Author: Reporter

An independent group of experts warned on June 4 that it was possible that famine is underway in northern Gaza but that the war between Israel and Hamas and restrictions on humanitarian access have impeded the data collection to prove it. “It is possible, if not likely,” the group known as the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, said about famine in Gaza. Concerns about deadly hunger have been high in recent months and spiked after the head of the World Food Program said in April that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine” after nearly seven months...

The names of thousands of people held in Japanese American incarceration camps during World War II have been digitized and made available for free, genealogy company Ancestry announced in May. The website, known as one of the largest global online resources of family history, is collaborating with the Irei Project, which has been working to memorialize more than 125,000 detainees. It is an ideal partnership as the project’s researchers were already utilizing Ancestry. Out of over 60 billion records Ancestry holds, nearly 350,000 have been found to be pertinent to camp detainees and their families. People will be able...

In a famous “Twilight Zone” episode from the early 1960s, a bloodthirsty World War II commander stationed in the Philippines finds himself transported into the body of a Japanese lieutenant and, to his horror, expected to help kill an entrapped and wounded American platoon. “What you do to those men in the cave, will it shorten the war by a week, by a day, by an hour?” he pleads to a Japanese officer. “How many must die before (we) are satisfied?” For the show’s host and writer, Rod Serling, World War II was a trauma he would re-imagine often....

Waverly Woodson Jr., a medic who was part of the only Black combat unit to take part in the D-Day invasion of France during World War II, is being posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross in recognition of the heroism and determination he showed treating troops under heavy enemy fire. The announcement was made on June 3 by Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who has been working for years with Woodson’s family for more recognition of his heroism on that fateful day. “This has been a long time coming,” Van Hollen said during an interview. “Woodson’s bravery on...

One of Idris Elba’s grandfathers fought in World War II, but he does not know what he endured. No pictures or stories survive. “That part of my family’s history has been erased somewhat,” said Elba. That helped fuel the actor’s push to narrate and executive produce the four-part National Geographic docuseries “Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color,” which premiered on June 3 ahead of the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6. Episodes will be available later on Disney+ and Hulu. More than 8 million people of color served with the Allies, and the series digs deep to focus on...