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: BBC
March 30, 2010
An ancient chapel has revealed a new mystery with the discovery of a 600-year-old hive built into the stones.
Builders renovating Rosslyn Chapel, which was made famous in The Da Vinci Code, found the "unprecedented" hive while dismantling a rooftop pinnacle.
The bees entered the hive through a hole in a carved flower crafted by the chapel's master stone masons.
The 15th Century Midlothian building is undergoing a £13m conservation and site impro
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 30, 2010
Jesus was 5'8", swarthy and looked nothing like the Renaissance painters' depictions of Christ, according to a reconstruction based on the Turin Shroud.
Using the latest 3-D computer technology, a team of digital artists have created what they claim is the real face of Jesus.
The contours of the face and body were taken from the ghostly face imprinted on the Shroud, the bloodied linen sheet said to have covered the body of Christ in his tomb.
Source: AP
March 30, 2010
South Korea on Tuesday lodged a strong protest with Japan after the Japanese education ministry approved history textbooks for elementary schools that describe a pair of South Korea-controlled islets claimed by Japan as Japanese territory.
Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yu Myung Hwan summoned Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Toshinori Shigeie to his office to deliver the protest and demand that Japan retract the approval of the five textbooks, one of which claims that South Ko
Source: AP
March 30, 2010
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday accepted a request from Pakistan's president to delay the release of a report on the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, until April 15.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky made the announcement just two hours before a three-member U.N. commission that investigated Bhutto's death was scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss the report's findings.
The government at the time of Bhutto's murder, led by
Source: National Security Archive
March 30, 2010
For the first time in Latin America, a judge has sent a former head of state to prison for the crime of an "Attack against the Constitution." In an unprecedented ruling last month in Montevideo, former Uruguayan President Juan María Bordaberry was sentenced to serve 30 years for undermining Uruguay's constitution through an auto-coup in June 1973, and for his responsibility in nine disappearances and two political assassinations committed by the security forces while he was president b
Source: NYT
March 30, 2010
The two powerful explosions that tore through Moscow’s subway on Monday revived a peculiar fear in the Russian capital, one that goes beyond the usual terrorism worries of a metropolis: the female bomber....
Earlier this decade, Moscow’s fear of female suicide bombers was so strong it became a lurid obsession. Women, sometimes casually clad in jeans and blending in to the swirl of Moscow, committed at least 16 bombings, including two on board planes....
The women, who c
Source: Independent (UK)
March 23, 2010
A rare collection of Second World War propaganda posters sold for almost £15,000 when they went under the hammer today.
The 110 prints, bearing morale-boosting slogans such as Keep Calm And Carry On, were sold in 11 lots at Wallis and Wallis Auction Galleries in Lewes, East Sussex.
Bidding clerk Lyn Hayward said the total of £14,590 that was fetched was "well in excess of what was expected".
The posters, described as being in mint condition, were
Source: Huffington Post
March 26, 2010
On Friday's edition of C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Census Bureau Director Robert Groves apologized to a caller for the "negro" classification on the 2010 census form.
"I am black. I did not appreciate the Black, the Afro-American and Negro. That is back when I used to live in Nashville, Tennessee, when people were called Negro. I do not like that, that is out of character, and it really hurt my feelings ... that to me is racist," the caller said befo
Source: BBC
March 30, 2010
An elderly stamp collector whose £80,000 collection was stolen during a raid on his home has put up a reward for its return.
The victim, from Presteigne, Powys, who does not want to be named, spent 60 years building up his collection, which included several rare examples.
Some of the stamps were recovered when two people were charged and then jailed for theft at Merthyr Crown Court.
But many are still outstanding and the owner is appealing for their retur
Source: BBC
March 30, 2010
For years the secrecy surrounding the Rhydymwyn Valley Works Site, near Mold, served only to fuel rumour about what, if anything, could still be hidden in underground tunnels that once housed thousands of mustard gas shells during the height of production in the war years.
And speculation has been rife for the last few decades since it was revealed that the works played a role in the research into the first atomic bomb.
