Mes: agosto 2019

Thompson died late Tuesday at his home in the Fort Worth suburb of Keller, said spokesman, Tracy Pitcox, who is also president of Heart of Texas Records. “He was battling aggressive lung cancer,” Pitcox said Wednesday in a statement. “He remained conscious until the last couple of hours and passed away peacefully at about 10:45 p.m. on Tuesday night surrounded by his friends and family.” Fans loved Thompson’s distinctive gravelly voice and his musical style, a mix of honky-tonk and Western swing. He was named to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1989. His first recording was “Whoa, Sailor” in 1946. That year, he started a band called the Brazos Valley Boys, which won Billboard magazine’s touring band of the year award 14 consecutive times. Thompson had 29 hits reach the top 10 between 1948 and 1975. Some of his most famous songs include “Humpty Dumpty Heart” and “A Six Pack to Go.” His album “The Wild Side of Life” reached No. 1 in 1952. It inspired a famous “answer song” written by J.D. Miller, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Recorded by Kitty Wells, the song was the first No. 1 hit by a woman soloist on the country music charts and made Wells a star. Thompson grew up a fan of Gene Autry, which fueled his love of the guitar. By the time he...

(AP/CBS) ISLAMABAD – A U.S. soldier held by Afghan militants will not be harmed despite the Obama administration’s decision to declare his alleged captors a terrorist group, a senior member of the Pakistan-based Haqqani network told The Associated Press on Saturday. However, the United States and NATO can expect stepped up attacks, he said. The commander, who spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location, denied that the Haqqanis held the only American prisoner of war of the Afghan conflict, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, as the U.S. believes. He did however say that Bergdahl was a captive of another branch of the Taliban, and denied earlier reports that the 26-year-old soldier from Hailey, Idaho, was in danger. Haqqani: Terrorist designation may bring “hardships” for U.S. POW Bowe BergdahlBowe Bergdahl: Prisoner of war, politics and diplomacyU.S. designating Haqqani network a terrorist organization “I deny the remarks . . . that this will endanger the life of the American soldier,” the commander said, speaking on condition he not be identified because field commanders fear being targeted if their identities are known. “We are not cowards and we consider it as coward to harm prisoners,” he said. The U.S. says that Bergdahl has been held by the Pakistan-based Haqqanis since 2009. However, the commander suggested he was with militants on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. “The American soldier is with the...

(CBS News) LONDON – Russian President Vladimir Putin has asserted that “some people want to use militants from al Qaeda… to accomplish their goals in Syria.” In a loosely veiled dig at the U.S. support for Syria’s opposition, Putin argued, “in that case, one should unlock Guantanamo, arm all of its inmates and bring them to Syria to do the fighting.” Putin was playing directly to his home crowd in the interview aired Thursday on Russian television. More in After the Arab Spring Old-school Russians love it when their president talks tough – especially to their old Cold War enemy. To them, Putin’s “some people” was a clear reference to Washington, and his reference to Guantanamo and – by extension – the costly invasion of Iraq, was a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Russia’s President didn’t say it in so many words, but he implied that America, the West, and their allies in the Middle East are backing violent Islamic extremists in Syria to bring down Bashar Assad in a policy blunder that’s bound to fail. There is a grain of truth here. Some al Qaeda fighters, or at least some militants claiming to be al Qaeda, have joined the armed Syrian rebel groups on the ground, and at least some of those men would be eager to establish a fundamentalist Islamic state in Syria after Assad. Is al Qaeda fighting...