History

The grisly case of Jack the Ripper could finally be closed by British cops more than 136 years after his murderous killing spree in London.

A descendant of one of the Ripper’s victims has demanded an inquest into one of history’s most notorious serial killers after DNA evidence suggested the murderer was a Polish barber, Knewz.com can reveal.

The true identity of Jack the Ripper, whose grisly murders terrorized the murky slums of Whitechapel in east London in 1888, has been a mystery ever since.

He is believed to have killed at least five female prostitutes.

There have been dozens of suspects, from royalty and prime ministers down to bootmakers.

After extracting DNA from a shawl recovered from the scene of one of the killings, Jack the Ripper sleuth Russell Edwards claimed in 2014 that the murderer was Aaron Kosminski, an emigre from Poland, who worked as a barber.

The story goes that the shawl came from the murder scene of the Ripper’s fourth victim, Catherine Eddowes, on September 30, 1888.

At Edwards’ request, Doctor Jari Louhelainen, a senior lecturer at the UK‘s Liverpool John Moores University, isolated seven small segments of DNA from blood stains on the shawl.

They were matched with the DNA of Karen Miller, a direct descendant of Eddowes, confirming her blood was on the shawl.

DNA from semen stains on the garment was matched with a descendant of Kosminski.

Edwards has demanded an inquest into the unsolved killing, saying the DNA evidence warrants it. Miller backed the call in an interview published on Monday.

“The name Jack the Ripper has become sensationalized. It has gone down in history as this famous character,” she said.

“People have forgotten about the victims, who did not have justice at the time. Now we need this inquest to legally name the killer,” Edwards added.

Some have cast doubt on Edwards’ findings, however.

The research has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, meaning the claims cannot be independently verified or the methodology scrutinized.

Under the law, it is up to the UK government’s Attorney General to approve a further inquest. Two years ago, then the Attorney General, Michael Ellis, refused the request, saying there was not sufficient new evidence.

Miller said on Monday the time was right to reopen the case.

“It would mean a lot to me, to my family, to a lot of people to finally have this crime solved,” she added.

Kosminski was born in Klodawa in central Poland on September 11, 1865.

His family fled the imperial Russian anti-Jewish pogroms and emigrated to east London in the early 1880s. He lived close to the murder scenes.

Some reports say he was taken in by the police to be identified by a witness who had seen him with one of the victims.

Although a positive identification was made, the witness refused to give incriminating evidence, meaning the police had little option but to release Kosminski.

He entered a workhouse in 1889, where he was described on admission as “destitute.” He was discharged later that year but soon ended up in a mental asylum.

Kosminski died from gangrene in an asylum on March 24, 1919, and was buried three days later at East Ham Cemetery in east London.

Los Angeles has been engulfed in a blazing inferno over the past week, especially in the Pacific Palisades, Eaton, and Hurst regions, with several historic landmarks having been destroyed in the fires.

Knewz.com has learned that the raging fires, which are expected to get worse in the upcoming week, resulted in the destruction of over 9,000 homes and businesses.

Among the destroyed properties were over 30 structures considered historically significant by preservationists, according to reports.

In fact, reports have mentioned that preservationists believe the Los Angeles fires caused “the single worst loss of such properties in the region’s history.”

“It’s staggering and heartbreaking — I don’t know any other way to put it… This is widespread destruction of significant architecture and places that are cherished in our communities,” Ken Bernstein, principal city planner at Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources, said in a statement.

“The quintessential historic preservation threat of the 20th century was symbolized by the bulldozer demolishing individual historic structures or communities for urban renewal,” he added.

“Today, it’s the extreme climate event. Wildfire, sea-level rise and extreme winds pose not incremental threat but constant threat of widespread destruction of our most cherished historical and architectural landmarks.”

According to reports, Will Rogers’ ranch home, Pasadena Waldorf School, Robert Bridges House, The Bunny Museum, Andrew McNally House, Theatre Palisades, and The Zane Grey Estate are among the 32 historic structures that have been destroyed in the Los Angeles fires.

