Free Republic

Two developments in the past few weeks suggest that America’s China policy is on a cusp.The more publicly discussed event involves the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Dewey, which conducted a freedom of navigation operation near Mischief Reef in the Spratlys island group.This is the first freedom of navigation action conducted by the Trump administration. It is the first true freedom of navigation conducted since at least 2012.By contrast, the Obama administration had undertaken a handful of “innocent passage” activities in the South China Sea, which failed to demonstrate the critical issues at stake.The actions carried out in the previous administration...

John Howland may not be as famous as William Bradford, John Carver and Myles Standish, notable passengers on the Mayflower that landed in Massachusetts in 1620. Yet Howland, who boarded the ship as Carver's servant, probably had a greater impact on the history of the United States than any of them. Hundreds of thousands of Americans will sit down for Thanksgiving dinner Thursday unaware that they owe their very existence to Howland, who almost never even made it to the New World. Howland fell overboard in the middle of the Atlantic during a gale

On shorty....

MIAMI A passenger reported missing on a cruise to the Bahamas fell overboard after a night of heavy drinking with friends, authorities said Wednesday as Coast Guard crews suspended their search for the man. Friends of Daniel DiPiero, 21, of Canfield, Ohio, last saw him on the Mariner of the Seas around midnight Sunday, Petty Officer Dana Warr said. About two hours later, shipboard security cameras show DiPiero falling overboard from a rail near the front of the ship, investigators said. He was reported missing Monday morning when his friends realized he had not slept in the cabin they shared....

JACKSONVILLE, Florida (AP) -- A 54-year-old passenger vanished as a ship returned from a five-day cruise to the Bahamas, and a daylong ocean search turned up no sign of him. The hunt was called off Friday.