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: Telegraph
April 24, 2007
The Church of England appealed to the Government yesterday for substantial funds for its ancient cathedrals so they can be better exploited as tourist attractions during the 2012 Olympic Games.
The appeal came after mounting criticism by members of the public about the "outrageous" entrance fees being charged by a number of cathedrals.
Daily Telegraph readers quoted Jesus's expulsion of the money lenders in support of their objections to the fees, which are no
Source: New York Times
April 24, 2007
The bass player’s widow looked down Dean Street and remembered her neighbors by the work they did: a teacher, a letter carrier, a doctor, another jazz man. A subway conductor, a church lady. Across the street, there is a mansion, once a doctor’s home...
The name of the neighborhood came along only in the 20th century, after several lesser labels — St. Marks, Brower Park, Grant Square — for the inner Brooklyn sweep of farmland, mansions, brownstones and carriage houses had faded. The
Source: Guardian
April 24, 2007
German terrorists once planned to kidnap fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld as part of a scheme to free fellow guerrillas from jail.
A former member of the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, which terrorised Germany throughout the 1970s and 80s with murders, kidnappings and bank robberies, said Lagerfeld was viewed as a perfect target because of his personal wealth.
Convicted terrorist Peter-Jürgen Boock, who is out of prison having served 17 years, s
Source: Reuters
April 23, 2007
BRUSSELS -- Former Rwandan army major Bernard Ntuyahaga denied involvement on Monday in the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and the country's prime minister in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, insisting he was an innocent bystander.
"I was at the bad place at the bad moment," he told the court on the second day of his trial.
Ntuyahaga is charged with murdering the Belgians and Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, who they were trying to protect, on the day after
Source: AP
April 23, 2007
HARTFORD, Conn. -— When white masquerades as yellow and green might actually be blue, a call goes out to Henry DePhillips.
DePhillips, a Trinity College chemistry professor, is among a cadre of specialists using cutting-edge science to solve the color mysteries of paintings and other cultural treasures often several centuries old.
Art collectors and museums...increasingly are turning to DePhillips and other experts to analyze artwork that has deteriorated over time.
Source: Reuters
April 23, 2007
BUENOS AIRES -- The last de facto president of Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship must stand trial on charges he kidnapped children born to parents killed during the country's "Dirty War," a judge ruled on Monday.
The ruling against Reynaldo Bignone marks the first time a member of Argentina's military junta will be tried publicly since military rulers were put on trial in 1985 on charges of human rights abuses.
Bignone and six other high-ranking office
Source: Reuters
April 23, 2007
Court rules Italy should return Venus to Libya
Mon Apr 23, 1:09 PM ET
ROME (Reuters) - Italy can return to Libya an ancient statue of Venus taken to Rome during Italian colonial rule in 1912, after a court ruled on Monday it was not part of Italy's cultural heritage.
The headless "Venus of Cyrene" was carried away from the town of Cyrene -- an ancient Greek colony -- by Italian troops and put on display in Rome.
Former prime minister
Source: Reuters
April 23, 2007
Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward helped expose the Watergate scandal, has spent eight years researching the life of Hillary Rodham Clinton and will publish a 640-page biography of her in June, the publisher said on Monday.
The book, to be published by Alfred A. Knopf, is called "A Woman in Charge: the Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" and will have a first printing of 350,000 copies in the United States, a Knopf spokesman said.
Source: http://www.haaretz.com
April 23, 2007
For some time, the United States had had an emergency plan to attack Israel, a plan updated just prior to the 1967 war, aimed at preventing Israel from expanding westward, into Sinai, or eastward, into the West Bank.
In May 1967, one of the U.S. commands was charged with the task of removing the plan from the safe, refreshing it and preparing for an order to go into action.
This unknown aspect of the war was revealed in what was originally a top-secret study conducted
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
April 23, 2007
RICHMOND, Calif. -- Checking a rumor, retired UC Berkeley Professor Joe Fischer was poking around the cluttered basement of the Richmond Museum of History and uncovered a long-forgotten "gold mine."
