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This page features brief excerpts of news 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.
Highlights
Breaking News
This page features brief excerpts of news 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. Because most of our readers read the NYT we usually do not include the paper's stories in HIGHLIGHTS.
Name of source: Newsweek
SOURCE: Newsweek (2-7-11)
Tunisia
Tyrant:
Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali
Years in Power:
1987–2011
Method of Toppling:
Twitter-fueled youth revolt
The Aftermath:
Whoever thought Washington’s man in Tunis would fall and take the Arab world with him? The former intel chief was a CIA favorite, but his family’s extravagance led to his downfall. The future is far from clear.
Turkmenistan
Tyrant:
Saparmurat Niyazov
Years in Power:
1990–2006
Method of Toppling:
Vicious leaflet campaign
(at least that’s how it began)
The Aftermath:
Few words match a man who renamed January after himself. (He also had a statue fetish, pictured.) Regrettably, his fall hasn’t brought better days: the country hemorrhages gas wealth....
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (2-7-11)
For three days, as Hmong custom has it, his family and friends would have mourned in high-pitched chants, feasted on freshly slaughtered beef and burned a giant pile of paper money to buy his soul into the spirit world.
But Gen. Vang Pao was no plain Hmong elder, and his death last month at age 81 has brought forth no ordinary grief. He is known to his people as the general, the hero of the Central Intelligence Agency’s long-ago secret war in the jungles of Laos, a man who was leaving behind 25 children, 68 grandchildren and an uprooted nation of Hmong refugees who regard him as something near a king.
So his funeral — six days and nights, with 10 cows slaughtered and stir-fried each day — has become a send-off for the ages.
It began last Friday, his body borne on a horse-drawn carriage through the streets of downtown Fresno, throngs of grieving Hmong lining the way. Scottish bagpipers played “The Green Hills of Tyrol” and two T-28 planes, the aircraft piloted by Hmong guerrilla fighters in the Vietnam War, flew overhead....
SOURCE: NYT (2-9-11)
The daughters have traded accusations of irresponsibility, mental incapacity and fiscal mismanagement of the estate, which is worth about $1.4 million. But the greater value may reside in a trove of unpublished works from Malcolm X and Dr. Shabazz.
As the dispute drags on in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court, efforts to publish the works have been thwarted by the daughters’ bickering; all must sign off on any plan to sell and release the material, which includes four journals that Malcolm X kept during trips to Africa and the Middle East in 1964, a year before his assassination....
SOURCE: NYT (2-7-11)
The acquisition is the first time the two institutions have collected works of art to share, in a partnership they formed to compete more effectively against other major museums being considered by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation as homes for the collection. The foundation is donating the majority of the more than 2,000 photographs — including Mapplethorpe silver-gelatin prints and Polaroid works — and the Getty and the county museum, with help from the David Geffen Foundation, are buying the rest.
The foundation estimated the value of the entire collection — which includes 120,000 negatives — at more than $30 million.
“This is pretty big news for us,” said Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who was involved in 1992 with an earlier transfer of a major collection of Mapplethorpe work to the Guggenheim Museum, where he worked at the time....
SOURCE: NYT (2-7-11)
The towers are an iconic work of folk art with a back story — built by an eccentric Italian immigrant working alone in his yard over 33 years — that is nearly as captivating as the installation itself.
But they are endangered, threatened by budget cuts that are crushing governments across the nation. And they are struggling to draw crowds to this neighborhood that is far off the tourist track and is still identified, despite the passage of so much time, with some of the worst urban riots in American history.
Amid increased concern about the towers’ fate, the City of Los Angeles, which operates the installation, last month contracted the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to restore and maintain it; the three city workers in charge of taking care of the site were lost to budget cuts. The museum is turning to its donor network to raise money for the project — preliminary estimates put the initial restoration at $5 million — and not incidentally, to promote the installation to arts patrons in Los Angeles itself....
SOURCE: NYT (2-7-11)
For years, it was generally accepted that Polynesians originated in modern-day Taiwan and began moving south and east about 4,000 years ago. This migration account is based on the research of linguists, the findings of archeologists and some genetic analysis.
