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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: AFP
SOURCE: AFP (8-19-12)
New evidence has emerged suggesting that Hungarian Nazi war crimes suspect Laszlo Csatary was sentenced to 20 years in jail after World War II in 1945 but then escaped, a historian said Sunday.
Historian Zoltan Balassa told the online version of the HVG weekly he has discovered documents showing that Csatary was captured in the Hungarian town of Veszprem and then sentenced in Pecs, but that he then fled the country.
The documents were found in Kosice, the town in present-day Slovakia where Csatary is accused of having committed war crimes as a senior police officer in Hungary's pro-Nazi regime with responsibility for the Jewish ghetto.
Balassa said that with the only other evidence being testimonies from a Czechoslovakian 1948 trial in absentia – which sentenced him to death – these new documents could support a new conviction if the 97-year-old is tried....
Name of source: News Track India
SOURCE: News Track India (8-17-12)
London, August 17 (ANI): A Greyhound, owned by Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolph Hess, took part in dog races almost every weekend in Wales during the war, a historian has revealed.
Dewi Bowen, a Welsh historian, has said that Nimrod, the dog - a regular at Penydarren Park - was given to Hess after he took his crazy flight to the UK in 1941 in a bid to sue for peace with Winston Churchill.
Hess spent most of his time as a Prisoner of war confined to Maindiff Court Military Hospital in Abergavenny.
Bowen, 85, said that Nimrod was given to him in a bid to keep his mind off of committing suicide.
"Almost every Saturday afternoon during the Second World War a private soldier with a greyhound traveled down from Abergavenny to Merthyr Tydfil by train and dropped off at Cefn Coed to quench his thirst at the Railway Inn," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying....
Name of source: WDAY (Fargo)
SOURCE: WDAY (Fargo) (8-17-12)
Fargo, ND (WDAY TV) -- One Historian calls it the most important six-weeks in Minnesota History. The U.S.-Dakota war defined Minnesota and even the Red River Valley for decades to come. Its 150th Anniversary is tomorrow.
Markus Krueger/Historical and Cultural Society of Clay Co.: "The Red River Valley in 1862 was the edge of the United States, the northwestern edge of the United States."
After selling their land to the U.S. Government in the 1850s, the Dakota tribe in Minnesota was mistreated and cheated out of much of its money by Indian Agents and traders.
Krueger: "Known by outsiders as the Sioux, they were quite literally starving to death."...
Name of source: NYT
SOURCE: NYT (8-20-12)
SEOUL, South Korea — A former dictator’s daughter who cited Queen Elizabeth I of Britain as her role model became the first serious female contender for South Korea’s presidency on Monday when she was chosen as the governing party’s candidate for the election in December.
Park Geun-hye, a daughter of President Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979, is the first woman and the first child of a former president to become the presidential candidate of a major political party in South Korea.
Ms. Park, 60, won the nomination of the Saenuri Party by a huge margin, gathering 84 percent of the votes during a party convention. The remaining ballots were split among four other rivals....
SOURCE: NYT (8-20-12)
DIEPPE, France — The beaches of Normandy, for most, evoke images of D-Day, the Allied invasion that set the path to victory over Germany.
Fewer people think of Dieppe, this ancient fishing and resort city about a two-and-a-half-hour drive east of those more famous beaches. This is, in part, because the word Dieppe, if it is known at all, evokes something much darker: one of the early and most crushing defeats for Allied forces at a time before the United States had fully mobilized to join them. This is especially true for Canadians, who suffered the heaviest losses here.
But more than 2,000 people — including veterans, their family members, tourists and officials from France, Britain, Canada and the United States — descended on the city for Sunday’s commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Dieppe raid....
SOURCE: NYT (8-18-12)
At age 90, William Blair Jr., a former Negro League pitcher, Dallas-area civil rights leader and longtime newspaperman, came to the realization that much of the history he had lived through had already been forgotten by younger generations.
“They don’t know. They don’t read nothing,” he said by telephone this week from his office at The Elite News, the publication he founded in 1960 to bring light to Dallas’s often-overlooked black community.
He recently turned over the photographs, newspapers and memorabilia he had collected to the University of Texas at Arlington Special Collections Library. It took seven trucks to haul Mr. Blair’s collection to the university, which intends to develop a public exhibition around it.
Mr. Blair hopes visitors to the exhibition, particularly young ones, will develop a deeper appreciation for the area’s history. “There’s stuff in there they don’t know,” he said. “That’s stuff I’ve had for years.”...
