Teague made the introductions. Neither she nor Anderson wore a uniform, except for the patch on their jackets and the ID tags clipped to their shirts.

"I'm a social worker, and this is my partner, T-bone," she told the man. "We are from the VA. You're not in trouble."

Encounters such as this one represent a new approach to dealing with veterans in crisis. Against the backdrop and heartache of their persistently high suicide rates, authorities are touting the Los Angeles County program as a breakthrough in policing that could save lives.

At its core is the belief that veterans are often best equipped to talk brethren back from the brink - and to guide them to services. Since the program's launch in September, local law enforcement agencies answering such 911 calls have dispatched not only deputies or officers but also two-person teams from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Long Beach.

The duos have responded to more than 125 emergencies. A Vietnam vet whose thoughts had become so bleak he'd hung a noose in his backyard. A former soldier who'd run through traffic on a busy L.A. thoroughfare, swinging a knife and yelling at drivers that a voice was telling her to kill herself.

Vets "speak their own language," said Lt. John Gannon of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, who helped create the program and believes it's already made a difference. "It's a subculture."

On the call outside that transition house in a Los Angeles suburb, the distress was all too familiar: The man had PTSD and a brain injury suffered in combat. He also had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

As Teague and Anderson learned, the veteran had spent the last three days wandering the streets. The home's operators refused to allow him back in given his repeated violations of their no-drugs rule. That's when he started shouting threats and kicking the door.

The pair coaxed him out of the squad car and into the back of their unmarked SUV to talk.

"It seems like you're having a rough morning," Teague said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"You're probably going to laugh."

She remembers assuring him that she wouldn't judge him. He seemed exhausted. He apologized that his feet were smelly.

"I can see evil in people," he told her. "I can tell which people are evil."

Was anyone at the house evil? she asked.

"Yes."

What did he want to do to people who are evil?

"Cut their heads off."

—

The Veterans Health Administration runs about 170 medical centers across the country and employs roughly 4,700 sworn officers to patrol the grounds of its hospitals. With rare exceptions, officials acknowledge, they stay within their campus confines.

But the pilot program run by the VA Long Beach Healthcare System sends officers and clinicians off the grounds, either to respond to emergency calls or to check on veterans who have missed therapy appointments.

Supporters call the program the first of its kind and hope it will be replicated nationwide.

"Instead of telling veterans, 'Hey call the crisis line and then figure out a way to get to the hospital to get care,' we're going to change things up. . . . We're coming to you," said David Weiner, who recently retired as the Long Beach VA police chief.

About 20 veterans kill themselves every day in the United States - a suicide rate that is 1.5 times that of the civilian population, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. On average, officials say, nearly three-quarters of those veterans had not sought therapy, drug rehab and other services for which they are eligible.

Teague doesn't need statistics to understand the magnitude of the problem. Just in the past two years, three of the roughly 75 soldiers from her unit who served in Iraq have taken their own lives.

"It's really hard to be on Facebook and you see somebody starting to decline and showing those signs of, like, 'Dude I'm struggling really bad,' " she said. "And then, next thing you know, we find out he's passed."

She and Anderson make an interesting pair. She's 37, a social worker with two sleeve tattoos that end in messages at each wrist - Love God on the left, Love Others on the right. He's 55, tall and bald, a longtime cop whose demeanor seems as suited to teaching as policing.

Both faced their share of trauma while in the Marines. Anderson was shot at repeatedly during his tour of Lebanon, where he arrived just after 17 comrades from his company were killed in a 1983 terrorist attack. And Teague broke her neck during a training exercise before her unit's deployment in 2003.

As a rule, neither shares their war stories with the vets they assist, nor do they pry for details about their clients' combat histories.

"Sometimes you don't want to bring stuff up, because there are certain trigger mechanisms that can set people off," Anderson said.

The work that brought them together on the Veterans Mental Evaluation Team - VMET for short - was inspired by a tragedy in early 2018. As a former Marine who had been making threats was being arrested, he wheeled around and clocked a deputy. In the ensuing melee with other deputies, 47-year-old Jeremy Spencer started having trouble breathing. He died at the scene. (No cause of death has been released, and the county district attorney continues to investigate, a homicide detective confirmed.)

"Most of our people were not connecting with this guy on a personal level," said Gannon, who runs the Sheriff's Department Mental Evaluation Teams - also clinician-cop pairings dispatched to scenes where mentally ill people are posing a danger to themselves or others. He wondered whether that effort could add a veterans component and pitched the idea to area VA officials.

The Long Beach facility was receptive. Talks are underway about a similar program at the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center. The VA in Spokane has also expressed an interest.

During VMET's first four months, Teague and Anderson - with help from a night crew of two VA officers - responded to about 275 calls. About half of them were urgent calls in the field; the other half were follow-ups monitoring the progress of vets they'd helped connect to services.

"When there are situations that could potentially lead to really bad outcomes, we need to be out there and we need to be getting our veterans the care that they need," said Larry Albers, chief of psychiatry at the Long Beach VA. He believes lives have already been saved, though the program is too new for any studies of its outcomes.

On at least one occasion, the situation was very far afield, involving a 27-year-old combat veteran in Phoenix who'd texted his brother a disturbing message and a photo of a shotgun. Their aunt knew Weiner and so contacted his office at the VA. The chief had Teague phone the vet, who'd recently lost two cousins - also combat veterans - to suicide.

"Him getting a call from the VA - the exact organization he feels has abandoned him - meant the world to him," April Peters said of her nephew. Teague persuaded him to try therapy.

—

Any intervention that keeps a vet safe is considered a success, yet there's no certainty for what happens after that. The veteran at that suburban transition house agreed to a psychiatric evaluation at the Long Beach VA and then was sent to an outside detox facility. By early March, he seemed to have disappeared.

Sometimes, though, a full transformation takes place.

Thirty-six-year-old Jermaine Petit was a tragedy waiting to happen when Teague and Anderson first met him.

As an Air Force medic in Germany during the early 2000s, he'd treated U.S. soldiers gravely wounded in Iraq. But when he returned to Los Angeles after his tour, his life began unraveling. He started using crystal meth. He'd often wander the streets, homeless, paranoid and delusional, armed with hatchets and knives. He was arrested more than a dozen times, with police once subduing him with a Taser.

The VA team got called late one night after Petit had a confrontation with some men his mother feared were gang members. The team drove 30 miles to her home, arriving to find the veteran clutching a hammer. They eventually persuaded him to set it aside and go with them to the VA hospital in Long Beach.

Teague and Anderson began visiting Petit there in the psychiatric ward. At first he was nonresponsive. "He felt we kidnapped him," Anderson remembers.

Yet in rehab, he started focusing on goals and even mentoring others. These days he hugs his visitors.

"When you see someone at one of their lowest points and you see them in such desperation, and then to be able to kind of follow them through their journey of recovery, to see them at a point where they are flourishing - it's really heartwarming and gratifying," Teague said.

Petit is now in a transitional living house. He wants to go to school, find a place of his own and rekindle his relationship with his estranged 14-year-old daughter.

He says he is trying to reinvent himself: "I don't want my mom to die from a broken heart."

Charlotte Blackwell is grateful. Her son "sounds like the old Jermaine," she says. Without the VA program's help, he "would be out there on the streets, dead."

Intercontinental Terminals Company spokeswoman Alice Richardson said at a news conference Wednesday that crews were cleaning up the facility in Deer Park, located southeast of Houston, so the investigation can begin into what caused the blaze.

The fire, which started Sunday , sent a huge, dark plume of smoke thousands of feet into the air before being extinguished at 3 a.m. Wednesday. The tanks that caught fire contained components of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner. ITC said 11 of the 15 storage tanks located in the area where the fire occurred were damaged.

The blaze briefly flared up late Wednesday afternoon. The flare-up, which sent flames and smoke into the air, was contained within 30 seconds by firefighters, the city of Deer Park said in a tweet.

The Environmental Protection conducted air quality tests throughout the Houston area, both on the ground and from a small airplane, and "measured no levels of hazardous concentrations," said agency official Adam Adams.

The EPA also reviewed data collected by ITC, Harris County, where Houston is located, and by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and that data did not show hazardous concentrations of volatile organic compounds, Adams said.

The state environmental agency said in a statement Wednesday that the benzene levels it found near and around the storage facility do not pose a health concern.

But some residents who live near the storage facility said Wednesday they don't have confidence in the air quality test results.

"Everything has been wrapped up in this nice perfect bow in saying that there were no problems. Every air quality was perfect. Every wind was perfect blowing it away. And if everything was so perfect, why did it happen?" longtime Deer Park resident Terri Garcia said.

Bryan Parras, an organizer in Houston with the Sierra Club, said some residents who live near the facility have experienced various symptoms since the fire, including headaches, nausea and nose bleeds. He said his environmental group has concerns not just about the air quality, but about potential impacts to the environment and the fishing industry if chemicals from the storage facility or foam used to fight the fire leaked into the Houston Ship Channel, which leads to the Gulf of Mexico.

"This issue isn't over just because the fire is out. We want systems in place that will protect our communities," Parras said.

The EPA and the TCEQ said they are waiting for test results of water samples to determine any potential impacts from the foam used to fight the fire on waterways next to the storage facility, including the Houston Ship Channel.

Sema Hernandez, who lives in Pasadena, just west of Deer Park, said all four of her children have experienced headaches since the fire started Sunday. But she has not been able to take them to a doctor because she doesn't have health insurance.

"This shouldn't have happened. ... But it did. My question is, what do we do now?" Hernandez said.

The Harris County Public Health Department said in a statement Wednesday that based on current health-related data from multiple sources, "there continues to be a low health risk for the general public."

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who took office in January, said she understands the fears and concerns some residents have had but she and other officials have worked to be transparent with the public.

"From the beginning of taking office, I said we need to move toward a place of transparency and we need to move toward a place where we recognize our environment and our health as a human right," said Hidalgo, the county's top administrator.

Richardson said her company has been in Deer Park for more than 40 years and would work to regain the community's trust.

"We want to operate safely with minimal impact around us," Richardson said. "We're sorry for what has happened."

Garcia said she fears that she and other residents will be dealing with the impacts of the fire long after people have forgotten about it.

"We are going to be the ones figuring out what was really in the air ... because our families are the ones going to be sick," she said.

___

Associated Press writer David Warren in Dallas contributed to this report.

A recipient of the Silver Star, Cowart brushed it off, assuming someone wanted to send him an invitation to an event. A second phone call later that day from the Pentagon triggered his curiosity. He was told to expect a third call from a senior ranking official in the next day or two – and that it was good news.

The next day, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel Dailey called to congratulate Cowart — his Silver Star would soon be upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second highest award for valor.

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“I had no idea my award was under review,” said Cowart, who now lives in Santa Fe, Texas, near Houston. “The Distinguished Service Cross is a great honor.”

Cowart’s award is one of a dozen Silver Star medals announced recently by the Army for upgrade through a review process of post-9/11 valor awards that began in 2016. All military departments have completed their respective reviews, said Air Force Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, Pentagon spokeswoman. However, there are a few Army cases still pending final decision or announcement. Of the Army’s 12 awards announced this year, only five names have been released.

The review encompassed about 100 citations of the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Air Force Cross and about 1,000 Silver Star recommendations.

It has resulted in 57 upgrades: four Medals of Honor, 16 Distinguished Service Crosses, 12 Navy Crosses, two Air Force Crosses and 23 Silver Stars, Gleason said.

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“The Army is currently in the process of scheduling the associated award presentation ceremonies,” she said.

When then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the review, the Pentagon established a definition for combat that all services now use: “The definition will encompass meritorious service while personally exposed to hostile action or while under significant risk of hostile action.”

So far, three of the Medals of Honor have been presented and the fourth ceremony to honor the late Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins will take place at the White House on March 27. Atkins died June 1, 2007 while deployed near Bagdad, Iraq, with the 10th Mountain Division. He saved the lives of three other soldiers by shielding them from a suicide bomber.

Distinguished Service Cross presentations for the late Maj. Thomas G. Bostick and Capt. Andrew L. Bundermann took place earlier this year. A service for Sgt. Robert K. Debolt will take place March 28 at Fort Riley, Kan., and for the late Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker on April 5 in Pittsburg, Pa.

Cowart said Dailey told him during their call that he sat on the review board for Cowart’s medal review and the process took about one year.

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Cowart’s medal was awarded based on his actions May 13, 2007 in Samarra, Iraq, while serving as gunner with 1st Platoon, Delta Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment — part of the 1st Cavalry Division. At a traffic checkpoint operated by his platoon, two occupants from a vehicle exited a car — one opened fire on the soldiers and the other was wearing a suicide vest.

Cowart tackled the man in the vest, who ultimately detonated the device. While his actions limited damage from the explosion, Cowart’s platoon leader 1st Lt. Andrew Bacevich Jr., who was nearby, died as a result of the blast. Cowart lost his left leg.

"After the explosion, it starts to get a little blurry,” Cowart said in an Army new release. “I know I didn't see a weapon. I didn't see a suicide vest. I wasn't just going to shoot an unarmed guy. But I knew he was a threat and had to do something. We had a struggle, but then it was all black and I woke up in a hospital in Ballad [Iraq].”

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Eventually, Cowart was moved to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he would spend the next 15 months.

Jonathan Free served in Cowart’s platoon and was there that day. Cowart served as Free’s sergeant and described him as the type of leader who was actually looking out for his soldiers.

“It was such an intense moment,” said Free, who traveled from Colorado to witness the pinning ceremony. In the moments following the attack, “I felt if I wasn’t with him, he wasn’t going to be OK. That’s how I feel today with him getting the award.”

Craig Hall, a member of the platoon who was wounded two weeks before Cowart, was there with him at the medical center in San Antonio. Together, the two mourned the loss of their lieutenant and recovered from their wounds.

“(Cowart) is one of the only guys I was able to speak to afterward. We are mentally and spiritually connected. He’s a lifelong friend,” said Hall, who flew to Texas from Massachusetts for the ceremony because he felt he owed it to Bacevich.

The award upgrade “is a testament to the guy (Cowart). Really is. He’s selfless and he cares about everyone,” Hall said.

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Returning to Fort Hood for the ceremony this week, the 1st Cavalry Division rolled out the red carpet for Cowart and his family. They were given access to view military vehicles up close, tour the museum and stables, and his 14-year-old twin daughters rode horses from the division’s Horse Cavalry Detachment.

“I am honored and humbled,” Cowart said Wednesday at the podium during his ceremony, standing before hundreds of active-duty servicemembers who filled the bleachers and spilled onto the surrounding grass.

Free and Hall were joined at the ceremony by about a dozen other veterans who served alongside Cowart, who poke of the joy of seeing his fellow soldiers again, as well as the difficult memories it conjured.

“Reuniting also brings sadness. Sadly, one member of the crew isn’t here,” he said, referring to Bacevich. “I think about those events every day.”

thayer.rose@stripes.com
Twitter: @Rose_Lori

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Despite a fireball and an explosion powerful enough to buckle the car's doors, the victim miraculously escaped injury when the bomb was detonated as he drove down a Bronx street in 2016.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said he would have sentenced Richard Laugel to 20 years in prison if not for his military heroism, which included two stints in Iraq.

"I want to thank you for your service to your country," Engelmayer said. "You have been a hero, and you have it in yourself to be that way again."

But the judge also said PTSD does not excuse Laugel's crime and he was "incredibly fortunate no one was hurt" when he tried to settle an ongoing feud with a neighbor who had quarreled with him over a parking spot.

"It's a rare person who tries to blow up their adversary's car with a pipe bomb," Engelmayer said.

Prosecutors said the March 2, 2016, attack came after Laugel put a pipe bomb in the rear tire well of his Bronx neighbor's car. They said he followed the car in his own vehicle a few blocks before activating the bomb remotely.

The loud explosion created a fireball that blew out the car's air bags and buckled the car doors, though it failed to ignite the gas tank. An FBI analysis showed the bomb was loaded with nails.

Arrested on state arson and attempted murder charges in March 2016, Laugel remained incarcerated until February 2018. A May 2018 narcotics raid on his residence revealed he was manufacturing firearms and silencers in his garage, prosecutors said.

In court papers, attorney Troy A. Smith said his client suffered from classic post-traumatic stress.

He described one instance in which Laugel heard fireworks outside his then-California residence and ran outside in his underwear with his licensed firearm, "completely under the assumption he was in Iraq and defending himself and his fellow marines from harm."

"He was also experiencing nightmares containing images of combat and would wake up screaming and drenched in sweat," Smith wrote.

Engelmayer said it was "blatantly obvious" Laugel suffers from PTSD.

He read a letter in which Laugel said: "I constantly suffered from survivor's guilt."

