At Camp David retreat, Biden hangs out, shows he's got game
FILE - In this July 1981 file photo released by The White House, U.S. President Ronald Reagan, left, and Vice President George Bush go horseback riding at Camp David, Md. He capped it off by beating one of his granddaughters at Mario Kart during his first presidential visit to Camp David, the historic retreat for U.S. leaders. That’s what Camp David has traditionally offered presidents: a respite from Washington where they can shed their ties and relax with family. AdBill Clinton tried to replicate that diplomatic alchemy when he invited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Camp David for Mideast peace talks in 2000. He said when foreign leaders descend on Camp David, it can be like an “adult sleepover.”Ad“Going to camp in the cabins creates an atmosphere where leaders are very close together.
George Shultz wasn't 'afraid to struggle against the odds'
(AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)WASHINGTON – Time was running out when Secretary of State George P. Shultz returned home in April 1988 after flying 16,000 miles in a failed mission to persuade Arabs and Israelis to negotiate their differences. AdA lifelong Republican, Shultz negotiated the first-ever treaty with the Soviet Union to reduce the size of their ground-based nuclear arsenals. The president would not yield, and Reagan and Shultz returned to the United States disappointed but determined to pursue an accord. Although Shultz objected, Reagan went ahead with the deal and millions of dollars from Iran went to right-wing Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua. But only a few years later, Reagan and Shultz, considered Israel’s best friends, had opened the door to Palestinian legitimacy and possibly a Palestinian state on land held by Israel.
Larry King, broadcasting giant for half-century, dies at 87
FILE - In this Nov. 20, 2017, file photo, Larry King attends the 45th International Emmy Awards at the New York Hilton, in New York. In its early years, “Larry King Live” was based in Washington, which gave the show an air of gravitas. “Do you know who I am?”“Always loved Larry King and will miss him,” Seinfeld tweeted Saturday. Originating from Washington on the Mutual network, “The Larry King Show” was eventually heard on more than 300 stations and made King a national phenomenon. “Larry King Live” debuted on June 1, 1985, and became CNN’s highest-rated program.
Abbas decrees first Palestinian elections in 15 years
FILE - In this May 19, 2020 file photo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas heads a leadership meeting at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Abbas has issued a decree setting parliamentary and presidential elections for later this year, Friday, Jan. 15, 2021. Elections would pose a major risk for Abbas' Fatah party and also for Hamas, which welcomed the decree. Abbas' Palestinian Authority is confined to the occupied West Bank, where it administers major population centers according to agreements with Israel. The decree sets a timeline in which legislative elections would be held on May 22, followed by presidential elections on July 31 — the first since Abbas was elected to a four-year term in 2005.
Israel looks to far-right figure to head Holocaust memorial
Israel plans to nominate Eitam to head the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, officials said Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Zoom 77)JERUSALEM – Israel plans to nominate a far-right former general and Cabinet minister who once called for the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to head the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, officials said Tuesday. Eitam would replace Avner Shalev, 81, who announced his retirement earlier this year after leading Yad Vashem for 27 years. Yad Vashem is a non-political and almost sacred institution in Israel. “Yad Vashem is really the embodiment of an institution that speaks on behalf of minorities,” she said.
History on screen: East Germany through its filmmakers' eyes
In this Wednesday, June 17, 2020 photo Gunnar Dedio, German film producer and managing director of PROGRESS Film GmbH poses for a photo between rolls of film in the archive of PROGRESS Film, in Leipzig, Germany. A new project is underway to digitize thousands of East German newsreels, documentaries and feature films 30 years after Germanys reunification. The East German Augenzeuge, or Eyewitness, newsreel on the Kennedy visit trumpeted the prank as a triumph, scoffing that the American president got an “unexpected surprise instead of the great view into the East German capital promised by his Secret Service” and allegedly had to cut his visit from “20 minutes to five." Germany was divided into four occupation zones after World War II, the Soviet-influenced East Germany and West Germany's American, British and French sectors. In 1950, the year after East Germany was established as a country, the authorities formed another company, Progress, as a state monopoly to distribute DEFA films and to import foreign productions.