SOURCE: NYT (8-11-12)
For months now, the alarm has been resounding throughout the insular and competitive world of antiquarian books: beware of volumes bearing the stamp of the storied Girolamini Library in Naples. They could be hot.
The library's former director, Marino Massimo De Caro, was arrested in May, accused of systematically despoiling the library he had been charged with keeping safe, stealing books and selling them on the open market or directly to collectors. And sharp sleuthing on the part of a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta has raised questions about Mr. De Caro and the sale of other, possibly forged, books....
SOURCE: NYT (8-8-12)
Fossil by fossil, scientists over the last 40 years have suspected that their models for the more immediate human family tree — the single trunk, straight as a Ponderosa pine, up from Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens — were oversimplified. The day for that serious revision may be at hand.
The discovery of three new fossil specimens, announced Wednesday, is the most compelling evidence yet for multiple lines of evolution in our own genus, Homo, scientists said. The fossils showed that there were at least two contemporary Homo species, in addition to Homo erectus, living in East Africa as early as two million years ago.
Uncovered from sandstone at Koobi Fora, badlands near Lake Turkana in Kenya, the specimens included a well-preserved skull of a late juvenile with a relatively large braincase and a long, flat face, which has been designated KNM-ER 62000 (62000 for short). It bears a striking resemblance to the enigmatic cranium known as 1470, the center of debate over multiple lineages since its discovery in the same area in 1972....
SOURCE: NYT (8-7-12)
The other day, Richard Teahan was strolling down Fifth Avenue with Michael Collins under his arm when a woman covered fully by a burqa approached him near 65th Street and asked for directions to the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Mr. Teahan, 23, has been in New York City only since late May, when he came over from Ireland to land a summer job. But he was able to adequately direct the woman, Rani Niazi, a Pakistani immigrant living in Newark. She then asked about Michael Collins – actually a cardboard cutout of a life-size photograph of Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary leader killed in 1922.
“His name is Michael Collins and he is one of the leading protagonists in the Irish battle for independence,” said Mr. Teahan, who was with Mike Coleman, a real-life friend....
SOURCE: NYT (8-7-12)
The Woolworth Building is about to have another defining moment. The uppermost floors of the neo-Gothic tower that once stood as the world’s tallest skyscraper will be turned into about 40 luxury apartments as part of a $68 million deal made final last week. Only if the Chrysler Building or Empire State Building were to be remade into condominiums could buyers hope to live in a more iconic New York tower.
An investment group led by Alchemy Properties, a New York developer, bought the top 30 floors of the landmark on July 31 from the Witkoff Group and Cammeby’s International, which will continue to own the lower 28 floors and lease them as office space.
The agreement promises to reinvent the tower — telescoping up at 233 Broadway between Park Place and Barclay Street — as one of Manhattan’s most sought-after addresses, adding yet another chapter to the history of this Cass Gilbert-designed monument to Frank W. Woolworth and his five-and-dime empire. The building, which cost Woolworth $13.5 million in cash, was completed in 1913 and remains a signature element of the city skyline....
Name of source: Minnesota Historical Society
SOURCE: Minnesota Historical Society (8-20-12)
This month, the Minnesota Historical Society began a year long project to digitize and make available the manuscripts and audio recordings of Hubert H. Humphrey's public speeches. The speech texts, part of the larger Humphrey Papers (1883-1982) housed at the Society, contains 32,000 pages of drafts, typescripts, and transcripts for nearly every public speech dating from 1941, when Humphrey entered local Minnesota politics, until his death in 1978.
The project also includes the digitizing of audio recordings of at least 50 particularly important speeches including his address at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, which helped launch his national career. In the stirring speech he argued in favor of a strong civil rights plank in the party's platform.
Humphrey began his political career when he was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945. In November 1948, shortly after his speech at the 1948 Democratic National Convention, voters in Minnesota elected him to the United States Senate.
He ran as the Vice Presidential nominee with President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The ticket was elected in November in a Democratic landslide. In 1968, Humphrey was the Democratic Party's candidate for President, but he was defeated narrowly by Richard M. Nixon. After the defeat, Humphrey returned to Minnesota to teach at the University of Minnesota and Macalester College. He returned to the U.S. Senate in 1971, and he won re-election in 1976. He died January 13, 1978 of cancer.
When complete, this project will document the path of Humphrey's career, his evolving political thinking, and the maturation and high-water mark of the liberal tradition in 20th century American politics and government.