The judge also cited a letter from Laugel's former platoon commander, retired Sgt. Maj. M. Dallas Miller, saying Laugel provided security during the initial invasion of Iraq for former Secretary of Defense James Mattis who led a Marine division at the time.

Miller said Laugel helped train, plan and execute high-risk missions in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005.

He said it is easy for people to write someone off with PTSD.

"What we should be doing is wrapping our arms around him, help him address his issues that led him to make a poor decision, and help him get back on track," Miller said.

Trump enumerated a list of grievances against McCain, who died in August, including that he had wrongly supported the war in Iraq, failed to “get the job done” for veterans and “badly” hurt the Republican party and the nation by voting against repealing Obamacare.

The president also complained that McCain had turned over the so-called Steele dossier to federal authorities during the 2016 presidential campaign instead of alerting Trump himself. The dossier is a private, uncorroborated intelligence report alleging ties between Trump and the Russian government.

“He got it, and what did he do? He didn’t call me, he turned it over to the FBI, hoping to put me in jeopardy,” Trump said.

Trump’s criticism of the late senator came after senior Republican lawmakers offered implicit and explicit criticism of the president for remarks earlier this week attacking McCain.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Johnny Isakson called Trump’s attacks “deplorable” in an interview with Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Political Rewind” radio program earlier on Wednesday.

“That’s what I called it from the floor of the Senate seven months ago,” Isakson said, when the senator criticized the Trump administration for lowering the White House flag to half-staff for only a single day following McCain’s death. “It will be deplorable seven months from now if he says it again and I will continue to speak out.”

The flag was returned to half-staff following Isakson’s criticism.

Trump recalled the controversy over McCain’s memorial services during his remarks Wednesday, claiming that he “gave him the kind of funeral he wanted” but “didn’t get a thank you.” McCain laid in state at the U.S. Capitol — a decision made by congressional leaders, not Trump — before his burial last year.

Other Republican senators also weighed in on Trump’s fresh attacks on McCain, the former Armed Services Committee chairman who died of brain cancer. McCain, an Arizona Republican who had served in Congress since 1983, was a onetime Navy pilot who was North Vietnam’s most prominent prisoner of war.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised McCain in a tweet Wednesday that didn’t mention the president or his criticisms. McConnell, R-Ky., wrote that he missed McCain every day and added, “It was a blessing to serve alongside a rare patriot and genuine American hero in the Senate.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who was just elected to a six-year term, said on Twitter, “I can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., long McCain’s best friend in the Senate, tweeted praise for McCain without mentioning Trump. Graham has become perhaps Trump’s most important ally in the Senate, changing his tune dramatically from before Trump’s election, when the senator predicted that he would destroy the Republican Party.

Most Republicans go to great lengths to avoid criticizing Trump to keep from also becoming targets of presidential tirades on Twitter. Trump remains immensely popular among Republican voters, which makes such a move especially risky. Former senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee both tussled with Trump and retired rather than face tough Republican primary challenges in 2018.

Isakson, R-Ga., is somewhat insulated from political pressure because he won his third Senate term in 2016 and won’t be up for re-election until 2022. Still, he needs Trump for issues important to his state, such as a disaster-relief package scheduled to be on the Senate floor next week.

“We’re all Americans,” Isakson said on the radio program. “There aren’t Democratic casualties and Republican casualties on the battlefield, there are American casualties, and we should never reduce the service that people give to this country.”

Trump, as a candidate in 2015, picked a fight with McCain, declaring that the Navy veteran was “not a war hero” for spending five years being tortured in a Vietnamese prison and refusing advantages offered to him because his father was a prominent military leader. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said at the time.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Twitter he will reintroduce his legislation to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after McCain, whom he called an “American hero.” The building was named in 1972 after Georgia Democratic Senator Richard Russell, a proponent of racial segregation who fought the Civil Rights Act.

Isakson rejected Schumer’s call to rename the Russell building, saying Schumer is “just playing politics.”

The investigation will determine whether Shanahan has promoted Boeing, where he worked for more than 30 years before arriving at the Pentagon in 2017, or disparaged the massive aerospace firm’s competitors, an IG statement said Wednesday. When Shanahan was sworn in as the deputy defense secretary in July 2017, he signed an ethics pledge, vowing he would recuse himself from any issues that could impact Boeing.

The probe follows a complaint issued last week by an independent and nonpartisan government watchdog group based in Washington, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which questioned Shanahan’s actions as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian and as the acting secretary, his job since since Jan. 1.

The acting secretary has been informed of the investigation, said Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for the IG.

Shanahan has previously denied any wrongdoing and told lawmakers last week that he welcomed the probe.

“Acting Secretary Shanahan has at all times remained committed to upholding his ethics agreement filed with the DOD,” Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for Shanahan, said Wednesday. “This agreement ensures any matters pertaining to Boeing are handled by appropriate officials within the Pentagon to eliminate any perceived or actual conflict of interest issue with Boeing.”

In its March 13 complaint, CREW cited several media reports that indicated Shanahan in private meetings had promoted Boeing products to his subordinates and had disparaged Lockheed Martin, which was chosen over Boeing to build the F-35 Lightning II advanced fighter jet.

Shanahan, 56, was named acting defense secretary by President Donald Trump on Jan. 1 after serving as the Pentagon’s No. 2 under former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis since July 2017. He had previously been employed at Boeing since 1986, working on military-related programs as well as commercial aviation. He was serving as the company’s senior vice president for supply chain and operations when he left to work at the Pentagon.

Shanahan has been considered among Trump’s top choices to be nominated to the defense secretary post, but Pentagon and White House officials have declined to comment publicly about him or others who could be tapped to fill the position.

dickstein.corey@stripes.com
Twitter: @CDicksteinDC
 

He shared his journey and message with both Georgia Military College and Prep School cadets throughout the day Monday. The local military college and school for grades 4-12 often brings servicemembers onto campus to speak with the cadets, and Dwyer provided a different perspective from most.

A third-generation military man — his father was in the Air Force and his grandfather served in the Navy — Dwyer was commissioned into the Army from Furman University in 1998 before joining Special Forces four years later. In 2006, while on his third tour in Afghanistan, a rocket-propelled grenade attack caused Dwyer to lose both his left hand and his left eye.

“Of course, it was challenging,” Dwyer said of coming back from his injuries. “Fortunately, I was surrounded by a ton of positive influences, and I ignored all the negative ones, which is always a bonus.”

Near the end of his recuperation, Dwyer ran an idea by one of those positive influences, his wife, Jennie. He said he wanted to remain in the Special Forces, go back to Afghanistan, and do everything he had done before his injuries. It was at this point in his story that he took a break from his interview with The Union-Recorder and turned to the GMC cadets he was eating lunch with, and shared another important message.

“The most important decision you will ever make in your life is who you’re going to spend the rest of it with,” Dwyer said. “I’ve made two good decisions in my life and a ton of bad ones. I picked the perfect woman to marry, which was good decision No. 1, and I joined the United States Army. Those two decisions set me up for where I am.”

With the support of his wife, Dwyer remained in the Army and now serves as the garrison commander at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah.

“The primary reason is the camaraderie and the brotherhood that I feel for the guys I’ve served with,” he said on why he stayed in the service. “I would do anything for them, and I know that they would do anything for me. I also want the people around me — my soldiers, superiors, peers, my kids, and everybody around me — to realize it’s not OK to quit doing what you love just because life is hard. That’s the time to double down and just make it happen.”

Some people wear their heart on their sleeve, but Dwyer wears at least a portion of his in his eye. The Special Forces crest is embedded into his left eye full-time, not just when he’s out on speaking engagements.

“I wear it as a tribute to my guys, and I wear it so people will ask me about it,” he said. “I want to tell them how proud I am of everything my guys have accomplished.”

His message to GMC cadets Monday was one of overcoming adversity and having the tools necessary to do so — not just as individuals, but as leaders to help them develop “resilient, bulletproof teams.”

“He’s what every infantryman aspires to be,” said Franco Videla, a GMC cadet from Roswell, Ga. “I know most infantrymen love their job. It doesn’t matter whether they’re hurt or not, they’ll always want to do it. Hearing his (Dwyer’s) story, I know that I’m not going to complain if I’m given a dumb task. I’m going to give it my all like I should be doing.”

©2019 The Union-Recorder (Milledgeville, Ga.)
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The Commemorative Air Force Red Tail Squadron’s “Rise Above” Traveling Exhibit opened Wednesday and will be on display through Sunday to showcase the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, also known as the Red Tails because of the distinctive red-tailed P-51 Mustang aircraft they flew during World War II.

The free exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily at the airport at 2020 Executive Airport Way in Fort Lauderdale.

Among other things, the exhibit features a movie theater with a 160-degree panoramic screen housed inside an air-conditioned 53-foot semitrailer with expandable sides and equipped with a ramp and a hydraulic lift for wheelchair users.

The movie helps audiences experience what it was like to be among America’s first black military pilots and their support personnel as they worked toward their goal of becoming Army Air Corps pilots in the early 1940s.

After the movie, audiences can take a virtual flight in the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang, the iconic aircraft of the Tuskegee Airmen.

A fully operational, twice-restored Red Tail P-51C Mustang also is on display as part of the exhibit. The aircraft is one of only four like it that are still flying, organizers said.

Retired Tuskegee Airmen pilot Lt. Col. George E. Hardy will be on site Thursday and Friday. He’ll be speaking about his experiences as a Tuskegee Airman at 11 a.m. on Saturday, during the executive airport’s annual Aviation Safety Expo.

Now in his mid-90s, Hardy is the youngest of the 13 known living Red Tail combat pilots.

More information can be found online at flyfxe.com or redtail.org.

©2019 the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
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Justin Walters, 32, who served as an infantryman during two tours in Afghanistan, shot his wife Nichole Walters, 27, multiple times on July 9, 2017. Nichole died of her wounds inside the home, located in Theresa, about 80 miles outside of Syracuse.

Walters also fatally shot 36-year-old Joel Davis, a trooper and married father of three who had responded to the home.

A jury found Walters guilty Wednesday morning on 52 counts – including two counts of first-degree murder, as well as attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. He did not display a reaction when the verdict was read.

Rather than argue that Walters had not committed the crime, his attorney Ed Narrow, argued – along with a psychiatrist, his only witness – that Walters was not responsible for the crimes due to PTSD, alcoholism and childhood trauma, rendering him incapable of controlling himself on that tragic night, WWNY-TV reported.

Davis, who had been a member of the force for four years, was responding to a 911 call citing an argument at the residence.

Upon arrival, he heard gunshots and ordered backup. Though he reached for his own weapon, a semi-automatic rifle, he was shot in the chest before he could defend himself, according to police. The trooper then fell into a ditch, making it difficult for his colleagues to locate him.

It wasn’t until after Walters surrendered that the troopers were able to locate Davis. He was taken to Watertown’s Samaritan Medical Center where he was pronounced dead within the hour.

Nichole’s friend, Rebecca Finkle, was also shot but survived.

At the time of the shootings, Walters was an active-duty soldier stationed at Jefferson County’s Fort Drum. He was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division.

Gov. Cuomo instructed that government buildings lower their flags to half-staff following Davis’ death.

©2019 New York Daily News
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"Let it come out, let people see it," Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday for a trip to Ohio. "Let's see whether or not it's legit."

Mueller is expected to present a report to the Justice Department any day now outlining the findings of his nearly two-year investigation into Russian election meddling, possible collusion with Trump campaign officials and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Mueller is required to produce a confidential report that at a minimum explains decisions about who was and was not prosecuted. Attorney General William Barr is then expected to produce his own report for Congress and has said he wants to make public as much of Mueller's findings as he can under the law.

Trump said he was personally looking forward to reading the findings, even as he scorned the fact that Mueller was empowered to write the report in the first place.

"I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. ... And now I have somebody writing a report that never got a vote?" Trump said. "It's called the Mueller report. So explain that because my voters don't get it. And I don't get it."

Trump went on to mischaracterize the effort, saying "it's sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report."

The House voted unanimously last week for a resolution calling for any report in Mueller's investigation to be made public. It was a symbolic action designed to pressure Barr into releasing as much information as possible.

Trump and his outside attorneys have worked for months now to undermine Mueller and cast doubt on his eventually findings. Trump continued that effort Wednesday, calling Mueller "conflicted" and criticizing the lawyers who have worked on the case.

Though Mueller's office has said nothing publicly about the timing of a report, several prosecutors detailed to Mueller's team have left in recent months, suggesting the investigation is winding down.

Trump, for his part, said he had no idea when the report would be released, but maintained his innocence, saying there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction. There was no nothing."

"With all of that being said," he added, "I look forward to seeing the report."

__

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The Army’s March 8 budget request scratches the Chinook upgrade, stops production of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and reduces planned purchases of Joint Strike Force vehicles, .50-caliber machine guns and forklifts, among other familiar war tools.

Instead, the military plans to spend billions of dollars more on new assault helicopters, robotic vehicles, digitally connected weapons, space communications and short-range missile defenses, among other priorities to cope with improved Chinese missiles and Russian missile defenses and cyberattacks, Army undersecretary Ryan McCarthy said in a March 11 talk at the Brookings Institution.

Though Chinooks were deployed more than 50 years ago in the Vietnam War, the heavy-lift helicopters are now “the youngest fleet in the Army,” given previous upgrades, McCarthy added. “The Army has over 10 percent more Chinooks than required.” Work is to continue on Special Forces helicopters now being upgraded at Ridley and on a separate production line for V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Boeing officials still want to save the program. “Delaying CH-47F Block II production funding would have significant detrimental impacts for fleet readiness, the defense industrial base, and taxpayers, and hamper soldiers’ abilities to carry critical payloads,” the company warned in a statement sent in an email sent by spokesman Andrew Africk.

Defending the plant’s contracts kept former U.S. Reps. Patrick Meehan and Curt Weldon, both Pennsylvania Republicans, riding to the rescue during the past couple of decades to save Chinook upgrades and the construction of Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. A spokeswoman for freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., whose district includes the plant, didn’t respond immediately to messages seeking comment.

McCarthy said military leaders had reviewed Chinook upgrades and hundreds of other programs before deciding what to cut. “Nothing was sacrosanct,” he said at Brookings. In all, he said, the Army cut or reduced 186 programs, including some at Army headquarters.

The retreat on Chinooks appears to have developed just this winter. “The Army announced in January it was set to award a contract for low-rate initial production of a maximum 14 CH-47 Block II aircraft” in fiscal 2021 and 2022, “but no award was made,” Inside Army, a publication that covers military contracting, reported earlier this month.

The Ridley plant completes work on about four Chinooks and one to two Ospreys per month, for the U.S. and also for allied military forces from countries including India, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. UAW local president Mike Tolassi was in a plant meeting and was unavailable for comment at midday Wednesday, his assistant said.

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Darlington entered a plea deal in a military court at Marine Corps Base Quantico in June 2015, pleading guilty to seven charges, including violating a protective order taken out against him by Campbell, strangling her "with a force likely to produce death" and inserting a loaded handgun into her mouth "while holding her down by the throat,"court papers state.

The decision Friday to send Darlington back to a re-entry management program was made by the commanding general of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune after a hearing held Monday on Campbell's request to have her ex-husband's suspended sentence reinstated.

The commanding general was not present, Campbell said, but made his decision based on the recommendation of a lieutenant colonel, who was present.

"I am livid. [Darlington is] being shown he can break the rules and all he gets is a slap on the wrist," Campbell said Tuesday.

In 2015, Darlington was dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps and sentenced to 11 years in prison, with all but five suspended, after pleading guilty to the seven charges, which included domestic violence.

According to the plea deal, the six additional years were to be reinstated if Darlington committed any misconduct or violated any terms of suspension. There was also a protective order in place prohibiting Darlington from contacting Campbell or their children.

Campbell argues that he violated that order by sending her more than 300 letters from jail and committing multiple disciplinary infractions, including threatening guards and prisoners.

Campbell tried for two and a half years — aided by at least six different attorneys assigned to her by the Marine Corps' Victim's Legal Counsel program — to get the Marine Corps to hold a hearing to see whether Darlington violated the terms of the pretrial agreement.

In late February, she learned that Camp Lejeune had agreed to a hearing. After being postponed twice, it was held March 11.

Campbell said she requested to attend, either in person or via video.

"They said, 'No, it's not that kind of hearing,'" she said. "The lieutenant colonel said he was just there to check boxes."

She said the defense attorney also argued that she not be allowed to read the impact statement she wrote.

As Campbell listened to the hearing in the Marine Corps Base Quantico office of her attorney, she learned that Darlington's defense attorney had brought Darlington's father, boss, fiancée, future sister-in-law and a Catholic priest to give character statements. Darlington also spoke on his own behalf.

"Everyone spoke but me," Campbell said.

