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
March 14, 2009
VIENNA In Austria's recent general election, nearly 30 per cent of voters backed extremist right-wing parties. Live visits the birthplace of Hitler to investigate how Fascism is once again threatening to erupt across Europe.
From all over Austria, people are here to pay their respects to their fallen hero. But the solemnity of the occasion is cut with tension. Beyond the crowd of about 300, armed police are in attendance. They keep a respectful distance but the rasping bark of Alsa
Source: Boston Globe
March 15, 2009
Three hundred years ago, more or less, the last serious alchemists finally gave up on their attempts to create gold from other metals, dropping the curtain on one of the least successful endeavors in the history of human striving.
Centuries of work and scholarship had been plowed into alchemical pursuits, and for what? Countless ruined cauldrons, a long trail of empty mystical symbols, and precisely zero ounces of transmuted gold. As a legacy, alchemy ranks above even fantasy baseba
Source: Politico
March 14, 2009
Former President George W. Bush is preparing for one final struggle against the odds: raising $300 million for a presidential library, museum and policy institute at a time when dollars are tight and skepticism about his presidency runs high.
The former president and first lady have already begun holding small private dinners to persuade wealthy friends to invest in a monument and incubator based on the values and events of his presidency. By this fall, he’ll be armed with architect
Source: AP
March 15, 2009
In the city where the Civil War began and where its longest battle was fought, an archaeologist with a clutch of high-tech equipment went searching Friday for watery clues to the past.
James Spirek of the South Carolina Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology is making the first comprehensive historical map of the harbor bottom to record everything from fortifications to sunken ships.
Fort Sumter, where the war began in 1861, sits in the harbor. The fight over Charle
Source: The DC Examiner
March 13, 2009
On this day, March 15, 44 B.C. (the Ides of March), Julius Caesar was assassinated by a group of plotting Roman senators.
Historians differ on the exact details of the assassination. Some say Caesar was outside the Senate when he was stabbed by the senators, others have him inside.
More recently, some historians have argued Caesar was attacked by the senators before he arrived at the Senate.
Either way, the death blow came after friction grew between the s
Source: BBC
March 15, 2009
Defence Secretary John Hutton has said the Afghanistan war is a "fundamentally important" one which will "define much of the politics of the 21st century".
He said Nato's European members must do more if it was to "come through this test of its resolve and character".
Lessons learned there and in Iraq would lead to a "transformation" of policy by the UK Ministry of Defence.
Asked if the mission had changed to a cou
Source: CNN
March 15, 2009
The Obama administration has endangered Americans and opened the country to further attack by reversing Bush administration anti-terrorism policies such as harsh interrogations of suspects, former Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.
Cheney told CNN's "State of the Union" that the Bush administration's "alternative" interrogation techniques were "absolutely essential" to preventing further assaults like the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and
Source: Times Online
March 15, 2009
Thousands of children suffering from illnesses linked to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have been barred from coming to Britain on charity-funded holidays.
Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian president of Belarus who is often described as Europe’s last dictator, introduced the ban after a teenage girl on a charity trip to the United States expressed a wish to stay there.
Although she has since returned to Belarus, authorities in the former Soviet republic have hal
Source: BBC
March 15, 2009
A letter carried by William Wallace when he was captured by English forces in 1305 should be returned to Scotland, a Nationalist MSP has claimed.
The document, known as the Safe Conduct, was written by the King of France and was supposed to guarantee Wallace safe passage to visit the Pope.
It is currently held at the National Archives in Surrey.
South of Scotland MSP Christine Grahame said it should be in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
Source: AP
March 14, 2009
A saga that began in the cauldron of California's counterculture and took a dramatic turn in a quiet middle class neighborhood in Minnesota is about to come to an end.
Sara Jane Olson, a 1970s radical who became a fugitive after attempting to kill Los Angeles police officers and participating in a deadly bank robbery near Sacramento, is scheduled to be released from a California prison next week.
Her bid for freedom after serving seven years is not ending quietly.
Source: Foxnews
March 14, 2009
On Wednesday, President Obama signed a law that bans federal funding of any research that leads to the destruction of human embryos just two days after lifting Bush-era restraints on it.
President Obama may have abolished contentious Bush-era restraints on federal funding of stem cell research on Monday, but a legislative obstacle still remains for scientists seeking more money.
A spending bill that Obama signed on Wednesday explicitly bans federal funding of any "
Source: BBC
March 14, 2009
More than 200 people have attended the funeral and burial in north Kent of an unknown teenage girl who was decapitated about 700 years ago.
Her remains were found by an archaeologist on unconsecrated ground next to Hoo St Werburgh Parish Church, near Rochester.
Her head had been placed by her side, suggesting she may have committed suicide or been executed for a crime.
Her body has now been reburied in the church's main graveyard.
The girl
Source: Times Online (UK)
March 14, 2009
Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen’s younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago.
Archeologists and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen.
The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Pt
Source: Email to HNN from George L. Vogt, OHS Executive Director
March 14, 2009
Contrary to many statements on blogs and in emails, the library is not closing forever. At the request of the staff, we closed it for a few weeks so that the departing staff could finish various projects and clear backlogs. We are reopening soon, and the executive committee's action yesterday to allow some deficit spending, will ensure access to all types of collections, not just photos, reference, and film. We should know within the week what the schedule of hours will be, and I believe they ma
Source: BBC News
March 14, 2009
A Scottish expert has uncovered a medieval document suggesting negative attitudes towards Robin Hood.
The story of how Robin and his men stole from the rich to give to the poor has long been part of English folklore.
However, Julian Luxford of St Andrews University found a dissenting voice in a Latin inscription from about 1460 in a manuscript owned by Eton College.
The previously unknown chronicle entry says Robin"infested" parts of England with" continuous robberies".
Dr Luxford, an ex
Source: WaPo
March 14, 2009
In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."
It hasn't taken long for the recriminations to return -- or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome "inheritance" of its predecessor.
Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "
Source: Art Info (UK)
March 12, 2009
Italian archaeologists are outraged over a proposal to shift control of ancient sites to a new organization, the New York Times reports.
According to a new policy expected to be ratified by the Italian parliament tomorrow, a newly established civil protection committee will oversee restorations to the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill, and other ancient sites, and would be granted emergency powers, allowing it to avoid the usual bureaucratic obstacles when instituting changes. Many in t
Source: AFP
March 10, 2009
Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio used revolutionary optical instruments to "photograph" his models more than 200 years before the invention of the camera, according to a researcher in Florence.
The 16th-century artist celebrated for his dramatic chiaroscuro (light and shadow) paintings mastered "a whole set of techniques that are the basis of photography", Roberta Lapucci told AFP.
Caravaggio worked in a "darkroom" and illuminated his
Source: CNN
March 13, 2009
With Americans confronting an economic crisis, public interest in the nearly 6-year-old war in Iraq has dropped off over the past few years as conditions on the ground there have improved and the relevance to the average American family's pocketbook wears thin.
But based on recent polling and exit results from the November presidential elections, the war isn't a big concern for Americans.
The economy was the top issue in the election for 62 percent of voters questioned
Source: NYT
March 13, 2009
When Frank S. Hogan left his post as the Manhattan district attorney after 32 years, few thought anyone would match his longevity. Then came Robert M. Morgenthau, who recently announced that this year, his 35th, would be his last.
But neither of these legal titans can come close to the remarkable career of Ida Van Lindt, their secretary.
She is in her 53rd year at the district attorney’s office, a tenure that has taken her through eras of raging street crime and sophist
