Amelia Earhart

BANGOR -- Joanne Jordan Van Namee, for 35 years a key figure at the family-owned Bangor Daily News, died Wednesday at the home of her son, publisher Richard J. Warren of Bangor. She was 82. Mrs. Van Namee, the chairwoman of the board of Bangor Publishing Co., was the granddaughter of J. Norman Towle, who founded the newspaper in 1895. In 1934, at age 10, the then Joanne Jordan flew over Bangor with renowned aviator Amelia Earhart. As an adult, she christened the first B-52 bomber to fly into Bangor.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had encouraging words Tuesday for a new investigation into one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries: the fate of American aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared without a trace over the South Pacific 75 years ago. Clinton and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gave their support to historians, scientists, and salvagers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, which...

Previously released Amelia This biopic of Amelia Earhart is a hollow white elephant with a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn back into a human being? Hilary Swank stars. (111 min., PG) (Ty Burr) Antichrist A violently psychosexual drama about a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) working out their grief over their child’s death and plunging into an increasingly primeval struggle.

Previously released Amelia This biopic of Amelia Earhart is a hollow white elephant with a sharp idea struggling to get out: How does a woman marketed to the public as a star turn back into a human being? Hilary Swank stars. (111 min., PG) (Ty Burr) Antichrist A violently psychosexual drama about a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) working out their grief over their child’s death and plunging into an increasingly primeval struggle.

'People, Mr. Daly, want the next thing," says a character to ex-museum guard Larry Daly (Ben Stiller) in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," and there's Hollywood's rationale for sequelitis in an over-budgeted, computer-generated nutshell. The follow-up to the surprise 2006 hit movie reeks of No. 2: It's bigger, noisier, shinier, and dumber, and it has no earthly reason to exist. The kids will scarf it down like junk food and move on. Still, let's savor the few pieces of wit that have made it through the sausage factory intact.

NEW YORK -- It's the coldest of cold cases, and yet 70 years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes of a shortwave distress call beginning, "This is Amelia Earhart . . . " The previously unknown diary of an Associated Press reporter, surfacing after decades. And a team that has already found aircraft parts and a woman's shoe on a remote South Pacific atoll, hoping to return in July to find more evidence, perhaps DNA. For nearly 18 hours, Earhart's twin-engine Lockheed Electra drummed steadily eastward over...

It’s Oscar season and you know what that means: Time to wheel Hilary Swank out for her annual viewing. In “Amelia,’’ she plays the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, and those big, horsey incisors of hers may at last have met their match. On the surface, the film appears to be a dispiriting awards-season white elephant, a triumph of production design, period costumes, and hollow bio-drama. The movie’s trailer adds to the sense of déjà vu : Is this a sequel to “Out of Africa,’’ or a gender-bending remake of “The Aviator,’’ or what?

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had encouraging words Tuesday for a new investigation into one of the 20th century's most enduring mysteries: the fate of American aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared without a trace over the South Pacific 75 years ago. Clinton and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood gave their support to historians, scientists, and salvagers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, which...

A SERIOUS MAN **** (Max on Comcast) The Coen brothers remake the Book of Job in 1967 suburban Minneapolis. It's Jewish Bergman and one of their very best films - a pitch-black Old Testament farce in which God is either absent, absent-minded, or mad as hell. Love it or hate it, it'll haunt you for a long time. Michael Stuhlbarg plays the hapless hero. (R; runs through Nov. 24) TY BURR AMELIA **½ (Max on Comcast) It's Oscar season: Time to wheel out Hilary Swank for her annual viewing.

PARIS -- It was one of French aviation's enduring mysteries: Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the pilot and author of the beloved tale "The Little Prince," took off on a World War II spy mission for the Allies and was never seen again. After 60 years, officials have confirmed that the twisted wreckage of a Lockheed Lightning P-38, found in the Mediterranean not far from the rugged cliffs of Provence, belonged to Saint-Exupery, Air Force Captain Frederic Solano said yesterday. In France, the discovery is akin to solving the mystery of where Amelia Earhart's plane went down in the Pacific in 1937.

It’s Oscar season and you know what that means: Time to wheel Hilary Swank out for her annual viewing. In “Amelia,’’ she plays the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, and those big, horsey incisors of hers may at last have met their match. On the surface, the film appears to be a dispiriting awards-season white elephant, a triumph of production design, period costumes, and hollow bio-drama. The movie’s trailer adds to the sense of déjà vu : Is this a sequel to “Out of Africa,’’ or a gender-bending remake of “The Aviator,’’ or what?

'People, Mr. Daly, want the next thing," says a character to ex-museum guard Larry Daly (Ben Stiller) in "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," and there's Hollywood's rationale for sequelitis in an over-budgeted, computer-generated nutshell. The follow-up to the surprise 2006 hit movie reeks of No. 2: It's bigger, noisier, shinier, and dumber, and it has no earthly reason to exist. The kids will scarf it down like junk food and move on. Still, let's savor the few pieces of wit that have made it through the sausage factory intact.

NEW YORK -- It's the coldest of cold cases, and yet 70 years after Amelia Earhart disappeared, clues are still turning up. Long-dismissed notes of a shortwave distress call beginning, "This is Amelia Earhart . . . " The previously unknown diary of an Associated Press reporter, surfacing after decades. And a team that has already found aircraft parts and a woman's shoe on a remote South Pacific atoll, hoping to return in July to find more evidence, perhaps DNA. For nearly 18 hours, Earhart's twin-engine Lockheed Electra drummed steadily eastward over...

BANGOR -- Joanne Jordan Van Namee, for 35 years a key figure at the family-owned Bangor Daily News, died Wednesday at the home of her son, publisher Richard J. Warren of Bangor. She was 82. Mrs. Van Namee, the chairwoman of the board of Bangor Publishing Co., was the granddaughter of J. Norman Towle, who founded the newspaper in 1895. In 1934, at age 10, the then Joanne Jordan flew over Bangor with renowned aviator Amelia Earhart. As an adult, she christened the first B-52 bomber to fly into Bangor.

NORMAN, Okla. — Three bone fragments found on a deserted South Pacific island are being analyzed to determine if they belong to Amelia Earhart — tests that could finally prove whether she died as a castaway during her 1937 quest to become the first woman to fly around the world. Scientists at the University of Oklahoma hope to extract DNA from the bones, which were found earlier this year by a Delaware group dedicated to the recovery of historic aircraft. “There’s no guarantee,’’ said Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery in...