It has been reported that Altadena’s Zane Grey Estate and Rogers’ western-style Palisades home held formal landmark status on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other destroyed properties, like Fox’s Restaurant in Altadena and Theatre Palisades, were significant because of “their status as beloved community spaces,” it has been reported.

“It is a mass erasure of heritage… We haven’t seen anything like this before,” Adrian Scott Fine, chief executive of the Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to historic preservation, said in a statement.

“We are losing these touchstones — physical places in the world that mark our intellectual history,” said Richard Schave, a preservation advocate and co-founder of the cultural tour service Esotouric.

Schave, his wife Kim Cooper, and the other founders of Esotouric Tours are “particularly upset” over the destruction of the Theosophical Library Center, which “makes available to the public a large and unique reference collection with significant works on philosophy, science, and the world’s religions.”

According to a notice from the authorities, the library center has been “permanently closed” due to the damages it suffered in the Altadena-Eaton fire.

Cooper, Schave’s wife, described the Theosophical Library Center as “a repository of esoteric knowledge.”

Authorities of the Bunny Museum on Lake Avenue, a museum of “quirky but seemingly irreplaceable collections of porcelain figurines, artwork, clothing and other items depicting rabbits,” have already vowed to rebuild the historic landmark.

It has been reported that the museum lost around 46,000 exhibits in the raging fires.

Reports have further mentioned that the tally of destroyed historic buildings could grow “dramatically,” as an exact estimate of damages is calculated.

It is worth noting that several other structures were damaged but not completely obliterated in the fires, like Gladstones, the seaside fish restaurant formerly owned by the late Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

It has also been reported that the death toll from the raging wildfires has reached 24 over the weekend—eight of which have been attributed to the Palisades fire, and 16 to the Eaton fire, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

In addition, 16 people have been reported missing amidst the chaos, with authorities saying that the number is expected to increase.

On the other hand, firefighters have been scrambling to contain the raging fires wreaking havoc in Los Angeles before winds return later this week.

Scientists from Oxford and Warsaw Universities have found new evidence that shifts the timeline regarding the fall of the Roman Empire and offers more insight into what actually caused the mighty civilization to collapse.

Knewz.com has learned that the latest research challenges the recently suggested notion that the Eastern Roman Empire perished as a result of the Late Antique Little Ice Age and the Justinianic Plague during the end of the 6th Century.

According to the prevalent theory, the Eastern Roman Empire was weakened by these two significant climate and disease factors, as a result of which it could not put up much of a fight against the Persians and Arabs in the first half of the 7th Century.

However, the research conducted by Lev Cosijns from the University of Oxford and Haggai Olshanetsky from the University of Warsaw concluded that these assumptions are “inherently incorrect.”

The research, published in the journal Klio, mentions that there are “vast amounts of evidence, including archaeological survey data, settlement patterns, shipwreck analyses, pottery distribution in the Mediterranean and other material” that indicate the Eastern Roman Empire was not in decline in the 6th Century.

On the contrary, it suggests that the empire was actually at its peak, with regard to population, towards the end of the century—a claim supported by “evidence from micro and macro-scale data from throughout the Mediterranean.”

Cosijns and Olshanetsky wrote in the introduction to their paper, “The current article wishes to answer these researchers by showing that there was no decline in the 6th c. CE, and that no late 6th c. CE crisis and decline occurred. In addition, it will be suggested that the Eastern Roman Empire was at the peak of its power and population at the end of the 6th c. CE.”

The research team discovered a total of 16,148 pieces of pottery traded by the Roman Empire during the late 6th and early 7th centuries in the city of Nessana located in the southwest Negev desert in Israel.

The discovery of the numerous “pottery shards” proves that the Roman Empire was thriving during the said period.

It is worth noting that the team of researchers also found that there was a sharp increase in the number of pottery shards dating to the years after 550 A.D., indicating an “increase in the industrial capacity and prosperity of the region.”