But a new study in The American Journal of Human Genetics reports that Polynesians began migrating thousands of years earlier, not from Taiwan, but from mainland Southeast Asia....
SOURCE: NYT (2-7-11)
Q. You didn’t start out as a geneticist, but as a medical doctor. I take it your research career was accidental?
A. Absolutely. For much of the late 1950s, I worked a few days a week as a medical doctor at a Cook County Hospital clinic for retarded children. With young children at home, I would only work part time.
Then in 1961, my husband had a sabbatical from the University of Chicago to England. I needed something to do for the year we’d be over there. Because of my work with retarded children, I was interested in inherited diseases. It had recently been found that Down Syndrome was linked to an extra copy of chromosome 21. So, a friend arranged an introduction to Laszlo Lajtha, a hematologist in Oxford. He was doing groundbreaking work on the pattern of replication of bone marrow cells. Lajtha agreed to allow me to come to his lab to extend his work to replication of chromosomes, which I was interested in, and to learn more about his emerging field, cytogenetics.
Q. What was the state of genetics research in 1961?
A. The revolution was far from happening. This was less than a decade after Watson and Crick’s discovery. We were only beginning to have a notion of what DNA was like. There weren’t the right tools yet to stain it, cut it apart, examine and manipulate it.
Still, even with limited technology, there had been some advances. One of the most important came in 1960, when Peter Nowell and David Hungerford of Philadelphia discovered that one small chromosome was about half the normal size in many patients with CML, a type of leukemia. According to a convention at the time, this became known as the Philadelphia chromosome.
I enjoyed my laboratory work with Lajtha. I decided that when I returned to Chicago, I’d try to find another part-time job, though this time in research....
Name of source: KBTX
SOURCE: KBTX (2-8-11)
From the Wilkerson and Waldrop Houses to the La Salle Hotel, these are just a few of the 272 Historical Markers in Brazos County.
Cathy Nolte, with Washington on the Brazos, said, "Its a process. Its not something that happens very quickly."...
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (2-7-11)
Russell Township voters in northeast Ohio's Geauga County said no to going "wet" several times since Prohibition's repeal in 1933. The most recent rejection at the ballot box came in 2000.
But last fall voters approved a measuring allowing one convenience store to sell alcohol. The Circle K store began offering beer and wine last week.
SOURCE: AP (2-7-11)
In a little more than five months, Southern Sudan is slated to become the world's newest country. Final results from last month's independence referendum announced on Monday show that 98.8 percent of the ballots cast were for secession from Sudan's north.
Juba is oil-rich but lacks the embassies and skyscrapers of other world capitals. There was only a mile or two of pavement here just a year ago, and the local archives are stored in a tent. Many, though, see great potential, and are excitedly looking forward to controlling their own destiny....
SOURCE: AP (2-6-11)
Wooden signposts by the main road point to Vienna, Paris, and Braunau am Inn — the birthplace of Adolf Hitler. A far-right leader runs his demolition company from home, its logo featuring a man smashing a Star of David with a sledgehammer.
Every few months, townsfolk host outdoor parties where guests sing "Hitler is my Fuehrer" to chants of "Heil" around a massive bonfire....
Name of source: Southcoast Today
SOURCE: Southcoast Today (2-6-11)
But the archeological site at "Parting Ways" on the town line of Plymouth and Kingston is arguably every bit as important as the Plimoth Plantation historical site across town.
Parting Ways is the name for a settlement that was home to four African-Americans who fought in the Revolutionary War.
The men — Plato Turner, Cato Howe, Prince Goodwin and Quamony Quash — fought alongside the white New England colonists in their struggle for independence....
Name of source: BBC
SOURCE: BBC (2-7-11)
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the country's most senior civil servant, said there was an "underlying desire" to see Megrahi released before he died.
But his report concluded that it was made clear to Libya that the final decision was up to Scottish ministers.
And there was no evidence of Labour pressure on the Holyrood government.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who set up the investigation, said the release had been "profoundly wrong" but added there was no need for a fresh inquiry....
SOURCE: BBC (2-5-11)
The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region, published in the journal PLoS One.
Brain size was significantly smaller in yearlings compared with older birds.
Smaller brain sizes are thought to be linked to reduced cognitive ability.
