades, the latest move in his eight-year-old campaign to bring home ancient artifacts spirited out of the country during colonial times.
The bust dates back to the time of the 14th century B.C. queen and tops Egypt's wish list of artifacts that Zah
Source: BBC
Jan 24, 2011
A tiny distant cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex has been discovered in China with only a single claw on each forelimb.
Linhenykus monodactylus weighed no more than a large parrot and was found in sediments between 84 and 75 million years old.
The dinosaur belongs to a sub-branch of the theropods, the dinosaur group which includes T.rex and Velociraptor, and which gave rise to modern birds.
Details are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: Stars and Stripes
Jan 24, 2011
ARLINGTON, Va. – The Pentagon likes to put up huge commemorative posters and placards reminding Defense Department employees to celebrate things like Black History Month, Asian-American Diversity Week, even Holocaust Remembrance Day – pretty much name it, and they’ve got a sign for it.
Not appearing on any Pentagon hallway: a call to remember the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell speech, warning of the “military-industrial complex.”
The pos
Source: WaPo
Jan 24, 2011
The United States Mint, whose job it is to create coins, this week is issuing a quarter that honors Gettysburg National Military Park, site of a famous battle of the Civil War....
The Gettysburg coin shows the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument, which is located on the battle line of the Union Army at Cemetery Ridge....
Source: Newsweek
Jan 24, 2011
Over at Esquire former Bush speechwriter David Frum has a sensible suggestion for President Obama: create an infrastructure bank to select and pay for transportation projects on the basis of merit instead of allowing meddlesome congressional earmarking. This would, theoretically, protect the obvious need for economically stimulative infrastructure investment from conservative complaints about wasteful, politically motivated spending. “I'd suggest we have seven directors of the bank,” writes Frum
Source: WaPo
Jan 24, 2011
MUNDUR, INDIA - For dozens of centuries, Hindu priests have performed an elaborate 12-day fire ritual, chanting hymns, making offerings to the sun god and praying for a world free of negative energy.
The tradition faded in modern times, and pious Hindus fear it could die out as young Indians embrace a Western lifestyle and a culture of lavish spending.
But in this rapidly modernizing country, new money is also reviving old traditions. A group of mostly urban professiona
Source: AP
Jan 24, 2011
Jack LaLanne was prodding Americans to get off their couches and into the gym decades before it was cool. And he was still pumping iron and pushing fruits and vegetables decades past most Americans' retirement age.
The fitness fanatic ate well and exercised -- and made it his mission to make sure everyone did the same -- right up to the end at age 96, friends and family said.
LaLanne died Sunday at his home in Morro Bay on California's central coast, longtime agent Rick
Source: CNN
Jan 24, 2011
An anonymous flight attendant recently posted an open letter "to the flying public" on the Internet:
"We're sorry we have no pillows. We're sorry we're out of blankets. We're sorry the airplane is too cold. We're sorry the airplane is too hot. We're sorry the overhead bins are full.... We're sorry that's not the seat you wanted. We're sorry there's a restless toddler/overweight/offensive-smelling passenger seated next to you.... We're sorry that guy makes you uncomfor
Source: BBC News
Jan 24, 2011
An online poll organised by Russia's ruling party suggests there is strong support for burying Lenin's body.
Of more than 250,000 people who have voted in the poll, two-thirds so far say Lenin should now be buried.
The revolutionary leader's embalmed body has been on display in a mausoleum in Red Square in Moscow since his death in 1924.
The debate about what to with his body resurfaces with every anniversary of his death - on 21 January 1924.
Source: NYT
Jan 24, 2011
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe — The exhibit at the National Gallery is now a crime scene, the artwork banned and the artist charged with insulting President Robert Mugabe. The picture windows that showcased graphic depictions of atrocities committed in the early years of Mr. Mugabe’s 30-year-long rule are now papered over with the yellowing pages of a state-controlled newspaper.
But the government’s efforts to bury history have instead provoked slumbering memories of the Gukurahundi, Zimbabwe’
Source: BBC
Jan 23, 2011
Archaeologists are surveying the remains of Winston Churchill's secret headquarters in the hope of uncovering a new underground operations base.
The Coleshill estate was the English headquarters of a highly trained guerrilla volunteer force during World War II.
The house and its grounds, on the Oxfordshire/Wiltshire border, are now owned by the National Trust.
The survey has been organised by the Coleshill Auxiliary Research Team.
The team was
Source: Boston Globe
Jan 23, 2011
WASHINGTON — Stacked in a vault at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester, individually sealed and labeled, are 54 crates of records so closely guarded that even the library director is prohibited from taking a peek.
And yet, archivists contend, the trove contains some of the most important records of Cold War history: diaries, notes, phone logs, messages, trip files, and other documents from Robert F. Kennedy’s service as US attorney general, including de
Source: Fox News
Jan 23, 2011
The USS Iowa supported U.S. forces fighting the Japanese during World War II and helped tankers safely navigate the Persian Gulf in the Iran-Iraq War.
Though the ship has long since been out of service, its final battle is still being waged. Two California nonprofits — one in the San Francisco Bay area, the other in Los Angeles — are vying to host the decommissioned ship as a tourist attraction. The Navy is expected to make a decision within a few months.
Fights over su
Source: Guardian (UK)
Jan 23, 2011
Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel's then foreign minister as inadequate.
Palestinian Authority leaders also privately discussed giving up part of the flashpoint Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, according to leaked documents. And they proposed a joint committee to take ov
Source: Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh)
Jan 23, 2011
Almost all families have complaints about a crazy relative, but William Patrick Hitler had more to talk about than most.
"It is quite possible," he said in 1940, that his Uncle Adolf, the fuhrer -- or leader -- of Germany, was no longer sane.
"There is a thin line between genius and insanity," William Patrick said in an interview with a Pittsburgh Press reporter. "And it is quite possible that sometime in 1938, Hitler completely lost his perspec
Source: CNN
Jan 23, 2011
A 1963 Pontiac ambulance that supposedly carried the body of President John F. Kennedy after his assassination was sold at a Scottsdale, Ariz., auction Saturday night for $132,000.
The price would have probably been much higher except that the ambulance's authenticity had been cast into question before the sale, said McKeel Hagerty, president of collector car insurer Hagerty Insurance.
Some experts and bloggers had cast doubts on the authenticity of the vehicle and whe
Source: WaPo
Jan 23, 2011
RICHMOND, Va. -- Nearly 150 years after Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant fought in northern Virginia, a conflict over the battlefield is taking shape in a courtroom.
The dispute involves whether a Walmart should be built near the Civil War site, and the case pits preservationists and some residents of a rural northern Virginia town against the world's largest retailer and local officials who approved the Walmart Supercenter.
Both sides are scheduled to make arguments
Source: NYT
Jan 23, 2011
What story will it tell? As part of the Smithsonian, the museum bears the burden of being the “official” — that is, the government’s — version of black history, but it will also carry the hopes and aspirations of African-Americans. Will its tale be primarily one of pain, focused on America’s history of slavery and racial oppression, and memorializing black suffering? Or will it emphasize the uplifting part of the story, highlighting the richness of African-American culture, celebrating the brav
