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
Jun 18, 2010
A conservative magazine suggests Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is "hostile" to gun owners, based on notes she wrote in the Clinton White House in 1996.
The notes were released last week by the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Kagan worked in the White House Counsel's office in 1995 and 1996. Kagan, 50, was nominated to the high court May 10 by President Obama, and her confirmation hearings begin June 28.
The disclosure coincided with the release Fr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 18, 2010
French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a symbolic visit to London today to mark the 70th anniversary of General Charles de Gaulle's radio broadcast urging his nation to resist the Nazi occupation of France.
The Prince of Wales greeted Mr Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, as they arrived at Clarence House during a day of official engagements to commemorate the historic milestone.
The Prince and the president jointly laid a wreath at the statues of King George VI and his
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 18, 2010
The address he made to the British nation as it stood alone against the Nazi war machine is one of the most celebrated speeches in history.
Full of passion and Shakespearesque language, his appeal for fortitude and courage was credited with re-galvanising the country in its darkest hour.
But a new examination of his papers shows how he agonised over every famous phrase – even adding one at the last minute – and how his private secretary was secretly unimpressed by his e
Source: Fox News
Jun 18, 2010
The Vatican newspaper has celebrated the 30th anniversary of the release of The Blues Brothers by calling it a “Catholic” film.
The John Landis film has a bit of a cult following in Italy, which may part of the reason the paper, the Osservatore Romano, decided to single it out.
The movie stars John Belushi and Dan Akryod as Jake and Elwood, both of them on a “mission from God.”
They have to get their rhythm and blues band back together for a benefit concert
Source: BBC News
Jun 18, 2010
One of the most decorated French soldiers, who fought in the country's wars in Algeria and French Indochina, has died.
Gen Marcel Bigeard, 94, died on Friday, his wife told news agency Agence France-Presse.
Gen Bigeard was a commanding officer during the battle of Dien Bien Phu and the Battle of Algiers.
In 2000 he caused controversy in France by telling a newspaper that torture was a "necessary evil" in Algeria.
Gen Bigeard began his
Source: BBC News
Jun 18, 2010
The remains of chess champion Bobby Fischer are to be exhumed in order to settle a paternity claim, an Icelandic court has ruled.
The Supreme Court in Reykjavik said a tissue sample was needed to prove whether nine-year-old Jinky Young was Fischer's daughter.
Fischer, who died in Iceland in 2008, left no will.
His estate, estimated to be worth $2 million (£1.4m), has been at the heart of several inheritance claims.
Fischer's former wife, relati
Source: BBC News
Jun 18, 2010
Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998, has died at the age of 87, his publisher has announced.
Saramago, a communist and atheist, only began to become recognised for his work in his fifties.
One of his best-known novels is Blindness, written in 1995, which tells the story of a country whose entire population lose their sight.
He had been due to appear at Edinburgh's book festival in August.
Saramago m
Source: AP
Jun 17, 2010
The remains of an ancient Roman town were on Thursday unveiled to the public in the centre of the Bulgarian capital Sofia.
Excavation of the site -- which currently includes a Roman palace, baths and burial sites, as well as a more recent 13th century church -- began several years ago.
It is hoped that the remains will be preserved as a major heritage site and tourist attraction....
Source: AP
Jun 17, 2010
The United States returned seven sculptures from the great Angkorian era on Thursday that had been smuggled out of Cambodia.
Cambodian Buddhist monks blessed the artifacts during a handover ceremony at the port of Sihanoukville, said John Johnson, a U.S. embassy spokesman.
The sandstone sculptures were recovered by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during an 2008 raid in Los Angeles. They arrived in Cambodia aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy on Tuesday
Source: Science Now
Jun 17, 2010
Just when did Egyptian pharaohs such as King Tut and Rameses II rule? Historians have heatedly debated the exact dates. Now a radiocarbon study concludes that much of the assumed chronology was right, though it corrects some controversial dates and may overturn a few pet theories.
"This is an extremely important piece of research that shows clearly that historical dating methods and radiocarbon dates are compatible for ancient Egypt," says Kate Spence, an archaeologist at
Source: Global Post
Jun 17, 2010
A young boy ducks under a barricade to have his photo taken next to an Israeli tank. A father puts his baby daughter’s hand on the trigger of a piece of artillery. A Shiite sheikh, in full religious dress, strolls past a map of “Occupied Palestine.” Two women silently sob at the site where former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, now dead, was said to have prayed.
