Fort Lewis, Wash. – Twenty soldiers deployed to Iraq from the Army base here were killed in May, a monthly high. That same month, the base announced a change in how it would honor its dead: Instead of units holding services as casualties occurred, they would be held collectively once a month.
Soldiers’ families and veterans protested the change as cold and logistics-driven. Critics online said the military was trying to repress bad news about deaths. By mid-June, the base had put the plan on hold, and its commander, Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby, is expected to decide today whether to go through with it.
“If I lost my husband at the beginning of the month, what do you do, wait until the end of the month?” asked Toni Shanyfelt, who said her husband was serving one of multiple tours in Iraq.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
WASHINGTON
Experience counts in prostate surgeons
Practice matters: A 15-year study found men whose cancerous prostates were removed by a more experienced surgeon were less likely to relapse.
Specialists have long advised people who need surgery for whatever reason to pick an experienced surgeon. But how experienced? For prostate cancer, surgeons seemed to improve until they’d done 250 of the operations, concludes the study published Tuesday by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
WASHINGTON
Seizure of items spurs airport security alert
Airport security officers around the nation have been alerted by federal officials to look out for terrorists practicing to carry explosive components onto aircraft, based on four curious seizures at airports since last September.
The Transportation Security Administration said in its July 20 alert that the seizures at airports in San Diego, Milwaukee, Houston and Baltimore included “wires, switches, pipes or tubes, cellphone components and dense claylike substances,” including block cheese. “The unusual nature and increase in number of these improvised items raise concern.”
Security officers were urged to keep an eye out for “ordinary items that look like improvised explosive device components.”
SÃO PAULO, Brazil
TAM airline diverts, cancels flights in rain
Citing safety concerns over heavy rain and a short runway, TAM Airlines canceled or diverted about 90 flights Tuesday at São Paulo’s main airport, where one of the carrier’s planes crashed in the rain last week, killing 199 people.
Other airlines continued to fly in and out of Congonhas – Brazil’s busiest airport – but it was periodically closed by authorities to all traffic during the rain.
TAM’s flight cancellations and the airport’s shutdowns had a ripple effect, as more than half of all flights in Brazil were delayed or canceled for a third straight day.
MIAMI
Weekly World News goes way of Atlantis
Aliens abduct newspaper! Weekly World News, the tabloid that for 28 years has chronicled sightings of Elvis, extraterrestrial activity and the exploits of Bat Boy, is no more. Its publisher said Tuesday that it would put out its last issue next month, maintaining only a Web presence.
Publisher American Media said the closure was “due to the challenges in the retail and wholesale magazine marketplace that have impacted the newsstand.”
