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: NYT
July 12, 2009
How far can a major political party fall?
It’s a question Republicans seem determined to test these days. The party is shut out of power in the White House. In Congress, the Democrats now have enough votes to block a filibuster. Approval ratings for the Republican Party are at near-record lows. Worse still, at a time when Republicans are yearning for someone to lead them back to power, the party’s next generation of stars is drawing precisely the wrong kind of attention — from Sarah
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 11, 2009
[A] rare colour photograph of Jewish boys huddled together outside a ghetto soup kitchen brings the horror of the Holocaust into sharp focus.
The picture was taken in the Łódz ghetto in central Poland, which was set up by the Nazis in 1939-40. Tens of thousands of Jews and Roma gypsies were sent from Łódz to their deaths. Many of the boys in the photograph did not survive the war.
It is one of many harrowing images taken from The Holocaust: A New History, by Doris Berg
Source: NYT
July 11, 2009
The collapse of Communism in the East two decades ago did not provide
much of an opening for the Catholic Church to influence economic
policy, but perhaps the near-collapse of Western capitalism will. Two
German authors — one named Marx, the other his patron in Rome — are
certainly hoping so.
The first is Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, who has
written a best seller in Germany that he cheekily titled “Das Kapital”
(and in which he addresses that other Marx — Karl —
Source: Discovery.com
July 9, 2009
Nicolaus Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, gazed at the sky through bright blue eyes, according to genetic research that has identified the scientist's remains.
Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research -- announced last November -- details the identification of the remains, while also suggesting that Copernicus most likely had blue eyes, fair skin and light hair color.
"This is the end of a search that has l
Source: Honolulu Advertiser
July 9, 2009
A Kaua'i landowner's decision to proceed with building a house on top of ancient Native Hawaiian burials calls into question the authority of the state to assure appropriate handling of such burials.
Not since the Honokahua cemetery was unearthed on Maui in 1987 has there been such concern about the legal protection of iwi kupuna, or ancestral bones, Native Hawaiian rights advocates say.
Source: EurekAlert
July 9, 2009
Where the first Americans came from, when they arrived and how they got here is as lively a debate as ever, only most of the research to date has focused on dry land excavations. But, last summer's pivotal underwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist Dr. James Adovasio yielded evidence of inundated terrestrial sites that may well have supported human occupation more than 12,000 years ago, and paved the way for another expedition this July.
As
Source: Copenhagen Post
July 9, 2009
There was a sensational find when Århus archaeology students uncovered the bones of around 200 bodies dating from the Iron Age
What was supposed to be a simple three week long research exercise for archaeology students at the University of Aarhus developed into a unique excavation project.
Remains of more than 200 bodies have been found at the dig site near Skanderborg in Jutland dating from around 2,000 years ago.
The Illerup River Valley was a deep lake measuri
Source: VOA
July 11, 2009
President Barack Obama, Speaker of Parliament Joyce Bamford-Addo, left, greet crowd following address, 11 Jul 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama has wrapped up his visit to the West African nation of Ghana with a tour of a former slave center from which thousands of Africans once were shipped off to America.
The president and his family on Saturday toured Cape Coast Castle, an ocean-front fortress that was converted to the slave trade by the British in the 17th century.
Source: www.independent.co.uk
June 12, 2009
Spanish bishops broke decades of silence at the weekend to apologise for the killing of 14 priests by Francisco Franco’s troops during the civil war, asking forgiveness for the church’s collusion with the dictator’s cause
The bishop of Vitoria celebrated a memorial service in the cathedral of the Basque regional capital yesterday to mark the execution 73 years ago by Francoist troops of 14 priests who had never received a funeral, and whose deaths were never officially recorded.
Source: The New York Times
July 11, 2009
How far can a major political party fall?
