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: Daily Mail (UK)
June 11, 2010
Families of victims killed in the Bloody Sunday shootings reacted angrily today to claims the £200million probe has found soldiers were guilty of unlawful killing.
There were calls for the relatives of people who died to be shown more respect after the suggestion ahead of the official publication of the inquiry's report next week.
The claim raised the prospect of prosecutions of British soldiers nearly 40 years after the demonstration in Londonderry that cost the lives
Source: WSJ
June 11, 2010
The U.S. Army forced out the top two officials at Arlington National Cemetery Thursday after a seven-month investigation uncovered widespread mismanagement of the military's most hallowed burial ground, including at least 211 graves that were either unmarked or had mismarked headstones.
Only two of the graves involved soldiers killed in the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Lt. Gen. Steven Whitcomb, the Army's inspector general; those two were mismarked and quick
Source: WSJ
June 11, 2010
Rudi Coel scowled at the sight of the Thai restaurant advertising "Takeaway."
"We're in Flanders, so that should say 'Meenemengerechten,' " said the 50-year-old social worker, using the proper Dutch word.
The euro zone is in turmoil, and Belgium's heavy government debts are drawing comparisons with those of Greece. But the main issue before Belgians in their general election Sunday speaks to a much deeper concern here: language....
The s
Source: AP
June 8, 2010
The widow of legendary marine explorer Jacques Cousteau said Tuesday she is trying to relaunch the commandant's iconic ship the Calypso — sunk, badly damaged and now in rehab — in time to mark the centennial of his birth.
Aboard the Calypso, Cousteau unlocked the mysteries of the sea for tens of millions of TV viewers in the 1960s and 1970s with his riveting documentary series, "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau."
Francine Cousteau and the Cousteau Societ
Source: AP
June 8, 2010
A letter by 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes that languished unnoticed in a U.S. college library for more than a century has been restored to France.
The president of Haverford College — which has had the letter since 1902 — handed over the plastic-covered missive at a ceremony Tuesday at Paris' Institut de France.
The 1641 letter had been donated to Haverford, near Philadelphia, by the widow of an alumnus and remained in the college library, unnoticed by
Source: AP
June 8, 2010
Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, considered by many as the world's foremost authority on the biblical book of Leviticus, has died. He was 87.
Milgrom wrote a three-volume series on Leviticus, interpreting Jewish dietary and purification rituals as well as the Bible's position on homosexuality. He concluded the ban on homosexuality applies only to Jewish men.
Relatives say he died on Sunday at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem of a brain hemorrhage after a fall....
Source: AP
June 8, 2010
A cave complex boasting prized prehistoric paintings will reopen after eight years of closure, despite scientists' warnings that heat and moisture from human visitors damage the site known as the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.
The Culture Ministry and the site's board of directors said Tuesday that visits to the Caves of Altamira in the northern Cantabria region will resume next year, although on a still-unspecified, restricted basis.
The main chamber at Altamira fe
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 8, 2010
A dress which catapulted the Princess of Wales on to the world stage when she wore it just weeks after becoming engaged has sold for £192,000.
The 19-year-old, then Lady Diana Spencer, wore the black taffeta dress to a black-tie benefit event at Goldsmiths' Hall in the City in March 1981 - her first official engagement with her fiance the Prince of Wales.
The dress, which had been expected to sell for around £50,000, was bought at an auction in London today by a fashi
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 8, 2010
A stellar line up of musical stars are used to entertain astronauts while they are on space missions, Nasa has revealed.
The US space agency plays an array of different music to its spacemen to keep them cheerful during the lonely days and weeks on a mission.
The usually serious ground control play them everything from The Beatles' Here Comes the Sun as the spacemen wake up to Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon as they set off.
They have also played Wa
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 8, 2010
Rare photos have emerged of Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il who seems certain to inherit power in the communist state's second dynastic succession.
Larking about with classmates and making playful V-signs for the camera, the boy who is now tipped to be the next leader of the hermit dictatorship of North Korea appears not to have a care in the world.
