Treasure hunter claims $3bn WWII-era find off US coast

Greg Brooks: “It is the biggest shipwreck anyone has ever dreamt about”

A Maine treasure hunter says he has discovered a WWII-era shipwreck filled with platinum, now worth $3bn (£1.9bn).

Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research says a wreck sitting 50 miles (80km) off the US Atlantic coast is the SS Port Nicholson, sunk in 1942.

The Port Nicholson, a British merchant ship, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in an attack that killed six people.

Some have expressed doubts the wreck holds platinum, and maritime law would complicate ownership claims.

Anthony Shusta, an attorney representing the British government, says it is unclear if the ship ever carried platinum.

“We’re still researching what was on the vessel,” Mr Shusta told the Associated Press news agency. “Our initial research indicated it was mostly machinery and military stores.”

The United Kingdom will wait until salvage operations begin before deciding whether to file a claim on the cargo, he added.

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Coping With a Disaster or Traumatic Event “The effects of a disaster, terrorist attack, or other public health emergency can be long-lasting, and the resulting trauma can reverberate even with those not directly affected by the disaster. This page provides general strategies for promoting mental health and resilience. These strategies were developed by various organizations based on experiences in prior disasters. Site produced by the Centers fo Disease Control and Prevention.”

The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, were adopted as a single unit on Dec. 15, 1791. They constitute a collection of mutually reinforcing guarantees of individual rights and of limitations on federal and state governments. The Bill of Rights derives from the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the colonial struggle against king and Parliament, and a gradually broadening concept of equality among the American people.- Provided by The World Almanac 2012

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Most Americans won’t need a justification to watch Sunday’s game, but if you’re a TomDispatch.com reader you might think, even in passing, that celebrating the holiest day of violence, consumerism, and class warfare on your couch is a betrayal of your values or a waste of your time. You might even imagine that it would be better to take a hike, read a book, or meditate.

Not this Sunday, buster. It’s an election season. You need to watch this game to fully understand how jobs, religion, leadership, and healthcare dominate every American contest.

1. Joe Hill will be playing: Where else will be you be able to watch more than 100 young men, most of them African-American, working for high wages in a totally unionized shop? True, their jobs are dangerous (more on that later) and relatively short-term (typically three or four years), but they are also high profile. They can lead to TV gigs, even political office. Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp became a Republican congressman and vice-presidential candidate. The former New England Patriots running back and ESPN analyst Craig James is currently running for the Republican nomination for Senator from Texas, although to less than universal acclaim.

Fans tend to fixate on the money and glamor of the football job, so that when this past season was threatened by labor-management strife, it was easy for National Football League lackeys to frame the confrontation as “millionaires versus billionaires“ so the rest of us thousandaires wouldn’t stand with the workers against the bosses.

Even with a progressive attitude, watching the Super Bowl, which seems to float on rivers of oil—think car ads—and beer, is not exactly like holding a OWS-style general assembly in the red zone. Nevertheless, it’s a terrific visual of the American class divide. In their skyboxes, usually in jacket and tie, eating, drinking, and high-fiving—or scowling—are the one-percenters who own the team, which is usually not their only source of income. MORE.

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This Sunday, everyone will watch the Super Bowl differently, and almost nobody will care about all 53 hours of it. A Pats or Giants fan will care about the final score; a gambler will care about the spread. Civilians will just want to see the ads, or, if they happen to be old, the ads and Madonna. An investor who’s read about the “Super Bowl Indicator” might have no idea who’s playing, but will still tune in to see how the NFC is doing (in 80 percent of Super Bowls, the stock market has gone up after an NFC win and down after an AFC win).

But no one appreciates the Super Bowl as a whole — every nuance in its totality — the way a trivia buff does. After all, you never know which moment of the game will be remembered on bar trivia nights and quiz shows and board game cards 20 years hence. It might be the crucial play that decides the game, but it probably won’t be. It could happen in the fourth quarter with the game 35 points out of reach (Leon Lett’s premature celebration). It could happen at halftime (Janet Jackson’s nipple). It could even happen three days before the game (Joe Namath’s guarantee).

