President-elect Donald Trump salutes the statue of Abraham Lincoln as he and his wife Melania take part in a Make America Great Again welcome concert in Washington. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

 

 

By Ayesha Rascoe and Julia Edwards Ainsley | WASHINGTON

Donald Trump is preparing to sign executive actions on his first day in the White House on Friday to take the opening steps to crack down on immigration, build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border and roll back outgoing President Barack Obama's policies.
Trump, a Republican elected on Nov. 8 to succeed Democrat Obama, arrived in Washington on a military plane with his family a day before he will be sworn in during a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol.

Aides said Trump would not wait to wield one of the most powerful tools of his office, the presidential pen, to sign several executive actions that can be implemented without the input of Congress.

"He is committed to not just Day 1, but Day 2, Day 3 of enacting an agenda of real change, and I think that you're going to see that in the days and weeks to come," Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said on Thursday, telling reporters to expect activity on Friday, during the weekend and early next week.

Trump plans on Saturday to visit the headquarters of the CIA in Langley, Virginia. He has harshly criticized the agency and its outgoing chief, first questioning the CIA's conclusion that Russia was involved in cyber hacking during the U.S. election campaign, before later accepting the verdict. Trump also likened U.S. intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany.

Trump's advisers vetted more than 200 potential executive orders for him to consider signing on healthcare, climate policy, immigration, energy and numerous other issues, but it was not clear how many orders he would initially approve, according to a member of the Trump transition team who was not authorized to talk to the press.

Signing off on orders puts Trump, who has presided over a sprawling business empire but has never before held public office, in a familiar place similar to the CEO role that made him famous, and will give him some early victories before he has to turn to the lumbering process of getting Congress to pass bills.

The strategy has been used by other presidents, including Obama, in their first few weeks in office.

"He wants to show he will take action and not be stifled by Washington gridlock," said Princeton University presidential historian Julian Zelizer.

Trump is expected to impose a federal hiring freeze and take steps to delay a Labor Department rule due to take effect in April that would require brokers who give retirement advice to put their clients' best interests first.

He also will give official notice he plans to withdraw from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, Spicer said. "I think you will see those happen very shortly," Spicer said.

Obama, ending eight years as president, made frequent use of his executive powers during his second term in office, when the Republican-controlled Congress stymied his efforts to overhaul immigration and environmental laws. Many of those actions are now ripe targets for Trump to reverse.

BORDER WALL
Trump is expected to sign an executive order in his first few days to direct the building of a wall on the southern border with Mexico, and actions to limit the entry of asylum seekers from Latin America, among several immigration-related steps his advisers have recommended.

That includes rescinding Obama's order that allowed more than 700,000 people brought into the United States illegally as children to stay in the country on a two-year authorization to work and attend college, according to several people close to the presidential transition team.

It is unlikely Trump's order will result in an immediate roundup of these immigrants, sources told Reuters. Rather, he is expected to let the authorizations expire.

The issue could set up a confrontation with Obama, who told reporters on Wednesday he would weigh in if he felt the new administration was unfairly targeting those immigrants.

Advisers to Trump expect him to put restrictions on people entering the United States from certain countries until a system for "extreme vetting" for Islamist extremists can be set up.

During his presidential campaign, Trump proposed banning non-American Muslims from entering the United States, but his executive order regarding immigration is expected to be based on nationality rather than religion.

Another proposed executive order would require all Cabinet departments to disclose and pause current work being done in connection with Obama's initiatives to curb carbon emissions to combat climate change.

Trump also is expected to extend prohibitions on future lobbying imposed on members of his transition team.

'THE HIGHEST IQ'
Washington was turned into a virtual fortress ahead of the inauguration, with police ready to step in to separate protesters from Trump supporters at any sign of unrest.
 
As Obama packed up to leave the White House, Trump and his family laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery and attended a concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

Trump spoke earlier to lawmakers and Cabinet nominees at a luncheon in a ballroom at his hotel, down the street from the White House, announcing during brief remarks that he would pick Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets of the National Football League, as U.S. ambassador to Britain.

"We have a lot of smart people. I tell you what, one thing we've learned, we have by far the highest IQ of any Cabinet ever assembled," Trump said.

Trump has selected all 21 members of his Cabinet, along with six other key positions requiring Senate confirmation. The Senate is expected on Friday to vote to confirm retired General James Mattis, Trump's pick to lead the Pentagon, and retired General John Kelly, his homeland security choice.

Senate Republicans had hoped to confirm as many as seven Cabinet members on Friday, but Democrats balked at the pace. Trump spokesman Spicer accused Senate Democrats of "stalling tactics."

Also in place for Monday will be 536 "beachhead team members" at government agencies, Vice President-elect Mike Pence said, a small portion of the thousands of positions Obama's appointees will vacate.

