A gold pocket watch given to the captain who rescued Titanic survivors sells for record price

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A gold pocket watch given to the captain who rescued Titanic survivors sells for record price

2024-11-17 20:41 Last Updated At：20:51

LONDON (AP) — A gold pocket watch given to the ship captain who rescued 700 survivors from the Titanic sold at auction for nearly $2 million, setting a record for memorabilia from the ship wreck.

The 18-carat Tiffany & Co. watch was given by three women survivors to Capt. Arthur Rostron for diverting his passenger ship, the RMS Carpathia, to save them and others after the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the north Atlantic on its maiden voyage in 1912.

Auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, who sold the watch to a private collector in the United States on Saturday for 1.56 million British pounds, said it’s the most paid for a piece of Titanic memorabilia. The price includes taxes and fees paid by the buyer.

The watch was given to Rostron by the widow of John Jacob Astor, the richest man to die in the disaster, and the widows of two other wealthy businessmen who went down with the ship.

Astor's pocket watch, which was on his body when it was recovered seven days after the ship sank, had previously set the record for the highest price paid for a Titanic keepsake, fetching nearly $1.5 million (1.17 million pounds) from the same auction house in April.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the fact that Titanic memorabilia has set two records this year demonstrates the enduring fascination with the story and the value of the dwindling supply and high demand for ship artifacts.

“Every man, woman and child had a story to tell, and those stories are told over a century later through the memorabilia," he said.

Rostron was hailed a hero for his actions the night the Titanic sank and his crew was recognized for their bravery.

The Carpathia was sailing from New York to the Mediterranean Sea when a radio operator heard a distress call from the Titanic in the early hours of April 15, 1912 and woke Rostron in his cabin. He turned his boat around and headed at full steam toward the doomed vessel, navigating through ice bergs to get there.

By the time the Carpathia arrived, the Titanic had sunk and 1,500 people perished. But the crew located 20 lifeboats and rescued more than 700 passengers and took them back to New York.

Rostron was awarded the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal by President William Howard Taft and was later knighted by King George V.

Madeleine Astor, who had been helped into a lifeboat by her husband, presented the watch to Rostron at a luncheon at her mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York.

The inscription says it was given “with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors.” It lists Mrs. John B. Thayer and Mrs. George D. Widener alongside Astor's married name.

“It was presented principally in gratitude for Rostron’s bravery in saving those lives,” Aldridge said. "Without Mr. Rostron, those 700 people wouldn’t have made it.”

Hezbollah spokesman killed in rare Israeli strike on central Beirut, official says

2024-11-17 20:46 Last Updated At：20:50

BEIRUT (AP) — The main spokesman for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group was killed in the first Israeli airstrike on central Beirut in more than a month on Sunday, an official with the militant group told The Associated Press.

Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip had earlier killed 12 people, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Hezbollah official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said Mohammed Afif was killed in the strike in central Beirut.

Afif had been especially visible after Israel’s military escalation in September and following the assassination of longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was also killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Israeli warplanes had earlier pounded the southern suburbs of Beirut after the military warned people to evacuate from several buildings. The Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence in the area, known as the Dahiyeh, and the strikes came as Lebanese officials are considering a U.S.-brokered cease-fire proposal.

Also on Sunday, Israeli police said they arrested three suspects after flares were fired at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.

Netanyahu and his family were not at the residence when two flares were fired at it overnight, and there were no injuries, authorities said. A drone launched by Hezbollah struck the residence last month, also when Netanyahu and his family were away.

The police did not provide details about the suspects behind the flares, but officials pointed to domestic political critics of Netanyahu. Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the incident and warned against “an escalation of the violence in the public sphere.”

Netanyahu has faced months of mass protests over his handling of the hostage crisis unleashed by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza.

Critics blame Netanyahu for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the attack to happen and for not reaching a deal with Hamas to release scores of hostages still held inside Gaza. Israelis rallied again in the city of Tel Aviv on Saturday night to demand a cease-fire deal to return them.

Israeli strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and another four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Another two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, which received all 12 bodies.

The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Around 90% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.

The Israeli military posted evacuation warnings on X about an hour before the strikes on southern Beirut, which came early Sunday. Local media reported church bells ringing in and around the area to alert residents. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The strike that killed Afif hit a building in central Beirut belonging to the Arab socialist Baath party. It was the first strike in the central part of the city in weeks. An Associated Press photographer at the scene saw four lifeless bodies and four wounded people.

People could be seen fleeing the neighborhood after the strike, which came without warning. There was no immediate comment on the strike from the Israeli military.

The Israeli military also renewed calls on Sunday for residents in over a dozen villages in southern Lebanon to flee as ground troops pushed farther north.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ 2023 attack, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict steadily escalated and erupted into all-out war in September. Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on Oct. 1.

Hezbollah has continued to fire dozens of projectiles into Israel each day and has expanded their range to the central part of the country. A rocket barrage on the northern city of Haifa on Saturday damaged a synagogue and wounded two civilians.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the country’s Health Ministry, and over 1.2 million driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.

On the Israeli side, Hezbollah’s aerial attacks have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused some 60,000 people to flee from communities in the north.

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin seized on the flare attack on Netanyahu's home to call for a revival of his plans to overhaul the Israeli judiciary, which had sparked months of mass protests before the war.

“The time has come to provide full support for the restoration of the justice system and the law enforcement systems, and to put an end to anarchy, rampage, refusal, and attempts to harm the prime minister,” he said in a statement.

Supporters said the judiciary changes aim to strengthen democracy by circumscribing the authority of unelected judges and turning over more powers to elected officials. Opponents see the overhaul as a power grab by Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges and for an assault on a key watchdog.

Many Israelis believe the fierce internal divisions caused by the attempted overhaul had weakened the country and its military ahead of the Hamas assault.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said in a post on X that he “strongly condemns” the firing of flares at Netanyahu’s home while blasting Levin’s proposal.

“Levin should go home with rest of this irresponsible government,” Lapid wrote. “We will not let him turn Israel into an undemocratic state.”

Melzer reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.

Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war