Latest news with #DwightD.Eisenhower
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Since World War II, ‘people to people relationships' have helped forge a strong alliance between US and Japan
There are strong organizations of young people in Japan committed to Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up Beyond the devastation, beyond the horror of a nuclear blast that ultimately claimed 100,000 lives, and beyond even the surrender of Japan a month later that brought an end to the war, is something possibly even more powerful. Advertisement For six years after the bombing and surrender, Allied forces occupied Japan. That ended in 1951 when 48 nations gathered in San Francisco to sign the Treaty of Peace with Japan. At that time, Japan was welcomed back into the international community as a sovereign nation. What happened four years later is the twist. Advertisement On Dec. 7, 1955, just over 10 years after the bombing of Nagasaki, and on the 14th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the cities of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Nagasaki became Inspired by this, the following year President Dwight D. Eisenhower, stating that 'people to people relationships' were the key to peace, began the Since that time, more than 460 sister city relationships have been established across the country between the United States and Japan, among the greatest number of sister city relationships in the world. One of the strongest and most robust exists right here in Rhode Island, between the port In my view, the friendships, commerce and bridge building begun by those 'people to people relationships' is not only a key to peace, but the most powerful explanation for the strong alliance today between the United States and Japan. And that is a victory well worth honoring, all the days of the year. Steve Aveson is Honorary Consul General for Japan in Bristol, R.I. A longtime journalist with strong ties to New England, Aveson traveled the world with ABC News, The Christian Science Monitor and Inside Edition. Locally, he worked as a news anchor for WPRI TV in Providence and WBZ TV in Boston.
Chicago Tribune
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: 'In God We Trust' made the national motto
Today is Wednesday, July 30, the 211th day of 2025. There are 154 days left in the year. Today in history: On July 30, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making 'In God We Trust' the national motto, replacing 'E Pluribus Unum.' Also on this date: In 1619, the first representative assembly in Colonial America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony. In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Virginia, by exploding a gunpowder-laden mine shaft beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed. In 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey, killing about a dozen people. In 1930, Uruguay won the first FIFA World Cup, defeating Argentina 4-2. In 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands during World War II, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 316 out of nearly 1,200 service members survived. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which led to the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. In 1976, Bruce Jenner, now known as Caitlyn Jenner, set a world record of 8,618 points and won the gold medal in the Olympic decathlon at the Montreal Summer Games. In 2008, ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was extradited to The Hague to face genocide charges after nearly 13 years on the run. (He was sentenced by a U.N. court in 2019 to life imprisonment after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.) In 2012, three electric grids in India collapsed in a cascade, cutting power to 620 million people in the world's biggest blackout. In 2013, U.S. Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy — the most serious charge she faced — but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges at Fort Meade, Maryland, more than three years after she'd spilled secrets to WikiLeaks. (The former intelligence analyst was later sentenced to up to 35 years in prison, but the sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in his final days in office.) In 2016, 16 people died when a hot air balloon caught fire and exploded after hitting high-tension power lines before crashing into a pasture near Lockhart, Texas, about 70 miles northeast of San Antonio. Today's Birthdays: Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is 91. Blues musician Buddy Guy is 89. Singer Paul Anka is 84. Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is 78. Actor Jean Reno is 77. Actor Ken Olin is 71. Actor Delta Burke is 69. Law professor Anita Hill is 69. Singer-songwriter Kate Bush is 67. Film director Richard Linklater is 65. Actor Laurence Fishburne is 64. TV personality Alton Brown is 63. Actor Lisa Kudrow is 62. Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Mullin is 62. Actor Vivica A. Fox is 61. Actor Terry Crews is 57. Actor Simon Baker is 56. Film director Christopher Nolan is 55. Actor Tom Green is 54. Actor Christine Taylor is 54. Actor Hilary Swank is 51. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Misty May-Treanor is 48. Actor Jaime Pressly is 48. Alt-country singer-musician Seth Avett (AY'-veht) is 45. Former soccer player Hope Solo is 44. Actor Yvonne Strahovski is 43. Actor Martin Starr is 43. Actor Gina Rodriguez is 41. Actor Nico Tortorella is 36. Actor Joey King is 26.
