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: L.A. Times
Aug 30, 2010
The Bank of Mexico said Monday it would place in circulation a new 500-peso bill featuring the well-known faces of two of the country's best-known artists, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. In the bank's official video to promote the bill's anti-counterfeiting features, two figures resembling the celebrity couple stroll in costume around traditional and modern sites in Mexico.
The previous face on the 500-peso bill was Ignacio Zaragoza, hero of the Battle of Puebla. Milenio reports that
Source: U.S. News
Aug 30, 2010
For many, the name Chappaquiddick conjures images of a drunken Sen. Edward Kennedy hitting on Mary Jo Kopechne in his Oldsmobile, losing control, and plunging into the water of Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, adjacent to Martha's Vineyard where President Obama was vacationing. Kopechne, a family friend, drowned; and Teddy fumbled for excuses about what happened.
Now, a year after Kennedy died, his lifelong biographer Burton Hersh, armed with fresh interviews with Kennedy's mis
Source: CNN
Aug 30, 2010
A building at a Georgia university was evacuated Monday morning after some Civil War relics stored there were found to be possibly dangerous, officials said.
Officials at Kennesaw State University in suburban Atlanta called an all-clear around 1 p.m., about an hour and a half after they evacuated the school's Social Sciences Building and its surrounding area.
The relics included two cannonballs that were located in a display case within a room that was accessible only w
Source: CNN
Aug 30, 2010
In a rare interview, Fidel Castro gives new details about his health four years ago when emergency surgery forced him out of power, saying he didn't think he would make it and still has difficulty walking.
The 84-year-old did not, however, provide any details about what illnesses he suffered from.
Cuban state TV read aloud a letter from Castro on July 31, 2006, announcing he was handing power to his younger brother Raul Castro. He disappeared from public view amid repea
Source: International Business Times
Aug 30, 2010
The birth rate in US fell 2.6 percent in 2009 for the second year in a row to its lowest level in the country’s history, according to a latest study by the National Center for Health Statistics.
The number of babies born in the US dropped to 13.5 births for every 1,000 people in 2009 from 13.9 births in 2008 and 14.3 births in 2007, the report showed.
Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at John Hopkins University was quoted as saying that the decline in birth rate was
Source: Discovery News
Aug 30, 2010
Island species from the past were usually stranger and smaller than close relatives on continental landmasses.
Transylvania was Count Dracula's mythical home, but in reality, this historical region of Romania during the Late Cretaceous was home to a strange predatory dinosaur, according to paleontologists who studied its fossilized bones.
Named Balour bondoc, meaning "stocky dragon," the meat-eating dinosaur lived from around 72 to 65 million years ago. Its sk
Source: BBC
Aug 30, 2010
Hundreds of ancient sites have been discovered by aerial surveys, thanks to a dry start to the summer, English Heritage has said.
The surveys show marks made when crops growing over buried features develop at a different rate from those nearby.
The newly-discovered Roman and prehistoric settlements include a site near Bradford Abbas, Dorset.
The Roman camp was revealed in June after three sides became visible in sun-parched fields of barley....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 30, 2010
A priceless painting by the 16th century Italian artist Titian was damaged after sprinklers were used to put out a fire that broke out adjacent to a church in Venice.
The work, David and Goliath, was soaked with water after fire fighters extinguished a blaze in a building next to the Santa Maria della Salute church.
The head of Venice’s museums, art critic and television celebrity Vittorio Sgarbi, ordered the 1544 masterpiece to be taken down so that the extent of the
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 30, 2010
France’s state rail operator, SNCF, has pledged to open its wartime archives to the state of California to prove it has “nothing to hide” over transporting French Jews to Nazi death camps.
The pledge came a week after California passed legislation making full disclosure on involvement in taking people to work, concentration, prisoner of war, or extermination camps between January 1942 and December 1944 a requirement for bidding to build a high-speed railway in the state.
Source: AP
Aug 30, 2010
Thousands of people streamed back to this historic southern city Monday where new levees hastily built from clay and stone held back floodwaters that have inundated much of Pakistan.
Thousands who fled the waters that inundated neighboring towns complained about the shortage of food and water as they camped in a vast Muslim graveyard on a hill near Thatta city.
