Queen Elizabeth II, left, in a portrait by Jeff Stultiens. Queen Victoria painting by Alexander Basano. (Left, Associated Press; Corbis)

Elizabeth II Outlives Victoria Today

Long live the Queen, indeed. Just past teatime in London today (or about 10 a.m. Eastern time), Elizabeth II will become the oldest monarch in Britain’s history, surpassing Victoria, who was 81 years, 7 months and 29 days old when she died in 1901.
Buckingham Palace says nothing special is planned to mark the occasion. The Lede pictures her sitting in a floral-upholstered wing chair, scratching one of her Corgis behind the ear and smiling enigmatically at the noteworthy moment.
Elizabeth has nearly eight years to go yet before she would overtake Victoria’s other noteworthy place in the monarchical record books, the length of her reign — 64 hugely eventful years, from the abolition of slavery to the Boer War. But the chances look pretty good: Elizabeth is thought to be fairly healthy, as octogenerians go, and her mother lived to be 101.
Britain has been remarkably lucky in its ruling queens. Only a handful of women have held the throne in their own right over the British monarchy’s long history, stretching back twelve centuries, but what queens they were: the remarkable Elizabeth I, who saw off the Armada in 1588 and set the country on its unique path to greatness; Victoria, on whose empire (and royal progeny) the sun never set; and now Elizabeth II, who has seen that empire transformed into Commonwealth and her country remade into a more modern kind of world power, in finance and the arts, democracy and diplomacy and diversity.

Stacy Peterson Search

Investigators hope a massive ground search set for this weekend in the case of Stacy Peterson, the 23-year-old pregnant Illinois woman missing since October, will lead to clues to her disappearance.
Authorities in particular are looking to recover a blue plastic barrel that police suspect may have been used to move Peterson's body from the home she shared with her husband, former Illinois cop Drew Peterson, who remains a suspect in the case.
Investigators also want divers to search for the barrel in the Calumet Sag Channel, a waterway a few miles from the Peterson home. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been asked to clear out submerged cars that have prevented divers from safely entering the water.
The plastic drum allegedly was moved from the Peterson's Bolingbrook, Ill., house by Drew Peterson and his stepbrother the night that Stacy disappeared. The stepbrother, who has not been identified, later reportedly attempted suicide.
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Walter Martinek, a friend of Peterson's stepbrother, told ABC's "Good Morning America" this week that the stepbrother spoke about the barrel the night he said he helped Drew Peterson move it. "A blue tote," Martinek said. "A sealed blue tote, and this is where he really got shook up, he goes, 'I know she was in there.'"
Martinek said he asked the stepbrother, "What do you mean you know she was in there?" And, Martinek continued, "he goes, 'It was warm to the touch.'"