It’s opening day at Hezbollah’s war museum in the southern Lebanese town of Mlita.
Museum construction isn’
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 17, 2010
Michelangelo concealed anatomical sketches in the robes and faces of the figures he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in a coded attack on the Church's disdain for science, researchers believe.
The cleverly disguised drawing of a human brain, which has remained unnoticed for 500 years, may have been a coded reference to the clash between science and religion.
The Renaissance master, who painted the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512, would h
Source: AP
Jun 17, 2010
Archaeologists found some of the richest and most unusual Aztec offerings ever in excavations under a mammoth slab depicting an earth goddess and said Wednesday they hope to uncover an emperor's tomb nearby.
The seven offerings of strange and unparalleled oddities found under the stone slab depicting the goddess Tlaltecuhtli include the skeleton of a dog or wolf dressed in turquoise ear plugs, jadeite necklaces and golden bells on its feet.
The 4-meter (13-foot) long ca
Source: AP
Jun 17, 2010
The United States returned seven sculptures from the great Angkorian era on Thursday that had been smuggled out of Cambodia.
Cambodian Buddhist monks blessed the artifacts during a handover ceremony at the port of Sihanoukville, said John Johnson, a U.S. embassy spokesman.
The sandstone sculptures were recovered by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during an 2008 raid in Los Angeles. They arrived in Cambodia aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy on Tuesday
Source: bbc News
Jun 17, 2010
Experts have used scientific dating techniques to verify the historical chronology of ancient Egypt.
Radiocarbon dating was used to show that the chronology of Egypt's Old, Middle and New Kingdoms is indeed accurate.
The researchers dated seeds found in pharaohs' tombs, including some from the tomb of the King Tutankhamun.
They write in the journal Science that some of the samples are more than 4,500 years old.
Radiocarbon dating of ancient Egy
Source: NYT
Jun 17, 2010
...Seventy years ago, on June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill, barely six weeks in office as Britain’s prime minister and confronted with the threat of invasion from Nazi-occupied France, rose in the House of Commons and, in 36 minutes of soaring oratory, sought to rally his countrymen with what has gone down in history as his “finest hour” speech....
The original 23-page typescript of the speech, heavily edited by Churchill in scrawls of blue and red ink, rests now in one of 2,500 boxe
Source: The Daily Caller
Jun 17, 2010
As Tea Party protests pop up in places like Moscow, Tel Aviv and the Hague, Americans may question whether the Tea Party platform can cross international and cultural borders. For activists outside the U.S., the answer is a resounding “yes.”
“I think the message of the American Revolution is global. The message of natural, unalienable rights, the message of opposition to tyrannical government — that’s not just well-known, that’s universal,” Boris Karpa, organizer of the Israeli Tea
Source: BBC News
Jun 17, 2010
Hundreds of indigenous Canadians are to give evidence before a commission of their experiences at state-funded schools set up to enforce assimilation.
About 150,000 children attended the Church-run boarding schools which operated up to the 1970s.
The pupils were forced to abandon their cultural identity and many were physically and sexually abused.
The truth and reconciliation commission is part of a settlement agreed by the Canadian government four years a
Source: BBC News
Jun 17, 2010
A Canadian commission of inquiry is expected to release a report on Thursday into the bombing of Air India flight 182 in 1985.
The flight - travelling from Canada to India - crashed into the Atlantic killing all 329 people on board.
Canadian police say it was bombed by Sikh militants fighting for an independent homeland in India.
Two Canadian men were eventually tried in the case 20 years after the event, but were found not guilty.
'Mass murder
Source: WaPo
Jun 17, 2010
Several mud-caked headstones line the banks of a small stream at Arlington National Cemetery, the country's most venerated burial ground. Farther upstream in a wooded area, a few others lie submerged with the rocks that line the stream bed.
On Wednesday, after The Washington Post alerted the cemetery to their presence, officials there said they were shocked to find the gravestones lying in the muck near a maintenance yard. Already under fire in recent days for more than 200 unmarked