Thatta, which is about 75 miles (125 kilometers) southeast of the major coastal city of Karachi, contains seve
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 30, 2010
Mary Shelley, the British author of Frankenstein, has had the 213th anniversary of her birth celebrated by a spooky Google Doodle.
The search engine’s multi-coloured logo has been replaced with an image of a darkened room, with a series of four ghostly portraits on the wall and a shadowy figure looming through an open door in place of the letters in Google’s name.
Hovering the mouse over the image brings up the words “Mary Shelley’s 213th birthday”, and clicking on the
Source: BBC News
Aug 30, 2010
Hundreds of ancient sites have been discovered by aerial surveys, thanks to a dry start to the summer, English Heritage has said.
The surveys show marks made when crops growing over buried features develop at a different rate from those nearby.
The newly-discovered Roman and prehistoric settlements include a site near Bradford Abbas, Dorset.
The Roman camp was revealed in June after three sides became visible in rain-parched fields of barley.
T
Source: Live Science
Aug 29, 2010
Giant cave bears thought to have once dined on each other might have been driven to extinction by the advance of humanity, scientists now suggest.
Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus) are named after the places where their bones are often found - caves across Europe. These giants were roughly a third larger than modern grizzly bears, and while scientists previously thought cave bears were vegetarians, recent findings hinted they might also have consumed meat, and possibly even cannibalized e
Source: AsiaOne News
Aug 29, 2010
France's state rail company will give US authorities details of its role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps in support of its bid to build a high-speed railway in California, its chairman said Sunday.
"Twenty years ago we opened all our archives... we are going to open all that to the Americans," said the chairman of the SNCF national railway company, Guillaume Pepy, on Europe 1 radio.The SNCF is making a joint bid with major French cons
Source: The Telegraph
Aug 29, 2010
Sales of the third edition of the vast tome have fallen due to the increasing popularity of online alternatives, according to its publisher.
A team of 80 lexicographers has been working on the third edition of the OED – known as OED3 – for the past 21 years.
The dictionary’s owner, Oxford University Press (OUP), said the impact of the internet means OED3 will probably appear only in electronic form.The most recent OED has existed online for more tha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 29, 2010
Battlelines are being drawn over plans to build a casino close to Gettysburg, the site of the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War, in what opponents say would be a desecration of sacred ground.
The American Legion veterans organisation called the plan a "national disgrace" but supporters said it would boost the local economy and help to halt a decline in visitors to the battlefield.
More than 160,000 men fought at Gettysburg from July 1-3, 1863. Aroun
Source: AFP
Aug 29, 2010
LONDON (AFP) – Britain carried out assassinations during the Cold War, novelist and former secret agent John le Carre told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
The espionage writer worked for Britain's domestic and external intelligence agencies during the 1950s and 1960s."Certainly we did very bad things. We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations, at arm's length. Although I was never involved," said the 79-year-old, whose real name is Davi
Source: BBC News
Aug 29, 2010
US President Barack Obama has paid tribute to the people of New Orleans, five years to the day after Hurricane Katrina destroyed large parts of the city.
His administration would stand by them and continue rebuilding "until the job is done", Mr Obama said.
Katrina was a natural disaster but also a man-made one, he said, which saw a "shameful breakdown" of government.
More than 1,800 people died when Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005.
Source: Irish Central
Aug 28, 2010
If the Nazi invasion of Britain had been successful, Ireland would have been invaded, it has been revealed.
Details of the Irish invasion were recently released by the National Archives in Britain.
The just-published MI5 file shows that Ireland was definitely targeted for a Nazi landing if the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe, had won the Battle of Britain.The plan, which would have involved the main landing of German shock troops at Dover, was calle
Source: Deutsche Welle
Aug 28, 2010
A plan existed to bring the 1968 Olympic Games to Berlin, which was divided by then East and West Germany, a sports historian said Saturday. But the Allies, along with the West German government, would not allow it.
Christopher Young, who also heads German studies at the University of Cambridge, told the online edition of daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel that the idea was the brainchild of eventual Chancellor Willy Brandt.
"It was somewhat of a crazy idea of (the t