Trump has asked 50 Obama staffers in critical posts to stay on until replacements can be found, including Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Brett McGurk, envoy to the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The list includes Adam Szubin, who has long served in an "acting" capacity in the Treasury Department's top anti-terrorism job because his nomination has been held up by congressional Republicans since Obama named him to the job in April 2015.

The Supreme Court said U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who will administer the oath of office on Friday, met with Trump on Thursday to discuss inauguration arrangements.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, David Shepardson, Susan Heavey, David Alexander, Doina Chiacu, Ayesha Rascoe, Ginger Gibson, Mike Stone, Emily Stephenson, David Brunnstrom and Lawrence Hurley; Writing by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Will Dunham and Peter Cooney)

President Obama and first lady Michelle welcome the Trumps to the White House

By Ashley Collman

Donald Trump has arrived at the house he will call home for the next four years.

The President-elect and his wife Melania were greeted on the steps of the White House by President Obama and first lady Michelle Friday morning, ahead of the swearing-in ceremony. 

Mr Obama asked the President-elect how he was doing as the two shook hands. Melania Trump then gave Mrs Obama a hug before handing over a large gift box from Tiffany's.  

The two couples are meeting for tea in the White house, and will later travel together to the Capitol Building where Mr Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

Trump was up early Friday morning - going about business as usual by tweeting.  

'It all begins today!' Trump tweeted at daybreak. 'THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES - THE WORK BEGINS!'

He left Blair House, where he spent Thursday night, around 8:30am to attend a church service at St. John's Episcopal Church.  All of his children were in attendance with him Friday morning, except his youngest son Barron, age 10.

As President-elect Trump and his family attended church, President Obama was seen leaving a letter for the new president on the Resolute Desk of the Oval Office - a long-standing Inauguration Day tradition. 

When asked if he was feeling nostalgic, as he walked back into the White House, President Obama said 'of course!' 

Another reported asked if he had one last word for the American people and he said 'Thanks'.

In a phone call with Good Morning America on Friday, the mogul-turned-politician's eldest son Donald Trump Jr said he was raring to get the day's events going.

'He's doing great. He doing well. He's just excited to do this,' Donald Jr said of his father. 'He's amazed and thrilled that the American people have intrusted him to take this country in a different direction - to bring it forward and to do things and to give them that voice that he mentioned last night, that has been gone for so long. So it's just truly incredible.'

In another interview, son Eric said his main fear for his father's presidency was the fact that he's going to be surrounded by a new group of people. 

'I think having a lot of new people around him,' Eric Trump told CBS. 'And, you know, as a family, we’ve always been a little bit insular -- you know, it was my father, it was Don, Ivanka, you know, myself... the company. And we were very, very close. And I think that’s going to be an adjustment. 

But he has amazing people.'

When asked if his father stayed up late Thursday night, working on his Inaugural Address, Donald Jr said his father had been writing it for 'quite some time' - making sure to get it just right. Donald Jr says his father realizes the magnitude of the speech and how it will set the tone for his presidency. 

'He spent a lot of time with that and now I think it's about execution,' Donald Jr said. 

Donald Trump Jr will be standing behind his father at 11:30am this morning outside the Capitol Building, as he takes the oath of office and then gives his Inaugural Address.  The newly sworn-in president and his family will then watch the Inaugural Parade from a covered area outside the White House.

Ebullient Trump supporters flocked to the nation's capital for the inaugural festivities, some wearing red hats emblazoned with his 'Make America Great Again' campaign slogan. But in a sign of deep divisions Trump sowed during his combative campaign, dozens of Democratic lawmakers were boycotting the swearing-in ceremony on Capitol Hill.

While Trump came to power bucking convention, he was wrapping himself in the traditional pomp and pageantry that accompanies the peaceful transfer of power. The president-in-waiting will attend church with his family Friday morning, then meet President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama for tea at the White House. The Trumps and the Obamas will travel together in the presidential limousine for the short trip to the Capitol for the noon swearing-in ceremony.

Trump supporters started lining up at security checkpoints before dawn to take their places in the quadrennial rite of democracy.

'I'm here for history,' said Kevin Puchalski, a 24-year-old construction worker who drove from Philadelphia to attend the swearing-in. 'This is the first president that I voted for that won.' His big hope: Trump builds that promised wall on the U.S.-Mexican border. 'Keep the illegals out,' he said.

Protesters, too, were out early, some wearing orange jumpsuits with black hoods over their faces.

Trump aides said the president-elect had been personally invested in crafting his inaugural address, a relatively brief 20-minute speech that is expected to center on his vision for what it means to be an American. Spokesman Sean Spicer said the address would be 'less of an agenda and more of a philosophical document.'

Trump has pledged to upend Obama's major domestic and national security policies, including repealing his signature health care law and building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But he's offered few details of how he plans to accomplish his agenda, often sending contradictory signals.

