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 (UK)
April 29, 2011
The man convicted of assassinating Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 was brainwashed into shooting him by a mysterious girl in a polka dot dress, his lawyers have claimed.
In a bizarre twist more than forty years after the high-profile killing, lawyers for Sirhan Sirhan, the Palestinian man convicted of the shooting, have submitted new evidence which they say shows their client was manipulated by the mystery girl and had no sense of what he was doing.
Source: AP
April 29, 2011
An Army soldier who went missing on a mission in Laos during the Vietnam Warwill be buried this weekend in North
Source: CNN
April 28, 2011
More than one million people are expected in Rome this weekend for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, the biggest event in Vatican City since his death six years ago.
Hundreds of thousands of Catholic faithful will gather in St. Peter's Square to witness the ceremony, the penultimate step towards John Paul II's sainthood.
Beatification means the candidate can be referred to as "blessed," and that one miracle has been confirmed in his or her name, according to CNN's John L. Allen, Jr.
Source: NYT
April 27, 2011
For centuries, cursive handwriting has been an art. To a growing number of young people, it is a mystery.
The sinuous letters of the cursive alphabet, swirled on countless love letters, credit card slips and banners above elementary school chalk boards are going the way of the quill and inkwell. With computer keyboards and smartphones increasingly occupying young fingers, the gradual death of the fancier ABC’s is revealing some unforeseen challenges.
Source: BBC
April 28, 2011
The body of a girl thought to have been murdered by Roman soldiers has been discovered in north Kent.
Archaeologists working on the site of a Roman settlement near the A2 uncovered the girl who died almost 2,000 years ago.
Dr Wilkinson said that she had been between 16 and 20 years old when she was killed, and her bones suggested that she had been in good health.
He also believes the body had then been dumped in what looked like a hastily dug grave....
Source: BBC
April 27, 2011
DNA extracted from 2,000-year-old plants recovered from an Italian shipwreck could offer scientists the key to new medicines.
Carrots, parsley and wild onions were among the samples preserved in clay pills on board the merchant trading vessel that sank around 120 BC. It's believed the plants were used by doctors to treat intestinal disorders among the ship's crew.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 28, 2011
Up to a million Catholics are expected to descend on Rome to celebrate the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II, a ceremony that will move him one step closer to sainthood. While the Vatican has said that it expects around 400,000 pilgrims to converge on the Italian capital for the three-day event, other estimates predict double that number.
Source: CNN
April 28, 2011
How did Osama bin Laden escape the dragnet that closed in around his mountain hideout in Afghanistan in December 2001? It's
long been a topic of discussion in intelligence circles and among those
(myself included) who witnessed the intense U.S. aerial bombardment of
Tora Bora that went on for nearly two weeks. Many analysts have
suggested that bin Laden slipped through mountain passes into Pakistan,
just a few miles away.
Source: CNN
April 27, 2011
A chunk of a Pentagon wall smashed by a plane hijacked by 9/11 terrorists was presented to the FBI's Washington field office Wednesday in recognition of its assistance.
Source: BBC News
April 27, 2011
Catholics may believe there is something supernatural about their
Church, but as the 13th Century theologian St Thomas Aquinas taught, it
is not exempt from the normal realities of human nature - including the
laws of psychology, sociology, and even politics.
Source: BBC News
April 27, 2011
A team of researchers in
Italy has begun a search for the tomb of a woman who may have been the
model for Leonardo Da Vinci's painting Mona Lisa.
The team is using a special radar device at the convent in
the city of Florence where it thinks the body of the woman, Lisa
Gherardini, is buried.
It hopes to find skull fragments and to try to create a facial reconstruction.
The identity of the enigmatic Mona Lisa remains one of the great mysteries of the art world.
Source: BBC News
April 27, 2011
DNA extracted from 2,000-year-old plants recovered from an Italian shipwreck could offer scientists the key to new medicines.
Carrots, parsley and wild onions were among the samples
preserved in clay pills on board the merchant trading vessel that sank
around 120 BC. It's believed the plants were used by doctors to treat
intestinal disorders among the ship's crew.
Such remedies are described in ancient Greek texts, but this is the first time the medicines themselves have been discovered.
Source: BBc News
April 27, 2011
Whatever Catherine Middleton will be wearing on her big day,
one thing is certain: her dress will take its place in history, joining
past royal wedding couture creations.
To celebrate the marriage of Prince William and Kate,
Kensington Palace has brought out six sumptuous gowns - seldom seen by
the public - all worn by royal brides over the past 200 years.
Take a look with Senior Curator Joanna Marschner, and see how fashions changed through the decades....
Source: The Boston Globe
April 28, 2011
AS RHODE Island prepares to celebrate the 350th anniversary of an extraordinary American document, its author remains all but forgotten. In the summer of 1663, against seemingly insurmountable odds, an improbable patriot living in an unlikely place changed the course of world civilization.
Through Rhode Island’s King Charles II Charter, Dr. John Clarke convinced the king to grant religious toleration and separation of church and state to a political entity, the diminutive Colony of Rhode Island. For the first time in world history, religious freedom became fundamental to democracy.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2011
The Italian princess ancestor of the women believed to have inspired the Mona Lisa has said her remains should be left in peace as archaeologists began the hunt for her body.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
April 27, 2011
After winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 1960 debut novel, 'To Kill A Mockingbird’, Harper Lee talked excitedly of her plans to carry on writing and become “the Jane Austen of south Alabama”. Yet she was never published again for reasons unknown.
Fifty-one years after the book’s publication, one of the literary world’s greatest mysteries is about to be solved.
Source: The Atlantic
May 1, 2011
In late 1976, Pink
Floyd arranged to have a pig-shaped helium balloon the size of a
double-decker bus raised above the hulking Battersea Power Station on
the Thames in London for a photo shoot. The balloon escaped its tether
and the pig floated away, eventually landing in a distant pasture and
badly frightening some cows. But the image of pig and brooding power
plant was committed to film, and later graced the cover of the group’s
album Animals.
Source: BBC News
April 21, 2011
Archaeologists working
on a ruined Tameside castle have concluded it was built to prevent
parts of England coming under Scottish rule.
Buckton Castle in Stalybridge by the Earl of Chester was built in the 1100s.
It was occupied for less than 100 years during a time when the King of Scotland lay claim to Lancashire and Cumberland.
The University of Salford's Brian Grimsditch said, due to the unrest, "local rulers like the Earl had to protect their lands"....
Source: UPI
April 25, 2011
FREDERICK, Md., April 25 (UPI) -- A waste-to-energy plant will loom
over a Civil War battlefield in Maryland already cut in two by an
interstate highway, a National Parks Service official says.
The battle of Monocacy was fought near Frederick, Md., in July 1864
as Union troops tried to stop a Confederate advance on Washington. The
Union lost the battle but delayed the enemy long enough for
reinforcements to be sent to the capital....
Source: NYT
April 26, 2011
WICHITA, Kan. — A Kansas courtroom with an octogenarian in the
defendant’s chair will be the unlikely scene for a retelling of the
horrors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
