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: BBC News
February 8, 2006
The last remaining merchant sailor from the First World War has died aged 107, his family have said. Nicholas Swarbrick died peacefully last Thursday at the nursing home in Grimsargh, Lancashire, where he spent his final years.
His death leaves just 11 soldiers, sailors and airmen from the Great War, said a National Archives spokesman.
Most of these live in the south of England, apart from two in Australia and one who lives in Derby.
Source: Breitbart.com
February 8, 2006
Scientists say they've found the earliest known tyrannosaur, shedding light on the lineage that produced the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex. The discovery comes with a puzzle: Why did this beast have a strange crest on its head?
Source: NY Sun
February 8, 2006
Three major New York-based foundations sponsoring an academic conference in Italy that was scheduled to begin Monday are now calling for its postponement after the conference came under criticism as a forum for critics of Israel and after one of the articles circulated in advance of the meeting was found to have been what executives of two of the foundations called "an anti-Semitic paper by a Holocaust denier."The New York Sun yesterday reported that ei
Source: BBC News
February 2, 2006
Millions of pounds worth of "museum quality" art has been stolen from the home of a reclusive property tycoon. Thieves raided Ramsbury Manor - a 17th Century mansion in Wiltshire said to be worth more than £20m, and home of Harry Hyams - on Wednesday night.
A Wiltshire Police spokesman said the items taken, including fine art and porcelain, were "worth a substantial amount - into the millions".
The stolen items included a 1675
Source: BBC News
February 8, 2006
A French silver coin has been found embedded in the keel of a medieval ship uncovered on the banks of the river Usk in Newport three years ago. The discovery of the 15th Century coin is being interpreted as a sign that the ship came originally from France.
Experts believe the coin was new and was intended to be a good luck charm.
Project leader Kate Hunter said a colleague was shaking when she found the coin. She said: "We all understood imme
Source: United Jewish Council
February 8, 2006
The trial of a far-right German white supremacist accused of repeatedly denying the holocaust resumes on Thursday, when 66-year-old Ernst Zundel will face charges of incitment, libel and disparaging the dead. Zundel's trial at the Mannheim state court was halted in November, since when Iran has sought to cast doubt on the Nazi genocide and a debate has opened over the West's commitment to free speech.
German authorities accuse Zundel of decades of anti-Semitic a
Source: IPS
February 8, 2006
The Xeni Gwet'in First Nations in the western interior region of British Columbia are taking ancient myths into the courtroom as part of a nearly two decades-long battle with the Canadian government over the title to their land. "This case is well known and will set a precedent on aboriginal title based on earlier court decisions, as well as establishing the government's role in providing financial support to First Nations for legal costs," said Doug McArthur, a p
Source: The Age (Australia)
February 8, 2006
An American archaeological mission discovered a tomb in Luxor's Valley of the Kings next to the burial place of King Tut, Egyptian antiquities authorities have announced.An excavation team from the University of Memphis made the find five metres from Tutankhamun's tomb, while the mission was doing routine excavation work, said Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Some three metres beneath the ground, the tomb contained five h
Source: AP
February 7, 2006
Ten thousand mourners — including four U.S. presidents, numerous members of Congress and many gray-haired veterans of the civil rights movement — said goodbye to Coretta Scott King on Tuesday, with President Bush saluting her as “a woman who worked to make our nation whole.”The immense crowd filled the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church — a modern, arena-style megachurch in a suburban Atlanta county that was once a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan but today has one of t
Source: BBC News
February 6, 2006
A French caver has discovered prehistoric cave art believed to date back 27,000 years - older than the famous Lascaux paintings. Gerard Jourdy, 63, said he found human and animal remains in the chamber in the Vilhonneur forest, in caves once used to dispose of animal carcasses.
The paintings included a hand in cobalt blue, he told AFP news agency.
The discovery was made in November, but kept secret while initial examinations were carried out.
