Michelle Obama lays roses at bloodiest site along Berlin Wall
By Sarah Marsh and Alexandra Hudson BERLIN (Reuters) - Michelle Obama and her daughters threaded roses through the narrow slots of a Berlin Wall memorial on Wednesday, honoring those who died trying to cross the Cold War barrier at a site which holds special poignancy in the once divided city. Accompanied by Angela Merkel's husband Joachim Sauer, who like the German leader hails from the former East Germany, President Barack Obama's family toured the Bernauer Strasse memorial where desperate residents of East Berlin once tried to jump from their windows into the western half of the city. ...
Confessed killer says did not dictate deal to turn on 'Whitey' Bulger
By Daniel Lovering BOSTON (Reuters) - An altar-boy-turned-gang-enforcer told jurors at the trial of accused mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger on Wednesday that he did not set the terms of a deal with prosecutors allowing him to serve just 12 years in prison for 20 murders in exchange for details against his former boss. The witness, John "The Executioner" Martorano, was the first member of the ruthless Winter Hill Gang to testify against Bulger, who is on trial for charges including racketeering and 19 murders that occurred in the 1970s and '80s. ...
FBI director says IRS tax exemption probe a top priority
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than a dozen FBI agents are assigned to the criminal investigation into the Internal Revenue Service's added scrutiny of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status, FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Wednesday. "It's a high-priority investigation and it needs to be handled with care, but it also needs to be pushed aggressively because it's a very important case," Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing. ...
TWA Flight 800 crash not due to gas tank explosion, former investigators say
The producers of an upcoming documentary on TWA Flight 800—which exploded and crashed into the waters off Long Island, N.Y., on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board—claim to have proof that a missile caused the Paris-bound flight to crash. And six former investigators who took part in the film say there was [...]