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: Daily Mail (UK)
June 21, 2009
Some were able to march, others needed walking sticks or wheelchairs.
But all held their heads high as they paraded proudly in Whitehall to remember their fallen comrades.
Many of the veterans shed a tear yesterday as they attended the last memorial service the Normandy Veterans' Association will organise in London.
At least two collapsed as the humid weather and the long time they had to spend on their feet proved too much. Wr
Source: http://hamptonroads.com
June 20, 2009
A much-maligned proposal to eliminate the standardized history test for Virginia's third-graders is being withdrawn by the state superintendent of public instruction.
"I believe we need to continue to discuss the testing burden for teachers and young students," State Superintendent Patricia I. Wright said Friday. But she said she understood the concerns of the educators, legislators and others who disagreed with eliminating the test, which would have saved the state about
Source: AP
June 20, 2009
With an old fireplace shovel that may have stoked fires at Brigham Young's home, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned over a patch of earth to dedicate the site for a 250,000-square-foot church history library.
''The first shovel full of dirt,'' President Gordon B. Hinckley said Friday.
The 95-year-old Hinckley then grabbed a full-size, gold-painted shovel and cracked, ''And now for the real thing,'' drawing laughter and applause
Source: LAT
June 21, 2009
Corn was the royalty of Maya food crops, celebrated in religion and cosmology, but archaeologists have long suspected that a different crop, the lowly manioc plant, was the mainstay of Maya life, providing the basic sustenance that allowed their civilization to flourish in densely populated cities.
Now, Colorado researchers have provided the first direct evidence that manioc was indeed intensively cultivated by the Maya -- in quantities that would allow its use for many purposes.
Source: WaPo
June 16, 2009
"We do not believe that Israel will embark on the development of nuclear weapons with the aim of actually starting a nuclear war," reads the declassified 48-year-old CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate.
The estimate, publicly released June 5 by George Washington University's National Security Archives, continues, "Possession of a nuclear weapon capability, or even the prospect of achieving it, would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confiden
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 21, 2009
The sinister masks donned by furious protesters could have been calculated to strike fear into the heart of any representative of Iran's revolutionary regime.
But while most people would be alarmed by the blank faces alone, Iranian officials would be disturbed at the eerie resemblance to the upheaval that brought them to power 30 years ago.
Then, as now, people registered their defiance by calling "Allahu Akbar" from windows at rooftops at night. They also us
Source: Financial Times
June 5, 2009
Bob Woodward strolled pensively towards the impeccably set table by the window – the one with a clear view of the White House across Lafayette Square. Wearing a sober red tie and a spotless dark suit, the legendary Watergate-exposing journalist bore the faint traces of a frown. He had dined at the historic Hay-Adams Hotel so many times since he first came here in 1971, he reflected. Until now it was always him doing the interviewing ...
OK, I invented some of that. But the chance to
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
One billion people throughout the world suffer from hunger, a figure
which has increased by 100 million because of the global financial
crisis, says the UN.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the figure was a
record high.
Compared with last year, there are 100 million more people who are
hungry, meaning they consume fewer than 1,800 calories a day, the FAO
said.
Source: AP
June 18, 2009
Ancient human remains found by hikers outside the small town of Trinidad, Wash., in Eastern Washington will be turned over to local tribes for reburial.
State officials have determined the bones found June 4 are of Native American heritage and could be hundreds to thousands of years old.
Source: Las Cruces Sun-News
June 18, 2009
Artifacts have been found near White Sands Missile Range of the Jornada Mogollon, who lived mostly in the Tularosa Basin more than 650 years ago.
The archeological find was discovered last year during preliminary site preparation for construction of facilities for the 2nd Engineer Battalion, which was activated at White Sands in October. Archaeologists consider the artifacts "a significant discovery" because they suggest that the Jornada Mogollon temporarily occupied the s
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
The historic town of Witney, part of David Cameron's constituency, is to be named as an "at risk" conservation area in a major English Heritage report to be published next week.