[That work included evaluating the atomic bomb r
Source: BBC
March 30, 2010
A solicitor has told the Leonardo da Vinci extortion trial how he fell "hook, line and sinker" for an undercover police operation.
Marshall Ronald, 53, said he took two officers, one posing as an art expert and another claiming to represent the stolen work's owner, "at face value".
He claimed the police had been "duplicitous and deceptive".
Mr Ronald and four others deny seeking £4.25m for the safe return of the Madonna of th
Source: BBC
March 30, 2010
A Birmingham nature reserve that was a favourite childhood playground of Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien has been awarded a £376,500 lottery grant.
Tolkien said Moseley Bog had inspired the mystical Old Forest that his Hobbit characters travelled through in the Lord of the Rings.
The reserve is owned by Birmingham City Council and managed by the Friends of Moseley Bog and a wildlife trust.
They said the grant would fund an outdoor theatre and restore
Source: BBC
March 30, 2010
One the most agile dinosaurs so far discovered has been unearthed in China.
The tiny dinosaur, dubbed a "roadrunner" by the scientists who found it, is also one of the smallest dinosaurs known.
Measuring just half a metre long, the fleet-footed theropod named Xixianykus zhangi was likely to have used a huge claw to dig for termites and ants.
It then used its speed to efficiently move between ant mounds and avoid the attentions of larger predator
Source: BBC
March 26, 2010
At least one person has been killed and 10 wounded in a crush at a Ugandan royal tomb that was destroyed by fire last week, police say.
The incident came at the end of a week of official mourning for the mausoleum of the Buganda kingdom, which has attracted thousands of people.
The government has said it will help rebuild the site and Buganda ministers are discussing the plans. It remains unclear what started the fire, altho
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 29, 2010
An invitation to the coronation of Charles II and restoration of the British monarchy after England ceased being a republic is to be auctioned 400 years on.
The handwritten letter was sent from Charles' trusted personal advisor to a nobleman and sets the date of the new king's restoration to the throne in 1661.
The parchment confirms arrangements for a royal procession through London, where Charles was welcomed back after years of exile while Oliver Cromwell was in po
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 30, 2010
An American general has apologised for his claim that the presence of homosexual troops was responsible for the Dutch army's failure to prevent the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.
John Sheehan, a former US General and Nato commander, caused outrage two weeks ago when he alleged that open homosexuality in the Dutch ranks had so damaged military morale that the country's army was powerless to prevent genocide in Bosnia.
He claimed, before a US Senate hearing, that Henk van de
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 30, 2010
An Australian citizen who was a Serb paramilitary commander during the 1990s Balkan wars is to be deported to face trial in Croatia for war crimes after years on the run.
The Australian High Court upheld Croatia's extradition appeal, ending nearly four years of court battles by the Croatian government and Dragan Vasiljkovic, now known as Daniel Sneddon.
Belgrade-born Mr Vasiljkovic went to live in Australia when he was 15 but returned to his homeland to train Croatian
Source: CNN
March 30, 2010
It may be the most iconic piece of office equipment of the past half-century.
It has saved workers countless hours, spit out forests worth of documents, been cursed by anyone who's faced a paper jam on deadline and been used by office pranksters to copy body parts.
It's been immortalized in pop culture by Rob Schneider's "Saturday Night Live" skits -- "Ran-dyyy! The Rand-man! Randatollah! Making copies!" -- and by the secretaries of "Mad Men,&qu
Source: CNN
March 30, 2010
Former White House chief of staff Karl Rove was heckled and branded a "war criminal' at a book signing in Beverly Hills, California, on Monday night.
Rove, who served as senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President Bush, was at the Saban Theater to discuss his new book, "Courage and Consequences: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight," to an audience of about 100 people who paid up to $40 to hear him.
But the audience members were unable to get
Source: WaPo
March 30, 2010
As 14 states move forward with a lawsuit to block President Obama's new health-care law, calling it an unconstitutional infringement on state sovereignty, Arkansas is nowhere to be found.
"They tried it here in Arkansas in '57 and it didn't work," Gov. Mike Beebe (D) told reporters recently. "I think you got to tell people the truth. And if I understand the law, the truth is the federal government can't just be defied by the state governments."
There
