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A Russian rescue helicopter has been shot down by Syrian rebels while searching for pilots missing after Turkey downed a Russian jet. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing in a government-held area in Syria's Latakia province. A Syrian insurgent group, which uses U.S. Tow missiles, said its fighters hit the helicopter with an anti-tank missile. Video footage has emerged online appearing to show the helicopter after it crashed in dense woodland. Plumes of smoke can be seen coming from the aircraft.

An armed man in his 20s being surveilled by the FBI counterterrorism unit was shot and killed by an FBI agent and a Boston police officer in Roslindale this morning, according to Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. "He was on foot, under surveillance," Evans said. "The officers have been surveilling him and again they wanted to speak to him ... and he turned and our officers gave several commands for him to drop the weapon and unfortunately he came at the officers and they did what they were trained to do and that's never an easy decision for any officer...

(If any of you mindless rabble are reading this, stop now. This message is not for you. And reading is really not your thing as you've proven time and again. I will probably use a few big words later and you know how that gives you a headache. So stop reading now. I mean it.) Truth is, the problems this world faces are far more complex and far more difficult to fix than people like Scott Brown can fathom. We know this, don’t we, friends? We understand this, innately. The problems with the banking industry, climate change, energy, healthcare, foreign...

The Rev. Al Sharpton is taking up the banner of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., accusing Cambridge cops of racism for arresting Gates, and vowing to stand by his side at an arraignment next month. “I’ve heard of driving while black, and I’ve heard of shopping while black. But I’ve never heard of living in a home while black,” said Sharpton, a New York minister who has made a national name for himself by seizing on cases of alleged racism. Gates, 58, an acclaimed Harvard University academic and black-history documentarian, was arrested Thursday after an incident at his Cambridge...

The Nantucket Tea Party will be one of more than a thousand such protest events to be held across the nation on Independence Day. The organizers were all set. They were given permission by the Town’s head of Park and Recreation. After the local paper publicized the event, some members of the Nantucket Park and Recreation Commission decided to forget about the First Amendment. One local official was quoted as saying “we don’t want politics on Main Street.” Apparently the head of Park and Recreation was overruled by the commissioners. The Nantucket Tea Party then got permission to use a...

An embarrassing gallery of photos showing Bay State Sen. John Kerry surrounded by young women partying on Nantucket was a dockside encounter and nothing more, the senator’s office tells the Herald. The senator’s office said the images of Kerry are nothing but a chance encounter on a dock, and Kerry kept on walking after being caught on camera, according to a statement sent to bostonherald.com this afternoon.

NANTUCKET — In response to a request from local police, federal immigration agents conducted a series of early morning raids yesterday searching for illegal immigrants on a list of about 26 "hard targets," most of whom had committed crimes on the island, the Nantucket police said. "This was not a roundup of people here illegally," Police Chief William Pittman said. Of the 18 people arrested, 16 had criminal histories and six had been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Two others were picked up because they were in...

Bomb threat strands 170 Nantucket visitors HYANNIS - A bomb threat called in to Hy-Line Cruises Sunday night put a freeze on all ferry travel in and out of Nantucket, stranding at least 170 people on the island while officials scoured vessels and luggage in search of explosives. No evidence of bombs was found in the search and the investigation into the origin of the threat continues today. The call came in to the boat line's Nantucket ticket office at 8 p.m. from an adult male who gave an unspecific threat about a Hy-Line vessel blowing up if it left...

Judge, Two Others Killed in Atlanta Courthouse Shooting, Manhunt Continues Friday, March 11, 2005 ATLANTA, Ga. — A man facing rape charges grabbed a deputy's gun and shot four people at the Fulton County Courthouse (search) in downtown Atlanta, killing a well-respected judge, a court reporter and a sheriff's deputy and leading authorities on a citywide manhunt. The suspect, identified as 34-year-old Brian Nichols and described as a balding black male, carjacked a series of vehicles following the 9 a.m. EST shooting. Nichols, 34, is described as a balding black male, 6'1" and weighing 200 pounds, of medium complexion. He...

