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: Courthouse News Service
May 4, 2010
A Swiss woman says she is "devastated" because Christie's misattributed a consigned drawing as a 19th century German imitation of Renaissance art and sold it at auction for less than $20,000. Art historians and forensic experts now believe Leonardo da Vinci drew the ink portrait and valued it at more than $150 million, according to her complaint in Federal Court.
Jeanne Marchig claims she told Christie's that her late husband, Giannino, "a well-known art restorer
Source: Irish Central
May 4, 2010
A prominent Irish commentator has strongly criticized Conan O' Brien for abusing his Irish roots on "60 Minutes."
John Doyle, from The Globe and Mail, believes O'Brien is running down the Irish by blaming all his problems on his Gaelic heritage.
Doyle was enraged when he watched Conan O’Brien’s whiney interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
“On behalf of the people of Ireland, the Irish-born everywhere and descendants of Irish emigrants around the world,
Source: Newsweek
May 4, 2010
The visage of Joseph Stalin once blanketed Moscow. But in the years since he died, his successors have relaxed official adoration of him and even allowed some criticism. The result: he was completely banned from the public space. A few attempts from provincial governments to erect statues of him caused immediate public protest. In recent years, though, with Moscow preparing to commemorate the 65th anniversary of its victory over the Nazis this week, Stalin is back—and he seems to be everywhere..
Source: PSU
May 4, 2010
A water feature found in the Maya city of Palenque, Mexico, is the earliest known example of engineered water pressure in the new world, according to a collaboration between two Penn State researchers, an archaeologist and a hydrologist. How the Maya used the pressurized water is, however, still unknown.
The feature, first identified in 1999 during a mapping survey of the area, while similar to the aqueducts that flow beneath the plazas of the city, was also unlike them. In 2006, an
Source: AP
May 4, 2010
The mummified body of a baby, kept by a family for nearly a century before a judge ordered the remains to be buried, has been removed from a cemetery, police said Tuesday.
A cemetery visitor on Monday reported that a grave appeared to have been unearthed, police Sgt. John Thomas said. The corpse of "Baby John" has not been recovered, he said.
The mummified body had been kept for years by Charles Peavey. He had said the family had the mummy, possibly the stillb
Source: Der Spiegel (Germany)
May 4, 2010
D-Day may have been the beginning of the end of Germany's campaign of horror during World War II. But a new book by British historian Antony Beevor makes it clear that the "greatest generation" wasn't above committing a few war crimes of its own.
It was the first crime William E. Jones had ever committed, which was probably why he could still remember it well so many years later. He and other soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division had captured a small hill. "It was pre
Source: NYT
May 4, 2010
As Britain prepares for its most unpredictable election in decades, the country’s method of selecting a government is coming under nearly as much scrutiny as the candidates or their political positions.
British elections generally produce clear winners in Parliament. But this time, polls suggest that the voting Thursday is unlikely to result in a legislative majority for any of the three main parties — the Conservatives, Labour or the Liberal Democrats.
That would be a
Source: Reuters
May 4, 2010
A U.S. scientist is supporting a theory that has been widely dismissed as a personal obsession of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: that his hero Simon Bolivar might have died from arsenic poisoning.
Venezuela's leftist president rejects the traditional account that Bolivar, a brilliant Venezuelan military tactician who liberated much of South America from centuries of Spanish rule, died of tuberculosis in Colombia in 1830.
Now, Paul Auwaerter of Johns Hopkins University School
Source: WaPo
May 4, 2010
First a new law was put on the books requiring police to question anyone who simply appears to be in the country illegally. It’s the most restrictive in the country.
Then there was news that the state Education Department had ordered school districts to remove from classrooms teachers who speak English with a very heavy accent or whose speech is ungrammatical. Of course nobody would want a teacher to stay in the classroom if students can’t understand them, but determining who that i
Source: BBC
May 4, 2010
An internationally important archaeological dig in Carlisle has unearthed rare articulated armour and a nit comb, with a louse still in it.
The dig, which took place over a decade in front of Carlisle Castle, has uncovered about 80,000 Roman artefacts.
