newsmakers

newsmakers

Chess icon Fischer’s body exhumed

REYKJAVIK, Iceland

Authorities in Iceland have exhumed the body of American chess champion Bobby Fischer to determine whether he is the father of a 9-year-old girl from the Philippines.

Police district commissioner Olafur Helgi Kjartansson said Fischer’s corpse was dug up from a cemetery near Selfoss in southern Iceland early Monday in the presence of a doctor, a priest and other officials.

Kjartansson said the exhumation “was done in a professional and dignified way and according to law. The privacy of the deceased was protected at all times.”

He said Fischer was reburied after DNA samples were taken.

Fischer died in Iceland in January 2008 at 64. He left no will, and legal wrangling continues over his estate.

Last month, Iceland’s supreme court ruled Fischer should be exhumed so DNA testing could determine whether he was the father of Jinky Young, whose mother, Marilyn, says she had a relationship with Fischer.

Jinky, who lives in the Philippines with her mother, flew to Iceland to provide her own blood sample in December.

Fischer, who was born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, New York, became world famous in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the world championship in a tournament, played in Reykjavik, that brimmed with Cold War symbolism.

Fischer became an American hero, but his later life was dominated by his erratic, eccentric behavior.

Fischer lived in Iceland from 2005 until his death and is buried about 30 miles east of Reykjavik.

Queen wraps up royal visit to Canada

WATERLOO, Ontario

Queen Elizabeth II will tour the headquarters of BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion and will have a state dinner with the prime minister on the last full day of her nine-day visit to Canada.

The queen heads to New York today. There she will visit the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and also address the United Nations General Assembly.

The queen visited Canada to celebrate the country’s 143rd birthday and to mark the Canadian navy’s centennial.

The queen is the symbolic head of state in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies.