This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: WaPo
April 30, 2010
You won't find gleaming china, boldly patterned wallpaper, fine artwork or stately furniture inside the renovated buildings at the Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre in Bristow.
In fact, you might be hard-pressed to find overt similarities between the five historic Brentsville buildings and such better-known historic landmarks as George Washington's Mount Vernon south of Alexandria, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello just outside Charlottesville or even the former Arlington residence
Source: AP
May 3, 2010
A pony-tailed Greek on a motorcycle pulled up onto the sidewalk, hunting for a better parking spot, and an elderly tourist with a crutch shuffled out of the way. The good-natured driver explained his illegal maneuver with a smile.
One word was enough. "Greece," he told her in English.
So it goes in Greece, a historical patchwork of Balkan, Mediterranean, and even Middle Eastern influences that failed to follow the European rule book. Scratch the veneer of slic
Source: Jon Wiener, writing in The Nation
May 1, 2010
[Jon Wiener started writing for The Nation in 1984. He's also professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, and a Los Angeles radio host.]
The Arizona legislature has passed a bill that will end ethnic studies classes in the state, according to the state's top education official.
The bill bans classes that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people," "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," or "
Source: AP
May 2, 2010
A 13th century skeleton unearthed on the grounds of a friary may be the earliest physical evidence that Africans lived in England in medieval times, a team of researchers said Sunday.
Forensics experts at the University of Dundee Scotland say that the bones most likely belonged to a man from modern-day Tunisia who spent about a decade living in England before he died.
The man — who appears to have died of a spinal abscess — was identified as African by studying his ske
Source: AP
May 1, 2010
Shock and outrage over the May 4 National Guard slayings of four Kent State University students, on the other end of Ohio from his University of Cincinnati campus. Then fear and confusion as schools across the state and much of the country saw the demonstrations against the expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia swell into angry, combative confrontations.
For some graduating seniors of the Class of 1970, there would be no joyful mortarboard tosses, posing for photos with proud p
Source: BBC
May 2, 2010
An appeal against the banning of a book promoted as a sequel to JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye has been given the go-ahead.
In July, a judge in Manhattan's federal court blocked the US publication of 60 Years Later: Coming Through The Rye by Swedish novelist Fredrik Colting.
On Friday, an appeals court sent the case back to the federal court.
But in its ruling, the appeals court made it clear it expected Salinger's trust to prevail.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 2, 2010
The Pope has paid homage to the Turin Shroud after launching a crackdown on a powerful Catholic order which has been tainted by sex abuse allegations.
The Vatican has never said whether it believes the 14ft-long, sepia-coloured burial shroud to be authentic or not, but more than two million people are expected to travel to Turin to see the linen cloth while it is on public display - the first showing for a decade.
The Pope said the enigmatic image imprinted in the clot
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 2, 2010
A form of ''anti-freeze blood'' may have helped woolly mammoths survive life in the Arctic, research suggests.
Ancestors of both the extinct mammoth and modern elephants originated in equatorial Africa, scientists believe. But mammoths migrated north between 1.2 and two million years ago just as climate change caused temperatures to plunge.
The move is surprising since elephants are not adapted to the cold. Scientists investigated whether ch
Source: FOX News
April 30, 2010
After making national headlines for a new law on illegal immigrants, the Arizona Legislature passed a bill Thursday that would ban ethnic studies programs in the state that critics say currently advocate separatism and racial preferences.
The bill, which passed 32-26 in the state House, had been approved by the Senate a day earlier. It now goes to Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.
The new bill would make it illegal for a school district to teach any courses that promo
Source: The Albany Project
April 24, 2010
This promises to be a bizarre political year, with GOP candidates not only running to the far right, but veering way off track. Earlier this week, Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden of Nevada grabbed the crazy baton from Rep. Michele Bachman when she suggested that people should barter and haggle with their doctors for health care, rather than rely on insurance. But what she said is nothing compared to what the newly minted challenger to Congressman John Hall said in her candidacy's openi
Source: BBC
May 1, 2010
An exhibition charting the life and career of Peter Pan's creator has opened at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The JM Barrie exhibition, which is open throughout May, celebrates the 150th anniversary of his birth.
It features rare letters, first-edition books, plays and theatre programmes.
Fan mail from children, including a marriage proposal from a six-year-old boy to Peter Pan's companion Wendy, is also on display.
Amongst the
Source: BBC
May 1, 2010
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has travelled to the US, ignoring a lawsuit filed there over the deaths of two African presidents in 1994.
Mr Kagame spoke at a ceremony honouring Rwandan graduates in Oklahoma City.
The widows of the then leaders of Burundi and Rwanda, whose deaths sparked the 1994 genocide, say Mr Kagame ordered their plane shot down.
Mr Kagame denies this. The lawyers who filed the lawsuit were unable to serve the legal papers during his vis
Source: BBC
May 1, 2010
The people who went missing during Lebanon's civil war in the 1970s and 80s are in danger of being forgotten as their parents and siblings grow older. One mother I knew died without ever discovering what happened to her children.
Some 17,000 people vanished during the bloody conflict, most - it is thought - abducted and killed by militias. But some believe a few hundred may still be alive in Syrian jails.
Shortly after the war ended, the Lebanese government passed an am
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 30, 2010
The Pope will bow before the Turin Shroud on Sunday as more than two million people are expected to see the so-called burial cloth of Christ as it goes on display.
The Pontiff, 83, beset in recent months by the paedophile priest scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church across the world, is likely to attract hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Turin for a glimpse of both him and the cloth said to bear an image of Christ's body and face.
The last papal viewin
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 1, 2010
They were known as the 'Ghost Army', an eclectic group of actors, make-up artists and sound experts who together engineered one of the greatest deceptions in military history.
Using hundreds of inflatable tanks and artillery, deploying the latest sound technology and posing as drunken military officers in order to spread disinformation, the Ghost Army is credited with helping the Allies win the war in Europe and saving thousands of British and American lives.
Over the c
Source: McClatchy
April 30, 2010
Is George W. Bush about to start a political comeback?
Written off as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history when he left office, the 63-year-old Bush has been keeping a low profile, fading from view as the country turned its attention to his successor, President Barack Obama .
Now, some events might be turning in Bush's favor just as he and his family emerge to tell their side of the story, first with the release this week of Laura Bush's memoir, "Spoken From
Source: Discovery News
April 28, 2010
Afghanistan Wednesday commemorated the 1992 toppling of a Soviet-backed regime, which led to bloody civil war and the rise of the Taliban, as insurgent violence across the country reaped a high toll.
Helicopter gunships clattered over Kabul as the Afghan army staged a 21-gun salute at a sports stadium that the Taliban regime used as a public execution ground during the 1996-2001 civil war.
It was the first public commemoration of the 1992 overthrow since an assassinatio
Source: BBC
April 29, 2010
A wine fountain similar to those used by Henry VIII has been unveiled at Hampton Court Palace.
The working replica was created after the remains of a 16th Century fountain were found during an archaeological dig at the London palace in 2008.
The 13ft (4m) fountain, made of timber, lead, bronze and gold leaf, stands on the site of the excavated fountain.
It will run with red and white wine at weekends and on bank holidays, carrying on the tradition started
Source: CBC News
April 30, 2010
Soldiers roped off George Clooney's Lake Como property in Italy on Thursday while a team of experts removed a cache of unexploded Second World War-era weapons that were found in the lake.
A fisherman discovered the explosives, which were submerged in the lake just metres away from the actor's Italian villa, the Daily Mail reported. The fisherman called Italian authorities, who sent a team to remove the weapons.
More than 200 kilograms of unexploded bombs, hand grenades
Source: Live Science
April 29, 2010
Humans today could be part Neanderthal, according to a new study that found our ancestors interbred with an extinct hominid species some millennia ago.
Neanderthals walked the Earth between about 130,000 and 30,000 years ago. While they co-existed with modern humans for a while, eventually they went extinct and we didn't. There has been intense scientific debate over how similar the two species were, and whether they might have mated with each other.
Last week at the