Campbell said her attorney requested that since character statements were given on Darlington's behalf, the convening authority should also consider her impact statement.

"The [lieutenant colonel] said that was reasonable," she said. "But I have no idea if he really read it."

In her impact statement, Campbell wrote that after Darlington's original trial, she took "solace in that I knew he would have to conduct himself accordingly [or violate the terms of the pretrial agreement]."

"The fact remained, though, that I was and am terrified of him," she continued. "In a controlled environment such as prison, though, I expected some level of freedom from him for the coming years. I was wrong. How quickly I was wrong.

"I believed that the Marine Corps would fight for injustices," she added. "I am asking the Marine Corps to hear me now.

To see the violations that Darlington has made; to see how these repeated violations affect me; and be the one to show Mr. Darlington that one cannot continually get away with breaking the rules, and face no punishment."

Campbell said that as far as she can see, her case is done.

"I can't change my case," she said. "But if I can prevent this from happening to another military wife, I will."

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Abigail Spanberger have both reached out to Campbell in the past few weeks, she said, and she hopes she can work with them to bring forward legislation that might change how domestic violence is prosecuted in the military.

—
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The man, whom The Palm Beach Post is not naming, died about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner confirmed.

Citing privacy laws, the VA would not identify the man nor say which branch of service he’d served in, nor when, and would not provide any details about his death.

The suicide took place 15 days after a patient opened fire in the center’s emergency room, injuring two people. The medical center, at Military Trail and Blue Heron Boulevard, has not said what safeguards, if any, it would add as a result of that incident.

It also occurred as several VA centers across the nation have had to respond to patients who have taken their own lives. The Washington Post reported in January that 19 suicides occurred on VA campuses between October 2017 and November 2018; seven of those were in parking lots.

Kenita Gordon, a spokeswoman at the Riviera Beach center, said Tuesday in an email that the center’s staff has stopped two on-campus suicide attempts in the past five years.

“Patient deaths deeply affect the entire West Palm Beach VA Medical Center staff — especially the health care team members involved with a veteran’s care. Whenever an unforeseen patient death occurs, we conduct an internal review of the case,” Gordon said in an email.

“As a result of this incident, West Palm Beach VAMC is reviewing its processes and has changed certain patient monitoring protocols,” Gordon said. She did not elaborate.

The man’s mother declined Tuesday to provide details or to comment.

Gordon said the VA is working with the Defense Department and other agencies “to deploy suicide prevention programming that supports all current and former service members — even those who do not come to VA for care.”

The agency said any veteran in distress can call the veterans crisis line anytime at 800-273-8255, Option 1.

“One life lost to suicide is one too many,” Gordon said.

©2019 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)
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Though tariffs have taken a toll on jobs and confidence, Trump has tried to compensate with an infusion of military spending. The tank factory he will visit in Lima, operated by General Dynamics, nearly closed six years ago; Army officials told Congress that they didn’t need any more of the heavy M-1 Abrams tanks it produces because they are less geared toward modern wars against insurgents.

But Trump, who has increased military spending significantly, signed a spending bill authorizing more than $2 billion for the tank, adding hundreds of jobs to a town that long had been heavily dependent on the defense industry.

He also will hold a fundraiser in Canton, but is bypassing Lordstown and is hoping to shift the story line.

“The story of the day may be about how the Trump administration saved the Lima plant from a near-death experience under President Barack Obama,” Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser, wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday in the New York Times.

Late last year, General Motors Chief Executive Mary Barra cited Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, which have cost her company and Ford roughly $1 billion each, when announcing the closure of the company’s Lordstown plant in northeastern Ohio. The result was a loss of 1,600 jobs there, plus hundreds of other jobs at suppliers and related companies.

In recent tweets, Trump put pressure on GM to reopen the plant and blamed its closure on local United Auto Workers leader David Green, who heads the chapter that represents workers at the Lordstown plant.

“I want action on Lordstown fast,” the president tweeted. “Stop complaining and get the job done! 3.8% Unemployment!”

Trump’s re-election prospects would take a blow if he is not able to win Ohio, a long-time electoral bellwether that favored him in 2016. Ultimately, his success in the state in 2020 likely hinges more on local manufacturing jobs, which have been hurt by tariffs in his ongoing trade war with China, than the broader state of the nation’s overall economy.

Since he took office, Trump has seen his net approval rating in Ohio drop by 19 percentage points, according to a Morning Consult tracking poll.

While the national unemployment rate did drop to 3.8 percent in February, Ohio’s economy, which was hit harder by the recession, lagged behind. In January, the most recent month for which data is available, the state’s jobless rate was at 4.7 percent, continuing an uneven recovery that began before Trump took office. Job growth in manufacturing has picked up, as it has nationally, but service employment growth has been weak. If factory closures continue, the overall picture could sour.

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Now, one of those is threatening the other.

Contamination seeping from the Camp Grayling National Guard base is polluting local lakes and groundwater and is threatening the iconic Au Sable River — an internationally recognized trout-fishing mecca and one of the largest tributaries of Lake Huron.

Known as PFAS compounds, the chemicals bioaccumulate in humans and other animals and don’t break down in the environment. They’ve been linked to diseases like cancer, thyroid disease, hormone disruption, developmental problems in children and more.

Groundwater pollution isn’t good for the health of any community, but officials in Grayling and Oscoda — a downstream Au Sable River town also struggling with PFAS — are concerned the persistent nature of PFAS also will manifest as a long-term economic drain.

“Would you buy a house somewhere your well could be contaminated?” said Lacey Stephan, the Grayling Township manager.

The concern is not unique. Across Michigan, municipalities are now either budgeting for PFAS response where chemicals are found in drinking water or wastewater, or are casting a worried eye as the number of contaminated sites continues to climb.

The majority of contaminated sites in Michigan are linked to industrial sources, both active businesses and others that folded up long ago. But in Grayling and Oscoda, the contamination was caused by the military, meaning the U.S. government is the polluter.

That presents unique challenges, as the military has fought Michigan’s efforts to enforce state environmental laws by invoking sovereign immunity protections, and has been lobbying the White House to raise the threshold for remedial action by more than six times its present level.

In Oscoda and Grayling, the military has provided either bottled water, filters or municipal hookups to some properties, but local officials say more homes need that than the Department of Defense is willing to acknowledge. That’s forcing both communities to shoulder the burden of expanding infrastructure to provide PFAS-free water themselves.

In Grayling Township, officials are now taking steps to build an entirely new municipal water system to serve residences with drinking water contaminated by PFAS either at levels below what the military considers worrisome enough to warrant spending tax dollars to fix, or outside the existing regulatory framework for the class of so-called “forever chemicals.”

According to state data, PFAS were detected in the water at 565 homes around the Grayling Army Airfield and nearby Lake Margrethe, but only about 20 of them were above the Environmental Protection Agency advisory level of 70 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFOA, which are only two of numerous PFAS compounds showing up in test results.

The EPA stands behind that threshold, but a growing number of public health advocates, independent scientists and state toxicologists argue that it isn’t protective enough, citing human studies and an analysis by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) that suggests levels should be much lower and cover more compounds.

In both communities, a PFAS chemical called PFHxS has been found in many samples. The long-chain compound is closely associated with fluorochemical plumes caused by the type of aqueous film-forming foam used for decades by the military to train for emergencies.

According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, PFHxS has been detected in 369 residential wells around Grayling, ranging in concentration up to 1,040 ppt.

Neither the state nor the federal government regulates PFHxS, although there’s been some groundwork laid toward that outcome. That means, for now, neither the DEQ nor the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can force the Department of Defense to take action to address PFHxS found at any level in drinking water.

“When contaminants aren’t defined as ‘hazardous’ by state or federal law, that make it much more challenging,” said Oday Salim, director of the Environmental Law & Sustainability Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School.

The DEQ has some options it could pursue to designate contaminants like PFHxS as hazardous, but those are not quick or simple steps to take.

“The state would have to make a scientific assessment that those substances satisfy the characteristics of a hazardous substances even if they’re not already listed,” Salim said.

“That’s a hurdle.”

In Oscoda, local officials estimate it could cost $10 million to bring municipal water to all areas affected by contamination from the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base.

The Air Force has connected a couple of Oscoda homes to municipal water, but, as in Grayling, the military won’t run pipes to homes that test below 70 ppt. That has forced local officials to seek grants and to cobble together money to try to get the job done.

“We’re sinking a lot of time into handling this problem when we’ve got other issues to handle,” said Aaron Weed, Oscoda Township supervisor.

Weed gets daily phone calls about the PFAS problem and said it’s eaten up between 30 percent and 90 percent of his work time during the past couple of years. As a single issue, it’s an order of magnitude larger than anything else happening in the township, he said.

Oscoda Township has an annual budget of between $6 million and $7 million, most of which goes to fund local fire services and law enforcement. Weed said real estate values are falling and the township is having trouble enticing businesses to invest in the area due to the contamination.

“Really, the Department of Defense needs to take care of this problem,” Weed said. Instead, “they seem to be trying to avoid as much (responsibility) as possible.”

“My impression is the Air Force legal team feels that if they contribute something to helping Oscoda, then they have to do that everywhere.”

“We’re not asking to be treated special,” Weed said. “We just want the problem taken care of.”

The military’s rigid adherence to minimum requirements for taking action has bred some resentment among those in a military-friendly area. Some must juggle feelings of support for the armed forces with frustration at the Pentagon, which has pinched pennies and generally has moved at a sluggish pace when investigating or cleaning up contamination.

Reluctance to allocate more resources to Michigan are seen as reflective of budgeting concerns as PFAS contamination mounts at current and former bases across the globe.

Stephan said many in Grayling want Congress to allocate additional funding for military cleanups rather than redirect conventional defense spending. Many also are frustrated the military isn’t more generous with the money it does have.

“They are responsive, but when you start bringing up the cost of covering this expense, it’s like running into a brick wall,” Stephan said.

In Grayling, officials are concerned that as work progresses, the military won’t install water system mains large enough to serve more than the small number of homes on its list.

Stephan and township leaders began meeting with engineers this month to develop a feasibility study on a new municipal system; a $15,000 expenditure that could double if they want to use the study to pursue state or federal grants to defray the project cost.

If the system ends up serving homes around Lake Margrethe, which is a couple of miles west of the affected homes around the airfield, Stephan said the total cost could increase.

A new water system could mean an increase in property taxes, which is sure to be unpopular.

“People don’t make a lot of money up here,” he said. “This is northern Michigan. We try to do everything we can to not spend their money.”

This story was reported in conjunction with Detroit Public Television’s Great Lakes Now initiative and was produced with the financial assistance of the Ravitch Fiscal Reporting Program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

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It's pulling the troops away from President Donald Trump's border protection efforts and devoting them to fire protection, another area where Trump has been critical of California's Democratic officials — even repeatedly threatening to cut off federal disaster funding.

Starting in April, 110 California National Guard troops will receive 11 days of training in using shovels, rakes and chain saws to help thin trees and brush, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Mike Mohler said.

They will be divided into five teams that will travel around the state working on forest management projects, mainly clearing or reducing trees and vegetation in an effort to deprive flames of fuel.

"They will be boots on the ground doing fuels projects alongside CalFire crews," Mohler said. "We've had them out for flood fighting, several different operations, but this would be the first time their mission would be fuels thinning and forest management."

They have helped fight fires before, however.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first in recent decades to deploy California National Guard troops as firefighters. That occurred on July 4, 2008, after lightning storms sparked hundreds of fires, Guard Lt. Col. Jonathan Shiroma said.

He referred questions about the latest effort to CalFire, which is directing the Guard's new assignment.

The training is similar for firefighting and fire protection. Mohler said the troops also will receive some training in forest management, "so they're not just out there cutting brush" but understand why they're doing what they're doing.

For instance, firefighting crews generally cut fire lines down to mineral earth during active wildfires, while fuels management crews often do less-intensive thinning of trees and chaparral to slow advancing flames.

That often involves creating fuel breaks. They can range from stripping away all woody vegetation on wide strips of land to thinning larger trees and removing shorter trees, brush and debris to discourage fires from climbing into treetops and jumping from tree to tree.

Critics say the work damages forests and can be useless against wind-driven fires, like the one that jumped a river to rain embers on the Sierra Nevada foothills community of Paradise last year, killing 85 people in and around the Northern California city of 27,000 people.

"CalFire is taking the Trump approach, logging the forest and weakening critical environmental protections, and that's the exact opposite of what we need to be doing," Center for Biological Diversity scientist Shaye Wolf said.

She said the better approach is to make homes more fire resistant while pruning vegetation immediately surrounding homes.

CalFire this month listed 35 fuel-reduction projects it wants to start immediately, covering more than 140 square miles (362 square kilometers) — double the acreage in previous years. But state officials estimate 23,438 square miles (60,704 square kilometers) of California forestland need thinning or other restoration.

"It's not a problem that's going to get fixed overnight," Mohler said.

Such thinning operations are getting more attention in recent years, with the U.S. Forest Service estimating last month that 18 million trees died in California over the last year.

The agency estimated that more than 147 million trees have died across nearly 15,625 square miles (40,469 square kilometers) during a drought that began in 2010, while about 1.5 million dead trees have been cut down.

Moreover, investigations have often blamed recent wildfires on utilities not doing a good enough job of clearing vegetation around power lines and equipment. Democratic state Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa has proposed legislation that would require CalFire to tell utilities which trees and brush to remove and then inspect the work.

Aside from Guard troops, CalFire also is creating 10 civilian fuels management crews this year. The 10-member crews could help with initial fire suppression if need be but will primarily reduce fuels, Mohler said.

"It's going to be a pretty amazing sight to see as these crews get out there on the ground," he said. "There's hundreds of, unfortunately, Paradises cross the state, (so) the public needs to understand this."

“It’s heartbreaking, you know, for everyone that has fought in the war; it is very disrespectful,” said Southie resident Mary Ellen Sarro. “… This is history and it’s a real shame.”

State police said the vandalism was reported Monday about 11:30 a.m. and troopers found “some type of oil” splashed or poured onto the memorial. The giant, stone slabs — which sit near Castle Island — hold the 216 names of soldiers from South Boston and Dorchester who were killed during World War II.

Tom Troy said all he felt was anger as he was watching the news Monday night and saw his uncle’s name desecrated by the vandals. He called the act “cowardly.”

“When I first saw it, I was angry,” Troy said. “You almost wish you had seen the perpetrator, caught up with them and squared up.”

“It is an awful thing they did. To see the beautiful memorial, it is tough to believe someone would actually do this,” he added.

His uncle, Eddie Troy, was beloved by his family and neighbors. A South Boston High graduate and one of seven children, Troy joined the Army Air Force, his nephew said.

During the war, his plane was shot down over Belgium and, assigned to retrieving the craft’s black box, he was last to leave the plane and ultimately perished.

“He was a live wire. He was pretty funny and when he died, it was tough for my father, especially,” Troy said. “And to have his memorial desecrated now is terrible.”

Crews were at the memorial Monday and Tuesday, trying different solutions to clean the oil off. Adriana Correa from Select Demo Services said they had tried vinegar with baking soda, soap and water; Comet; power washers; and more, without luck.

“Different people have tried different ways and nothing is working,” Correa said. “It is good people are trying. People care because for them, it is very important.”

“It’s terrible, it’s like going to a cemetery and seeing someone’s headstone desecrated,” said Boston resident Dennis Martin. His father, Thomas, had a bench at the memorial, dedicated to him, that was unharmed.

“I’m pretty sad, it is terrible when people do things like this,” he added.

But 22 kindergartners from the Oliver Hazard Perry School took the opportunity to visit and to learn about respect, sacrifice and honor. Judy Nee said she decided to take her students down to the memorial as a teaching moment.

“We try to be civic-minded and teach things that go beyond the ABCs. … It was the perfect opportunity to talk about sacrifice, why the names are there, talk about bad people and also how we can overcome bad things,” Nee said. “It was a lesson in empowerment and honor and despite the fact someone tried to ruin it, it won’t keep us from remembering.”

While there, they posted American flags, recited the Pledge of Allegiance and made crayon rubbings of the names on the memorial. She said even though the students were young, they were able to recognize that it was a serious matter and to learn about Southie’s history.

“It is important to teach empathy and growth in their hearts and not just their minds,” Nee said.

A spokesperson with the state police said the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information or tips should call 617-740-7710.

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That was one moment among others that Isakson has said is a pattern of President Trump’s attacks on McCain that “drive me crazy.” And after an escalation of bitter words from the president this week, Isakson is ready to deliver what he calls a whipping on Wednesday.

“I just want to lay it on the line, that the country deserves better, the McCain family deserves better. I don’t care if he’s president of United States, owns all the real estate in New York, or is building the greatest immigration system in the world,” Isakson told the Bulwark, a conservative news website.

