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Gibraltar finally joined the official list of British cities on Monday (Aug 29), after 180 years in which its status, granted by Queen Victoria, had been overlooked due to an administrative error. The British overseas territory bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, but research in the National Archives established it had in fact been granted city status in 1842. "It is excellent to see official recognition given to the City of Gibraltar, a huge accolade to its rich history and dynamism," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in...

ROME - After more than a year-long legal battle over the burial location of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s remains, on Friday the nation’s famed ‘Valley of the Fallen’ was officially closed ahead of the exhumation of the former general’s body. The Oct. 11 closure of the Valley took place a day ahead of Spain’s national day, Día de la Hispanidad, and the feast of Our Lady of the Pillar, Spain’s national patroness, both of which are celebrated on Oct. 12. Built upon Franco’s orders in the mid-20th century, the Valley of the Fallen is now a monument to some 34,000...

Spain's Supreme Court has ruled that the remains of dictator Francisco Franco should be exhumed. It backed the Socialist government's plan to move the remains from a state mausoleum to a less controversial site. An appeal by Franco's family against the exhumation and proposing an alternative site was rejected. The issue has divided opinion in Spain, which remains haunted by the Franco era. He won the 1930s civil war and went on to rule Spain until 1975.

ROME - The Vatican has responded to a formal protest by the Spanish government over a controversy regarding the remains of Gen. Francisco Franco, saying it never intended to meddle with Spain’s domestic affairs. In early July, Spain sent a formal protest to the Vatican after the papal nuncio in Madrid rebuked the Socialist government for “resuscitating” Franco through its efforts to move the former dictator’s remains. The deputy head of the Socialist caretaker government noted that the diplomat’s comments amounted to “interference” in Spanish affairs. Vatican spokesman Alessandro Gisotti clarified on Thursday that nuncio Archbishop Renzo Fratini - who...

Hello, plenty of news dumping with the events in New Zealand providing additional cover. But first we do go to New Zealand. The suspect in the mass murder appeared in court Saturday with face pixilated by order of a judge..... President Trump issued his first veto Friday..... The main political rival of Israel's incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz of the "Blue and White" Party, was victimized by an Iranian hacking of his cellphone..... An Israeli satellite company ImageSat releasing pictures of 3 Russian SU-25 aircraft in northern Syria..... Massive protests in...

Actor Luke Perry, who gained fame as a teen heartthrob on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and became a fan-favorite TV dad with his starring role on the hit series "Riverdale," has died at age 52 after suffering a massive stroke. "He was surrounded by his children Jack and Sophie, fiancé Wendy Madison Bauer, ex-wife Minnie Sharp, mother Ann Bennett, step-father Steve Bennett, brother Tom Perry, sister Amy Coder, and other close family and friends," Perry's publicist Arnold Robinson told Fox News Monday. "The family appreciates the outpouring of support and prayers that have been extended to Luke from around the world,...

Riverdale and Beverly Hills 90210 actor Luke Perry has died at age 52, People confirms. Perry was hospitalized on Feb. 27 after paramedics were dispatched to the Riverdale star’s home in Sherman Oaks, California, according to TMZ. The call reportedly came into the fire department for someone suffering a stroke. The actor remained “under observation” for five days but died on Monday, March 4.

Luke Perry -- the TV icon and heartthrob who rose to fame on "Beverly Hills, 90210" -- has died after suffering a massive stroke ... TMZ has learned. Luke passed away Monday morning at St. Joseph's Hospital in Burbank. According to his rep, Luke was surrounded by his children Jack and Sophie, fiance Wendy Madison Bauer, ex-wife Minnie Sharp, mother Ann Bennett, step-father Steve Bennett, brother Tom Perry, sister Amy Coder, and other close family and friends.

(CNN)Peter Tork, the bassist for The Monkees and a jokester on the band's popular 1960s television series, has died at age 77. Tork's death was announced on his official Facebook page on Thursday, attributed to his friends, family and colleagues. "It is with beyond-heavy and broken hearts that we share the devastating news that our friend, mentor, teacher, and amazing soul, Peter Tork, has passed from this world," the post read. "As we have mentioned in the past, the PTFB team is made up of Peter's friends, family and colleagues -- we ask for your kindness and understanding in allowing...