The evidence provides Carlisle with almost 2,000 years of documented history.
Experts say the city is now ranked as one of the most important settlements in the north of England.
Source: AP
May 4, 2010
Archaeologists in Egypt say they have discovered a headless granite statue more than 2,000 years old belonging to an unidentified Ptolemaic-era king.
Tuesday's statement by the Supreme Council of Antiquities says an Egyptian-Dominican team made the discovery at the temple of Taposiris Magna, west of the coastal city of Alexandria.
Archaeology chief Zahi Hawass says the well-preserved statue may be among the most beautiful carvings in the ancient Egyptian style. He says
Source: AFP
May 4, 2010
Historians and anti-racism campaigners are to urge the countries that oversaw and profited from the Atlantic slave trade to recognise it as a crime against humanity, opening the way for reparations.
Next week, activists are to send a letter to the leaders of Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain asking them to recognise the trade as an historic injustice a century and a half after it ended.
They have already convinced France to do so.
Source: USA Today
May 4, 2010
Forty springs ago, on the day the Vietnam War came home as it never had before, Mary Ann Vecchio was there. She's the girl in the haunting photo — crying, kneeling over the student's body.
That was Kent State University, May 4, 1970, a few days after Richard Nixon, who'd campaigned for president on an implicit promise to end the war, widened it by invading Cambodia.
But things have changed in 40 years, during which the United States left Vietnam and entered Iraq and Afg
Source: BBC
May 4, 2010
Police are continuing to investigate the death of an 85-year-old World War II veteran whose body was found in his home in west Dorset.
The pensioner was discovered in his home in Anning Road in Lyme Regis on Monday by a local man who phoned 999.
Police said there was no sign of forced entry and nothing had been stolen.
Source: BBC
May 4, 2010
A large private collection of Sir Winston Churchill memorabilia is expected to raise about £1m when the first part of it is sold next month.
Auction house Christie's said the material, which includes diary entries, letters and an unsmoked cigar, provided a "fascinating insight" into his life.
The former prime minister's belongings were amassed by Malcolm S Forbes Jr over more than 30 years.
The collection will be sold in three parts, the first i
Source: BBC
May 4, 2010
The former Argentine military leader, Jorge Rafael Videla, has been charged with an additional 49 cases of kidnapping, torture and murder.
Videla, who ruled from 1976 to 1981, is already serving a life sentence for human rights abuses committed during Argentina's so-called Dirty War.
The case against him was widened after new forensic evidence came to light.
He is also scheduled to face trial in September for stealing 33 babies of political opponents.
Source: BBC
May 4, 2010
Students in the United States caught up in the campus protests against the Vietnam War are going to re-stage graduation ceremonies cancelled in 1970.
Fearing violence on campuses, some US universities shut early that summer and cancelled leaving ceremonies.
Forty years later, students who missed out are now returning to hold the events that were cancelled. Many universities shut down, cancelling the end of term speeches, photographs and the
Source: Voice of America
May 4, 2010
As the Thai government and opposition protesters move toward a reconciliation agreement, attention will shift to plans for elections. The protesters, dressed in red, say democracy was stolen from them. But just a few years ago, yellow-dressed protesters were trying to remove red-supported leaders they said had corrupted democratic institutions. Political analysts say despite the rhetoric, both groups fall short of democratic ideals.
Thailand has a patchy history with democracy.
Source: CS Monitor
May 4, 2010
Two members of the search team that claims to have found Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey responded to skepticism by saying that there is no plausible explanation for what they found other than it is the fabled biblical boat that weathered a storm that raged 40 days and 40 nights and flooded the entire Earth.
Noah's Ark Ministries International (NAMI) held a press conference April 25 in Hong Kong to present their findings and say they were “99.9 percent sure” that a wooden struc
Source: CS Monitor
May 4, 2010
In the centuries-old debate over the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday diverged from his predecessor and weighed in favor of those who believe that the burial robe once cloaked Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict described the shroud, which allegedly bears blood stains and the facial imprint of a long-haired, bearded man, as an icon that once “wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus.”
Wh
