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: AP
July 16, 2010
Italian police have recovered hundreds of ancient artifacts in their latest effort to crack down on the looting of art, and have looted art, and they chose a unique setting to display them Friday: the Colosseum.
The 337 pieces displayed in the ancient Roman arena include vases, bronze tools and marble statues of Venus, some dating as far back as the 8th century B.C.
Police said the pieces are worth some euro15 million (about $20 million) overall. They said the pieces we
Source: AP
July 16, 2010
After tens of thousands of years under the Siberian frost, a baby woolly mammoth is taking a summer vacation in southeast France.
Baby Khroma, one of the oldest intact mammoths ever found, went on display in a French museum Friday - after it underwent special tests to ensure it was no longer bearing the anthrax believed to have killed it.
Khroma is on display at the Musee Crozatier in Puy-en-Velay in a special cryogenic chamber kept at -18 degrees C (-0.40 Fahrenheit)..
Source: AP
July 16, 2010
The enigmatic smile remains a mystery, but French scientists say they have cracked a few secrets of the "Mona Lisa."
French researchers studied seven of the Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the "Mona Lisa," to analyze the master's use of successive ultrathin layers of paint and glaze — a technique that gave his works their dreamy quality.
Specialists from the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France found tha
Source: CNN
July 16, 2010
The British government called the freeing of the Lockerbie bomber a "mistake" Friday amid renewed questions over his release.
Britain's ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, said the government believes it was wrong to let Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi out of prison in August 2009 and return to his native Libya, but it was a decision taken by the Scottish executive, not the British government.
Scotland has its own government that is responsible
Source: CNN
July 16, 2010
...It was on this day 75 years ago that the first parking meter was installed.
And 75 long years later, these coin-gulping contraptions remain as despised as they were when the first 150 of them were put in place in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on July 16, 1935.
Concerned that parked cars -- that sometimes never moved for weeks -- were hurting downtown businesses, city officials were eager for a solution, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
E
Source: National Association of Scholars
July 16, 2010
PRINCETON, NJ (July 16, 2010)—This fall, Arizona voters must choose whether to vote for the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI). The National Association of Scholars (NAS) wants to help them decide. The NAS submitted an official argument in favor of AzCRI.
Sponsored by the American Civil Rights Initiative (ACRI) and its chairman Ward Conn
Source: WaPo
July 16, 2010
BP faced a new outcry Thursday about whether the Scottish and British governments sought to smooth BP's oil exploration contract talks with Libya by releasing prisoners, including the man convicted of bombing the Pan Am plane that went down over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. The bombing killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.
With the approach of the first anniversary of the Lockerbie bomber's release from a Scottish prison, several factors are feeding the new uproar, including
Source: NYT
July 14, 2010
In the middle of tomorrow, a great ribbed ghost has emerged from a distant yesterday.
On Tuesday morning, workers excavating the site of the underground vehicle security center for the future World Trade Center hit a row of sturdy, upright wood timbers, regularly spaced, sticking out of a briny gray muck flecked with oyster shells.
Obviously, these were more than just remnants of the wooden cribbing used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to extend the shoreline
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 15, 2010
Friday October 31 2003 dawned bitterly cold in Rome after a long Indian summer. Despite the weather, 77-year-old Libero Ricci, a retired interior decorator once employed by the Vatican, had no intention of missing his daily walk. Bundling up against the icy wind, Ricci said goodbye to his wife and son, with whom he lived in the south-western suburb of Magliana, pocketed his wallet and keys, and set off as usual after breakfast at 10am.
Robust and fit for his years, Ricci usually wal
Source: Telegraph (UK)
July 14, 2010
A 900-year-old drainage system has saved a city in south China from severe floods that have left over one hundred people dead and a million homeless across the region.
Torrential rain and flash floods have caused £1.9 billion of damage in China. Nearly forty people were killed this week alone in a series of landslides.
But the 100,000 residents of the ancient city of Ganzhou, in Jiangxi province, are safe and dry, thanks to two drains built during the Song dynasty (960
Source: The Art Newspaper
July 14, 2010
A large number of major works of art are now being sold by aristocratic British owners (see p1). All come from stately homes, most of which are open to the public. The list of major works is worth around £80m; add in lesser works and those being marketed discreetly, and the total could exceed £100m.