English Heritage has warned that the town's historic buildings and character are under threat because there is a high chance of them being seriously damaged by floods.
It follows the downpours in July 2007 which left 175 properties flooded.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 19, 2009
President Barack Obama has praised a "historic" resolution passed by the Senate apologising for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery".
The comments by Mr Obama, the first African American president, were contained in a statement on the oldest commemorated anniversary marking the end of slavery following the US Civil War.
"African Americans helped to build our nation brick by brick and have contributed to her
Source: NYT
June 20, 2009
In 1936, Atlanta built Techwood Homes, the nation’s first housing project. By the 1990s, a greater percentage of the city’s residents were living in housing projects — sprawling red-brick barracks that pockmarked the skyline — than in any other city in America.
Now, Atlanta is nearing a very different record: becoming the first major city to knock them all down. By next June, officials here plan to demolish the city’s last remaining housing project, fulfilling a long and divisive ca
Source: NYT
June 20, 2009
Monday is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969, when oil-soaked debris floating on the river’s surface was ignited, most likely by sparks from a passing train.
The fire was extinguished in 30 minutes and caused just $50,000 in damage. But it became a galvanizing symbol for the environmental movement, one of a handful of disasters that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and to the passage of the Clean Water Act.
“The Cuyahoga Ri
Source: NYT
June 20, 2009
He is deceptively unassuming, a small man in a neat white shirt, sometimes wearing reading glasses as he studies the stack of legal documents he brings with him every day from his cell to the courtroom.
He gives the judges a humble greeting, both palms pressed together, an obsequiousness that has begun to be annoying to some who once suffered at his hands and now sit across the courtroom from him.
But in nearly three months of trial proceedings, a harder man has emerge
Source: NYT
June 20, 2009
BLANDING, Utah — For 30 years Dr. James Redd was always on call to care for the Mormon and American Indian families who share the remote canyon lands here in southeastern Utah. Upon his death on June 11, people found themselves mourning a man who provided not just medicine but a measure of common ground....
Yet even as residents of Blanding have joined in grief, the circumstances of Dr. Redd’s death have shocked this tidy little town and threatened the delicate cross-cultural balanc
Source: NYT
June 20, 2009
Every so often, the American social order is reshuffled. And that upheaval is typically accompanied by a prominent face.
Frederick Douglass became the face of the black abolitionist movement. A century later, Martin Luther King Jr. played that role in the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem became the spokeswomen for the modern women’s movement.
Yet the gay rights movement, which is about to enter its fifth decade, has never had a such a leader despi
Source: BBC
June 21, 2009
A history project has uncovered evidence that a Soviet agent leaked atomic weapons research from a top secret munitions factory in Flintshire.
According to local historian Colin Barber, Klaus Fuchs was "leaking like a sieve" during his time at the Rhydymwyn Valley Works near Mold in the 1940s.
Mr Barber's believes his research into the base, which was originally set up to make chemical weapons, proves conclusively that Fuchs was supplying the Soviets with cla
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 21, 2009
The Arctic territory of Greenland has begun a new era of self-rule after 300 years under Danish authority, moving closer to independence with a potential oil bonanza below its icecap.
The new status took effect as Greenland celebrated its national day, six months after 75 per cent of voters approved a referendum to hand more power to the local government and take control of the island's vast natural resources.
Festivities began with a flag-raising ceremony, while Denma
Source: NYT
June 19, 2009
When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used his speech at Friday Prayer in Tehran to denounce Britain as “the most evil” of Iran’s enemies, he was striking a chord with a deep resonance in the psyche of Iranians, the legacy of a long history of British imperial intrusions into their country’s affairs.
Singling out Britain, and not the “great Satan” of the United States, so often the bugaboo for Iran’s leadership since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, might seem an odd choice for Iran’s supreme
