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: NYT
August 9, 2010
The white fortress loomed above the fields, a crumbling but still imposing redoubt perched on a rock mound above a plain of golden rapeseed shimmering in the morning light.
A battle here in 1904 changed the course of Tibetan history. A British expedition led by Sir Francis E. Younghusband, the imperial adventurer, seized the fort and marched to Lhasa, the capital, becoming the first Western force to pry open Tibet and wrest commercial concessions from its senior lamas.
Source: New York Post
August 6, 2010
Plea negotiations broke down this morning for accused Dead Sea Scrolls cyber-bully Raphael Golb -- who now says he's taking his wacky identity theft and impersonation case to trial.
Golb, 49, is charged with trying to boost his historian father's scholarship on the 2,000 year old scrolls by going online in the name of rival scholars -- notably Dr. Lawrence Schiffman of New York University -- to discredit their work.
Plea negotiations before Manhattan Supreme Court Justi
Source: AP
August 9, 2010
North Carolina's claim that it lost the most men during the Civil War is getting a recount from a state historian who doubts the accuracy of the accepted, 144-year-old estimate.
Howard is reviewing the military records of every Tar Heel who served in the 1861-65 conflict, as the state prepares to mark its sesquicentennial, The News & Record of Greensboro reported Monday.
Since shortly after the war ended, North Carolina has boasted that it sacrificed more men to th
Source: BBC
August 9, 2010
Japan has marked the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
The attack killed more than 70,000 people and led to Japan's surrender less than a week later.
The United States sent its ambassador for the first time to the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima last week, but not to Nagasaki.
A choir of survivors of the nuclear attack performed a song as the ceremony began, called Never Again.
At two minutes past eleven a bell toll
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 9, 2010
The Statue of Liberty will be closed for security upgrades from October 2011, depriving tourists a chance to visit the crown, base and pedestal for up to 12 months.
Visitors to one of New York's most popular attractions will still be able to visit the park surrounding the statue on Liberty Island but the security upgrade will restrict access to the statue.
The Statue of Liberty celebrates its 125th anniversary on October 12, 2011....
Source: Fox News
August 9, 2010
Naomi Campbell's former business agent told a war crimes court Monday that the fashion model flirted with former Liberian President Charles Taylor at a 1997 dinner and he arranged to send her a gift of uncut diamonds.
The testimony from Campbell's former agent, Carole White, contradicts the British model's statements at the Sierra Leone Special Tribunal, in which she said she received a pouch of "dirty-looking diamonds" from unknown men.
The prosecution calle
Source: AP
August 9, 2010
Scottish lawmakers have demanded the country's government release full details of the medical advice that led to the release from jail of the Lockerbie bomber almost a year ago.
Opposition Labour Party legislators called for the prognosis made of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi's health before he was freed on compassionate grounds — and the names of the doctors who made the assessment — to be made public.
James Kelly, community safety spokesman for the Labour Party in Scotland,
Source: AP
August 9, 2010
Monks in the southern Italian town that was home to Padre Pio say would-be thieves damaged a display case in a chapel holding some of the saint's relics.
Father Stefano Campanella told The Associated Press that after the attempted theft the relics, consisting of clumps of the Italian mystic's hair, fabric used to dry his bloody wounds, which some believers say were like those suffered by Christ, and a pair of his gloves, were taken to the monks' convent for safekeeping.
Source: CNN
August 9, 2010
One American president's legitimacy was questioned because he was accused of wearing women's underwear.
Another's qualifications were questioned because he got drunk at an inaugural ball.
A third president didn't belong in office because critics said his rich daddy stole the election.
A recent CNN poll revealed that one out of four Americans doubt that President Obama is a citizen. Many are "birthers" who believe he is an illegitimate president be
Source: CNN
August 9, 2010
Kim Shin Jo is a protestant minister - the gentle leader of his church. But the 69-year-old is best known by history as a trained killer.
Three decades ago, he and 30 others slipped from North Korea into Seoul to kill the South Korean president.
He was the face of evil and terror for a generation of Koreans - a North Korean commando fighter who came into Seoul to assassinate the South Korean president at the time, Park Jung Hee.
