The Christian Science Monitor – The United States restored full diplomatic relations with Myanmar Friday, saying it was making good on a commitment to “meet action with actionâ€� as the long-isolated Southeast Asian country has moved rapidly on political and economic reforms.
Read more from the original source:
Myanmar breakthrough: Does it validate Obama policy of engaging adversaries?
(The Christian Science Monitor)
I never believed in all that “greatest generation” crap, but the WWII generation is our link to that history — when the United States emerged as undisputed leader of the free world. As time goes by the war is relegated further to the past, and fewer folks will have direct memories to hand down to their loved ones. We’ll have new traditions and new heroes, but some events are unique in their implications for American life and our political culture. Pearl Harbor is one of those events. At New York Times , ” Pearl Harbor Still a Day for the Ages, but a Memory Almost Gone “: HONOLULU — For more than half a century, members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association gathered here every Dec. 7 to commemorate the attack by the Japanese that drew the United States into World War II. Others stayed closer to home for more intimate regional chapter ceremonies, sharing memories of a day they still remember in searing detail. But no more. The 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack will be the last one marked by the survivors’ association. With a concession to the reality of time — of age, of deteriorating health and death — the association will disband on Dec. 31. “We had no choice,” said William H. Eckel, 89, who was once the director of the Fourth Division of the survivors’ association, interviewed by telephone from Texas. “Wives and family members have been trying to keep it operating, but they just can’t do it. People are winding up in nursing homes and intensive care places.” Harry R. Kerr, the director of the Southeast chapter, said there weren’t enough survivors left to keep the organization running. “We just ran out of gas, that’s what it amounted to,” he said from his home in Atlanta, after deciding not to come this year. “We felt we ran a good course for 70 years. Fought a good fight. We have no place to recruit people anymore: Dec. 7 only happened on one day in 1941.” Continue reading .
Excerpt from:
Fewer Veterans to Remember Pearl Harbor Day
AP – The Obama administration is taking a foreign policy gamble by sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a historic trip to the isolated Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar this week.
The rest is here:
Obama, Clinton gamble on Myanmar
(AP)
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (The Blaze/AP) — The Marine Corps says two crew members have been killed in a helicopter crash in a training area at Camp Pendleton in Southern California. A Marine statement says an AH-1 Cobra belonging to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing went down at about 1 p.m. Monday. The statement says the two personnel aboard were pronounced dead by emergency responders. A fire is burning at the site in the southeast corner of the base, near the community of Fallbrook, and firefighters are working to contain it. This is a breaking story. Please check back for updates.
Read more from the original source:
2 Killed in Cobra Helicopter Crash at Camp Pendleton
RAYNE, La. (AP) — When the tornado hit this Louisiana town, Jalisa Granger was instinctively sheltering her child from the sudden, fierce winds. Pieces of homes shot skyward, debris lodged in treetops and a U.S. Postal Service truck was flipped on its side. When it was over, the 21-year-old mother lay dead from a tree that had fallen on top of her home, authorities say. But her child survived the tornado’s rampage through Rayne, a south Louisiana community of 8,500 people some 70 miles west of Baton Rouge. Maxine Trahan, a spokeswoman for the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office, said Granger was protecting her child when the tornado hit. “She sheltered the child to protect her from the storm and a tree fell on the house and it killed the mother but the child was OK,” Trahan said. A relative who lived nearby found the woman. Authorities say at least 11 people were injured by the tornado, which brought winds reaching 135 mph and had sprung from a vast storm system kicking up abundant moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. That storm system was poised to spread rain Sunday up the Carolinas and into the Northeast as forecasters warned of the threat of heavy rains in the Southeast and a mix of rain and snow farther north. More than 100 homes were damaged in Saturday’s tornado, many of them destroyed, authorities said, and about 1,500 people were evacuated overnight because of natural gas leaks. Now the task of cleaning up lies ahead in Rayne, where sheet metal roofing clung to trees, chunks of homes were ripped and tossed about, and downed tree limbs smashed cars. A temporary shelter was set up at a fire station – about two dozen people were there during the night. A curfew was imposed for the storm-damaged area until early Sunday, which was in part meant to keep looters away. The system that hit Rayne quickly moved east and drenched New Orleans, where several Mardi Gras parades either were delayed, canceled or started earlier because of the severe weather.
More here:
Mother Dies While Sheltering Child From La. Tornado
AP – The Obama administration is poised to announce the results of a 10-month investigation into whether faulty electronics played a role in Toyota vehicles’ sudden, unintentional acceleration and other safety problems.
See more here:
Govt to release findings of Toyota investigation
(AP)