Commenting on Humphrey's legacy shortly after he passed, Republican Strom Thurmond said "Here, then, is the nation’s true consolation: That voice that could not be silenced in life—that famous, unmistakable voice, instantly recognized throughout the land—will not be silenced in death. Hubert Humphrey will go on talking down the ages, to us, to our descendents, as long as the Republic endures."
The Humphrey Papers include the speech text files, U.S. Senate and Vice-Presidential files, as well as materials pertaining to Humphrey's family and personal life and his 1968 presidential and 1970 Senate campaigns.
The public can access the digitized speeches online through the Society's new finding aids search page. New content will be posted monthly in the What's New section.
This project is supported by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) administered by the National Archives.
SOURCE: Minnesota Historical Society (8-20-12)
Just launched, a new website provides a public portal to the Walter F. Mondale Papers held in the [Minnesota Historical] Society collections. The website provides a fully articulated finding aid to the 1,500 cubic feet of Mondale Papers; contextualizes Mondale's career in a brief essay; provides easy access to thousands of digitized artifacts, photographs, and documents from the Mondale collection; and hosts an extensive interview with Mondale. Future content will include essays and podcasts featuring prominent Mondale scholars.
Pat Gaarder, deputy director of programs said, "We are pleased to be able to share the history of this public figure in an easy-to-use way. Mondale speaks to Minnesota's history as well as the nation's history and we are proud that he has entrusted his papers to our care."
The extensive Mondale Papers document his entire career, from his terms as Minnesota's attorney general (1960-1964), through his senatorial career (1964-1976), his years as vice president (1977-1980), his 1984 presidential campaign, his brief ambassadorial career and subsequent public service.
The Society was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to process and describe the Walter Mondale Papers and to develop a Mondale web page.
The Minnesota Historical Society is a non-profit educational and cultural institution established in 1849. The Society collects, preserves and tells the story of Minnesota’s past through museum exhibits, libraries and collections, historic sites, educational programs and book publishing. Using the power of history to transform lives, the Society preserves our past, shares our state’s stories and connects people with history.
The Minnesota Historical Society is supported in part by its Premier Partners: Xcel Energy and Explore Minnesota Tourism....
Name of source: CNN.com
SOURCE: CNN.com (8-19-12)
(CNN) -- The USS Constitution, or "Old Ironsides," sailed under her own power Sunday for just the second time in some 130 years.
The Constitution set out on Boston Harbor in Massachusetts to commemorate the 200th anniversary of her victory over a British frigate during the War of 1812. The battle earned Constitution her "Old Ironsides" nickname.
"I cannot think of a better way to honor those who fought in the war as well as celebrate Constitution's successes during the War of 1812 than for the ship to be under sail," said Cmdr. Matt Bonner, Constitution's 72nd commanding officer.
Some 285 people were on board the ship, which sailed under her own power for 17 minutes, traveling a distance of 1,100 yards....
SOURCE: CNN.com (8-15-12)
(CNN) -- One of the world's largest private superyachts is the latest to set sail on an expedition to uncover the secrets of a British battle cruiser lost during World War II.
Octopus -- a 414 foot megayacht -- was donated to the British Navy by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. Allen will fund the recovery and research expedition, sparing the British government any cost.
A previous expedition by Blue Water Recoveries, a deep sea shipwreck recovery company, located the wreck 11 years ago.
This week the recovery team will return to the wreck site with a two-fold mission: Retrieve the ship's bell and document the remains of the battle cruiser in the hopes of later determining what happened in the Hood's final moments....
Name of source: Boston Globe
SOURCE: Boston Globe (8-15-12)
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s highest court ruled Wednesday that a 90-year-old citizen cannot be extradited to Hungary to face accusations he tortured and killed a Jewish teenager during World War II.
The High Court upheld a lower court’s decision that reasoned war crimes charges former Hungarian soldier Charles Zentai may face did not exist at the time of the slaying, a conclusion criticized by the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Hungary says Zentai is suspected of beating the teen to death in Budapest in 1944 for failing to wear a star identifying him as a Jew. Zentai, who migrated to Australia in 1950 and later became a citizen, has denied the allegation and has been fighting extradition since 2005....
Name of source: Korea Times
SOURCE: Korea Times (8-16-12)
A Korean scholar has discovered a confidential Japanese Army document showing that it sent “comfort women” to provide sex to frontline soldiers in Southeast Asia during World War II.
