NEW YORK — For relatives of the people who died in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the death Sunday of the only man who was convicted stirred up questions once again about his guilt and whether others went unpunished. It also gave families a chance to reissue pleas for further investigation. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence official, died of cancer, a relative said. Al-Megrahi was convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town on Dec. 21, 1988. The bombing killed 270 people, many of them New York and New Jersey residents. Syracuse University in central New York was particularly hard hit: 35 students on the way home for Christmas break died in the bombing. Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi handed over ... Continue reading →
NEW YORK — For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia University. A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor's degree in classics. As a Columbia employee, he didn't have to pay for the classes he took. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, the janitor said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans. "I love Seneca's letters because they're written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family — not to look for fame and fortune, but to ... Continue reading →
NEW YORK — Even after decades of in-depth Holocaust research, excruciating details are only now emerging about more than 1,100 German-run ghettos in Eastern Europe where the Nazis murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews. And there were about 200 more ghettos than previously believed, said Martin Dean, editor of the recently published "Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II." It's part of a long-term effort to document every site of organized Nazi persecution, beyond the well-known Warsaw ghetto and extermination camps like Auschwitz. It "gives us information about ghettos that would slip into historical oblivion and be forgotten forever if we didn't have this volume," Holocaust scholar Lawrence Langer said. "Who knew there were more than 1,000 ghettos?" More Jews died during World War ... Continue reading →
NEW YORK — The son of Norman Mailer joined a protest Thursday against the Village Voice, the New York City weekly his late father co-founded that's now accused of running ads peddling underage prostitutes. John Buffalo Mailer, 33, an actor and writer, marched with about 100 protesters from a park to the Voice's East Village offices on Cooper Square. They want the weekly's parent company to shut down its Backpage.com adult classified section, which they say includes ads linked to child sex-trafficking. "This was once a progressive paper, a people's paper, and to see it lose its credibility is heartbreaking," Mailer told The Associated Press. "He would not have approved of this at all." One sign read: "Village Voice — Stop Profiting from Sex Trafficking." ... Continue reading →
NEW YORK (AP) — A Manhattan pastor took to the pulpit Sunday to argue that the fatal shooting of an unarmed black Florida teenager demands secular action from the faithful, since Jesus was a Jewish rabbi who challenged the rule of the Romans in Palestine."Jesus was political!" insisted the Rev. Jacqueline Lewis, pastor of the Middle Collegiate Church. "Jesus' faith was faith about all of life."She wore a fuchsia hooded sweatshirt, joining dozens of other worshippers who covered their heads with "hoodies" to remember Trayvon Martin. He was shot to death by a crime watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., last month while wearing one.Hoodies in a range of colors dotted pews packed with several hundred spirited faithful of the church that started as a Protestant ... Continue reading →