The discovery was made by a team of researchers from Norway, France and the US led by Professor Timothy Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, and Dr Anders Moller from the University of Paris-Sud, France....
SOURCE: BBC (2-7-11)
He is said to have appointed two senior police suspected of not giving adequate protection to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto at the time of her murder.
Mr Musharraf is accused of giving the pair their orders.
Legal experts say the mention of Mr Musharraf's name in a prosecution report does not mean he is indicted....
SOURCE: BBC (2-8-11)
In July 2010, a Baltic Sea shipwreck dated between 1800 to 1830 yielded many bottles of what is thought to be the world's oldest champagne.
Five of the bottles later proved to be the oldest drinkable beer yet found.
The local government of the Aland island chain where the wreck was found has now commissioned a scientific study to unpick the beer's original recipe.
Divers found the two-mast ship at a depth of about 50 metres in the Aland archipelago, which stretches between the coasts of Sweden and Finland in the Baltic Sea.
The ship was believed to be making a journey between Copenhagen in Denmark and St Petersburg, then the capital of Russia....
SOURCE: BBC (2-8-11)
Nelson infamously had an affair with Lady Emma Hamilton while still married to his wife Fanny.
The Nelson Museum's exhibition, which features items from his private life, will allow visitors to examine his life and draw their own conclusions.
Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, north Norfolk, in 1758 and his most notable achievement was leading the British fleet to victory at Cape Trafalgar in 1805 - a battle which cost him his life.
As well as the fame he attained due to his military prowess, his private life also gained him notoriety during his lifetime....
Name of source: Reuters
SOURCE: Reuters (2-7-11)
The row stems from the reinterpretation of a law introduced in 2008 by the Ministry of Justice. The rule states human bones discovered in England and Wales since that time, regardless of their age, must be re-interred after two years.
In a letter to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke, 40 academics complained experts would have too little time to study the remains and that reburial would result in the needless destruction of immensely valuable material.
Important sites that will be affected include Stonehenge and a Viking mass burial pit near Weymouth on the south coast.
Many archaeologists believe secrets about ancient tribes and early humans in Britain could be lost to science forever if the rule is applied. Thousands of sites could be affected in the future, they say....
Name of source: CNN
SOURCE: CNN (2-9-11)
"Unfortunately, I really think that the tourist season for my family to Egypt is closed this year. There's just too much instability," said the 35-year-old mother from northern Alberta.
Miller and her daughter were among a handful of travelers scheduled to go on a school trip to Egypt in March. The political climate prompted the school board to nix the trip, and the group made a last-minute itinerary change. They'll be heading to Spain and Portugal instead.
It seems tourist season is closed for many of the millions who visit Egypt each year as tour companies, travelers and cruise lines cancel and divert their upcoming visits to avoid political unrest across the country. It might be a year or more before the industry recovers, experts say....
SOURCE: CNN (2-8-11)
To filmmaker LeAnn Erickson, it was history rediscovered.
It was 2003 and Erickson was interviewing sisters Shirley Blumberg Melvin and Doris Blumberg Polsky for her documentary, "Neighbor Ladies," about a woman-owned real estate agency that helped to peacefully integrate a Philadelphia neighborhood. The twins, long-retired by then, reluctantly mentioned a different sort of job they'd held during World War II: Female "computers."
Computer, at that point, was a job title, not a machine. Long before the sisters were businesswomen, community activists, mothers or grandmothers, they were recruited by the U.S. military to do ballistics research. They worked six days a week, sometimes pulling double or triple shifts, along with dozens of other women.
The weapons trajectories they calculated were passed out to soldiers in the field and bombardiers in the air. Some of their colleagues went on to program the earliest of general-purpose computers, the ENIAC.
It wasn't factory work, but they were "Rosies" nonetheless, filling jobs that men would've taken if they hadn't been at war or wrapped up in other military research....
Name of source: Guardian (UK)
SOURCE: Guardian (UK) (2-8-11)
Fans are planning to gather at the basement club to mark the half century since that initial appearance. Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and drummer Pete Best – replaced in 1962 by Ringo Starr – made a total of 292 appearances at the Mathew Street venue, the last coming on 3 August 1963.
