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: USA Today
May 19, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI's legacy will be shaped by his response to the explosive global clergy sex-abuse crisis, say two Catholic authors who detail and defend his record in a book published this week.
The Vatican and Benedict are accused of "acts of neglect, cover-up, and disregard for the plight of the victims," they write. Pope Benedict XVI and the Sexual Abuse Crisis: Working for Reform and Renewal is their rebuttal.
Greg Erlandson, head of the Catholic publishi
Source: Montreal Gazette
May 18, 2010
The portrait of a middle-aged man — an oil-on-wood painting once used as a serving tray — is likely the image of Leonardo da Vinci done by the master himself, says a panel of experts that includes a Calgary art historian.
A dozen of scientists and David Bershad, an art history professor at St. Mary's University College, agree. The image of a man with blue eyes, long greying hair and a moustache appears to be a self-portrait of the renowned Renaissance artist, inventor and thinker.
Source: SF Chronicle
May 19, 2010
The Texas Board of Education's conservative members are going on the deep end. As the one of the largest buyers of textbooks in the country, the board wants to change and re-write the history books. Smaller states who have no textbook buying power would essentially have to read and study the new Texas version of history.
The changes are ideological and distort history, but conservative Board of Education argue they are correcting a long-standing liberal bias in education. Read the r
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 20, 2010
Some of the country's most historic cathedrals could fall into serious disrepair because of the recession, senior figures within the church said.
The warning came as Lincoln Cathedral launched a public campaign to raise £2.5million to fund badly needed restoration works to its west side.
It is 100 years since the two west facing turrets were restored and last winter's freezing conditions have only led to further decay and cracking in the stone work....
Source: Reuters
May 20, 2010
A library book borrowed by the first U.S. president, George Washington, has been returned to a New York City's oldest library, 221 years late.
Washington checked out the book from the New York Society Library at a time when the library shared a building with the federal government in lower Manhattan.
The library said in a statement that its borrowing records, or charging ledger, showed Washington took out "The Law of Nations" by Emer de Vattel on October 5, 17
Source: MyFoxDC
May 19, 2010
A new movie theater in Fredericksburg has painted over a Confederate flag from a mural after it received complaints.
The Muvico theater includes a Civil-War themed bar and a mural that was painted on a wall of an outside seating area. The mural depicted a U.S. flag on one side, a Confederate flag on the other, and stars, an eagle and other adornments....
Source: AP
May 18, 2010
John Demjanjuk has been sent to a clinic for tests after complaining of heart pains before the opening of a session of his trial on charges of serving as a Nazi camp guard....
Source: Ria Novosti
May 17, 2010
Russia on Monday accused the European Court of Human Rights of going along with people who seek to rehabilitate Nazis by upholding Latvia's appeal in the case of a Soviet World War II veteran.
Vasily Kononov, 87, who led a group of resistance fighters against Nazi Germany in the Baltic state during World War II, was jailed by Latvia in 1998 after he was convicted of ordering the killing of nine villagers in 1944. He admitted to the killings, but said the dead were Nazi collaborators
Source: Times-News (TN)
May 18, 2010
KINGSPORT — The days of the rebel flag on the campus of Sullivan South High School could be numbered, or at least limited.
Because of a recent complaint about the rebel flag, Sullivan County Director of Schools Jack Barnes said a special committee at the school will examine the issue and may make recommendations in what Barnes called a proactive approach to the matter.
“We’ve had a complaint,” Barnes said.
“We’re investigating it,” Barnes said. “There has b
Source: The Evening Sun (PA)
May 18, 2010
A permit was granted late Monday afternoon for the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations to hold a rally at the Gettysburg National Military Park, according to park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon.
Aryan Nations - which identifies itself as a white-supremacist organization and has been called a "continuing terrorist threat" by the FBI - will hold the rally on June 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. on the park's lawn west of the Cyclorama Center, according to the group's website.