A 37-year-old New York City man is being held in Rhode Island in connection with the alleged murder of Elizabeth Lochtefeld, 44, at her Hawthorne Lane home Monday. Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe and Nantucket Police Chief William Pittman announced at 11 a.m. Tuesday that an arrest warrant for murder and a fugitive from justice warrant had been filed in Rhode Island to hold Thomas E. Toolan, 37, of 412 West End Ave. in Manhattan, N.Y. in connection with Lochtefeld’s death. Toolan and Lochtefeld had been in a brief relationship, O’Keefe said. Lochtefeld’s body was discovered Monday afternoon...

It was John Kerry's ``Do-you-know-who-I-am?'' debate. On at least four occasions in St. Louis Friday night, the squire of Naushon Island made it clear that you should vote for him . . . because he's better than you are. Twice, he told female opponents of abortion he ``respected'' their views. Respect indeed. His wife has another way of putting it. She says, ``Shove it!'' John Kerry [related, bio], as someone pointed out, is a person who just can't help treating people like help. Remember the moment when he talked about his plans for tax increases on people making over $200,000...

John Edwards looked like Opie last night, and he sounded like Barney Fife, and after that mistake by the lake, there's only one place John Edwards [related, bio] should be headed today. To Michigan, for a nice long ride in Mike Dukakis' tank. It may not have changed a lot of minds, and it dragged big time in the last half. And of course everyone was clicking back and forth between Cleveland and the Yankees game. But if last night's debate had been a prize fight, it would have been stopped around 9:20, and Gwen Ifill would have passed the...

John Kerry may be sinking in the polls, but even if he goes down with the ship Nov. 2, he'll still have his own little flotilla to return to back here in Massachusetts. According to a check of state and U.S. Coast Guard records, he and his ``family'' own almost as many high-end boats as they do mansions and SUVs. Since Liveshot married the Widow Heinz, he's been on a nautical buying spree. Excuse me, let me clarify that last statement: His elderly second wife's first husband's grandfather's trust fund has been on a nautical buying spree on behalf of...

Due to extensive damaged caused by Hurricane Ivan to Pensacola, Fla., the hometown of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels, the precision flying team’s scheduled performances at the Nantucket Air Show this weekend have been canceled. At a press conference Friday at the Nantucket Inn, Nantucket Airport Commission Chairman Foley Vaughan announced that all of the Blue Angel’s performances have been canceled, but that the rest of the air show – including aerobatics performances and wingwalking demonstrations – will go on as scheduled. “Due to Hurricane Ivan and the devastating losses suffered in Pensacola, Fla., the Blue Angels have been forced...

What was the first thing John F. Kerry [related, bio] did after he was discharged from active Navy duty in that ``barbaric war''? The self-described war criminal filed to get his $300 Vietnam war bonus from the commonwealth of Massachusetts. I guess Kerry wanted to grab the dough before he repressed that ``filthy obscene memory'' of a war he regarded with a ``very, very deep sense of revulsion'' and that he hoped, nay, prayed, ``a merciful God will wipe away (from) our memories.'' But not, apparently, until the check from the state cleared. He was discharged on Oct. 13, 1969....

Nantucket summer resident Pat Ottenhoff is spending the week in New York City at the Republican National Convention as an intern for the New Jersey Network. In addition to working for the public television station deep within the bowels of Madison Square Garden, he will chronicle for The Inquirer and Mirror the events leading up to and including President George W. Bush’s acceptance of the Republican nomination for president. He will also be keeping a convention diary which he will update periodically throughout the week in this space. This morning at the Crowne Plaza breakfast, the mood among the New...

Talk about a doubly incongruous image - John Kerry [related, bio] in Nashville, addressing the convention of the American Legion. But that's where he's going today, and that's what he'll be doing. As for the Legionnaires, he's got no use for them, none whatsoever. Here are his own words, taken directly from his own 1971 book, ``The New Soldier'': ``We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars - in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all . . .'' Except maybe the Somerset Club. ``We will not uphold traditions which...

You're John Kerry [related, bio], and the only liberal puke who's had a worse August than you is William Kennedy Smith. They said it was your election to lose, and you're losing it. You told 'em you were no Dukakis and you're not. As the Bush campaign pulverized him in August 1988, the Duke ran away to Tanglewood. Sixteen years later, you haven't fled to Tanglewood, you've lammed out for Nantucket. And now you're holed up in the $9 million mansion on Hulbert Avenue that your second wife's first husband's trust fund bought. You're John Kerry, and you can't help...

DEBKAfile exclusive: Kurdish sources confirm that Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz is in their hands and is being questioned by US intelligence officials.