Breaking News

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: WaPo
2-5-13

Knights of Malta marks 900 years

ROME — Matthew Festing — aka His Most Eminent Highness The Prince and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta — bounds into the sitting room of his magnificent Renaissance palazzo sweaty and somewhat disheveled, and asks an aide if he should take off his sweater to be photographed.Garrulous and self-effacing, Festing embodies some of the paradoxes of a fabled Catholic religious order that dates from the medieval Crusades: Steeped in European nobility and mystique, the order’s mission is humility and charity — running hospitals, ambulance services and old folks’ homes around the globe. It has many trappings of a country, printing its own stamps, coins, license plates and passports, and yet — a stateless state — it rules over no territory....

Source: WaPo
2-4-13

Thurmond’s mixed-race daughter dies

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the mixed-race daughter of onetime segregationist senator Strom Thurmond who kept her parentage secret for more than 70 years, has died. She was 87.Vann Dozier of Leevy’s Funeral Home in Columbia said Washington-Williams died Sunday. A cause of death was not given.Washington-Williams was the daughter of Thurmond and his family’s black maid. The identity of her famous father was rumored for decades in political circles and the black community. She later said she kept his secret because, “He trusted me, and I respected him.”...

Source: Yahoo News
1-31-13

Ancient petroglyphs stolen from California site recovered

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four ancient petroglyphs that were stolen from a historic site in Northern California last year have been recovered, but no suspects have been identified in the brazen theft, federal authorities said on Thursday.The petroglyphs, which were carved into volcanic rock more than 3,500 years ago, were discovered missing in October from the site in the Volcanic Tablelands, east of Yosemite, near California's border with Nevada.They are said to represent a pristine example of Great Basin rock art that portrayed the daily hunter-gatherer activities that took place in the area at the time....

Source: Fox News
2-4-13

Break in Black Dahlia case?

A former LAPD detective who believes his father killed the "Black Dahlia" 66 years ago claims a cadaver dog's recent search of his old Hollywood home uncovered the scent of human decomposition.The severed body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short -- nicknamed the Black Dhalia in media reports at the time -- was found on Jan. 15, 1947, in a vacant lot near the intersection of 39th Street and Norton Avenue in South Los Angeles. Nearly seven decades later, the infamous case remains unsolved.Author Steve Hodel made the claim in his 2003 book, "Black Dahlia Avenger," that his father, Los Angeles doctor George Hill Hodel, committed the murder. Hodel has said he believes his father killed Short at the historic "Sowden House" in Hollywood where the family lived at the time....

Source: BBC News
2-5-13

Richard III facial reconstruction

A facial reconstruction based on the skull of Richard III has revealed how the English king may have looked.The king's skeleton was found under a car park in Leicester during an archaeological dig.The reconstructed face has a slightly arched nose and prominent chin, similar to features shown in portraits of Richard III painted after his death.Historian and author John Ashdown-Hill said seeing it was "almost like being face to face with a real person"....

Source: BBC News
2-5-13

Last-stand Neanderthals queried

We may need to look again at the idea that a late Neanderthal population existed in southern Spain as recently as 35,000 years ago, a study suggests.Scientists using a "more reliable" form of radiocarbon dating have re-assessed fossils from the region and found them to be far older than anyone thought.The work appears in the journal PNAS.Its results have implications for when and where we - modern humans - might have co-existed with our evolutionary "cousins", the Neanderthals....

Source: AP
2/4/13

Postal Service honors Rosa Parks with new stamp

Hundreds of people, including some of Michigan's political elite, gathered Monday to celebrate the late Rosa Parks on what would have been her 100th birthday by unveiling a postage stamp in her honor steps from the Alabama bus on which she stared down segregation nearly 60 years ago.Parks, who died in 2005, became one of the enduring figures of the Civil Rights movement when she refused to cede her seat in the colored section of the Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man after the whites-only section filled up. Her defiance and the ensuing black boycott of the city bus system helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rise to national prominence...The Parks stamp is the second in a set of civil rights stamps being issued this year by the U.S. Postal Service.USPS launched the series Jan. 1 with the Emancipation Proclamation Forever Stamp, which was issued at The National Archives in Washington. In August, the series will culminate with the dedication of a stamp recognizing the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington...

