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New Orleans holds burial of repatriated African Americans whose skulls were used in racist research

New Orleans holds burial of repatriated African Americans whose skulls were used in racist research

Toronto Star31-05-2025
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans celebrated the return and burial of the remains of 19 African American people whose skulls had been sent to Germany for racist research practices in the 19th century.
On Saturday, a multifaith memorial service including a jazz funeral, one of the city's most distinct traditions, paid tribute to the humanity of those coming home to their final resting place at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial.
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Science and local sleuthing identify a 250-year-old shipwreck on a Scottish island
Science and local sleuthing identify a 250-year-old shipwreck on a Scottish island

Toronto Sun

time4 hours ago

  • Toronto Sun

Science and local sleuthing identify a 250-year-old shipwreck on a Scottish island

Published Jul 23, 2025 • 3 minute read In this image provided by Wessex Archaeology, the Sanday Wreck is seen on the shores of Sanday on Orkney, Feb. 2024. Photo by Wessex Archaeology via AP / AP LONDON — When a schoolboy going for a run found the ribs of a wooden ship poking through the dunes of a remote Scottish beach, it sparked a hunt by archeologists, scientists and local historians to uncover its story. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Through a mix of high-tech science and community research, they have an answer. Researchers announced Wednesday that the vessel is very likely the Earl of Chatham, an 18th-century warship that saw action in the American War of Independence before a second life hunting whales in the Arctic — and then a stormy demise. 'I would regard it as a lucky ship, which is a strange thing to say about a ship that's wrecked,' said Ben Saunders, senior marine archeologist at Wessex Archaeology, a charity that helped community researchers conduct the investigation. 'I think if it had been found in many other places, it wouldn't necessarily have had that community drive, that desire to recover and study that material, and also the community spirit to do it,' Saunders said. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In this image provided by Wessex Archaeology, the Sanday Wreck timbers are seen before being placed in a freshwater tank at the Sanday Heritage Centre, on Orkney, Sept 23, 2024. Photo by Fionn McArthur/Wessex Archaeology via AP / AP The wreck was discovered in February 2024 after a storm swept away sand covering it on Sanday, one of the rugged Orkney Islands that lie off Scotland's northern tip. It excited interest on the island of 500 people, whose history is bound up with the sea and its dangers. Around 270 shipwrecks have been recorded around the 20-square-mile (50-square-kilometre) island since the 15th century. Local farmers used their tractors and trailers to haul the 12 tons of oak timbers off the beach, before local researchers set to work trying to identify it. 'That was really good fun, and it was such a good feeling about the community — everybody pulling together to get it back,' said Sylvia Thorne, one of the island's community researchers. 'Quite a few people are really getting interested in it and becoming experts.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Dendrochronology — the science of dating wood from tree rings — showed the timber came from southern England in the middle of the 18th century. That was one bit of luck, Saunders said, because it coincides with 'the point where British bureaucracy's really starting to kick off' and detailed records were being kept. 'And so we can then start to look at the archive evidence that we have for the wrecks in Orkney,' Saunders said. 'It becomes a process of elimination. 'You remove ones that are Northern European as opposed to British, you remove wrecks that are too small or operating out of the north of England and you really are down to two or three … and Earl of Chatham is the last one left.' Wars and whaling Further research found that before it was the Earl of Chatham, the ship was HMS Hind, a 24-gun Royal Navy frigate built in Chichester on England's south coast in 1749. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Its military career saw it play a part in the expansion — and contraction — of the British Empire. It helped Britain wrest control of Canada from France during the sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec in the 1750s, and in the 1770s served as a convoy escort during Britain's failed effort to hold onto its American colonies. Sold off by the navy in 1784 and renamed, the vessel became a whaling ship, hunting the huge mammals in the Arctic waters off Greenland. Whale oil was an essential fuel of the Industrial Revolution, used to lubricate machinery, soften fabric and light city streets. Saunders said that in 1787 there were 120 London-based whaling ships in the Greenland Sea, the Earl of Chatham among them. A year later, while heading out to the whaling ground, it was wrecked in bad weather off Sanday. All 56 crew members survived — more evidence, Saunders says, that this was a vessel blessed with luck. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The ship's timbers are being preserved in a freshwater tank at the Sanday Heritage Centre while plans are discussed to put it on permanent display. Saunders said that the project is a model of community involvement in archeology. 'The community have been so keen, have been so desirous to be involved and to find out things to learn, and they're so proud of it. It's down to them it was discovered, it's down to them it was recovered and it's been stabilized and been protected,' he said. For locals, it's a link to the island's maritime past — and future. Finding long-buried wrecks could become more common as climate change alters the wind patterns around Britain and reshapes the coastline. 'One of the biggest things I've got out of this project is realizing how much the past in Sanday is just constantly with you — either visible or just under the surface,' said Ruth Peace, another community researcher. Canada Sunshine Girls Olympics Columnists Sunshine Girls

