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: CNN
Jul 28, 2010
From the two-story care home where she lived in the northern English city of Bradford, 104-year-old Ivy Bean would tell her nearly 57,000 Twitter followers around the world what she did each day -- from eating fish and chips to sitting in the garden.
Bean's warm and friendly nature came across in every message, and she regularly corresponded with her followers. Even when she had a bad day, she never dwelled on it for long.
Her mischievous side would sometimes come throu
Source: National Library of Medicine
Jul 28, 2010
The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and an arm of the National Institutes of Health, has been named a partner in a multi-centered grant to digitize materials in the history of medicine.
As one of five libraries participating in the digital Medical Heritage Project, NLM will receive $360,000 over the next two months to digitize items from its historical medical collections. The initiative is funded by a $1.5 million award to the Open Knowledge
Source: Canada East
Jul 28, 2010
Arctic archaeologists have found the ship that forged the final link in the Northwest Passage and was lost in the search for the Franklin expedition.
The HMS Investigator, abandoned in the ice in 1853, has been found in shallow water in Mercy Bay along the northern coast of Banks Island in Canada's western Arctic.
"The ship is standing upright in very good condition," Marc-Andre Bernier, Parks Canada's head of underwater archaeology, said Wednesday. "It's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 28, 2010
Director Oliver Stone has apologised for comments he made to a London newspaper about the Holocaust and Jewish control of the media, which drew an avalanche of criticism.
"In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret," Stone said in a statement issued by his publicist.
"Jews obviously do not control m
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 28, 2010
Professor John Burland has spent the last two decades striving to save - and understand - the Leaning Tower of Pisa. After defying gravity, Italian bureaucracy and accusations of corruption, it seems he’s finally cracked the case....
Burland had helped save Big Ben from collapse during the Jubilee Line extension of the early Nineties, but progress in Pisa was far less smooth.
‘There were 14 egos at work and little common ground between people from such different discipl
Source: Reuters
Jul 28, 2010
As Rome's ancient Colosseum literally crumbles from neglect, the cash-strapped Italian government is looking for private sponsors willing to help pay for restoration work in exchange for advertising rights.
The vast Roman amphitheatre which housed bloody public spectacles including gladiator fights, mock sea battles and animal shows is one of the most famous monuments from the ancient world.
But it has suffered badly in recent years and only 35 percent of the structure
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
Jul 28, 2010
An 1,800-year-old personal care set from the Roman period has been revealed during excavations at Myra-Andriake in Antalya’s district of Demre, daily Radikal reported Wednesay.
A pair of bronze tweezers and a manicure rasp were found at the excavations of the Andriake Port, said the head of the excavations, Professor Nevzat Çevi, an academic from Akdeniz University’s Archeology Department. Indicating that the 1,800-year-old care set was considerably advanced compared to similar ones
Source: Fox News
Jul 28, 2010
The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient tunnels in Jerusalem, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime -- and may even be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple," which held the Ark of
Source: BBC News
Jul 28, 2010
Troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan created the "perfect storm" for an overstretched army, a former Army chief has told the Iraq inquiry.
Gen Sir Richard Dannatt said the Ministry of Defence's projections of required troop commitments differed from Army estimates.
He said the Army had come close to "seizing up" in 2006.
New documents revealed Gen Sir Mike Jackson warned in 2005 the helicopter fleet in Iraq was "inadequate"
Source: BBC News
Jul 28, 2010
The parliament of Catalonia has voted to ban bullfighting - the first region of mainland Spain to do so.
The vote took place as the result of a petition brought to parliament, signed by 180,000 people who say the practice is barbaric and outdated.
Bullfight supporters insist that the corrida, as it is known, is an important tradition to preserve.
They also fear the vote could be the first of many in the country. The ban takes effect in January 2012.
Source: WaPo
Jul 28, 2010
A German newspaper says that former Nazi SS officer Erich Steidtmann, suspected but never convicted of involvement in World War II massacres, has died at age 95.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported Wednesday that Steidtmann died Sunday from a heart attack at his home in Hannover....
Source: WaPo
Jul 28, 2010
Lawmakers in Catalonia outlawed bullfighting Wednesday, making it Spain's first major region to ban the deadly, centuries-old ballet between matador and beast after heated debate that pitted animal rights against a pillar of traditional culture....
The first Spanish region to outlaw bullfighting was the Canary Islands, in 1991. But fights were never that popular there and when the ban took effect there had not been a bullfight for seven years. That makes the Catalonia vote a much mo
Source: Inside Science News Service
Jul 27, 2010
Physicists have created a dye that promises to last for a thousand years. The secret to this extraordinary durability? Its formula is based on a Mayan pigment, a brilliant blue color that survives to this day on the walls of their ancient temples.
Dooryhee and team of French physicists have spent years studying historical objects using X-rays. They shoot finely-tuned beams of X-rays from a synchrotron machine -- much stronger than a dental X-ray -- at these materials and look at th
Source: NY Times
Jul 27, 2010
or more than two decades the heirs of a world-renowned Jewish collector have been petitioning the Hungarian government to return more than $100 million worth of art, most of which has been hanging in Hungarian museums, where it was left for safekeeping during World War II or placed after being stolen by the Nazis and later returned to Hungary.
The requests have been rebuffed, as have appeals to the government from current and former United States senators, including the Democrats Ch
Source: BBC News
Jul 27, 2010
A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq.
The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money.
Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says.
The US military said the funds were not necessarily missing, but that spending records might have b
Source: WaPo
Jul 27, 2010
Arlington National Cemetery officials knew more than five years ago that many burials did not match Arlington's maps and paper records, according to documents released Tuesday by a Senate subcommittee investigating millions of dollars in botched contracts overseen by the Army.
The Senate documents reveal that a contractor hired to test the accuracy of Arlington records told cemetery officials about the errors in 2005, but they were not corrected. The Senate investigators also found
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2010
Vietnam has turned down a request to scatter the ashes of a French war veteran at the site of a battle which helped end colonial rule by France.
General Marcel Bigeard, one of France's most decorated soldiers, who died last month, reportedly asked to rejoin his fallen comrades.
But a Vietnamese official is quoted as saying this would "create a precedent".
The refusal is thought to be a reference to American soldiers who might request similar treat
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2010
The former Cambodian Khmer Rouge prison chief Duch, who was convicted of crimes against humanity, will appeal against his sentence, his lawyer has said.
Duch, 67, whose full name is Kaing Guek Eav, was sentenced to 35 years in prison by a UN-backed court on Monday.
He was found guilty of overseeing the torture and execution of thousands of people at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh.
His lawyer gave no further details of the grounds for the appe
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2010
The oldest theatre and largest chapel in Wales are among 24 historic buildings to be offered grants totalling almost £1m.
The money is being made available by the Welsh Assembly Government to carry out repairs and restoration.
Monmouth's Savoy Theatre will receive £39,300 towards repairs to the front elevation while Tabernacle Chapel in Morriston will benefit from £100,000.
Over £60,000 will go to Animal Wall in Cardiff, part of the castle complex.
Source: BBC
Jul 27, 2010
Trinidad and Tobago is marking the 20th anniversary of one of the bloodiest and confused periods in its history.
On 27 July 1990, more than 100 members of an Islamist radical group, Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, stormed parliament.
Everyone inside, including the prime minister, was held hostage for several days, as violence and looting erupted in the capital.
Twenty years on, the government has announced an inquiry into what provoked the coup attempt....