Source: NYT
2-4-13

Darwin’s birds get new look

In 1855, Charles Darwin took up a new hobby. He started raising pigeons....Pigeon breeding, Darwin argued, was an analogy for what happened in the wild. Nature played the part of the fancier, selecting which individuals would be able to reproduce. Natural selection might work more slowly than human breeders, but it had far more time to produce the diversity of life around us.Yet to later generations of biologists, pigeons were of little more interest than they are to, say, New Yorkers. Attention shifted to other species, like fruit flies and E. coli.Now Michael D. Shapiro, a biologist at the University of Utah, is returning pigeons to the spotlight....

Source: Tablet
1-29-13

Hitler’s Toilet Is in New Jersey

Florence, N.J., isn’t too different from other small towns in the Garden State, one marked, if anything, by a slew of very ordinary sights—chain flower shops at every major intersection, decidedly lower gas prices, and a few cozy diners. But it is also home to something else, acquired by Greg Kohfeldt when he bought Sam Carlani’s auto-repair shop here almost 20 years ago: Adolf Hitler’s toilet.

Source: Bloomberg News
1-27-13

Nazi Goebbels’ step-grandchildren are hidden billionaires

In the spring of 1945, Harald Quandt, a 23-year-old officer in the German Luftwaffe, was being held as a prisoner of war by Allied forces in the Libyan port city of Benghazi when he received a farewell letter from his mother, Magda Goebbels -- the wife of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels....Quandt was released from captivity in 1947. Seven years later, he and his half-brother Herbert -- Harald was the only remaining child from Magda Goebbels’ first marriage -- would inherit the industrial empire built by their father, Guenther Quandt, which had produced Mauser firearms and anti-aircraft missiles for the Third Reich’s war machine. Among their most valuable assets at the time was a stake in car manufacturer Daimler AG. (DAI) They bought a part of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) a few years later....

Source: Yahoo News
2-4-13

Richard III's body found

LEICESTER, England (AP) — He wore the English crown, but he ended up defeated, humiliated and reviled.Now things are looking up for King Richard III. Scientists announced Monday that they had found the monarch's 500-year-old remains under a parking lot in the city of Leicester — a discovery Richard's fans say will inspire new research into his maligned history.University of Leicester researchers say tests on a battle-scarred skeleton unearthed last year prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that it is the king, who died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and whose remains have been missing for centuries....

Source: AP
2-2-13

Most popular page visited after arriving at War of 1812 website? The exit

OTTAWA - The splashy home pages for the Harper government's elaborate War of 1812 website were by far the most popular feature for visitors who crowded into the online museum last year, thanks to an ad blitz during the Olympics.The next most popular page? The exit.The government spent upwards of $28 million to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, billing it as an under-appreciated piece of Canadian history.Indeed, polls conducted in the years prior to the anniversary suggested most Canadians had little knowledge or interest in the conflict that some argue lay the groundwork for Confederation....

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
2-4-13

Jutland survivor to get a facelift

It is the last remaining survivor of the 1916 Battle of Jutland with its glory days far behind it.But now, the future of this historically significant war ship looks decidedly brighter.HMS Caroline has been given a grant of £1million for urgent repairs.The vital money will pay for work that will prevent further decay to the Belfast-based light cruiser while plans are finalised for its long-term future in the city.Works will include making the ship wind and water tight and incorporate the removal of dangerous asbestos while the ship is in situ and afloat....

Source: Fox News
2-2-13

Lincoln museum exhibits iconic stovepipe hat amid unanswered questions of origin

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is re-displaying a stovepipe hat synonymous with the country’s 16th president, amid renewed speculation about its authenticity.The purported $6.5 million hat is being put on display to mark Lincoln’s 204th birthday.Questions about the origin of the iconic hat were raised last spring by the Chicago Sun-Times.The description next to the hat reads that only three of the stovepipe hats are known to exist "two silk ones from his last days of life, and this."...

