Assassination

The Thomas Crane Public Library invites the public to learn more about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln with a free, illustrated presentation by historian and teacher Christopher Daley Thursday at 7 p.m. Daley will delve into the assassination plot, utilizing photographs of the period as well as modern photographs, recounting the day in vivid detail. The presentation will also cover the escape and capture of John Wilkes Booth. Daley, a history teacher in the Silver Lake Regional School System in Kingston, has served on historical committees for a number of South Shore towns.

BEIRUT - The Syrian Foreign Ministry indirectly denied Thursday persistent rumors that President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law, a member of the secretive inner circle governing the country, was fatally poisoned by the opposition. The oblique method of the denial - in a Facebook posting - was just the latest strange twist in a cloak-and-dagger tale that has been circulating for five days and that has been impossible to confirm. The struggle to spread, or halt, the rumor that Assad's brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, was killed represents the most high-profile chapter in the war of narratives between the...

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen opened fire on a convoy carrying former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmad Chalabi today in an apparent assassination attempt that wounded two of his bodyguards, Chalabi's spokesman said. Chalabi's convoy was attacked in southern Baghdad at about 7:30 a.m. as he returned from the holy city of Najaf, said spokesman Mithal al-Alusi. "The doctor (Chalabi) is in good health. He is safe but two of his bodyguards were injured, " al-Alusi said. Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon partner who fell out of favor with the United States, returned to Iraq from Iran earlier this month to...

Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning CBS News producer who served as Tel Aviv bureau chief during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel, has died. He was 64. CBS News reports that Rosenbaum died Thursday in New York of a brain tumor. Rosenbaum collaborated with correspondents Bob Simon and Dan Rather on stories in the Middle East while Tel Aviv bureau chief from 1989 to 1995. His field producing played a key role in coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, which won a Peabody award and two Emmys.

BEIRUT - Four Hezbollah members indicted in the 2005 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister cannot stay fugitives forever and should get lawyers, the defense chief of an international tribunal said yesterday. The suspects have until mid-September to contact the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Francois Roux, head of the court’s defense office, said in an interview. After that, Roux said, the tribunal’s judges will hold proceedings in absentia and he will appoint defense lawyers on their behalf.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson apologized yesterday for calling for the assassination of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, only hours after he denied saying Chavez should be killed. "Is it right to call for assassination?" Robertson said. "No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the US is out to kill him. " Chavez, whose country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush.

The events of Nov. 22, 1963, have been echoed, reenacted -- even presaged -- by a number of assassination movies. Here is a sample: "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962, MGM/UA). Released less than a month before President Kennedy's assassination -- then virtually buried by United Artists until 1988 -- John Frankenheimer's film mixes black humor and prescient Cold War commentary to tell the story of a Korean War hero (Laurence Harvey) who becomes a lethal pawn in the hands of the Chinese.

MADRID - Spanish police have arrested three men, including one who had been a fugitive for five years after being convicted for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's prime minister, the Interior Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Vladimir Milisavljevic, Luka Bojovic, and Sinisa Petric were arrested as they met in a downtown restaurant Thursday in the eastern coastal city of Valencia, the statement said. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia was killed by a sniper in front of government headquarters in Belgrade in March 2003.

KARACHI, Pakistan — Gunmen went on killing sprees in Pakistan’s largest city after the assassination of a lawmaker, killing at least 37 people by today. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set on fire as security forces struggled to gain control as Karachi seethed. The southern city of more than 16 million has a history of political, ethnic, and religious violence, and has long been a hideout for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants. The latest unrest occurred after Raza Haider, a provincial lawmaker, was shot dead along with his bodyguard in a mosque while preparing to offer prayers.

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau - A presidential election that was supposed to stabilize this coup-prone nation was marred by a military assassination just hours after polls closed Sunday. Joao Biague, the director general of the judicial police, confirmed the death of Samba Diallo, the former head of military intelligence. Biague told the private radio station Pindjiguiti FM late Sunday that the police were investigating Diallo's death and would bring those responsible to justice. Few details were available Monday, but neighbor Germano Da Silva, who lives about 30 yards from...

