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: Politico
Jul 1, 2010
Key parts of the antiquated U.S. Capitol campus are literally crumbling, desperately in need of more than $200 million in repairs.
Water is leaking through pin holes in the Statue of Freedom. Lead-based paint chips are flaking off the Rotunda walls and collecting on the tour route to the Capitol dome, putting visitors at risk. Last summer, a U.S. Capitol Police officer was injured when he was struck by a falling ceiling tile in the Cannon House Office Building. And in the garage of
Source: WaPo
Jul 1, 2010
These days, when Melissa Tomlinson describes her fraught relationship with the United States, she speaks in English, the language she once rejected.
She grew up here on the island of Okinawa. Her mother was Japanese, and her father was an American who served in the U.S. Army, came to Okinawa, fell in love, fell out of love, then fell out of touch.
"I had plans to track him down, find him and punch him in the face," said Tomlinson, 22. "I just wanted to fi
Source: Wales Online
Jun 30, 2010
ARCHAEOLOGICAL finds from across Wales can now be explored at the touch of a button, thanks to a new online database being launched tomorrow.
The website, Archwilio – which means “to explore” – catalogues the historic environment records of Wales, allowing users to freely explore details of thousands of different archaeological sites dating back more than 100,000 years.
Created using information from the four archaeological trusts of Wales, the new service is being laun
Source: AP
Jun 30, 2010
Archeologists have uncovered a mass grave with the complete skeletons of 51 horses buried side-by-side, probably the long-forgotten equine victims of a 17th century battle over a strategic Dutch river.
It was the largest known equine burial ground in Europe, although chief archaeologist Angela Simons said Wednesday that many such sites have probably existed and have been plowed up over the centuries by unwitting farmers.
The archaeological team had been looking for evid
Source: Discovery News
Jun 30, 2010
Everybody likes a good soak in a hot bath from time to time. But new research suggests that some dinosaurs took it to the extreme, laying their eggs in the steaming hot soils near hot springs and Old Faithful-like geysers in what is now northwestern Argentina.
In the Cretaceous period over a hundred million years ago, Argentina's Sanagasta Valley was alive with hydrothermal activity, much like Yellowstone National Park or Iceland are today. Tunnels of near-boiling, mineral-rich wate
Source: Discovery News
Jun 30, 2010
The bridge bell of the Andrea Doria, the Italian ocean liner that famously sank in the Atlantic in 1956, rang out this week for the first time since the ship disappeared in the waters off Nantucket, Mass.
Partially buried at the ocean bottom, the 75-pound bronze bell was recovered by two divers, Carl Bayer and Ernest Rookey. They were part of a private expedition run by Tech Diving Limited, a company specializing in dives to some of the world's most famous shipwrecks.
Source: BBC
Jun 30, 2010
The Great Fire of London started accidentally in a bakery, right? That wasn't the view at the time - many believed it was a terrorist attack and violent reprisals against possible suspects soon followed.
The date 1666 is one burned on to the collective memory of a nation.
But a new Channel 4 documentary focuses on the lesser known story of the fire - it sparked a violent backlash against London's immigrant population, prompted by the widely-held belief at the time that
Source: Newsweek
Jun 30, 2010
If Tim Scott, the Republican nominee in South Carolina's first congressional district, wins election in November, he will become the first African-American Republican to be elected to Congress from the former Confederacy since Reconstruction....
...The state Republican Party has had a complicated history with race in recent years. Lee Atwater—the Republican strategist accused of pandering to racial fears with a commercial for George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign focusing on Willie Horto
Source: NYT
Jun 30, 2010
When the managers from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service talk about this 2,800-acre preserve of moss-draped cypress, palmetto and marsh, they speak of endangered wood stork rookeries and disappearing marsh habitat, dike maintenance and interpretive kiosks.
But when the members of the Harris Neck Land Trust talk about it, they speak of injustice, racism and a place they used to call home.
In 1942, Harris Neck, a thriving community of black landowners who hunted, farm
Source: The Daily Caller (OH)
Jun 30, 2010
During a bipartisan education seminar for congressional interns last week, Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown told a crowd of young people that those who opposed the Democrats’ health-care reform plan were on the wrong side of history, much like segregationists who opposed the Civil Rights movement.
