A skull and five skeletons, minus their hands and feet, were discovered at the site. (FUNDACJA LATEBRA)

Skeletons found buried inside Hermann Göring’s former residence

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Amateur archeologists have found five skeletons buried at Hermann Göring’s former residence in the remote Wolf’s Lair, the Nazis’ Eastern Front headquarters where German military officers failed in a 1944 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Missing hands and feet, the otherwise complete skeletons of three adults, a teenager and a newborn baby were uncovered Feb. 24, 2024, along with a skull underneath the brick building that served as the Luftwaffe chief’s on-site living quarters.

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Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Dextraze. (THE MUSEUM OF THE MONT-ROYAL FUSILIERS)

Private to General: Remembering Jacques Dextraze

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Lieutenant-Colonel Jacques Dextraze, having travelled more than three kilometres behind enemy lines, parked his Bren Gun Carrier outside the German headquarters in Groningen, Netherlands. He walked in alone.

Hands in pockets, the 25-year-old commander of Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal (FMR) confronted the Nazi general in charge. The latter believed his Canadian counterpart had come to surrender—quite the opposite was true.

Dextraze lit a cigarette, careful not to offer one to the German officer. After a drag or two, he explained that the enemy force was surrounded.

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Inas Abu Maamar, 36, cradles the body of her five-year-old niece Saly, who was killed along with her mother and sister when an Israeli missile struck their home in Khan Younis, Gaza. The image by Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem won the World Press Photo of the Year. (MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS/WORLD PRESS PHOTO)

World Press Photo announces best of photojournalism 2024

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Hard-earned reporting that doesn’t happen to fit the preferred narrative is often dismissed these days as “fake news”—an expression popularized among conspiracy theorists and champions of the far right by former U.S. president Donald Trump.

Rather than calling out the expanding legions of self-proclaimed “citizen journalists” and propagandists spreading lies under the guise of legitimate information, the “fake news” indictment has become a widely used weapon against so-called “corporate media,” the “left-wing press,” small-l “liberal hacks,” and unadulterated facts that some people don’t want in the public domain.

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Canada’s first naval recruits in November 1910.(CANADA WAR BLOG)

Not-So-Smooth Sailing: The Founding of Canada’s Naval Service

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

On May 4, 1910, the Naval Service Bill received royal assent. Canada now had a navy, but troubled waters lay behind and ahead of the milestone.

While Canadians had played an important—and often understated—role in maritime interests between the 17th and 19th centuries, Britain remained the bedrock of protection at sea. From 1903, however, the Royal Navy had pursued a policy of withdrawing forces from the Empire’s distant stations to centralize strength against German naval expansion.

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