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
February 7, 2006
Last week, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) lashed out at the Congressional Research Service for asserting that the Bush Administration may have had a legal responsibility to notify more than just eight members of Congress regarding the NSA surveillance activity.Rep. Hoekstra, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not merely suggest that the CRS might be wrong; he claimed that the agency was actually biased against Bush Administration policy (Secrecy News,
Source: BBC News
February 6, 2006
The information superhighway owes its very existence to fibre optics.
With a very thin tube, light and some engineering know-how you have the components for speeding information around the world.
The communication revolution was set in motion 40 years ago, when a landmark paper was revealed to the engineering community. In 1966, Dr Charles Kuen Kao and George Hockham, both young research engineers from the Standard Telecommunications L
Source: NYT
February 6, 2006
The quarrel between Tokyo and Beijing over Japan's colonial and wartime history spilled over to the sensitive topic of Taiwan over the weekend, after Japan's foreign minister praised his country's past rule over the island.The minister, Taro Aso, said in a speech on Saturday that Taiwan's present high educational standards resulted from Japanese colonial policies. China, which ceded Taiwan after losing a war to Japan in 1895 and considers the island a renegade province
Source: Wa Po
February 7, 2006
On a map, the churches are separated only by a few miles of gray interstate highway. But in reality, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Lithonia and Ebenezer Baptist Church in the historic Sweet Auburn section of Atlanta are worlds apart.Ebenezer, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was eulogized in 1968, is surrounded by a sickly cluster of rib shacks, barber shops and billiard halls that time seemingly forgot. The area is nothing like the thriving blac
Source: Secrecy News, written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists
February 7, 2006
After nearly a decade of pressure from openness advocates inside and outside of government, the Department of Energy has finally released its landmark history of the production of highly enriched uranium (HEU)."The effort was commissioned [in 1996] to facilitate discussions of HEU storage, safety, and security with stakeholders, to encourage other nations to declassify and release similar data, and to support the national policy on transparency of nuclear material
Source: National History Coalition
February 6, 2006
In the funding proposal the president asserts that “the number of quality applications for assistance under this program in recent
years does not justify the current level of funding ($121 million). He therefore recommends that it be reduced to $50 million. The reduced cost reflects “the anticipated number of high-scoring applicants” and would generate about 52 new awards.”As for the budget numbers for agencies of particular interest to the history and archive
Source: BBC News
February 6, 2006
The Dutch state is to return 202 famous paintings worth millions of euros to the family of a Jewish art collector who died while fleeing the Nazis. Jacques Goudstikker's collection was seized by the Nazi German authorities after their troops occupied the Netherlands in 1940.
The collection includes works by 17th-Century Dutch and Italian masters.
A Dutch junior minister said no compensation would be paid to the museums currently housing them.
Source: National Geographic News
February 7, 2006
The ashes of an ancient chief or priest who lived three centuries before the legendary founding of Rome have been unearthed in the heart of the city, archaeologists report. The remains were discovered late January inside a funerary urn at the bottom of a deep pit, along with bowls and jars, all encased in a hutlike box.
The artifacts date to about 1000 B.C. The size and richness of the tomb suggest that the ashes are the remains of a high-ranking individu
Source: LAT
February 7, 2006
In shantytowns scattered around the imposing Israeli Embassy here, thousands of self-described Ethiopian Jews wait idly, hoping one day to make it to the Promised Land. Many are suspected of feigning Jewish roots to trade an often impoverished existence for a more comfortable, government-subsidized life in Israel. Others simply won't qualify under eligibility rules, which require them to have relatives living in Israel.Israel's ambitious resettlement efforts have relocated m
Source: Richmond Times Dispatch
February 7, 2006
According to a survey conducted by the Virginia Council of Higher Education last fall, 42 percent of students said there had been at least one semester where they couldn't afford to buy their books. The survey recommended several measures that are now part of legislation to make textbooks more affordable.Virginia House Bill 1478 unanimously passed the House of Delegates in late January and will go to the Senate on Feb. 15.
The bill was proposed by Del. Glenn Ode