Cosijns, from the University of Oxford, said in a statement, “It seems that 536 CE was not the worst year to be alive… It was a terrible period for people living in Scandinavia.”

“But for people who lived in the eastern Roman Empire, there were limited effects, and so life went on as usual,” he added.

As for why the mighty empire collapsed, the scientists suggested that it simply perished in war with the Persians and the Arabs as a result of trade and military failures.

In order to prove this theory, the research team pulled shipwreck records from Harvard University and the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP) database.

“The use of this type of data implements a method that has recently been applied in different studies… This method assumes that the number of shipwrecks has statistical significance, and greater amounts of maritime traffic are reflected in higher numbers of shipwrecks in certain periods,” the paper published in Kilo explained.

According to reports, the team analyzed shipwrecks throughout the Mediterranean from multiple sites, like Marseille, Naples, Carthage, eastern Spain, and Alexandria.

“As the number of ships in use increases, so does the probability that some of them will sink due to storms and other calamities. Generally, the comparison of the number of shipwrecks between half-centuries and centuries is considered acceptable and common, and is an important tool in understanding the volume of sea-borne trade,” the paper further mentioned.

While the number of Roman shipwrecks stayed consistent between 200 and 300 during the 2nd Century CE, there was a sharp decline of almost 50% in shipwreck numbers by the end of the 5th Century.

“The reason for such a severe reduction was most probably due to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century,” the research team said.

The numbers declined further by the second half of the 7th Century, dropping to 67—indicating that the trade routes of the empire were being cut off.

“This decline was most probably an outcome of the Persian war, and the Islamic conquest shortly after, which deprived Constantinople of most of the territories that were previously under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire,” the researchers said.

With the trade routes having collapsed, the population of the Eastern Roman Empire was forced to flee to other regions, and the territory fell at the hands of the Persians and the Arabs, the research explained.

Footage of President John F. Kennedy being rushed to hospital as his life ebbed away could hold new clues to the unanswered questions that still swirl around his slaying.

Newly emerged film of the motorcade speeding down a Dallas freeway toward a hospital after he was fatally wounded was sold at auction last month for $137,500, Knewz.com reports.

Now academics are lining up to review the 10 seconds of celluloid for pointers that could shed new light on theories that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the only shooter operating a rifle on that fateful day in November 1963.

A government official stated: “Everyone has an opinion on the JFK assassination and they don’t always match. There has been a lot of interest in the footage and now it has been sold, academics want to look through it frame by frame to see if there are any clues that point towards a second shooter.”

President Kennedy, Texas Gov. John Connally, and their wives were riding in a slow, open motorcade through Dallas when at 12:30 p.m., as the car turned onto Dealey Plaza, three gunshots rang out.

Kennedy and Connally were both shot. The car sped to a nearby hospital, where the president was pronounced dead and the governor treated for wounds.

Oswald was arrested as the suspected gunman and was himself shot to death days later.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission, chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination.

The Warren Report concluded that Oswald had fired all three shots from a window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, where he worked.

But the case was far from closed.

A man named Abraham Zapruder, one of thousands of people standing along the motorcade route that day in Dallas, captured the shootings on his 8mm home movie camera.

At 26 seconds and 486 frames, it would come to be one of the most thoroughly examined films in history—and a prime piece of evidence for the Warren Commission and the subsequent conspiracy theories.

At first, it was assumed that Kennedy and Connally had been hit by separate bullets.

But the Zapruder film threw a wrench in that notion. The Warren Commission’s analysts concluded that JFK was shot sometime between Frames 210 and 225 (a street billboard blocked Zapruder’s view at the crucial moment), while Connally was hit no later than Frame 240.

In other words, the two men were hit no more than 30 frames apart.

However, FBI tests revealed that Oswald’s rifle could be fired no faster than once every 2.25 seconds—which, on Zapruder’s camera, translated, to 40 or 41 frames.

