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: USA Today
September 20, 2009
Ringing two abandoned pyramids are nine palaces "frozen in time" that may help unravel the mystery of the ancient Maya, reports an archaeological team.
Hidden in the hilly jungle, the ancient site of Kiuic (KIE-yuk) was one of dozens of ancient Maya centers abandoned in the Puuc region of Mexico's Yucatan about 10 centuries ago. The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.
"The people just walked away and left everything in pl
Source: Yale University
August 8, 2009
New Haven, Conn. — Fewer black women with postgraduate degrees are getting married and having children, according to a study by the Yale Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, which was presented at the 104th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco on August 8.
“In the past nearly four decades, black women have made great gains in higher education rates, yet these gains appear to have come increasingly at the cost of marriage and fa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 20, 2009
Scotland is full of dangerous natives who speak an incomprehensible language and the weather is awful. That was the verdict of a series of 13th century Viking travel guides that warned voyagers to visit at their peril.
The medieval chronicles, set down on yellowed calf vellum eight centuries ago, describe Scotland – or Skotland, as it was known – as an unwelcome and inhospitable country offering rewards only to the bold.
The chronicles have been interpreted by Gisli S
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
September 21, 2009
The scientist whose discoveries led to the development of the electric motor has been hailed as the greatest inventor in British history.
Michael Faraday, pictured, a pioneer in electrochemistry, won a quarter of the vote in a poll of more than 1,200 adults.
He was followed by engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (13 per cent), who designed the first propeller-driven steamship, and William Caxton (9 per cent) who introduced the printing press to England.
Source: GQ
September 18, 2009
Matt Latimer worked as one of Dubya’s speechwriters during the president’s final twenty-two months in office. He was there to help sell the surge to a skeptical public. He was there as we pretended that the fundamentals of the economy were strong. And he was there to see a president who failed to grasp his own $700 billion bailout package—even as he was pitching it to the American public on live TV. A disillusioned insider reveals for the first time just how messy things got.
Source: The Daily Beast
September 20, 2009
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates took to the pages of The New York Times Sunday to defend Barack Obama’s new missile-defense plan, which the president announced last week. Gates, a Republican who was appointed by President George W. Bush, called Obama’s plan to end strategic missile defense in Europe a “vastly more suitable approach” than the one taken by Bush. Gates praised Obama’s goal of implementing sea-based interceptor missiles for providing “greater flexibility.” The president’s propo
Source: BBC
September 21, 2009
Ghana is marking 100 years since the birth of Kwame Nkrumah, the country's first president and a founding father of Africa's independence movement.
The governing National Democratic Congress designated the day a national holiday and organised celebrations.
Hundreds of Ghanaians gathered in the capital, Accra, for a vigil.
Nkrumah led Ghana to independence from the British in 1957 and served as president afterwards. He was eventually overthrown in a coup i
Source: BBC
September 21, 2009
A lost Renaissance masterpiece has been rediscovered after being left in storage for nearly 60 years.
The owner of the painting had asked an auctioneer to visit his terraced home in Cheltenham during the summer to examine glass and china.
But a photograph of the painting set the expert's "antennas buzzing", and led to its identification as the work of Ludovico Mazzolino, painted in 1522.
Madonna and Child with St Joseph is expected to sell for u
Source: CNN
September 21, 2009
Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-reigning monarch, has been hospitalized with fever and fatigue, the royal palace said Sunday.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, was admitted to a Bangkok hospital on Saturday night. Doctors are monitoring his condition while administering antibiotics and intravenous fluid, the statement from the Royal Household Bureau said.
Thailand abolished absolute monarchy in the 1930s, so the king wields little power although he la
Source: BBC
September 18, 2009
The former head of Rwanda's tea industry has pleaded guilty to complicity in the 1994 genocide.
Michel Bagaragaza admitted playing a role in the massacre at the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which sits in Tanzania.
He said he allowed a militia to use tea factory vehicles on their rampages.
