National Archives Releases Amelia Earhart Records Promised By Trump

The U.S. National Archives on Friday released several batches of records related to the 1937 disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart over the Pacific, following President Donald Trump’s recent order to declassify and release all such material held by the government.

The release of 4,624 pages of documents, including log books of U.S. military vessels involved in the air-and-sea search for Earhart, was announced by National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.

Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were last seen taking off in her twin-engine Lockheed Electra airplane on July 2, 1937, from Papua New Guinea en route to Howland Island, some 2,500 miles (4,000 km) away, during an attempt to fly around the world. Radio contact with the plane was lost hours later after Earhart, 39, reported running low on fuel.

A massive naval search, the most extensive ever at that time, was unsuccessful. Earhart’s fate remains one of the most enduring mysteries of the past 88 years.

In addition to U.S. Navy and Coast Guard reports about the Earhart search were various memos, newspaper clippings, letters and telegrams.

The correspondence included a letter from a woman claiming she had deduced by mental telepathy that Earhart was still alive, one from a man insisting she was buried in Spain and a series of government telegrams and memos discounting rumors that Earhart had been taken captive by Japanese forces and executed.

The National Archives said more records would be digitized and posted on a rolling basis.

The fate of Earhart and Noonan remains an open question. But researchers from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery have pieced together evidence suggesting the pair died as castaways on the tiny coral atoll of Nikumaroro, in the Kiribati islands of the western Pacific.

A series of expeditions to that island turned up what appeared to be a jar of anti-freckle cream from the 1930s, bits of clothing, human bone fragments and a pocket knife of the type Earhart carried. A patch of aluminum believed to have come from their plane was also recovered.

In addition, TIGHAR said a sonar image taken from just beyond the shore of the remote atoll revealed what could be a wing or part of the fuselage of Earhart’s aircraft.

Some 80,000 records pertaining to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were released on Trump’s order in March.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by William Mallard)

Trump Says He’ll Likely Sue BBC For Up To $5 Billion Over Edited Speech

President Donald Trump said on Friday he would likely sue the BBC next week for as much as $5 billion after the British broadcaster admitted it wrongly edited a video of a speech he gave but insisted there was no legal basis for his claim.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has been plunged into its biggest crisis in decades after two senior leaders resigned following accusations of bias, including over the editing of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, when his supporters entered the Capitol.

Trump’s lawyers had initially set a Friday deadline for the BBC to retract its documentary or face a lawsuit for “no less” than $1 billion. They also demanded an apology and compensation for what they called “overwhelming reputational and financial harm,” according to a letter seen by Reuters.

The BBC, which has admitted its editing of Trump’s remarks was an “error of judgement,” sent a personal apology to Trump on Thursday but said it would not rebroadcast the documentary and rejected the defamation claim.

“We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he headed to Florida for the weekend.

“I think I have to do that, I mean, they’ve even admitted that they cheated,” he said. “They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

Trump said he had not spoken with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with whom he has built a solid relationship, about the issue, but that he planned to call him this weekend. He said Starmer had tried to reach him, and was “very embarrassed” by the incident.

The documentary, which aired on the BBC’s flagship “Panorama” news program, spliced together three video excerpts from Trump’s speech, creating the impression he was inciting the January 6, 2021, riot. His lawyers said this was “false and defamatory.”

In an interview with British right-leaning TV channel GB News, Trump said the edit was “impossible to believe” and compared it to election interference.

“I made a beautiful statement, and they made it into a not beautiful statement,” he said. “Fake news was a great term, except it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corrupt.”

Trump said the BBC’s apology was not enough.

“When you say it’s unintentional, I guess if it’s unintentional, you don’t apologize,” he said.

BBC Chair Samir Shah sent a personal apology on Thursday to the White House and told lawmakers the edit was “an error of judgement.” The following day, British culture minister Lisa Nandy said the apology was “right and necessary.”

The broadcaster said it had no plans to rebroadcast the documentary and was investigating fresh allegations about editing practices that included the speech on another program, “Newsnight.”

The dispute has escalated into the broadcaster’s most serious crisis in decades. Its director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness quit this week over the controversy amid allegations of bias and editing failures.

Starmer told parliament on Wednesday he supported a “strong and independent BBC” but said the broadcaster must “get its house in order.”

“Some would rather the BBC didn’t exist. Some of them are sitting up there,” he said, pointing to opposition Conservative lawmakers.

“I’m not one of them. In an age of disinformation, the argument for an impartial British news service is stronger than ever.”

The BBC, founded in 1922 and funded mainly by a compulsory license fee, faces scrutiny over whether public money could be used to settle Trump’s claim.

Former media minister John Whittingdale said there would be “real anger” if license payers’ money covered damages.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Andrea Shalal in Washington, Costas Pitas in Los Angeles and Sam Tabahriti in London; editing by Leslie Adler, Tom Hogue and Shri Navaratnam)

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