“Nothing is more important than the integrity of the country and those who fought and risked their lives for all of us.”

Trump unloaded on the legacy of McCain, who died of brain cancer last year, in several tweets this week. On Tuesday, he decried McCain’s vote against repealing Obamacare.

“I think that’s a disgrace, plus there are other things,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “I was never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be.”

Meghan McCain, a co-host of ABC’s “The View,” blasted Trump and defended her father on Wednesday.

Her father “would think it was hilarious that our president was so jealous of him that he was dominating the news cycle in death,” she said.

Trump’s attacks also have appeared to unleash trolls targeting the McCain family. Soon after the president’s Oval Office remarks, Cindy McCain posted a profanity-laced message she received on Facebook.

A woman called John McCain, a former Navy pilot who endured years of torture as a prisoner in Vietnam, “traitorous” and celebrated his death.

“I want to make sure all of you could see how kind and loving a stranger can be,” Cindy McCain wrote on Twitter, referring to the woman.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, joined his Republican colleague in a rebuke Wednesday.

“I can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain: heroic, courageous, patriotic, honorable, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, empathetic, and driven by duty to family, country, and God,” Romney wrote on Twitter.

Isakson, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, is a general supporter of Trump but often extends more criticisms of the president than many Republican lawmakers.

After last year’s controversy over the raising, lowering and re-raising of the flag, he took to the Senate floor to blast the perceived insult to McCain, although he did not single out the president in his remarks.

“Anybody who in any way tarnishes the reputation of John McCain deserves a whipping because most of those who would do the wrong thing about John McCain didn’t have the guts to do the right thing when it was their turn,” he said.

The focus has since narrowed to Trump. Isakson watched Trump’s Tuesday remarks and their impact.

“These kids are out there listening to the president of the United States talk that way about the most decorated senator in history who is dead, it just sets the worst tone possible,” he told the Bulwark.

In mid-2006, a Capt. Smith, who had married recently, borrowed a cellphone from Dane Kirkwood, a Pease Greeter, while awaiting deployment at Portsmouth International Airport at Pease. He left parting words in a voice message to his wife, Malinda, in California. Attempting later to call her husband back, Malinda left a voicemail on the loaned phone, though his flight already had taken off. Her words, described as “inspirational, magnificent and heartfelt,” were the impetus for Malinda’s Room.

On Tuesday, the Pease Greeters and Service Credit Union hosted a ribbon-cutting for the newly refurbished Malinda’s Room in the airport terminal, a center where troops traveling to or from Portsmouth can call anywhere in the world for free.

Malinda’s Room was created officially after an executive was invited to listen to Malinda Smith’s phone call while touring Pease.

“He was overwhelmed, literally to tears,” said Pease Greeters Chairman Frank Lasorsa. “When he heard that a handful of greeters were giving up their cellphones for unlimited use, he immediately decided to improve that situation and within 24 hours, he had installed, at corporate expense, on a permanent basis, a bank of 18 phones to use voice over internet protocol to allow calls anywhere, free of charge.”

The all-volunteer Pease Greeters organization, founded in 2005, has welcomed or sent off more than 1,500 flights carrying troops.

“Even though we all are in the age of relying on cellphones and we don’t really need land lines anymore, the soldiers usually do,” said Judy Santin, a 10-year greeter. Santin said troops arriving from overseas likely have had their phones shut off for the entirety of their deployments, or those who have international calling have little to no battery life.

“I always say, ‘Go over and dial 1-800-Mom,’ ” Santin said, adding first calls for those returning, and last calls for those departing, are almost always to moms, dads and spouses.

“A lot of them call back to Afghanistan and say, “Ha-ha, I’m here and you’re not,” laughed Pease Greeter Richard DellaPaolera. He said a flight of international generals once arrived at Pease, all of them using the land lines to call back to their native countries, in various languages. “I thought it was the United Nations,” he said.

The phone room now sports five land lines, a new counter, wall outlets and charging stations, large military appreciation banners and flowers. Lasorsa called it “nicely dressed.”

A financial gift by Service Credit Union allowed for the renovation of Malinda’s Room. SCU also regularly provides water donations to the Pease Greeters for flights.

“To see what we’ve done here for the troops, I think it’s fantastic,” said SCU CEO David Araujo, who credited SCU’s Michele Saccoccia with the heavy lifting in making the project come to life.

“To see what the (greeters) here do, at 3 in the morning, at 3 in the afternoon, on Christmas, on Thanksgiving,” said Airport Director Paul Brean, adding he had tears in his eyes when he experienced his first Pease Greeters flight years ago.

“I think the final product is great,” Brean said of the new Malinda’s Room.

Lasorsa said the refurbishment of Malinda’s Room is another way to carry out the greeters’ mission that veterans will not be forgotten.

“After (the troops) hit the bathrooms, they jump on the phones,” Lasorsa laughed. “(They) always have their priorities straight.” He said the new phone room allows the greeters to “have some permanence.”

©2019 Portsmouth Herald, N.H.
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“We are still in recovery mode,” said Ryan Hansen, spokesman for the 55th Wing, which oversees operations of the base located just west of the Missouri River.

Flooding began Friday at Offutt, as well as across Nebraska and other states along the Missouri River. Hundreds of homes have been evacuated and many farms impacted. Areas south and also along the Mississippi River are bracing for possible flood waters.

At least 17 high-water records have been set across Nebraska, where 660 people are in evacuation shelters and the National Guard and State Patrol have had to rescue more than 175 people, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said in a statement, reported The Associated Press.

The water at Offutt receded enough to allow the base to reopen a previously closed access gate and all personnel returned to work Tuesday, Hansen said. About 10,000 personnel report to the base each day, and about 6,500 are active-duty servicemembers.

Flood waters are expected to continue to recede through the week and Hansen said base officials plan to have environmental crews along with engineers and the fire department determine building safety and survey damage. About 30 buildings flooded and at the water’s peak, one-third of the base was covered.

Preventive measures to mitigate fuels leaks at the airfield appeared to be successful, as no leaks or line breaks have been detected, according a news release posted to Offutt’s Facebook page.

“After reviewing aerial photos of the areas of the installation affected by flooding, base officials identified a sheen on top of the flood water near the fuel storage area. More than 3,700 feet of boom was deployed to ensure any possible fuel leak was contained,” the release stated. “Closer examination, by boat, at the site, leads base officials to suspect the sheen is actually caused by residual fuel from submerged equipment. Again, there is no evidence of a ruptured tank or a fuel line leak.”

One of the base’s older storage tanks collapsed in the water, but it was empty and no longer in service, the release stated.

“We are continuing to monitor the area with support from members of the [Environmental Protection Agency] Region 7 emergency response team,” said Col. Michael Manion, 55th Wing commander. “There is no threat to personnel at this time and we are committed to ensuring compliance with all environmental procedures moving forward.”

Officials continue to test the base’s drinking water and it remains safe to drink, the release stated.

To focus on recovery, an annual air show scheduled for June was canceled. It typically draws about 150,000 people to Offutt to view the 55th Wing’s RC-135s, fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft, along with aircraft from across the Air Force and other branches of the military, Hansen said. The Air Force Thunderbirds were scheduled to appear at the show.

Camp Ashland, a National Guard training site about 25 miles west of Offutt on the Platte River, was completely underwater earlier this week and remains inaccessible.

About 200 members of the Nebraska National Guard also continue to support recovery efforts across the state, said Master Sgt. Michael Houk, spokesman for the National Guard. Missions include traffic control, administrative support to the state’s emergency operations center, and aircraft drops of sandbags at Cooper Power Station, two levees and Lincoln Power Station. Three UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters and one UH-72 Lakota helicopter remain on standby for search and rescue and medevac missions.

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The man was found early Tuesday on the pool deck of the MSC Divina. It was about 100 miles off the coast of Atlantic City at the time.

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An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Air Station Atlantic City and an HC-130 Hercules airplane crew from Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., were launched to assist in the rescue.

The helicopter crew was able to load the man onto a stretcher and safely hoist him up to the aircraft. He was taken to a hospital, but his name and further details on his condition were not disclosed.

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Wilson announced earlier this month that she was resigning as soon as her new position is finalized, but the former congresswoman faced backlash from UTEP students and local activists over her past voting record on LGBTQ rights, immigration and federal Pell Grants.

The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted March 8 to select Wilson as the only finalist for the job. UTEP has an enrollment around 25,000 students, with about 80 percent Latino.

UT system spokeswoman Karen Adler said in an email Tuesday that Wilson plans to return to UTEP after spring break, which is this week, and meet with students, faculty and staff, and community and business groups.

"The format will allow Secretary Wilson to meet face-to-face with all groups, and she intends to meet with as many as she can, both on the UTEP campus and the broader El Paso community," Adler said.

Democratic state Sen. Jose Rodriguez of El Paso said he wants to hear what his constituents have to say before giving "any kind of unqualified statement about my support or nonsupport for her."

"I'm hoping that she goes and faces the community and the community's concerns, especially the LGBTQ community's concern about her voting record and views toward the LGBTQ community," Rodriguez said.

During a press conference at UTEP last week, Wilson said her "general approach with respect to LGBT issues is to treat everyone with dignity and respect." She also praised the school for being a binational and bicultural university.

Michael Gutierrez, a 21-year-old freshman in the school's Queer Student Alliance, said he doesn't believe Wilson represents the school or its values. Gutierrez said neither his group nor Wilson have made an effort to meet with each other.

"We had a protest this past Monday when she visited the campus, she had time to go up to us and chose to go through the backways of our school and avoid us," Gutierrez said.

Democratic state Rep. Mary Gonzalez, who chairs the House's LGBTQ Caucus, said the concerns demonstrate the need for a re-examination of the selection process.

Gonzalez said her caucus will be meeting with Chancellor James B. Milliken on Wednesday to further discuss Wilson's nomination.

Wilson has headed the Air Force since May 2017, making her President Donald Trump's first Senate-confirmed service secretary.

She also served as a U.S. representative from New Mexico from 1998 to 2009, and was president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology from 2013 to 2017.

Wilson would be replacing Diana Natalicio who has served as UTEP president for three decades.

An equine team, which also helps with other conservation efforts, consists of four registered quarter horses and six patrolmen. It helps protect the nearly 99,600 acres that make up VAFB, which is the third-largest Air Force base in the U.S. and is home to a wide variety of plants, wildlife and terrain.

The equine unit, which is one of just four conservation units overall in the Air Force, is an essential part of installation conservation when it comes to patrolling areas that are not as easily accessible by motor vehicles, according to 30th Space Wing Public Affairs.

“We are able to go through creeks and water with the horses [and] high hills that we wouldn’t be able to get through with off-road vehicles,” said Senior Airman Michael Terrazas, a 30th Security Forces Squadron conservation patrolman. “There are places we’ve gone where the water is so deep that my boots are wet while on horseback, but the horses can walk through with no problems.”

While conservation is the main goal, the unit is also crucial to matters involving the installation’s environmental footprint, such as during the nesting season for the Western snowy plover, a bird species listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service under the federal Endangered Species Act and as a “species of special concern” by the state of California.

The plovers breed and nest along portions of the beaches on VAFB property, including the public Surf Beach, as well as Minuteman and Wall beaches, which are only available to people with base access.

During plover season, which typically lasts from March through September, specific portions of the beaches are closed off to allow a safe nesting environment, according to VAFB officials. Human violations of the restrictions during the season are tracked by the Military Working Horse law enforcement team, and when the beaches reach a certain number of violations, the remaining portions of the beaches are closed for the remainder of the season.

“We are allowed to ride the horses in enclosed plover areas to monitor, but we stick strictly to the wet sand,” said Airman 1st Class Payton Mculley. “The reason we are allowed to take the horses and not [all-terrain vehicles] is because horses have a smaller biological footprint on the beaches.”

The team also monitors and patrols hunting and fishing areas throughout each respective season to ensure it is done responsibly and safely.

“We enforce fish and game laws and the horses help us walk off the beaten path to complete our mission,” Terrazas said. “We have even responded to lost hunters and hurt animals.”

Along with fish and game laws, the patrolmen are also tasked with enforcing state and federal laws. Each conservation officer attends a four-month land management training program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and receives federal credentials upon graduation.

“People see that we are conservation and assume that we can’t pull them over on the highway,” Terrazas said. “However, we are federally accredited officers and can perform those duties as well.”

For the Security Forces Squadron patrolmen who aspire to join the equine team, being chosen for the job can be a lengthy, difficult process, but there are a few ways for them to become a more competitive candidate.

“This is unique within Security Forces,” Terrazas said. “We work 12-hour shifts, but we are always on call. Whoever is working feeds and cares for the horses. Before this program, I had never ridden a horse before, but I came in every day and rode and volunteered.”

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This article includes information and reporting from Airman 1st Class Hanah Abercrombie, 30th Space Wing Public Affairs.
 

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With these words, the Vandenberg chapter of the Military Order of the World Wars opened its second annual luncheon honoring World War II veterans in San Luis Obispo County on Tuesday.

The luncheon brought together 16 living San Luis Obispo County veterans to be recognized for their service during the Second World War, while also honoring those who have since died.

“Theirs is the story that provides the rationale, the very reason, for our pride in being Americans,” said Maj. James Murphy during the ceremony. “They are the real heroes, the real idols, the real icons.”

Military well represented

Sporting walkers and baseball caps proclaiming their service, the group of elderly men joked with each other and with family members at the San Luis Obispo Country Club while chowing down on a lunch of meatloaf and cheesecake.

Among these men were Purple Heart recipients, fighter pilots, former prisoners of war and witnesses to the battle of Iwo Jima, one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in the entire war. Virtually all branches of the military were represented, from the Marine Corps, the Army and the Navy to the Merchant Marines and the Coast Guard.

“I just want to say, I think it is so great, that you people are doing this,” Cpl. Joseph Hale said during the luncheon. “I can remember the first day I got home after World War II, I ran into one of my old teachers and he said, ‘Oh you’re back.’ And that’s kind of the way things were, even until recently. So I think it’s great we’re doing this.”

Hale was an artillery forward observer with the Marine Corps at the battle of Iwo Jima. He witnessed the aftermath of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

Portrait of living history

Later in the luncheon, the veterans all gathered for a group photo; as they lined up for the snapshot, it was unavoidable to wonder if this was possibly the last time that some of them would be assembled together in one room.

Lt. j.g. Joseph Brocato, the emcee of the luncheon and a retired Navy veteran, joked with the group to stay healthy so they could make it to next year’s luncheon.

“Hopefully!” one gleefully shouted from the back row while posing for the photo.

“These tributes are to pay them back,” Brocato told The Tribune after the event. “It is my fervent hope that every single one of them here today will be back next January.”

According to Brocato, three of the 10 veterans who attended the luncheon in 2018 have since died.

This year, 17 veterans were expected to attend, though only 16 were present on Tuesday (and 15 appeared in the group photo).

This year, the group of attending veterans was a bit larger, he said, because of a more concerted effort to reach out to local service men and women, and recognize them for their participation in the war.

“It’s to keep the flame alive,” Brocato said. “If you guys — if we, the newspaper, the media — don’t keep it alive, it dies. Because nobody will remember. The new generation, they’re not taught military history, or even just history. It’s just not taught anymore.

“It’s just a way of saying, ‘Thank you for your service,’” he added. “What other way can you do it?”

Staff Sgt. Leo Dumouchelle — who served in the Army between 1942-46 and participated in eight campaigns, including North Africa where he served under the renowned Gen. George S. Patton — said he enjoyed Tuesday’s luncheon.

“Oh yes, it was fine,” he said as he pushed his walker out the foyer of the country club. “Everything was great.”

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It was a Thursday in March 2013, the glow of the afternoon tucking in for the day behind the trees. She said he stood tall, at least 6-foot-3, perhaps 220 pounds and certainly muscular, wearing a formfitting tan colored uniform, boots and gloves.

Paralyzed with fear, she said she watched as what she believed to be an alien appeared to climb invisible steps, stopping often to snatch glances at her from where she sat on her back porch, fumbling with her phone to appear as though she couldn’t see him.

When he was about 10 feet off the ground, he turned his back to her and pulled himself up — “into a UFO?” she thought — and was gone.

Bishop sat stunned. “I’ve got a freaking alien in my backyard,” she thought.

It would be four years before she told anyone her story, before she’d discover the Mutual Unidentified Flying Objects Network, a nationwide organization 50 years old, and file her report under case number 84886 with the local Florida chapter.

But she worried: Who would believe her?

These days, more people than you’d think.

Across restaurants and meeting rooms in the United States, MUFON groups still gather every month to discuss cases like Bishop’s with the enthusiasm that once gripped the nation during the Cold War, when UFO sightings still made a splash on the front page.

The Space Coast group, made up of some former NASA employees and engineers, has 118 members, the largest in the state. Across the U.S. they number 3,500, with additional offices in 42 countries.

