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: Daily Mail (UK)
Aug 11, 2010
Generations of schoolboys searched through their change in the vain hope of finding one.
At last, a 1933 penny bearing the head of King George V has surfaced - on the eBay internet auction site.
Experts have always worked on the assumption that only seven such coins were minted and, if genuine, this one would be worth at least £80,000.
By yesterday, bidding had reached a little over £1,100 (plus £4.95 postage) while the owner, listed as Suzanne X, faile
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 11, 2010
In a surreal development that Dali would no doubt approve of, China Merchants Zhangzhou visited the town of Cadaques in Spain to photograph buildings and take measurements to ensure that his town is as authentic as possible.
The company has since found a spot in China that is geographically similar to the original location, which features gently sloping hills and a sheltered bay.
Building work is expected to start in September or October, a spokesman told the Guardian.
Source: National Geographic News
Aug 10, 2010
Femurs and skulls of freshly dead used to make buttons, combs, scientists say.
Members of a pre-Aztec civilization used human bones—likely from their freshly dead relatives—to make buttons, combs, needles, spatulas, and dozens of other everyday utensils, Mexican archeologists say.
The discovery comes from a new analysis of 5,000 bone fragments found in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, a large archaeological site about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Mexico City (s
Source: National Geographic
Aug 10, 2010
...Long dismissed as accidental additions to Viking graves, prehistoric "thunderstones"—fist-size stone tools resembling the Norse god Thor's hammerhead—were actually purposely placed as good-luck talismans, archaeologists say.
Using fire-starting rock such as flint, Stone Age people originally created the stones to serve as axes. But the Vikings, whose Iron Age heyday lasted from about A.D. 800 to 1050, saw the primitive tools as lightning repellent.
Because
Source: AP
Aug 10, 2010
Six murals created for a Works Progress Administration project in the 1930s and 1940s at the University of Rhode Island and thought lost for decades have been rediscovered.
The murals, painted by artist Gino Conti of Providence, were found last month during a $1.5 million renovation of Edwards Hall funded by federal stimulus money. The school announced the find yesterday.
The colorful oil-on-canvas paintings were hung in the entryway of Edwards Hall, an auditorium. Ron
Source: NYT
Aug 10, 2010
How thrilling the ride off the back of a jet and down that inflatable emergency slide must have been for Steven Slater, flight attendant — cold beer in his hand, wind in his hair, the seat of his JetBlue uniform gliding merrily toward the runway. Woo-hoo!
And yet, with his swift arrest at home later Monday, the whole caper has nothing on the infamous take-this-job-and-shove-it run of one William Cimillo. A Bronx bus driver fed up with the daily annoyances and nonsense of it all, Mr.
Source: NYT
Aug 10, 2010
COLMA, Calif. — Sixty-six years after riding a B-24J Liberator on a bombing mission over Berlin, John P. Bonnassiolle is finally home.
The plane carrying Sergeant Bonnassiolle, age 20, and nine other crewmen in April 1944 never returned, but on Tuesday his remains were buried in the family’s cemetery plot.
“We have closure,” said Andrew Kelley, 88, who, like his younger brother John, flew bombers in the war.
The remains of more than 72,000 Americans are sti
Source: NYT
Aug 10, 2010
TOKYO — Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan offered a renewed apology to South Korea on Tuesday for Japan’s brutal colonial rule, as part of a statement marking the 100th anniversary of his nation’s annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910.
Enlarge This Image
Everett Kennedy Brown/European Pressphoto Agency
Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan gave a policy speech in Tokyo after releasing a statement apologizing to South Korea for the damage caused by Japan’s colonial rul
Source: AP
Aug 10, 2010
A fire swept through a barrack at the former Nazi death camp of Majdanek, destroying more than half the building and possibly 10,000 shoes of Holocaust victims, officials said Tuesday.
The Majdanek museum said the fire in the barrack housing a camp kitchen was discovered shortly before midnight on Monday by a guard making his rounds. The cause of the fire is not yet known and authorities are investigating.
In Israel, the director of the Yad Vashem museum, Avner Shalev e
Source: Bloomberg
Aug 10, 2010
Germany must face a lawsuit over bonds that defaulted under Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, a U.S. appeals court ruled, saying the nation isn’t immune from the claims and that American courts have jurisdiction to decide whether the bonds are enforceable.
World Holdings LLC, based in Tampa, Florida, claimed it owns a “significant number” of $208 million in bonds sold to U.S. purchasers following World War I and has been rebuffed when it sought repayment by the German government. The firm
Source: The Atlantic
Aug 10, 2010
Yesterday, Google and Verizon jointly released a two-page document entitled "Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal." The blandness of this name notwithstanding, the news has people talking about an online "fast lane" and "two internets." The Huffington Post calls it "the pact to end the Internet as we know it." Why has this announcement caused so much speculation and outrage?
The answer lies in the laws governing broadband internet and
Source: Tablet
Aug 10, 2010
Sometime in the 12th century CE, at the monastery of Cappenberg in western Germany, a fascinating and enigmatic document was produced. Its Latin title, Opusculum de conversione sua, means “A Short Work About his Conversion,” and it is attributed to Hermannus quondam Judaeus—“Herman the former Jew.” What makes this work especially significant, writes Jean-Claude Schmitt in his newly translated study The Conversion of Herman the Jew: Autobiography, History, and Fiction in the Twelfth Century (Univ
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 10, 2010
A lawsuit filed by descendants of the Native American chieftain Geronimo, who claimed some of his remains were stolen in 1918 by the secretive Skull and Bones society of Yale University, has been dismissed by a federal judge.
The lawsuit was filed last year in Washington by 20 descendants who want to rebury the Apache warrior near his New Mexico birthplace.
It claimed that during the First World War, Skull and Bones members, including Prescott Bush, the grandfather of
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 10, 2010
The home is so old that when it was built Britain was still part of Continental Europe.
The circular structure near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, which dates back to the Stone Age 8,500 years BC, was found next to a former lake.
The house predates the dwelling previously thought to be Britain's oldest, at Howick, Northumberland, by at least 500 years.
The team said they are also excavating a large wooden platform made of timbers which have been split and h
Source: Hurriyet (Turkey)
Aug 10, 2010
The Tourism and Culture Ministry started a research investigation into an illegal excavation which took place in the Zeus Karios area in Milas, Bodrum. The illegal excavation revealed the large tomb stone of King Hekataios.
The tomb stone was made in 390 B.C. and it is said that the discovery is one of the most important archeological discovery in modern times.
Speaking after the research, Undersecretariat of Culture and Tourism Ministry Özgür Özarslan said: “The discov
Source: Guardian (UK)
Aug 10, 2010
Spain's Costa Blanca provided a safe haven for many Nazis, allowing them to enjoy a retirement without regret or atonement.
Mention the Costa Blanca and most people will have heard of it. The community of Valencia, to which the Costa Blanca belongs, has three of Spain's first-division football teams, is renowned for its popular fiestas, the home of the traditional paella and, of course, the Valencia orange. However, mention the fact that the region was also a retirement home for Naz
Source: CS Monitor
Aug 10, 2010
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan surprised Koreans with a contrite apology Tuesday for an entire era of Japanese colonial rule that began a century ago this month and did not end until the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, ending World War II.
The “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology” offered by Mr. Kan, however, is not likely to have a significant effect on a society accustomed to Japanese apologies in recent years and doubtful about Japan's intention to ever compensate for f
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Aug 10, 2010
Cloning still triggers fear in the public, as the recent food furore shows. But the genetic process has powerful uses for good, writes Roger Highfield.
The cloned food furore has been a timely reminder of how, even when we recognise a big idea, no one can quite predict its consequences. It is 13 years since the breakthrough that made it possible to clone adult animals was announced by a team at the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh. Called nuclear transfer, it offered a way to wind b
Source: CNN
Aug 10, 2010
Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, is up for parole for the sixth time and may be questioned as early as Tuesday, authorities said.
Chapman's latest quest for freedom comes just months short of the 30th anniversary of the death of the former member of the Beatles.
Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by two members of the parole board during this week, and that interview could happen Tuesday.
The last time Chapman was up for parole, in 2008, the Ne
Source: CNN
Aug 10, 2010
The former head of NASA was a passenger on the private aircraft that crashed in Alaska on Monday night, his company said.
He is Sean O'Keefe, EADS North America's chief executive officer.
"Local authorities are reporting that there are survivors and a rescue operation is under way," said Guy Hicks, EADS North America spokesman "No other details are available at this time."
EADS North America is a subsidiary of EADS, the European aerospac