Hidden in a metal cabinet against a back wall were 4,000 meticulously preserved children's paintings and collages.
But instead of children's typical renderings of rainbows, cheerful family scenes, animals or make-believe worlds, there were menacing portraits of Hit
Source: Americans United for Separation of Church and State press release
April 23, 2007
The Bush administration has conceded that Wiccans are entitled to have the pentacle, the symbol of their faith, inscribed on government-issued memorial markers for deceased veterans, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today.
Wicca is a nature-based religion grounded in pre-Christian beliefs. Circle Sanctuary says the Wiccan religion honors the Divine as both Mother and Father, encompasses love and respect of Nature, celebrates the cycles of Sun and Moon, a
Source: BBC News
April 23, 2007
Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea.
This lost landscape, where hunter gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age.
University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe".
This large plain had disappeared below the water more than 8,000 y
Source: University of Pennsylvania press release
April 23, 2007
PHILADELPHIA -- A University of Pennsylvania scholar has pinpointed 1616 as the year of the first European voyage up the Delaware River.
Jaap Jacobs, a senior fellow at Penn's McNeil Center for Early American Studies, detailed his findings in a paper, "Truffle Hunting with an Iron Hog: The First Dutch Voyage up the Delaware River," presented to the McNeil Center Seminar Series on April 20...
Historians acknowledge that while earlier European explorers may have
Source: Azzaman (Baghdad, Basra, London)
April 18, 2007
Iraqi Yazidis are paying a heavy price for their tenacious adherence to their religious practices...
Attacks on Yazidis have surged recently and almost all Yazidi families living outside the autonomous Kurdish region have fled the country...
Most of the killings were perpetrated on religious grounds as fundamentalist and Islamist groups see them as infidels who either have to convert or be killed.
The Yazidi religion is a conglomeration of different faith
Source: BBC
April 22, 2007
Keys belonging to the post room of the Titanic have sold for a record 100,000 [pounds] at auction in Wiltshire.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the previous record for the amount paid for memorabilia from the liner was 57,000 [pounds].
Source: Boston Globe
April 21, 2007
PEABODY, Mass. --Four Revolutionary War heroes finally have proper grave markers even though their actual graves were lost to the march of progress when a portion of a cemetery was paved over for a roadway.
The four minutemen -- Samuel Cook Jr., Benjamin Deland Jr., Ebenezer Goldthwaite and George Southwick Jr. -- grabbed their muskets and marched toward Concord, only to be killed by the retreating British troops on the first day of the war, April 19, 1775. On Saturday, they were ho
Source: Washington Post
April 19, 2007
WASHINGTON DC -- The small, white porcelain button lay just inches below the asphalt.
It was found three years ago when Alexandria archaeologists started digging beneath the surface of a gas station that had been sitting for decades at the busy intersection of South Washington and Church streets.
The button, from a dead person's clothing, was evidence of what lay there more than a century ago: Freedmen's Cemetery, a burial ground that opened in 1864 to accommodate the f
Source: BBC
April 20, 2007
The legend of Atlantis, the country that disappeared under the sea, may be more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami.
Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers, while most Europeans were still living in primitive huts.
But around 150
Source: National Post (Don Mills, Ontario)
April 21, 2007
When a deranged gunman began his shooting rampage at Virginia Tech's Norris Hall on Monday, most of the dozens of students in the vicinity cowered under desks or fled, according to witness accounts. But, before being fatally shot himself, 76-year-old Professor Liviu Librescu thrust himself against his classroom door and held off Cho Seunghui long enough to allow many of his students to jump to safety. The professor's heroism gives rise to some awkward questions: How could a single gunman kill 30
Source: Times (of London)
April 22, 2007
A previously undiscovered cache of poems written by Bonnie Parker, half of the 20th century’s most notorious criminal couple, have shown the depth of her love for Clyde Barrow, her partner in crime.
Parker apparently wrote the nine poems while briefly imprisoned in 1932 at the age of 22, two years after meeting Barrow and being seduced into a life of robbery.
Few other poems by Parker have emerged and experts did not realise she had written so much...
The n