For many years, they were alone entertaining UFO theories. No more.

In the past two years, scientists, politicians and professionals have increasingly been willing to touch the taboo subject and perhaps lend a little credence to those who still believe.

In December 2017, the New York Times uncovered that the U.S. had gone so far as to fund a secret, $22 million, five-year project to study UFO claims.

Since then, respected researchers, from the chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department to at least one scientist at NASA, have come out with theories, albeit controversial ones, that suggest closer study of the role extraterrestrials may play in certain phenomena.

What’s changed, said Robert Powell, an executive board member on the non-profit Scientific Coalition for Ufology, is our understanding of the universe. As scientists have discovered more Earth-like exoplanets and begun to delve into the options for interstellar travel — one idea includes using a laser-propelled, microchip-shaped probe — the conversation has been shifting.

“We still think of ourselves, as a species, as the center of everything,” Powell said. “Once you ...at least start to discuss interstellar travel, you have to admit that, if there is intelligent life out there, then they have to be able to travel interstellar, too.”

Science weighs in

The challenge with UFO and alien sightings has always been the lack of evidence. Bishop said she was too scared to take a photo of her alien. Little to no consequential evidence exists in other cases.

Psychology can explain some of it. Common explanations include a person projecting their unconscious desires onto something, or a predisposition to believe in conspiracy theories informing what a person thinks they saw, said Alvin Wang, a psychology professor at the University of Central Florida.

People who believe they witnessed something may seek out others who reaffirm that belief, like “being in an echo chamber,” Wang said.

“People tend to hold on to that particularly if it fits in with their worldview and their belief system that there are other beings that inhabit the universe,” Wang said. “And they get ...confirmation support, when they are members of UFO believers community.”

But Bishop stands by what she said she saw. She works a government security job with three area contractors and said she has no reason to lie.

And she’s on the hunt for ET now. After reporting her case in 2017, she bought three hunting trackers on eBay and set them up in her backyard. They’re motion activated, and sometimes they’ll go off in the night and capture 6,000 images — but there’s nothing in the frame. She once caught a Tic Tac-shaped blur in the sky she believes to be a UFO.

“I just think it's a belief thing until you actually see them,” Bishop said. “You always gotta wonder.”

Some people, like Kathleen Marden, have been wondering all their lives.

It was September 1961 when the then 13-year-old got the call: Her aunt, Betty Hill, and her uncle, Barney Hill, said they’d seen a UFO on their drive through the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

Betty’s dress was torn and Barney’s shoes were scuffed. There were two hours they couldn’t account for and Barney was sure he’d seen eight to 11 figures dressed in black shiny uniforms that were “somehow not human,” said Marden, who now lives outside Orlando.

It wasn’t until the Hills were put through a hypnosis session by Boston psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon that their stories of being taken into a UFO and physically examined were revealed.

“They were interested in the skin, in the skeletal structure, in the joints,” said Marden, MUFON’s director of experiencer research. “They examined their hands, they took their shoes off, they examined their feet, they did tests on them that appear to be testing their nervous systems, as well.”

The Hills’ alleged abduction was made public in 1965 — and the story gripped the nation. “Did They Seize Couple?” the Boston Traveler posited. “I Was Quizzed in ‘Space Ship,’” read another headline.

Marden has dedicated her life to uncovering the truth behind she said was government tampering with the Hills’ case and has written four books about her aunt and uncle and flying saucers. She’s seen the change in perception about UFOs in the public and scientific community first hand.

“I absolutely do think that there is a shift, that people are giving more credence to this they did in the past,” she said, pointing to the 2017 New York Times story on the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program as the turning point.

The program was run by military intelligence official Luis Elizondo and put together at the request of then-Senate majority leader Harry Reid. It ran from 2007 to 2012 in partnership with businessman Robert Bigelow’s company Bigelow Aerospace, which studied cases of American military personnel observing unknown objects.

One case in particular garnered attention when it was declassified because videos showed a craft with no apparent propulsion moving at alarmingly fast speeds. It was filmed in 2004 by two Navy F/A-18F fighter jets off the coast of San Diego.

Navy pilot Commander David Fravor, who witnessed the Tic Tac-shaped craft, told the Washington Post in late 2017 that he maintained it was “something not from Earth.”

Then came Harvard’s astronomy department chair, Avi Loeb, a renowned scientist who Time Magazine named one of the 25 most influential people in space in 2012.

He, along with colleague Shmuel Bialy, wrote in a publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters that a thin interstellar object seen passing through our solar system called Oumuamua “is a lightsail, flowing in interstellar space as a debris from an advanced technological equipment.”

Loeb went a step further, theorizing that, “alternatively, a more exotic scenario is that Oumuamua may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth vicinity by an alien civilization.” The theory has provoked the ire of the scientific community, but Loeb has stood by it.

Is it aliens, for sure? Loeb can’t say. He just says he can’t find another explanation.

At NASA Ames Research Center in California, scientist Silvano Colombano has gone on record suggesting the space agency look at all explanations in its approach to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, known as SETI. Historically, NASA has not weighed in on the issue much, most recently opening a Center for Life Detection Science that is more about finding biosignatures than analyzing alleged UFO sightings.

But Colombano argued in a March 2018 white paper that the scientific community should be more open about looking at the evidence that is already there, “consider the UFO phenomenon worthy of study” and engage in “speculative physics” grounded in solid scientific theories but with some “willingness to stretch possibilities as to the nature of space-time and energy.”

Essentially, he said, it was time NASA had a more open mind.

The Believers

While science dukes it out, the members of the MUFON’s Space Coast chapter take their places at their monthly meeting in the back room of an old-fashioned BBQ joint in Palm Bay called Memaw’s to discuss what they all believe to be a universal truth.

Many believers come to the meetings because someone they know saw something they couldn’t explain, or because they’ve nursed an interest in the subject since the days of the Cold War, when UFO sightings and abduction claims spiked. Some say they have seen things. Others put stock in more eccentric theories.

They are what’s left of a movement that once captured the interest of thousands, inspired books like Carl Sagan’s “Contact,” long-running TV show “The X-Files,” and made Betty and Barney Hill the stars of a 1975 film starring James Earl Jones.

There are many people like Barbara Stusse, who says her mother saw a UFO in 1947 and kept it from her children for 30 years. Stusse remembers waiting for her copy of the Boston Herald every day for a week in 1965, when the Hills’ story unraveled in three to four pages of newsprint a day.

“I read that and I thought, ‘I believed it,’ ” said Stusse, 80, who has been coming to MUFON meetings for three years.

And there’s Bill Fisk, who is always at meetings taking notes. He’s in charge of taking in reported sightings like Bishop’s and trying to explain them. Could weather have played a role? Could the person have dreamed it?

Fisk, who has been hooked since the moment he saw a light in the sky make a sharp 90-degree turn when he was 9 years old, joined the local MUFON chapter in 2015.

He went all in, taking 100 hours of online classes over three months to get certified as a field investigator for MUFON. He learned how to read flight plans, how to measure longitude, latitude and cloud altitude, how to use a Geiger counter to measure ionizing radiation.

Sometimes he gets hoaxes. One man copyrighted an image he took of the sky through a window because he was convinced it was a UFO. Turns out, it was just the reflection of his hotel room’s ceiling light on the glass. Chinese lanterns in the sky are often confused with flying saucers. And one woman even claimed an alien came into her house and had sex with her.

“A lot of it is that people don’t look up, they don’t pay attention to the sky, the last time they read a science book was in 12th grade,” Fisk said. “It’s just one of those things that sometimes you just have to bring them along, give them the information, the education to do something with what they saw, put it into a framework.”

A customer solutions representative for CareerSource Brevard, Fisk works on cases at lunch or after work. He can close most in three to four days, write them off as someone thinking Venus was a UFO, but sometimes he gets one he can’t crack.

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“I have long relied on the work of Hoover to supplement my understanding of the critical challenges facing our country and to help guide tough decisions. I believe we have an obligation to pass on the lessons we’ve learned so that future generations can study, learn and become better. Hoover has made this part of its mission, and I look forward to returning,” Mattis said in a statement posted to the Hoover Institution’s website Thursday afternoon and shared to his Facebook page.

The Richland native first joined the Hoover Institution as an Annenberg Distinguished Fellow in 2013, following his retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps.

He became the Davies Fellow in 2015. During his initial tenure, he applied his deep military experience to national security topics, focusing on the effective use of force in the Middle East.

He co-edited the book “Warriors and Citizens.”

Left Hoover to assist Donald Trump

He left in December 2016 when Donald Trump, then the president-elect, nominated him for the nation’s 26th Secretary of Defense. Mattis was confirmed a month later.

Mattis resigned from the post in late 2018, telling the president he deserved a secretary with views better aligned with his. Mattis had intended to serve through a transition period, but Trump dismissed him at the end of December.

“The wealth of knowledge and experience of an already extraordinary career has been made even richer by General Mattis’ latest endeavor as Secretary of Defense, and we are fortunate to once again be beneficiaries of his acumen,” said Tom Gilligan, director of the Hoover Institution, in the release posted to the website.

The announcement said Mattis plans to focus his research and writing on domestic and security policy. He will participate in programs and events at Hoover’s California campus and its office in Washington, D.C.

Mattis’ national prominence has made him a celebrity in his hometown. Mattis sightings regularly make the rounds on social media and sparked a “Mattis for President” campaign by an admiring city councilman.

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The administration said on March 8 that it would issue a memorandum implementing the ban next month, citing the government’s U.S. Supreme Court victory that lifted two nationwide injunctions against the policy. A third injunction that wasn’t part of that case was subsequently lifted on March 7. A fourth injunction, however, hasn’t budged.

“The nationwide preliminary injunction issued by this court remains in place,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington said in a notice Tuesday. “The fact that the three other nationwide preliminary injunctions which had been in place are now stayed has no impact on the continued effectiveness of this court’s preliminary injunction.”

The judge said her ruling would remain in effect until at least March 29, the deadline for plaintiffs to request a rehearing of a dispute they lost before the Supreme Court ruling. The dispute hinges on whether the February 2018 ban crafted by former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, which allows some transgender troops to serve “in their biological sex,” was technically different from Trump’s initial tweet announcing the policy, which barred all transgender Americans from serving “in any capacity.”

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But that's not his biggest worry. He and other farmers have worked until midnight for days to move grain, equipment and fuel barrels away from the floodwaters fed by heavy rain and snowmelt. The rising water that has damaged hundreds of homes and been blamed for three deaths has also taken a heavy toll on agriculture, inundating thousands of acres, threatening stockpiled grain and killing livestock.

In Fremont County alone, Jorgenson estimates that more than a million bushels of corn and nearly half a million bushels of soybeans have been lost after water overwhelmed grain bins before they could be emptied of last year's crop. His calculation using local grain prices puts the financial loss at more than $7 million in grain alone. That's for about 28 farmers in his immediate area, he said.

Once it's deposited in bins, grain is not insured, so it's just lost money. This year farmers have stored much more grain than normal because of a large crop last year and fewer markets in which to sell soybeans because of a trade dispute with China.

"The economy in agriculture is not very good right now. It will end some of these folks farming, family legacies, family farms," he said. "There will be farmers that will be dealing with so much of a negative they won't be able to tolerate it."

Jorgenson, 43, who has farmed since 1998, reached out to friends Saturday, and they helped him move his grain out of bins to an elevator. Had they not acted, he would have lost $135,000.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has declared a disaster in 41 of Iowa's 99 counties, said she planned to press Vice President Mike Pence for a federal disaster declaration during his stops in Omaha to tour flooded areas along the Missouri River.

"It will be helpful for him to see it. I've reached out, and we've told him it's catastrophic," she said.

Pence said the Trump administration would expedite presidential disaster declarations for Nebraska and Iowa. He said he spoke to the governors of both states shortly after arriving to assure them federal aid will soon be on the way.

The flooding is expected to continue throughout the week in several states as high water flows down the Missouri River. Swollen rivers have already breached more than a dozen levees in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, according to the Army Corps of Engineers.

The flooding, which started after a massive late-winter storm last week, has also put some hog farms in southwest Iowa underwater. The dead animals inside must be disposed of, Reynolds said.

The water rose so quickly that farmers in many areas had no time to get animals out, said Chad Hart, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University.

"Places that haven't seen animal loss have seen a lot of animal stress. That means they're not gaining weight and won't be marketed in as timely a manner, which results in additional cost," he said.

In all, Nebraska Farm Bureau President Steve Nelson estimated $400 million of crop losses from fields left unplanted or planted late and up to $500 million in livestock losses.

In a news release issued Tuesday, Gov. Pete Ricketts said there have been deadlier disasters in Nebraska but never one as widespread. He said 65 of the state's 93 counties are under emergency declarations.

In neighboring Missouri, water was just shy of getting into Ryonee McCann's home along a recreational lake in Holt County, where about 40,000 acres (16,188 hectares) and hundreds of homes have been flooded. She said her home sits on an 8-foot (2.5-meter) foundation.

"We have no control over it," the 38-year-old said. "We just have to wait for the water to recede. It's upsetting because everything you have worked for is there."

The Missouri River was forecast to crest Thursday morning at 11.6 feet above flood stage in St. Joseph, Missouri, the third highest crest on record. More than 100 roads are closed in the state, including a growing section of Interstate 29.

Leaders of the small northwestern Missouri town of Craig ordered an evacuation. The Holt County Sheriff's Department said residents who choose to stay must go to City Hall to provide their name and address in case they need to be rescued.

In nearby Atchison County, Missouri, floodwaters knocked out a larger section of an already busted levee overnight, making the village of Watson unreachable, said Mark Manchester, the county's deputy director of emergency management/911.

Officials believe everyone got out before thousands of more acres were flooded. But so many roads are now closed that some residents must travel more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) out of their way to get to their jobs at the Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska, he said.

"It's a lot harder for people to get around," Manchester said.

River flooding has also surrounded a northern Illinois neighborhood with water, prompting residents to escape in boats. People living in the Illinois village of Roscoe say children have walked through floodwaters or kayaked to catch school buses.

Flooding along rivers in western Michigan has damaged dozens of homes and businesses.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Salter in St. Louis, Margery Beck in Omaha, Nebraska, and Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

Dickson, a former executive at Delta Air Lines, would replace acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell.

The FAA has been under interim leadership since January 2018, following the departure of Michael Huerta, whose five-year term had expired.

The announcement comes as the agency faces increasing criticism and scrutiny over what some viewed as its slow response to the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner and questions over whether it did enough to ensure the aircraft involved in the crash, a Boeing 737 Max 8, was safe to fly.

The March 10 crash, which killed all 157 people aboard, was the second involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 in less than five months.

Also Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who had been a supporter of Dickson getting the permanent post, asked her department's Office of Inspector General to launch an audit to "compile an objective and detailed factual history"of activities that led the FAA to certify the 737 Max 8.

Chao's announcement of the request emphasized that Boeing had applied for its certification for the plane in January 2012, and that the FAA granted it in March 2017 - shortly after she took over as secretary.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., who heads the aviation subcommittee, on Tuesday also asked the Inspector General to examine questions concerning the FAA's approach to certifying the 737 Max 8.

Among them: how new automated features of the plane were "tested, certified, and integrated"; what safety assumptions "led to the FAA's decision not to revise pilot training programs and manuals" to reflect the automated features; how the FAA's delegation of authority to Boeing may have impacted the certification process; and what corrective actions have been taken since the initial accident in October 2018.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called Chao's request "inadequate and incomplete." He asked the inspector general to investigate the Trump administration's "lackluster" response to an earlier crash in Indonesia last year, as well as whether FAA or Boeing employees had engaged "in any unethical, improper or criminal activity during the certification process."

A spokesman for the inspector general said the office is preparing to launch an audit. Asked what time frame and areas of inquiry would be covered, the spokesman said the "scope and objectives"of the review are being determined.

Elwell, a former American Airlines pilot, has been acting administrator since Jan. 7, 2018. He also served as deputy administrator and in other capacities at the FAA.

Some critics have questioned why it has taken so long to fill such an important job. Trump wanted his longtime personal pilot, John Dunkin, at the helm of the agency, but the president lacked the needed support on Capitol Hill for the nomination, which contributed to delays in nominating a permanent administrator, according to a former FAA official.

"He wanted his guy there. There's no question about that. It became something of a standoff," according to the former official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the process.

Dickson, who must be confirmed by the Senate, previously served as an airline captain and senior vice president for flight operations at Delta Air Lines. In that role, he was responsible for the safety and performance of the airline's global flight operations. He was also an Air Force pilot.

Dickson graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, and also holds a law degree from the Georgia State University College of Law.

The Justice Department's criminal division is looking into the Boeing 737 Max 8, though the parameters of that inquiry remain unclear.