Kim Moon-gil, head of the Korea-Japan Culture Research Institute based in Busan, said Thursday he obtained the document in May from the historic records archive of Japan’s Ministry of Defense.
The record showed the military was in charge of “managing” sex slaves _ which runs counter to the Japanese government’s claim that it was not involved in recruitment or management....
Name of source: Fox News
SOURCE: Fox News (8-18-12)
Man-made debris seen in underwater video filmed off the coast of a Pacific Island may reportedly be from Amelia Earhart’s plane, which researchers believe disappeared somewhere over the Pacific in 1937.
Reuters reported that The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) conducted a $2.2 million expedition to Nikumaroro, a remote island. When the group returned to Honolulu and inspected the video, they noticed a trail of man-made debris they say may be wreckage of Earhart’s plane.
"It's still very early days, but we have man-made objects in a debris field in the place where we'd expect to find it if our theory on the airplane is correct," Ric Gillespie, the director for TIGHAR, told Reuters. The group reportedly examined 30 percent of the video collected....
SOURCE: Fox News (7-27-12)
Two sculptures of life-size lions, each weighing about 5 tons in antiquity, have been discovered in what is now Turkey, with archaeologists perplexed over what the granite cats were used for.
One idea is that the statues, created between 1400 and 1200 B.C., were meant to be part of a monument for a sacred water spring, the researchers said.
The lifelike lions were created by the Hittites who controlled a vast empire in the region at a time when the Asiatic lion
roamed the foothills of Turkey.
"The lions are prowling forward, their heads slightly lowered; the tops of their heads are barely higher than the napes," write Geoffrey Summers, of the Middle East Technical University, and researcher Erol Özen in an article published in the most recent edition of the American Journal of Archaeology....
Name of source: AP
SOURCE: AP (8-17-12)
JACKSON, Miss. — Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War can be an angst-filled task in Mississippi, with its long history of racial strife and a state flag that still bears the Confederate battle emblem.
Well-intentioned Mississippians who work for racial reconciliation say slavery was morally indefensible. Still, some speak in hushed tones as they confess a certain admiration for the valor of Confederate troops who fought for what was, to them, the hallowed ground of home and country.
“Mississippi has such a troubled past that a lot of people are very sensitive about commemorating or recognizing or remembering the Civil War because it has such an unpleasant reference for African-Americans,” said David Sansing, who is white and a professor emeritus of history at the University of Mississippi....
SOURCE: AP (8-13-12)
EBENSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A 110-year-old Pennsylvania widow is getting a benefits boost because of her husband's World War I service.
Family members say Alda Collins is now getting about $1,000 a month to assist with her stay at a nursing home near Ebensburg. She had been getting $36 a month.
Her son tells the Daily American of Somerset (http://bit.ly/OURXLU) that Collins lived by herself in a trailer until she was 106. She can use a walker, feeds herself and knows the Pirates are in second place....
SOURCE: AP (8-13-12)
Like the people who hike it, the Appalachian Trail is always moving.
Technically, Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of its completion. But the 2,180-mile path stretching across 14 states from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Katahdin, Maine, is never really finished.
It took 15 years for hundreds of volunteers, state and federal partners, trail maintenance clubs and young workers with the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps to build the original path. In the decades since, nearly 99 percent has been relocated or rebuilt, and transferred from private to public ownership.
That means the trail and some 250,000 contiguous acres are better-protected than ever from development and suburban sprawl....
SOURCE: AP (8-10-12)
The wife of former astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, says he's "amazingly resilient" and making progress toward recovering from heart surgery.
Carol Armstrong told The Associated Press in an email Friday that in the days since the surgery, her 82-year-old husband has been able to get out of bed and sit in a chair, and then walk up and down the corridor....
SOURCE: AP (8-9-12)
The United States began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange - 50 years after American planes first sprayed it on Vietnam's jungles to destroy enemy cover.
Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, will be removed from the site of a former U.S. air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The effort is seen as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended.
"We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past," U.S. Ambassador David Shear said during the groundbreaking ceremony near where a rusty barbed wire fence marks the site's boundary. "I look forward to even more success to follow."
The $43 million joint project with Vietnam is expected to be completed in four years on the 19-hectare (47-acre) contaminated site, now an active Vietnamese military base near Danang's commercial airport.
Washington has been quibbling for years over the need for more scientific research to show that the herbicide caused health problems among Vietnamese. It has given about $60 million for environmental restoration and social services in Vietnam since 2007, but this is its first direct involvement in cleaning up dioxin, which has seeped into Vietnam's soil and watersheds for generations...
