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 14, 2007
The Duke of Devonshire's ownership of Ireland's most prolific salmon river is to be challenged by an angler in a landmark court case that evokes the historic tensions between the English aristocracy and the Irish.
Michael O'Shea will cite the 1215 Magna Carta signed by King John to argue that he has the right to fish the Blackwater as he attempts to overturn a poaching conviction.
His case will question the Devonshires' entitlement to the river, which is on the border o
Source: AFP
April 13, 2007
DALLAS -- Plans to establish a presidential library and think tank for George W. Bush at his wife's alma mater in Texas have come under fire from both faculty and the clergy associated with Southern Methodist University.
A vocal group of professors, concerned about how an institute billed to be "inspired by the principles of George W. Bush's administration" might affect the university's reputation, have been working to block the library.
At a recent vote, the
Source: AP
April 13, 2007
Six years after declaring the U.S. killing of Korean War refugees at No Gun Ri was"not deliberate," the Army has acknowledged it found but did not divulge that a high-level document said the U.S. military had a policy of shooting approaching civilians in South Korea.
The document, a letter from the U.S. ambassador in South Korea to the State Department in Washington, is dated the day in 1950 when U.S. troops began the No Gun Ri shootings, in which survivors say hundreds, mostly women and c
Source: CNN
April 12, 2007
Since slavery times, "nappy" has been used to malign the natural hair texture of many people of African descent: dense, dark and tightly curled. So when Don Imus referred to the women of the Rutgers basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" -- a widely condemned remark that got him fired Thursday -- it cut deeper than many who are unfamiliar with the term might realize....
"When I hear it from someone who doesn't understand the depth of pain, they just don't hav
Source: Reuters
April 13, 2007
PARIS -- French centrist Francois Bayrou on Friday accused his rightist presidential rival Nicolas Sarkozy of sending a chilling message to EU partner Germany with recent remarks on the Holocaust.
Bayrou, who has narrowed the gap with frontrunners Sarkozy and Socialist Segolene Royal in recent opinion polls, said the rightist candidate was trying to lure far-right National Front voters with his comments...
"He has said things for example about Germany, imputing to
Source: Reuters
April 13, 2007
BASEL, Switzerland -- Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.
Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome SA billed its "Titanic-DNA" collection as among the most exclusive pieces showcased this week at Baselworld, the watch and jewellery industry's largest annual trade fair...
"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches w
Source: Mainichi Daily News (Tokyo)
April 4, 2007
The Civil War brought hard times to the southern state of Georgia, with Union troops from the North torching Atlanta and cutting a swath of destruction through the state before delivering Savannah to President Abraham Lincoln as an early Christmas gift on Dec. 22, 1864.
Nearly a century and a half later, state leaders are hoping Georgia's role in the epic conflict will have a much different impact _ drawing in millions of tourism dollars by promoting its Civil War-era sites.
Source: AP
April 13, 2007
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the manslaughter convictions of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, in the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964.
Mr. Killen, 82, was convicted in June 2005 in the deaths of the workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. He was sentenced to three consecutive 20-year prison terms.
In his appeal, Mr. Killen had argued that in the 1960s he would not have been convicted by a jury of his peers of any crime under
Source: AP
April 13, 2007
The charisma king of the 2008 presidential field. The world's best golfer. The captain of the New York Yankees. Besides superstardom, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have another common bond: Each is the child of an interracial marriage.
For most of U.S. history, in most communities, such unions were taboo.
It was only 40 years ago, on June 12, 1967, that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned
Source: Hartford Courant
April 11, 2007
COVENTRY, Conn. -- As a spy, Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale was hanged by the British. As a statue, he's been cut off at the ankles ... and stolen from his historic family homestead.
Thieves removed the 3-foot bronze sculpture of Hale, leaving behind only his shoes and the statue base, sometime between March 29 and April 4, Antiquarian and Landmarks Society officials said Tuesday.