One of the lucky few at their first performance was Alex McKechnie, then a 16-year-old message boy in a printing factory. "It was atmospheric though not very crowded," said McKechnie, now a director of the annual Mathew Street festival. "They were sarcastic, always acting the goat and cracking jokes."...
Name of source: Yahoo News
SOURCE: Yahoo News (2-8-11)
For a young man who craves a "normal" life, it was yet another reminder of just how abnormal his existence can sometimes be. Last year, Prince William had to check that his grandmother wouldn't object to him marrying Kate Middleton. It was both a formality and a requirement under British law. The Queen readily gave her consent. William can thank one of his royal ancestors for imposing this hurdle on his path to marriage.
Back in the 18th century, as well as dealing with the challenging issues of losing the American colonies and serious bouts of illness, King George III was also vexed by the behavior of his younger brother. The Duke of Cumberland had married, in secret, Lady Anne Horton. She was said to have "bewitching eyes" and was regarded by the King as highly disreputable. Incensed, he took action and a bill, known as the 1772 Royal Marriages Act, came in to being....
Name of source: Ynet News
SOURCE: Ynet News (2-8-11)
Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is standing trial on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder for allegedly having been a guard at Sobibor. He denies the charges....
Name of source: Live Science
SOURCE: Live Science (2-3-11)
This discovery, made in a prehistoric cemetery in the Middle East, could shed light on the nature and timing of newly developing relationships between people and beasts before animals were first domesticated. It also hints that key aspects of ancient practices surrounding death might have originated earlier than before thought.
The ancient graveyard known as 'Uyun al-Hammam, or "spring of the pigeon," was discovered in the small river valley of Wadi Ziqlab in northern Jordan in 2000 and named after a nearby freshwater spring. The burial ground is about 16,500 years old, meaning it dates back to just before the emergence of the Natufian culture, in which pioneers used wild cereals (such as wheat, barley and oats) in a practice that would eventually evolve into true farming. These communities dwelled 11,600 to 14,500 years ago in the Levant, the area that today includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The Natufian culture was known to bury people with dogs. One case discovered in past excavations in the area involved a woman buried with her hand on a puppy, while another included three humans buried with two dogs along with tortoise shells. However, the new discovery at 'Uyun al-Hammam shows that some of these practices took place earlier with a different doglike animal, the fox....
Name of source: Fox News
SOURCE: Fox News (2-8-11)
Sebastian Pinera said his Interior Ministry will join and support an independent judicial probe of the 1982 death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, a former president and prominent Pinochet critic who died suspiciously after a routine hernia operation.
Six people, including doctors and former Pinochet spies, were charged in December 2009 with conspiring to poison Frei Montalva....
SOURCE: Fox News (2-8-11)
"Years ago someone offered us this finger, and though we don't know if it's the real thing or not, we thought it was interesting and decided to preserve it here in our shop," David Delgadillo, manager de Dave's Pawn Shop in El Paso, said.
The body of the man born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula was decapitated three months after his death, but it is not known with any certainty whether one of his fingers was also cut off, according to Texas historian Fred Morales....
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-8-11)
Sotheby’s staff are alleged to have added a hastily-written damage report - backdated to the day they collected the portrait, suggesting it was already damaged - to the painting’s paperwork.
Yet it is alleged they overlooked the fact that the owner, Aila Goodlin, had been given her own copy of the paperwork when the painting was collected in July last year.
Ms Goodlin had planned to sell the painting, which is similar to work that has sold for £65,000, together with another at an Old Masters auction in London in October last year....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-8-11)
Senior US politicians accused the former prime minister of "cutting deals to release terrorists" after an official report detailed how ministers pushed for the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The criticism was made after Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, admitted that Mr Brown's administration did "all it could" to help Libya amid fears that British companies would lose multi-million-pound contracts if Megrahi died in prison.
Mr Brown had previously said the release of the terrorist was a decision made solely by the Scottish Executive. The report backed this assertion but also detailed how the Labour government advised Libya about how best to secure the release.
