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: NPR
September 4, 2009
For war journalist Scott Anderson, the most confounding part of his recent assignment for GQ magazine to explore the root of terrorist acts in Russia a decade ago wasn't the suggestion of treachery and subterfuge he found.
It was the reception his story ultimately received in the United States. "It was quite mysterious to me," Anderson says."All of a sudden, it became clear that they were going to run the article but they were going to try to bury it under a rock as much
Source: Rasmussen Reports
September 4, 2009
Sixty-one percent (61%) of Americans say President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963 after nearly three years in the White House, had the most positive and lasting impact on the nation of all of the political Kennedy brothers.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 20% say the same of Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, who died of cancer on August 25 after serving for nearly 47 years in the U.S. Senate.
Only four percent (4%)
Source: Reuters
September 3, 2009
One of Guatemala's greatest ancient Mayan cities may have died out in a bloody battle atop a huge pyramid between a royal family and invaders from hundreds of miles away, archeologists say.
Researchers are carrying out DNA tests on blood samples from hundreds of spear tips and arrowheads dug up with bone fragments and smashed pottery at the summit of the El Tigre pyramid in the Mayan city of El Mirador, buried beneath jungle vegetation 5 miles (8 km) from Guatemala's border with Mex
Source: Fox News
September 2, 2009
The circumstances of Obama's address to Congress on health care reform will be quite similar to President Clinton's speech on the same topic 16 years ago -- but with some key difference
When President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress next Wednesday to push for health care reform, the speech will come nearly 16 years after President Bill Clinton delivered his own address to Congress on the very same topic.
Clinton's push for health care reform ultimately faile
Source: CNN
September 4, 2009
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is not immune from being sued by a man who claims he was illegally detained under Justice Department policies implemented after the September 11 terror attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The man, a native-born U.S. citizen who was once a college football star, was held and interrogated by the FBI for 16 days in 2003 and his travel was limited for another year, court documents said.
Abdullah al-Kidd's lawyers claimed
Source: BBC
September 3, 2009
At his living room table, 92-year-old Rochus Misch shows me some of his old photo albums. Private pictures he had taken more than 60 years ago. There are colour images of Mr Misch in an SS uniform at Adolf Hitler's home in the Alps, snapshots of Hitler staring at rabbits, and photos of Hitler's mistress and future wife Eva Braun.
For five years, SS Oberscharfuehrer Rochus Misch had been part of Adolf Hitler's inner circle, as a bodyguard, a courier and telephone operator to the Fueh
Source: NYT
September 3, 2009
KWANGAMRI, South Korea — On a heavily forested hilltop behind this village, investigators are excavating the long-buried history of the South Korean men, women and children who cowered in a trench as their own country’s troops mowed them down during the Korean War.
It is a race against time. The investigators, from the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, are tapping into the memories of a dwindling number of survivors as they pursue their mission of examining some of mod
Source: NYT
September 3, 2009
TAWANG, India — This is perhaps the most militarized Buddhist enclave in the world.
Perched above 10,000 feet in the icy reaches of the eastern Himalayas, the town of Tawang is not only home to one of Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred monasteries, but is also the site of a huge Indian military buildup. Convoys of army trucks haul howitzers along rutted mountain roads. Soldiers drill in muddy fields. Military bases appear every half-mile in the countryside, with watchtowers rising behin
Source: CNSNews.com
September 3, 2009
Newark, N.J. (AP) - Relatives of those killed on Flight 93 -- the jetliner that crashed as passengers wrestled with hijackers over Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001 -- are honoring their loved ones with a cross-country motorcycle tribute ride.
The flight originated in New Jersey and was bound for northern California when it was hijacked by members of the al-Qaida terrorist group.
The motorcycle caravan will retrace the flight's intended path. It leaves Newark Liberty Inter
Source: CNSNews.com
September 3, 2009
Boston (AP) - The Archdiocese of Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley has defended his decision to preside over the funeral Mass for Sen. Edward Kennedy, whose support for abortion rights clashed with Catholic teachings.
O'Malley wrote on his blog Wednesday he strongly disagrees with his critics. He notes Kennedy had written to Pope Benedict XVI to acknowledge his failure to always be a faithful Catholic and ask for prayers as he faced brain cancer.
