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: Secrecy News
October 22, 2009
“Over time, the Supreme Court has become more diverse in some ways and more homogeneous in others,” a recent Congressional Research Service report (pdf) observed.“When first constituted, and throughout most of its history, no women or minorities served on the Court… The religious affiliations of the Court’s members also have changed over time. For almost the first 50 years of the Court, all Justices were affiliated with protestant C
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 22, 2009
Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and architect of the Soviet Union, died from syphilis caught from a Parisian prostitute and not from a stroke as has always been believed, new research has claimed.
Helen Rappaport, an acclaimed historian and author, said that books, papers and journals charting Lenin’s last years show that he contracted the sexually transmitted disease and that it ultimately claimed his life.
She said Lenin showed many symptoms of syphilis an
Source: AP
October 22, 2009
Local officials say eight graves of Muslim soldiers who died for France in World War II have been desecrated in a village cemetery.
Maurice Duhamel, mayor of Montjoie-Saint-Martin, says he is filing suit after Nazi symbols were discovered Wednesday on the eight graves of Muslim soldiers in France's 2nd Armored Division.
Last week, the French Council for the Muslim Faith complained that those responsible for the desecration in December of some 500 Muslim soldiers' graves
Source: The Daily Beast
December 31, 2069
The victim of a high-profile, racially charged assault case in West Virginia in 2007 is now coming clean and admitting that her story was fabricated. Megan Williams, who has since moved to Columbus, Ohio, told police that she had been stabbed, beaten, and sexually assaulted in a trailer. She claimed her six white assailants had forced her to eat feces while hailing racial slurs at her. At the time, Rev. Al Sharpton called for the case to be investigated as a hate crime. After guilty pleas from a
Source: Google News
October 21, 2009
WARSAW, Poland — The U.S. violin virtuoso Joshua Bell helped raise funds Wednesday for a Jewish History museum in Poland with a charity concert at Warsaw's Opera House.
After years of seeking sponsors, construction of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is starting in a vast square next to the monument honoring the fighters and victims of the 1943 ill-fated Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Partly funded by the city of Warsaw, the museum will show in an interactive way some 1,000 years o
Source: LA Times
October 21, 2009
It weighed less than 2 pounds and was just 28 inches in length. But the Fruitadens haagarorum, as it is now known, represents a significant piece of the puzzle in mankind's knowledge of the dinosaur era.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County said Tuesday that an international team of scientists had recently identified and named the species, which lived during the late Jurassic period in the western region of North America. It is the smallest dinosaur discovered on the co
Source: Talking Biz News
October 13, 2009
BusinessWeek magazine, which was founded in 1929, just weeks before the October stock market crash that led to the Great Depression, has been sold to Bloomberg LP. Bloomberg staff members were told of the deal this afternoon. When founded, the magazine had 14 staffers. That number grew to more than 600, but in recent weeks had been down around 400.
Unlike Forbes, which at the time was the only major competitor in the business magazine field, BusinessWeek paid more attention to the e
Source: AP
October 22, 2009
Archaeologists on Wednesday unveiled the remains of an ancient auditorium where scholars, politicians and poets held debates and lectures, a site discovered during excavations of a bustling downtown piazza in preparation for a new subway line.
The partially dug complex, dating back to the 2nd century A.D., is believed to have been funded by Emperor Hadrian as a school to promote liberal arts and culture.
Known as the "Athenaeum" and named after the city of Ath
Source: AFP
October 22, 2009
An aviation museum inthe US state of Ohio that believed it was displaying a hair sample from famed flyer Amelia Earhart made an unfortunate discovery, after DNA analysis revealed it to be a piece of thread.
Museum officials said they had confidence in the artifact, having been recovered by a maid at the White House after Earhart -- a friend of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt -- stayed there shortly before her final flight.
The museum had lent a small sample of the "ha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 22, 2009
The Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic will boycott the start of his genocide trial next week, his lawyer said.
The trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague starts on Monday. Karadzic faces 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia's 1992-95 war that claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.