Apart from the audit, the Inspector General's Office of Investigations, which handles criminal and other matters, has also sought details about FAA's certification of the plane and its training materials, according to a person with knowledge of that effort.

Chao said the audit she requested is necessary "to help inform the Department's decision-making and the public's understanding, and to assist the FAA in ensuring that its safety procedures are implemented effectively."

"Safety is the top priority of the Department, and all of us are saddened by the fatalities resulting from the recent accidents involving two Boeing 737-MAX 8 aircraft in Indonesia and Ethiopia," Chao said.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — the "Trump of the Tropics"— ran an unabashedly pro-Trump, pro-American campaign last year, emulating Trump in tone and style. It seems to have paid off for Bolsonaro on his first official trip to Washington.

At a joint news conference, Trump announced that he'd agreed to designate Brazil a "major non-NATO ally" — something Brazil had pursued to smooth U.S. weapons purchases and military coordination. Trump even said he'd be open to granting full NATO membership to Latin America's largest and most populous nation, even though Brazil doesn't quality to join the North Atlantic alliance.

The showing was the latest example of the premium Trump puts on personal relationships and the extent to which he's willing to work with those who sing his virtues. And it renewed focus on the growing wave of populist strongmen who have captured voters' support with blunt admonitions of "political correctness" and hardline immigration views.

As they sat down for the first time, Trump hailed Bolsonaro's run as "one of the incredible campaigns," saying he was "honored" it had drawn comparisons to his own 2016 victory. And he predicted the two would have a "fantastic working relationship," telling reporters at a joint press conference that they have "many views" in common. The two also exchanged soccer jerseys in a sign of their budding friendship.

Bolsonaro was equally complimentary, predicting Trump would win re-election in 2020 and drawing parallels between their efforts.

Standing side-by-side in the White House Rose Garden, Bolsonaro said their two countries "stand side by side in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news."

"I'm very proud to hear the president use the term 'fake news'," Trump later remarked.

The embrace represents a shift in U.S.-Brazilian relations. In 2013, leaks from Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency had wiretapped conversations of former President Dilma Rousseff, leading to several years of tense relations between the nations.

Bolsonaro had arrived in the U.S. with a half a dozen ministers and a goal of expanding trade, diplomatic and military cooperation between the two largest economies in the Western Hemisphere. And Trump appeared eager to deliver.

He announced he would back Brazil's effort's to join the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, while floating the idea of full NATO membership, though he said he'd "have to talk to a lot of people" for Brazil to join the organization.

However, James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who was the Supreme Allied Commander at NATO from 2009 to 2013, said Brazil does not qualify for full membership under the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949.

"The idea of formal membership is a nonstarter in every dimension — the treaty doesn't allow it, the Brazilians wouldn't want it and the Europeans wouldn't approve," Stavridis said in an email exchange.

The efforts came as both countries continue to denounce the crisis in Venezuela and called on members of the Venezuelan military to end their support for President Nicolas Maduro. Both the U.S. and Brazil have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's legitimate leader, and Trump reiterated that "all options" to address Venezuela's economic and political crisis remain on the table.

The leaders also were expected to discuss a range of other issues, including expanding trade relations and increasing U.S. private-sector investment in Brazil.

Bolsonaro has much in common with Trump. He, too, ran an insurgent, social media-powered campaign. And like Trump, he has blasted unflattering stories as "fake news" and used Twitter and Facebook to bypass mainstream news organizations.

As a congressman, Bolsonaro frequently made disparaging comments about gays, women, indigenous groups and blacks, and he has praised torture and killings by police and waxed nostalgic for Brazil's old military dictatorship. While such comments have drawn sharp criticism, they have also generated attention and fed into his narrative as a leader unencumbered by political correctness.

Bolsonaro has also echoed Trump's hardline immigration policies, calling immigrants from several poor countries the "scum of the world" and saying Brazil cannot become a "country of open borders."

In an interview with Fox News Monday, Bolsonaro said he supported Trump's immigration policies and his efforts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"The majority of potential immigrants do not have good intentions or do not intend to do the best or do good for the American people," he said.

Bolsonaro also had the support of Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has since parted ways with the White House. While Bolsonaro has dismissed reports that Bannon played a key role in his campaign, Bolsonaro's son Eduardo approached Bannon in July of last year and the two struck up a friendship. In August, Eduardo posted a picture of the two of them on Instagram with a caption that said Bannon was an "enthusiast" of his father's candidacy and that they would "unite forces against cultural Marxism." It was one of several meetings, Bannon said.

On Sunday, Bannon joined Bolsonaro for a dinner at the Brazilian Embassy along with various Cabinet members and other leaders, where they discussed subjects including the country's economic plans.

Bolsonaro, Bannon told The Associated Press, "understands the Trump program and understands President Trump" and said both represent a "tectonic plate shift in the world of politics" toward blunt, politically incorrect leaders in the model of Trump.

"This is a new kind of global political moment," he said.

In advance of the meeting, the countries signed several bilateral agreements, including one that allows the United States to use Brazil's Alcantara Aerospace Launch Base for its satellites. Brazil also announced an end to visa requirements for U.S. tourists who visit the country, while Trump agreed to Brazilian participation in the Trusted Traveler "Global Entry" program.

Days after taking office on Jan. 1, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, said Brazil would consider letting the U.S. have a military base in the country as way to counter Russian influence in the region, particularly related to Brazil's neighbor Venezuela.

That statement was roundly criticized, including by former military members of his government, and the administration backed off.

___

Prengaman reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writers Mauricio Savarese in Madrid and Ben Fox, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Catherine Lucey and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

What are levees?

A: Levees are earthen flood barriers typically covered in grass. They generally don't have bushes or trees because the roots can create structural weakness and provide crevices where water can get in. Sometimes rocks are added to help prevent erosion.

Levees are different than floodwalls, which are typically concrete, but floodwalls are sometimes part of levee systems. In Hannibal, Missouri, for example, a levee protects Mark Twain historic sites from the Mississippi River, but the levee has openings allowing street traffic to the riverfront. When floodwaters threaten, concrete floodwalls slide into place to fill the gaps.

How many levees exist in the U.S?

A: The Army Corps of Engineers oversees 2,148 levee systems totaling 14,150 miles. But there are many other small levees too, some privately owned, as well as a few operated by other federal agencies. The National Committee on Levee Safety estimates there are more than 100,000 miles of levees nationwide.

California has the most, with 9,144 miles of levees in 3,291 systems. The Mississippi and Missouri river basins in the Midwest and South are dotted with thousands of miles of levees. Missouri alone has 318 levee systems stretching a combined 2,038 miles, according to the Corps.

Who operates levees?

A: The Corps of Engineers operates and maintains only a small percentage of levees, just some of the big ones. About 85 percent of the 14,150 miles of levees under the agency's oversight are actually operated by counties, cities or designated levee districts. The vast majority of the other 86,000 miles of levees have no federal oversight.

For non-federal levees, it's up to the operator to take care of maintenance, keeping drains and wells in working order and making sure the turf (and sometimes rock) isn't compromised. In times of flooding, it's also up to the local operator to patrol the levee, shore up any trouble spots with sandbags and to inform the community of any dangers.

How susceptible are levees to flooding?

A: It ranges broadly. Some small agricultural levees are meant to hold back only minor flooding and, in fact, are expected to succumb to higher water. Other levees are built high and wide with the goal of protecting against even catastrophic floods.

But there are no guarantees. Extreme weather has increased in recent decades, and so has serious flooding. Consider Clarksville, Missouri, a scenic Mississippi River town, where seven of the 10 worst floods on record have happened since 1993.

Then there's Chesterfield, Missouri, a well-to-do St. Louis suburb along the Missouri River. The massive 1993 flood swamped a 7-mile long valley in Chesterfield, destroying most everything in its path.

After the levee was rebuilt bigger and stronger, hundreds of millions of dollars of development emerged in the Chesterfield valley, including shopping centers, big box stores and restaurants.

Levees like Chesterfield's shouldn't create a false sense of security, said Scott Vollink, a levee safety program manager for the Army Corps of Engineers.

"The public needs to understand that no levee system is flood-proof," Vollink said. "Levees reduce that risk of flooding, but no levee system is going to eliminate all that flood risk."

How bad is levee damage from the current flood?

A: It's bad, particularly in Nebraska and Iowa and northwestern Missouri. Corps of Engineers officials say around two dozen levee systems have sustained either breaches (holes in the levee) or overtoppings (water flowing over the levee) since the flood began. The Corps said virtually every Missouri River levee along a 100-mile stretch south of Omaha was breached or overtopped.

There is no estimate of the cost of the repairs, nor is it clear how much the federal government will help fund.

What is the repair plan?

A: Vollink said the agency hopes to have all of the damaged levees fully repaired by the spring of 2020. But with more flooding certain this spring, Vollink said the Corps will work with levee operators to expedite interim repairs.

"If there's a levee breach, if we could get some intermediate level of levee back into place very, very quickly while we develop the final detailed design to restore back into the original condition, that would be considered," Vollink said. "But it's very situational. It's hypothetical until we see what's out there."

Does the Corps of Engineers keep tabs on levee conditions?

A: The Corps maintains the National Levee Database, and it is working with states and levee operators on a new national review of the levee system. The database includes information on inspections, levee conditions and flood risks. It isn't clear when the review will be complete since Congress has not authorized funding.
 

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer was awarded to the Maine shipyard in September 2018 as part of a multi-year procurement.

Charette, who was from Ludington, Michigan, joined the Navy in 1951 and served in the Korean War in the Fleet Marine Force as a hospital corpsman attached to Company F, Third Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, according to the Navy.

Charette was presented the Medal of Honor for his actions on March 27, 1953, when he threw himself on top of an enemy grenade to protect a wounded Marine from the explosion in North Korea, according to the Navy.

The blast knocked Charette unconscious. When he awoke, he continued to care for other Marines, using torn parts of his uniform to dress wounds and his battle vest to shield a wounded Marine. Amid enemy gunfire, he carried wounded Marines to safety.

“The actions of Hospital Corpsman William Charette will neither be forgotten or diminished,” Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer said. “Charette put himself at extreme risk during intense combat to render aid to Marines in need. His efforts saved lives and I am honored that his legacy will live on in the future USS William Charette [DDG 130].”

Of five enlisted sailors — all hospital corpsman attached to the Marine Corps — to receive the Medal of Honor for actions during the Korean War, only Charette was alive to receive the honor. He died on March 18, 2012, due to complications from heart surgery.

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The justices, by a 5-4 vote, agreed that Congress authorized mandatory detention of noncitizens who were subject to deportation because they had committed crimes ranging from violent felonies to drug possession. And they may be taken into custody by immigration agents long after they are released from state or local custody, the court said.

The ruling in Nielsen vs. Preap is based on an interpretation of a 1996 law, but it takes on added significance because the Trump administration has been more aggressive in arresting and jailing legal immigrants with crimes on their records.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., speaking for the court’s conservatives, said Congress believed it would be “too risky” to allow dangerous criminals and terrorists to remain free on bail while their deportations were pending. But he went on to describe the law as requiring mandatory detention for noncitizens who had committed crimes “including, for example, any drug offense by an adult punishable by more than one year of imprisonment as well as a variety of tax offenses.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, speaking for the four liberals, read his dissent in the courtroom. “The greater importance of the case lies in the power that the majority’s interpretation grants to the government. It is a power to detain persons who committed a minor crime many years before,” he said. “And it is a power to hold those persons, perhaps for many months, without any opportunity to obtain bail.”

He said the Constitution gave all people the right to a hearing if they were held by the government. “I would have thought that Congress intended to adhere to these values and did not intend to allow the government to apprehend persons years after their release from prison and hold them indefinitely without a bail hearing,” Breyer said.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union had brought a class-action suit in California on behalf of lawful immigrants who faced mandatory detention long after they had been released for relatively minor crimes.

Eduardo Padilla, one of the named plaintiffs, came to the United States in 1966 as an infant and became a lawful permanent resident in the Sacramento area. He has five children and six grandchildren, all of whom are U.S. citizens. Padilla had two convictions for drug possession, in 1997 and 1999, and served 90 days in jail in 2002 for having an unloaded pistol in a shed.

In 2013, federal agents arrested him for those past crimes and held him for deportation. But he went free after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the “mandatory detention” provision did not apply to immigrants such as Padilla. He was released on a $1,500 bond because a judge decided he did not present a danger and was not likely to flee.

The lead plaintiff in the case, Mony Preap, had come from Cambodia as a child and been a lawful resident since 1981. He was taken into custody for two convictions for possessing marijuana in 2006, but an immigration judge later canceled his deportation and he was released.

ACLU Deputy Legal Director Cecillia Wang, who argued the case, criticized the ruling. “For two terms in a row now, the Supreme Court has endorsed the most extreme interpretation of immigration detention statutes,” she said, “allowing mass incarceration of people without any hearing, simply because they are defending themselves against a deportation charge. We will continue to fight the gross overuse of detention in the immigration system.”

Tuesday’s decision overturns a ruling of the 9th Circuit Court that had extended bail hearings and possible release to immigrants who had served time for their crimes and were living and working in their communities.

The legal dispute turned on a provision of the law that said the mandatory federal detention was triggered “when an alien is released” from state prison or local jail. Based on that clause, the 9th Circuit judges said the mandatory detention rule did not apply to immigrants who had been released months or years earlier.

But Alito said the first provision of the law said the government “shall take into custody any alien” with certain crimes on their record, and that the duty to arrest and hold these people did not end simply because they were not taken into custody immediately.

The high court heard arguments on the case in mid-October during the same week Kavanaugh took his seat. He spoke up in defense of the Trump administration’s view that the law was intended to authorize federal agents to arrest and hold immigrants with past crimes on their records regardless of when they were released. He questioned whether “we should be putting in a time limit” on taking immigrants into custody.

Both sides in the case agreed that the mandatory detention rule applied both to immigrants who were in the country legally as well as to those here illegally.

Early last year, the high court broadly upheld the government’s power to detain immigrants in jail for months or years as they fight deportation. In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled federal law gave these detainees no right to a bail hearing and a chance to go free. The decision, in Jennings vs. Rodriguez, did not resolve whether this indefinite-detention rule was constitutional. Dissenting, Breyer emphasized that the Constitution said “no person shall be … deprived of liberty” without due process of law, which he said required a hearing.

The case decided Tuesday was a follow-up to last year’s ruling and was more limited in its scope. It involved only detained immigrants who had been earlier released from custody.

©2019 Los Angeles Times
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The easing of fish consumption restrictions on the Cuyahoga was lauded Monday by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine as an important step toward ultimately delisting the river altogether as an area of concern. Seven impairments remain to be addressed before that can happen.

"This is an example of the progress that can be achieved when you collaborate and dedicate resources to improving the quality of water in our state," DeWine said in a statement. "We need to continue to invest in our water resources so that we can see additional improvements."

The announcement came as DeWine is pushing a state budget that includes nearly $1 billion for water quality projects aimed at cleaning up toxic algae in Lake Erie and protecting other lakes and rivers in the state.

The Cuyahoga River was already one of the most polluted rivers in the country at the time of the fire on June 22, 1969, close to where the river empties into Lake Erie, according to the Ohio History Connection. The fire was neither the first nor the worst the river had experienced.

But the 1969 fire on the river, where industrial waste and sewage were regularly dumped, drew national media attention that made it an instant poster child for water pollution at a time when the country was becoming more environmentally aware.

"As we approach the 50th anniversary of the most infamous Cuyahoga River fire, we reflect on the progress that has been made," said Kyle Dreyfuss-Wells, CEO of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose creation was inspired by the Cuyahoga River fire, gave the thumbs-up to easing the fish consumption restrictions.

Regional administrator Cathy Stepp called it "a huge step" in the agency's work to improve water quality.

The U.S. EPA agreed with Ohio EPA's recommendation that restrictions on fish consumption be eased from Gorge Dam near Akron to Lake Erie in Cleveland. State regulators proposed the change last year judging by improvements observed through fish tissue sampling.

Ohio EPA Director Laurie Stevenson said in a statement, "If you safely can eat the fish, we know that's a great indication that water quality is improving."
 

The decision greatly disappointed abuse survivors, given that Barbarin had traveled to the Vatican on Monday to present his resignation following the March 7 verdict and six-month suspended sentence he received.

The Vatican spokesman, Alessandro Gisotti, said Tuesday that during the audience, Francis didn't accept the resignation and instead asked Barbarin to do what he thinks is best for the archdiocese. Barbarin has decided to take time away and has asked his deputy in Lyon, the Rev. Yves Baumgarten, to assume leadership of the archdiocese, Gisotti said.