The three days of inaugural festivities kicked off Thursday. Trump left his Trump-branded jet in New York and flew to Washington in a government plane, saluting an Air Force officer as he descended the steps with his wife, Melania. He and the incoming vice president, Mike Pence, solemnly laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery before joining supporters for an evening concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

We're going to unify our country,' Trump said at the close of the two-hour concert featuring country star Toby Keith, soul's Sam Moore and The Piano Guys. But not singer Jennifer Holliday: She backed out after an outcry from Trump critics.

With rain a possibility, the National Park Service announced that it was easing its 'no umbrella' policy for Friday, allowing collapsible umbrellas along the parade route and on the National Mall.

The nation's soon-to-be president joked about the chance of a downpour. 'That's OK,' Trump told campaign donors at an event Thursday night, 'because people will realize it's my real hair.'

'Might be a mess, but they're going to see that it's my real hair,' he said.

Whatever the weather, Trump supporters were looking ahead to the day.

Chris Lehmann, 55, a maintenance supervisor from Belmar, New Jersey, said: 'I'm so excited, I'm like, on top of the world.'

Eleanor Haven, 83, of Alexander City, Alabama, was attending the festivities with her son, Scott Haven. The pair said they had never been to a political event before attending a Trump 'thank you' tour rally in Alabama after the election and were looking forward to Friday's celebration.

'We're excited for changes in the country,' Scott Haven said.

All of the living American presidents were scheduled to attend the swearing in ceremony, except for 92-year-old George H.W. Bush, who was hospitalized this week with pneumonia. His wife, Barbara, was also admitted to the hospital after falling ill. Trump tweeted his well-wishes to the Bushes, saying he was 'looking forward to a speedy recovery.'

Hillary Clinton, Trump's vanquished campaign rival, also planned to join dignitaries at Capitol Hill.

While Trump revels in a celebratory lunch with lawmakers and parade down Pennsylvania Avenue — passing his newly opened Washington hotel - workers at the White House will set about the frantic process of moving out the Obamas and preparing the residence for its new occupants. Moving trucks were on standby Friday morning at the White House.

Obama, who will continue to live in Washington, was leaving town with his family after the inauguration for a vacation in Palm Springs, California. He planned to address a farewell gathering of staff at Joint Base Andrews before boarding his last flight on the military aircraft that ferries presidents on their travels.

Mar-a-Lago, the Future Winter White House and Home of the Calmer Trump

President-elect Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, speaking to members of the news media at his New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Credit Hilary Swift for The New York Times

By MAGGIE HABERMAN

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — When President-elect Donald J. Trump rang in the new year this weekend, he did it in Gatsby-like opulence, joined by the actor Sylvester Stallone, the gossip page fixture Fabio, and a crowd of wealthy developers reveling under the swaying palm trees at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

President George W. Bush had his ranch in Crawford, Tex. His father had his compound in Kennebunkport, Me. President Obama has taken frequent vacations in Hawaii, staying at a private home.

But Mr. Trump’s 118-room private club, where he has spent the last two weeks away from his home in New York, is likely to eclipse them all as the 45th president’s winter White House. And that was always the intention of Marjorie Meriweather Post, the cereal heiress and the property’s original owner, who left Mar-a-Lago to the federal government when she died in 1973, hoping it would serve as a home for presidents.

But the government had no interest in her plan, and Mr. Trump later bought the property for less than $10 million, turning it into a club where membership costs six figures.

Mr. Trump’s arrival was greeted with sneers by the Palm Beach elite, and he opened up Mar-a-Lago’s membership to Jews and African-Americans, who had been excluded from other members-only establishments. He was also the first club owner on the island to admit an openly gay couple.

Since Mr. Trump’s victory in November, Mar-a-Lago has been stuffed with guests attracted by an amenity unique to this club: the chance to rub shoulders with the next president.

“It’s like going to Disneyland and knowing Mickey Mouse will be there all day long,” said Jeff Greene, a developer and unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Senate from Florida in 2010, who is a Mar-a-Lago member and was a Hillary Clinton supporter.

Instead of hosting major corporate executives and potential Cabinet secretaries for interviews inside a boxy transition office at Trump Tower in New York, Mr. Trump has been seated at an ornately designed couch, upholstered in pale fabric laced with gold, beneath a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a scene resembling a mansion in “Sunset Boulevard” or “Citizen Kane,” two of Mr. Trump’s favorite movies.

At night, the couches are moved out and tables are added to accommodate the evening cocktail crowd, among whom Mr. Trump moves from one table to the next, the most powerful greeter in the world.

At the annual New Year’s Eve party on Saturday night, a gold-laced white menu included “Mr. Trump’s wedge salad,” a wild mushroom and Swiss chard ravioli, and a “breakfast buffet.” Those in attendance drifted in under a yellow-and-white striped awning, the men dressed in tuxedos, the women in ball gowns, many with their hair swept high.

Guests stepped onto a red carpet as they entered the club, and wandered over to a poolside cocktail party. Mr. Trump later delivered remarks, according to a guest, who said he thanked his family and the club members for their support over the years.

