Marine killed during training exercise identified ADVERTISING Marine killed during training exercise identified TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) — The Marine Corps says the Marine killed during a live-fire training exercise at a California desert base was a 19-year-old from Florida.
Marine killed during training exercise identified
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) — The Marine Corps says the Marine killed during a live-fire training exercise at a California desert base was a 19-year-old from Florida.
The military branch said in a statement Wednesday that Lance Cpl. Austin J. Ruiz of Naples, Fla., served as a combat engineer with the III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, Japan.
Ruiz was killed Friday during training that involved firearms in preparation for a larger exercise at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps base in Southern California. A second Marine was flown to a Palm Springs hospital and is listed in critical condition.
Ruiz is assigned to the 3rd Marine Division and based at Kaneohe Bay, Oahu.
Officials are investigating and released no additional details.
Attorneys general urge rejection of EPA nominee
BOSTON (AP) — The Democratic attorneys general of eight states and the District of Columbia are urging the U.S. Senate to reject President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Scott Pruitt to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
The attorneys general expressed “strong opposition” to Pruitt in a letter sent to the chairman and ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the eve of Wednesday’s confirmation hearing.
The letter states Pruitt, as Oklahoma attorney general, attacked the same rules the EPA is charged with enforcing. The letter notes lawsuits Pruitt filed to try to block the agency’s enforcement of federal clean air standards.
Signers of the letter included Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin and the attorneys general of Massachusetts, New York, Delaware, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island and Maryland.
Thousands of paper cranes presented to NPS
HONOLULU (AP) — A paper crane signed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe symbolizing peace and reconciliation between Japan and America will be featured at the Pearl Harbor Visitors Center, according to National Park Service officials.
Last month, Abe became the first Japanese prime minister to visit the USS Arizona Memorial honoring sailors and Marines killed in the 1941 attack by Japan.
Abe and his wife, Akie, later signed paper cranes, which were presented to the park service along with thousands of others earlier this month.
The paper cranes were brought from Japan by Yuji Sasaki. His aunt, Sadako Sasaki, became internationally known after dying from leukemia at age 12, 10 years after the 1945 Hiroshima atom bomb blast. The young girl is known to have folded more than 1,000 cranes in hopes of surviving the disease.
One of her cranes was unveiled at the visitors’ center in 2013.
“The National Park Service is deeply honored to receive these cranes,” said National Park Service Superintendent Jacqueline Ashwell in an email. “They are a lasting tribute to Sadako Sasaki’s message of peace and her enduring legacy, and we are honored to share them with the world.”
Group moves albatross eggs from military base
LIHUE, Kauai (AP) — Federally protected seabirds are being moved from a military base on Kauai to safer nesting areas.
The Pacific Missile Range Facility poses a threat to the Laysan albatross because of the possibility for collisions between the birds and military aircraft.
Pacific Rim Conservation recently removed 33 albatross eggs from nests near the facility and took them to new homes on Oahu. Six of those eggs are expected to start hatching in about a week.
Most of the eggs have been placed at the Kaena Point Natural Area Reserve, although some are in incubators until foster nests are found.
This is the conservation group’s third annual relocation from the base. Staff members relocated 45 eggs in each of the last two years of the program.
The group also is including black-footed albatross in the program this year.