Duke of Devonshire
One of the surprise sales is from Chatsworth, a £10m bronze relief of Ugolino Imprisoned with his Sons and Grandsons (around 1549, right), by Leonardo’s n
Source: AFP
July 15, 2010
Musicologists funded by Abu Dhabi are roaming Islamic countries in search of lullabies and children's songs, one of the first projects of a centre that aims to preserve the musical heritage of the Muslim world.
The Al Ain Centre for Music in the World of Islam seeks to document, digitise and sustain the musical traditions of Muslim countries and Islamic communities anywhere in the world.
It also plans to help preserve the music of non-Islamic minorities in Muslim countr
Source: Newsweek
July 15, 2010
Mad Men, AMC’s critically acclaimed drama about the advertising men who ruled Madison Avenue in the 1960s (and the women who worked and lived with them), is coming back for its fourth season on July 25. Apart from making ’60s fashion and décor stylish again, the show offers a fascinating take on how some of the 20th century’s biggest brands became what they are today. In her new book,
Source: CHE
July 15, 2010
The University of Texas system's Board of Regents voted unanimously on Thursday to erase a painful reminder of the past by removing the name of a Ku Klux Klan leader and former law professor from a dormitory on the flagship campus here.
President William Powers Jr. recommended last Friday that the regents follow the suggestion of a 21-member review panel and rename Simkins Hall as Creekside Residence Hall.
The new name, which takes effect immediately, refers to the buil
Source: Ynet
July 15, 2010
In December 1939, four months after the beginning of World War II, Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky paid a visit to a retired 61-year-old British colonel.
The colonel, Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, served as an advisor at the War Office in London and knew Jabotinsky from his service in the British army in the Land of Israel after the Ottoman era in 1918.
The colonel documented his conversation with the Zionist leader in his private diary, which was published in London in
Source: AOL News
July 15, 2010
Amid a new U.S. furor over trading a terrorist for commercial considerations, BP confirmed today that it had lobbied the British government in late 2007 over a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya prior to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi.
The London-based petroleum giant said it had voiced concerns that the slow pace of negotiations risked impeding an offshore drilling deal with Moammar Gadhafi's North African country.
The company's statement
Source: BBC
July 15, 2010
Nelson Mandela's African National Congress is preparing to celebrate his 92nd birthday.
In a statement Thursday, South Africa's governing party said President Jacob Zuma and other ANC officials will visit Mandela on Saturday, the eve of his birthday, at his Johannesburg home.
On Mandela's birthday, ANC leaders will renovate a school in Mvezo, the southern South African village where Mandela was born....
Source: BBC
July 15, 2010
A court session in John Demjanjuk's (dehm-YAHN'-yuks) trial in Germany has been put off after the court's doctor said the 90-year-old was recovering from dehydration.
Dr. Albrecht Stein told the court Thursday that Demjanjuk had not been drinking enough during recent hot weather and needed intravenous fluids.
The former Ohio autoworker is being tried on 28,060 counts of accessory to murder over allegations he was a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp. He says he is a
Source: BBC
July 15, 2010
A senior Tanzanian defence lawyer at the UN-backed tribunal for Rwanda has been shot dead outside his home in Tanzania's main city of Dar es Salaam.
Jwani Mwaikusa, who also taught law at the University of Dar es Salaam, was killed as he drove into his compound on the outskirts of the town.
Police say his nephew and a neighbour were also killed on Tuesday night.
The attackers are reported to have ransacked the professor's car, taking a briefcase and some d
Source: BBC
July 15, 2010
The US Secretary of State is considering a request to examine whether BP lobbied the UK to try to secure the transfer of the Lockerbie bomber to Libya.
Hillary Clinton is looking at the request from four senators who claim the firm pressed for the release in the hope of securing an offshore oil deal.
BP has denied making any representations over his case.
The latest request cites newspaper reports claiming BP lobbied for Megrahi's release to safeguard an oi
