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: AP
April 15, 2009
Washington and Lee University has a missing library book back on its shelves _ nearly 145 years after it was stolen by a Union soldier during the Civil War.
The 1842 book, the first volume of W.F.P. Napier's four-volume "History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France From the Year 1807 to the Year 1814," was returned recently by a friend of one of the soldier's descendants to the Lexington school's Leyburn Library.
Mistakenly thinking he was at
Source: Time Magazine
April 14, 2009
[#1] At his peak, Al Capone was America's most powerful mobster, overseeing a massive Chicago crime syndicate during Prohibition's heyday. So what would finally take down this kingpin? The betrayal of a loyal associate maybe? A brutal mob murder? Please. This isn't the movies. The Godfather's tendency to not pay his taxes would prove his downfall. ...
Source: WSJ
April 15, 2009
The Obama administration is leaning toward keeping secret some graphic details of tactics allowed in Central Intelligence Agency interrogations, despite a push by some top officials to make the information public, according to people familiar with the discussions.
These people cautioned that President Barack Obama is still reviewing internal arguments over the release of Justice Department memorandums related to CIA interrogations, and how much information will be made public is in
Source: AP
April 15, 2009
Archaeologists will begin excavating sites in Egypt next week in an attempt to solve a mystery that has stymied historians for hundreds of years: Where is the final resting place of doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony?
Archaeologists looking for the tombs of the celebrated queen of Egypt and the Roman general, who committed suicide in 31 B.C., will begin excavating three sites at a temple where tombs may be located, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement Wedn
Source: AP
April 15, 2009
The University of Texas at Dallas [is holding a symposium that] coincides with the CIA's release of about 10,000 previously classified Air America records, which will become part of the school library's extensive aviation collection. The CIA declassified the documents following a Freedom of Information Act request by UT-Dallas.
"These Air America documents are essential to understanding a large untold history of America's involvement in Southeast Asia," said Paul Oelkrug,
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
April 14, 2009
On the 266th anniversary of his birth, some of Thomas Jefferson's biggest fans are again speaking out on the controversy that followed him to his grave in 1826 and has been fodder for scandal ever since.
Meeting beneath a portrait of the Virginian in the state Capitol he designed more than 200 years ago, the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society today made the case against claims the nation's third president had an affair with slave Sally Hemings and with her, had several children after
Source: http://www.novatoadvance.com
April 8, 2009
When Jean-Francois de Buren was a kid growing up in Marin, he’d often thumb through his great-great-grandfather’s journal.
Penned in French, the old bound book details the two-year-long journey that Henri de Buren, a Swiss naturalist, made from 1852-1854 in the Americas.
The trip took de Buren, then in his late 20s, across Mexico on horseback, over the Andes mountains and down the Amazon River. He visited the United States, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Brazil.
Source: Reuters
April 15, 2009
Rare inherited genetic disorders worsened by repeated inbreeding may have brought down the powerful Spanish Habsburg dynasty, Spanish researchers said Tuesday.
Checks of genealogical charts and analysis of King Charles II's reported health problems suggest he may have had two rare conditions called combined pituitary hormone deficiency and distal renal tubular acidosis, the researchers speculated in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.
While the occasional ma
Source: Foxnews
April 10, 2009
The records are being released in accordance with the Presidential Records Act and the new Executive Order 13489, which was signed by President Barack Obama on Jan. 21.
More than 245,000 pages of records from the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies will be opened for research on Monday at their respective libraries, the National Archive announced Friday.
The records include presidential briefing papers, Office of Speech writing research material and about 1
Source: CBS News
April 14, 2009
The return of alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to Germany for trial on war crimes was delayed again Tuesday by a federal court, shortly after six immigration officers removed the retired autoworker from his suburban Cleveland home in a wheelchair.
A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay until it could further consider Demjanjuk's motion to reopen the U.S. case that ordered him deported, in which he says painful medical ailments would
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 14, 2009
Nazi women's magazines featuring knitting patterns, fashion advice and propaganda blaming the British for World War Two are to be auctioned.
The unusual collection of Frauen Warte – literally translated as Women Wait – have much in common with today's glossy magazines.
