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 21, 2010
An air raid siren will be sounded to mark the 70th anniversary of the Coventry Blitz, it has been announced.
Residents were asked by the city council if they wanted a siren sounded during commemorations on 14 November.
But the council said the siren would only be heard within the cathedral, as part of the memorial service.
The Luftwaffe dropped thousands of tons of bombs on the city on 14th November 1940, killing hundreds of residents and destroying most
Source: BBC
Sep 21, 2010
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago.
The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents.
Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener.
The bones will go on display next year.
The
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 21, 2010
The FBI improperly opened investigations into Greenpeace and other animal rights and anti-war groups after the September 11 attacks of 2001, the US government has admitted.
A US Department of Justice review found that FBI agents also put names of some Greenpeace members on terrorist watch lists based on evidence that turned out to be "factually weak".
The review concluded that the FBI did not deliberately target the groups, as many civil liberties advocates h
Source: CNN
Sep 21, 2010
In the exclusive club of former presidents, not often does one declare his superiority to another. Former President Jimmy Carter appeared to do just that on Monday.
Carter is far from the only former president to fill humanitarian or charitable roles after their term in office. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush joined together in the wake of January's devastating earthquake in Haiti to form the Bush Clinton Haiti Fund. George H.W. Bush teamed up with Clinton in 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (Canada)
Sep 21, 2010
Nearly 70 years after a famous Second World War incident in which a Canadian ship rammed and sank a German submarine in the Mediterranean Sea, the only survivor of the doomed U-boat and perhaps the last living sailor from HMCS Ville de Quebec have rediscovered each other via the Internet -- two former enemies now forging a poignant, long-distance friendship via e-mail.
The remarkable reunion came about after a California newspaper published a story last November featuring the wartim
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 21, 2010
One of the most dramatic episodes in the Old Testament, the parting of the Red Sea, may actually have happened, new research has shown.
A new computer modelling study suggests a powerful wind could have divided the waters just as depicted in the Book of Exodus.
The likely location of the ''miracle'' was not the Red Sea as such, but a nearby spot in the Nile Delta region.
In the biblical account, Moses and the fleeing Israelites are trapped between the Phara
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Sep 21, 2010
Jacques Chirac, the former French president, will stand trial for embezzlement in a Paris court early next year, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
The 77-year-old, whose presidency of France ran from 1995 until 2007, could face a ten-year prison sentence and 150,000-euro (£130,000) fine if found guilty. He will be the first modern French leader to face a corruption trial.
Mr Chirac faces charges of abuse of public funds while he was mayor of Paris. It is alleged that he paid
Source: cnn
Sep 21, 2010
Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher who inspired the name of the legendary southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, has died.
The band announced his death on its website, saying Skinner died in his sleep early Monday morning. He was 77.
"Coach Skinner had such a profound impact on our youth that ultimately led us to naming the band, which you know as Lynyrd Skynyrd, after him," wrote Gary Rossington, guitarist and a founding member of the band.
"Looki
Source: bbc News
Sep 21, 2010
A book detailing the first 40 years of the UK's foreign intelligence service has been published.
Author Professor Keith Jeffery was given access to the archives at MI6, which has the official title of the Secret Intelligence Service.
Prof Jeffery said that in researching MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949 he was allowed to view all files.
He said his only restriction was not to name some traitorous agents.
Among the c
Source: BBC News
Sep 21, 2010
British Holocaust denier David Irving has arrived in Poland to lead a tour of sites from the Nazi occupation.
Confirming his arrival by phone, he said he could give no details of his plans for security reasons.
His tour brochure offers a visit to the former Wolf's Lair site where "German army traitors" tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944.
A Polish group is trying to sue Irving for Holocaust denial, based on one of his books published recentl
Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Sep 20, 2010
AUSTIN -- Leaders of an interfaith group that includes Christians, Jews and Muslims urged the State Board of Education on Monday to abandon what they called an "inflammatory" resolution that purportedly documents an anti-Christian, pro-Islamic bias in world history textbooks.
