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 News
March 25, 2010
President Hugo Chavez has added three days to Venezuela's Easter holiday to deal with a growing energy crisis.
The move - which will close government and public offices - means most Venezuelans will have a seven-day break starting on 1 April.
Mr Chavez said the aim of the measure was not to encourage "laziness, but to save energy".
Caracas says a drought has dropped water reserves at Venezuela's main hydroelectric dam to critical levels.
Source: BBC News
March 25, 2010
Questions are being raised about whether Pope Benedict was personally involved in covering up a case of child sex abuse by a Roman Catholic priest.
Documents seen by the New York Times newspaper suggest that in the 1990s, long before he became Pope, he failed to respond to letters about a US case.
Fr Lawrence Murphy, of Wisconsin, was accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys.
Defending itself, the Vatican said US civil authorities had investigated and dropped
Source: WaPo
March 24, 2010
Much of the story has been told before: The dignitaries gathered by the Tidal Basin. First lady Helen Taft used a new spade to plant the first cherry tree. Among those present were Eliza Scidmore, who had helped bring the trees to Washington, and an Army grounds superintendent.
It was March 27, 1912, the event that gave birth to the National Cherry Blossom Festival. But almost a century later, little is ever said of the other two VIPs there that day -- Japanese Viscountess Iwa Chind
Source: BBC News
March 23, 2010
There is thought to have been a hill fort on this site dating from the late or post-Roman period, but the location's importance goes back to the Bronze Age.
Today, the medieval castle ruins are a focal point of a hilly walk from the community of Caergwrle, off the A541 Wrexham-Mold road, and it's managed by Caergwrle Community Council.
From the ruins there are far-reaching views over Cheshire and, therefore, England, as it was a border fortification built by Welsh noble
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 24, 2010
Drawings believed to be those that Adolf Hitler submitted in a failed attempt to gain entry into the Vienna Academy of Art are to be auctioned.
And a distinguished emeritus dean of art has studied them and said that today they would be considered only up to "moderate GCSE standard."
Some have speculated that Hitler's rejection from art college helped shape his character in later years.
He believed that it was a Jewish professor who had rejected h
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 24, 2010
An ''outstanding'' collection of illuminated manuscripts previously owned by kings, bishops and the aristocracy is expected to fetch up to £16 million when it goes under the hammer.
The private collection, which Christie's described as the most valuable of its kind ever to be offered at auction, includes the personal prayerbooks of King Francois I of France and Elizabeth de Bohun, great-grandmother of King Henry V of England.
The Arcana Collection: Exceptional Illumin
Source: Discovery News
March 24, 2010
Yvan Arpa has put dust from the moon and rust from the Titanic in watches. This time, he has gone further by setting fossilized dinosaur excrement into his latest timepieces.
The price tag of 12,000 francs (8,365 euros, $11,265) for the watch, which looks rather rugged and comes with toad skin straps, is reasonable, according to Arpa, who noted that each is a "unique" work which contains a piece of history.
He said tests have shown that the excrement originate
Source: BBC
March 23, 2010
One of the top leaders of a radical left-wing uprising in India called the Naxalbari rebellion has committed suicide, police say.
Kanu Sanyal, 81, was found hanging in his bedroom in Naxalbari village in the state of West Bengal.
He led a peasant uprising in 1967 in Naxalbari, in which 11 farmers were killed in police firing .
The rebellion took its name from the village as Mr Sanyal and his close friend Charu Majumder broke away from the Communist Party
Source: BBC
March 24, 2010
Bolivia's army has begun using the revolutionary motto "Fatherland or death, we shall overcome!", angering some conservative former generals.
President Evo Morales introduced the slogan, which was popularised by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara - the leaders of the Cuban communist revolution.
It is seen as part of Mr Morales' effort to turn the army into guarantors of his socialist revolution.
Bolivian troops executed Che Guevara, who led rebels the
Source: BBC
March 24, 2010
Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave.
The extinct "hominin" (human like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.
An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been pu
Source: Fox News
March 22, 2010
The growing movement for preservation of historical landmarks in outer space -- otherwise known as space archaeology -- just took a giant leap forward.