Peter Tork, a member of the massively popular ’60s band the Monkees, has died. The Washington Post reports that Anne Thorkelson, Tork’s sister, has confirmed news of Tork’s death, though she declined to say how he died. Tork was 77. Tork, born Peter Thorkelson, was born in Washington, DC, and he grew up largely in Connecticut. After college, he moved to New York and joined the thriving Greenwich Village folk scene. Tork auditioned for The Monkees, a sitcom about a band of four up-and-coming musicians, after his friend Stephen Stills suggested him for the job. Tork, the oldest member of...

MADRID, Spain - The Spanish government said Tuesday that the Vatican has agreed to jointly find ways to prevent the remains of late Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco from being reburied under a central Madrid cathedral after they are exhumed from a glorifying mausoleum. Relatives of Franco want to reinter his embalmed body in a family crypt under Almudena Cathedral if the government delivers on a promise to remove it from the Valley of the Fallen, a self-aggrandizing mausoleum outside of the Spanish capital where he was interred upon his death in 1975 alongside the remains of some 34,000 fighters...

MADRID (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters gathered outside the Almudena Roman Catholic Cathedral in central Madrid on Thursday to demonstrate against any plans to bury the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco at the site. Families of the tens of thousands of his opponents who were killed or imprisoned during his near four-decade rule oppose his burial at such an emblematic site. Spanish lawmakers voted in September to remove the remains of Franco from a mausoleum where tens of thousands of victims of the 1936-39 civil war that brought him to power are also laid to rest. It is still...

Former Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain is lying in state in the U.S. Capitol Friday, an honor held by very few in the Senate. In order to receive this high honor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke “in coordination with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi,” according to CNN, so the public would have an opportunity to pay their respects and honor his service as the senator of Arizona for 35 years.

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s center-left government approved legal amendments Friday to make sure that the remains of former dictator Gen. Francisco Franco will be dug up and removed from a controversial national mausoleum honoring the nation’s civil war dead. The minority Socialist government is certain that parliament will endorse the amendments, probably in a debate next month, deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo told reporters. The amendments to Spain’s Historical Memory Law of 2007 grant the government the power to exhume Franco’s body. That change aims to thwart legal efforts by Franco’s descendants and supporters to block the exhumation in the...

Few figures of the 20th Century have been as relentlessly maligned as Francisco Franco Bahamonde, who ruled as Spain’s Caudillo (supreme leader) from 1939 until his death in 1975. Franco’s death was celebrated with vulgar, vindictive glee in the obituary columns of Establishment publications that had treated the passing of Communist mass murderers with respectful solemnity.

One has to admit that Donald isn’t everybody’s idea of a pious Presbyterian. Though he still maintains some loose connection with his parents’ confession, his behaviour is, how shall I put it, more Playboy than Presbyterian. And yet he won over Christians by a wide margin: 52 per cent of all Catholics, 58 per cent of all Protestants and 82 per cent of all evangelicals voted for him. The Catholic vote is particularly notable. After all, some 40 per cent of US Catholics are Hispanics, and, putting it mildly, Trump didn’t go out of his way to endear himself to...

Since Trump’s entirely predictable sweep of the liberal Republicans in the Eastern primaries, the conservative as well as liberal media under the banner of “Trump the Inevitable” have been endlessly repeating their wishful thinking that Cruz is officially DOA. Which brings to mind the truly hilarious spoof Cruz himself does on YouTube of the epic scene in “The Princess Bride” in which Billy Crystal as Miracle Max declares the Dread Pirate Roberts only “mostly dead.” But the Dread Pirate didn’t have the unpledged Republican Convention delegates, and Cruz just might. If the media clairvoyants who tally up delegate “projections” would...

On September 11, 1962, a German scientist vanished. The basic facts were simple: Heinz Krug had been at his office, and he never came home.

For the first time, Mossad agents confirm that one of their most useful assassins was one of the top officers in the SS. .....

MADRID, June 2 (Reuters) - Spain's King Juan Carlos said on Monday he would abdicate in favour of his son Prince Felipe, aiming to revive the scandal-hit monarchy at a time of economic hardship and growing discontent with the wider political elite. "A new generation is quite rightly demanding to take the lead role," Juan Carlos, 76, said on television, hours after a surprise announcement from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that the monarch would step down after almost 40 years on the throne. The once popular Juan Carlos, who helped smooth Spain's transition to democracy in the 1970s after the...