Sometimes the reaction is a guffaw, sometimes a snort. Either way, it's the disbelieving sound of people learning that an unassuming suburban school called Jefferson County IBS in Irondale, Ala., about as deep in the South as you can get, ranks in the top five high schools in the United States.

"People still have stereotypes of what ... Alabamians are like, and because we talk slower maybe they think we're not on the ball," says Linda Jones, an administrator at the school.

Southern school districts still lag behind the US average on standardized-test scores, and many see their students, especially blacks and Hispanics, drop out. Yet 50 years after the "Little Rock Nine" integrated Central High in Arkansas, hundreds of Southern high schools, many still under desegregation orders, have quietly become educational powerhouses, muscling out California, the Midwest, and New England when it comes to school innovation, excellence, and standard-setting.

At the rumbling corner of Delancey and Essex Streets in Manhattan's fabled Lower East Side, a sandal-footed, backpack-wearing Josh Wolff stands before his two-dozen charges and promises a real taste of the neighborhood.

"And since this is July," the tour guide says, "I assume you'll be getting the smells of the neighborhood as well."

On this steamy city afternoon, we find Wolff at the appointed corner, collecting $20 a head from a swarm of folks eager to explore enclaves thick with that most American of histories -- that of its immigrants.

It's the Original Multi-Ethnic Eating Tour, one of the most popular of the 30 or so led by Big Onion Walking Tours. And for good reason. The two-hour excursion takes us through the web of neighborhoods bite by bite, as we sample the cultural delicacies that tell the tale of a city that was, and is.

The square-toed, goatskin boots that Abraham Lincoln had on that night at Ford's Theatre were worn down at the heels.

His long, black frock coat was unadorned. Its buttons were of plain gray metal.

And most of what he wore as he sat in the private box on Good Friday of 1865 comes down to us still stained with his blood.

Yesterday, under police escort, the National Park Service transported the assassinated president's clothing and other items from the Ford's Theatre museum to a Park Service storage center in Maryland, where they will remain while the theater undergoes an 18-month renovation.

But before the items went onto the shelves -- and out of public view for a year and a half -- curators provided an up-close glimpse of garments linked to one of the most tragic moments in American history.

For centuries the ruins in the swamps of southern Panama have been testament to Scottish folly, an attempt to create a tropical empire to rival those of the Spanish and Portuguese.

The five ships which sailed from Leith in the summer of 1698 carried the hopes of a nation. Success in Darien, a central American wilderness chosen as Scotland's gateway to the new world, would bring riches and power and guarantee independence.

Instead it brought disaster. In folklore, the Scots tried to colonise a region plagued by malarial swamp, the pioneers fell sick with fever, they starved and soon abandoned the isthmus.
The financial and psychological blow led to Scotland surrendering sovereignty in the 1707 Act of Union with England.

Three hundred years later there is fresh news from Darien and for Scottish nationalists it is bittersweet: the colony was not such a daft idea after all.

Mark Horton, an archaeologist and leading authority on the subject, has visited the remote rainforest and concluded that the site was actually well chosen and that the Scots could have succeeded - had it not been for the English.

The screenwriter and producer of the $40 million ABC docudrama, The Path to 9/11 (2006), complains in the Wall Street Journal today that the network is sitting on the DVD version of the production, which was criticized by liberals for insinuating that Bill Clinton was guilty of negligence.

Writes Cyrus Nowrasteh:

The current battle against the DVD version is not taking place in a frenzy of unfounded accusations, but in silence. The normal time frame from broadcast to DVD for miniseries and movies is approximately four months. Originally I was told by ABC that the DVD release date would be in January. January came and went, and I was told June was the new release date. Then July. Now ABC's official statement is, "We have not decided on a release date at this time." No further explanation.

Privately, I was told by an ABC executive that "If Hillary weren't running for president, this wouldn't be a problem." The clear message is that ABC/Disney isn't eager to reopen the wound, or feel the pressure again from politicians anxious to whitewash their legacy. Executive Producer Marc Platt, a well-known Hollywood liberal, even had to finance the limited Emmy campaign himself because Disney/ABC refused to do so (unheard of for such a high-profile production). This passive self-censorship is just as effective as anything Joseph Stalin or Big Brother could impose. The result is the same: the curbing of free speech and creative expression, and the suppression of a viewpoint that may be an inconvenient truth for some politicians.

Scholarly Paris will change in 2009 when a sizable portion of the French National Archives moves from the center of Paris to outlying Seine Saint-Denis. While documents from the ancien régime will remain downtown in the Marais, collections dating from the 1789 revolution through the Fourth Republic will be housed in this northeastern suburb, one of the many sites of youth rioting in 2005.

