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: CBS News/Weekly Standard
April 2, 2006
Thousands of troops have died fighting a war he chose to fight — a war that increasingly appears to be a microcosm of something much larger than what the American people had bargained for. He seems to be stretching presidential power beyond what his predecessors ever imagined. His approval ratings hover around the freezing point. It's no coincidence that his party is beginning to stray from him, and the press is writing him off as a failure.
What sounds like a thumbnail sketch of G
Source: CNN
April 5, 2006
Archeologists said Wednesday they have discovered a massive 6th-century Indian pyramid beneath the site of a centuries-old re-enactment of the crucifixion of Christ.
Built on a hillside by the mysterious Teotihuacan culture, the pyramid was abandoned almost 1,000 years before Catholics began re-enacting the crucifixion there in the 1800s, unaware they were celebrating one of the holiest moments of their faith on a site originally dedicated to gods of earth, wind and rain.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
April 5, 2006
The total amount of U.S. aid to Iraq since 2003 is already comparable to post-World War II U.S. assistance to Germany and nearly double that provided to Japan, according to a new Congressional Research Service analysis."U.S. assistance to Germany totaled some $4.3 billion ($29.6 billion in
2005 dollars) for the years of direct military government (May 1945-May 1949) and the overlapping Marshall Plan years (1948/1949-1952)."
"Total U.S
Source: NYT
April 5, 2006
Television cameras are not about to enter the Supreme Court any time soon.
That was the unmistakable message that two Supreme Court justices gave Congress at a hearing on Tuesday on the court's budget.Asked for his views on the subject, Justice Kennedy said it raised a "sensitive point" about the constitutional separation of powers.
"It's not for the court to tell Congress how to conduct its proceedings," and the reve
Source: NYT
April 5, 2006
The Iraqi court trying Saddam Hussein announced Tuesday that it had charged him with genocide, saying he sought to annihilate the Kurdish people in 1988, when the military killed at least 50,000 Kurdish civilians and destroyed 2,000 villages.
The case is the first against Mr. Hussein to address the large-scale human rights violations committed during his decades in power, the same acts the Bush administration has publicized in explaining the American invasion of Iraq. Six other def
Source: NYT
April 5, 2006
Scientists have discovered fossils of a 375 million-year-old fish, a large scaly creature not seen before, that they say is a long-sought "missing link" in the evolution of some fishes from water to a life walking on four limbs on land.
In addition to confirming elements of a major transition in evolution, the fossils are widely seen by scientists as a powerful rebuttal to religious creationists, who hold a literal biblical view on the origins and development of life.
Source: AP
April 5, 2006
Archaeologists are digging up a parking lot believed to have been the site of a slave holding pen whose artifacts could expose new facets of Richmond's slave past.
Researchers with the James River Institute for Archaeology will spend this week digging into a 90-by-90-foot patch of land behind the restored Main Street train station in Shockoe Bottom, one of the oldest sections of this former capital of the Confederacy.
Source: Yahoo
April 4, 2006
Laborers working on the infrastructure of a sewage canal network have unearthed a Roman-era burial cave from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D. near the ruins of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, the official National News Agency reported Tuesday. Site supervisor Khaled al-Rifai said the cave contained one human skeleton, leaves made of gold, glass rings and other artifacts.
Al-Rifai was quoted as saying that representatives of the antiquities department accompanied th
Source: BBC`
April 4, 2006
A college lecturer believes he has found proof that the woman said to have played a key role in defeating the last army to invade Britain really existed. Pembrokeshire man Andrew Thomas claims he has found the baptism records of Jemima Nicholas, who tricked French troops into surrendering in 1797.
Nicholas told local women to dress in a black-and-red traditional costume, and the French thought they were soldiers.
But the origins of the heroine, who died in 1832, have
Source: BBC
April 4, 2006
Britain's only prime ministerial library is appealing for help in carrying out a major refurbishment programme. St Deiniol's Library in Hawarden, Flintshire, houses more than 30,000 books which once belonged to the former prime minister William Gladstone. The library needs £500,000 to complete the necessary improvements.
