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: AP
7-9-12

Arafat's widow wants probe into his death

PARIS (AP) -- The widow of Yasser Arafat will file a legal complaint in France asking authorities to investigate her husband's death, about which she has recently raised new suspicions, her lawyer said Tuesday.Palestinian authorities gave final approval this week for the former Palestinian leader's body to be exhumed and asked for an international investigation into his 2004 death in a French military hospital.That came on the heels of a broadcast last week by Arab satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera, which said it had conducted a nine-month investigation into the leader's death after his widow, Suha, handed over Arafat's medical file and what she said was a duffel bag of his belongings. Included in the bag were a fur hat and a woolen cap with some of his hair, a toothbrush, and clothing with his urine and blood stains....

Source: NYT
7-9-12

Ship’s Wake Damages Gangway at Intrepid Museum

A long-decommissioned submarine faced an unusual adversary early Sunday — the wake from a huge cruise ship that was trying to dock at a nearby Hudson River pier.The wake rocked the submarine, the Growler, which has been one of the exhibits at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, at West 46th Street, since 1989.According to a spokeswoman for the museum, a gangway leading to the Growler was damaged when the cruise ship, the Norwegian Star, fired up its thrusters. The spokeswoman did not provide further details, and the Growler was open to visitors on Sunday.The retired aircraft carrier Intrepid, the centerpiece of the museum, was not affected....

Source: NYT
7-9-12

Germany and France celebrate their bond

PARIS — Fifty years to the day after Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle shook hands in a gesture of reconciliation intended to put an end to a century of war and enmity, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany came to the same place, Reims Cathedral, on Sunday to commemorate French-German friendship with François Hollande, the new French president.

Source: NYT
7-8-12

Hitler Drove This Mercedes. Or Did He?

“This is the one,” said Zenop Tuncer, leading the way to a corner of his car repair and restoration shop, where he had parked a rusty, aged hulk with running boards, an old-fashioned vacuum-tube radio and a history — though maybe not the history he thought.The car is a 1942 Mercedes 320 Cabriolet D. Mr. Tuncer said it ran nicely when it arrived, but the body and the interior needed work, so he had called Mercedes-Benz to order parts. “As soon as I gave them the VIN number,” he said, using the abbreviation for vehicle identification number, “there were a lot of calls from Mercedes: ‘That’s Hitler’s car.’//” (The 10-digit number in question was actually the car’s factory number, or serial number.)“In those years,” said Mr. Tuncer, whose shop is in Edgewater, N.J., “Mercedes was building cars for him and his staff. Mercedes was only for the top generals.” ...But Adam Paige, a Mercedes spokesman, checked with an expert at the company’s archives in Stuttgart, Germany, who cast doubt on the Hitler connection, at least with this particular car...

Source: NYT
7-9-12

At Internment Camp, Exploring Choices of the Past

TULELAKE, Calif. — Under a cloud-filled sky, the Japanese-American pilgrims sat on folding chairs facing a vast, flat and dusty landscape whose monotony was broken only by two oddly shaped mountains that rose to the east and west. For the souls of the hundreds buried in a long-vanished cemetery here, a Buddhist minister offered prayers and rang a bell, though its invocation was almost lost as a propeller plane took off from a nearby airfield.Nearly 400 Japanese-Americans journeyed from June 30 to July 3 to this remote corner of California, where 18,789 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated during World War II. The turnout was one of the highest ever for the four-day pilgrimage, which occurs every other year around the Fourth of July, organizers said. They surmise that as the number of the camp’s survivors dwindles, there is a growing urgency to understand — and reinterpret — what has been a hidden subchapter in America’s history.

Source: The Atlantic
7-3-12

These 600-Year Old World Heritage Sites Might Be Rubble by August

The West African city of Timbuktu used to be one of Africa's richest and most important, a nexus of trade across the Sahara and a center of religious and scientific learning as far back as the 1400s. The relics of that history still stand in the form of such world heritage sites as the University of Sankore. More recently, this city in the sprawling West African country of Mali has been a tourism draw. But, on April 2, it came under new ownership: rebels from an ethnic minority known as Tuareg, who'd sought independence for years. Five days later they got it, declaring northern Mali as the independent country of Azawad. Then, on June 1, breakaway rebels with the extremist Islamist group Ansar Dine (translation: "Defenders of Faith") took control of Timbuktu.