Laura Ingraham and Howie Carr, conservative radio hosts who were supportive of Mr. Trump, roamed the crowd, with Mr. Carr posting on Twitter that his daughter asked Mr. Trump if she could be an intern in the White House. Mr. Trump’s two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., posed for photographs. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were also there.

Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s 118-room private club in Palm Beach. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Like most aspects of Mr. Trump’s business interests, the party generated controversy as tickets to it were made available to club members and guests for a little more than $500. Mr. Trump’s aides rejected the questions.

Mr. Trump was to return to New York on Sunday afternoon. But the club will remain an escape for him. His contentious Twitter posts belie his relative calm when he is at Mar-a-Lago compared with when he is isolated inside Trump Tower. Mr. Trump’s combative public persona — often on display during his campaign — mostly dissolves behind the carved-stone walls of his castle.

“Mar-a-Lago is an environment he can control,” said the historian Douglas Brinkley, who last week attended a Mar-a-Lago lunch with a longtime club member, Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media. “I watched him hold court — he was so comfortable in his own skin, and so relaxed.”

Mr. Ruddy, who has hosted Ms. Ingraham and Mr. Carr and who has introduced Mr. Trump to a range of news media figures, politicians and donors, described the president-elect as “seeking the pre-election Donald Trump: totally at ease, very positive, very gregarious.”

Mr. Trump appears to feed off contact with the people at the club.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, he queried dinner guests about whether he should appoint Rudolph W. Giuliani or Mitt Romney as his secretary of state (he ended up picking neither).

During this trip, he has heaped praise on his ultimate choice for the job, Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon Mobile (Mr. Trump has called him “Mr. Exxon.”). He talks about the work he has done to find a solution for the problems at the Department of Veteran Affairs, which included a recent meeting with a number of executives at Mar-a-Lago. Mr. Trump told a New York Times reporter that he intended to make Brian Burns, the businessman son of a confidante of Joseph P. Kennedy, the ambassador to Ireland.

Isaac Perlmutter, the reclusive head of Marvel Entertainment, is a Mar-a-Lago member who helped Mr. Trump put that meeting together. Mr. Trump has also held sit-downs with Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and a club member, and hosted prominent figures like Carlos Slim, the billionaire who is Mexico’s richest man.

Mr. Trump; his wife, Melania; and their 10-year-old son, Barron, inhabit a residential area of the club. 

His adult children and their families usually stay in nearby cabanas on the property. Mr. Trump frequently dines on the patio, a central point of action, where at night, a singer plays with a small band, sometimes belting out requests from Mr. Trump and other guests (“My Way,” a song popularized by Frank Sinatra, was one recent choice). A violinist sometimes moves among tables, plucking tunes like the theme from “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Mr. Trump has given the cadre of White House reporters who now cover him some access to the club, but grudgingly so — he once again eluded the reporters covering him on Saturday, slipping away without any warning to play golf at another of his clubs nearby in Jupiter.

And outside the confines of Mar-a-Lago, old grievances flare up. On the golf course, Mr. Trump spotted Harry Hurt, a biographer who wrote critically of Mr. Trump years ago, preparing to play a round with David H. Koch, a billionaire conservative donor. Mr. Trump ordered club officials to remove Mr. Hurt from the property, according to a Facebook post by Mr. Hurt.

Over the years, Mr. Trump has also been perpetually at loggerheads with Palm Beach officials. He has filed lawsuits attempting to keep noisy planes from flying over Mar-a-Lago, and there have been disputes over the height of his oversize flagpole on the grounds.

With its owner’s coming new job, the club has had some changes. Guests now go through an elaborate security screen to gain access to the main entrance. Secret Service agents are now sprinkled throughout the property, at night blending into the shrubbery along the grounds.

Robin Bernstein, a club member for nearly 25 years, said that some club members might express frustration, but that most thought it was important “that we keep Donald and his family safe.” 

Attendees seem to see a benefit so far in having the president-elect around, and expect it will continue.

“The loser in this game is Camp David,” said Mr. Brinkley, referring to the longtime presidential retreat in Maryland. “Once you’re at Mar-a-Lago and it’s so opulent and resort-friendly, the idea of suddenly inserting your self into Camp David’s Maryland mountains environment seems unlikely.”

Lead sheriff in Chris Kyle murder investigation found dead inside Erath County home

by Liz Farmer, Breaking News producer

Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant was reportedly found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his home overnight, according to local officials. 

The death occurred about 12:05 a.m. Tuesday at Bryant's house in Stephenville, according to a Texas Rangers statement sent by Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Lonny Haschel.

The Texas Rangers are investigating his death at the request of the Stephenville Police Department. Haschel said the statement did not include Bryant's cause of death. 

Bryant's death is less than one week after reports surfaced that the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement was investigating him for allegedly cheating on his continuing education training, yourstephenvilletx.com reports. He served as sheriff for nearly 20 years in Erath County, which is about 80 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Bryant was one of the lead investigators in the double murder of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield at a gun range in February 2013.