Celebrities featured include leading Nazi Hermann Goering, who is pictured cuddling his daughter Edda, and stories on home economics and fashion news share space with those about Britain's culpability i
Source: http://www.rferl.org
April 8, 2009
A U.S. archaeological team will return to Iraq’s ancient city of Ur, the biblical
birthplace of Abraham, to conduct excavations after the area is returned to Iraq by U.S.-led forces
on May 13.
An official told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq (RFI) that Iraqi archaeologists will work with a
university team from the state of Pennsylvania, which on an earlier visit uncovered statues, baked
clay pots, and other artifacts from Ur for the Iraqi National Museum.
Parliament’s cultural committ
Source: AP
April 13, 2009
The USS Bainbridge, which organized the rescue of an American ship captain from Somali pirates, was named for Commodore William Bainbridge, who was held prisoner by the Barbary pirates from 1803 to 1805.
During the American Revolution, Bainbridge's first command was the schooner Retaliation.
And it was snipers shooting from Bainbridge — the ship — that brought an end to the hostage situation off the coast of Africa.
Source: AP
April 14, 2009
Critics of President Barack Obama's handling of the economy are planning nationwide "tea parties" Wednesday -- and not for the sake of polite conversation.
Coast-to-coast demonstrations against Obama's big-spending economic stimulus package are promised for the day that is also the deadline for filing federal income tax returns.
Whether Republicans -- in disarray since losing the presidential election last year -- can deliver is open to question.
Source: The Virginian-Pilot
April 11, 2009
An Elizabeth City slave who escaped, most likely through the local Underground Railroad system, and later married famous former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman, is the focus of a new search to find details on his life.
Tubman biographer Kate Clifford Larson and local Underground Railroad researcher and advocate Wanda Hunt-McLean are seeking more information about Nelson Davis. They are especially interested in details of his youth as a slave to a Charles family in Elizabeth Ci
Source: New York Times
April 11, 2009
“When I first read about the Somali pirates, I almost did a double take and turned to my wife at the breakfast table and said, ‘This is déjà vu,’ ” recalled Frank Lambert, a professor at Purdue who is an expert on the Barbary pirates.
Dr. Lambert explained how those brigands, like today’s Somalis, usually kept their hostages alive. It wasn’t out of any enlightened sense of humanity. It was simply good business. They only hanged captives from giant hooks or carved them into little p
Source: Thanh Nien News (Vietnam)
April 14, 2009
An official in the northern province of Bac Ninh says a local People’s Committee knowingly deceived higher authorities when obtaining permission for the controversial leveling of a 13th century temple.
The 700-year-old Rong (Dragon) Temple was demolished in January under the approval of Dinh Bang Ward authorities, which said the temple was dilapidated and needed to be completely rebuilt for the celebration of Thang Long-Hanoi’s 1000th anniversary next year.
But an offic
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
April 11, 2009
Artifacts tell the story of a Tequesta Indian settlement along the New River.
Six decades ago, during an idyllic youth along Fort Lauderdale Is your Fort Lauderdale restaurant clean? - Click Here.'s New River, Bill Caldwell and his pals played cowboys and Indians.
A recent archaeological dig has proved Caldwell's former home — and indeed the entire neighborhood — was the site of a major Tequesta Indian settlement that thrived along the riverbank a thousand years ago.
Source: BBC
April 14, 2009
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro has described US rules allowing unlimited family travel and remittances to the island as "positive, although minimal".
He welcomed the changes - announced by the Obama administration on Monday - in a column posted on a Cuban web site.
The changes will allow Cuban Americans to travel more freely to Cuba and allow them to send more money to relatives still living there.
Last month Mr Obama signed a bill easing
Source: Foxnews
April 14, 2009
As anti-tax protesters organize tea parties across the country on April 15, rumors are swirling that a backlash is brewing.
Some believe ACORN, which has been under scrutiny for accusations of voter fraud, is preparing to crash some of the tea parties. But ACORN says it is only helping to organize dozens of rallies on the same day in support of President Obama's first budget.
Taxdayteaparty.com, which is helping to organize the protests, said more than 250 locations in
