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The USS Iowa, one of the last battleships ever built, will open July 7 as a museum in Los Angeles Harbor. Advance tickets are on sale for tours of the ship, which served on and off from World War II to 1990. The 900-foot battleship with 16-inch guns was towed recently from Vallejo, on San Francisco Bay, to Los Angeles. It is the last of the four Iowa-class battleships to find a permanent home after years as part of "the mothball fleet." he Iowa will be operated by the nonprofit Pacific Battleship Center, which will begin offering tours July 7...

On Monday, the Obama administration announced it had hired an environmental economist from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to join the National Economic Council. Replacing member Joe Aldy, Nat Keohane, a long-time advocate of cap and trade, will now be advising President Obama on the economics of energy and environmental issues. With Keohane’s addition, it now looks like the Obama administration is preparing to go to battle against congressional Republicans who balk at the prospect of any environmental legislation. But Keohane’s hire also represents something else – the continuation of Obama placing global warming alarmists

'Long live the Taliban" might seem an unlikely thing for a prominent anti-war figure to declare, but that's to-day's peace movement for you. Stranger still, the man who recently uttered those words, Azzam Tamimi, is being promoted by a new Toronto-based institute that says it is embarking upon a national campaign to cultivate wholesome, faith-based civic virtues among Canada's young Muslims.

2/13/2008 - MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AFPN) -- A retired general had been waiting on a call for some time; 55 years to be exact. Retired Lt. Gen. Charles G. Cleveland answered his home phone in January that turned out to be one of the most important calls of his life. "That's how I found out the Air Force was officially recognizing me as an ace," General Cleveland said. "Right there on the phone." But while the notification of his new-found status was brief and unceremonious, General Cleveland's journey to reach this point was a very long one. It started in South...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2007 – Retired Army Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall was admitted into the Pentagon Hall of Heroes today, one day after President Bush presented him the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam. Retired Army Lt. Col. Bruce Crandall, who was inducted today into the Pentagon Hall of Heroes, said brotherhood and belief in their mission motivated him and his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. Crandall received the Medal of Honor during a Feb. 26 White House ceremony. Photo by Donna Miles  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker praised Crandall, a...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2007 – With flags around the nation still at half staff in memory of the late President Gerald R. Ford, Vice President Richard B. Cheney called today’s naming of the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier in Ford’s honor an even more fitting tribute because it looks to the future. Speaking today at the Pentagon naming ceremony for the ship, Cheney joined Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter and other officials and servicemembers in naming the first of the new CVN-21 class of aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford. The new class will replace the USS Enterprise and...

FORT HOOD (Army News Service, April 26, 2006) – Darnall Army Community Hospital will officially receive U.S. Army medical center status and a new name during a rededication ceremony May 1 at Fort Hood, Texas. The new name will be the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, according to Commander Col. Loree Sutton. The hospital originally opened at its present site in April 1965. Today, the hospital has approximately 2,500 military, civilian and contracted personnel supporting more than 150,000 TRICARE beneficiaries living within the hospital’s catchment area. On an average day, there are 3,867 outpatient visits, 26 surgeries, seven newborn...

Dr. Samuel Lichtenstein cut a 2-inch hole between an elderly man's ribs. Peering inside, he poked a pencil-sized wire up into the chest, piercing the bottom of the man's heart. Within minutes, Bud Boyer would have a new heart valve — without having his chest cracked open. Call it closed-heart surgery. "I consider it some kind of magic," said Boyer, who left the Vancouver, British Columbia, hospital a day later and was almost fully recovered in just two weeks. In Michigan, Dr. William O'Neill slipped an artificial valve through an even tinier opening. He pushed the valve up a patient's...

3/23/2006 - SAN ANTONIO -- A former F-22A Raptor test pilot has now joined the ranks of an even more elite group of pilots. Lt. Col. James Dutton became an astronaut with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration following his graduation in February. “I wanted to be an astronaut when I joined the Air Force so I always tried to take that next step to become an astronaut,” he said. Joining the NASA team, the 37-year-old Eugene, Oregon-native brings some unique capabilities to the space agency. Colonel Dutton flew in the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle from October 1995 to...

A participant with the Make-A-Wish Foundation set a record by being the youngest person to sit in the U.S. Air Force's newest fighter and to fly the F-22A Raptor simulator. EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif., Feb. 23, 2006 – Team Edwards and the 411th Flight Test Squadron welcomed its "newest pilot" and his family to Edwards Feb. 14. Reilly Koyl, also known as "Raptor 00," may need a set of telephone books on the seat of the F-22A Raptor to see over the canopy rail, but that didn't deter the intrepid aviator from getting into his new "office." At 5...

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla., Jan. 29, 2006 – For more than a year, Albanian army Maj. Ilirjan Balliu has served as the senior national representative for Albania with the 63-nation coalition organized to combat global terrorism. Shortly after his arrival to U.S. Central Command here, Balliu had breakfast with a U.S. military officer. As the two shared conversation and coffee, the U.S. officer revealed what was on his mind. "'If you would have told me years ago that I would have been sitting at a U.S. military base, eating and talking to an Albanian military officer, I wouldn't have...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Dec. 14, 2005) -- From privates first class to sergeants major to lieutenant colonels, all Marines who saw the newly promoted sergeant walking through their work areas were quick to render the appropriate military courtesies. After all, Brandon Rasnick had accomplished what no one else in the 2nd Marine Division had, made the rank of sergeant in one day. It’s a success the Lehigh Acres, Fla., native did not tout as he made his rounds throughout the base. Rather, the Marines and sailors smiled and waved as the shortest noncommissioned officer they had ever...

Sgt. Richard Skinner, Tactical Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle project trainer, Fort Belvoir, Va., launches the TACMAV by hand. The newest UAV is the smallest in the UAV family with a body length and wing span of 21 inches. U.S. Marine Corps photo Mini-plane Newest Addition to Unmanned Family The Tactical Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle can be stored in a 22-inch long, five-inch diameter tube and placed on a soldier’s backpack. By Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Bernadette L. Ainsworth / Multinational Corps Public Affairs Office CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, Oct. 17, 2005 – The Army recently began using an unmanned aerial...

Liberals and criminals alike are anxiously awaiting the verdict on Illinois’ newest gun ban, HB 2414. Honestly, it’s hard to tell who’s more excited. I guess liberals figure if they can’t keep Americans from buying guns, they’ll try putting people in prison for owning them. Meanwhile, thousands of law-abiding citizens in Illinois are forced to imagine being incarcerated for legally purchasing and owning a gun. That’s the idea behind The People’s Republic of Illinois House Bill 2414, in which gun owners would have 90 days to surrender their legally purchased semi-automatic firearms to the police, or face felony prosecution and...

Most of those 80-some voter initiatives that are either pending at the attorney general's office or already cleared for signature collection will never make it to the ballot. There's not enough money. Some are near-duplicate versions of the same measure; others are just gleams in the eye of wannabes with the $200 needed to file - initiative versions of the 135 people who ran for governor in the 2003 recall. But some are chess pieces in what may be the biggest and most complicated game of political chicken in California history. If Hiram Johnson and the California Progressives who wrote...

<p>BEIJING (AP) - China's leaders sent its legislature a proposed constitutional amendment on Monday to protect private property for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution - a key step toward cementing the status of capitalism in a nation undergoing radical change.</p>