Source: MSNBC
6-6-12

Lincoln assassination report unearthed

Researchers at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library are marveling over the historical equivalent of buried treasure: an up-to-now undiscovered account of the night Lincoln was assassinated, written by the first doctor to treat him.Dr. Charles Leale was a 23-year-old army surgeon who was in attendance at Ford's Theatre when John Wilkes Booth entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln days after the conclusion of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln researcher Helena Iles Papaioannou discovered Leale's account while searching the records of the surgeon general in the National Archives in Washington, DC. The 21-page report is Leale's own retelling of the tragedy, written just hours after the president died the following morning....

Source: AP
7-7-12

Can Obama defy history and win re-election in a bad economy?

WASHINGTON (AP) — History repeats itself, until it doesn't.That musty saw is worth remembering as pundits speculate on whether the lumbering economy will doom the re-election hopes of President Barack Obama, who has shown a knack for beating odds and breaking barriers.Clearly, some important trends are working against him. The latest evidence came Friday in a lackluster jobs report that said the nation's unemployment rate was stuck at 8.2 percent.Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last president to win re-election with so much joblessness. Voters ousted Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush when the jobless rate was well under 8 percent....

Source: Yahoo News
7-6-12

Hitler protected Jewish World War One veteran: letter

BERLIN (Reuters) - Adolf Hitler personally intervened to protect a Jewish man who had been his commanding officer during World War One, according to a letter unearthed by the Jewish Voice from Germany newspaper.The letter, composed in August 1940 by Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazis' feared paramilitary SS, said Ernst Hess, a judge, should be spared persecution or deportation "as per the Fuehrer's wishes."Hess, a decorated World War One hero who briefly commanded Hitler's company in Flanders, worked as a judge until Nazi racial laws forced him to resign in 1936. The same year he was beaten up by Nazi thugs outside his house, the paper said.In a petition to Hitler at that time, Hess wrote: "For us it is a kind of spiritual death to now be branded as Jews and exposed to general contempt."...

Source: AFP
7-6-2012

Tough sentences in Argentina 'stolen babies' case

wo former Argentine dictators were handed heavy prison sentences Thursday for their involvement in the kidnapping of babies from leftist activists killed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.Jorge Videla, 86, was sentenced to 50 years in prison and Reynaldo Bignone, 84, was given a 15-year jail term, presiding judge Maria Roqueta said as she read the ruling before a packed courtroom in Buenos Aires.Hundreds of people -- relatives of the victims, children reunited with their families and activists -- cheered the ruling, which they watched on a giant TV screen set up outside the courthouse. Many were in tears.Several other defendants were handed sentences ranging from 15 to 40 years for their roles in a "systematic plan" to kidnap the babies of activists, in a trial that launched in February 2011...

Source: Foreign Policy
7-5-12

Britain to have smallest Army since Napoleonic Wars

British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed in a statement to parliament today that the British Army will be slashed by 20,000 troops over the next decade as part of a new strategic plan called Army 2020. Nearly one-fifth of standing forces will be relieved of their duties as 17 major units are culled and many others shrunk in the effort to limit the army's force numbers to 82,000, its lowest level since the Napoleonic Wars.In a video interview with the Telegraph, Hammond cited a "black hole in the defense budget" and a need for the military to contribute to "the wider package of fiscal correction." Calling Army 2020 "an army designed package to create an army fit for the future," Hammond called for a reorientation of British security policy as the country withdraws from its active combat role in Afghanistan. 

Source: CS Monitor
7-5-12

Algeria takes fresh look at France

On Thursday, Algerians marked 50 years since their country won independence from France, ending decades of colonial rule. A key question now is what role awaits young Algerians like Mr. Osmane as aging leaders enter their twilight and a generation that has a much more pragmatic view of how their country should interact with France, and with the Western world, starts to take over. The Algeria this generation will inherit is a work in progress, in apparent mid-step between the socialist anticolonialism of decades past and a turn toward free-market economics and partnership with Western countries. France and Algeria remain closely linked by, language, migration, and a complex history. For Osmane, a Paris-educated business consultant, the country that tortured his grandfather is also the one that helped offer him a path to achievement.“I’d have liked to study in the UK or US, but it’s more complicated,” he says. “France for us is the gateway to the West.”...

Source: NYT
7-4-12

Art Historians Claim to Find New Caravaggio Works

ROME (AP) — Two Italian art historians are claiming to have identified dozens of drawings as those of a very young Caravaggio in a collection of works of a master painter under whom he studied in the late 1500s....

