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)
August 23, 2010
The Lockerbie bomber is "in good condition" given his fatal cancer but depressed at critical coverage of his release from prison, according to senior officials.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi spent the anniversary of his return to Libya from a Scottish jail at home, where he was visited by friends and regime figures to mark the occasion.
He reached the milestone despite being given three months to live when released on compassionate grounds eight years into his se
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 22, 2010
Supporters and opponents of a proposed Muslim cultural centre and mosque near the World Trade Center site rallied in downtown Manhattan on Sunday, kept blocks apart by a heavy police presence.
The dispute has taken on national political significance, with Republicans using the issue to attack President Barack Obama ahead of midterm elections where his Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress.
The rallies were held near the location of the proposed Muslim c
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 23, 2010
A 12-year battle over the possession of a painting that was stolen from a Jewish Austrian by the Nazis came to a close today when the work by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele was displayed at a Vienna museum.
The oil painting was returned over the weekend after the Leopold Museum agreed to pay $19 million (15 million euros) as part of the settlement to the estate of art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray, the original owner.
US authorities had refused to return the painting to
Source: AP
August 23, 2010
Greek officials say the Acropolis in Athens will open on the night of the August full moon Tuesday after a pay dispute with security guards has been resolved.
The culture and tourism ministry says the citadel will be among more than 90 sites and museums to open by moonlight on the one night a year the public can enter monuments after sundown.
Initially, the ministry had left the Acropolis off the list, for the first time in years, citing the dispute over guards' pay for
Source: AP
August 23, 2010
Egypt's state news agency reports the country's top prosecutor has ordered a four-day detention of the deputy culture minister over the theft of a Vincent van Gogh painting.
Thieves made off with the canvas, known by the titles of "Poppy Flowers" and "Vase with Flowers," on Saturday from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo. None of the museum's alarms and only seven of 43 surveillance cameras were working at the time of the robbery.
On Monday, General
Source: AP
August 23, 2010
The wrecks of three British warships sunk after World War I off the coast of a Baltic Sea island have been found, Estonia's military announced Monday.
Using state-of-the-art sonar equipment, an Estonian naval vessel last week located the wrecks of HMS Cassandra, HMS Gentian and HMS Myrtle near the Estonian island of Saaremaa, about 90 miles (140 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Tallinn.
He said that the last coordinates of the vessels — reported by then British squ
Source: CNN
August 23, 2010
First lady Michelle Obama will join former first lady Laura Bush on September 11 at the Flight 93 National Memorial outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, according to a statement from the National Park Foundation.
Obama and Bush will be joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.
Fundraising is now under way for a memorial slated for dedication on September 11, 2011, the statement noted....
Source: CNN
August 23, 2010
A chestnut tree beloved by Holocaust victim Anne Frank as she wrote her diary in hiding in the Netherlands fell down Monday, the Anne Frank House museum told CNN. The tree, which was more than 150 years old, had been diseased since 2005 and had a support structure to help keep it upright.
Since the tree was found to be diseased, hundreds of saplings grown from its chestnuts have been donated to schools and parks around the world, the Anne Frank Museum said.
Frank died o
Source: NYT
August 23, 2010
In February 2007, Alberto R. Gonzales, the attorney general under President George W. Bush, issued a stern warning to those who murdered blacks with impunity during the civil rights era: “You have not gotten away with anything. We are still on your trail.”
He noted that time was short. The window of opportunity to solve racially motivated crimes more than 40 years old was closing. Families of the victims had waited decades for resolution.
More than three years later, th
Source: NYT
August 22, 2010
Since 1869, the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society has made its name helping New Yorkers understand their roots. But the more the society pondered its future, the more the people at its helm became convinced that it needed to break with its past.
Making what they called a “forward-looking decision,” the trustees hung a for-sale sign on the society’s longtime home at 122 East 58th Street several years ago. Then — to the shock of the society’s own members, who were still
Source: NYT
August 22, 2010
Housing will eventually recover from its great swoon. But many real estate experts now believe that home ownership will never again yield rewards like those enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century, when houses not only provided shelter but also a plump nest egg....
For the first half of the 20th century, he said, expectations followed the opposite path. Houses were seen the way cars are now: as a consumer durable that the buyer eventually used up.
The notion of h
Source: NYT
August 22, 2010
CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out.
In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000....
Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, accordi
Source: AP
August 23, 2010
MADISON, Wis. – University of Wisconsin student Leo Burt approached his former journalism instructor at the student union one day in August 1970.
The intense 22-year-old thanked the man for encouraging him to write for a left-wing student newspaper, where he covered the Vietnam War protests raging on campus and where his politics had become radicalized. And he said goodbye because he was planning to live underground in Canada for reasons he wouldn't share.
"Only 10
Source: The Boston Globe
August 21, 2010
In the early 19th century, Bostonians largely had two options if they got sick: house calls from expensive private physicians or an overcrowded poorhouse.
So two centuries ago yesterday, in a 2,677-word petition, two of the city’s top doctors called on the city’s gentry to help establish the state’s first public general hospital.
Eleven years after Warren and Jackson spurred the city to action, Massachusetts General Hospital opened in 1821 in the Bulfinch Building. Yest
Source: BBC
August 20, 2010
A toilet described as once having belonged to US author JD Salinger has been put on sale on the online auction site eBay for $1m (£644,000).
The vendor says he obtained the "used toilet commode" from a couple who now own the former home of the Catcher in the Rye author.
It comes "uncleaned and in its original condition", the ad for it states.
The toilet comes with a letter from Joan Littlefield, attesting that the toilet was removed duri
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 20, 2010
Two infant skeletons wrapped in 1930s newspapers and placed in doctor's bags have been found inside an unclaimed suitcase in a Los Angeles apartment building.
The skeletons, believed to be decades-old remains of fetuses or infants, were discovered in the trunk inscribed with the initials JMB.
Other things found in the trunk included cigarettes, a green bowl, black and white photos, letters, a book club membership certificate inscribed Jean M. Barrie and ticket stubs fr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 20, 2010
The Russian state has been given a month by a court to prove it owns the Kremlin after descendants of Ivan the Terrible filed a lawsuit to stake their claim to the Moscow landmark.
The Princes Foundation, an organisation representing the descendants of Rurik, a ninth century prince whose eponymous dynasty ruled until 1598, has argued that its ancestors built and lived in the 69-acre Kremlin complex and that it should now be returned to their ownership.
The prince said
Source: AP
August 21, 2010
Thieves broke into a museum in central Cairo and made off with a painting by Vincent van Gogh valued at $50 million, officials said Saturday.
Egypt's minister of culture, Farouk Hosni, said police have launched an investigation into the theft from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum and authorities at all the country's airports and seaports have been notified and are on alert.
This is the second time the painting by the Dutch-born postimpressionist has been stolen from the Cairo
Source: CNN
August 20, 2010
The Democratic National Committee is out Friday with a new television ad that looks forward to the November elections and closes with a cameo from former President George W. Bush.
Entitled "Big Choices," the ad frames the midterm elections as a choice between the policies of President Obama and national Democrats and the policies of Bush and the GOP. It captures a view of idealistic Americana –rolling fields of wheat, windmills, a teacher in a classroom, a welder in a fact
Source: AOL News
August 21, 2010
The U.S. Treasury has released a $1 coin commemorating former President James Buchanan. And people aren't happy about it.
To understand why, some background is helpful. In 2007, thanks to a bill promoted by then-Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire, the Treasury began minting $1 coins with the likenesses of former Presidents, starting with George Washington.
The coins -- which have been appearing ever since, featuring a new President every three months -- are meant to impr