Eddie Ray Routh, a former Marine corporal, was found guilty of capital murder in the slayings two years later. Kyle and his best friend, Littlefield, had taken Routh to the range to help him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement reprimanded Bryant in March for not completing a 40-hour continued education training course. The training is required by the Legislature to keep law enforcement officials up to date on changes to laws, yourstephenvilletx.com reported last week. 

Bryant told the news site he didn't even realize he hadn't finished the training until he returned from a Sheriff's Association of Texas conference over the summer. He said the next thing he knew, former sheriff's Deputy Cameron Ray had taken the course for him to get him caught up.

Sgt. Stan Roper told yourstephenvilletx.com that they'd spoken as part of the investigation into the sheriff's office, but Bryant disputed that. 

"I don't know of any investigation against me and I don't know why there would be one," Bryant told yourstephenvilletx.com. "I have done nothing wrong."

Tim Turnbeaugh, a columnist for the Stephenville news site, said in a Facebook post that people should try to remember the good things about Bryant. 

"Let's really lift his family up in prayer and love and offer them words of encouragement because it's gonna be a tough holiday for them," he wrote. "Due to all this, there's gonna be an empty chair at dinner and a few unopened presents, so no matter what you thought of him, let's try and refrain from any negative comments about Mr. Bryant."

Bryant is survived by his wife, Donnie, and son Thom Allen, yourstephenville.com reports.

 

John Glenn, American hero, aviation icon and former U.S. senator, dies at 95

By Joe Hallett The Columbus Dispatch 

His legend is otherworldly and now, at age 95, so is John Glenn.

An authentic hero and genuine American icon, Glenn died this afternoon surrounded by family at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus after a remarkably healthy life spent almost from the cradle with Annie, his beloved wife of 73 years, who survives.

He, along with fellow aviators Orville and Wilbur Wright and moon-walker Neil Armstrong, truly made Ohio first in flight.

“John Glenn is, and always will be, Ohio’s ultimate hometown hero, and his passing today is an occasion for all of us to grieve," said Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich. "As we bow our heads and share our grief with his beloved wife, Annie, we must also turn to the skies, to salute his remarkable journeys and his long years of service to our state and nation.

"Though he soared deep into space and to the heights of Capitol Hill, his heart never strayed from his steadfast Ohio roots. Godspeed, John Glenn!" Kasich said.

Glenn’s body will lie in state at the Ohio Statehouse for a day, and a public memorial service will be held at Ohio State University’s Mershon Auditorium. He will be buried near Washington, D.C., at Arlington National Cemetery in a private service. Dates and times for the public events will be announced soon.

Glenn lived a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! life. As a Marine Corps pilot, he broke the transcontinental flight speed record before being the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, 36 years later at age 77 in 1998, becoming the oldest man in space as a member of the seven-astronaut crew of the shuttle Discovery.

He made that flight in his 24th and final year in the U.S. Senate, from whence he launched a short-lived bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. Along the way, Glenn became moderately wealthy from an early investment in Holiday Inns near Disney World and a stint as president of Royal Crown International.

In one of his last public appearances, Glenn, with Annie by his side, sat in the Port Columbus airport terminal on June 28 as officials renamed it in his honor -- the John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

In addition to his world-famous career in aviation and aerospace, Glenn had a relationship with that particular airport that is likely second to none. Glenn, who turned 8 the month that Port Columbus opened in July 1929, recalled asking his parents to stop at the airport so he could watch the planes come and go while he was growing up in New Concord, 70 miles east of Columbus.

Glenn recalled "many teary departures and reunions" at the airport's original terminal on Fifth Avenue during his time as a military aviator during World War II. He and his wife Annie, who had been married 73 years, later kept a small Beechcraft plane at Lane Aviation on the airport grounds for many years, and he only gave up flying his own plane at age 90.

Privately, this man who had been honored by presidents and immortalized in history books and movies, told friends that for an aviator, seeing his name on the Columbus airport was the highest honor he could imagine.

Glenn, who lived with Annie for the past decade in a Downtown Columbus condo, dedicated his life to public service, devoting many of his later years to Ohio State University, which in 2005 converted the century-old Page Hall into the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy and the School of Public Policy and Management. It is now the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.

“He was very proud of the Glenn College,” said Jack Kessler, chairman of the New Albany Company, a former Ohio State trustee and longtime friend of the Glenns. “It’s a legacy that will carry on his mission toward good public policy.”

While Glenn held office as a Democrat, he wasn’t partisan, Kessler said. “I never heard him say a bad thing about anyone. Some of his best friends were Republicans, and he could work with anyone."

Surrounded by dozens of students striving to earn master’s and doctoral degrees from the institute, Glenn said at its dedication, “If we inspire a few young people into careers of public service and politics, this will all be worth it.”

Remarkably physically fit and energetic, Glenn only began encountering health problems in 2013 when he had a pacemaker implanted and missed some public appearances due to vertigo.

