washington
Afghanistan war vet given highest honor
President Barack Obama awards US Army Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry the Medal of Honor during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday. Petry is the ninth service member to have been named a recipient of the Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The soldier in uniform extended his prosthetic hand after losing his own in battle. And the commander in chief who sent him there reached out to clasp it. It was a sobering moment toward the end of a moving ceremony at the White House Tuesday, as President Barack Obama awarded the nation’s highest military honor to Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry for his brave actions to protect his comrades in the firefight that cost him his right hand. “This is the stuff of which heroes are made,” the president declared, before reaching out and shaking Petry’s gray, robotic hand, which helped the soldier to remain active in the military and even redeploy to Afghanistan despite his serious injury.
Later, Petry, a Santa Fe, N.M., native who now serves with the 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Ga., sought to turn attention away from himself and toward other service members and military families. “To be singled out is very humbling. I consider every one of our men and women in uniform serving here, abroad, to be our heroes,” Petry told reporters outside the White House. “They sacrifice every day and deserve your continued support and recognition.” Tuesday was just the second time that a living, active-duty service member from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has received a Medal of Honor. Petry looked on from a stage in the East Room with his wife and children in the audience as the president described
his heroics that day. It unfolded on May 26, 2008, in the remote east of Afghanistan, as Petry — then a staff sergeant — and other Rangers choppered toward an insurgent compound, the president said. As soon as they landed they came under automatic weapon fire, and Petry was hit in his legs. He fell, but as grenades came flying toward him and his comrades he picked one up “This 28-year-old man with his whole life ahead of him, this husband and father of four, did something extraordinary,” Obama said. “He lunged forward, toward the live grenade. He picked it up. He cocked his arm to throw it back.” But before Petry could release the grenade it exploded. Petry’s right hand was blown off. But two of his fellow soldiers were saved.
Energy saving
House GOP fails to turn off light bulb standards WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Tuesday failed to stop the enactment of new energy-saving standards for light bulbs they portrayed as yet another example of big government interfering in people’s lives. The GOP bill to overturn the standards set to go into effect next year fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage. The vote was 233-193. For many Republicans, those newfangled curly fluorescent light bulbs were the last straw, pushed by an overreaching government that’s forcing people to buy health insurance, prodding them to get more fuel-efficient cars and sticking its nose into too many places. Their legislation would have kept the marketplace clear for the cheap, energywasting bulbs that have changed little since Thomas Edison invented them in 1879. For most Democrats, it’s an exasperating debate that, just like the old incandescent bulbs being crowded out of the market, produces more heat than light. The standards in question do not specifically ban the old bulbs but require a higher level of efficiency than the classics can produce, essentially nudging them off store shelves over the next few years.
Four of Edison’s descendants said the great inventor would be mortified to see politicians trying to get the nation to hang on to an outdated technology when better bulbs are available. The standards have not been particularly contentious before now. They were crafted in 2007 with Republican participation and signed into law by President George W. Bush. People seem to like the new choices and the energy savings they bring, polling finds. But now they have become a symbol of a much larger divide in Washington over the size and reach of government itself. The new bulbs suggest to some conservatives that big government is running amok. “Now the government wants to tell consumers what type of light bulb they use to read, cook, watch television or light their garage,” said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. “I’m not opposed to the squiggly tailed CFLs,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a driving force behind the effort to save the old incandescents and the sponsor of the bill to overturn the standards. But making the old bulbs go away “seems to me to be overkill by the federal government.”
brief
Quartet struggles on way for peace WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and other Mideast peace envoys scrambled Tuesday to salvage fading hopes of a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian talks, a day after their bosses couldn’t even agree among themselves how to arm-twist the two sides back into negotiation. Diplomats from the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia were meeting
in Washington, trying to make some sort of headway. A highly-anticipated gathering hosted Monday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and attended by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, EU top diplomat Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov failed to produce a unified statement on the way ahead. “There are still significant gaps between these parties,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, referring to the mediators and the
Israelis and Palestinians. She said the “quartet” of Mideast peacemakers had nothing to announce that might nudge Israelis and Palestinians back into direct talks after nine months of inaction. The disappointment of Monday evening’s dinner reflected the frustrating inability of mediators to find a basis for moving the peace process forward, something President Barack Obama most recently stabbed at in May when he endorsed Israel’s pre-1967 borders as a basis for negotiation.