In short, there wasn’t enough time for Oswald to fire one bullet at Kennedy, and then another at Connally.

The inference was inescapable. Either there were at least two gunmen—or Kennedy and Connally were hit by the same bullet.

The Warren Report argued the latter and the Magic Bullet Theory was born. Experts say the new find wasn’t necessarily surprising, even over 60 years after the assassination, and there could be more footage out there.”

These images, these films, and photographs, a lot of times they are still out there. They are still being discovered or rediscovered in attics or garages,” said Stephen Fagin, curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, which tells the story of the assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

RR Auction sold the 8 mm home film in Boston on Sept. 28.

It begins with Dale Carpenter Sr. just missing the limousine carrying the president and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy but capturing other vehicles in the motorcade as it traveled down Lemmon Avenue toward downtown.

The film then picks up after Kennedy has been shot, with Carpenter rolling as the motorcade roars down Interstate 35.”This is remarkable, in color, and you can feel the 80 mph,” said Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of the auction house.

The footage from I-35 — which lasts about 10 seconds — shows Secret Service Agent Clint Hill, who famously jumped onto the back of the limousine as the shots rang out, hovering in a standing position over the president and Jacqueline Kennedy, whose pink suit can be seen.

“I did not know that there were not any more shots coming,” Hill said

“I had a vision that, yes, there probably were going to be more shots when I got up there as I did.

“The shots had been fired as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in front of the Texas School Book Depository, where it was later found that assassin Lee Harvey Oswald had positioned himself from a sniper’s perch on the sixth floor.

Mart.Carpenter’s grandson, James Gates, said that while it was known in his family that his grandfather had film from that day, it wasn’t talked about often.

So Gates said that when the film, stored along with other family films in a milk crate, was eventually passed on to him, he wasn’t sure exactly what his grandfather, who died in 1991 at age 77, had captured.

Projecting it onto his bedroom wall around 2010, the footage from I-35 played out before his eyes. “That was shocking,” he said.

Frank Sinatra’s ties to the New York mafia have been exposed in a new book about the takedown of the mob.

Knewz.com can reveal the crooner had to beg for his life after the criminal organization put out a hit on him in the early 1970s.

Sinatra was summoned to a secret meeting in an East Harlem basement by ruthless mob puppet master ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, it is alleged in Mafia Takedown, a new book written by former FBI agent Mike Campi.

According to the book, Sinatra infuriated the Genovese crime family, and one of Campi’s informants, George Barone, was instructed to kill the beloved singer.

Campi revealed: “Sinatra’s name and home address was once found by Italian authorities in Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano’s possession, and Sinatra was alleged to have once delivered a suitcase stuffed with cash to Luciano in Cuba.”

He added: “Sinatra was also good friends with Louie ‘Dome’ Pacello, a longtime Genovese soldier who operated out of an office above Veniero’s Bakery in New York City. Pacello once refused to answer under oath whether he even knew Sinatra, citing his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

“After being immunized and legally compelled to respond, Pacello still refused to answer – voluntarily choosing to be incarcerated rather than respond to this simple question.”

Sinatra’s affiliation with the mafia was no secret, with ties dating back to his early days in show business. Plus, the crooner’s godfather was the infamous New Jersey gangster Willie Moretti.

In the new book, Campi claimed the mob was even behind Sinatra’s Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity after he was initially rejected for the part of Private Angelo Maggio.

The former FBI agent wrote: “Columbia Studios was reputedly closely aligned with the mob. Sinatra requested a role from Columbia’s head, Harry Cohn, who turned him down.

“Sinatra then apparently approached an intermediary to Genovese power, Frank Costello, who handpicked Chicago mobster Johnny Roselli to deliver a message.”

Roselli allegedly “persuaded” Cohn to cast Sinatra, telling him he was a “f—— dead man” if he didn’t do as he was told.