In 2011, he and Annie both had knee-replacement surgery, which kept them from repeating a planned road trip like the impromptu 8,400-mile journey throughout the West they took a year earlier in their Cadillac when she was 89 and he 88.

Raised in New Concord, where he and Annie both went to Muskingum College, Glenn aspired to be a medical doctor, but World War II sidetracked that ambition and launched a life of uncommon achievement and bravery. At age 8, he took his first ride in an open-cockpit airplane and ended up virtually living life in the sky, continuing to fly until 2011 when he put up for sale the twin-engine Beech Baron he had owned since 1981.

“I miss it,” Glenn told The Dispatch in 2012 “I never got tired of flying.”

Glenn flew 149 combat missions in World War II and Korea, where his wingman and eventual lifelong friend was baseball legend Ted Williams. In Korea, Glenn earned the nickname “Old Magnet Ass” due to his skill in landing his airplane under any condition, even after it was riddled with bullets and had blown tires.

Born not far from New Concord in Cambridge on July 18, 1921, Glenn and his parents moved about 10 miles west in 1923 to New Concord. His father was a plumber and his mother a teacher who joined a social group called the Twice 5 Club, which got together once a month. Another couple in the club had a daughter, Annie Castor, who was a year older than Glenn, and the two toddlers often shared a playpen while their parents played cards.

Their relationship evolved into a quintessential American love story, with the spark between them first igniting when they were in junior high school.

“To write a story about either of them, if it doesn’t include the other, then it just isn’t complete,” their daughter, Lyn, told The Dispatch in 2007. She and her brother, David, a California doctor, survive.

John and Annie were married on April 6, 1943, and the next January, as they held each other searching for something to say as he prepared to ship out for combat in the South Pacific, John said, 

“I’m just going down to the corner store to get a pack of gum.”

From that day on, she kept a gum wrapper in her purse.
 
To many with disabilities, Annie became a heroine in her own right as she struggled to conquer near-debilitating stuttering.

For more than half of her life, she counted on others to speak for her, publicly uncommunicative in a world that demanded more from her as her husband’s fame ascended.

Through it all, John stood by Annie, who, in 1973, underwent an innovative treatment regimen that dramatically improved her speech to the extent that she was delivering speeches on behalf of her husband’s 1984 presidential candidacy.

Glenn, who received his pilot's license in 1941, was at home in the sky, soon evident after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and he left Muskingum College to enlist in the Marine Air Corps. In the Pacific, he flew 59 missions over the Marshall Islands.

After being stationed in China and Guam when World War II ended, Glenn was a flight instructor in Texas before being transferred to Virginia. When the Korean War broke out, Glenn applied for combat duty, and flew 90 missions. Overall, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and was awarded the Air Medal with 18 clusters.

After returning from Korea, Glenn became a test pilot. He set a coast-to-coast speed record in 1957, piloting a Navy jet fighter from California to New York in 3 hours and 23 minutes. In 1959, he was selected as one of the country's first seven astronauts, a historic group immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book The Right Stuff, the basis for a movie of the same name.

The United States was enveloped in a cold war with the Soviet Union, and after a series of U.S. rockets had blown up, the American psyche was dealt a blow in 1961 when Russian Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space and the first to orbit Earth.

The third American in space after suborbital missions by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, Glenn finally equaled Gagarin’s achievement by blasting off on Feb. 20, 1962, after weather and mechanical problems caused his mission to be postponed 10 times.

Crammed into the 7-foot-wide Friendship 7 space capsule atop a 100-foot-tall Atlas rocket loaded with 250,000 pounds of explosive fuel, Glenn launched 160-miles into space, orbiting the world three times at 17,500 miles per hour.

Reflecting many years later, Glenn would say that computers were the greatest technological achievement during his life, but there were none on Friendship 7, and deep into the flight he had to take manual control of the capsule when systems malfunctioned.

As the capsule descended for a watery landing, mission control feared that its heat shield was peeling off. Well past four hours into the flight, Glenn was told of the problem and knew he could be burned alive in an instant (Annie was notified to expect the worst), but the astronaut stayed focused even as fiery pieces of his spacecraft flew by his window.

“You didn’t really have time to think about it,” he told students at COSI Columbus 45 years later. 

“Long before you actually got to the flight itself, you sort of made peace with mortality."

Safely splashing in the Atlantic Ocean 800 miles southeast of Bermuda, Glenn’s historic flight invigorated the nation and catapulted him into American lore. He addressed a joint session of Congress and rode in a convertible with Annie as 4 million people cheered him in a Manhattan ticker-tape parade.

In 2007, 45 years after his historic orbital mission, Glenn told a Columbus audience how much he longed to return to space right away, only to learn years after leaving the space program that President John F. Kennedy, fearing the worst, secretly had barred him from other flights to spare the country the potential loss of a national hero.

Glenn admitted in that speech that he was jealous in 1969 when fellow Ohioan Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the moon.

