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: Fox News
Jun 7, 2010
President Obama's been called a lot of things, but Rep. Charles Rangel's dig at the president might just tread new ground.
The New York Democrat likened Obama to former Vice President Dick Cheney in an interview over the weekend with The New York Daily News. He criticized Obama for staying in the Iraq war and for not leveling with the American people that the desire for oil, in his opinion, was driving the U.S. presence there.
Rangel, who is facing a congressional eth
Source: Fox News
Jun 7, 2010
A British politician sparked controversy Monday when he made a quip about going back in time to assassinate the former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, the Guardian reported.
John McDonnell, a staunch left-winger and contender for the Labour party leadership race, later insisted the remark was a joke.
The Member of Parliament made the comment as he spoke to trade unionists in Southport in northwest England.
McDonnell described how he had clashed with That
Source: AP
Jun 7, 2010
Archaeologists have unearthed a cache of rare, 35-century-old religious artifacts once used in pagan rituals, Israeli officials said Monday.
The items were found during an excavation ordered by the Israel Antiquities Authority along the route of a new gas line in the country's north. Excavating a rock hollow, archeologists found more than 100 intact artifacts, including a vessel for burning incense and the sculpted face of a woman that was part of a cup used in a pagan religious cer
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2010
During the Great Depression, the United States government sent Danish-born photographer Peter Sekaer on a mission through America's back roads to chronicle the lives of ordinary Americans as they struggled through one of the most challenging periods in U.S. history.
Now, for the first time, Sekaer's telling odyssey through America is available to the public after years in obscurity. The 87 vintage gelatin silver prints are in an Atlanta High Museum exhibit called "Signs of Life
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2010
Protesters gathered in lower Manhattan mid-day Sunday to demonstrate against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001.
Geller said the NYPD and security at the rally told her about 5,000 demonstrators were there. But NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes said the police department's policy is to not provide crowd estimates and that he could not confirm Geller's number.
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2010
Heads hacked off, a bite from a lion, tiger or bear, massive muscles on massive men -- all clues that an ancient cemetery uncovered in northern England is the final resting place of gladiators, scientists have announced after seven years of investigations.
The archeological dig has found "what may be the world's only well-preserved Roman gladiator cemetery," the York Archaeological Trust said.
Scientists have found 80 skeletons in the "unique" cemete
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2010
An Australian trekker said he has discovered the site of a significant World War II battle in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, complete with the remains of Japanese soldiers right where they fell almost 70 years ago.
Former army Capt. Brian Freeman, an expert on the Kokoda Trail – a 60-mile trek through rugged mountainous country and rainforest of the island – said Monday he was led to the Eora Creek battle site where he found the remains of the soldiers.
The site about
Source: CHE
Jun 7, 2010
The Cambridge University Library plans to digitize some of the most significant rare books and manuscripts in its vast collection thanks to a gift of more than $2.1-million from a British philanthropist.
The institution said it wants to become a "digital library to the world" by allowing students and scholars Internet access to valuable items in its seven-million-volume collection....
Source: CNN
Jun 7, 2010
David Weiss sat down on his therapist's couch on Thursday troubled by moments of emptiness that made him ask himself, "Is this it?" After talking it through with her, however, he realized that such experiences could be peaceful, and even welcome, if he viewed them with a different mind-set.
Weiss has been in psychoanalysis for three years, but his experience has many distinctions from the theories that the field's founder, Sigmund Freud, outlined in the early 1900s. No tal
Source: BBC News
Jun 7, 2010
A court in the Indian city of Bhopal has sentenced eight people to two years each in jail over a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people in 1984.
The convictions are the first since the disaster at the Union Carbide plant - the world's worst industrial accident.
The eight Indians, all former plant employees, were convicted of "death by negligence". One had already died - the others are expected to appeal.
Campaigners said the court verdict
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 7, 2010
The 66th anniversary of the D-Day landing has been marked in France with commemorations for the Second World War heroes who died during the conflict.