Award-winning AP photographer Bob Daugherty captured history with speed and persistence
Award-winning AP photographer Bob Daugherty captured history with speed and persistence

Winnipeg Free Press

time19 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Award-winning AP photographer Bob Daugherty captured history with speed and persistence

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Robert A. Daugherty, whose four-decade career with The Associated Press captured history including President Lyndon B. Johnson writing the speech in which he declined reelection, Richard Nixon flashing 'V for Victory' signs before leaving the White House in disgrace and Jimmy Carter clasping hands with Middle East leaders after cementing a peace treaty, has died after a lengthy illness. He was 86. Daugherty, the son of sharecroppers who shined shoes for spare change in his youth, died Monday in Noblesville, Indiana, his wife Stephanie said. He was born Jan. 16, 1939 in a three-room wooden house in rural Kentucky. Bob Daughtery sits for a portrait at his home in Noblesville, Ind., on March 21, 2021. (Charles Rex Arbogast via AP) In a 43-year career, he covered nine presidents, 22 political conventions, the Watergate hearings, the Paris Peace Talks over the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and presidential trips overseas. He also covered dozens of high-stakes sporting events including the Olympic Games, Masters Tournaments, and Kentucky Derby races. J. David Ake, who retired as AP's director of photography, said Daugherty — who went by Bob — also became a 'tack-sharp leader' focused on helping AP photojournalists do their best work. 'His goal was to make everyone who worked with him or for him better,' Ake said. 'Because he understood what it took to make a good frame and get it on the wire, no matter what, he was always there to lend a hand, make a suggestion, or just run interference. And it didn't hurt; he was the kindest man you will ever meet.' Daugherty learned the power of photography early as he distributed a community newspaper to local farmers. He later recalled one of the recipients telling him, 'You know I can't read, but I sure like the pictures.' After the family moved to Marion, Indiana, Daugherty shot pictures for his high school yearbook, which led to a job with the local Marion Chronicle-Tribune. He next worked at the Indianapolis Star, where he met Stephanie Hoppes, a staff writer. They were married on Dec. 7, 1963. With no money to pay for college, Daugherty later said, 'I earned my junior college degree at the Marion Chronicle, bachelor's degree at the Star and master's with The Associated Press.' Although the couple traveled extensively in retirement, Stephanie Daugherty said she never accompanied her husband on his overseas work trips, such as Nixon's groundbreaking visit to China in 1972. 'He was very dedicated to doing his best and he didn't want me as a distraction,' she said. Persistence, timing and speed were keys to Daugherty's success in Washington with the AP. Hearing that Johnson was writing a speech on a Saturday in the spring of 1968, Daugherty badgered a press aide until he was let in to shoot a haggard, open-collared LBJ writing the speech declining his party's nomination. Daugherty positioned himself for a straight-on view of Nixon flashing 'V for victory' hand signs at the door to a helicopter on the White House lawn, minutes after becoming the first president to resign in 1974. When Carter grasped the handshake of Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat after the signing of a 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, Daugherty captured the moment in nearly identical color and black-and-white images. At the time, this required him to use two separate cameras. When Carter visited Kentucky in July 1979, other photographers ditched what was expected to be a routine motorcade to an event at a school. But Daugherty stayed, catching the normally staid Carter seated on top of the presidential limousine to greet well-wishers. He later said that photo was a favorite among all the images he made of U.S. presidents. 'You must stay alert when you're with the president,' Daugherty said. 'You must be prepared.' 'Bob was a legend,' said Pablo Martínez Monsiváis, assistant photo chief for AP's Washington bureau. Asked about an iconic photograph, Daugherty would describe all the planning that went into the shot or simply say, 'I got lucky.' 'If anyone was lucky, it was me who got to work with him,' Martínez Monsiváis recalled. Among other awards, Daugherty won the Oliver S. Gramling Award, AP's highest journalism honor, in 1999. In 2009, the White House News Photographers Association presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2015 he was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame by the Indiana Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was also a soccer coach and swim-meet official for his son John, said his wife, and in retirement never missed a chance to watch the sun set over the Morse Reservoir, where the couple lived.