The suburbs (banlieues) of Paris can refer to anything from the luxury townships to the west of the Bois de Boulogne, to the Impressionist landscapes along the Marne River, to the various municipal strongholds of the French Communist Party ("the red belt"), to the cités or housing projects in the poorest areas on the outskirts of metropolitan Paris. The cités have become the focal point of an intense awareness of racial discrimination against second- and third-generation minority groups.

One of the results of the 2005 riots is that scholars of contemporary France, especially anthropologists, literary critics, and cultural historians, are shifting their focus from the center of Paris to the periphery.

A flap over a Confederate flag is breaking out at the Virginia Capitol.

The dispute isn't over whether to display a Confederate flag -- it's over which Confederate flag to display.

Despite the concerns of Confederate-heritage enthusiasts, officials are not returning a battle flag -- the "Stars and Bars" -- to the Old House Chamber, where it stood for years a short distance from the spot where Gen. Robert E. Lee accepted command of Virginia's armed forces at the beginning of the Civil War in April 1861.

General Assembly officials, looking to the approaching 150th anniversary commemoration of the start of the Civil War, say their decision is rooted in historical accuracy, not political correctness.

So, another Confederate flag -- the "second national flag," which is white and features a Stars and Bars canton in the upper-left corner -- will be put on display in the newly constructed Capitol annex, added as part of $105 million restoration of the Thomas Jefferson-designed statehouse.

Twenty-two years of intensive debate and negotiations climax this week in New York, as the UN General Assembly votes on whether to approve the declaration on indigenous peoples' rights.

Canada, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the Russian Federation (all of whom have large indigenous populations) have been vigorously opposing the declaration's approval. Their actions have provoked outrage amongst tribal peoples worldwide.

Lucy, the famed fossilized skeleton of one of the oldest human ancestors, is coming to visit the US from Ethiopia where Donald Johansen and his colleagues discovered her in 1974. Surprisingly, Lucy won't be on display at two of the premier natural history museums in the country, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Why? Those are just two of the museums who refused the exhibition, arguing that the fragile bones should remain in Ethiopia and not subjected to six years of touring and public display. The exhibit, titled The Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia, is hosted and sponsored by the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Everett Ellis Briggs, the United States ambassador to Panama from 1982 to 1986, claims in a prominently placed op ed in the NYT that the Justice Department was to blame for the failure to stop Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega when it was still possible to do so. He says that he told Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1985 that Noriega, then just a general, was becoming a menace. Meese promised to stop the general, who was involved in drug trafficking, among other crimes. But the US government failed to act properly, says Briggs. He singles out the Justice Department for criticism, noting that Noriega's secret indictment had been leaked, dooming the chance that he could be picked up during a visit to the US:

Washington, having now decided that some sort of action must be taken against the dictator, pinned all its hopes on a renegade officer in the Panamanian military who was supposed to lead a coup — despite this individual’s clear lack of a following inside the military and among the civilian population.

In any case, our government soon threw away whatever leverage it might have had with General Noriega’s inner circle by announcing that the entire Panamanian leadership was now barred from entering the United States. Whatever slim chance we had of persuading a turncoat was dashed. (Shortly before the 1989 invasion, a group of second-level officers did try to oust General Noriega, but the attempt proved a failure, with the leaders summarily executed.)

The real trouble in the years leading up to the invasion was caused by the Justice Department investigation in which I had placed so much hope. The investigation backfired, wrecking the ability of our government to deal with General Noriega without the use of force or the loss of lives.

Museum-goers gasped at the well-preserved mummy of an Inca maiden that is on display for the first time, a serene gaze etched on her face hundreds of years ago when she was sacrificed and froze to death in the Andes.

Hundreds of people packed a museum in Salta, Argentina, to see "la Doncella" -- Spanish for "the Maiden" -- a 15-year-old girl whose remains were found in 1999 in an icy pit on Llullaillaco volcano, along with a 6-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.

Scientists believe the so-called Children of Llullaillaco were sacrificed more than 500 years ago in a ceremony marking the annual corn harvest. Dressed in fine clothes and given corn alcohol to put them to sleep, the victims were then left to die at an elevation of 22,080 feet.

"Just this morning we have had more than 700 people come see the exhibit, and we had hundreds yesterday when it opened," High Mountain Archaeological Museum director Gabriel Miremont said on Thursday.

A collection of recently declassified NSC and State Department documents published today by the National Security Archive sheds new light on Algerian-Chinese nuclear relations and Beijing's role in U.S. nonproliferation efforts during the George H.W. Bush administration. The discovery of a Chinese-supplied nuclear reactor project in Algeria stimulated a controversy over whether Algiers sought a weapons capability and the extent to which Beijing was abetting nuclear proliferation.