The incident allegedly inspired one of the most famous scenes in The Godfather, where a film producer was made “an offer he couldn’t refuse”.

Through his personal conversations with George Barone, Campi uncovered even more damning details surrounding the My Way singer with the Genovese family.

He wrote: “According to Barone, at one point Sinatra was becoming too friendly with other crime families (Sinatra was famously photographed with multiple Gambino members).”

Spanish scientists have recently claimed that Christopher Columbus, the 15th-century explorer credited as the man who discovered America, was actually a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe.

Knewz.com has learned that there has been considerable mystery regarding the origins of the man who launched several expeditions to the Americas funded by the government of Spain in the 15th century.

The recent claims about Columbus’s origin have been put forward at the end of a 22-year-long investigation led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, according to reports.

The said investigation entailed testing tiny samples of remains buried in the Seville Cathedral in Spain, believed to be the last resting place of the famous explorer.

The investigating team compared the analysis of the remains with the DNA of known relatives and descendants of Columbus, and the findings of the investigation were shared in the documentary entitled Columbus DNA: The True Origin on TVE, the Spanish national broadcaster.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” forensic expert Lorente said in the documentary.

“And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin,” Lorente added.

Lorentes further said that the team analyzed 25 different regions before concluding that there was a high possibility that Columbus was from Western Europe. While research into the explorer’s nationality was considered complicated, the forensic expert claimed that the outcome of his investigation was “almost absolutely reliable.”

He further stated that his investigation confirms previous theories that the remains in Seville Cathedral belonged to Columbus.

It has been reported that around 300,000 Jews lived in Spain before the Catholic monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered those of Jewish and Islamic faith to convert to Catholicism or leave the nation during the ‘Reyes Catolicos.’

Many of the Jews displaced at the time settled elsewhere around the world, it has been reported. The word “Sephardic” reportedly comes from the Hebrew word “Sefarad,” meaning Spain.

On the other hand, Matt Goldish of Ohio State University stated that the theories about Columbus being a Sephardic Jew “may create a perfect storm of Jew-hatred if the same Jews caused the destruction of native American civilization and of native Palestinian civilization.”

Jonathan Ray, professor of Jewish studies at Georgetown University and the author of the 2023 book Jewish Life in Medieval Spain: A New History, said regarding the recent revelations about the 15th-century explorer’s faith:

“The recent DNA evidence regarding Columbus is very interesting and helps to illuminate his biography and the era in which he lived. I would offer one caveat, though: While it indicates that Columbus had Jewish heritage, it does not indicate that Columbus was a professing, Jew.”

Ray further stated that there is no proof that Columbus lived a Jewish life, “nor even as a crypto-Jew,” adding that historical records point towards him being of Catholic Christian faith.

“Rather, it would seem to indicate that he was a converso, or New Christian as they are often called—that is, a descendant of Iberian Jews who had converted to Christianity under duress during the century leading up to Spain’s expulsion of the Jews in 1492,” the expert said in a statement.

Other experts also stated that the public should take the findings of the latest investigation with a grain of salt.

Ronnie Perelis, associate professor of Sephardic studies at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University, said that Columbus’s presumed Jewish identity “is a story that never dies,” and added, “Genetics doesn’t make someone Jewish.”

Jonathan Sarna, professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, commented in this regard:

“In the interim, Columbus has been reviled in many circles and Columbus Day in cities like mine has been replaced by Indigenous Persons Day… Dubious science that looks to prove ‘genetically’ that Columbus was Jewish is no more persuasive than earlier theories of this kind. All we know for sure is that Columbus had much to hide.”

In a bid to secure his re-election, former President Donald Trump reiterated his promise of releasing all the files relating to the assassination of JFK if he takes the White House in the upcoming election.

Knewz.com has learned that Trump made the announcement alongside John F. Kennedy’s nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally in Arizona later in August.

At the Arizona rally on August 23, Trump said that if re-elected, he would establish an independent presidential commission on assassination attempts.