SOURCE: AP (8-8-12)
One wears a prim white bonnet. Another sticks out its tongue, hands resting over abdomen. A third clutches at its chest, mouth seemingly frozen in a scream. They are faces from the past, trapped in the appearance they bore when laid to rest nearly 300 years ago.
And disturbed from their eternal sleep, these mummies may help unlock the secrets of the immune system.
Resting in cardboard boxes in long rows of cabinets on the top floor of the Hungarian Natural History Museum in Budapest, the 265 mummies are helping scientists find new ways to treat tuberculosis....
SOURCE: AP (8-8-12)
Our family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly 2 million years. A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans.
A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found facial bones from one creature and jawbones from two others in Kenya. That led the researchers to conclude that man's early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species.
These wouldn't be Homo erectus, believed to be our direct ancestor. They would be more like very distant cousins, who when you go back even longer in time, shared an ancient common ancestor, one scientist said....
SOURCE: AP (8-8-12)
This probably comes as no surprise: Federal scientists say July was the hottest month ever recorded in the Lower 48 states, breaking a record set during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
And even less a surprise: The U.S. this year keeps setting records for weather extremes, based on the precise calculations that include drought, heavy rainfall, unusual temperatures, and storms.
The average temperature last month was 77.6 degrees. That breaks the old record from July 1936 by 0.2 degree, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Records go back to 1895....
SOURCE: AP (8-7-12)
Mexican archaeologists say they have found an unprecedented human burial in which the skeleton of a young woman is surrounded by piles of 1,789 human bones in Mexico City's Templo Mayor.
Researchers found the burial about five meters (15 feet) below the surface, next to the remains of what may have been a "sacred tree" at one edge of the plaza, the most sacred site of the Aztec capital.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History said the find was the first of its kind, noting the Aztecs were not known to use mass sacrifice or the reburial of bones as the customary ways to accompany the interment of a member of the ruling class....
SOURCE: AP (8-6-12)
DELTA, Utah - A groundbreaking ceremony has been held for a museum that will tell the story of a Utah internment camp where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Seven former internees were among a crowd that attended the ceremony Saturday for the $2.3 million Topaz Museum and Education Center in Delta....
SOURCE: AP (8-5-12)
Hiroshima marked the 67th anniversary of the world's first atomic bomb attack on Monday with a call for the elimination of nuclear arsenals.
About 50,000 people gathered in Hiroshima's peace park near the epicenter of the 1945 blast that destroyed most of the city and killed as many as 140,000 people. A second atomic bombing Aug. 9 that year in Nagasaki killed tens of thousands more and prompted Japan to surrender to the World War II Allies.
The ceremony, attended by representatives of about 70 countries, began with the ringing of a temple bell and a moment of silence. Flowers were placed before Hiroshima's eternal flame, which is the park's centerpiece...
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Name of source: Washington Times
SOURCE: Washington Times (8-15-12)
Vice President Joseph R. Biden's incendiary comment to a largely black audience Tuesday about Republican Mitt Romney wanting to put voters "back in chains" isn't the first time he has used slavery imagery in a political appeal.
In 2006, when then-Delaware senator was campaigning in South Carolina for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, he reminded people that he represented a former slave state.
Asked on Fox News how a "Northeast liberal" such as himself could win in South Carolina, Mr. Biden replied, "You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a Northeast liberal state."...
Name of source: Telegraph (UK)
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-15-12)
The ship that took Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his ill-fated mission to the Antarctic 100 years ago has been discovered off the coast of Greenland.
The SS Terra Nova, built in Dundee in 1884, was found by a research company, Schmidt Ocean Institute, when they were testing new equipment on one of their vessels.
The discovery has amazed experts as the ship had lain on the sea bed under icy waters for 70 years.
Captain Scott and his team sailed it from Cardiff to the Antarctic in their quest to be the first people to reach the South Pole a century ago....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-15-12)
A French explorer's ship that sank in the Gulf of Mexico in the 17th century is to be rebuilt after undergoing a complex freeze drying operation, the first such undertaking of its size.
By placing the ship – La Belle – in a constant environment of up to 60 degrees below zero, more than 300 years of moisture will be safely removed from hundreds of European oak and pine timbers and planks.
The freeze-dryer, located at the old Bryan Air Force base several miles northwest of College Station, is 40 feet long and 8 feet wide – the biggest such machine on the continent devoted to archaeology.