The official admission came less than a week after The Daily Telegraph disclosed that a Foreign Office minister had privately advised Colonel Gaddafi's Libyan regime on how they could secure Megrahi's compassionate release from prison....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-8-11)
The incident at a star studded gala banquet hosted by Nelson Mandela in 1997 has overshadowed harrowing testimony from victims linking the former Liberian president to war crimes and mass amputations carried out by Sierra Leone’s RUF rebels.
The link is critical because Mr Taylor, 63, is accused by prosecutors of trading in “blood diamonds” to fund Sierra Leone brutal and bloody civil war, in which 120,000 people died over 10 years.
Testimony from Miss Campbell and Mia Farrow, the American actress, who was also present at the dinner, has provided headlines for a case, the first prosecution of a former African head of state, that has often struggled to grab the world’s attention....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-4-11)
The wedding of Henry's doomed brother Arthur to Katherine took place on November 14, 1501, the saint's feast day, or rather the feast of the translation of his relics to their magnificent chapel in Old St Paul's. A chapel dedicated to St Erkenwald (and his sister St Ethelburga) remains at St Paul's, though you'd hardly know it, since Wren's chaste stonework is dominated by Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, a suitable enough painting for the Victorianised interior of the cathedral.
Erkenwald and Ethelburga are outlandish names to us (even more so in their Old English forms Earconwald and Æthelburh) and it is hard to realise the status they were accorded for eight and a half centuries of London life.
Erkenwald was appointed Bishop of London in 676 by the Asian Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, who, like St Paul, was born in Tarsus, now in Turkey towards Syria. Ethelburga governed twin monasteries, for monks and nuns, at Barking in Essex. Only ruins of it remain, though churches have been built in Barking dedicated to St Erkenwald (1954) and St Ethelburga (1979), and the City church of All Hallows Barking takes its name from her foundation, even if it now usually seems to be called All Hallows by the Tower (which is where it stands) in an attempt to avoid confusion. It still has Saxon masonry in its crypt, and a Roman mosaic floor. We hardly realise the antiquity of the streets we walk.
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-7-11)
The marble statue, which depicts a pensive Dickens holding a quill and a scroll of paper, went missing in 1972 after it was removed from Centennial Park in Sydney because of vandalism.
The only other known statue of Dickens is in Philadelphia, USA as the author stated in his will that he did not want any public monuments or memorials to him.
The Australian statue was commissioned in the 1880s by Sir Henry Parkes, who was premier of New South Wales at the time and a great fan of the novelist....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-7-11)
Both countries accused each other of instigating the clashes over the weekend, which continued across the darkened mountainous border for more than three hours Sunday. The extent of the damage to the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was not immediately clear.
The temple, which sits several hundred feet from Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, has led to disputes for decades.
In 1962, the World Court determined that the temple belonged to Cambodia, a ruling disputed by many Thais. Thai nationalists have seized on it as a domestic political issue, and the conflict has sparked sporadic, brief battles between the two neighbours over the last few years....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (2-7-11)
Both countries accused each other of instigating the clashes over the weekend, which continued across the darkened mountainous border for more than three hours Sunday. The extent of the damage to the Preah Vihear temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was not immediately clear.
The temple, which sits several hundred feet from Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, has led to disputes for decades.
In 1962, the World Court determined that the temple belonged to Cambodia, a ruling disputed by many Thais. Thai nationalists have seized on it as a domestic political issue, and the conflict has sparked sporadic, brief battles between the two neighbours over the last few years.
The latest fighting broke out Friday in an area close to Preah Vihear, and shelling Saturday caused minor damage to the temple's facade....
Name of source: Wired (UK)
SOURCE: Wired (UK) (2-8-11)
In a series of letters to justice secretary Ken Clarke, leading archaeology professors and members of RESCUE, The British Archaeological Trust, explain how the legislation is causing "severe damage to research and the advancement of knowledge".
The concern stems from changes to the conditions of licenses issued under the Burial Act of 1857 and the Disused Burial Grounds Act of 1981. Since 2008 new conditions have been introduced to the licences which seek to enforce the reburial of human remains discovered in England and Wales two years after excavation. This doesn't give scientists very much time to examine bones and other human remains. Nor does it allow the indefinite retention of human remains in museums, universities and other cultural or scientific institutions. Extensions can be granted in special cases, but remains still have to be reburied after the allocated time.
