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On Dec. 3, 1943, a B-24D Liberator bomber with two Army airmen from Massachusetts flew a stealth mission to destroy Japanese war vessels in the Bismarck Sea. The mission turned out to be a success. The crew found a Japanese convoy and bombed it.

NEW YORK - The city has identified the remains of four more victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, including one man whose DNA was found beneath a service road that was initially paved over, officials said Monday. Ronald Keith Milstein's remains were found beneath the road that was built to carry cleanup and construction trucks in and out of the World Trade Center site after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the city medical examiner's office said. Milstein of Queens was 54 when he was killed. More than 400 human bone pieces have been recovered from beneath the road, which has become...

By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News A fossilised "sea monster" unearthed on an Arctic island is the largest marine reptile known to science, Norwegian scientists have announced.The 150 million-year-old specimen was found on Spitspergen, in the Arctic island chain of Svalbard, in 2006. The Jurassic-era leviathan is one of 40 sea reptiles from a fossil "treasure trove" uncovered on the island. Nicknamed "The Monster", the immense creature would have measured 15m (50ft) from nose to tail. A large pliosaur was big enough to pick up a small car in its jaws and bite it in half Richard Forrest,...

FAMILIES OF the victims of the September 11 terror attacks on New York have been devastated to learn that body parts of their loved ones have been found in the past two weeks by workers building the replacement for the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, just a few miles away, distraught relatives are left to mourn at the world’s largest rubbish dump — the final resting place for the remains of their sons and daughters. This is the reality of New York more than six years after the attacks on the Twin Towers. It’s a situation described by one still-grieving mother...

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez said Monday that Venezuela should open the coffin of independence hero Simon Bolivar to examine the bones, saying there are sufficient doubts about his death in 1830 to warrant a full investigation. Although history books maintain Bolivar died of tuberculosis, Chavez said doubts exist because some writings suggest it is possible the South American "Liberator" might have been murdered. Chavez has raised this theory before, but went further during a speech on the anniversary of Bolivar's death. "Who knows if they even made Bolivar's bones disappear? We have to determine it now," Chavez said....

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The families of eight U.S. military men who died in a 1944 plane crash in the Himalayas want the Pentagon to step up efforts to recover their remains from the crash site discovered last year by a mountaineer. Exactly what happened to the B-24 bomber dubbed "Hot as Hell," was a mystery for more than 60 years. It disappeared while on a flight from Kunming, China, to Chabua, India, to pick up weapons and other supplies and return to base in China. Clayton Kuhles of Prescott, Ariz., a mountaineer who has made it his mission to...

OSLO, Norway - Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday. Initial excavation of a site on the Svalbard islands in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo. "It seems the monster is a new species," he told The Associated Press. The reptile appears be the same species as another sea predator whose remains were found nearby on Svalbard last year....

(IsraelNN.com) The Israeli government's first Arab minister made it clear Wednesday that as far as the Temple Mount is concerned, Israeli sovereignty is nonexistent and Islam rules. The minister spoke in his official capacity as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, from the Knesset podium, in response to a parliamentary question by MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) regarding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. MK Eldad's question referred to the unsupervised digging carried out by the Muslim authorities (the "Wakf") on the Temple Mount during the summer, by means of heavy machinery. "I received a series of photographs of digs on the...

(IsraelNN.com) The Israeli government's first Arab minister made it clear Wednesday that as far as the Temple Mount is concerned, Israeli sovereignty is nonexistent and Islam rules. The minister spoke in his official capacity as Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, from the Knesset podium, in response to a parliamentary question by MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) regarding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. MK Eldad's question referred to the unsupervised digging carried out by the Muslim authorities (the "Wakf") on the Temple Mount during the summer, by means of heavy machinery. "I received a series of photographs of digs on the...

WASHINGTON - The Republican presidential race is extraordinarily volatile heading into the autumn stretch before voting begins. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads the field in national popularity polls but Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts, has maintained an edge where it counts — in some of the first states to vote. The upcoming official candidacy of Fred Thompson, a former Tennessee senator and "Law & Order" actor, reconfigures the eight-man contest — and brings a dose of Hollywood glamour to the race. Arizona Sen. John McCain remains a factor but is weakened financially and politically; he's seeking traction...