Researchers will then rebuild the 54 ½-foot vessel, which will become the centrepiece of the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (7-31-12)
All Saints, Waterden, stands in splendid isolation in the middle of a field in a hidden valley 10 miles from the north Norfolk coast. It is a 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon village church without a village – but even if it has lost its original purpose, it remains picture postcard perfect, a Grade I-listed gem in a landscape that carries those who happen upon it back through the centuries....
The building belongs to the parish of South Creake, where the 40 or so regular worshippers have already had to find £100,000 to repair the roof of their own Saint Mary’s. They use All Saints only once every four weeks for Evensong. It is quite a bill to foot in return for 12 services a year.
Their dilemma neatly encapsulates the crisis facing the custodians of the 12,000 listed Anglican parish churches around the country, two thirds of which are in rural areas with tiny and dwindling congregations struggling to pay maintenance bills. The desperation caused by this funding shortfall has been brought into sharp relief this week by the news that thousands of homeowners living near ancient churches potentially face large bills for the upkeep of their fabric, even if they never set foot inside them....
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-8-12)
Running from 1948 to 1951, top secret "Operation Stone" created a number of false border posts near the Czech-German with an elaboration and attention to detail worthy of a film set in order to trick people into thinking they had made it to safety.
Once comfortable in what they thought was Germany a Czech secret policeman posing as an American intelligence officer would then ask them to write down all their contacts back home.
"It was human tragedy. These people were brought into areas which they thought were in the West," said Pavel Bret, from the Czech Republic's Centre for the Documentation and Investigation of Communist Crimes. "There were American flags, American uniforms, and they were also asked to give the names of people co-operating with Western intelligence. They still feel ashamed that they were tricked.
"But you cannot deny just how clever the operation was."...
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (8-5-12)
It eluded Franklin Roosevelt, Sir Malcolm Campbell and Errol Flynn, but now an explorer from Melton Mowbray could be on the trail of a multi-million-pound hoard of gold, silver and jewellery stolen by pirates and buried on a treasure island.
Shaun Whitehead is leading an archaeological expedition to Cocos Island, the supposed hiding place of the “Treasure of Lima” – one of the world’s most fabled missing treasures.
The haul – said to be worth £160 million – was stolen by a British trader, Captain William Thompson, in 1820 after he was entrusted to transport it from Peru to Mexico.
He is said to have been stashed his plunder on the Pacific island, from where it has never been recovered....
Name of source: The Atlantic
SOURCE: The Atlantic (8-15-12)
Loris Taylor, the CEO and president of Native Public Media, still has the scars on her hands from when she was caught speaking Hopi in school and got the sharp end of the ruler as a result. "They hit so hard, the flesh was taken off," she remembers. "Deep down inside, it builds some resistance in you."
Now, she's at the forefront of a movement to revive dead and dying languages using an old medium: radio. As CEO and president of Native Public Media, she's lobbied the FCC and overseen projects to get increasingly rare tongues like Hopi onto airwaves so that Native Americans can keep their ancestors' ways of speaking alive—and pass those ways of speaking to new generations.
Similar efforts are taking place worldwide. In Ireland, Dublin's youthful Top-40 Raidio Ri-Ra and Belfast's eclectic indie Raidio Failte have been broadcasting entirely in Irish for several years. In Washington, D.C. earlier this month, indigenous radio producers from Peru, Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, and a handful of other countries gathered for the "Our Voices on the Air" conference, organized by the 40-year-old nonprofit Cultural Survival and the Smithsonian's Recovering Voices program....
Name of source: USA Today
SOURCE: USA Today (8-14-12)
Congress is on pace to make history with the least productive legislative year in the post World War II era.
Just 61 bills have become law to date in 2012 out of 3,914 bills that have been introduced by lawmakers, or less than 2% of all proposed laws, according to a USA TODAY analysis of records since 1947 kept by the U.S. House Clerk's office.
In 2011, after Republicans took control of the U.S. House, Congress passed just 90 bills into law. The only other year in which Congress failed to pass at least 125 laws was 1995.
These statistics make the 112th Congress, covering 2011-12, the least productive two-year gathering on Capitol Hill since the end of World War II. Not even the 80th Congress, which President Truman called the "do-nothing Congress" in 1948, passed as few laws as the current one, records show....
Name of source: India Today
SOURCE: India Today (8-15-12)
Security has been stepped up in state capitals and key installations on Independence Day eve to thwart any terror strike, with an elaborate ground-to-air vigil being maintained in Delhi where the Prime Minister will unfurl the tricolour at the Red Fort on Wednesday.