The resolution, which is expected to come before the board Friday, is threatening to entangle the board in a new controversy after a series of "culture war" debates that has brought national
Source: WWAY 3
Sep 20, 2010
Three hundred years on the ocean floor can be pretty rough on a body. The Underwater Archaeology Branch (UAB) of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources (www.ncculture.com) will dedicate its fall dive to treating some large bodies of iron in the Atlantic Ocean. Researchers, from Sept. 22-Oct. 29, will be on wreck site of the likely Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR) (www.qaronline.com), Blackbeard’s flagship, which sank in
Source: Yahoo News
Sep 20, 2010
The British government used bombs and covert tactics to try to thwart the settlement of Palestine by post-World War II Jewish refugees, according to a new book by Keith Jeffery, titled "MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949." The British government has independently verified Jeffery's revelation. Jeffery, a historian from Northern Ireland, notes that his book was "published with the permission of the Secret Intelligence Service and the Controller of Her Maj
Source: Irish Central
Sep 20, 2010
President O'Bama said it best when he said "is féidir linn," "yes we can," at a Saint Patrick's Day reception last year in the White House.
More and more these days, Irish Gaelic is returning to Irish American life at functions and in art, as perceptions of what makes something Irish shift towards more detail and care. In multi-cultural America, the old Irish American assimilation model is giving way and making it possible for Irish Americans to rediscover what t
Source: Asian Times
Sep 20, 2010
After 95 years, the Eucharist was celebrated once again in the Holy Cross Armenian Church on Akdamar Island in Lake Van, in eastern Turkey near the border with Armenia. Archbishop Aram Atesyan, vicar of the Armenian patriarch of Turkey, described the event, which occurred yesterday, as “a miracle”. However, in the Armenian Diaspora, many voices were critical.
“It is miracle to be able to celebrate the Eucharist here today,” the bishop said in his sermon. Speaking in Armenian, then T
Source: Fox News
Sep 20, 2010
The Iraqi National Museum has found more than 600 missing artifacts stashed away in a storeroom of the prime minister's office, two years after the U.S. government returned them to Iraq, officials said on Monday.
Most of the artifacts were among some 15,000 relics looted during the chaos that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
The 638 pieces were recovered, handed over to the premier's office, and promptly lost again, officials said
Source: LA Times
Sep 20, 2010
...In the first days of 2009, hundreds of angry Vietnamese Americans marched outside an exhibit in Santa Ana featuring Vietnamese artists. Some arrived by bus from as far away as San Jose.
The object of their fury was a 2-foot-by-3-foot photo featuring a young woman sitting next to a brass bust of former Communist leader Ho Chi Minh. She wore a red tank top with a large yellow star, the color of the official flag of Vietnam.
The protesters shouted into bullhorns and rai
Source: Greek Reporter
Sep 20, 2010
Two exhibitions concerning Alexander the Great are on display in the Netherlands. One is at the Amsterdam Hermitage and the other is at Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. The exhibition at the Hermitage Amsterdam Museum is about “Alexander the Great – the Immortal”. The second one running at the Allard Pierson Museum in cooperation with the former, is on the subject of “Alexander the Great and His Heritage-Greeks in Egypt”.
The exhibition at the Hermitage Amsterdam Museum will b
Source: BBC News
Sep 20, 2010
Scientists have uncovered mechanisms that allow plants to thrive in highly radioactive environments like Chernobyl.
They analysed seeds from soybean and flax grown near the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor which exploded in 1986.
The team says that plants may have an innate ability to cope with radioactivity.
The study appears in the Environmental Science and Technology journal.
One of the researchers speculates that such mechanisms could
Source: NYT
Sep 20, 2010
The music on “Silver and Ash,” a new album from the songwriter Clare Burson, started with silence. There was the silence that descended in 1941, when letters from her maternal great-grandparents, German Jews who had fled to Latvia, abruptly stopped arriving in Memphis, where Ms. Burson’s grandmother settled in 1938. Then there was the second silence: the silence in Ms. Burson’s family about the first silence.
Ms. Burson, now a 34-year-old songwriter who lives in Cobble Hill, Brookl
