SCAMPTON -- On the night of May 16-17, 1943, Lancaster bombers of the RAF’s 617 Squadron carried out an attack on the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany’s industrial heartland, using the famous “bouncing bomb” designed by Barnes Wallis.
Every bridge for 50km below the breached Möhne dam, plus 12 war production factories, were destroyed, and around 100 more were damaged.
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CHITTAGONG -- Hundreds of thousands of people are being evacuated from coastal areas of Bangladesh threatened by Cyclone Mahasen. The cyclone, pounding through the Bay of Bengal, is estimated to reach land early Friday.
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ATLANTIC OCEAN -- The U.S. Navy has made aviation history by launching an X-47B prototype drone off an aircraft carrier for the first time. The production version of the robot jet will be able to choose and fire upon targets with no human intervention.
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ABUJA -- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three states Tuesday, after the Islamist militant group Boko Haram intensified attacks on security forces and government targets in its northeast stronghold this month.
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LONDON -- Saudi Arabia has confirmed six new cases of the SARS-like novel coronavirus, bringing the worldwide total of confirmed cases to 41 since the nCoV virus was identified last year. The number of fatalities has reached 20.
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TEHRAN -- Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's close ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have both registered to stand in Iran's June 14 election. A shortlist will be announced on May 22.
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NEW YORK -- Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer. She said her doctors estimated she had an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer.
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NEW YORK -- Leonardo DiCaprio’s new film, the latest version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, has its world premiere in New York before opening worldwide from May 10. The film will also open the Cannes Film Festival on May 15.
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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Granite boulders dredged from the seafloor off the coast of South America two years ago could be remnants of a long-vanished continent, according to Roberto Ventura Santos, the director of Brazil's Geology Service.
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LONDON -- Dan Brown’s hotly anticipated new thriller "Inferno" is already listed as both Barnes & Nobles and Amazon’s #1 bestseller, just one day after being published simultaneously in seven languages.
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COPENHAGEN -- Denmark is set to start work on one of Europe’s largest ever infrastructure projects. The construction of an 18km-long undersea Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link to Germany will be the world’s longest combined road and rail tunnel.
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