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
Sep 23, 2010
An intricately carved Sri Lankan pipe case from the 17th Century has been sold at an auction in London.
The Sinhalese ivory double-pipe case was sold for £51,650 ($80,300) - far higher than its estimate of £8,000-£12,000 ($12,400-$18,600).
The UK buyer who purchased it wanted to stay anonymous, a spokeswoman from Christie's told BBC News.
The case was part of a collection of unusual smoking pipes to be sold by the auction house.
It is thought t
Source: BBC
Sep 23, 2010
A previously unknown painting by 16th Century master Pieter Bruegel the Elder has been revealed by picture restorers, the Prado museum in Madrid says.
The painting, The Wine of St Martin's Day, shows about 100 people celebrating the first wine of the season.
Before this find, there were just 40 signed Bruegels in existence.
The museum is now negotiating to buy the painting from its owners at a price of up to 7m euros ($9.4m; £5.9m), said the El Pais newspap
Source: AP
Sep 23, 2010
Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked yet another controversy Thursday saying a majority of people in the United States and around the world believe the American government staged the Sept. 11 terror attacks in an attempt to assure Israel's survival.
The provocative comments prompted the U.S. delegation to walk out of Ahmadinejad's U.N. speech, where he also blamed the U.S. as the power behind U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran for its refusal to halt uran
Source: AP
Sep 23, 2010
The University of Illinois on Thursday denied 1960s radical William Ayers emeritus faculty status after trustees Chairman Christopher Kennedy noted Ayers dedicated a book to, among others, the man who killed Kennedy's father, Robert F. Kennedy.
All nine voting trustees either opposed granting Ayers, a recently retired University of Illinois-Chicago professor, the largely honorary status or abstained from the vote. Universities often grant emeritus status to distinguished retired fac
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 23, 2010
A long-lost poem discovered in the Oxford University archives could throw new light on the author of Paradise Lost, who died in 1674. The comic ditty, An Extempore upon a Faggot, is attributed to Milton and is laden with sexual innuendo.
However, scholars are unsure of its provenance and suspect it may have been the work of a jealous rival.
Dr Jennifer Batt, an academic in English Literature at Oxford, stumbled upon the poem while sifting through the Harding Collection,
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 23, 2010
At the new seafront restaurant overlooking the bay in the tiny resort of Luderitz on the coast of Namibia, tourists are invited to sit out on the balcony, where they can dine on the finest South Atlantic seafood accompanied by vintage South African wines as they take in the views over neighbouring Shark Island.
But little do they know the horrific truth about that view, which the tourist guidebooks describe as 'stunning'. Shark Island, with its picturesque setting, was the site of t
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Sep 23, 2010
For more than four decades, airman Richard Etchberger’s heroic efforts to save three of his men were cloaked in secrecy.
His own three sons were even kept in the dark for much of that time over how their father died during the Vietnam War.
Finally this week, the Air Force NCO’s bravery was recognised at the White House, where he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honour by President Obama.
‘This medal reflects the gratitude of an entire nation,’ Mr Obam
Source: BBC News
Sep 23, 2010
A man wanted in connection with a stolen drawing believed to be by Vincent van Gogh has been arrested in Vermont in the US.
Authorities say the Texan man is wanted for selling a $1 million (£640,000) sketch of van Gogh's The Night Cafe.
He was arrested on charges of occupying an abandoned camp, burglary and possession of stolen property.
The sketch turned up at a New Mexico antiques shop after being stolen from a home in 2009.
Police say they b
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
Officials at a Mystic sea research and education foundation think they’re close to finding the Revolutionary War ship of John Paul Jones.
The Ocean Technology Foundation reported it is launching a fifth expedition soon to search for the wreck of Bonhomme Richard in the North Sea near England....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 22, 2010
MI6 was “dumbfounded” when Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact with communist Russia in August 1939 starting the Second World War, according to the new official history of the service.
They had every reason to believe Hitler would never side with Stalin after listening to 20 years of his anti-communist rhetoric.
