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: Ria Novosti
May 25, 2010
The Soviet leadership had at least two real chances to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but Stalin cancelled the plans over fears that Nazi Germany could strike a separate peace deal with the West, a retired Russian general said on Tuesday.
"A concrete plan to assassinate Hitler in his bunker was developed, but Stalin suddenly cancelled it in 1943 over fears that after Hitler's death his associates would conclude a separate peace treaty with Britain and the United States," Gen. (
Source: FrontPageMag
May 26, 2010
President Obama may soon discover his predecessor, George Bush, was more than correct in designating North Korea an “Axis of Evil” state.
As the United States announced on Monday it would conduct joint naval exercises with the South Korean navy in response to the sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago, North Korea, the nation deemed responsible for the disaster that cost 46 lives, raised tensions by putting its military forces on a war footing.
Asia Times repo
Source: The Root
May 21, 2010
"National Guard troops patrolled the streets of Chicago's Negro West Side last night and early today. For the first time in four nights there was no major violence in the riot-torn ghetto area."
That was the first paragraph of a New York Times article that ran on Saturday, July 16, 1966.
If Illinois state representatives John Fritchey (D-District 11) and LaShawn Ford (D-District 8) have their way, the scene could soon be ripped from today's headlines, of cours
Source: The Root
May 26, 2010
A handful of Malcolm X scholars say the 45-year-old mystery of who really pulled the trigger and killed the iconic black leader has been solved, and are wondering why the news media aren't giving it more attention.
Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a historian who writes for the Woodson Review and other publications of the respected Association for the Study of African American Life and History, identified the trigger man on his blog last month as William Bradley, about 72 years old, and known
Source: LA Times
May 26, 2010
Space shuttle Atlantis returned from orbit on its last scheduled voyage Wednesday, closing out a 25-year flying career and safely bringing back six astronauts who boosted the International Space Station's power and size.
The smooth landing was indicative of the entire 12-day mission -- NASA's third-to-last shuttle flight.
"That was pretty sweet," Mission Control radioed after Atlantis glided through a clear morning sky and rolled down the runway. "That wa
Source: AP
May 25, 2010
An archaeological dig has uncovered thousands of pieces of slave pottery and other artifacts at an industrial site on the South Carolina coast.
The Post and Courier of Charleston reports that archeologists digging at the Berkeley County site found 58,000 pieces of colonoware, a handmade pottery crafted by slaves. Officials say it is one of the largest concentrations ever found in the country.
Other artifacts include bone buttons, silver coins, pipe stems and porcelain d
Source: AKI
May 25, 2010
An ancient Etruscan home dating back more than 2,400 years has been discovered outside Grosseto in central Italy. Hailed as an exceptional find, the luxury home was uncovered at an archeological site at Vetulonia, 200 kilometres north of Rome.
Archeologists say it is rare to find an Etruscan home intact and believe the home was built between the 3rd and 1st century BC.
Using six Roman and Etruscan coins uncovered at the home, archeologists believe the house collapsed i
Source: New Zealand Herald
May 25, 2010
New Zealand has lost one of its World War II flying aces, Flight Lieutenant Peter Francis Locker Hall, who has died in England aged 88.
The former teacher was credited with shooting down eight German aircraft while based in Britain as a pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force's 488 squadron of Mosquito fighter planes.
After returning from a mission over Europe on one engine in an aircraft damaged by flying debris, Flight Lieutenant Hall (left) and his British navigat
Source: AP
May 25, 2010
The castle on the Hudson River is crumbling.
One of the stranger sights on the river, Bannerman's island castle is a high-walled ruin topped with turrets that looks like it was built to repel catapult attacks. In reality, the century-old structure off the river's eastern shore was a warehouse for bayonets, pith helmets, rifles and other military relics.
The island has had a second life in recent years as a summer tourist attraction. Visitors — many who know the castle f
Source: AP
May 24, 2010
In the coffee shop at this farming village on the northern Cyprus coast, the conversation jumps from one hardship to the next: a bad rainy season, a religion weakened by assimilation, and a division of the island that has lasted 36 years with no end in sight.
