Author: Homer Ball

Frankfurt (3/12 – 12) The relatively rapid cohesion of disparate nations, historically competitive or even at war with one another, into the European Union came about in part because of the ongoing threat from the Soviet Union. The specter of a tank invasion from Warsaw Pact nations, today forgotten, was such a reality that the German government kept a major portion of its gold bullion across the Atlantic. The USSR, an ally in World War II after being double-crossed by Hitler – remember the “Non-Aggression Pact signed in Moscow by von Ribbentrop and Molotov – was soon appraised as a…

Investigators have identified the married couple killed Wednesday in a fiery explosion near the US-Canadian border that prompted a massive law enforcement response. Kurt P. Villani and his wife Monica Villani, both 53, died in the car crash at the Rainbow Bridge crossing, the Niagara Falls Police Department said in a news release. The couple lived in Grand Island, New York, the police department said. CNN previously reported investigators believed a man was travelling with his wife in a 2022 Bentley at a high rate of speed when the vehicle hit a curb, then a guardrail that sent the vehicle…

Authorities in Florida have arrested a 14-year-old boy in connection with a shooting that left one victim dead and another in critical condition. Reports for the shooting at the 11000 block of Lynmoor Drive in Riverview, Florida, came in on Saturday afternoon at the same time that emergency dispatchers received calls detailing a young male suspect running through the neighborhood with a handgun, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office. When deputies arrived at the scene, they contacted the suspect, who repeatedly pointed the gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself, authorities said. The deputies then began de-escalation tactics…

ORLANDO, Fla. — A Florida reptile park has taken in an alligator that lost its nose and upper jaw to a fight or boat propeller. Gatorland Orlando said over the weekend that the injured alligator came from a lake in nearby Sanford, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Orlando. “She had basically no chance of surviving in the wild with such a severe injury,” the park said in a social media post. Over the next few days, the park’s veterinarian staff will be monitoring the gator in an effort to make sure it is eating in a stress-free environment, the park…

Paris, Toronto (17/9 – 37) The French ambassador to Niger and other French diplomats “were actually held hostage in the French embassy” during the emergency following the military junta coup d’état that gave the boot to Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s elected president, on July 26. A violent confrontation loomed, as President Bazoum refused to give in to the military and step down. Soon after the coup, Niger’s military junta moved to expel the US, German, Nigerian and French ambassadors, amid suspicions of potential foreign pressure to impel a military intervention by The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Meanwhile, with…

Jakub Mensik’s family did not play tennis. But as a boy in Prostejov, Czech Republic, the sport surrounded him. Just 100 metres away was a school that had tennis courts next to the playground. Five-hundred metres away were private courts. At that location, there was a sign that read they were looking for a new Petra Kvitova and Tomas Berdych. “I was watching the guys from the neighbourhood playing and watching also the little kids. They also had practices, they were starting their tennis career,” Mensik told ATPTour.com. “So then I just came to my dad or my mom and just…

U.S. economic growth was revised lower to a still-solid pace in the second quarter, but momentum appears to have picked up early in the third quarter as a tight labor market underpins consumer spending. Gross domestic product increased at a 2.1% annualized rate last quarter, the government said on Wednesday in its second estimate of GDP for the April-June period. That was revised down from the 2.4% pace reported last month. Economists polled by Reuters had expected GDP for the second quarter would be unrevised. The revision reflected downgrades to inventory investment as well as business spending on equipment and…

Historian Luke Nichter considers the turmoil you know about – assassinations, chaotic conventions, the racist rise of George Wallace – but also the backroom dramas you don’t Spiritual messages made the Rev Billy Graham famous, but it was a different sort of message that he transmitted to Lyndon B Johnson in September 1968. Earlier that tumultuous year, the president announced on live television that he would not run for re-election. The race to succeed him pitted the current vice-president, Hubert H Humphrey, against a previous VP, Richard Nixon. An anti-establishment third-party candidate, George Wallace, a segregationist former governor of Alabama, was…

The largest ever ongoing Australia-US joint military exercise, which involves 13 countries, has been deemed as a “paper tiger” by Chinese experts. Though impressive on paper, the exercise cannot really persuade all participants to serve the US’ purpose, experts said. The two-week-long military exercise, known as Talisman Sabre 2023, officially commenced on Friday. It is the largest since 2005, with more than 30,000 military personnel from 13 countries participating, according to media reports. Reuters described it as a “show of force and unity at a time when China has emerged as an increasingly assertive power in the Indo-Pacific.” “The most…

Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a new study from the US Geological Survey. The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. There are more than 12,000 types of PFAS, according to the National Institutes of Health, but this study looked at only 32 of the compounds. PFAS are a family of ubiquitous synthetic chemicals that linger in the environment and…