Symbolic stamp would support veterans
WASHINGTON — During World War II, Americans of all ages shelled out dimes and dollars for the war effort.
As Memorial Day approaches, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has sought to fire up that patriotic spirit with the Victory for Veterans Stamp Act. The act would provide for the sale of a 21-cent stamp to generate money for veterans programs, paying down the national debt and propping up the U.S. Postal Service.
The stamp could not be used for postage, even though it would be offered for sale by the Postal Service. Rep. John B. Larson, D-Conn., the bill’s chief sponsor, said the stamp would be a way for Americans to show their patriotism and support for the troops.
Larson came up with the idea for the stamp while going through letters his parents sent to each other during World War II.
“I couldn’t help but notice a unique ‘victory’ stamp that was used at the time as a means to help support the war effort,” he said, referring to a 3-cent violet “Win the War” stamp featuring the American eagle with wings spread in a V, encircled by 13 stars.
That stamp was used for postage, but post offices sold war savings stamps for as little as a dime to support the war effort.
Larson said the new stamp could spur school campaigns to write troops. It could be attached to the envelopes, in addition to the postage.
Larson suggested World War II-era artwork as a design for the stamp. It features an eagle inside a V, with American flags and the word “victory.”
His proposal calls for splitting the 21 cents from every stamp evenly among veterans employment and training programs, the debt reduction effort and support for the Postal Service, which an aide noted employs a large number of veterans.
Over the years, Congress has authorized various semipostal stamps, which sell for more than their face value to raise money for causes. Most well-known may be the now-55-cent breast cancer stamp, authorized in 1997, which has generated more than $75 million for breast cancer research.
Beryl may reach
land by Memorial Day
Subtropical storm Beryl is about to rain on the Southeast’s Memorial Day parade.
A tropical storm warning was in effect along the coasts of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina on Saturday, the National Weather Service announced, as the second named storm of 2012 approached. The NWS said the storm had only minimal strength, meaning it would likely not follow the usual “rules” for tropical storms and could behave somewhat erratically.
“There is still great uncertainty as to just what the wind strength and structure will be like at landfall,” the weather service said on its website. “In all likelihood, the strongest winds will be confined to the coastal areas and could occur anywhere in the warning area.”
Added Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami: “It’s still a subtropical storm, meaning not all of its energy is coming from warm sources, but it makes no difference in reference to strength.”
Approximately 300 miles northeast of Jacksonville, Fla., as of Saturday morning, Beryl was slowly touring the area at 9 mph and was expected to move southwest until this morning, Feltgen said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Surf conditions were extremely dangerous because of the unusually high tides along the coasts of northern Florida, Georgia and up to Edisto Beach in South Carolina over the Memorial Day weekend.
Beryl was expected to reach land by tonight or early Monday morning, bringing a storm surge and 3 to 6 inches of rain. Winds of 50 mph were expected at landfall.
Gunman kills 2,
wounds 7 in Finland
HELSINKI — An 18-year-old gunman killed two people and wounded seven early Saturday in a random shooting in a southern Finnish town, police said.
Officers arrested the suspect near Hyvinkaa, some five hours after he fired several shots from a low rooftop at people gathered outside a restaurant just before 2 a.m., said Detective Chief Inspector Markku Tuominen.
The local man, who had no criminal record, surrendered peacefully and has acknowledged the shootings, police said.
“He has recounted the course of events in some detail, but he has not given any reason for what led to these events,” said Mika Ihaksinen from the National Bureau of Investigation. “At the moment it looks like the shooting was random.”
The gunman killed a woman and man — both aged 18 — and critically wounded a 23-year-old female police officer who arrived at the scene. Six other wounded people were being treated in hospital.
Vatican in chaos after butler arrested for leaks
VATICAN CITY — An already sordid scandal over leaked Vatican documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday with confirmation that the pope’s own butler had been arrested after documents he had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment.
The detention of butler Paolo Gabriele, one of the few members of the papal household, capped one of the most convulsive weeks in recent Vatican history and threw the Holy See into chaos as it enters a critical phase in its efforts to show the world it’s serious about complying with international norms on financial transparency.
The tumult began with the publication last weekend of a book of leaked Vatican documents detailing power struggles, political intrigue and corruption in the highest levels of Catholic Church governance. It peaked with the inglorious ouster on Thursday of the president of the Vatican bank. And it concluded with confirmation Saturday that Pope Benedict XVI’s own butler was the alleged mole feeding documents to Italian journalists in an apparent bid to discredit the pontiff’s No. 2.
“If you wrote this in fiction you wouldn’t believe it,” said Carl Anderson, a member of the board of the Vatican bank which contributed to the tumult with its no-confidence vote in its president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi. “No editor would let you put it in a novel.”
The bank, known as the Institute for Religious Works, issued a scathing denunciation of Gotti Tedeschi in a memorandum obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. In it the bank, or IOR by its Italian initials, explained its reasons for ousting Gotti Tedeschi: he routinely missed board meetings, failed to do his job, failed to defend the bank, polarized its personnel and displayed “progressively erratic personal behavior.”
Gotti Tedeschi was also accused by the board of leaking documents himself: The memorandum from the Institute for Religious Works, as the bank is known, said he “failed to provide any formal explanation for the dissemination of documents last known” to be in his possession.
In an interview with the AP, Anderson stressed the latter accusation was independent of the broader “Vatileaks” scandal that has rocked the Vatican for months. But he stressed: “It is not an insignificant issue.”
Bud continues to weaken off Mexico’s coast
MIAMI — Bud is weakening and becoming increasingly disorganized in the Pacific just off Mexico.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Saturday that Bud had degenerated to a remnant low. It was expected to dissipate within the next day or say.
Maximum sustained winds had weakened significantly and were near 30 mph as the storm hovered about 15 miles off the coast of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico.
Forecasters say the storm could still drop another inch or two of rain along Mexico’s southwestern coast.
By wire sources