For Cyprus' Maronites, followers of one of the oldest Catholic faiths, the best news of late has been the announcement that Pope Benedict XVI is coming to Cyprus next week — the first pontiff to visit the island.
K
Source: AP
May 19, 2010
When chunks of plaster began falling from the ceiling of the national cathedral of African Methodism last year, one of Washington's oldest black congregations nearly had to abandon its sanctuary.
Instead, the people of Metropolitan A.M.E. Church — where member Frederick Douglass gave his last speech in 1894 and where a pew bears his name — have begun emergency repairs. They brought in scaffolding to block falling debris, and now they worship under yellow construction lights.
Source: LA Times
May 14, 2010
A leading Jewish human rights organization says that comparing Arizona's tough new immigration law with Nazi Germany is "inappropriate and irresponsible."
The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles issued a statement this week expressing its opposition to the Arizona law but denouncing the use of language about the Holocaust, saying there was no need to "demonize opponents, even when they are mistaken, to those whose actions led to history's most notorious crime."
Source: AZcentral.com
May 24, 2010
Republican Senate challenger J.D. Hayworth recently bungled World War II history by asserting at a recent meeting with Republicans in Phoenix that the United States never declared war on Adolf Hitler's Germany.
In remarks captured on a YouTube video, Hayworth, a former Arizona congressman, flatly says, "We never formally declared war on Hitler's Germany, and yet we fought the war."
That's incorrect. You can read the formal Dec. 11, 1941, U.S. declaration of wa
Source: Connecticut Post
May 24, 2010
A Greenwich woman continuing to fight for the return of two 500-year-old paintings seized by Nazis during World War II, currently on display at a California museum, has received the support of that state's attorney general in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a friend-of-the-court brief last week asking the court to consider an appeal by Marei von Saher, who unsuccessfully sued the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena for the paintings in
Source: Boston Globe
May 25, 2010
Past clapboard houses with white fences, in a tree-filled yard next to the local high school is an unusual sight: a large sign painted to look like a Confederate flag.
In most other parts of the country the flag is a searingly divisive symbol of racial segregation. But here, it is also a display of pride for the Walpole High School Rebels.
For years, Confederate flags filled the bleachers at football games while fans sang “Dixie,’’ the Old South anthem. Yearbooks were e
Source: NYT
May 24, 2010
It is now growing season across the Corn Belt of the United States. Seeds that have just been sown will, with the right mixture of sunshine and rain, be knee-high plants by the Fourth of July and tall stalks with ears ripe for picking by late August.
Corn is much more than great summer picnic food, however. Civilization owes much to this plant, and to the early people who first cultivated it.
For most of human history, our ancestors relied entirely on hunting animals
Source: AP
May 25, 2010
Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago.
The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archaeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire anne
Source: AOL News
May 25, 2010
The CIA had a bag of dirty tricks ready for Saddam Hussein in preparation of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq that included making him look like a pedophile. It also had something similar planned for Osama bin Laden.
The Washington Post blog Spy Talk, citing former CIA officials, said one devious tactic involved creating a video showing the Iraqi strongman purportedly having sex with a teenage boy.
The ex-CIA officials said the idea was then to "flood Iraq with t
Source: BBC
May 25, 2010
An advert for a clothing shop that features Adolf Hitler dressed in pink has provoked outraged reactions in Italy.
The posters were put up in the city of Palermo in Sicily, with the caption: "Change your style. Don't follow your leader".
The swastika on Hitler's armband has been replaced by a heart.
But the local association of wartime resistance fighters said the adverts were offensive to those who had fought fascism.
Source: BBC
May 25, 2010
Authorities in Greece have arrested a Swiss man and a Greek Orthodox deacon suspected of trafficking hundreds of bones to be sold as religious relics.
The Swiss man was detained at Thessaloniki airport when 197 bones and three skulls were found in his luggage.
He said he had received them from the deacon, who was found to be holding hundreds more bones when he was held north-east of Thessaloniki.
The bones that the 43-year-old Swiss man was carrying were