These photographs purportedly of Kim Jong-un, the reclusive third son of North Korea's
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 8, 2010
A judge in Rwanda has refused bail to a US lawyer charged with denying the 1994 genocide and publishing articles threatening Rwanda's security.
Peter Erlinder arrived in Rwanda last month to help defend opposition leader Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza on charges of promoting genocide ideology.
The US has called on the Rwandan authorities to release Mr Erlinder, who has denied all the charges....
Source: AOL News
June 8, 2010
President Barack Obama joined a long line of chief executives who have used profanity and tough words when he told Matt Lauer this morning on the "Today" show that he was talking to experts on the BP oil spill "so I know whose ass to kick."
Still, Obama's words were relatively mild compared with Vice President Joseph Biden gleefully dropping the F-word at the signing of health care reform, or his predecessor, Dick Cheney, who unrepentantly told a Democratic lawm
Source: AFP
June 6, 2010
The US Marine Corps veteran has returned to this mountain near the key Vietnam War battle site of Khe Sanh to help a group of United States military investigators pinpoint the site where remains of a Marine could be found.
Since the end of US combat involvement in 1973, 655 Americans listed as missing during the war have been repatriated from Vietnam and identified but 1,313 remain unaccounted for, the US says.
It is the job of the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting
Source: New York Post
December 31, 2069
A sarcophagus sharing space with ancient terra cotta urns, bronze sculptures of Indian deities and a 2,700-year-old drinking vessel may not seem all that unusual in New York City.
But this is not a room at an august museum or fancy Madison Avenue gallery.
These antiquities and art objects — some 2,500 pieces — are wrapped up and tucked away in a nondescript Queens warehouse. In a locked and climate-controlled storage unit, the treasures sit as potential evidence in smu
Source: AP
June 8, 2010
Massachusetts teacher cleaning up her classroom in preparation for a move has discovered a Colonial-era document buried in a pile of outdated textbooks and dusty scraps of papers.
Michelle Eugenio, a fourth-grade teacher in Peabody, Mass., found the yellowed sheet of paper two weeks ago. Dated April 1792 and protected by plastic, it appears to document the payment of a debt by a Vermont man named Jonathan Bates.
Peabody Historical Society President Bill Power verified t
Source: Ottawa Citizen
June 6, 2010
As Canada prepares to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812, a historian is urging long-overdue recognition for a "virtually unknown" hero whose stunning exploits during the "pivotal" Battle of Stoney Creek, he says, should rank Sgt. Alexander Fraser alongside Isaac Brock and Laura Secord as a saviour of the nation.
James Elliott, an author and journalist from Hamilton, recently published the most comprehensive account so far of the June 1813 battle on the Nia
Source: AP
June 9, 2010
Incan artifacts removed from Machu Picchu nearly a century ago and held by Yale University belong to the people of Peru, U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd said Wednesday.
Peru has had a lawsuit pending in federal court in Connecticut since 2008 demanding Yale return artifacts taken by scholar Hiram Bingham III between 1911 and 1915. Yale says it returned dozens of boxes of artifacts in 1921 and that Peru knew it would retain some.
Dodd, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 9, 2010
Pope Pius XII personally wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War to beg him to spare Rome from bombing.
A newly disclosed letter has unveiled the extent of the Vatican's anguish over Allied raids on the city and its cultural and architectural treasures.
The British and Americans began raids on Rome on May 16, 1943. One of the heaviest raids was on July 19, 1943, when more than 500 Allied aircraft bombed railway freight yards, steel factori
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 9, 2010
An ultrasound picture of Jesus in the womb - complete with halo - is to be used for a Christmas advertising campaign.
The ChurchAds.net image, with the words ''He's on his way'' is the latest in a series of Christian Christmas advertising campaigns and follows an image last year of the nativity as a bus stop....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
June 9, 2010
The "commoner" who is to marry Sweden's crown princess next week has artistocratic roots, according to a new book.
Daniel Westling has been mocked for his provincial roots and country accent, and has undergone careful grooming by courtiers, language tutors and a public relations agency ahead of his wedding later this month to Crown Princess Victoria.
Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustav was reportedly initially hostile to the idea of his 32-year-old daughter marryi