Californian historical preservationists have registered to protect the remains of the Apollo 11 landing site -- on the moon's famous Sea of Tranquility -- as an official historical resource, giving it protected status.
Beyond the well-known footprints and lunar lander tracks, the site also includes used urine containers
Source: ABC News
March 24, 2010
Archaeologists in Jerusalem are competing to unearth artifacts pointing to the ancient city's Jewish past, which are used to justify Israel's claim to all of it as the indivisible capital of the modern Jewish state.
But critics say some of "finds" are really just bending science to prove a "Biblical heritage" that is open to dispute.
With generous funding, including from religious groups intent on expanding Jewish settlement, archaeologists are diggi
Source: NPR
March 24, 2010
There's a plan afoot among evolutionary scientists to launch a big new project — to look back in time and find out how climate change over millions of years affected human evolution.
A panel of experts from the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., has given its blessing to the plan. They say it could unveil a whole new side of human history.
Anthropologist Rick Potts, who heads the human origins department at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, has
Source: Reuters
March 23, 2010
Energy firms taking part in a North Sea boom for offshore wind farms will have to watch out for remains of Stone Age villages submerged for thousands of years, an expert said on Tuesday.
A region dubbed "Doggerland" connected Britain to mainland Europe across what is now the southern North Sea until about 8,000 years ago, when seas rose after the last Ice Age.
It is now the site of a planned vast expansion of offshore wind power by 2020 to help combat climate
Source: The Economic Times
March 24, 2010
Archaeologists in China have found the ruins of a 2,000-year-old city dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty, a report said Wednesday.
The site, located near Fujiacun village in Fengcheng city in Jiangxi province, covers about 18,000 square metres and is surrounded by a moat, Xinhua news agency reported.
About 30 metres of the wall surrounding the ancient city was still standing on its west and pieces of broken tiles were found scattered on the ground, it said.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
March 24, 2010
Palaeontologists have unearthed the partial remains of a new species of dinosaur buried in rocks in the western US state of Utah.
Buried by a collapsing sand dune an estimated 185 million years ago, the new dinosaur was probably a plant eater and an early relative of the giant animals later known as sauropods.
Named Seitaad ruessi, the species was 10-to-15 feet long and 3-to-4 feet high. Its bones were found protruding from sandstone at the base of a cliff, directly be
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
March 24, 2010
After more than three years of being denied entry to the United States for political reasons, the South African scholar and political commentator Adam Habib seemed delighted on Tuesday to be able to plant his feet on sacred ground for America's civil libertarians: the campus of Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia.
In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Habib, who is in the United States on a 19-day tour that will take him to several college campuses, expressed gratitude for S
Source: NYT
March 23, 2010
Mangjul Ilrang has one of the rarest surnames in South Korea, one that might even be considered hazardous in this country, where anti-Japanese sentiment still runs deep. Only nine other South Koreans share it: his own four children and five grandchildren.
“I tell my children to tell people that it’s a Japanese name and be proud of it,” Mr. Mangjul, 67, said in an interview at his home.
How Mr. Mangjul ended up with his unusual name is a story of how he made peace with
Source: AHA Blog
March 23, 2010
On April 14, 1865, just five days after the close of the Civil War, Elizabeth Keckly, a former slave and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln, retold the story from the night of Lincoln’s assassination, remembering how the First Lady’s cloak was wet with blood.
“The story of Lincoln’s assassination fascinated an American public steeped in the sensationalism and sentimentalism of the Civil War era,” and that fascination continues today. One of the Chicago Historical Society’s prize artifa
Source: FOX News
March 23, 2010
President Obama enacted historic health care legislation Tuesday in a ceremony that looked more like a birthday party than a bill signing. Democrats celebrated the culmination of a year-long debate on insurance reform that Mr. Obama made a focal point of his first year in office.
On Saturday Mr. Obama made an eleventh-hour plea to House Democrats ahead of their landmark vote. As he has often done through his young presidency and as a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama turned to Abr