In 1964, only two years after his famous flight on Friendship 7, Glenn ran in the Democratic Senate primary against incumbent Sen. Stephen M. Young. But only six weeks after announcing his candidacy, Glenn dropped out of the race after damaging his inner ear in a bathroom fall, an injury that caused severe dizziness and balance problems. He recovered eight months later.

Glenn ran for the Senate again in 1970, but lost in the primary to Howard M. Metzenbaum, whom he defeated in a rematch four years later. He handily won election that fall over Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk and won re-election by huge margins in 1980 and 1986.

After winning re-election in 1980 by the largest margin in Ohio history, Glenn ran for president in 1984. He was seen as the leading challenger to former Vice President Walter F. Mondale for the Democratic nomination, and was the candidate many considered to have the best chance of defeating President Ronald Reagan in the general election.

But plagued by a disorganized campaign and with a centrist theme ill-suited to a liberal-dominated Democratic primary process, Glenn finished back in the pack in the important Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. He borrowed $2 million to compete in the Southern primaries, but he didn't win a state and dropped out of the race.

The debt remaining from that race, which rose to more than $3 million, became a campaign issue for Glenn in subsequent Senate races and nagged him until 2006 when the Federal Elections Commission finally allowed him to close the books on it after years of chipping away.

The third term of his four in the Senate was dominated by a Senate investigation into allegations that he improperly interceded with S&L regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who had raised or donated $242,000 to Glenn's political committees. Glenn personally spent more than $500,000 to defend his honor, and the Senate Ethics Committee cleared him of wrongdoing.

“I spend half a million dollars on my defense, and I wouldn't pull back a penny of it,” Glenn said then. “The reason I felt so strongly about it was that it involved my honor, and if I had to sell everything I had and mortgaged the house, I would have done everything I could to see the truth come out.”

In his final year as a U.S. senator in 1998, Glenn was reborn as an astronaut. At 77, he orbited the Earth with six astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery, once again rendering his body and mind to the study of science, providing insight into how the oldest man ever launched into space held up. Glenn, remarkably fit, became an inspiration once again to mankind.

The events of John Glenn’s life, and his footprint on history, are chronicled in countless books and beyond. The Friendship 7 capsule is in the Smithsonian, his papers and memorabilia are archived at Ohio State, and his life with Annie — and much more — are displayed at the Glenn Historic Site in New Concord.
 
Joe Hallett is a retired reporter and senior editor of The Dispatch.
jhallett1949@gmail.com

Statue of Jesus only thing left standing in house burned by Tennessee wildfire

By Doug Criss

Fires still burn as rain falls in Gatlinburg.

 

(CNN)The pictures coming out of the Gatlinburg, Tennessee, wildfires are just devastating. Acres of woodland blackened. Row upon row of homes and businesses reduced to ashes.

 

A statue of Jesus was the only thing left standing after the wildfires swept through this house in Sevier County, Tennessee.

 

But a TV crew with CNN affiliate WVLT spotted something of a miracle amid all that destruction. On Wednesday, reporter Kelsey Leyrer and her team captured footage of what they saw at a house out in Sevier County. It was a statue of Jesus -- covered with soot and ashes, but still standing. It was the only thing left after the home burned to the ground.

 

The Jesus statue was the second religious item this week that survived the wildfires. Earlier this week Isaac McCord, an employee at the Dollywood theme park, says he found a partially burned page from the Bible's book of Joel. The part of the passage that's readable, from Joel's first chapter reads, "O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field."

 

McCord immediately took a picture of what he'd found and posted it to Facebook, where it's been shared tens of thousands of times. Many commenters took it as a sign from God.

 

"It provides hope and faith," McCord said. "That's why I shared it."

 

At least seven people have lost their lives in the wildfires that have ravaged Sevier County and Gatlinburg this week.

On the Road with the Booyah Veteran Bus Project!

Marines walk 400 miles for their brothers in arms

Reposted from the Williston Pioneer

Shawn Moore’s feet are swollen, blistered and cracked. The afternoon sun causes water droplets on his freshly washed hair to glisten like diamonds as he goes about  the daily task of medicating and wrapping feet that have walked at least 22 miles a day  for several days. There’s been no walking this day because his feet are so abused, so tender. Not missing a beat as he searches through a med kit looking for larger bandages, he barely looks up from his mission to announce, “I’m fine. I’m doing OK.”

Moore is one of three former Marines who have dedicated themselves to a 21-day trek from Lake Nona to Panama City to raise awareness about the plight of the veteran who, because he lacks personal transportation, is unable to get services he earned from VA medical centers.

Moore, along with fellow hikers Richard McCuen and Shane Johnson, founder of the Booyah Bus Project, and support staff of Charles Anderson and Ray Tharaldson spent Monday evening at Williston Crossings. Wednesday, the five hiked through Chiefland on their way to the final destination of Panama City for Veterans Day next week.

Johnson, the CEO of Booyah Mortgage, which specializes in helping veterans secure financing through VA or other outlets, said he got the idea to start the hike while talking with a friend over lunch.