The ex-tea boss had originally pleaded not guilty in 2005 to four counts of genocide charges, but has amended his plea as part of a plea agreement.
Source: AP
September 19, 2009
The Taliban's reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan's long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.
The message from Mullah Omar comes less than a month before the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for hosting Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden.
This year has been the deadliest of the conflict f
Source: Yahoo News
September 19, 2009
WAUSAU, Wis. – The buyer of a scenic property in northern Wisconsin will get more than just its bar and restaurant: They'll have a former hideout of Chicago mobster Al Capone.
The 407-acre wooded site, complete with guard towers and a stone house with 18-inch-thick walls, will soon go on the auction block at a starting bid of $2.6 million.
The bank that foreclosed on the land near Couderay, about 140 miles northeast of Minneapolis, said Capone owned it in the late 1920s
Source: NYT
September 19, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A message on Saturday attributed to the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, said that the United States and NATO should study Afghanistan’s long history of war, a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.
The message for the approaching holiday of Id al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, said Western nations should study the military history of Afghanistan, starting with Pashtun tribesmen’s thwar
Source: NYT
September 18, 2009
FOR many of his 85 years, Franklin W. Hobbs III has managed to distill good fortune from bad luck. Orphaned at 10, he wound up in the care of loving — and wealthy — grandparents. After World War II snatched him from Harvard, the G. I. Bill sent him back for a master’s in business administration. Rocky moments in his career often led to lucrative, fulfilling opportunities.
And so it was on Iwo Jima in the winter of 1945.
Mr. Hobbs, an untested corporal in the Army Signal
Source: Google News
September 19, 2009
BAGHDAD — Authorities in northern Iraq have arrested three men on charges they were trying to traffic stolen antiquities, including the bust of a Sumerian king, a local army commander said Saturday.
The three were arrested in a sting operation after attempting to sell one of the artifacts for $160,000 to an undercover intelligence officer of the Iraqi Army's 12th division in a village southwest of Kirkuk, division commander Maj. Gen. Abdul Amir al-Zaidi told reporters.
Source: NYT
September 20, 2009
In their new book, “The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office,” David Blumenthal, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and James Morone, a political science professor at Brown University, reviewed the nation’s many attempts at health care reform to find some “rules of success.” Here are six lessons from Mr. Johnson’s triumph — captured in his own words, at least those that can be published. It appears that President Obama has studied at least some of them closely.
Source: BBC
September 20, 2009
Archaeologists are working at a ships' graveyard known as the Purton Hulks in Gloucestershire to expose and record the remains of a barge.
Laser scanning equipment is being used to capture 3D images of the Kennet-built Harriett.
Eighty ships and barges beached in the 1940s were used to shore up the Sharpness Canal against erosion from tidal flow of the River Severn.
Efforts to save the site for the nation was begun by the Friends of Purton.
Source: BBC
September 18, 2009
The Iranian president's latest denial of the Nazi Holocaust has drawn strong condemnation from Western powers.
Speaking in the capital, Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was "a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim".
Germany said the comments were a "disgrace to his country" while the US said they would "isolate Iran further".
In reaction, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cited President
Source: BBC
September 20, 2009
Mikhail Gorbachev is remarkably serene about his record as the last leader of the Soviet Union.
He says he expected a different outcome, but he would do it all over again.
It was Mr Gorbachev's policies that sparked the 1989 revolutions which swept away communism in Eastern Europe.
He ticks off, in quick-fire sentences, the benefits he brought to Russia, which he says people are still enjoying today - more freedom and a reordering of Russia's relations wi
Source: The Times (UK)
September 20, 2009
The Lockerbie bomber’s online publication of legal documents that he says clear his name has been condemned by Scotland’s law chief as well as victims’ families.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was released last month from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds, has set up a Web site detailing an abandoned attempt to appeal his conviction for the 1988 bombing of Pan AM flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Scotland’s Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini on Sunday deplored the m
