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: Salon.com
May 24, 2010
The Israeli president on Monday categorically denied a report that he offered nuclear warheads to South Africa in 1975, when he was defense minister.
The report published Sunday by British newspaper The Guardian is based on an American academic's research and claims to cite secret minutes of Shimon Peres' meeting with senior South African officials discussing the issue.
Peres said Israel has never negotiated the transfer of nuclear weapons to South Africa.
Source: CBS Atlanta
May 24, 2010
Catherine Ariemma teaches U.S history at Lumpkin County High School. She allowed students to wear Ku Klux Klan outfits for a final school project.
"I don't apologize for the project. I do apologize that someone felt threatened. I teach about United States history. I teach about the good, the bad, and the ugly," said Ariemma.
Ariemma was in tears she she talked about the incident upsetting other students.
Lumpkin County High School senior Cody Rid
Source: NYT
May 24, 2010
Seeking to demonstrate improved relations between the world’s two main Orthodox Christian churches, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has begun a 10-day visit to Russia, praising the country’s loyalty to its Byzantine heritage.
“You not only preserved, but multiplied your amazing culture, at the center of which is the Christian faith,” he told a gathering of young people behind St. Basil’s Cathedral near Red Square on Monday.
Although he also recalled
Source: WTOP.com
May 24, 2010
The Rev. Richardson Libby certainly has an unflagging dedication to history. Thanks to his perseverance, the right version of the Stars and Stripes is hanging inside the State House rotunda.
Libby, who lives across the street from the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis, discovered that the flag thought to be an accurate reproduction of one made in 1783 was incorrect. The blue field of 13 eight-point stars should have been vertical instead of horizontal.
He worked with h
Source: Discovery News
May 24, 2010
The last wish of one of America's greatest authors is about to come true: Mark Twain's biography will hit stories 100 years after his death.
According to a report by The Independent, the late novelist, whose works include "Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," left behind 5,000 pages of unedited text that will be turned into a three-volume trilogy running about half a million words.
Intrigue, humor, politics, philosophy and an early 2
Source: AP
May 24, 2010
A former dictator and convicted drug trafficker appears poised to regain political power in Suriname, where he has cultivated a following among young people despite facing trial for the execution of political opponents in the 1980s.
The main opposition party led by Desi Bouterse appears likely to gain at least some control in the South American parliament in Tuesday's election. His National Democratic Party currently holds 15 of the 51 seats.
Parliament routinely appoin
Source: Digital Journal
May 24, 2010
Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), whose remains were recently identified using modern forensic tools, was buried Saturday at the Frombork Cathedral, 467 years after his death.
Copernicus died in 1543 and was buried at the cathedral of Frombork, northern Poland, along with many other priests and lay people whose bodies remained anonymous under the floor of this large Gothic building. Although an epitaph was placed at the church, information on the exact location of
Source: BBC
May 24, 2010
A Welsh academic has revealed how he discovered a Middle East settlement buried under sand for about 125 years.
Dr Andrew Petersen first became aware of a possible settlement after finding masonry and pottery at Ras Al-Sharig in Qatar.
He thought something might be there after reading sources naming a town called Rubayqa.
The haul includes the remains of a fort, a mosque, several industrial and domestic buildings, and 100 kilos of pottery and artefacts.
Source: BBC
May 24, 2010
A monument marking an official battle site in the Cotswolds might be in the wrong place, historians have claimed.
The memorial to the Stow-on-the Wold battle stands about three miles (4.8km) north-west of the town, on a hill outside Donnington.
The Royalist defeat at Stow, in March 1646, was the last major battle of the first English Civil War.
But the local civic society said new investigations suggest the site was two miles closer to Stow itself.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 24, 2010
The last surviving member of the Romanov dynasty born in the Russian Empire has died in Spain. She was 95.
Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, known to her supporters as the Dowager Empress of Russia, was the widow of the Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, who until his death in 1992 was the head of the Romanov dynasty and pretender to the Russian throne.
Grand Duke Vladimir was the great-grandson of Alexander II, the third-to-last tsar of Russia.