Source: BBC
April 5, 2006
As the 25th anniversary of the Brixton riot approaches, BBC News examines the significance of the events of April 1981. The rioting which began in Brixton, in the south London borough of Lambeth, in April 1981 shocked the nation.
For three days, rioters - predominately young, black men - fought police, attacked buildings and set fire to vehicles.
More than 300 people were injured and the damage caused came to an estimated value of £7.5
Source: Yahoo News
April 5, 2006
An almost-forgotten story of a 1930s anti-immigrant campaign has been brought back into historical focus. Tens of thousands, and possibly more than 400,000, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were pressured - through raids and job denials - to leave the USA during the Depression, according to a USA TODAY review of documents and interviews with historians and deportees. Many, mostly children, were U.S. citizens.If their tales seem incredible, a newspaper analysis of the history t
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
April 2, 2006
A bill of sale for a slave is one of hundreds of documents on display at the Atlanta History Center's new exhibit, "Old Money, New Money: The Rise of Southern Capitalism" — an unabashed look at the upside and downside of 150 years of Southern economic and business history.
Unlike most Southern history, written in the grand sweep of big events, this is an on-the-street look at the deeds, bonds, bills of sale, stock certificates, bank notes, posters and other documents that
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
April 4, 2006
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Monday to recommend that Education Department officials protect college students from anti-Semitism by "vigorously enforcing" Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also called on university leaders to denounce hate speech on their campuses and to ensure that all academic units, including departments of Middle East studies, "respect intellectual diversity."
Source: AP
April 4, 2006
The national memorial to honor Martin Luther King Junior is inching closer to reality.
State Farm Insurance has donated a million dollars toward the project. Edward Rust, the company's chief executive, is urging other businesses to support the memorial as well.A four-acre memorial honoring King is slated for the Tidal Basin near the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial. So far $58 million has been raised for the $100 million project - a big jump from just the $5
Source: CNN
April 4, 2006
The only conscientious objector to receive a Medal of Honor in World War II has been buried at a national cemetery with a 21-gun salute.
Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, died March 23 in Piedmont, Alabama, where he and his wife, Frances, had been living with family.
A horse-drawn hearse delivered the flag-covered casket to the grave site Monday in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Military helicopters flew overhead in a tribute formation.
Source: Ansa.it
April 3, 2006
A fourth-century papyrus manuscript containing the long-lost 'Gospel of Judas' will be presented in Washington on Thursday .
The Gospel of Judas is one of several ancient accounts of Christ's life which were rejected as suspect by the fathers of the early Church and so they did not become part of the Bible .
Vatican officials have denied that the publication this week is part of a rehabilitation of Judas by the Catholic Church .The document re
Source: Daily News
April 4, 2006
The Memphis Police Department dispatcher is calm, barking out orders even as the city outside begins to descend into chaos. It's shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, and unconfirmed reports have begun trickling in over the radio that something terrible has happened at the Lorraine Motel in Downtown Memphis.
"Reverend King has been shot ... confirm ... Rev. King has been shot," the dispatcher bellows on an excerpt from a police dispatch tape.
Source: macleans.ca
April 3, 2006
Nina von Stauffenberg, widow of the aristocratic Nazi army officer who tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb, has died, an official said Monday. She was 92.
Peter Kirchner, mayor of Kirchlauter in the southern state of Bavaria where von Stauffenberg lived, said the widow of Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg died Sunday morning, but gave no further details.Col. von Stauffenberg was one of the best known internal German resistance figh
Source: AP
April 3, 2006
With a year to go before it even touches the water, the Navy's amphibious assault ship USS New York has already made history twice. It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center, and it survived Hurricane Katrina.
USS New York is about 45 percent complete and should be ready for launch in mid-2007. Katrina disrupted construction when it pounded the Gulf Coast last summer, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage, and workers were back at the yard near New Orl