At a time when nuclear power is becoming more and more attractive to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the 1991 Algerian case has new relevance. The 1991 controversy came to light against the background of intelligence leaks about the capabilities of Algeria's Es Salam reactor leading the Bush administration to initiate a campaign of pressure on Algiers to support nonproliferation goals. Washington also encouraged Beijing to take responsibility by inducing Algiers to make nonproliferation assurances and to open the reactor site to international inspectors. The flap quieted when Algeria declared its willingness to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Documents published today include:

* Reports showing that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research had received documents on the Chinese-Algerian negotiations several years before 1991, but had mislaid them leading to delays in internal U.S. government discussions of the deal.

* An NSC report on the "Algerian Nuclear Program" showing the basis of U.S. government concern: the "cooling towers of the reactor appear adequate to support operation of a substantially large reactor, possibly up to 50 MWT," much larger than would be needed for nuclear research. Also of concern was a "heavy-walled facility...that appears suited to provide options for a future reprocessing capability, waste storage, or research applications."

* An updated version of the same report, which observed that, "We do not have sufficient information from which to conclude that the [Algerian Government] has decided to pursue a military nuclear program"; nevertheless, the State Department wanted the IAEA to inspect the Algerian facilities to answer questions about the reactor's power level and the size of the cooling tower.

* A State Department memorandum observing that Algerian and Chinese statements, prompted by still-classified U.S. demarches, "alleviated our concerns about the proliferation implications" of the reactor. Nevertheless, Washington should "continue to press [Algeria| to act promptly by notifying the IAEA of its intention to submit the reactor to safeguards."

* A confidential Chinese government note, handed to the State Department at the end of May 1991, describing the February 1983 agreement with Algeria, under which it was supplying the Algerians with 11 metric tons of heavy water and 216 fuel modules.

* State Department cables showing continued concern about Algeria's intentions; the Department contemplated pressure on Switzerland not to sell Algiers a hot isostatic press, which had nuclear weapons and missile applications.

Under pressure from the international community, Algeria eventually signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but questions about its nuclear intentions linger and recent developments raise new questions. Amid recent talk about a "renaissance" in nuclear power, Algeria and other countries in the region have been discussing reactor deals with such suppliers as Russia and France. For some observers, the possibility of expanded nuclear power capabilities in North Africa and the Middle East, especially in light of the Iranian challenge, raises proliferation concerns. Years ago, a report by David Albright and Corey Hinderstein criticized Algeria for not being "open enough to allay widespread suspicions about its [nuclear] activities." How much the situation has changed remains to be seen.

History teachers claim the Federal Government has shut them out of the development of a national Australian history curriculum for high schools, alleging the politically sensitive document is being "drafted in backrooms".

The History Teachers Association of Australia has written to federal Education Minister Julie Bishop and Opposition education spokesman Stephen Smith, claiming it was "increasingly concerned" about what was happening with the proposed national curriculum.

The letter says the association, which represents 4000 teachers, feels it has been sidelined from the process.

"Our prime concern is about not being consulted about the draft curriculum," association president Nick Ewbank said. "There is no way we can develop a meaningful curriculum when it is drafted in backrooms."

The Government commissioned Monash University's Professor Tony Taylor to develop a model history curriculum for years 3 to 10 following the Australian history summit in Canberra last year.

However, The Age understands Prime Minister John Howard was unhappy with Professor Taylor's draft, which included questions and milestones, and history taught from indigenous perspectives.

It's the oldest object of its kind in Australia's history, but up until this past summer it was buried in the bowels of the Canada's national archives collection.On Tuesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will bring it home, handing it to his Australian counterpart over lunch in the country's capital as he wraps up a week-long trip.

The mysterious item is an old theatre program, 211 years old, and now recognized as the oldest printed document in Australia's history. But it only surfaced a few months ago, after it was discovered by Elaine Hoag, a rare book specialist at Library and Archives Canada.

Printed on July 30, 1796, the playbill is a few months older than what was previously believed to be the oldest printed document in the country - a list of instructions for constables of the country districts.

Hoag found the playbill in the scrapbook of a British banker who lived from 1775 to 1858. While archivists were able to match it up with Australia's first printing press that arrived in Sydney with the first British fleet in 1788, they have no idea how the scrapbook wound up in Canada's national archives. All they know is that the small wooden screw printing press was left unattended for eight years until George Hughes arrived in the colony to establish Australia's first printery behind its Government House.

While it might not have a huge financial value, Canadian government officials say it will be priceless piece of history that speaks to Australia's beginnings as a colony -- the first printed documents and cultural institutions such as its theatre.

Under threat from Romans ransacking Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, many of the city's Jewish residents crowded into an underground drainage channel to hide and later flee the chaos through Jerusalem's southern end.

The ancient tunnel was recently discovered buried beneath rubble, a monument to one of the great dramatic scenes of the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 A.D.

The channel was dug beneath what would become the main road of Jerusalem, the archaeology dig's directors, Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said Sunday. Shukron said excavators looking for the road happened upon a small drainage channel that led them to the discovery of the massive tunnel two weeks ago.