The statue was the work of eminent New England sculptor Bela Lyon Pratt, whose pieces
Source: AP
April 13, 2007
An Indiana official publicly apologized for the state's role 100 years ago in pioneering state-authorized sterilization of "imbeciles," paupers and others it deemed undesirable.
Health Commissioner Dr. Judith Monroe expressed regret on behalf of the state Thursday for its passing of the first such eugenics law. She also unveiled a historic marker that will stand across from the Statehouse.
"It is one (law) that we do regret but we should not forget,"
Source: Press Release -- National Park Service
April 12, 2007
On Sunday, March 11th, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park ranger Chuck Lochart saw three men – Fenton Terembes, Jeremy Burroughs and Vincent Williams – metal-detecting and digging relics up in the Spotsylvania battlefield. The three men were apprehended as they left the park by Lochart and rangers Craig Johnson and Tad Pultorak.
Their metal-detecting equipment and nearly 200 artifacts were seized. Over 450 excavated holes were found on and around park earthwork
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
April 11, 2007
Many people live extraordinary lives. Many have extraordinary deaths. But very, very few can hope to save the world 90 years after they have passed away.
One such man was the remarkably colourful Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, one of those larger-than-life Victorians who lived in an era when great men really could, and did, change the shape of the world....
His commanding achievement in life was when, aged just 39, he skilfully directed the carve-up of the defunct Ott
Source: NYT
April 13, 2007
The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys....
[Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of a House committee looking into the use of political e-mail accounts,] said he now had “serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” a 1978 law that requires administrations to keep records of delibe
Source: Independent
April 13, 2007
BERLIN -- Communist East Germany officially took pride in its "anti-fascism" yet party youth members used Nazi salutes, the Holocaust was virtually ignored and Jewish cemeteries were flattened to make way for car parks.
A dark and little known aspect of East Germany emerged yesterday at a Berlin exhibition which exposes the communist state's role in creating a fertile breeding ground for anti-Semitism, right-wing violence and xenophobia.
Entitled "We neve
Source: International Herald Tribune
April 11, 2007
VENICE -- During its great days the Serenissima, the Most Serene Venetian Republic, seldom stinted in matters of civic self-celebration: witness the Torre dell'Orologio, in Piazza San Marco, one of the most architecturally and mechanically complex tower clocks ever constructed. Unveiled on Feb. 1, 1499, amid general rejoicing, it was described by Marin Sanudo, a contemporary diarist, as "made with great skill, and very beautiful."
Having shown and struck the hours more or
Source: AP
April 13, 2007
TOKYO -- Japan's lower house of parliament on Friday approved guidelines for amending the pacifist constitution, a key step in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to give the military a larger global role.
The legislation was passed easily because of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's majority in the chamber. The 1947 U.S.-drafted constitution has never been amended.
Source: NBC
April 12, 2007
If you are a regular listener of National Public Radio, then you are probably familiar with the StoryCorps project. For years now, microphones have been set up in public and mobile studios to record the stories of average Americans.
There is no formality — the guests, usually two people, are just told when the recording starts and that they have 40 minutes to talk about anything they want. For most people the narratives are about special moments in their lives or perhaps a brush wit
Source: International Herald Tribune
April 12, 2007
The first sign that things aren't quite right comes when Jews are required to wear a badge, a black and yellow star of David, on the outside of their clothes. And yet 13-year-old Petr Ginz remains wryly amused, writing in his diary: "When I went to school, I counted sixty-nine 'sheriffs.' "
Such is the life of a young Czechoslovakian Jewish boy living in Prague in 1941, and it is a life that Petr meticulously documented in his diary until he was sent on a transport to Ther
Source: AP
April 11, 2007
PETERSBURG, Ky. -- A northern Kentucky museum that teaches the biblical story of creation has raised $27 million in private donations, museum organizers said.
Answers in Genesis' Creation Museum will open by late May...
More than 10,000 square feet was added to the plans in January after study groups found that the museum would likely attract more visitors than originally expected...
The high-tech facility will include a 180-seat special-effects theater, a