"Bec
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 15, 2010
A British granddad has been credited with killing dreaded German tank ace the 'Black Baron', a claim which could end a mystery which has lasted for more than half a century.
New evidence has emerged which allegedly shows Joe Ekins, 86, fired the fatal blast which ended the reign of terror of Nazi Germany's most feared tank gunner Michael Wittmann.
Historians argued for decades over who killed the Black Baron after the Canadian army, Polish forces and the RAF each claim
Source: Guardian (UK)
May 16, 2010
British scientists experimented with ways of spreading foot-and-mouth disease, and lethal infections such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid in secret biological warfare trials during the second world war.
An extensive list of the contagious agents and plagues that could be turned into weapons of mass destruction is revealed in files from a War Cabinet committee released to the National Archives.
The government was known to have produced 5m anthrax-filled cakes to infect
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 14, 2010
Men evolved manly jawlines and thick brows because they used to fight for women in the past, claim anthropologists
anthropologists.
Winning a mate used to depend only on physical prowess and men with the strongest jawline and thickest skulls were better able to survive onslaughts from love rivals.
That meant that over time all men developed thicker bones in the jaws, around the eyes and on the forehead than women.
They also developed a greater propor
Source: CNN.com
May 18, 2010
The United Kingdom has "no doubt" about its sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, a British government minister said Tuesday.
The response comes after Argentine President Cristina Kirchner requested new talks with Britain over the disputed islands, which lie off Argentina's coast in the South Atlantic.
Speaking at a summit in Spain for countries of Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, British Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne said British sovereignty i
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 19, 2010
The president of Ukraine was knocked on the head by an over-size wreath during a Second World War memorial ceremony, in a clip that has gone viral on the internet.
Viktor Yanukovych had just paid his respects to the war dead by bowing in front off the wreath when it was caught by a gust of wind.
The 8ft display came loose from its base and blew with some force directly into the Ukrainian president, who was attending the event with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvede
Source: San Antonio Express-News
May 18, 2010
NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous and former U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige plan to testify today against new history curriculum standards, contending Texas schoolchildren won't get a full understanding of the Civil War and subsequent struggles of minorities if the State Board of Education approves the proposal at a final vote set for Friday.
More than 200 people have signed up to speak during the public hearing that will cap months of contentious debate over new social stud
Source: AP
May 18, 2010
Don McLeroy helped make the State Board of Education a lightning rod this year with his ideological approach to rewriting social studies standards for Texas schools.
McLeroy, the most outspoken member of the board's conservative wing, has pushed for standards that reflect conservative Christian values. Although he lost his bid for re-election in the March primary, he has refused to go quietly and still hopes to leave his stamp on the state's social studies curriculum with a series o
Source: AP
May 19, 2010
Work crews in Cyprus have accidentally unearthed four rare clay coffins estimated to be some 2,000 years old, the country's Antiquities Department director said Wednesday.
Maria Hadjicosti said the coffins adorned with floral patterns date from the east Mediterranean island's Hellenistic to early Roman periods, between 300 B.C. and 100 A.D.
Hadjicosti said similar coffins dating from the same period have been discovered. Two such coffins are on display in the capital's
Source: Discovery News
May 19, 2010
The scraps of ancient bandages -- some with dirty fingerprints of Tut's embalmers -- had been contained in long forgotten jars at a New York museum.
King Tutankhamun's mummy was wrapped in custom-made bandages similar to modern first aid gauzes, an exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has revealed.
For a century, the narrow linen bandages were contained in a rather overlooked cache of large ceramic jars at the museum's Department of Egyptian Art. The coll
Source: BBC
May 19, 2010
An Anglo-Saxon settlement has been discovered on the site of the new All Saints' Academy in Cheltenham.
Two skeletons, pottery and a large timber hall, all thought to date back to between the 6th to 8th Century, have been uncovered.
Steve Sheldon, of Cotswold Archaeology, said it was previously thought the area did not succumb to Saxon control during that period.
He said the settlement was one of the best finds of his career.
