Rahu_blog

Th e murder that has obsessed Italy So began one of the most complex murder investigations in Italian history, which will reach its climax later this year. On 26 November 2010, Yara Gambirasio, 13, went missing. Three months later her body was discovered in scrubland nearby. The Guerinoni family were nicknamed i Fantì, the “infantry”: considered by everyone to be loyal, strong, even hot-headed. She got a job at the textile factory a few miles away in Villa d’Ogna, and took the bus every day. Ruggeri’s team immediately cross-checked the DNA samples they had, and discovered that Arzuffi had already been tested in July 2012. The investigation was, by Italian standards, unusually secretive. The province of Bergamo is much closer to Switzerland than Naples and the Bergamaschi are generally more reserved than their southern countrymen. In 1966, aged 19, she had married Gianni Bossetti from Parre, a nearby village. Maura was so uncomfortable she was, unintentionally, rolling her eyes. When DN...

How a Man Survived a Plane Crash—and a 15-Hour Swim with Sharks Co-pilot Mike Flaherty tapped the fuel gauge. It was 9 a.m. He followed them north, but Bimini was nowhere in sight. He spotted a Coast Guard jet, then watched it fade from sight. When the clouds briefly parted, he saw stars spinning in the heavens. He signaled the chop­per and turned back. I can make it to 10, he told himself. Just before the deadline, he felt the bump of a hard, moving body against his feet. The airplane angled for the water. It shot away, surfaced 20 feet to the side and began circling. He had replenished his fuel in Key West and was returning, accompa­nied by a Navy helicopter, which would spotlight the search area. He kept it up for the better part of an hour. Afterward, feeling calmed, he blew air back into the chambers of the life vest and slid his body on top of it. “We did all we could,” said Blankenship dismally. Get your head to­gether! Now! As the vest sank deeper, he made a desperate lunge and...

The increasingly complicated Russia-Ukraine crisis, explained The Ministry of Defense created defense brigades in Ukraine’s main cities because of the risk of invasion by Russia as they amass troops at the border. A military trainer with Ukraine’s 112th Territorial Defense Brigade works with civilians during a military exercise in the outskirts of Kyiv on February 5. On Tuesday, Russia said it planned “to partially pull back troops” from where it had built up some 130,000 at the Ukrainian border, a move that comes after the United States warned last week that an “invasion could begin at any time.” The Kremlin had appeared to be making all the preparations for war: moving more military equipment, medical units, even blood, to the front lines. Russia presented the US with a list of demands, some of which were nonstarters for the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The West said it hasn’t seen any evidence troops are pulling back, though it’s a l...