With insurgents outfits and Maoists calling for a boycott of celebrations, tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces have been deployed and patrolling intensified in the North-eastern states and those hit by Left wing violence, including Chhattisgarh.
In Jammu and Kashmir, security measures have been intensified across the Valley following stepped up militant attacks over the past week, with police and other security forces resuming random frisking of pedestrians and searching of vehicles....
Name of source: Daily Mail (UK)
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (8-10-12)
A glimpse into the brutal way warriors proved their prowess 3,600 has been unearthed in Egypt.
Archaeologists excavating a palace in the ancient city of Avaris have dug up four pits containing 16 large right hands believed to have been sliced from the arms of vanquished enemies.
Experts believe the discovery is the earliest and only physical evidence that soldiers used to present the cut-off right hands of enemies in exchange for gold....
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (8-10-12)
Perhaps no Prince of Wales in history has been less trusted — or more spied upon — than the boy everyone knew as Bertie. When he attended a military summer camp, at age 19, the future King Edward VII was surrounded by minders: two stern Grenadier officers, a colonel and a general. He even had to share a general’s quarters.
Happily, however, they had not thought to lock Bertie’s bedroom window. So, one night, the heir to the throne wriggled out, made a beeline for the camp prostitute — one Nellie Clifden — and triumphantly lost his virginity.
Moreover, as I discovered from his engagement diary for September 1861, there was a ‘2nd time’ and a ‘3rd time’ with the luscious ‘NC’, proving he lacked in neither courage or enthusiasm....
Name of source: Ynet News
SOURCE: Ynet News (8-2-12)
Adolf Hitler's nephew pleaded to enlist in the US army and fight against his uncle's Nazi regime, a letter written in 1942 reveals.
The New York Daily News on Thursday reported that William Patrick Hitler, who fled from Germany to the US in 1939, wrote US President Franklin D. Roosevelt after being rejected from the US Army, begging him to fight alongside the Allied Forces....
Name of source: Gawker
SOURCE: Gawker (8-30-12)
The New York Times' Julie Bosman reports that Jonah Lehrer, the precocious New Yorkerwriter who was caught fabricating Bob Dylan quotes in his book Imagine, has resigned from the magazine. Here's his statement, via Bosman's Twitter feed:
"Three weeks ago, I received an email from journalist Michael Moynihan asking about six Bob Dylan quotes in my book IMAGINE. The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. But I told Mr. Moynihan that they were from archival interview footage provided to me by Dylan's representatives. This was a lie spoken in a moment of panic. When Mr. Moynihan followed up, I continued to lie, and say things I should not have said. The lies are over now. I understand the gravity of my position. I want to apologize to everyone I have let down. I have resigned my position as staff writer at The New Yorker."
Moynihan's discovery of the fabricated Dylan quotes, first published in a Tablet article published today, is the latest, and worst, in a monthlong uncovering of the basic fact that Jonah Lehrer just does not know how to do journalism. (Not that basic incompetence has prevented people from getting jobs at The New Yorker before.)...
Name of source: NPR
SOURCE: NPR (8-9-12)
HNN Editor: Last month the readers of HNN voted David Barton's book “the least credible history book in print.” See our poll.
Citing a loss of confidence in the book's details, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson is ending the publication and distribution of the bestseller, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson.
The controversial book was written by Texas evangelical David Barton, who NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty profiled on All Things Considered Wednesday. The publishing company says it's ceasing publication because it found that "basic truths just were not there."
Since its initial publication, historians have debunked and raised concerns about numerous claims in Barton's book. In it, Barton calls Jefferson a "conventional Christian," claims the founding father started church services at the Capitol, and even though he owned more than 200 slaves, says Jefferson was a civil rights visionary....
Name of source: LA Times
SOURCE: LA Times (8-9-12)
In its 25 missions spanning nearly two decades, the space shuttle Endeavour circled the Earth more than 4,600 times, spending a total of 299 days in space.
It carried the crews that assembled the first U.S. component of the International Space Station, and would go on to dock at the station a dozen times. By the time Endeavour completed its last mission a year ago, the shuttle had logged nearly 123 million miles beyond Earth.
But the shuttle's final journey — a measly 12 miles — might just be its most memorable.
Officials Wednesday unveiled some of the details surrounding the 170,000-pound shuttle's carefully coordinated move from Florida's Kennedy Space Center to its permanent home at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. After arriving at LAX on the back of a Boeing 747, the shuttle will make a two-day trek through the streets of Los Angeles, the first time a space shuttle has been moved through the heart of a city....