Mr. Mike, Johnson was told, is a veteran who must walk 15 miles to get to a bus stop in order to catch transportation for a two-hour ride to the nearest VA facility. He is not alone. Many veterans, and not all are homeless, he said, have no way of getting to a medical center. Dependent on public transportation, or their feet, they often arrive late for appointments only to discover because they were tardy, the appointment was rescheduled – as much as three months down the road.

And then there was the story of Ellen Gilbert.

At 80 years old, Gilbert logged over 300,000 miles on her Mazda pickup by driving veterans to their appointments.

“She’s a little firecracker,” Johnson said, “who fulfills our mission: ‘A veteran- whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve- is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to “The United States of America,” for an amount of, “up to, and including his life.”  That is honor.  And there are way too many people in this country today, who no longer understand that fact. 

My mission is to ensure that we give back to those who wrote that check.’. She wants to give back to those who wrote those blank checks.”

The three men walk in Gilbert’s honor.

The almost 400 mile journey has several facets, Johnson said, including raise awareness on the transportation issue, provide refurbished transit buses where veterans can shower, get a haircut and have a meal and provide a safe place for veterans as they transition out of active duty service back into the civilian sector.

Since leaving the Orlando VA Medical Center at Lake Nona, the five men have shared more than 22-mile walks.

“I lost two toenails,” McCuen said, showing off his feet after he knelt beside Moore to finish swathing his swollen feet in plastic bandages.

Bears, a bar in the middle of nowhere (“It was just like Dusk Til Dawn,” one of them chimed in.) and the people they’ve met will all make for great stories in the future. In Williston, the RV resort donated the space for the night’s lodging and Green Shutters gave them dinner.

“But it’s the war stories they share at night,” Tharaldson said, “that make the journey interesting.”

Tharaldson, CEO of RLT Productions/American News Broadcasting, is documenting the three-week trip through video and photographs.

Anderson, a former Navy man, follows closely behind with an RV, scouting out locations and seeing his crew has accommodations for the night.

All five men affirm they travel with the support and blessing of the family and loved ones they left behind. All are commited to the cause, evidenced by packing up and leaving homes across Florida and all the way to California.

To learn more about the project visit booyahveteranbusproject.com or visit them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/getonthebuswithus

 #getonthebuswithus

Hurricane Lands Civil War Cannonballs on SC Beach

(Twitter/Charleston County Sheriff's Office)

 

By Cathy Burke   |   Monday, 10 Oct 2016 05:07 PM

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More than a dozen rusty Civil War cannonballs surfaced on a South Carolina beach near Charleston after Hurricane Matthew's trek through the state.

Charleston County Sheriff's Office officials said their bomb squad and the US Air Force Explosive Team responded to Folly Beach to evaluate the discovery Sunday of what appeared to be an "old Civil War ordnance," CBS affiliate WCSC reported.

A number were detonated by the Air Force; others at a nearby Navy base, the station reported.

Former Folly Beach mayor Richard Beck told the station he discovered the cannonballs as he was walking along the beach to take pictures of Matthew's impact.

Navy Publishes Guidance Warning Sailors Not to Protest National Anthem

by Hope Hodge Seck
In the wake of two sailors going public with their decision to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement by refusing to stand when the Star Spangled Banner is played, Navy Reserve Forces Command today published guidance warning troops that they can be punished or prosecuted for such protests.

A message directed at active-duty sailors and reserve personnel on active duty cites Navy Regulation 1205, which mandates that personnel in uniform must stand at attention and face the flag when the national anthem is played. It also notes that a Navy administrative message published in 2009 requires Navy active-duty personnel in civilian clothes to face the flag, stand at attention, and place their right hand over their heart.

"Additionally, Sailors receive training on the appropriate usage of social media, and must not use it to discredit the Naval Service, and should be reminded it could potentially be used as evidence against them," the guidance continues, a message apparently directed at the two sailors who published posts on Facebook about their protests.

Failure to comply with these regulations, the message said, is punishable under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and constitutes commission of a serious offense -- grounds for administrative separation from the service.

"While military personnel are not excluded from the protections granted by the First Amendment, the US Supreme Court has stated that the different character of our community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections," the guidance states.

The actions taken regarding the two sailors who engaged in separate protests have not been publicly announced.

In late August, a sailor attached to the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Pensacola, Florida, posted a video to Facebook of herself sitting down during the base's morning "colors" ceremony, which quickly received viral attention on the social media platform.

Naval Education and Training Command officials confirmed the sailor, who has not been publicly named, had been subject to administrative action, but had been retained for service in the Navy.

And Sept. 21, Petty Officer 2nd Class Janaye Ervin, an intelligence specialist based in Hawaii, wrote in a public Facebook post that she was being punished by the Navy for remaining seated for the anthem two days earlier. A spokesman for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam said only that actions regarding Ervin are under review.

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.