John Glenn, 1st American to orbit Earth, dies at 95
WASHINGTON — John Glenn, whose 1962 flight as the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth made him an all-American hero and propelled him to a long career in the U.S. Senate, died Thursday. The last survivor of the original Mercury 7 astronauts was 95.
Glenn died at the James Cancer Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where he was hospitalized for more than a week, said Hank Wilson, communications director for the John Glenn School of Public Affairs.
John Herschel Glenn Jr. had two major career paths that often intersected: flying and politics, and he soared in both of them.
Before he gained fame orbiting the world, he was a fighter pilot in two wars, and as a test pilot, he set a transcontinental speed record. He later served 24 years in the Senate from Ohio. A rare setback was a failed 1984 run for the Democratic presidential nomination.
His long political career enabled him to return to space in the shuttle Discovery at age 77 in 1998, a cosmic victory lap that he relished and turned into a teachable moment about growing old. He holds the record for the oldest person in space.
Russia says Aleppo combat suspended
BEIRUT — Russia said the Syrian army was suspending combat operations in Aleppo late Thursday to allow for the evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held neighborhoods, but residents and fighters reported no let-up in the bombing and shelling campaign on the opposition’s ever-shrinking enclave.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Germany after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said military experts and diplomats would meet Saturday in Geneva to work out details of the rebels’ exit from Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods, along with civilians who were willing to leave the city.
Lavrov said the Syrian army suspended combat action late Thursday to allow some 8,000 civilians to leave the city in a convoy spreading across a 3-mile route. However, opposition activists said there was no halt to the government offensive.
“Battles are intense,” said a message from a rebel operation room shared with The Associated Press. Other residents reported warplanes firing from machine guns at rebel positions and artillery shells falling in the remaining rebel-controlled districts.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the U.S. was focused on de-escalating the violence in Aleppo to allow aid into the city and enable people wishing to stay in their homes to do so.
Effort to stem homegrown US extremism launches
BOSTON — A federally backed effort to stem the rise of homegrown extremists is underway in Massachusetts, nearly three years after the White House announced the initiative on the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured hundreds.
The state last week selected three organizations to use $210,000 in federal money earmarked for the pilot effort, The Associated Press learned through a request of public records. The organizations propose initiatives meant to keep youths from being drawn to the violent messages of extremist groups.
United Somali Youth, which operates out of New England’s largest mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, was awarded $105,000 to help Somali, African and Middle Eastern youths build critical life skills through afterschool programs, counseling, college readiness assistance and other efforts.
Empower Peace, founded by a communications and marketing executive, was given $42,000 to teach high schoolers statewide to develop social media campaigns promoting tolerance and combating bigotry so that they can produce them at their schools.
And the 20-year-old Somali Development Center has been given $63,000 to better integrate Somali immigrants and refugees into the broader community.
Tribe gives conflicting messages to protest camp
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — For protesters fighting the Dakota Access pipeline, the messages from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation are confusing: The tribal chairman tells demonstrators that it’s time to leave their camp and go home. Another leader implores them to stay through the bitter North Dakota winter.
The conflicting requests show how the camp’s purpose has widened beyond the original intent of protecting the tribe’s drinking water and cultural sites into a broader stand for Native American rights.
Camp occupants are working through the confusion, said Jade Begay, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. “The rest of the world just needs to hold tight and be patient,” she said.
Since August, the camp on federal land near the reservation and the pipeline route has been home to thousands of people protesting the four-state $3.8 billion pipeline designed to carry oil to a shipping point in Illinois.
After the camp endured two recent severe storms, Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault declared this week that it’s time for the demonstrators to disband.
By wire sources