While most speakers who participate in the summer lecture series discuss what it’s like working in Washington or use the time to motivate the internship class, some who were present duri
Source: WaPo
Jun 30, 2010
Scientists have discovered an ancient whale whose bite ripped huge chunks of flesh out of other whales about 12 million years ago - and they've named it after the author of "Moby Dick."
The prehistoric sperm whale grew to between 13 and 18 meters (up to 60 feet) long, not unusual by today's standards. But unlike modern sperm whales, Leviathan melvillei, named for Herman Melville, sported vicious, tusk-like teeth some 36 centimeters (14 inches) long....
Source: ABC News
Jun 30, 2010
Egypt believes ancient tunnel part of secret unfinished tomb inside pharoah's grave.
Egyptian archaeologists who have completed excavations on an unfinished ancient tunnel believe it was meant to connect a 3,300-year-old pharaoh's tomb with a secret burial site, the antiquities department said Wednesday.
Egyptian chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said it has taken three years to excavate the 570-foot (174 meter) long tunnel in Pharaoh Seti I's ornate tomb in southern Egyp
Source: Science Daily
Jun 30, 2010
To the untrained eye, University of Colorado at Boulder Research Associate Craig Lee's recent discovery of a 10,000-year-old wooden hunting weapon might look like a small branch that blew off a tree in a windstorm.
Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Lee, a research associate with CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research who found the atlatl dart, a spear-like hunting weapon, melting out of an ice patch high in the Rocky Mountains close to Yellowstone N
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2010
A lock of Napoleon's hair has fetched nearly £9,000 at auction.
The hair was cut from his head after he died in exile in 1821 on St Helena by Denzil Ibbetson, commissionary officer on the during the French Emperor's incarceration on the island.
The lock was one of 40 lots of memorabilia from Napoleon up for auction in New Zealand which fetched a total of NZ$140,000 (£64,336).
Bidders from England, France, Lithuania, Hong Kong and the United States joined t
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2010
DNA tests have shown that uman remains found at a grave in Cambodia are not those of Sean Flynn, the son of the Hollywood actor Errol Flynn.
In March two amateur archaeologists presented a jaw and a femur bone to US officials, unearthed at a site in eastern Kampong Cham province, saying they believed the parts belonged to the war photographer.
The remains from the site, which some researchers believe is a mass grave for up to a dozen foreign journalists killed by Khmer
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2010
Tony Blair, the former prime minister, has been named the recipient of the 2010 Liberty Medal, as well as a $100,000 cash prize.
The medal, previously awarded to rock singer and human rights activist Bono, Nelson Mandela and former US president Jimmy Carter will be presented to Mr Blair on September 13 in Philadelphia by former President Bill Clinton.
The National Constitution Center offers history-based exhibits focused on the U.S. Constitution and gives the annual a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2010
The son of a Hamas founder who turned his back on his father's group to become a spy for Israel has been granted asylum in the US.
The ruling came after the federal government abruptly dropped concerns that Mosab Hassan Yousef was a terrorist threat.
Mr Yousef, 32, was greeted by a small group of cheering supporters as he left an immigration detention center where the 15-minute hearing was held under heavy security.
He had argued that he would be killed
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2010
Naomi Campbell, the model, will be called to appear before a war crimes trial after a court said reports she received a 'blood diamond' from Charles Taylor could be crucial evidence.
Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague argued that Miss Campbell's testimony could directly disprove claims made by ex-Liberia president Taylor during his two-year trial. Taylor is on trial for his alleged role in the civil war in Sierra Leone.
He is accused of arm
Source: AP
Jun 30, 2010
Archeologists have uncovered a mass grave with the complete skeletons of 51 horses buried side-by-side, probably the long-forgotten equine victims of a 17th century battle over a strategic Dutch river.
It was the largest known equine burial ground in Europe, although chief archaeologist Angela Simons said Wednesday that many such sites have probably existed and have been plowed up over the centuries by unwitting farmers.
The archaeological team had been looking for evid
Source: Fox News
Jun 30, 2010
Elian Gonzalez says he's not angry at his Miami relatives who fought to keep him in the United States during a nasty international custody battle a decade ago.
And he says he has "thanks to a large part of the American public" that he was reunited with his father in Cuba.
Now 16, Gonzalez's first comments to foreign reporters in years came after President Raul Castro attended a state celebration Wednesday night marking the 10th anniversary of the famous ex-cas