Source: NBC Nightly News (with video)
7-4-12

USS Iowa at its new home

After decades of action and several stints in mothballs, the USS Iowa has found a new home in San Pedro, Calif., where she will become a museum. The Iowa, one of America's last battleships, has a storied past that includes tours in World War II, Korea, and the Cold War. She was the first of four fast battleships built during World War II, giving the name "Iowa" to her class. "The Iowas were the fastest U.S. battleships at [40 mph]," said Paul Stillwell, a naval historian who served aboard the New Jersey. And with nine 16-inch guns the Iowas were, in Stillwell's words, "beautiful, fast, awesome and inspiring."

Source: NYT
7-4-12

Arafat may be exhumed

A potentially explosive re-examination of the circumstances behind the death of Yasir Arafat, the symbol of thePalestinian national struggle, has galvanized Palestinian suspicions that he was poisoned and led the Palestinian Authority to agree in principle on Wednesday to an exhumation of his remains, possibly within days. Mr. Arafat’s widow, Suha, called for the exhumation a day earlier in an interview with Al Jazeera, the Arabic television channel based in Qatar, after it reported that Mr. Arafat might have been poisoned with polonium, a rare radioactive isotope associated with K.G.B.-style assassination intrigues. Saeb Erekat, a close aide of the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, said by telephone that once the religious authorities and Mr. Arafat’s relatives had given the go-ahead, an exhumation could take place “in the coming days.”

Source: Reuters
July-4-2012

Four held over Spanish medieval manuscript theft

The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century collection of sermons and liturgical passages, vanished from a safe deposit box in the cathedral, the endpoint of the ancient pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago.The elaborately illustrated manuscript, considered an important part of Spain's cultural and religious heritage, has yet to be found, though the police say they are close.The key suspect is a man who was sacked after working for the cathedral as a caretaker, electrician and odd job man for more than 25 years, police said in a statement.Police said they had also recovered at least 1.2 million euros ($1.5 million), eight copies of the Codex and other ancient books that had also disappeared from the cathedral, during searches of garages, houses and storage rooms.

Source: AP
7-3-12

Search for Earhart wreckage

A $2.2 million expedition is hoping to finally solve one of America's most enduring mysteries: What exactly happened to famed aviator Amelia Earhart when she went missing over the South Pacific 75 years ago?A group of scientists, historians and salvagers think they have a good idea, and they began a trek Tuesday from Honolulu to a remote island in the Pacific nation of Kiribati in hopes of finding wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane in nearby waters.Their working theory is that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed on a reef near the Kiribati atoll of Nikumaroro, then survived a short time."Everything has pointed to the airplane having gone over the edge of that reef in a particular spot, and the wreckage ought to be right down there," said Ric Gillespie, the founder and executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, the group leading the search....Previous visits to the island have recovered artifacts that could have belonged to Earhart and Noonan, and experts say an October 1937 photo of the shoreline of the island could include a blurry image of the strut and wheel of a Lockheed Electra landing gear....

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
7-2-12

'Britain's Atlantis' found at bottom of North Sea

'Britain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews.Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that stretched from Scotland to Denmark was slowly submerged by water between 18,000 BC and 5,500 BC.Divers from oil companies have found remains of a 'drowned world' with a population of tens of thousands - which might once have been the 'real heartland' of Europe.A team of climatologists, archaeologists and geophysicists has now mapped the area using new data from oil companies - and revealed the full extent of a 'lost land' once roamed by mammoths....

Source: Yahoo News
7-2-12

Ancient Mosaic Depicting Fiery Bible Story Discovered

A glittering mosaic of colored stones once decorated an ancient synagogue floor with scenes of the Biblical hero Samson getting revenge on the Philistines.This newly excavated discovery in the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq not only depicts an unusual scene — Samson tying torches to foxes' tails in order to burn his enemies' crops — it's also remarkably high-quality, said dig archaeologist Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.In a mosaic, "the smaller the cubes, the finer the work," Magness told LiveScience. "Our cubes are very small and fine."...

Source: AP
6-29-12

How to dig up your house's history

The construction of Julian Sellers' bungalow in St. Paul, Minn., was started in 1926 and finished in early 1927. The builder was a Swedish immigrant. The family who first lived there included a married couple, their 6-year-old daughter and the wife's mother.Sellers learned all this by sorting through building permits, tax records, city directories, maps, old newspapers on microfilm and more. A retired software engineer and a member of the Twin Cities Bungalow Club, he has chronicled the history of the structure, its environs and the people who lived in it. He even met that 6-year-old daughter when she was in her late 80s."It's fun to know that other families have lived here — children have grown up and been nurtured in this house," said Sellers. "Each family makes it their own and has their own life and experiences here. It's fun to get that feeling of continuity."...