Kim later worked for the Sou
Source: Canada Free Press
August 8, 2010
We, who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young…..” “We Were Soldiers Once… and Young:” Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway (Random House -1992)
I will call him Jim—though that isn’t his real name. He is elderly now, a reserved gentleman who doesn’t speak much anymore about something that happened over half a century ago when he was a youth bo
Source: BBC News
August 8, 2010
In the Brazilian Amazon, long-forgotten workers drafted in to help the Allies in World War II are dreaming of a home they left when they were still in their teens.
Now in their mid-80s, they are awaiting the outcome of legal moves that may finally bring them the recognition and compensation they were promised 67 years ago.
In 1943, while the US, Britain and their allies were fighting on the battlefields of Europe, North Africa and the Far East, thousands of impoverished
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 6, 2010
Even Roald Dahl could not have dreamt up the horrifying series of events that rocked his family in the 1960s, just as his career was taking off. In an exclusive extract from his intimate new biography, his friend Donald Sturrock reveals the extent to which Dahl’s life was shaped by catastrophe - and why his wife called him 'Roald the Rotten’.
The year 1960 began calmly enough for Roald Dahl, but it would prove to be tumultuous in many ways. Kiss Kiss, his fourth collection of short
Source: AP
August 9, 2010
Israel's prime minister defended the deadly commando raid on an international flotilla protesting the Gaza blockade before an internal inquiry commission Monday, suggesting that Turkey had sought the violent confrontation on the high seas.
Benjamin Netanyahu told the commission that Ankara had rejected Israel's prior appeals to halt the flotilla and refused to intervene despite the prospect of violence between Israeli troops and the Turkish Islamic charity that organized the mission
Source: Fox News
August 9, 2010
CIA doctors who oversaw enhanced interrogation techniques violated medical ethics, researchers say.
A report out this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims that physicians in the CIA Office of Medical Services (OMS) violated medical ethical standards by approving and overseeing enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
"According to OMS guidelines, physicians and other health care professionals performed on-site medical evaluat
Source: BBC News
August 9, 2010
German police have shut down the Hamburg mosque where the 9/11 hijackers met before their suicide attacks on the US in 2001.
Police said they believed the Taiba mosque was again being used as a meeting point for extremists.
The cultural association that runs the mosque has also been banned.
A German intelligence report last year said radical Muslims had travelled to military training camps in Uzbekistan after associating at the mosque.
"We
Source: BBC News
August 9, 2010
Oscar-winning US actress Patricia Neal has died aged of 84 from lung cancer.
Neal won an Academy Award for her role in the 1963 film Hud, but gave up acting two years later at the age of 39 after suffering a series of strokes.
But she returned to the screen after rehabilitation to earn a further Oscar and several Emmy nominations.
The star, who was born in Tennessee, was married to author Roald Dahl for 30 years and is the grandmother of model and TV presen
Source: BBC News
August 9, 2010
Actress Mia Farrow has testified that model Naomi Campbell said she got a "huge diamond" from men sent by ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor.
Ms Farrow's testimony directly contradicts Ms Campbell's account that she received two or three stones and did not know who sent them.
Linking Mr Taylor to illegal "blood diamonds" is key to the prosecution's case at his war crimes trial in The Hague.
Mr Taylor denies all 11 charges.
Source: NYT
August 8, 2010
Most New York City mayors are typically booed at ballgames, but fortunately only one, William J. Gaynor, was wounded in an attempted assassination. It happened a century ago on Monday.
The bullet, fired by a disgruntled former municipal employee, remained lodged in Gaynor’s neck. Three years later, suffering from the lingering effects of the wound, he succumbed to a heart attack — the only mayor of modern New York to die in office.
Although nominated by the Tammany mach
Source: NYT
August 8, 2010
...India’s ability, or inability, in coming decades to improve the lives of the poor will very likely determine if it becomes a global economic power, and a regional rival to China, or if it continues to be compared with Africa in poverty surveys.
India vanquished food shortages during the 1960s with the Green Revolution, which introduced high-yield grains and fertilizers and expanded irrigation, and the country has had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past de