Before the 2008 changes, archaeologists were allowed to keep and study bones if they were old enough and of historical interest. When the changes were made, they were assured that it was only an interim measure, but so far there have been no revisions to the decision.
The legislation applies to any human remains uncovered at some 400 archaeological dig sites, including Stonehenge and Happisburgh in Norfolk....
Name of source: NPR
SOURCE: NPR (2-7-11)
But a much-anticipated final stop in Philadelphia — where the mummies were meant to headline the Secrets of the Silk Road exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology — has run into an unexpected roadblock involving the Chinese government.
The exhibition opened in time. The mummies are still in Houston, though. And the artifacts that were supposed to go on display with them? They're in Philadelphia — in giant wooden crates, unopened. It's a show on artifacts from China's Silk Road that's lacking any artifacts from China's Silk Road.
Ever since they found out they wouldn't be allowed to take the antiquities out of the crates, Quinn and her staff have been working overtime, building "dummy mummies" out of papier-mache. They set up worktables right across from the crated-up objects, printed out images from the catalog and from people's Flickr accounts, and cut them out with X-Acto knives. Then they mounted them on sticks or put them flat in a glass case. It's a little surreal....
Name of source: BBC News
SOURCE: BBC News (2-8-11)
Shooting has just begun on the film, written by Sex Traffic's Abi Morgan and directed by Mamma Mia's Phyllida Lloyd.
The film follows Baroness Thatcher as she broke through class and gender barriers to become prime minister.
The film also stars Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher. The cast also includes Richard E Grant and Anthony Head.
"The prospect of exploring the swathe cut through history by this remarkable woman is a daunting and exciting challenge," said Streep.
"I am trying to approach the role with as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses - I can only hope my stamina will begin to approach her own," she added....
SOURCE: BBC News (2-9-11)
Alex McKechnie, then 16, was in the crowd for that first show and went on to be a regular at the club:
"I saw The Beatles a few times in the north end of Liverpool and was working in Liverpool city centre as a messenger boy in a printing works when I heard that they were on at the Cavern in a lunchtime session.
"The Cavern was in the basement of a three or four storey warehouse. The public went down one flight of stone stairs and then there were three long arches.
"At the end of one of the long arches was a little tiny stage. That's where the Beatles performed 292 times.
"I remember it being very highly charged with excitement. The music sounded even more exciting [than the previous gigs] because The Cavern was this little squashed space so the music sounded a bit louder, a bit more exciting and a bit more vital. About 20 to 30 people were there....
SOURCE: BBC News (2-8-11)
La Lecture went to an anonymous phone buyer after six minutes of bidding.
The masterpiece depicts Picasso's secret lover, Marie-Therese Walter, who was 17 when Picasso, then 45, met her in Paris for the first time.
Their relationship was kept secret for many years because of her age and because Picasso was married.
Ms Walter later said she had never heard of the artist when he first approached her saying: "I am Picasso - you and I are going to do great things together."
Until La Lecture was painted, Ms Walter had only appeared in Picasso's works in code with her features often embedded in the background of his paintings....
SOURCE: BBC News (2-9-11)
He and his lawyer walked out of proceedings on Tuesday during the closing arguments of the trial.
The prosecution has finished its oral submission and the defence was due to start its arguments.
Mr Taylor denies fuelling Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s by arming rebels.
He is charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The trial started in June 2007, when Mr Taylor boycotted the opening, arguing he would not get a fair trial. The verdict is expected later this year.
Defiant
When proceedings resumed on Wednesday morning, the presiding judge said she had received a document stating that Mr Taylor had waived his right to be in court, thus confirming that there was no medical issue involved....
Name of source: WaPo
SOURCE: WaPo (2-8-11)
John DeLibero, a spokesman for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., said the above-ground portion of the structure was gone as of Monday. It will take a few days to remove the basement of the former Deutsche Bank building situated across the street from the trade center site, he said.
The property will then be turned over to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the main trade center site, for development. DeLibero said the transfer would take place by the end of the month....
SOURCE: WaPo (2-7-11)
In August 1981, just months after Reagan took office, air traffic controllers began an illegal strike. Reagan warned them to return to work or he would fire them. When most of them didn't, he kept his word and terminated about 11,000 strikers.