This commission would also be tasked with facilitating the release of the remaining files pertaining to the JFK assassination.

Trump’s ambition regarding the establishment of the commission came a month after an attempt was made on his life during a Republican rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“[The said commission] will also conduct a rigorous review of the attack last month,” Trump said at the Arizona rally in August.

It is worth noting that the Trump assassination attempt brought the United States Secret Service under terrible criticism from the public, with Director Kimberly A. Cheatle turning in her resignation from the post on July 23, amidst intense pressure from lawmakers.

“In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,” Cheatle was quoted as saying at the time.

“This incident does not define us… I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission.”

It is worth noting that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, the failed Trump assassin, reportedly conducted research on the assassination of JFK – including the distance between the victim and assailant Lee Harvey Oswald during the 1963 murder – in preparation for the attempt on the Republican candidate’s life.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in front of the House Judiciary Committee in July that Crooks had done a Google search on “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” on the day he registered to attend the Pennsylvania rally.

Speaking of the JFK files, Trump said at the rally in Arizona that his promise is meant as a “tribute” to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently abandoned his independent candidacy and endorsed Trump in the November elections.

“[RFK Jr.] lost his father and uncle in service to our country, and […] was subject to repeated threats to his safety during the course of his campaign,” Trump further said.

Notably, RFK Jr. is the son of former Attorney General and New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was also assassinated during his own presidential campaign in 1968.

Trump had written on the Truth Social platform a few months prior: “When I return to the White House, I will declassify and unseal all JFK assassination related documents… It’s been 60 years, time for the American people to know the TRUTH!”

It is worth noting that Trump had made the same promise during his time at the White House in 2017 and oversaw the release of over 19,000 files pertaining to the matter, according to reports.

However, he eventually sided with the CIA and FBI and blocked the release of the remaining documents.

In 2022, President Joe Biden facilitated the release of an additional 19,000 documents.

Notably, the decision of both presidents to gradually release a limited number of files goes against the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 passed unanimously by Congress.

The Act stated that all assassination-related records had to be publicly disclosed by October 26, 2017, and that “only a president can certify a limited number of national security concerns that would justify postponing the public availability of a document,” as explained by Business Insider.

Archeologists have discovered 3,800-year-old remains of two children, a teenager, and an adult in Peru.

Knewz.com has learned that the respective burial site is believed to belong to a “water cult” and expected to change expert perspectives of South American history.

The skeletal remains were found positioned so that they faced the mountains. Scientists speculate that these individuals – buried on the site of the temple dedicated to water – were placed this way because the worshippers of the era believed that water came from the mountains.

In the same ancient tomb, stone pennants and snail shells were found which are believed to be symbolic offerings.

This discovery was made at the Queneto archeological site first discovered five decades ago—but dates back to the Early Formative period between 1800 to 900 B.C.

During said era, the local Inca started erecting temples and pyramids using a large amount of ceramic.

Ph D candidate at Peru’s National University of Trujillo, Castillo Luján, weighed in on the find:

“The excavation covered a unit of 51 m² (548 square feet), equivalent to 1% of the total area of ​​the site. It has allowed us to identify cobblestone walls with clay plaster, which correspond to five interconnected environments.” 

“These environments, characterized by curved corners, show a unique architecture of the Early Formative period,” he explained.

“In addition, fragments of early pottery found at the site are similar to those observed in other important settlements such as Gramalote, in the Moche Valley, and Huaca Negra, near the coast in the Virú Valley.”

Said Gramalote site in the Moche Valley is also known for its human remains. Since its discovery in 1973, it has become a resource for artifacts that offer insights into the social dynamics of the formative Andean cultures; the Caral, the Chavin, and the Inca.

A paper on this area states that “local shells, sea lion and shark bones, were found [in graves with the human remains] along with domestic structures.”

“This evidence suggests that marine resources in formative Andean cultures had an importance beyond subsistence. Sea products appear to have had a crucial role in early local cosmology and religion,” said paper published on the ACADEMIA website states.