But Karadzic, 64, said he had not had time to complete his defence preparations
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 22, 2009
A former New York police chief, Bernard Kerik who was hailed a hero after the September 11 2001 attacks, has been jailed after a federal judge revoked his bail ahead of a corruption trial.
He has become the first police chief in the city's history to be thrown into jail.
In a hearing in White Plains, New York, Judge Stephen Robinson said he was revoking the $500,000 bail granted to Kerik, 54, who led the police under the previous administration of then-mayor Rudolph Gi
Source: WSJ
October 21, 2009
BERLIN -- The world believes Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev or peaceful protests brought down the Berlin Wall 20 years ago next month. But for those who had front-row seats, the argument boils down to Ehrman vs. Brinkmann.
Riccardo Ehrman, a veteran Italian foreign correspondent, and Peter Brinkmann, a combative German tabloid reporter, both claim they asked the crucial questions at a news conference on Nov. 9, 1989, that led East German Politburo member Günter Schabowski to make
Source: Fox News
October 20, 2009
For Army Capt. John Poindexter, being awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for heroism Tuesday marked an "opportunity to close a chapter" in his life.
"The general feeling is a pretty intense level of excitement," Poindexter told Foxnews.com just before he and 85 other Vietnam veterans were honored at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.
"It will mean to me that I've filled an important duty to the men who I literally owe my life to, me
Source: Stuff.co.nz
October 21, 2009
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sought to sustain Serbian loyalty on Tuesday, declaring the two countries, both seeking to reassert themselves in Europe, should unite in pride at their roles in World War 2.
Moscow views Serbia as a future hub for its planned South Stream pipeline which would deliver Russian gas to southern Europe; a plan viewed as a rival to Europe's Nabucco project...
... "Russia and Serbia are united today by common spiritual values. . . includ
Source: NBC News
October 21, 2009
MEDINA -- A World War II veteran is making another contribution to U.S. history, more than 60 years after the Bronze Star recipient served his country.
Herman Graebner, 89, remembers virtually every detail of his four years in the U.S. Army. What he didn't reveal until recently though, was that he had shot two reels of color movie film of the action he saw in the war.
Graebner, spry, alert, and bright eyed, says he put the two canisters of film into a box sometime after
Source: USA Today
October 21, 2009
The Gallup organization first started asking Americans how they approved of the job the president was doing in the 1940s. See how each president since then has fared in the approval poll, look at some news events that influenced public opinion and compare how approval ratings evolved for each president.
Although the Gallup organization started asking Americans their opinions on presidential job performance during Franklin Roosevelt's term, Harry Truman's presidency was the first tha
Source: Telegraph (UK)
October 21, 2009
He says in the video that he fought for equality at Omaha Beach. At the time of writing, the YouTube clip has received over 66,000 views.
Mr Spooner, a chaplain of the Veterans of Foreign Wars organisation, addressed the Maine Judiciary Committee in April.
The video shows the veteran addressing the committee in a faltering voice, saying: “Good morning committee. My name is Philip Spooner. I am 86 years old and a lifetime Republican.” ...
... His voice crac
Source: Yahoo News
October 21, 2009
BEAUFORT, N.C. – An anchor from a shipwreck thought to be Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, was so unstable that divers in North Carolina retrieved it Wednesday rather than waiting until next year.
Divers raised the 4.5-foot, 160-pound grapnel, or anchor, from the wreck in the Atlantic Ocean near Beaufort on Wednesday and will display it Thursday at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort. The anchor originally had four prongs, but now has 1 1/2...
Source: Truthout
October 21, 2009
Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah is expected to finally gain access to diaries he wrote during the years while he was being tortured by CIA interrogators. A federal court judge has ordered the government to turn over unredacted volumes of the diaries and other "specified" writings to defense attorneys representing Zubaydah.
Zubaydah was the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11. He was repeatedly waterboarded and subjected to brutal torture techniques by CIA in
Source: NYT
October 20, 2009
Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnessed more than 300 deaths, and many of those were people he had come to know.
An Associated Press reporter based in Houston, Mr. Graczyk covers death penalty cases in Texas, the state that uses capital punishment far more than any other, and since the 1980s, he has attended nearly every execution the state has carried out — he h