Two months later, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified their union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.
Reagan's firm but controversial stance had lasting implications for the federal workforce and far beyond, even internationally.
Federal employees today certainly would not consider striking, which is illegal now just as it was when the air traffic controllers seemed to think they could get away with it....
Name of source: Lee White at the National Coalition for History
SOURCE: Lee White at the National Coalition for History (2-2-11)
On February 2, the Department of Education announced that it was inviting applications for new awards under the Teaching American History (TAH) Grant Program for fiscal year (FY) 2011. However, the notice in the Federal Register makes clear that the Administration’s FY 2011 budget request did not include funding for the TAH program. It states, “We are inviting applications for the TAH program to allow enough time to complete the grant process before the end of the current fiscal year, if Congress appropriates funds for this program.”
The application deadlines are as follows:
- Applications Available: February 2, 2011.
- Deadline for Notice of Intent to Apply: March 4, 2011.
- Dates of Pre-Application Meetings: Pre-application meetings for prospective applicants will be held on March 11, 2011.
- Deadline for Transmittal of Applications: April 4, 2011.
- Deadline for Intergovernmental Review: June 2, 2011.
There will be two pre-application meetings for prospective applicants:
(1) March 11, 2011, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the LBJ Auditorium at the U.S. Department of Education Headquarters, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20202;
(2) March 11, 2011 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the same location.
For Further Information Contact: Mia Howerton, Margarita Melendez, or Adam Bookman, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue, SW., room 4C123, Washington, DC 20202-5960. Telephone: (202) 205-0147 or by e-mail: teachingamericanhistory@ed.gov. If you use a TDD, call the FRS, toll-free, at 1-800-877-8339.
Background
President Obama’s FY 2011 budget request to Congress for the Department of Education proposed consolidating 38 existing K–12 education programs into 11 new programs. Under the administration’s budget request, grants for history education would now be part of a new program called “Effective Teaching and Learning for a Well-Rounded Education.” Teaching American History Grants would be consolidated into this new program and would no longer exist as a free-standing budget line item.
The administration proposed $265 million in funding in fiscal year 2011 for the new initiative. Although the fiscal 2011 budget request proposed a $38.9 million increase in funding to support teaching and learning in arts, history, civics, foreign languages, geography, and economics, the administration proposes to combine eight subject-specific grant programs into a single competitive grant program. Unfortunately, under the proposed competitive grant program the various subjects would be pitted against each other for scarce resources.
In July, the National Coalition for History (NCH) and ten other NCH members joined forces with over 20 educational organizations representing other K-12 academic disciplines in issuing a statement to Congress and the Administration calling for the continued robust funding of core academic subjects including history. This includes maintenance of discrete funding for each discipline, including Teaching American History grants.
Most observers expect major cuts in federal discretionary non-national security programs in the next Continuing Resolution that will fund the federal government for the remainder of the current fiscal year. This is causing uncertainty within the Department of Education as to the availability of FY 2011 funding for TAH.
SOURCE: Lee White at the National Coalition for History (2-1-11)
On February 1, the National Park Service (NPS) and the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH) jointly announced the awarding of $14.3 million in federal competitive Save America’s Treasures (SAT) grants. A list of the recipients and their projects can be found at http://www.nps.gov/history/hps/treasures.
The grants are made in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and Save America’s Treasurer’s private partner, the National Trust for Historic Preservation. With the grants, 61 organizations and agencies will conserve nationally significant cultural and historic sites, buildings, objects, documents, and collections.
Each federal partner oversees the SAT awards to projects that reflect that agency’s mission. This year, the National Park Service will administer grants to 29 projects focused on structures and sites. The remaining 32 projects address the needs of documents, artifacts, and collections and will be administered by the NEA, NEH, and IMLS.
From FY 1999 to FY 2010, 1,287 Save America’s Treasures grants (646 earmarks and 641 competitive grants) have been awarded to preserve nationally significant and endangered historic structures, places, collections, artifacts, and artistic works. To date, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Midway Island have received grants.