The Huaca Negra archeological site Luján refers to lies in the Virú Valley (also in Northern Peru) and is home to the El Brujo Archaeological Complex.

Here, evidence of human habitation as recent as 14,000 years ago can be found. 

According to the associated website, Complejo Arqueológico El Brujo, the El Brujo Archaeological Complex comprises “an oval mound constructed with cobblestones joined with waste or garbage, composed of ash and organic remains, which give the building a dark color and for which it gets its name.”

The platform further notes that “burials of groups of individuals placed in a flexed position were found.”

“One of them had as paraphernalia two pyrographed calabashes with depictions of felines and birds, as well as cotton textiles with geometric designs. These artifacts, along with others, soon became references of technical skill and references of pre-Chavin figurative art,” the website noted.

The Queneto dig, Luján fears, is under threat. He warns that while the area’s potential for tourism is significant, attention should be paid to the site’s fragility:

“The archaeological community and local authorities have the power to transform the Virú Valley into a reference point for cultural tourism and a bastion of Peruvian identity. But time is running out, and actions to preserve this site must be taken before it is too late.”

An almost-centenarian former Nazi camp secretary in Germany has just lost the appeal against her conviction for complicity in the murder of over 10,000 people.

Knewz.com has learned that the defendant’s conviction involves her actions at the Stutthof concentration camp in erstwhile Nazi-occupied Poland.

Irmgard Furchner, a 99-year-old former Nazi camp secretary, had initially received a two-year suspended sentence in December 2022 for her complicity in the “cruel and malicious murder” of prisoners at the concentration camp.

The presiding judge Dominik Gross said at the time that “nothing that happened at Stutthof was kept from her” and that Furchner was aware of the “extremely bad conditions for the prisoners” at the camp.

According to reports, Furchner – whose husband was a fellow Schutzstaffel (SS) officer – “took the dictation and handled the correspondence of camp commander Paul Werner Hoppe.”

“An estimated 65,000 people died at the camp near today’s Gdansk, including Jewish prisoners,” the reports further mentioned.

According to the prosecutors, the deceased also included “Polish partisans and Soviet Russian prisoners of war.”

“Although the camp’s abysmal conditions and hard labor claimed the most lives, the Nazis also operated gas chambers and execution-by-shooting facilities to exterminate hundreds of people deemed unfit for labor,” a separate report read.

She was reportedly a teenager when the crimes were committed and as a result, she was initially tried as a teenager.

It is worth noting that the 99-year-old tried to abscond from her September 2021 trial by attempting to run away from the retirement home where she was living at the time.

She stayed on the lam for several hours before finally being apprehended in the German city of Hamburg.

It was reported that Furchner had expressed regret when the trial neared its end, and she told the court that she was “sorry about everything that happened.”

Following the initial ruling in 2022, which was passed by a regional court in the town of Itzehoe in Germany, her attorneys filed an appeal to the Federal Supreme Court against the judgment.

However, a Supreme Court spokesperson said at the time that the higher court would examine if “proceedings have been conducted properly and substantive law has been applied correctly,” adding that evidence would not be taken again.

On Tuesday, August 20, after a nearly two-year-long deliberation, the Supreme Court decided to uphold the ruling, as the current presiding judge Gabriele Cirener was quoted as saying:

“The conviction of the defendant… to a two-year suspended sentence is final.”

It is worth noting that the 2011 conviction of Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk set a legal precedent that facilitated a more effective crackdown on individuals with a significant connection to the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

The Furchner case is one of the several cases built on the precedent established by the Demjanjuk conviction.

However, there is not much time left to bring those linked to the Holocaust to justice, as it has been nearly 80 years since the Second World War, and most of the accused individuals are either dead or physically unfit to stand trial.

Notably, the ruling passed in the Furchner case could be “the last judgment of its kind” in Germany, it has been reported.