h1st Superman comic auctioned for $317,200

h1st Superman comic auctioned for $317,200

NEW YORK — A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $317,200 in an Internet auction. The previous owner had bought it for less than a buck.

It’s one of the highest prices paid for a comic book, a likely testament to the volume’s rarity and its excellent condition, said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the auction site ComicConnect.com and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles.

The winning bid for the 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1, which features Superman lifting a car on its cover, was submitted Friday evening by John Dolmayan, drummer for the rock band System of a Down, according to managers at ComicConnect.com.

Dolmayan, who is also a dealer of rare comic books, said he acquired the Superman comic on behalf of a client he declined to identify.

Injuries fail to stop senator from voting

WASHINGTON — Not even a skiing accident could slow Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s political ascent.

She returned to Capitol Hill the day after she fell and tumbled wildly down Alaska’s Mount Alyeska. Despite tearing two ligaments and cartilage in her left knee, the 51-year-old Republican made it back to the Senate, with the help of a wheelchair and crutches, in time to vote for a $410 billion spending package that included nearly $200 million for her state.

Only in her first full term, Murkowski is Alaska’s senior senator and the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, a crucial role for her oil-producing state. She serves on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and is the only woman among eight men on the Senate GOP’s leadership team.

Murkowski is up for re-election in 2010, and pundits from Washington to Alaska have focused on a possible primary challenge by Gov. Sarah Palin, a possible presidential contender in 2012.

3 foreign aid workers released unharmed

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Three foreign aid workers abducted in Sudan’s lawless Darfur region were released unharmed Saturday, three days after their capture at gunpoint led international aid groups to question how they can continue to work in the area.

Sudanese television showed the Doctors Without Borders workers — a Canadian nurse, an Italian doctor and a French project coordinator — stepping off a military helicopter at El Fasher airport in North Darfur with the local governor.

The governor, Osman Kebir, said Wednesday’s kidnapping was carried out by a group seeking to retaliate for the International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Clinton to visit Mexico

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Mexico in two weeks as part of newly concerted Obama administration efforts to bolster its neighbor in its bloody war with organized crime cartels and quell mounting U.S. anxiety over cross-border violence.

The announcement Friday of Clinton’s visit came just days after President Barack Obama signed a spending bill that provides $300 million in additional aid for President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on criminal gangs.

Clinton will be the first of Obama’s top policymakers to travel to Mexico, which has seen 7,000 people die in drug-related violence since the beginning of 2008. It also is suffering from significant economic problems that have affected cross-border trade.

Combined Dispatches