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Along America's most fabled road, Route 66, lie the almost forgotten graves of German and Italian prisoners of war brought to Oklahoma some 70 years ago and who now rest in the red soil of a former Wild West pioneer outpost. All but ignored by the thousands who travel Route 66 each year on nostalgic tours in search of bygone America, there are few signs and little fanfare surrounding the cemetery housing the remains of 62 German and eight Italian soldiers. As many as 20,000 German POWs were brought to Oklahoma during World War Two and held at eight main camps and about two dozen branch camps chosen for their remoteness from urban areas for security reasons. Germans made up the bulk of the POWs, who were put to work at tasks such as picking cotton and clearing fields. Most had been captured in fighting in North Africa but never made it home when the war was over after dying of pneumonia, appendicitis, accidents and, in one case, murder. In the Fort Reno cemetery, separated by

Seventy years ago, Jim "Pee Wee" Martin parachuted into class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France , behind German enemy lines, ahead of the D-Day invasion. This week, at the age of 93, the Ohio World War Two veteran is jumping into Normandy again to mark the anniversary of the June 6, 1944, sea-borne landings by Allied troops, although this time he will not be making the leap alone. "They are making me do a tandem," Martin said in a telephone interview. "They are worried about me getting hurt. I said, 'Don't worry about it. If I get hurt or I get killed, what is the difference? I've lived 93 years. I've had a good life.'" Martin said he was jumping now because he may be the last man from his unit of the 101st Airborne Division to ever do it again. Martin, who lives near Dayton, said he will use a round canopy parachute like those in World War Two, which drop more quickly than modern parachutes. He is also taking one of his j

Pope Francis may be a die-hard soccer fan, but the Catholic church has given Brazil's World Cup organizers a "red card" for spending billions of dollars on stadiums while failing to improve the country's notoriously poor public services. In a red card-shaped brochure distributed this week in churches and parishes across the world's biggest Roman Catholic country, Brazil's Bishops Conference urged the Brazilian government to respect people's right to demonstrate against the month-long tournament that kicks off next Thursday. "The Church wants to contribute to the public debate and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> express its concern with ... the inversion of priorities in the use of public money that should go to health, education, basic sanitation, transportation and security," it said. That view is shared by many Brazilians who have taken to the streets sporadically over the past year to protest against spending on World Cup stadiu

Pope Francis sacked the five-man board of the Vatican's financial watchdog on Thursday - all Italians - in the latest move to break with an old guard associated with a murky past under his predecessor. The Vatican said the pope named four experts from Switzerland, Singapore, the United States and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Italy to replace them on the board of the Financial Information Authority (AIF), the Holy See's internal regulatory office. The new board includes a woman for the first time. All five outgoing members were Italians who had been expected to serve five-year terms ending in 2016 and were laymen associated with the Vatican's discredited financial old guard. Reformers inside the Vatican had been pushing for the pope, who already has taken a series of steps to clean up Vatican finances, to appoint professionals with an international background to work with Rene Bruelhart, a Swiss lawyer who heads the AIF and who has been pushing for change.

Sitting in the shade on a bench in the center of Moscow, 77-year-old Galina Makarenko pauses for several seconds before delivering her blunt opinion on the Allied D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. "It helped us a little. But only a little," says the sprightly physicist, who was evacuated from Moscow to Kazakhstan to escape the conflict that Westerners call World War Two and Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War. President Vladimir Putin joins the leaders of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France , Britain, the United States and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany to mark the 70th anniversary on Friday of the Normandy landings that opened the western front against Hitler's forces, catching them in a giant pincer movement as Stalin's Red Army pushed them back in the east.   true       But while many in the West see D-Day as the decisive turning point in the conflict, conversations in the Russian capital on Thursday reflected a widely hel

(This June 2 story was refiled to show last find of Civil War dead at Gettysburg, not nationally, in 1996 in the sixth paragraph.) The skull of a Civil War soldier and military relics found near the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, battlefield are scheduled to be sold at auction on Tuesday, to the dismay of some historians. Estate Auction Company is hoping to sell the skull at a price of $50,000 to $250,000 to a private collector or museum, said auctioneer Thomas Taylor. The skull was found in 1949 on private land near Benner’s Farm, site of a Confederate field hospital, by someone tilling a garden, he said. A breastplate found nearby came from a Louisiana unit of the Confederate Army, he said.   true       The seller, who made the find, is remaining anonymous, Taylor said. He said the skull was deemed authentic because of where it was found and the relics discovered around it. The Battle of Gettysburg, which lasted three days in 1863, is often described as the turning point of the Civ

(This June 2 story was refiled to show last find of Civil War dead at Gettysburg, not nationally, in 1996 in the sixth paragraph.) Facing wide criticism, including from the National Parks Service, an auction house has canceled plans to sell the skull of a Civil War soldier and military relics found near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Estate Auction Company had hoped the auction, by an anonymous seller, would raise between $50,000 to $250,000 from a private collector or museum. But late on Monday, auctioneer Thomas Taylor of the Hagerstown, Maryland-based company said the skull would be handed over to the National Park Service at the Gettysburg National Military Park.   true       The park service had earlier called for the skull to be donated for burial in the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg, alongside the bones of other unknown soldiers. The Battle of Gettysburg, which lasted three days in 1863, is often described as the turning point of the Civil War. Some 164,000 troops f