A former Obama administration official says al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden wanted to see President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus assassinated. But Michael Leiter (LYT'-uhr) tells NBC's "Today" show he didn't think that necessarily was bin Laden's highest priority, suggesting the terrorist leader dreamed of another large-scale, 9/11-type attack on the United States. Asked by "Today" host Matt Lauer Tuesday whether bin Laden's aim of seeing Obama assassinated was more of a "wish-list" than a plot, Leiter agreed.

NEW YORK - Sid Moody, a longtime feature writer for the Associated Press who chronicled major events of the 20th century from the assassination of John F. Kennedy to the Iranian hostage crisis, has died. He was 83. His son Clarke said Tuesday that his father died Sunday in a hospital in Morristown, N.J. A longtime resident of Bernardsville, N.J., Mr. Moody spent his last years at a retirement community in Bernards Township, N.J. He joined the AP in Newark in 1956 and later moved to the news features department in New York City.

BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau - A presidential election that was supposed to stabilize this coup-prone nation was marred by a military assassination just hours after polls closed Sunday. Joao Biague, the director general of the judicial police, confirmed the death of Samba Diallo, the former head of military intelligence. Biague told the private radio station Pindjiguiti FM late Sunday that the police were investigating Diallo's death and would bring those responsible to justice. Few details were available Monday, but neighbor Germano Da Silva, who lives about 30 yards from...

Israeli and French filmmakers are making a comedy centered on the assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh died in January 2010 when hitmen entered his Dubai hotel room. Dubai police suspected Israel's Mossad spy agency, but never proved it. The complex operation, in which several disguised agents were caught on hotel cameras, remains unsolved. Israeli producer Michael Sharfshtein and French partner Manuel Munz are preparing to shoot a $5.2 million comedy called "Kidon," the supposed name of the Mossad's assassination department.

WASHINGTON - The man who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan more than 30 years ago said he would like to be known as something other than a would-be assassin. John Hinckley made the statement to a doctor who interviewed him in the past year at a Washington mental hospital. The statement and other pieces of information about Hinckley's life are part of hundreds of pages of documents prepared for court hearings in Hinckley's case. Hinckley, who shot and wounded Reagan in 1981, wants more freedom from the hospital.

BEIRUT (AP) — Gunmen assassinated an army general in Damascus today in the first killing of a high ranking military officer in the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March, the country's state-run news agency said. The attack could be a sign that armed members of the opposition, who have carried out attacks on the military elsewhere in the country, are trying to step up action in the tightly controlled capital, which has been relatively quiet compared to other cities.

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy By Vincent Bugliosi Norton, 1,612 pp., illustrated, $49.95 Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years By David Talbot Free Press, 478 pp., illustrated, $28 Some murder mysteries seize the public's imagination. And then there is the murder of John F. Kennedy, which is in a class by itself. If Vincent Bugliosi has counted right, the assassination of the nation's 35th president has been the subject of almost 1,000 books.

Michael Rosenbaum, an award-winning CBS News producer who served as Tel Aviv bureau chief during the first Palestinian uprising against Israel, has died. He was 64. CBS News reports that Rosenbaum died Thursday in New York of a brain tumor. Rosenbaum collaborated with correspondents Bob Simon and Dan Rather on stories in the Middle East while Tel Aviv bureau chief from 1989 to 1995. His field producing played a key role in coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, which won a Peabody award and two Emmys.

MADRID - Spanish police have arrested three men, including one who had been a fugitive for five years after being convicted for the 2003 assassination of Serbia's prime minister, the Interior Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Vladimir Milisavljevic, Luka Bojovic, and Sinisa Petric were arrested as they met in a downtown restaurant Thursday in the eastern coastal city of Valencia, the statement said. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia was killed by a sniper in front of government headquarters in Belgrade in March 2003.

WASHINGTON -- The Kennedy assassination was one of the most heart-wrenching and chaotic events in modern American history -- and one still replete with mysteries. But now a little more light has been shed on one of them: What was edited out of the flight deck recording from Air Force One as it carried John F. Kennedy's body and the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, from Dallas to Washington. The National Archives and Records Administration today released a newly discovered recording – running about 2 hours and 20 minutes -- that is nearly...