It’s a question Republicans seem determined to test these days. The party is shut out of power in the White House. In Congress, the Democrats now have enough votes to block a filibuster. Approval ratings for the Republican Party are at near-record lows. Worse still, at a time when Republicans are yearning for someone to lead them back to power, the party’s next generation of stars is drawing precisely the wrong kind of attention — from Sarah
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
July 12, 2009
The outbreak of swine flu, which has already claimed 429 lives around the world, will undoubtedly damage the already fragile global economy. Although it is impossible at this stage to make an accurate assessment of the likely impact of the disease, some economists have suggested a full-scale pandemic could cost more than $3 trillion (£1.9 trillion). As a guide, we can consider what happened to the economy during past pandemics.
Black Death
Probably the most destructive pandem
Source: BBC
July 12, 2009
The 100th anniversary of the first all-British aeroplane has been marked with an exact replica in east London.
Sir Alliott Verdon-Roe built the Roe I Triplane in a workshop under railway arches at Walthamstow Marshes. He went on to build thousands of RAF aircraft.
His grandson, Eric Verdon-Roe, unveiled "as exact a replica as possible" at the same location.
Source: BBC
July 9, 2009
American troops and contractors caused substantial damage to the archaelogical site at Babylon in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, a new UN report says.
The report says key structures were harmed and the site was subjected to "digging, cutting and levelling".
But UN cultural officials stress the damage did not begin when the Americans arrived, or end when they left.
The US says looting while Babylon was under their control would have been worse had
Source: BBC
July 11, 2009
The remains of 534 newly identified Bosniak Muslim victims of the Srebrenica massacre have been buried 14 years after the event.
Some 8,000 Bosniak Muslims, mainly men and boys, were killed by Bosnian Serbs near the town of Srebrenica in 1995 and buried in mass graves.
About 5,000 of the victims have been identified to date. Thousands of mourners attended the ceremony, an annual reminder of the Bosniak Muslims' suffering in the war.
Source: BBC
July 10, 2009
The world's oldest dinosaur burrows have been discovered in Australia.
Three separate burrows have been found in all, the biggest 2m long, each built to a similar design and just big enough to hold the body of a small dinosaur.
The 106-million-year-old burrows, the first to be found outside of North America, would have been much closer to the South Pole when they were created.
That supports the idea that dinosaurs living in cold, harsh climates burrowed u
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2009
Errol Flynn, the Hollywood actor, was a Nazi spy who met Adolf Hitler shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, it has been alleged.
The Australian-born star, who was known for his anti-Semitic views, worked undercover for the Germans during the Spanish Civil War, according to a controversial biography.
Charles Higham alleges that Flynn was employed to gather information on German socialists who fought against General Franco, helping contribute to the death
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 12, 2009
An emergency aboard Barack Obama's campaign plane last July nearly had catastrophic effects after an evacuation slide inflated in mid flight, it has emerged.
It was just over a year ago that the pilot of "Obama One", as the presidential candidate's aircraft was dubbed, went through an extraordinary drama high above the clouds shortly after takeoff.
After leaving Chicago, an evacuation slide mysteriously inflated in the plane's tail section, preventing the fl
Source: Foxnews
July 12, 2009
Some Democratic senators say they want to know whether former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered Congress out of the loop on a covert CIA counterterrorism program.
CIA Director Leon Panetta briefed Congress about the still classified program on June 24, a day after learning about it and immediately canceling it. Intelligence sources noted that the program never got off the ground and wasn't instituted.
The news of Cheney's potential involvement in withholding informati
Source: CNN
July 12, 2009
Federal agents found much of the information produced by the Bush administration's top-secret warrantless surveillance program vague and difficult to use, a sweeping review of the program found.
Then-President George Bush and other top administration officials have said the program was a critical tool in preventing terrorist attacks. However, a report Friday by the inspectors general of the CIA, the Justice Department, the Pentagon and other agencies found that some FBI and CIA agen
Source: CNN
June 12, 2009
CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to a congressional committee that he was told former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the intelligence agency to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday.
The disclosure by Panetta to both the Senate and House intelligence committees about Cheney's involvement was first reported in The New York Times. Efforts to contact Cheney for reaction were unsuc