New York City will continue searching for remains of victims of the September 11 attacks indefinitely, with authorities saying they will not be able to finish the task in one year as planned. Bits of human remains continue to turn up more than five years after hijackers crashed two jet airliners into the World Trade Centre, killing 2,759 people including themselves. Remains have still not been found for all of the victims. Surviving relatives say it helps with their grieving to know that some physical remains have been recovered. Edward Skyler, New York's deputy mayor for administration, told Mayor Michael...

They beamed him up and now, after a three-week search, they have found the rocket that had carried ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan briefly into space. The remains of Doohan, whose Star Trek character Scotty inspired the television catch phrase "Beam me up, Scotty," were blasted off to the edge of space from New Mexico on April 29, two years after his death at the age of 85. The payload also included ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper, who first went into space in 1963, and another 200 people. But the UP Aerospace Spaceloft XL rocket carrying the capsules...

Human remains thought to be oldest ever found in Santa Cruz By Todd Guild Sentinel CorrespondentMay 12, 2007 SANTA CRUZ — For the Santa Cruz Water Department, most construction projects are uneventful, encountering nothing more than dirt, rocks and an occasional root. That was not the case when city workers installing a water pipe on the Westside unearthed the bodies of two Ohlone people — now believed to be the oldest human remains ever found in the city. Studies over the past six months date the bones back 5,000 years, when construction on the Great Pyramids in Egypt had just...

/16/2007 - HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AFNEWS) -- One by one the flag draped coffins containing the remains of six U.S. service members killed in the Korean War were carried by a multi-service detail from the back of a C-17 Globemaster III during a repatriation ceremony at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. Distinguished guests, veterans and a joint honor guard of Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Airmen and Coast Guard rendered honors as the coffins were transported across the tarmac and then loaded into the back of an awaiting bus for the ride to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Headquarters at...

PYONGYANG, North Korea --New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Monday toured a U.S. warship captured by North Korea in the 1960s that is now used to inspire anti-American sentiment in the reclusive communist regime.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2007 – A new law that took effect Jan. 1 changes the way the remains of servicemembers killed in combat are transported and handled. The 2007 National Defense Authorization Act states that the primary mode of transportation for remains of servicemembers being returned to the U.S. is military aircraft or military-contracted aircraft. This is a change from the past, when commercial service was used to transport the remains of fallen troops. “It was a provision in the law, and I think … there was some interest to make sure that the remains were moved in an...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, 2006 -- Coalition forces have recovered the bodies of all three missing servicemembers lost during an emergency water landing by a helicopter yesterday. A U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing made an emergency water landing near the shore of Lake Qadisiyah in western Anbar province. Sixteen personnel were on board, including the crew. Thirteen of the individuals on board were accounted for yesterday, including the body of one Marine who was recovered from the water after the emergency landing. The rescue effort included all available surveillance and rescue capabilities to include air,...

Ancient remains causing problems By Matt Krupnick CONTRA COSTA TIMES The unheralded removal of hundreds of ancient bodies at a Brentwood construction site this year illustrated how secretive -- and political -- American Indian excavations can be. When Shea Homes dug up about 500 bodies to make way for a road through its new Trilogy subdivision, the developer set in motion a governmental process steeped in confidentiality. State policymakers have spent years fine-tuning what must be done after such discoveries, but many tiptoe around volatile questions. "The politics are interesting and are such that it behooves me not to say...

ARLINGTON, Va. - The only testament to Francis Lupo's death in a World War I battle has long been his name, etched on a French chapel wall with those of hundreds of other missing soldiers. On Tuesday, 88 years after he was killed, the recently discovered remains of the U.S. Army private were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. And by year's end, his name will be carved anew, this time on a white headstone like those marking the graves of his fellow soldiers. Lupo is the first World War I soldier whose remains — a few fragments...

ARCHAEOLOGISTS DIG UP MORE ICE AGE REMAINS AT CRESWELL CRAGS By Graham Spicer 23/08/2006 Creswell Crags is a limestone gorge containing important evidence of Ice Age life. Photo Creswell Heritage Trust Archaeologists searching for clues about Ice Age artists have completed a major excavation in Nottinghamshire, unearthing more than 1,000 finds. A team from the University of Sheffield and The British Museum conducted the dig in Church Hole cave at Creswell Crags between August 7 and 18 2006, the site of the only British discovery of Ice Age rock art. The rock art discoveries, made in 2003 and 2004, are...