The Normandy Landings of 6 June 1944 marked the beginning of the liberation of occupied Western Europe. The Security Service made a significant contribution to the success of D-Day through its double agent Juan Pujol, codenamed GARBO, who has been described as the greatest double agent of the Second World War. This is the remarkable story of GARBO and how he deceived the German High Command. The Normandy Landings of 6 June 1944 marked the beginning of the liberation of occupied Western Europe. The Security Service made a significant contribution to the success of D-Day through its double agent Juan Pujol, codenamed GARBO, who has been described as the greatest double agent of the Second World War. This page relates the remarkable story of GARBO and how he deceived the German High Command.
Dia de los Muertos is a traditional Mexican and Latin American holiday in which the living commemorate the memories of their dead ancestors. Although occurring at the same time of year as Halloween and sharing a common imagery of death – Dia de los Muertos decorations and foods prominently feature skull and skeleton motifs.This holiday does not consider the dead to be morbid or frightening; rather, they are objects of affection and even humor. Families visit the graves of loved ones, share meals, and build altars in their homes to their memory.
Death can be a morbid and solemn subject in many cultures, but in Mexico, it's a cause for celebration -- at least for two nights a year. From November 1-2, people throughout the country deck their homes, streets and relatives' graves with flowers, candles, confetti and colorful skulls for the Day of the Dead. The traditional festival honoring the deceased centers around the belief that the living and the dead can commune during the brief period. With faces painted as skulls and bodies made up like skeletons, throngs of performers marched through the streets of Mexico City in a Day of the Dead parade. Thousands of onlookers cheered and applauded as a giant raised fist constructed out of hard hats and pickaxes led the procession, signifying the defiant spirit of a country hit with one of its worst calamities in decades.
A new subvariant of the novel-coronavirus called XBB dramatically announced itself in Mid October, 2022, in Singapore. New COVID-19 cases more than doubled in a day, from 4,700 on Monday to 11,700 on Tuesday—and XBB is almost certainly why. The same subvariant just appeared in Hong Kong, too. A highly mutated descendant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that drove a record wave of infections starting around a year ago, XBB is in many ways the worst form of the virus so far. It’s more contagious than any previous variant or subvariant. It also evades the antibodies from monoclonal therapies, potentially rendering a whole category of drugs ineffective as COVID treatments.