Source: BBC
September 4, 2009
A 13th Century copy of a medieval travel writer's book has returned to Wales for the first time in 20 years to form part of an exhibition.
Gerald of Wales trekked more than 500 miles (804.5km) in 1188, primarily to recruit soldiers for the third crusade in the Middle East.
A copy of his "Journey through Wales" has been lent to The National Museum in Cardiff by The British Library.
The exhibition is about Wales' links to the Holy Land during the
Source: BBC
September 3, 2009
An artist in Dundee has created a 3D image of one of Scotland's most notorious killers.
Bijan Moghbel's project saw him produce a computerised depiction of the face of William Burke, the 19th Century killer and partner of William Hare.
The pair are thought to have killed more than a dozen people before selling their bodies on for medical research.
The face was created using Burke's death mask. He was hanged in 1829 after Hare testified against him in cour
Source: Truthout
September 1, 2009
Washington - The United States and Cuba will start talks this month on resuming direct mail service between the two countries for the first time in nearly half a century as the Obama administration continues to try to engage the communist island, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The negotiations, set for Sept. 17, will follow the resumption in July of talks on the legal immigration of Cubans to the U.S., according to the officials. The two sides agreed on the two sets of discussions
Source: BBC
September 4, 2009
That is because Brigitta's father, Rochus Misch, was part of Adolf Hitler's inner circle. He worked in the Fuehrer's SS protection unit as a bodyguard, a courier and a telephone operator.
He was in Hitler's Berlin bunker when the Fuehrer committed suicide.
Brigitta only has one photograph of her father cradling her as a baby. Then, rather abruptly, his face disappears from the family album and from her childhood.
On escaping from Hitler's bunker he was c
Source: The Daily Beast
September 3, 2009
What would Hippocrates say about torture? Doctors and psychologists who monitored the CIA's alleged "enhanced interrogation" techniques may have come close to or committed illegal human experimentation, according to a report by nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights. The PHR report, based on a 2004 CIA investigation into its own practices that was published two weeks ago under legal pressure, argues that doctors who actively monitored the CIA's techniques for effectiveness were using pr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 4, 2009
A leading German historian said Mahatma Gandhi was "one of the greatest friends of Nazi Germany" because the Indian activist and the Third Reich shared a shared a common enemy in Britain.
Götz Aly, the popular historian, accused black Allied soldiers of the systematic rape of German women during the Second World War.
He also dismissed their contribution to defeating the Nazis on the grounds that they were forced to fight.
Mr Aly, the author of th
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 4, 2009
Bronia Snow remembers the journey from Prague as being "an unreal experience".
Her parents had given her a gold pocket watch, golden bracelet, and a set of three silver knives, forks and spoons from her grandmother " so as to not send me out empty-handed".
Back in Prague her father lost his business, they were forced to wear the yellow star of St David and were eventually deported to Terezin, a concentration camp outside the city.
Aft
Source: CNN
September 4, 2009
Could George W. Bush or some of his top aides end up behind bars?
It's extremely unlikely, but the Obama administration is taking its first steps along a path that could lead in that direction, with the investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators involved in the war on terror.
The probe will focus on whether interrogators exceeded their instructions and broke the law when, for example, they choked a prisoner until he lost consciousness or threatened anoth
Source: CNN
September 4, 2009
The U.S. Treasury announced it has changed its regulations to lift restrictions on the ability of Cuban Americans to visit relatives in Cuba and send them money.
A Treasury Department statement on Thursday said the Office of Foreign Assets Control amended the Cuban Assets Control Regulations to implement President Barack Obama's April 13 initiative.
The change was made to "reach out to the Cuban people in support of their desire to freely determine their country's
Source: NYT
September 2, 2009
Precisely 100 years ago today, the New York Times newsroom must have been a gloomy place. The newspaper was a sponsor of Robert E. Peary’s polar expedition, but Peary still hadn’t been heard from as of Sept. 2, 1909. On that day, the New York Herald’s entire front page was devoted to the scoop that it had just received by telegram from Peary’s rival: “The North Pole Is Discovered by Dr. Frederick A. Cook.”
Now, just in time for the centennial anniversary, a historian has found the