NTSB: Heavy plane, drag from antlers contributed to crash that killed ex-Rep Mary Peltola's husband
NTSB: Heavy plane, drag from antlers contributed to crash that killed ex-Rep Mary Peltola's husband

Winnipeg Free Press

time19 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

NTSB: Heavy plane, drag from antlers contributed to crash that killed ex-Rep Mary Peltola's husband

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A small plane that crashed in 2023 while carrying moose meat for hunters in remote western Alaska, killing the husband of former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, was overweight for takeoff and encountered drag from a set of antlers mounted outside, federal investigators said in a report released Tuesday. The National Transportation Safety Board, in its final report on the crash that killed Eugene Peltola Jr., who was the only person on board the aircraft, listed several factors among its probable cause findings. They included decisions by Peltola to fly the plane above its maximum takeoff weight and affix a set of moose antlers on the right wing strut that caused a drag, along with turbulent flight conditions in the area. Downdrafts, 'along with the overweight airplane and the added drag and lateral weight imbalance caused by the antlers on the right wing, would likely have resulted in the airplane having insufficient power and/or control authority to maneuver above terrain,' the report states. FILE - Eugene "Buzzy" Peltola Jr. holds the Bible during a ceremonial swearing-in for his wife, Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) The Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub crashed Sept. 12, 2023, northeast of the small western Alaska community of St. Mary's. Peltola had days earlier taken five hunters, a guide and equipment from the community of Holy Cross to an airstrip at St. Mary's. The group set up camp next to the runway, which was near hilly terrain and about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of Holy Cross, the agency said. The day before the crash, the group got a moose and made plans with Peltola, via satellite messaging devices, for him to transport the meat, the NTSB said. On the day of the crash, Peltola had already picked up a load of meat and had returned for another. He did not use scales to weigh the cargo, the agency said. Two hunters were at the site when the crash occurred and provided aid to Peltola, the agency previously reported. Peltola died of his injuries within about two hours, the agency said. 'Given the remote location of the accident site, which was about 400 miles from a hospital, and accessible only by air, providing the pilot with prompt medical treatment following the accident was not possible,' Tuesday's report states. The agency said carrying antlers on the outside of a plane is a common practice in Alaska but requires formal approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, with a notation in the plane's logbooks. 'There was no evidence that such approval had been granted for the accident airplane,' the report states. Peltola was a former Alaska regional director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and worked for decades for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He had received his commercial pilot's license in 2004, requiring him to use corrective lenses at all distances, according to an FAA database. His death came almost exactly a year after Mary Peltola was sworn in as Alaska's lone U.S. House member, following a special election for the seat. Mary Peltola, who is Yup'ik, was the first Alaska Native in Congress. She won a full, two-year term in November 2022 but lost her reelection bid last November. She has kept a relatively low public profile since then.

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