SOURCE: Lee White at the National Coalition for History (2-1-11)
To help mark the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, and Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, recently unveiled the nation’s largest online digitized presidential archive, providing access to the most important papers, records, photographs and recordings of President Kennedy’s thousand days in office. The archive is accessible via the Library’s website www.jfklibrary.org.
To manage a digitization project of this enormity, the archivists of the Kennedy Presidential Library prioritized the Library’s historic collections beginning with those that hold the highest research interest and significance. These collections include the President’s Office Files; the Personal Papers of John F. Kennedy; the Outgoing Letters of President John F. Kennedy; the JFK White House Photograph Collection; the JFK White House Audio Speech Collection; and the JFK White House Film and Video Collection. At launch, the archive features approximately 200,000 pages; 300 reels of audio tape, containing more than 1,245 individual recordings of telephone calls, speeches and meetings; 300 museum artifacts; 72 reels of film; and 1,500 photos.
The digitization initiative was made possible through a public/private partnership between the NARA’s John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum and the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, the 501 (c) (3) non-profit that secured significant financial support from private donors in order to help fund the project.
SOURCE: Lee White at the National Coalition for History (2-1-11)
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and Preservation Programs will be hosting the 25th Annual Preservation Conference on Wednesday, March 16 and Thursday, March 17, 2011. The conference website is http://www.archives.gov/preservation/conferences/2011/
The title of the conference, is “Conservation 2 (squared) = Preserving Our Collections x (times) Our Environment”.
The venue for both days will be the Marriott Inn and Conference Center, located at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in Adelphi, Maryland.
The standard registration fee is $285.00. Full-time students with ID have a reduced rate of $195.00. The fee covers all food and beverages during break times and lunch, a late afternoon reception on Wednesday, all handouts and free parking in the adjacent garage.
Name of source: AFP
SOURCE: AFP (2-8-11)
In "Known and Unknown," Rumsfeld defends his handling of the war and recounts his government career serving Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.
However the former Pentagon chief also admitted his biggest error during his tenure under Bush was his failure to convince the president to accept his resignation in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal....
SOURCE: AFP (2-4-11)
Paul van Aerschodt, 88, who was sentenced to death in Belgium in 1946 but broke out of prison before his execution and now lives in Spain, told the Derniere Heure newspaper he had met Bormann four times in La Paz, Bolivia, around 1960.
"Bormann had come from Paraguay and was plotting with some 20 officers a coup to overthrow (dictator Juan) Peron in Argentina," van Aerschodt said.
He claimed Bormann, who called himself Augustin von Lembach, passed himself off as a priest and celebrated masses, weddings and funerals and administered the last rites to the dying.
"But he remained a fanatic," van Aerschodt said, adding that he had made the choice not to give Bormann away but did not know what became of him....
Name of source: Star Tribune
SOURCE: Star Tribune (2-7-11)
"This May Please You, But We're Scared," intoned the Dayton Co. on Feb. 5, 1946.
Rightly so. The city's leading department store was heralding its miraculous inventory of 60,000 pairs of nylon stockings, quietly amassed over a three-month period and going on sale the following morning.
Nylons, a relatively new, mass-produced version of the silk stocking, had been absent for most of the war's duration, and they were sorely missed. To avoid a mob scene, the store planned to stretch the sale over a three-day period, selling only 20,000 pairs each day. Cost: $1.15 to $1.65 ($13 to $19 in 2011 dollars)...
Name of source: CNN.com
SOURCE: CNN.com (2-6-11)
At least seven people -- two villagers and five soldiers -- were wounded after a new gunfight broke out shortly before 7 p.m. Sunday evening, Thai Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd told his nation's state-run MCOT media outlet.
The skirmish came a day after the two sides agreed to a ceasefire, according to the official Thai report.
Earlier, Thai Army Lt. Gen. Thawatchai Samutsakorn told MCOT that the situation along the border was returning to normal Sunday....
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (2-2-11)
Now, 66 years on, the dwindling band of D-Day veterans faces a new battle against an unexpected invader.
A giant offshore windfarm within sight of the beaches where 2,500 allied soldiers died is being planned by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
The proposal for 80 525ft high windmills off Juno Beach, one of the five beaches where troops landed in the Second World War, has angered the old soldiers....