"The Holy See repeats its closeness to victims of abuse, to the faithful of the archdiocese of Lyon and the French church who are living in a particularly difficult moment," Gisotti said.

The French court found that Barbarin had an obligation to report the Rev. Bernard Preynat to civil authorities when he learned of his abuse. Preynat, who is scheduled to be tried on sexual violence charges next year, confessed to abusing Boy Scouts in the 1970s and 1980s. His victims accuse Barbarin and other church authorities of covering up for him for years.

Barbarin has appealed the conviction, which could have influenced Francis' decision to not immediately accept his resignation. Francis has been loath to take such measures lest they influence the outcome of trials.

But the decision nevertheless left French abuse victims disillusioned, particularly given Francis' recent comments about ending cover-up that he pronounced at the end of a high-level Vatican summit last month.

Bertrand Virieux, a victim and co-founder of the association La Parole Liberee (Lift the Burden of Silence), told France Info radio he doesn't understand Francis' decision and doesn't expect anything anymore from the church.

He noted the disconnect between the "strong words pronounced a few weeks ago that might have given hope to victims and to those who want some change within the church" and "the daily reality in the church."

Another victim, the president of the association Francois Devaux, called Francis' decision a mistake.

"It shows that we are right and that the problem is inherent to (religious) dogma," he told French media.

Last year, Francis reluctantly accepted the resignation of one of his key supporters, Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl, after he was implicated in cover-ups from decades ago.

The cases were revealed by a Pennsylvania grand jury report. Wuerl was never criminally charged, but he determined he could no longer effectively lead the archdiocese after he lost the trust of the flock and some of his priests.

Francis also accepted the resignation last year of Philip Wilson, archbishop of Adelaide, Australia, after he was convicted of covering up abuse. Wilson's conviction was reversed on appeal, but he had already had been replaced. His future status is unclear.
 

The social media giant released new details about its response to the video in a blog post. It said the gunman's live 17-minute broadcast was viewed fewer than 200 times and the first user report didn't come in until 12 minutes after it ended. Fifty people were killed at two mosques in Christchurch.

Facebook removed the video "within minutes'" of being notified by police, said Chris Sonderby, Facebook's deputy general counsel.

"No users reported the video during the live broadcast," and it was watched about 4,000 times in total before being taken down, Sonderby said. "We continue to work around the clock to prevent this content from appearing on our site, using a combination of technology and people."

Facebook has previously said that in the first 24 hours after the massacre, it removed 1.5 million videos of the attacks, "of which over 1.2 million were blocked at upload," implying 300,000 copies successfully made it on to the site before being taken down.

The video's rapid spread online puts renewed pressure on Facebook and other social media sites such as YouTube and Twitter over their content moderation efforts. Many question why Facebook in particular wasn't able to more quickly detect the video and take it down.

On Tuesday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed frustration that the footage remained online four days after the killings. She said she had received "some communication" from Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg on the issue. "It is horrendous and while they've given us those assurances, ultimately the responsibility does sit with them."

Facebook uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect objectionable material, while at the same time relying on the public to flag up content that violates its standards. Those reports are then sent to human reviewers who decide what action to take, the company said in a video in November , which also outlined how it uses "computer vision" to detect 97 percent of graphic violence before anyone reports it. However, it's less clear how these systems apply to Facebook's live streaming.

To report live video, a user must know to click on a small set of three gray dots on the right side of the post. When you click on "report live video," you're given a choice of objectionable content types to select from, including violence, bullying and harassment. You're also told to contact law enforcement in your area if someone is in immediate danger.

Before the company was alerted to the video, a user on 8chan had already posted a link to copy of it on a file sharing site, Sonderby said. 8chan is a dark corner of the web where those disaffected by mainstream social media sites often post extremist, racist and violent views.

In another indication of the video's spread by those intent on sharing it, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a group of global internet companies led by Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft and Twitter, said it added more than 800 different versions to a shared database used to block violent terrorist images and videos.

The group said it added "digital fingerprints" for visually distinct versions of the video to its database. The move came in response to attempts by internet users to share the video by editing or repackaging versions with different digital fingerprints to avoid detection.

"The incident highlights the importance of industry cooperation regarding the range of terrorists and violent extremists operating online," said the group, which was formed in 2017 in response to official pressure to do more to fight online extremism.

In a series of tweets a day after the shootings , Facebook's former chief security officer, Alex Stamos, laid out the challenge for tech companies as they raced to keep up with new versions of the video.

"Each time this happens, the companies have to spot it and create a new fingerprint," said Stamos. "What you are seeing on the major platforms is the water leaking around thousands of fingers poked in a dam," he said

Stamos estimated the big tech companies are blocking more than 99 percent of the videos from being uploaded, "which is not enough to make it impossible to find."
 

The tremendous loss of digital artifacts, such as the Flickr photo annihilation, the Tumblr porn purge and the coming Google+ disintegration, highlights the impermanence of the Web, and the ease with which files and posts that helped define Internet culture and history can be so readily discarded.

In the case of Myspace, the loss of the uploads appears accidental. "As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace," the company said in a statement. "We apologize for the inconvenience."

But in other prominent examples of disposed Web content, the deletions and bans were and will be intentional.

Google decided to shutter its social network after a security flaw compromised hundreds of thousands of accounts, potentially exposing the personal information of its users. Google+ users were given 10 months to download and move their data ahead of the site's planned shutdown in April.

In December, Tumblr gave only two weeks' notice of its intent to ban all explicit adult content and nudity from its website. Last month, in Flickr's most recent update, the photo storage site announced that any files uploaded beyond the 1,000-item threshold for free accounts risked deletion.

Taken together, the bans, purges and deletions of years' worth of online material represent a loss that's hard to absorb - blending the disappearance of intangible artifacts, art, music, communities and novel forms of communication.

Some archiving experts see the Myspace episode as another sign of the risk of relying on Internet platforms to host people's cherished content. As Vox reported, the Internet Archive's Jason Scott sees Myspace as a harbinger of things to come. "Anyone who doesn't think this is going to happen with YouTube is kidding themselves," he said recently on Twitter. Scott criticized both Myspace's handling of its now lost files, and Google's decision to shut down Google+.

Myspace and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before it was sold and resold, Los Angeles-based Myspace was a popular, pioneering social network before Facebook swelled into the juggernaut of the web. The lost files had been uploaded from 2003 - the year of the company's birth - to 2015, representing more than 50 million songs by 14 million artists.

In response to the shuttering of Google+, the nonprofit Internet Archive and a collection of archivists, programmers and writers known as the Archive Team announced an effort earlier this month to preserve public posts on the social network before they are shuttered in April.

Reps. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., Don Bacon, R-Neb., Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Greg Steube, R-Fla., wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking for an investigation into “suspicious” social media accounts that could be impersonating veterans service organizations.

“Online influence and psychological operations against trusted civilian community leaders like our nation’s veterans are novel threats that demand law enforcement attention,” they wrote.

The request for an FBI investigation follows an announcement earlier this month from the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, which launched its own review into foreign actors using “shadowy practices” to disseminate false information to veterans, servicemembers and their families.

The committee is in a fact-finding stage and is planning to hold meetings with stakeholders about the issue.

Cisneros, a Navy veteran, is a member of the veterans affairs committee and the House Armed Services Committee. He asked for an FBI investigation “in order to identify and dismantle these cyber threats before they cause harm,” he said.

Vietnam Veterans of America, a congressionally chartered veterans service organization, has been looking into the issue since 2017, when it discovered a Facebook page using its name and logo. The page posted politically divisive posts and was followed by nearly 200,000 people – tens of thousands more than the official VVA page.

Facebook Inc. disabled the page after determining it violated VVA’s intellectual property.

Kristofer Goldsmith, associate director for policy and government affairs at VVA, has worked to shut down more fake accounts that target veterans and servicemembers with “divisive propaganda,” he said.

Though the issue has the attention of the veterans affairs committee, Goldsmith argued earlier this month that the FBI needs to become involved to track and identify the people behind the accounts.

“The problem is persistent, widespread, and presents a threat to the force and the veterans community,” Goldsmith said Tuesday in a statement. “We’re glad that Congressman Cisneros and the members are taking this issue seriously, and we hope that Director Wray will too. Depending on social media companies to stop bad-actors is not enough — we need to hold the people behind these fraudulent online avatars accountable.”

A study from Oxford University in 2017 found Russian operatives used Twitter and Facebook to disseminate “junk news” to veterans and servicemembers.

Researchers with Oxford’s Project on Computational Propaganda, which studied how Americans were affected by disinformation campaigns during the 2016 presidential election, found trolls and bots targeted military personnel and veterans with propaganda, conspiracies and hyper-partisan political content. The population of veterans and servicemembers contains “potentially influential voters and community leaders” because of the trust the public places in them, the study states.

In their letter, the four congressmen asked Wray whether the FBI was aware of the problem and if the agency had taken any action to combat it.

“As the federal law enforcement agency responsible for criminal and counterintelligence investigations, we respectfully request answers to our questions below about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s work to combat such predation,” the letter states.

The Military Coalition — a group of 32 military and veterans organizations that includes VVA, as well as Veterans of Foreign Wars and Wounded Warrior Project — listed cyber protection for veterans and servicemembers as one of their policy goals. The group said it wants to encourage Congress, the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense to investigate the online targeting of servicemembers and provide training and online protection where necessary.

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To achieve about 3 percent growth for the next decade, Trump would need a big infrastructure bill, more tax cuts, additional deregulation, and policies that transition more people off government aid and into full-time jobs, according to the 2019 Economic Report of the President, released Tuesday by Trump's Council of Economic Advisers.

There's skepticism that Trump will be able to get all of these policies through Congress, especially with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., leading the House.

"Washington is a really hard place to get things done," said Kevin Hassett, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, but he stressed that his biggest concern for growth is Trump's policies getting rolled back or Medicare-for-all becoming reality.

The report shows for the first time that the White House is predicting a lot weaker growth if all of those new policies do not come through. Growth would be about 2.5 percent in 2022 if no additional policies are implemented, according to White House calculations. By 2026, growth could fall to about 2 percent, the model suggests.

A lot is riding on whether Trump can achieve his promised 3 percent growth. Without it, his tax cuts would add substantially more to the debt than they already have and Democrats would have an easier time hammering his economic track record.

To achieve the higher growth rate, the White House assumes that the individual tax cuts will be made permanent (they're currently slated to expire after 2025) and that Congress will pass an infrastructure bill "commencing in 2019 with observable effects beginning in 2020," the report says. While there's widespread agreement that the United States needs a major infrastructure upgrade, there's a big gap between the Democratic and Republican visions of what to do.

The report calls it a "key downside risk" to the forecast if Congress doesn't pass the rest of the president's agenda.

The 3 percent White House growth prediction - which is used in the president's budget and has been criticized by outside experts as a "gimmick" - also assumes more deregulation, especially in the finance industry, and a push for "improving self-sufficiency" by placing more work requirements on recipients of government aid. Some of those initiatives might be possible to implement through executive action.

Trump is relying on a strong economy to drive his reelection campaign. He often takes a victory lap about his economic achievements on Twitter and at rallies, touting stock market gains, record-low unemployment numbers and a "booming economy."

Trump repeatedly called the Obama economy, which averaged just over 2 percent growth per year, mediocre, so Trump wants to be able to say he presided over faster economic growth.

Many economists have described the Trump economy as a sugar high. They have predicted that growth will spike after the president passed a large tax cut and drove up government spending, and that growth will return to about 2 percent by 2020 - or that the economy could tumble into a recession.

The White House has pushed back against the naysayers, arguing that the economy has exceeded expectations since Trump took office and shows little sign of slowing.

"For the second consecutive year, economic growth has either matched or surpassed my Administration's forecast, and the economy has growth at a 3.1 percent rate over the last four quarters," Trump wrote in the report.

Forecasting where the economy is headed is notoriously difficult, but Hassett and his team say that their predictions were almost spot on the past two years and that they think many on Wall Street are underestimating the Trump White House again.

"Everyone said we wouldn't get 3.1 percent," Hassett said. "We're relying on the same analysis because nothing has come up which suggests to us it's not going to happen."

Hassett says the corporate tax cut, which was the largest in U.S. history, is spurring a business investment boom that will lift the economy for years to come. But others disagree.

"We've not seen any meaningful pickup" in business spending "because of the tax package," former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who headed the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, said in a recent interview with Marketplace. "We had a period of remarkable growth in 2018, probably around 3 percent. That just isn't sustainable."
 

Sr. Airman Shawn Mckeough Jr. and Sarah Terrano, natives of Westbrook, Maine, were nearing the three-year mark of their relationship. She had moved with him to Arkansas, where Mckeough was stationed at Little Rock Air Force Base.

At the Valero Big Red store in North Little Rock, Mckeough and two friends went inside. Terrano stayed in the car. A moment later, she saw two other men run toward the entrance. It took her a minute to realize what was happening but she saw them raise their arms.

She didn’t see the gunshot, but she heard it. The two men left the store without taking the money they had come for. Terrano ran inside, but it was too late. Mckeough had died. He was 23.

Terrano, who spoke by phone Monday, said she’s still in shock.

“I really think he tried to get the robbers’ attention so that no one else would get hurt,” she said. “That’s just who he was.”

Family and friends were reeling Monday. Mckeough’s mother, Lisa Marie Hebert, who still lives in Westbrook, said in a telephone interview that she always worried about her son after he joined the military because she knew he could die young. But this, she said, was far worse.

“To fight for your country and then die like this … ” she said, letting the sentence end unfinished.

Video footage from inside the store during the robbery shows two individuals entering the store with handguns drawn. One is wearing a black Nike hooded sweatshirt with the drawstrings pulled tight around his face and dark Adidas pants.

On Monday, police identified one of the suspects in the shooting death of Sr. Airman Shawn Mckeough Jr., as Drequan Lamont Robinson. A Fox affiliate reported Robinson's arrest on Tuesday morning. A second man,  Keith Harris, Jr., was reportedly in the getaway vehicle and was also arrested Tuesday.

“They promised to get them,” Terrano said police told her, and she hopes they make good on it. “I want those two people to sit in jail the rest of their lives. I want them to think about this every day.”

Mckeough was a 2014 graduate of Westbrook High School, where he played hockey and soccer and made classmates laugh. He grew up mostly in Westbrook with his mother and step-father, Tom Hebert, and younger brother, Kyle Hebert. His father, Shawn Mckeough Sr., lives in Florida.

Karla Kent, who is best friends with Mckeough’s mother and whose son, Kaleb, was one of Mckeough’s best friends, said he was always adventurous but put others first.

“If my son climbed a 50-foot tree, Shawn would be the one on the ground telling him to come down,” she said.

Kaleb Kent said he and Mckeough were part of a close-knit group of friends from Westbrook. This isn’t the first time they have dealt with a death of one of their own.

“It doesn’t get easier,” he said. “But being together helps. I had six people sleeping in my living room last night.”

Mckeough enlisted in the U.S. Air Force after high school and already had deployed to Germany, Kuwait and South Korea. He had been in Arkansas since December and was serving as an aerial delivery operations specialist for the 19th Airlift Wing.

“We are heartbroken to have lost a valued member of our Team Little Rock family.” Col. Gerald Donohue, the unit’s commander, said in a statement. “Shawn’s death will be felt by each of us, and we are committed to supporting his loved ones and fellow Airmen during this very difficult time.”

Numerous other friends and military colleagues expressed shock and sadness on social media about Mckeough’s death.

Kristen Mononoke, who met him in 6th grade, remembered him as the boy who stood up for her when others called her names.

“I’m so, so sorry that this happened, the world is such a dark place but Shawn’s light will never burn out and we are all so lucky to bask in it,” she wrote.

Mckeough’s mother said she’s overwhelmed with support from friends in Westbrook and people he had met in the military from all over the world. Everyone, she said, remarked about how senseless his death was.

Authorities in Arkansas conducted an autopsy, but Mckeough’s body was expected to be transported to Maine by military escort on Tuesday or Wednesday, ahead of a funeral service, possibly as early as this weekend.

His mother agreed with Terrano that Mckeough died a hero.

“It was typical of Shawn to come to someone’s defense. That’s who he was,” she said.

Mckeough always tried to come back to Westbrook at least once a year, often as a surprise. Hebert said she remembered one year she was trying to reach him and he wasn’t answering his phone. It was because he was on a plane. He showed up at the house at 1 a.m.

He was last in Westbrook for Christmas. It was the first time he had been able to be home for the holiday since he enlisted.

He loved camping every summer with family. He loved the travel that came with a military life but didn’t love being away from family. He was selfless right up until his last breath.

“I keep thinking about him challenging two gunmen,” Kaleb Kent said. “I couldn’t have done it.”

Mckeough and Terrano had talked recently about the future. He was thinking of re-enlisting with the Air Force but hadn’t decided. They had just gotten two puppies. They were supposed to close on a house this month.

