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 5, 2010
An extradition hearing for former Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic started Monday, the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court confirmed.
London Metropolitan Police arrested Ganic at Heathrow Airport in March at Serbia's request. He is wanted in Serbia for conspiracy to murder in breach of the Geneva Conventions, a spokesman at Britain's Foreign Office said in March.
Ganic's lawyer, Stephen Gentle, denied Ganic had any role in the 1992 killings in question and in April,
Source: CNN
Jul 5, 2010
The body of chess legend Bobby Fischer was exhumed Monday in Iceland, law enforcement officials have told CNN. His body was reburied shortly after DNA samples were taken, the officials said.
Iceland's supreme court ruled last month in favor of a request by Jinky Young, Fischer's alleged daughter, to exhume his remains in order to settle a paternity question....
Source: WaPo
Jul 5, 2010
"Tea party" activists across the nation tried to put the "independence" back in Independence Day this weekend with festivals and other gatherings focused on the Constitution -- and how to use it for political gain....
"The rallies were a start, but the goal now is to get people to stop and really think about things," said Kerry Scott, an organizer of the Alexandria Tea Party, one of several hundred conservative activists who attended "An American E
Source: NYT
Jul 5, 2010
“THIS case is quite perplexing,” Clarence Darrow wrote his ex-wife in 1924, “and will most likely be a hard struggle to save the lives of the boys.”
The “boys” were Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two brilliant teenagers from wealthy Chicago families who conspired to commit the perfect crime. They failed, with tragic consequences for their kidnapping victim, 14-year-old Bobby Franks, and for themselves.
Still, Darrow, a champion of unpopular causes (think Spencer Tracy
Source: AP
Jul 4, 2010
Not just flora and fauna are getting caked in oil. So is the Gulf of Mexico's barnacled history of pirates, sea battles and World War II shipwrecks.
The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages. Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.
Within 20 miles of the well, there are several significant shi
Source: BBC
Jul 4, 2010
After 37 years sitting on the seabed in the Falklands, the SS Great Britain was brought back home to Bristol in 1970. Exactly 40 years since its return, it has been restored to its former glory with a little help from the Duke of Edinburgh.
For the 100,000 people who lined the banks of the River Avon in Bristol on 5 July 1970, it must have been a strange sight.
The ship has now become a museum, with over 150,000 people visiting it each year.
The SS Great B
Source: AP
Jul 4, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that "for all our weaknesses" priests have an important role in the world.
Benedict did not directly mention the clergy abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic church for months. But during a daylong visit to a central Italian town, he received a round of applause and words of support by local youths greeting him "in this time of harsh attacks and media provocation."
Minutes later, Benedict told the youths that "
Source: SPACE.com
Jul 4, 2010
Fifty years ago today, on Independence Day 1960, the United States officially adopted use of the 50-star American flag, increasing the star-count by one to recognize Hawaii's statehood. This, the 27th update to the star-spangled banner, became the U.S. flag to be longest used and the only one to represent the nation in space.
Despite having launched satellites for two-and-a-half years prior to the 50-star flag being unfurled, the country's first flag did not enter space until nearly
Source: NYT
Jul 4, 2010
There’s always been a forlorn tale about history slipping away in the Miller House, a farmhouse where George Washington slept and plotted strategy during the Battle of White Plains in 1776.
It has been hanging on by a thread for many years, almost forgotten in an industrial area opposite a cement plant: roof near collapse, ceiling beginning to crack, porch sagging, barely (if at all) open to the public.
So maybe it was just more of the same last week when the Westcheste
Source: NYT
Jul 4, 2010
Thousands of languages spoken by small numbers of people, including many of the Creole languages born in the last centuries of human history, are facing extinction. But a little-known language spoken on a handful of islands near the coast of Venezuela may be an exception.
Papiamentu, a Creole language influenced over the centuries by African slaves, Sephardic merchants and Dutch colonists, is now spoken by only about 250,000 people on the islands of Curaçao, Bonaire and Aruba. But c
Source: NYT
Jul 4, 2010
Four hundred years after Michelangelo Merisi, the painter known as Caravaggio, died in this coastal Tuscan town — wretched, feverish and on the run from numerous enemies — what are said to be his remains received a hero’s welcome on Saturday.