Born in 1914
Source: WaPo
May 24, 2010
The empty eye sockets of the battered half-skull stared at me, lifeless, sightless and silent. They were topped by a heavy brow ridge of bone, and the upper jaw of the creature's broad face jutted forward. Not fully human but recognizably related, it sent a shiver down my spine as I looked across 12 inches of space and 2 1/2 million years in time.
There is something deeply humbling about coming face to face with one of humanity's distant early relatives, a practical demonstration of
Source: The Answer Sheet at the WaPo
May 24, 2010
Texas isn’t the only place with lousy social studies standards, though you might be forgiven for thinking so considering all the attention that the Texas Board of Education has received in recent months as it adopted a new set of standards....
In Indiana, for example, the state Board of Education last year warned local school districts in an open letter not to use many of the social studies texts that were actually adopted by the state because, it said, they are lousy. The letter e
Source: AP
May 24, 2010
A former dictator and convicted drug trafficker appears poised to regain political power in Suriname, where he has cultivated a following among young people despite facing trial for the execution of political opponents in the 1980s.
The main opposition party led by Desi Bouterse appears likely to gain at least some control in the South American parliament in Tuesday's election. His National Democratic Party currently holds 15 of the 51 seats.
Parliament routinely appoin
Source: AP
May 24, 2010
Cambodia's genocide tribunal announced Monday that it will give its verdict in July in the case of a notorious Khmer Rouge prison chief accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes, murder and torture.
Lars Olsen, spokesman for the U.N.-backed tribunal, said the court will hand down the verdict against Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, on July 26.
The tribunal is seeking justice for an estimated 1.7 million people who died from execution, overwork, disease and mal
Source: AP
May 24, 2010
William Stewart Simkins, who taught at the School of Law for 30 years until his death in 1929, organized the Klan in Florida after the Civil War. Now, 55 years after opening a dorm in his name, the University of Texas is about to begin a review that could result in the removal of Simkins' name from the building.
William Stewart Simkins, who taught at the School of Law for 30 years until his death in 1929, organized the Klan in Florida after the Civil War along with his brother, Eldr
Source: CNN
May 24, 2010
Rand Paul backed out of his Sunday morning talk show appearance, but that didn't stop people from talking about him.
Paul, the Tea Party-backed eye doctor who won Kentucky's Republican Senate primary last week, cited exhaustion as well as a desire to put behind him controversy over his comments on the Civil Rights Act in deciding against a previously scheduled appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," according to host David Gregory.
Gregory also said Paul's spoke
Source: CNN
May 24, 2010
Democratic Senate candidate and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has apologized for misstating his military record during the Vietnam War.
Blumenthal's comments come one week after the New York Times reported that he distorted his military service record. The article alleges that Blumenthal lied about serving in Vietnam and says that he never served in that war, even though the candidate has claimed he did in speeches before veterans groups and military families.
Source: Inside Higher Ed
May 24, 2010
Months ago, Sandra Soto was asked by her dean to be the faculty speaker at the graduation convocation last week for the University of Arizona's College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Soto didn't know it at the time, but her commencement speech would closely follow the adoption of two new Arizona laws. One gives the police more authority to question anyone they believe may be in the United States illegally -- powers that critics say will lead to widespread ethnic profiling. The other bars eth
Source: National Parks Traveler
May 23, 2010
Where is the rest of the original English settlement site on Roanoke Island? What more can we learn about the location and condition of German submarines that were sunk along the North Carolina coast? These and other interesting questions are being addressed by underwater archeologists working at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore during May and June.
At Fort Raleigh, a team of divers led by Professor Gordon Watts (Institute of Nautical Archeolo
Source: Democrat & Chronicle (NY)
May 23, 2010
As part of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and just short of his 18th birthday, Thomas Edward Platner fought bravely in Florida and South Carolina during the Civil War.
He survived combat in Charleston, where 256 other soldiers found their end. After the war, the unmarried former laborer found roots in Rochester, served as one of Frederick Douglass' pallbearers and was instrumental in erecting a monument in Rochester to the civil rights pioneer.
Little else is known abo