Veterans and those grateful for their sacrifices yesterday paid tribute to those who fought during the invasion on the beaches of Normandy that is said to have turned the tide of the war.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said Gerald Howarth, a junior defence minister, attended a wreath-laying service at the cathedr
Source: CS Monitor
Jun 7, 2010
Iran’s hard-line leadership warned the opposition movement against serving as “soldiers of the bullying powers” as the one-year anniversary looms next week of Iran’s disputed presidential election.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei told Iranians Friday to be watchful for opponents who had strayed from the path of the 1979 Islamic revolution and the directives of one of the Islamic Republic’s most sacred icons, its late founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – known affectio
Source: WaPo
Jun 7, 2010
The Greeks' offer was a gracious one: The giant pieces of sculpture for Washington's new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial needed to be transported from China. Perhaps Greece, with its large shipping industry and admiration for the civil rights leader, could arrange for vessels to move the monument for free.
Officials planning the $120 million King memorial on the Tidal Basin were delighted. The cost savings would be substantial. And the connection to Greece and its ancient culture w
Source: Medieval News
Jun 6, 2010
Archaeologists working at Rochester Cathedral in Kent, England, have discovered a late-medieval building which used part of an ancient Roman wall. They have uncovered a door or window that looks onto the Priory’s infirmary garden.
Graham Keevil, who is leading the archaeological investigation, believes that the building would have been the home for the warden of the infirmary. The window or door was located after digging about six feet below ground.
He told the BBC, &qu
Source: Catholic.net
Jun 6, 2010
Paphos was an "optimal" place to begin Benedict XVI's visit to Cyprus, said a Vatican spokesman, because Paul and Barnabas arrived here on one of their first evangelization missions. "It is an extremely significant place in the history of evangelization," said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, in a Vatican Radio interview on Saturday.
"The Pope also came here truly as a pilgrim to continue the itinerary that he followed i
Source: Ottawa Citizen
Jun 6, 2010
As Canada prepares to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a historian is urging long-overdue recognition for a "virtually unknown" hero whose stunning exploits during the "pivotal" Battle of Stoney Creek, he says, should rank Sgt. Alexander Fraser alongside Isaac Brock and Laura Secord as a saviour of the nation.
James Elliott, an author and journalist from Hamilton, recently published the most comprehensive account so far of the June 1813 battle on the Nia
Source: AFP
Jun 6, 2010
The US Marine Corps veteran has returned to this mountain near the key Vietnam War battle site of Khe Sanh to help a group of United States military investigators pinpoint the site where remains of a Marine could be found.
Since the end of US combat involvement in 1973, 655 Americans listed as missing during the war have been repatriated from Vietnam and identified but 1,313 remain unaccounted for, the US says.
It is the job of the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Source: BBC News
Jun 6, 2010
At the end of each month, BBC World News business presenter Jamie Robertson looks at the world's major stock markets. This month he considers the eurozone's struggle with low growth.
Quite a month: Greece, and the rest of the eurozone, gets a $1tn rescue package, the euro hits four-year lows, BP has a third of its market value wiped out by the worst oil spill in US history, and the world's biggest stock markets lose all their gains since the beginning of the year.
There
Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Jun 6, 2010
As the nation today marks the 66th anniversary of what many historians call the most complex amphibious assault in history -- the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy, France -- debate simmers among policymakers and military analysts over whether the United States should maintain its ability to conduct such a campaign.
The Navy and Marines on Friday completed the largest amphibious-training exercise since 9/11 on the West Coast. Military members, scholars and historians say those who p
Source: The News and Advance (VA)
Jun 6, 2010
Josef Stalin was not a nice man. And that’s putting it mildly.
In fact, the dictator who ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist for three decades until his death in 1953 is rightly regarded as one of the three most evil, bloody-handed dictators in world history. Standing beside Mao Zedong of Communist China and Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, it would be difficult to rank one more evil than the other.
All three have the blood of millions upon millions of innocent lives