Laid on a red velvet cushion inside a transparent case, the bones — fragments of the cranium, an incomplete femur, and part of a bone from the base of the spine — reached the port on a striking tall ship, greeted by a small crowd clapping and c
Source: NYT
Jul 4, 2010
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. drew an analogy to the signers of the Declaration of Independence on Sunday in exhorting Iraqi leaders to end the paralysis that has stalled the formation of a government since the parliamentary elections four months ago.
“When they signed that declaration, many of them did not even like one another,” Mr. Biden, making his fourth trip to Baghdad as vice president, told a group of Iraqi leaders at a Fourth of July reception at the residence of the U
Source: AP
Jul 4, 2010
...The Gulf is lined with wooden shipwrecks, American-Indian shell midden mounds, World War II casualties, pirate colonies, historic hotels and old fishing villages. Researchers now fear this treasure seeker's dream is threatened by BP PLC's deepwater well blowout.
Within 20 miles of the well, there are several significant shipwrecks — ironically, discovered by oil companies' underwater robots working the depths — and oil is most likely beginning to cascade on them.
The
Source: AOL News
Jul 4, 2010
In the Vermont hamlet where Calvin Coolidge was born, folks will celebrate his star-spangled birthday the way they always do.
A Vermont National Guard contingent and a color guard will gather at noon on the village green and walk down to the Plymouth Notch Cemetery, where Coolidge is buried, trailed by hundreds of people - Coolidge descendants, presidential history buffs and locals.
Next month, a new museum dedicated to Coolidge will opens its door at the historic site
Source: AOL News
Jul 4, 2010
Jim Leyden was waiting for word on the installation of his new backyard pool when he received a startling phone call.
In fact, while digging 8 feet beneath Leyden's Brighton, Tenn., backyard on June 30, contractors discovered the bones of a prehistoric mammal, possibly a trilophodon, part of the mastodon family. Mastodons are extinct relatives of today's elephants.
Leyden said he was shocked to learn that fossils, which one expert says could be anywhere from 30,000 year
Source: Independent (UK)
Jul 4, 2010
The final resting places of six German U-boats sunk in the final months of the Second World War's greatest naval conflict have finally been identified. After years of research, maritime experts say their discoveries will force historians to re-evaluate the battle for control of the Atlantic.
Evidence from the wrecks suggests many U-boats were sunk by mines rather than attacks by Allied air and naval forces, as had previously been believed. The findings show coastal minefields were
Source: BBC
Jul 4, 2010
The Scottish government is standing by the medical advice on which it released the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
It follows claims one cancer expert who gave Abdelbaset al-Megrahi a three-month prognosis last year has said he could survive for 10 years or more.
However, other newspaper reports said he was expected to die within weeks.
The newspaper reported Professor Sikora, dean of medicine at Buckingham University, had denied he came under any p
Source: BBC
Jul 4, 2010
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the US will donate $15m (£10m) to preserve the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Mrs Clinton was on a visit to Poland, where she oversaw the signing of a key missile base agreement.
She warned of a "steel vice" of repression crushing democracy and civil liberties activists in countries such as Iran, Egypt and Zimbabwe.
She held up Poland, which elects a new leader on Sunday, as a mod
Source: BBC
Jul 4, 2010
Lebanon's top Shia Muslim cleric, seen as a key figure in the founding of militant group Hezbollah, has died at the age of 74.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was regarded as Hezbollah's spiritual guide after the group was founded in 1982, a charge both denied.
An implacable critic of the US, he had a wide following among Shias and backed the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
But he was known among Shias for his moderate social views.
Source: AP
Jul 4, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI traveled to a central Italian town Sunday to pay homage to Celestine V, saying the simple lifestyle of the 13th-century hermit who resigned the papacy can serve as an example for modern men and women.
Benedict praised his predecessor for his detachment from material things such as money and clothes.
Celestine V assumed the papacy in 1294 at age 85 and resigned five months later, saying he was not up to the task. He was later put under guard for fear he