However an agent called “Baron,” run from Helsinki, Finland, had warned them of secret negotiations in the spring of 1939 and repeated his warning in Jun
Source: Gettysburg Times
Sep 22, 2010
Careless driving has resulted in monument damage at Gettysburg National Military Park, leading Superintendent Bob Kirby to announce that memorial relocation is being considered.
Kirby also reported that new signage and traffic control devices, such as bumper strips, are planned along battlefield roadways, to deter further collisions between vehicles and monuments.
“It’s a sad and continuing saga,” Kirby said regarding the distracted driving. “There are people out there
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
While Texans are fiercely proud their state was once its own republic, and California celebrates the same former status on its flag, relatively few Louisianans know that a group of their forebears overthrew Spanish rule to carve out a tiny, independent nation 200 years ago. With the bicentennial coming up Thursday, historians and descendants of the rebels are hoping to change that.
In the early morning hours of Sept. 23, 1810, 75 armed rebels slipped into the Spanish fort at Baton R
Source: AP
Sep 22, 2010
A redevelopment project in this Albanian town has been halted after construction work discovered a 6th-century tomb.
Officials hailed the delay as a landmark decision in this impoverished Balkan country, where rampant construction often obliterates cultural heritage such as archaeological sites.
Two years ago, Albania created a state archaeological service, but laws meant to ensure that potential archaeological sites were excavated ahead of development were regularly i
Source: Latin American Herald Tribune
Sep 22, 2010
A team of Peruvian archaeologists have discovered two ceremonial temples more than 4,000 years old in Peru’s northern jungle, which makes them the most ancient in the country and identifies them with the Bracamoros culture, the daily El Comercio said on Saturday.
On both sites were found 14 burial vaults that typically contain the skeletons of newborns and adolescents placed there as offerings at different times in the course of the 800 years these buildings were in use, the newspap
Source: BBC
Sep 22, 2010
An Indian pilot who flew Hawker Hurricanes during World War II has died, it has been announced.
Squadron Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji, 92, died at at Darent Valley Hospital in Kent on Saturday following a stroke.
Sqn Ldr Pujji was believed to be the last surviving fighter pilot from a group of 24 Indians who arrived in Britain in 1940.
He survived several crashes and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for services in Burma....
Source: MSNBC
Sep 22, 2010
JERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists have excavated a lavish, private theater box in a 400-seat facility at King Herod's winter palace in the Judean desert, the team's head said Tuesday.
Ehud Netzer of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said the room provides further evidence of King Herod's famed taste for extravagance.
Herod commissioned Roman artists to decorate the theater walls with elaborate paintings and plaster moldings around 15 B.C., Netzer said. Its upper portions
Source: Time.com
Sep 22, 2010
As tensions between China and Japan continue to escalate, both sides can take solace knowing that things could be much worse. And not long ago, they were. In 2005, large demonstrations broke out in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou and other Chinese cities in response to Japanese efforts to win a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council and a Japanese history textbook that downplayed its wartime aggression. Protesters smashed windows of Japanese restaurants and other businesses, and police stru
Source: The Tennessean
Sep 22, 2010
The nation’s leading Civil War land preservation group will formally announce plans Friday morning to buy 84 acres of land now owned by General Motors.
There’s one catch: The deal is contingent upon members helping raise part of the $2 million needed by Nov. 29, the 146th anniversary of the Battle of Spring Hill.
Jim Campi, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust, said the group signed a contract in June to buy GM’s acreage just north of Ri
Source: BBC News
Sep 22, 2010
Scientists have unearthed two new species of giant plant-eating horned dinosaurs in southern Utah, US.
The creatures lived on the "lost continent" of Laramidia in the Late Cretaceous period, some 68 to 99 million years ago.
Laramidia was formed when a shallow sea flooded part of what is now North America and divided the continent in two.
The findings were published in the journal Plos One.
The scientists say the newly found dinos live
Source: NYT
Sep 22, 2010
During his lifetime, Franz Kafka burned an estimated 90 percent of his work. After his death at age 41, in 1924, a letter was discovered in his desk in Prague, addressed to his friend Max Brod. “Dearest Max,” it began. “My last request: Everything I leave behind me . . . in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.” Less than two months later, Brod, disregarding Kafka’s request, signed an agreement to prepare a posthumous edition of K