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“Design aside, you’ve got to question the capacity. The pint is too much. These colossal containers made sense back when Britain was a manufacturing power and when sweaty browed folk could quaff large quantities of liquid (often around 3-4% ABV) after a hard day hitting stuff, building things and generally working up a mighty thirst. But they’re outdated in a nation where more people work in marketing and PR than manufacturing, where the majority of construction lies in building the hopes of deluded reality TV contestants or mountains of debt. Why don’t we drink smaller measures? The pint really is an absurd amount of liquid when you think about it. That the only other drink sold in pints is milk says it all. Lovingly crafted beer shouldn’t be classified as a commodity like semi-skimmed – it’s a quality artisan product deserving of reverence equal to wine and spirits.”

—Man, they are gonna carve this guy up and throw the little bits left of him into the pond

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Wind River Indian Reservation, Where Brutality Is Banal

A rambling stretch of scrub in central Wyoming the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, Wind River has a crime rate five to seven times the national average and a long history of ghastly homicides.

WIND RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, Wyo. — At a boy’s basketball game here last month, Wyoming Indian High School, a perennial state power, was trading baskets with a local rival. The players, long-limbed and athletic, are among the area’s undisputed stars, and their games one of its few diversions. On this night, more than 2,500 cheering, stomping people came to watch.

Outside the gym, in a glass trophy case, are photographs of players from recent championship teams. Someone peered in and, moving his finger along the line of smiling faces, delivered a cruel counterpoint: killed in a car accident at 19 while intoxicated; murdered in his 20s; struck in the head with an ax not long after graduation.

The Obama administration, which has made reducing crime a priority in its attempt to improve the quality of life at dozens of Indian reservations plagued by violence, recently ended a two-year crime-fighting initiative at Wind River and three other reservations deemed to be among the country’s most dangerous.

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In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Discount Gun Sales has partnered with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation to release a special pink “Hope Edition” (I sh*t you not) of the Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol. According to DGS, a “portion” of each sale will go to benefit Komen’s Seattle chapter.

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A view of the east side of the house built by Francis Lee Smith, an engineer, in Wapiti Valley, Wyo. “His original intent was to build a home for his family, and it just took on a life of its own,” said Sunny Larsen, his daughter, who is the steward of the house. A full moon sets behind it.

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Viking descendants form a torchlight procession before sacrificing a longship at the annual Up Helly Aa festival in Lerwick, Shetland Islands. The festival, which began in 1870, celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian Vikings in the Shetland Islands. Shetland and neighbouring island Orkney were ruled by the Norse for about 500 years until they became part of Scotland in 1468.

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Why Are Enormous, Alligator-Eating Pythons Invading Florida?

America has a border problem, but it’s not the one you’re thinking about. Foreign invaders arrive in this country quietly, often in shipping containers from Asia or as exotic pets. At first, small populations are hardly noticed. Then, when becomes apparent that these invaders have no natural enemies here, their numbers explode exponentially.

America can’t keep invasive plants and animals out of its ecosystems, and stories of their destruction continually appear in the news cycle. For the past few years, increasingly large swarms of Asian stink bugs have been destroying apple harvests in the fall. Streams, rivers, and lakes in the heartland are teeming with Asian Carp — fish that routinely cause injury to boaters, jumping up from the water when provoked. There are also less visual stories concerning invasive species, such as Emerald Ash Borers, insects that have killed tens of millions of trees across the country in the past decade. In the U.S., $120 billion is spent each year containing invasive species.

And now Burmese pythons are capturing headlines. These snakes can grow to 16 feet and eat almost anything — even alligators (click if you dare, it’s a photo of an alligator carcass and a dead python that burst open while devouring it). Since 2003, as a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes, the increase of the python population from just a few to perhaps a few thousand has been connected to declines of several native mammals. According to the study, observations of raccoons have declined 93 percent, bobcats by 87 percent, and possums by 98.9 percent. The Everglades are enormous — nearly 4,000 square miles — and it is difficult terrain to traverse. So it’s hard to say how the pythons have affected rarer, quieter species such as egrets.

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