Trump to Release 80,000 Pages on JFK Assassination 

Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP)
Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP)
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Trump to Release 80,000 Pages on JFK Assassination 

Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP)
Newly-elected President Kennedy posed for first pictures at his White House desk, Jan. 21, 1961, before plunging into a busy round of conferences. (AP)

President Donald Trump plans to release about 80,000 pages of material related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Tuesday, seeking to honor his campaign promise to provide more transparency about the shock event in Texas.

"It's a lot of stuff, and you'll make your own determination," Trump told reporters about the pages on Monday. Trump signed an order shortly after taking office in January related to the release, prompting the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to find thousands of new documents related to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas.

Kennedy's murder has been attributed to a sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald. The Justice Department and other federal government bodies reaffirmed that conclusion in the intervening decades. But polls show many Americans believe his death was a result of a conspiracy.

Experts doubt the new trove of information will change the underlying facts of the case, that Lee Harvey Oswald opened fire at Kennedy from a window at a schoolbook deposit warehouse as the presidential motorcade passed by on a Dallas highway.

"People expecting big things are almost certain to be disappointed," said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, who authored a book about the assassination.

He said some of the pages could simply be the release of previously published material that had a few words redacted.

Trump has also promised to release documents on the assassinations of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy, both of whom were killed in 1968.

Trump has allowed more time to come up with a plan for those releases.

Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of Robert Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy, has said he believes the Central Intelligence Agency was involved in his uncle's death, an allegation the agency has described as baseless.

Kennedy Jr. has also said he believes his father was killed by multiple gunmen, an assertion that contradicted official accounts.

One revelation the documents could contain is that the CIA was more aware of Oswald than it has previously disclosed. Questions have remained about what the CIA knew about Oswald's visits to Mexico City six weeks before the assassination. During that trip, Oswald visited the Soviet embassy.

"People have been waiting for decades for this," Trump said. "It's going to be very interesting."



Jane Austen Fans Celebrate the Author’s 250th Birthday in Britain and Beyond

One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
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Jane Austen Fans Celebrate the Author’s 250th Birthday in Britain and Beyond

One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)
One of the new British 10 pound notes is posed for photographs outside the Bank of England in the City of London, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2017. (AP)

Fans of Jane Austen celebrated the acclaimed author's 250th birthday on Tuesday with a church service in her home village, festive visits to her house — and a virtual party for those paying tribute from afar.

Thousands of enthusiasts around the world have already taken part in a yearlong celebration of one of English literature’s greats, who penned “Pride and Prejudice," “Sense and Sensibility” and other beloved novels.

On Tuesday — to mark 250 years since she was born on Dec. 16, 1775 — Jane Austen’s House, in the southern English village of Chawton, hosted talks, tours and performances for dozens of visitors, with celebrations concluding with an online party for fans from all over the world.

“Regency dress strongly encouraged,” organizers said, adding that more than 500 people had signed up for the Zoom party.

The cottage, now a museum with Austen artifacts, was where the author lived for the last years of her life and where she wrote all six of her novels.

A church service featuring music and readings is held in Steventon, the rural village where she was born.

Fans, who call themselves “Janeites," have marked the anniversary year with Regency balls and festivals staged in the UK, US and beyond.

At the weekend, the city of Bath, where Austen lived for five years, hosted the Yuletide Jane Austen Birthday Ball, the finale of many grand costumed events held there this year.


Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found on Alpine Cliffs Near Winter Olympics Site

The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
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Thousands of Dinosaur Footprints Found on Alpine Cliffs Near Winter Olympics Site

The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)
The Director of the Stelvio Park, Franco Claretti, poses next to a reproduction of a dinosaur prior to a press conference in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, on a discovery of thousands of dinosaur tracks at the Stelvio Park. (AP)

Italian paleontologists have uncovered thousands of dinosaur footprints on a near-vertical rock face more than 2,000 meters above sea level in the Stelvio National Park, a discovery they say is among the world's richest sites for the Triassic period.

The tracks, some up to 40 cm wide and showing claw marks, stretch for about five kilometers in the high-altitude glacial Valle di Fraele near Bormio, one of the venues for the 2026 Winter Olympics in the northern region of Lombardy.

"This is one of the largest and oldest footprint sites in Italy, and among the most spectacular I've seen in 35 years," said Cristiano Dal Sasso, paleontologist at Milan's Natural History Museum in a press conference on Tuesday at the headquarters of the Lombardy Region.

Experts believe the prints were left by herds of long-necked herbivores, likely plateosaurs, more than 200 million years ago when the area was a warm lagoon, ideal for dinosaurs to roam along beaches, leaving tracks in the mud near the water.

"The footprints were impressed when the sediments were still soft, on the wide tidal flats that surrounded the Tethys Ocean," said Fabio Massimo Petti, ichnologist at MUSE museum of Trento, attending the same conference.

"The muds, now turned to rock, have allowed the preservation of remarkable anatomical details of the feet, such as impressions of the toes and even the claws," Petti added.

As the African plate gradually moved north, closing and drying up the Tethys Ocean, sedimentary rocks that formed the seabed were folded, creating the Alps.

The fossilized dinosaur footprints shifted from a horizontal position to the vertical one on a mountain slope spotted by a wildlife photographer in September while chasing deer and bearded vultures, experts said.

"The natural sciences deliver to the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games an unexpected and precious gift from remote eras," Giovanni Malagò, President of the Milano Cortina 2026 Organizing Committee told journalists.

The area cannot be reached by trails, so drones and remote sensing technologies will have to be used to study it.


Another Home in British Village Torn Down Due to Seaside Erosion

The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
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Another Home in British Village Torn Down Due to Seaside Erosion

The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 
The bulldozers have moved in to demolish The Chantry (ITV News) 

Demolition work has begun on a second clifftop home in a picturesque seaside spot, just weeks after another property was knocked down in the village.

Bulldozers have started tearing down The Chantry, in Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast because of its proximity to the crumbling cliff edge, according to ITV News.

The four-bedroom home on North End Avenue was put up for auction in September, selling for £200,000, according to the agents' website.

But East Suffolk Council said demolition had to begin after “critical safety levels” were reached.

At the end of October, neighbor Jean Flick, 88, saw her clifftop home in Thorpeness demolished after what the council described as “significant erosion.”

Evelyn Rumsby, who has lived in the village since 1977, described the latest demolition as “heartbreaking.”

“I don’t think unless you live here, you can’t experience anything like it... the noise of these lovely homes going,” she said, holding back tears.

“The erosion has been extreme over the last months, really extreme, and our only hope now is the shingle might come back if the winds change and we don’t have the intensity of these high winds that we’ve had over the last few months.”

“I do have fears,” she said. “We have to acknowledge that if it [erosion] moved in and this road went, there would be no access to our home site. It’s the access to the properties that is a big consideration.”

A spokesperson for East Suffolk Council said: “We have been working closely with affected property owners following significant recent erosion and sadly, critical safety levels have now been reached for another property on North End Avenue.”

He said demolition is in progress and we will continue to support the owners and their contractors to ensure the building can be taken down safely.

“This is a distressing situation, and we would request that people respect the owner’s privacy at this difficult time,” the spokesperson said.

“It is impossible to accurately predict when further losses may occur as erosion is not linear. Therefore, we are regularly monitoring the area and engaging with property owners on an ongoing basis.”