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: The Washington Times
May 13, 2009
Merchant mariners who survived German U-boats and lived for six more decades may finally get a financial reward from legislation approved by the House on Tuesday.
The measure passed by voice vote would provide a monthly benefit of $1,000 to those who served in the U.S. Merchant Marine between Dec. 7, 1941, and Dec. 31, 1946. Of the 250,000 merchant mariners during World War II, fewer than 10,000 are believed to still be alive.
The merchant mariners carried some 95 per
Source: National Geographic News
May 13, 2009
An island for ancient elites has been found in central Mexico, archaeologists say. Among the ruins are a treasury and a small pyramid that may have been used for rituals.
The island, called Apupato, belonged to the powerful Tarascan Empire, which dominated much of western Mexico from A.D. 1400 to 1520, before the European conquest of the region.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 14, 2009
The Kimbell Art Museum will soon be the only US museum to display a Michelangelo painting after acquiring his earliest known work, a rare treasure that was tucked away and doubted as authentic for more than a century.
The museum declined to disclose how much it paid for "The Torment of Saint Anthony," a 15th-century oil and tempera painting on a wood panel that depicts scaly, horned, winged demons trying to pull the saint out of the sky. Experts believe he painted it when
Source: BBC
April 19, 2009
The memoirs of China's former communist leader who was sacked after the Tiananmen protests have been published.
Zhao Ziyang's book lifts the lid on discussions within the party that led to the brutal crushing of the protest movement.
The publication of the book comes just weeks before the 20th anniversary of the killings.
The book is believed to have been based on secret tapes recorded while Mr Zhao, the party's former general secretary, was under house a
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 14, 2009
In a new book, "40 More Years – How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation", he writes in typically barnstorming fashion: "Republicans shouldn't be worried. They should be in agony. They should be throwing up. The Republican brand is the worst political party brand in history."
History, he argues, is on his side.
"There have been long periods where one party generally has the upper hand. You never win every election – the Democrats won't wi
Source: AP
May 13, 2009
A white fraternity that traces its roots to the Civil War and
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is again facing complaints over its
antebellum-themed events.
This time, University of Alabama alumnae are upset after Kappa Alpha
Order members wearing Confederate uniforms and carrying battle flags
paraded past a historically black sorority as the women celebrated the
group's 35th anniversary.
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
May 14, 2009
A £25million plan to revitalise Stonehenge -including diverting a nearby main road - was unveiled by the Government yesterday.
Proposals for a visitor centre were given the ‘go-ahead in principle’ by the Stonehenge Programme Board.
Culture Minister Barbara Follett and Transport Minister Lord Adonis, who chair the board, said the prehistoric site was currently ‘short of ideal’ for visitors.
The new centre, to cater for 800,000 tourists a year, would be locat
Source: Time
May 14, 2009
When the tanks and troops blasted their way into Beijing's Tiananmen Square 20 years ago, crushing the student-led protest movement that had captivated the world, the biggest political casualty was Chinese Communist Party chief Zhao Ziyang, the man who had tried hardest to avoid the bloodshed.
Outmaneuvered by his hard-line rivals, Zhao was stripped of power and placed under house arrest. The daring innovator who had introduced capitalist policies to post–Mao Zedong China spent his
Source: Washington Post
May 14, 2009
The flashlight beam lit up the dark interior of Abraham Lincoln's left boot, as if the inside of a tomb, and at the bottom was the smooth and shiny indentation made by the martyred president's heel.
The odor of fine leather still clung to the top of the boot, where white cloth pull straps were sewed. When the light hit a maroon section of the hide, bootmaker Michael Anthony Carnacchi whispered: "Aha. There's your original color."
A group of National Park Servi
Source: Reuters
May 12, 2009
BERLIN – A German court fined an unemployed man 900 euros ($1,227) Tuesday for knocking the head off a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin museum.
Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened in the German capital in July, the 42-year-old pushed past security staff ripped off its head. The man, an ex-policeman, said he found it inappropriate to display an exhibit showing the Nazi leader only some 500 meters from Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
The waxwork of a gl
Source: http://www.pnj.com
May 13, 2009
Gov. Charlie Crist was among those Tuesday at Tallahassee's Mission San Luis to launch a campaign to emphasize the history and culture Florida shares with Spain.