Name of source: Inside Higher Ed Academic Minute
SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed Academic Minute (8-9-12)
[CLICK ON ABOVE LINK FOR AUDIO]
In today’s Academic Minute, the University of Texas at Austin's Earle McBride examines the discovery of microscopic artifacts on one of history’s most famous beaches. McBride is Professor Emeritus and the J. Nalle Gregory Chair Emeritus in Sedimentary Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences at UT-Austin. Find out more about him here. A transcript of this podcast can be found here.
Name of source: Yahoo News
SOURCE: Yahoo News (8-9-12)
DANANG, Vietnam (AP) — The United States began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange — 50 years after American planes first sprayed it on Vietnam's jungles to destroy enemy cover.
Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, will be removed from the site of a former U.S. air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The effort is seen as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended.
"We are both moving earth and taking the first steps to bury the legacies of our past," U.S. Ambassador David Shear said during the groundbreaking ceremony near where a rusty barbed wire fence marks the site's boundary. "I look forward to even more success to follow."...
SOURCE: Yahoo News (8-7-12)
Fiona McLaren, 59, had kept an old painting in her Scottish farmhouse for decades. She reportedly didn't think much of the painting, which had been given to her as a gift by her father. But after she finally decided to have the painting appraised, some experts are speculating that it may in fact be a 500-year-old painting by Leonardo da Vinci and potentially worth more than $150 million.
"I showed it to him [auctioneer Harry Robertson] and he was staggered, speechless save for a sigh of exclamation," said Ms. McLaren, according to The People.
The Daily Mail says the painting may be of Mary Magdalene holding a young child. The painting is now undergoing further analysis by experts at the Cambridge University and the Hamilton Kerr Institute, who will attempt to uncover its exact age and origins....
Name of source: Robert Krulwich for NPR
SOURCE: Robert Krulwich for NPR (7-18-12)
Robert Krulwich works on radio, podcasts, video, the blogosphere. He has been called "the most inventive network reporter in television" by TV Guide.
On July 19, 1957, five Air Force officers and one photographer stood together on a patch of ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. They'd marked the spot "Ground Zero. Population 5" on a hand-lettered sign hammered into the soft ground right next to them.
As we watch, directly overhead, two F-89 jets roar into view, and one of them shoots off a nuclear missile carrying an atomic warhead.
They wait. There is a countdown; 18,500 feet above them, the missile is detonated and blows up. Which means, these men intentionally stood directly underneath an exploding 2-kiloton nuclear bomb. One of them, at the key moment (he's wearing sunglasses), looks up. You have to see this to believe it....
Name of source: Medievalists.net
SOURCE: Medievalists.net (8-5-12)
A report to be released tomorrow by the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) will reveal that a mass burial on the site of the Augustinian priory and hospital of St Mary Spital had thousands of victims from a famine that occurred in 1258. The famine was caused by a volcanic blast from the other side of the world, which sent vast amount of ash into the atmosphere and dropped world temperatures.
The report, A bioarchaeological study of medieval burials on the site of St Mary Spital: excavations at Spitalfields Market, London E1, 1991–2007, was written by a team lead by Don Walker, a human osteologist at Museum of London Archaeology. It is based on excavations that took place between 1991 and 2007 by the Museum of London Archaeology, which uncovered over 10,500 human skeletons. The skeletons date from the 12th to the early 16th centuries, and includes a large number who were buried in a mass grave. It was previously believed that the remains came from a tragedy like the Black Death in 1348, but radiocarbon dating revealed they were buried in the 13th century....
Name of source: The Week
SOURCE: The Week (8-3-12)
Two centuries ago, the U.S. declared war on Britain, and invaded its closest colony. Why did we fight the War of 1812, and who really won?
Who started the war?
The United States was the first to declare war, though after repeated British provocations. At the time, the Napoleonic wars were raging across Europe, and the Royal Navy had taken to seizing American sailors at sea and press-ganging them into their undermanned fleet. Already infuriated by British attempts to prevent the U.S. from trading with France, President James Madison and the so-called War Hawks in Congress urged the country to go to war and defend its recently won independence. But the June 1812 vote to go to war only narrowly passed the House and the Senate, and critics condemned "Mr. Madison's War" as a foolhardy adventure, motivated less by crimes at sea than by a lust for land. Indeed, the American offensive began with a land invasion of Canada....