—
©2019 the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine)
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“I’m shocked somebody did this. It’s complete disrespect,” said Leoncello, 95, of Hyde Park, Mass. “I lost a lot of my friends in that battle that I’ll never forget. Why can’t people understand life is precious?

“To think I put my life on the line on the front lines to fight for my country I really love only to have someone do this,” he added.

Leoncello’s wife, Theresa, told the Herald her husband was crying when news broke that the beloved memorial had been doused with oil, which can seep in and permanently stain stone. State police are investigating and a professional cleaning crew will be back at the seaside site today with power washers, City Councilor Ed Flynn said.

Still, Leoncello — a Purple Heart recipient who served as a rifleman in Gen. George Patton’s Third Army — said the culprits need to think about those soldiers who died for their freedom.

The memorial, near Castle Island, commemorates the 216 solders from South Boston and Dorchester killed during World War II.

State police said the vandalism was reported Monday at about 11:30 a.m. and troopers found “some type of oil” splashed or poured on the memorial.

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch said the damage done could be irreversible.

“It’s disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful,” Lynch said at the scene Monday. “These men gave their lives in fighting Nazi Germany.”

That includes Lynch’s wife’s uncle, Arnold F. Bailey, who was killed in April 1945 “in a jump over the Rhine just before the end of World War II.” He was one of the many Boston men, some of whom left high school to fight, Lynch added, who were disrespected.

“Why would someone, unless they’re Nazi sympathizers, come here and deface this monument? It’s a crazy world we live in. Saddening that these men who gave their very lives … that their memories would be defamed in this way,” Lynch said as volunteers scrubbed the stone.

“It’s a sign of the times. The world has just gone crazy,” Lynch added. “I’m just beside myself.”

Lynch said the oil has soaked into the granite and could “permanently deface” the monument.

Flynn said volunteers and veterans will gather at the memorial this morning to try anew to rid the granite of the oil stains.

“The South Boston community and veterans will not tolerate this and we will make sure this is cleaned up,” Flynn said. “The vets and military families deserve all the respect they’ve earned.”

John Leoncello said he couldn’t stop thinking all day about being back on patrol with his squad capturing Germans — “including one Gestapo” — and being wounded.

“They told me I was going home, but I didn’t get out. They treated my wound,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of that and all my friends who passed away over there. I want people to understand they didn’t get to go home. They deserve to be honored.”

—
©2019 the Boston Herald
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Administrators cited rising costs and declining enrollment for more than a decade as reasons for the closings. The news was announced on the school’s website.

The financial requirements associated with operation and maintenance of the military academy can’t be sustained, the announcement stated.

Howe, located in LaGrange County, is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school for grades 7-12. It has enrolled boys since 1884, and started enrolling girls in 1988.

"Fiscal challenges associated with a vast, but aging, campus, small class sizes, highly educated and qualified faculty and staff, and robust programming and student opportunities come at a very high cost — one that our business model is not able to support,” the statement announced.

School leaders said they will provide support and assistance to families, faculty, and staff in making alternative plans for the next school year.

©2019 the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Ind.)
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According to police, Jasmyne Denise Russell-Dicker, driving a 2017 Toyota Corolla, hit a motorcycle operated by 22-year-old Spc. Patrick McDill, who died a short time later at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, Strepay said.

Russell-Dicker was initially charged with driving while impaired and unsafe movement causing injury in the 3 a.m., collision on Yadkin Road between Santa Fe Drive and the Fort Bragg gate.

Those charges were upgraded Friday to felony death by motor vehicle, said Fayetteville police Sgt. Shawn Strepay.

The additional felony charge was added due to Russell-Dicker's alleged impairment, according to Cumberland County District Attorney Billy West.

Russell-Dicker's was re-arrested on the new charge Friday morning and released on a $15,000 secured bail.

McDill, originally from Illinois, was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. He joined the military in June 2015.

"The loss of SPC Patrick McDill is a tragedy. He is part of the one percent who volunteered to serve his country in a time of war and his loss will be a significant loss to the White Devil Team. Right now, our focus is on supporting Spc. McDill's family and his teammates," reads a statement from Lt. Col. Scott McKay, commander of 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

"Spc. McDill truly embodied the 82nd Airborne Division's motto of 'All the Way' as he put his best effort in every challenge given to him. Alpha Company misses his genuine smile, the care he gave to his fellow 'Blackhearts,' and his indefatigable energy. Alpha Company deeply mourns his loss and is focused on supporting his family and friends through this tragedy," McDill's company commander, Capt. Eric Kim, said in a statement.

©2019 The Sanford Herald (Sanford, N.C.)
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Search warrants unsealed Tuesday in Cohen's case offer new insight into how Mueller and his team handed off a key part of the Cohen investigation to federal prosecutors in New York in early 2018, and how much evidence prosecutors already had against Cohen even before they searched his office, home, and hotel room in April of that year.

"In connection with an investigation then being conducted by the Office of the Special Counsel ("SCO"), the FBI sought and obtained from the Honorable Beryl Howell, Chief United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, three search warrants for emails and other content information associated with two email accounts used by Cohen, and one search warrant for stored content associated with an iCloud account used by Cohen," states one of the newly-unsealed affidavits.

The first such warrant was dated July 18, 2017. In early 2018 the special counsel's office referred a part of its Cohen investigation to federal prosecutors in New York. As part of that referral, on Feb. 8, 2018, the special counsel's office turned over relevant emails from its warrants to the New York prosecutors, according to one of the newly-unsealed affidavits.​

Cohen's home, office, and hotel room were searched nearly a year ago as the FBI ratcheted up its investigation of the lawyer's finances, and his work on behalf of Trump. That same day agents also executed a search warrant for a safe-deposit box used by Cohen.

The searches set off a protracted legal battle over how the files of Cohen, an attorney, would be reviewed by agents and prosecutors. A federal judge appointed an outside lawyer to review the material before Cohen's prosecutors to exclude any material that was covered by lawyer-client privilege or otherwise should not be shared with investigators.

Months later, Cohen pleaded guilty to tax violations, lying to a bank, and, during the 2016 campaign, arranging hush-money payments for women who claimed that they once had affairs with the future president.

Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in statements that concealed the true time frame in which he had sought a real estate development deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow - conversations that continued, contrary to initial claims, well into the Republican presidential primary.

At Cohen's December sentencing, U.S. District Judge William Pauley III said Cohen should serve three years in prison for "a veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct."

Cohen cooperated - partially - with federal prosecutors in New York, as well as special counsel Robert Mueller, in hopes of reducing the amount of prison time he would have to serve.

Cohen has provided information to investigators about Trump and the Trump campaign, but prosecutors said he refused to tell them everything he knew.

Since pleading guilty, he has publicly blamed Trump for his downfall, calling his former boss a con man, a racist, and a cheat. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly attacked Cohen as a convicted liar trying to save himself by speaking against his former boss.

In dramatic public testimony to a congressional committee last month, Cohen declared, "I am no longer your fixer, Mr. Trump."

Cohen is due to report to prison in May, and he is likely to serve his sentence at a federal lockup in Otisville, New York.

Bolinski's remains were returned to her hometown after an observance at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. American flags lined the roads as a motorcade escorted the 37-year-old’s remains back to Pinckneyville from the base. Near the entrance to the base, people lined up for blocks along the route, with servicemembers saluting and civilians holding their hands over their hearts.

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A separate flight arrived at St. Louis Lambert International Airport on Monday with the remains of Johnson, 20, of Hillsboro, Mo., reports say.

Bolinski and Johnson were both reservists assigned to the Illinois-based 657th Transportation Detachment. They were driving an SUV during a routine, authorized mission when a tractor-trailer ran a stop sign at a T-intersection and broadsided the vehicle they were in.

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A third soldier was airlifted from the scene and medically evacuated from Kuwait, a statement said.

An investigation into the accident is ongoing.

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Looking at the treasured object is still a novelty: The helmet was recently returned to Altieri decades after he lost it on the battlefield where he was almost killed by shrapnel.

"I have it next to me now and I use it like a teddy bear," Altieri said. "I look at it and I get teary-eyed from all the memories."

Argentina lost the war for the South Atlantic archipelago after its troops embarked on an ill-fated invasion nearly 37 years ago, an international humiliation that claimed the lives of 649 Argentines and 255 British soldiers.

Argentina still claims the islands, which it calls the Malvinas. Britain says the Falklands are a self-governing entity under its protection.

After decades of tense relations, though, both countries have experienced a thaw, including a deal that allowed a multinational team of experts to exhume and identify the remains of dozens of Argentine soldiers.

Today, veterans and relatives of those who died also say the recovery of objects taken as war trophies has helped heal their scars.

"I can't stop looking at it, thinking of what it did to stop the bomb shrapnel blowing my head off," Altieri said about his helmet, although he still lost an eye and part of his brain in a blast during battle for Mount Longdon on June 12, 1982, two days before fighting stopped.

In a parallel tale of reconciliation, Argentine veteran Diego Carlos Arreseigor announced March 7 that he is planning to return the blood-stained helmet of fallen British soldier Alexander Shaw, who was killed at Mount Longdon at age 25.

The helmet is expected to be delivered to Shaw's sister, Susan, in April or May.

"Susan touched me with her spirituality. She was 15 when her brother left for the war," Arreseigor told The Associated Press.

Arreseigor said he had picked up the helmet in a pile of discarded equipment and hid it from a British soldier by keeping it under his jacket.

"I kept it these 37 years, always considering it a trophy of war, a sort of consolation for the loss and the pain of so many fallen friends," he said.

Some years ago he became curious about who had worn it and noticed it had a last name written on one of its interior belts.

Arreseigor eventually found out Shaw's identity and learned he had been a victim of Argentine artillery.

"The story moved me. Knowing that he died just hours before the cease-fire. ... it's sad like all war stories," he said. "I just turned 60 and I demand our sovereignty over Las Malvinas, but I also pay homage to all of those who died — Argentine and British — because I think that's the way to rebuild."

For Altieri, having his helmet has helped him find similar closure.

After the war's cease-fire, Altieri's helmet was taken to London by a British paratrooper who had pulled it from a heap of military equipment. After the man passed away, it was kept by his family until it was put up for auction four years ago.

At the time, Altieri offered about $520 (400 pounds), but a British man who collects war objects paid twice that amount and Altieri failed to persuade him to sell it.

"He'd say: 'Even if the queen comes asking for it, I won't give it away,'" Altieri recalled.

Some days ago, however, the helmet briefly went up for auction again on eBay for about $13,000 (10,500 pounds). When it was taken off the site, Altieri feared he had lost it for good until he heard the news: An anonymous Argentine entrepreneur had bought it for Altieri.

"All the memories of what I lived in the Malvinas came back to me," Altieri said.

He now hopes to display it at home before donating it to a Falklands war museum. "I want people to see it and see what happened to us there."

Associated Press journalists Paul Byrne and Natacha Pisarenko contributed to this report.
 

The Union County Sheriff's Office said Monday that 44-year-old Matthew Hayden, of Phoenix, died Sunday night when the Cessna 421B multiengine plane crashed off Route 42 near the border of Union and Delaware counties, breaking into hundreds of pieces and scattering debris over a large area.

Hayden had his military identification with him, and Union County Sheriff Jamie Patton said friends of Hayden's told authorities that he had recently retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.

According to a Luke Air Force Base biography, Hayden served as the commander for the 56th Training Squadron there. He had more than 2,500 flight hours in 30 types of aircraft, and he was an experimental test pilot in the F-16 and F-35.

In 2016, when he was 56th Fighter Wing chief of safety and pilot attached to the 61st Fighter Squadron, he became the first pilot at the base to reach 500 flight hours in an F-35. A statement from the base at the time described him as "one of the most experienced F-35 pilots in the world."

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Patton said Hayden took off from Dayton International Airport on Sunday evening and was headed to Delaware Municipal Airport in central Ohio when the plane crashed shortly before 6 p.m. A witness heard the plane's descent and crash, called 911 as he headed toward the scene and stayed on the phone as he came upon the wreckage.

"It just exploded, our power flickered out," the caller told a dispatcher. When asked if there are any survivors, he told the dispatcher, "Oh, there's no way."

Patton says the plane was owned by Classic Solutions Company Inc., out of Bakersfield, Calif.

An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board said it was too early to determine what caused the crash or whether the snowy weather had an impact on the incident.

Material from The Associated Press and The Columbus Dispatch via Tribune News Service was used in this report.

The Hawaii congresswoman told a diverse crowd of less than 100 people in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon that she wants to end what she called "wasteful regime change wars" that are costing the U.S. trillions of dollars.

"Power lies within our hands to change course, to bend the arc of history away from war and toward peace," she said.

Gabbard, a combat veteran, said she would instead like to spend that money on health care, education and other needs in the U.S.

The 37-year-old's event at the Asian Cultural Center downtown came as she made her first trip as a presidential candidate to the early-nominating state of Nevada. She later held a luau-themed event west of the Las Vegas Strip attended by about 100 people, many from the city's Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations.

Gabbard has struggled to match the name recognition and fundraising of others in the crowded Democratic field such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke. The congresswoman said she's working to spread her message with grassroots support.

Before her town hall started, volunteers handed out fliers to attendees asking them to donate to her campaign and informing them that she needs to receive donations from 65,000 people in order to qualify for a spot in Democratic National Committee debates this summer.

Gabbard told reporters she's earned contributions from about 40,000 individual donors so far.

Gabbard, wearing a lei around her neck Monday afternoon, preached a peaceful, at-times spiritual message, describing a "corruption of spirit casting a shadow over our country" and a need for people to recognize the suffering of others and to come together to make a change.

Unlike other Democratic candidates, Gabbard didn't use her speech to criticize President Donald Trump, instead laying blame for problems like tensions with nuclear-armed countries on Republicans and Democrats, the establishment in Washington and entrenched special interests.

"It's important for us to step outside of just the political conversation and instead focus on people — the people who are being impacted by the policies that this administration is putting forward and that leaders in Congress are putting forward," Gabbard told reporters Monday night.

She said there are many decisions Trump has made that she disagrees with and thinks are damaging, such as his decision to withdraw from the nuclear arms treaty with Russia. The congresswoman said she also wants environmental protections, a reform of the criminal justice system including an end to the federal prohibition on marijuana and to pass a "Medicare for all" health care plan.

Richard Schunke has pleaded guilty to to felony cruelty to animals, and in exchange Norfolk prosecutors asked a judge to hold off on punishing him.

If Schunke stays out of trouble and brings proof he completed anger management counseling to a court hearing in March 2020, prosecutors said, they’ll let him plead guilty to misdemeanor cruelty to animals and won’t ask for jail time.

Schunke, a petty officer and gunner’s mate stationed on missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf, faced up to five years in prison if convicted of the felony.

Schunke fatally beat his wife’s dog, Layla, an 8-year-old beagle who died on Dec. 10, 2017. A necropsy revealed Layla died from abdominal trauma.

“Her spleen was torn, a kidney was bruised, and the left lobe of her liver was split almost in two,” prosecutor Catherine Dodson wrote in court documents outlining her case against Schunke.

In a June interview, Schunke’s wife, Laura Jahn, said she’d been texting him throughout the afternoon of Dec. 10 while she was working as a leasing agent for a Virginia Beach property management company.

Schunke told her Layla wasn’t obeying him, Jahn said. He was especially frustrated because she wouldn’t go to the bathroom outside when he commanded her to.

Jahn said she replied by telling her husband to leave the dog alone. She’d be home soon and would handle it.

Then, Jahn said, her husband sent another text saying Layla had an accident in the house. Schunke said he was done, that Jahn had to choose between him and the dog because he no longer felt welcome in his own house.

Around 4 p.m., he texted again: Layla had bit him. He sent a picture of his hand with a single puncture mark on the web connecting his thumb and forefinger.

Eventually, he’d send a final series of texts: The dog wasn’t moving. He was taking her to the vet.

Jahn said she told Schunke to take the dog to a vet immediately, and she’d meet them there. They did, and a vet told her Layla was dead.

It was not the first time Schunke got mad about Layla, Jahn said. About a month before Layla died, Jahn said, she taped a conversation with Schunke, a recording she shared with The Virginian-Pilot. In it, a man can be heard yelling about carrying a dog outside and having to wait with it for 10 minutes before carrying it back inside.

”You want to know what, Laura, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back,” the man yells.

Jahn and Schunke met in 2011 while going to college at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I., Jahn said. They were friends and started dating in November 2016.

They got married April 17, 2017. Two months later, the couple moved to Norfolk because Schunke had been stationed here.

A day after Layla died, Jahn said, she called a lawyer to file for divorce. Within 48 hours, she moved back up to Connecticut to live with her mom.

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