Source: Taegan Goddard's Politicalwire
2-2-13

Obamacare = Holocaust?

As the debate over Idaho's proposed state health insurance exchange heats up, state Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll (R) compared the role of insurance companies to "the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps," saying the federal government is using private insurers and in the future will "pull the trigger" on them, the Idaho Spokesman-Review reports.Nuxoll defended the analogy: "I felt badly for the Jews - it wasn't just Jews, but Jews, and Christians, and Catholics, and priests. My thing was they didn't know what was going on. The insurance companies are not realizing what's going to end up in their demise."

Source: PR Newswire
1-30-13

Maya Angelou hosts Black History Month program for public radio

CHICAGO, Jan.

Source: ABC News
1-31-13

Columbia shuttle crew not told of possible problem with reentry

What would you tell seven astronauts if you knew their space shuttle was crippled on orbit?It was a question that faced NASA's Mission Control considered after initial suspicions that something might be wrong with the shuttle Columbia as it was making its doomed reentry in 2003.Wayne Hale, who later became space shuttle program manager, struggled with this question after the deaths of the Columbia crew 10 years ago. Recently he wrote about the debate in his blog, recalling a meeting to discuss the dilemma:"After one of the MMTs (Mission Management Team) when possible damage to the orbiter was discussed, he (Flight Director Jon Harpold) gave me his opinion: 'You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS (Thermal Protection System). If it has been damaged it's probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don't you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing that there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?"...

Source: ScienceDaily
1-30-13

Study rebuts hypothesis that comets destroyed Clovis culture

Jan. 30, 2013 — Rebutting a speculative hypothesis that comet explosions changed Earth's climate sufficiently to end the Clovis culture in North America about 13,000 years ago, Sandia lead author Mark Boslough and researchers from 14 academic institutions assert that other explanations must be found for the apparent disappearance."There's no plausible mechanism to get airbursts over an entire continent," said Boslough, a physicist. "For this and other reasons, we conclude that the impact hypothesis is, unfortunately, bogus."In a December 2012 American Geophysical Union monograph, first available in January, the researchers point out that no appropriately sized impact craters from that time period have been discovered, nor have any unambiguously "shocked" materials been found....

Source: University of Texas
1-30-13

Aztec conquest altered Mexican genetics

AUSTIN, Texas — For centuries, the fate of the original Otomí inhabitants of Xaltocan, the capital of a pre-Aztec Mexican city-state, has remained unknown. Researchers have long wondered whether they assimilated with the Aztecs or abandoned the town altogether.According to new anthropological research from The University of Texas at Austin, Wichita State University and Washington State University, the answers may lie in DNA. Following this line of evidence, the researchers theorize that some original Otomies, possibly elite rulers, may have fled the town. Their exodus may have led to the reorganization of the original residents within Xaltocan, or to the influx of new residents, who may have intermarried with the Otomí population.Using ancient DNA (aDNA) sampling, Jaime Mata-Míguez, an anthropology graduate student and lead author of the study, tracked the biological comings and goings of the Otomí people following the incorporation of Xaltocan into the Aztec empire. The study, published in American Journal of Physical Anthropology, is the first to provide genetic evidence for the anthropological cold case....

Source: NYT
1-30-13

History-rich Georgia island wins second look on taxes

DARIEN, Ga. — Residents of a tiny barrier island in Georgia on Tuesday won a temporary reprieve from property tax increases that they feared would drive them from their historic community.Taxes rose by as much as 1,000 percent last year on Sapelo Island, where the country’s largest population of Geechees lives. Sometimes called the Gullahs, the Creole-speaking descendants of African slaves have lived on the island and along the coast of the Southeast for more than two centuries.McIntosh County officials say their land has long been undervalued. But on Tuesday, the county’s Board of Equalization sided with the residents and ordered a reassessment of their property....