For the next six years, Visit Florida officials said, the program will allow the state and visitors to embrace the 1513 discovery of Florida, the 1559 founding of Pensacola and the 1565 founding of St. Augustine, all of which are an opportunity to bolster the state's cultural and nature-based tourism efforts.
L
Source: Chronicle of Higher Ed
May 13, 2009
Everyone knows that young people came out to vote and overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama in last year’s presidential election. Now the Millennials, as the younger generation is known, will usher in a liberal era and end the culture wars, according to the Center for American Progress.
In two reports released today — one based on a new survey and the other drawing on much recent data — the center, a liberal research organization, augurs a progressive future.
“The story
Source: Chuck Jones at IraqiCrisis
May 12, 2009
I just got news that a few days ago Dr Amira Edan received a telephone call threatening that if she
does not resign her post as director of the Iraq Museum her house will be blown up.
This is a very serious threat.
Yesterday morning morning the employees of State Board of Antiquities and Heritage staged a walkout
in protest.
Source: WaPo
May 13, 2009
The financial health of the Social Security system has eroded more sharply in the past year than at any time since the mid-1990s, according to a government forecast that ratchets up pressure on the Obama administration and Congress to stabilize the retirement system that keeps many older Americans out of poverty.
The report, issued yesterday by the trustees who monitor the government's two main forms of help for the elderly, shows that Medicare has become more fragile as well and is
Source: WaPo
May 13, 2009
The Obama administration signaled yesterday that it may be rethinking its promise to release several dozen photos depicting abuse or alleged abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody abroad.
Justice Department officials told a federal judge late last month that the U.S. government did not intend to fight a court order to turn over a total of 44 photos, which were sought by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
A U.S. attorney was u
Source: PC World
May 12, 2009
Facebook Boots Holocaust Denial Groups Facebook has removed two Holocaust denial groups claiming they violated Facebook's Terms of Service by promoting hate. The two groups in question, "Holocaust is a Holohoax" and "Based on the facts...there was no Holocaust," were removed from the site because messages from members posted on the group's Walls were found to be promoting hate speech.
Despite Facebook's decision to eliminate two Holocaust denial groups, numerous
Source: Deutsche Welle
May 13, 2009
Thomas Blatt was one of the few to survive the Sobibor extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. The 82-year-old is now a key witness in the Munich trial of John Demjanjuk, who is alleged to have been a guard at Sobibor.
Deutsche Welle: Why did you decide to come to Germany for this trial?
Thomas Blatt: Because when I escaped from Sobibor, I promised myself that if I survived, I will do everything to tell the story of Sobibor. And that's what I'm d
Source: BBC
May 13, 2009
Officials in the former communist Czechoslovakia had planned to build an underground rail link under Austria to the Adriatic, a Czech newspaper says. The 410km-long (255 miles) tunnel would have drastically shortened the journey to the seaside for the landlocked country, Lidove Noviny reports.
The earth from the excavation would be dumped in the sea to form an artificial Czechoslovak island - Adriaport.
But the 1975 plan never got off - or under - the ground, the n
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 13, 2009
A former Ku Klux Klan boss who twice ran for US president has secretly set up home in Austria where he is running a birdwatching business.
David E Duke, who was once a KKK Grand Wizard, runs a business selling photographs of rare birds and other wildlife in a village near Salzburg.
The discovery has outraged his neighbours in Austria which has struggled to shake off the scourge of a new wave of far right politicians.
Mr Duke, who has previously denied Adolf
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 9, 2009
British veterans of the "forgotten" Italian Campaign during the Second World War are to take their rightful place among the heroes of the liberation of Europe with a series of events to mark the 65th anniversary of the campaign.
For decades, they have been dismissed as the "D-Day dodgers", their exploits overshadowed by the Normandy Landings.
Now, to mark the anniversary of the fighting, a number of special "battlefield tours" have been o