"We were looking for the road and suddenly we discovered it," Shukron said. "And the first thing we said was, 'Wow."'

The discovery of the drainage channel was momentous in itself, a sign of how the city's rulers looked out for the welfare of their citizens by developing an infrastructure that drained the rainfall and prevented flooding, Reich said.

Archaeologists digging at the place where an amazing Bronze Age disc was found in Germany have turned up a body and remains of a Stone Age building, adding to the riddle around one of the world's biggest archaeological sensations of the past decade.

Andreas Northe, giving the results of this summer's dig on the remote hill in eastern Germany, said, "We found a child's grave, a cache of stone tools and some remains from a long-house."

The dig was done at a spot in a line of sight from the place where amateurs using metal detectors in 1999 found the Nebra celestial disc, a 3,600-year-old depiction of the sun, moon and stars which is believed to be the oldest extant calculator of the seasons.

The National Coalition for History (NCH) has learned that just prior to the Congressional adjournment last month, an anonymous hold was placed by a Republican senator on, the “Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 (H.R. 1255).” Supporters had sought to have the bill considered under the Senate’s unanimous consent rule that allows non-controversial bills to be brought up on an expedited basis.

A previous hold on the bill by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) was lifted after concerns he had with provisions of the bill had been addressed....

In November 2001, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13233, which gave current and former presidents and vice presidents broad authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely. The Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 would nullify the Bush executive order and establish procedures to ensure the timely release of presidential records.

Already tired of the 2008 presidential campaign? Remind yourself why it matters over the next 12 weeks.

Presidential Libraries: History Uncovered begins at 7 tonight on C-SPAN, offering what presidential historian Richard Norton Smith predicts will be "a kind of history that people don't get out of their textbooks."

There will be a bit of spontaneity — the series broadcasts live from one presidential library each week, starting with the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library in Austin will be featured Oct. 12, and the show travels to College Station on Nov. 16 for the George Bush Presidential Library.

Smith, who served as a consultant to the series, says it speaks to today's presidential campaigns.

"I think a lot of people are frustrated with the way we choose our presidents," he said this week. "It's become so stylized, so theatrical. In some ways people feel democracy has become the prisoner of the handlers and the spin doctors and the image makers."

But as the Sept. 28 program featuring Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential library will show, that's not new.

Two experts in historical documents say they doubt the authenticity of a Davy Crockett letter that the Texas Historical Commission bought this week for nearly half a million dollars. Both questioned the handwriting, and one said the grammar was just too good to belong to the Alamo defender.

"The letter has better grammar, better punctuation than Davy Crockett had ever used," said Kevin MacDonnell, a seller of antique books in Austin.

Everett Wilke, a private appraiser of historical manuscripts based in Bluffton, said he compared the handwriting with that in known Crockett letters owned by East Carolina University.

"Those are genuine Crockett letters, and it (the letter purchased by the state) don't look a thing like them," Wilke said. "It's not that difficult to tell it's not real."

Sippenhaft is an old Nazi policy under which family members of criminals were held equally responsible and punished. Now a Swiss political party is using a racist and xenophobic poster to revive the practice.

The poster shows three white sheep booting out a black sheep, with a caption that translates to "for more security." It's part of an effort to drum up support for a deportation policy in which entire immigrant families would be kicked out of Switzerland if their children committed a violent crime, a drug offense, or benefits fraud.

It's not some fringe, extremist, right-wing political party that's trying to collect 100,000 signatures for a referendum on the policy. Rather, it's the country's largest party—the Swiss People's Party. Back in 2004, this party used the image of black hands reaching into a pot of Swiss passports to successfully campaign for stricter immigration laws. More recently, it proposed banning the construction of minarets.

Among the Civil War treasures in Appomattox could be more relics of the Confederate Army. The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond wants to divide it's collection into three museums. Appomattox is at the top of the list as one of the proposed sites.

"Appomattox for example would have the uniform Robert E. Lee surrendered in, all of the flags that were surrendered at Appomattox," said Appomattox Director of Tourism Beckie Nix.

Nix said it just makes sense for one of them to be in Appomattox. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

The museum would not be at the Appomattox Court House National Historic Park. It would be either in the city of Appomattox or somewhere in the county, but just having it in the area could keep people in town longer.

A Roman boat in near-immaculate condition has been dredged up from the bay of Cartagena. Archaeologists say the find dates back to the first century B.C.

The team from Cartagena’s natoinal archaeological museum and underwater investigation centre (MNAM-CNIAS) reveals that this exciting discovery comes just after two boats and a number of anchors thought to be more than a hundred years old were found on the seabed.

The team worked in conjunction with the Aurora SP Trust, a US-led non-profit-making foundation based in Malta, which provided equipment and funds.

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert....