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: AP
Dec 21, 2010
Israel's Holocaust memorial says it has now identified four million of the six million Jews who were killed by Nazis in the Holocaust of World War II.
Yad Vashem has made the recovery of the names a main mission in order to keep the memory of the murdered Jews alive.
In 2004, it launched a database of victims' names on its website. It had 3 million names at the time and since then has been compiling the names of other victims. It said Tuesday that the database now has 4
Source: CNN
Dec 21, 2010
An investigation into the release of convicted Pan Am Flight 103 bomber Abdelbeset al Megrahi has found the medical prognosis used to justify his release from a Scottish prison "was inaccurate and unsupported by medical science," according to a U.S. Senate report released Tuesday.
The release of the report, led by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, coincided with the 22nd anniversary of the bombing, which occurred over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988, killing 259 pe
Source: CNN
Dec 21, 2010
A group of 9/11 first responders joined lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday to urge the Senate passage of a health care bill meant to provide free medical treatment to those suffering from the health effects of working in and near ground zero following the 2001 attacks.
In the years following the attacks, health experts have noted respiratory and mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, in those who engaged in ground zero rescue and cleanup efforts.
Source: ANA-MPA
Dec 21, 2010
Archaeological finds were located during maintenance works on the electric train (ISAP) line tracks in the eponymous Thission district of central Athens, which lies on the boundary of the Acropolis archaeological site and near the ancient Agora and Forum.
An announcement on Friday informed passengers that the Monastiraki-Thission section of the line will open after the conclusion of the Archaeological Service's excavations.
Source: AAP
Dec 21, 2010
An elderly man will spend Christmas behind bars for lying about being a prisoner of war in order to scam welfare payments.
Arthur "Rex" Crane, 84, posed as a World War II veteran for 22 years before his deceit was finally uncovered in 2009 by a military historian who thought his story didn't add up.
Before his fraud was exposed, however, the former president of the Ex-POW Association of Australia claimed $689,491 in commonwealth war pension and disability paym
Source: AOL News
Dec 21, 2010
Scientists are trying to unravel the mystery of whether pills found in a 2,000-year-old shipwreck were, in fact, created and used as effective plant-based medicines.
And the bigger question: Could the ingredients of these ancient tablets still work to help with modern illnesses?
Around 130 B.C., a ship, identified as the Relitto del Pozzino, sank off Tuscany, Italy. Among the artifacts found on board in 1989 were glass cups, a pitcher and ceramics, all of which suggeste
Source: BBC News
Dec 21, 2010
Spanish police have recovered stolen art worth millions of euros after one of the thieves tried to sell a sculpture to a scrap dealer.
Thirty-five works by Pablo Picasso, Eduardo Chillida and others were stolen from a warehouse south of Madrid on 27 November.
Police were tipped off that Chillida's bench-like 'Topos IV', worth 800,000 euros (£675,000), had been offered to a scrapyard for 30 euros (£25).
The haul was found nearby.
When the heist
Source: NYT
Dec 21, 2010
Deep in a cave in the forests of northern Spain are the remains of a gruesome massacre. The first clues came to light in 1994, when explorers came across a pair of what they thought were human jawbones in the cave, called El Sidrón. At first, the bones were believed to date to the Spanish Civil War. Back then, Republican fighters used the cave as a hide-out. The police discovered more bone fragments in El Sidrón, which they sent to forensic scientists, who determined that the bones did not belon
Source: NYT
Dec 21, 2010
SUITLAND, Md. — Stashed in a Smithsonian storage building in this Washington suburb are some of the engineering wonders of the space race.
These marvels are far smaller than the towering rockets and streamlined spacecraft that took men into orbit and to the Moon. Far softer, too. They are the spacesuits that kept the astronauts alive beyond Earth.
Most of the National Air and Space Museum’s collection of about 300 spacesuits is here, laid out five high on steel racks in
Source: BBC
Dec 20, 2010
On the left hand side of Cazalla cemetery the graves are arranged neatly in a wall, Spanish style.
But across the path from the engraved headstones and flower arrangements, a very different kind of grave has been discovered. The vast pit now being excavated is a burial site from Spain's civil war.
In August 1936, dozens of Republican supporters - and anyone suspected of it - were shot and flung there.
Now uncovered, their bones lie sprawled as they landed
Source: The Boston Globe
Dec 20, 2010
Though climate change seems a particularly modern predicament — one that generates alarm about the fate of the planet and how people and businesses will adapt — scientists are finding evidence that climate fluctuations influenced cultural changes among inhabitants of prehistoric New England.
Research is revealing the interconnected relationship between environmental shifts and changes in prehistoric people’s tools and settlement patterns. At the end of a cold period came the end of
Source: Discovery News
Dec 20, 2010
The beak was like nature's Swiss Army knife because it provided many tools in one unit.
The emergence of the beak on dinosaurs was "an evolutionary innovation," according to a new study that found this seemingly simple trait is like nature's Swiss Army knife because it functions as many tools in one.
Over time, many dinosaurs replaced their toothy grins with beaks to aid their transition to plant eating, according to the new study that is published in the lat
Source: Yahoo News
Dec 20, 2010
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour won't say if he's running for president in 2012, but he's already working to shape the narrative around a potential bid, especially when it comes to issues like race and his background as a former lobbyist.
In an interview with the Weekly Standard's Andrew Ferguson, the GOP governor offers up some provocative comments about growing up in the racially charged deep South in the 1960s. By Barbour's account, things weren't "that bad" in his homet
Source: Korea Herald
Dec 20, 2010
Korea’s ancient royal books, looted by the French navy in the late 19th century and kept by the National Library of France until now, may return to Korea in May next year, officials at the Foreign Ministry said Monday.
Their comments came one month after President Lee Myung-bak and his French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozy agreed on the return of 297 books of “Uigwe,” or royal protocols of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) on the sidelines of the G20 Seoul Summit on Nov. 12.
Source: NYT
Dec 20, 2010
For nearly 60 years the portrait of a baby-faced Philip IV by Velázquez hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European paintings galleries, a stunning example of the only 110 or so known canvases by that 17th-century Spanish master. Majestic in size, it was rare in its depiction of a young, uncertain monarch and was the earliest known portrait of Philip by Velázquez, who, as the king’s court painter, went on to record his image for decades.
So it was quite a shock when, in 1973,
Source: ABC News
Dec 20, 2010
It's been 150 years since South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union ahead of Civil War, and today the legacy of that watershed moment in American history remains a flashpoint for debate.
Organizers say the "Secession Gala" in Charleston tonight will commemorate the event as a show of courage in the face of encroachment by the federal government on state's rights. But some historians and civil rights groups are protesting the event as the glorification
Source: Jewish Telegraph Agency
Dec 20, 2010
SOLOTVYN, Ukraine (JTA) -- On a sloping green hill tucked between small farmsteads, the mottled graves of Jews buried here since the 1600s rise up like a forgotten forest.
Trudging through the mud between the tilted stones, their chiseled Hebrew lettering and renderings of menorahs sometimes barely visible, Vladimer Levin, an animated young historian who specializes in Jewish art, wants to save the gravestones.
"When we talk about preserving Jewish history, it's no
Source: Boston Globe
Dec 20, 2010
Though climate change seems a particularly modern predicament — one that generates alarm about the fate of the planet and how people and businesses will adapt — scientists are finding evidence that climate fluctuations influenced cultural changes among inhabitants of prehistoric New England.
Research is revealing the interconnected relationship between environmental shifts and changes in prehistoric people’s tools and settlement patterns. At the end of a cold period came the end of
Source: Medievalists.net
Dec 20, 2010
A chapel in the Welsh town of Llantwit Major has been awarded nearly £300,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to transform the ruined 13th century building into a new learning and exhibition centre. The Galilee Chapel adjoins the Grade I listed St. Illtud’s Church, has been described as the Westminster Abbey of Wales for its unique collection of Celtic carved stones and statues of prominent individuals.
A place of worship was first established in Llantwit Major in 500AD, includin
Source: BBC News
Dec 20, 2010
Spain has spent much of the last decade re-examining the past, exhuming mass graves from its devastating civil war.
It is thought there are around 2,000 unmarked burial sites across the country, but only a fraction have been opened.
The government now provides some funds for the search, but the work is left to relatives and volunteers.
As Sarah Rainsford reports, for some people, time is running out....