Ammon
29-07-2025
- Science
- Ammon
National Aeronautics and Space Administration established
Criticized for allowing the Soviet Union to launch the first man-made satellite to orbit Earth (Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957), U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation this day in 1958 that created NASA. Britannica
Atlantic
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
The Pulpit Wasn't Made for This
Growing up, I went to a politically active church that frequently had politicians visit. My pastor recognized them as visitors during the announcements, but he did not invite them to speak. He usually said the same thing: 'I have my political opinions, but I won't say them here. Ask me outside of church.' His stance was in line with an IRS regulation dating to the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, which said nonprofit organizations, including churches, could not endorse political candidates. The IRS recently changed its rules to allow houses of worship to make such endorsements. But as a pastor of a church and a professor who teaches future ministers at a divinity school, I hope my fellow clergy won't act on this new freedom. This is not to say that churches should remain altogether silent on politics. I was raised in the southern Black church tradition, which did not have the luxury of separating spiritual and political matters. Our churches came into existence when slavery was the law of the land. My ancestors were forced to answer the question: Were the laws of enslavement what God intended for our people? I am grateful for those who said that God willed abolition and liberation, for those who took a political question—how to understand slavery—and answered it theologically. 'The Church should concern itself solely with spiritual matters' can be uttered only by those whose ancestors never felt the sting of the whip and the chain. Bearing witness against unjust laws is essential. Endorsing candidates, however, is likely to be destructive. Over the past two decades, I have served in churches on three continents and weighed in on political issues in print and from the pulpit. But I have never felt that making direct affirmations of political candidates was necessary to serve my congregations well. I don't want my members to believe that being faithful to God entails voting in exactly the same way as their pastor. The difference between making moral judgments and endorsing candidates may seem slight, but it respects the conscience and liberty of laypeople. Very few candidates tick all the moral boxes of any religious tradition. Voting involves considering the office to which a person is elected and the types of influence that they could have on a given issue. Christians of goodwill can weigh these matters and come to divergent conclusions. Believers may decide to refrain from voting or choose a third party because, in their view, neither majority candidate is acceptable. To believe that churches can direct the laity on how to vote, whether for members of the school board or for the president of the country, is to deny the Christian teaching that all humans are made in the image of God and can understand and follow his will themselves. The IRS justified its change by saying that pastoral endorsements are 'like a family discussion concerning candidates.' Although the Church often describes itself as a family, the analogy does not hold when it comes to endorsements. Many churches livestream their services on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. The only families that broadcast their dinners to thousands of people are on reality TV. If a large, influential church endorses candidates, it will not be a family matter; it will be national news. This in turn could put pressure on other churches to issue counter-endorsements. Remaining neutral might be seen as a stance in itself. Pastors of churches large and small run the risk of being drawn into endorsement wars. Pastoral endorsements heighten American political divisions. Studies have long shown that Democrats and Republicans tend to get their information from separate media outlets and to run in different social circles. Churches are among the few places attempting to gather people from across the political spectrum. Endorsements, however, may lead congregants to attend churches that support their favored candidates, turning a previously neutral gathering space into a politically charged one. David Brooks: What happened to American conservatism? Because of these risks, some Christian denominations resist making political endorsements regardless of what the government allows. The Catholic Church, for example, teaches that the Church, 'because of her commission and competence, is not to be confused in any way with the political community.' To keep that distinction clear, Catholic clergy are usually prohibited from running for political office. Nonetheless, priests and other church officials are free to make 'moral judgments' on political matters. Endorsing candidates would be not an expansion of the Church's work, but a reduction. When the Catholic saint Thomas More was martyred for running afoul of King Henry VIII, he was credited with saying, 'I die the King's good servant and God's first.' The point being, the Church is most useful to the state when it reminds the government of the limits of its authority. I do not believe that Donald Trump's IRS, with its regulation change, was motivated by a desire to help the Church serve God and love our neighbors well. Instead, I believe that the government thinks the new policy will be politically useful, even if it weakens relationships and threatens the health of our communities. The change is an attempt to get pastors to use the pulpit for ends for which it was never intended—a temptation we would do better to resist.
Indianapolis Star
10-07-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
Data centers are inevitable, but why should Indiana pay for their energy demand?
Indiana has given $168 million in subsidies for data centers, which are projected to more than double the state's electricity demand very quickly while only creating a few dozen jobs. As a result, despite its already tight fiscal budget, the state has started planning to massively expand its energy grid, even looking decades into the future to invest in an emerging small modular nuclear reactor industry. It is very problematic that large industries get these massive tax breaks while electricity costs soar for the average consumer in Indiana. Artificial intelligence, after all, is a vital national security asset, the federal government is responsible for regulating interstate commerce and we are competing with geopolitical enemies like China in an arms race to develop it. More: Indiana taxpayers shouldn't subsidize $168M in data center corporate welfare | Opinion If the federal government wants to win that race, it needs to step in and give regular consumers a way to escape energy market volatility or spread the cost of data centers' electricity demand across the nation. The 'Big, Beautiful Bill' phases out energy tax credits, making shielding consumers from energy market volatility much more difficult. This tax credit returned 30% of the cost of a consumer's investment in energy efficiency, including through a solar array for their homes. Such an array could shield consumers from rate increases while their utility companies invest in expanding grid capacity for data centers. The energy tax credits helped more consumers than they should have, to be sure, but could be brought back at a much lower cost if they were limited only to homeowners, rather than larger businesses, as homeowners would likely have a more difficult time obtaining the credit to invest in solar energy without them. In my case, the federal tax credit enabled me to obtain a solar energy loan that costs less per month than my electricity bill otherwise would have been. Another solution would involve a major federal investment in energy infrastructure, akin to the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 that built up the interstate as we know it today. The main difficulty preventing the construction of a national interstate highway system was the apportionment of funding between the federal government and the states. The frustration of voters in certain states and localities bearing more of the cost of rapid increases in energy demand due to data center development is the major difficulty preventing the construction of nationwide artificial intelligence infrastructure today. More: Braun's smart IEDC picks must now tackle Indiana's development spending mess | Opinion President Dwight D. Eisenhower, recognizing that an interstate highway infrastructure was a national security issue, nationalized the cost so it would be spread out among all the beneficiaries of the system. The federal government could step in and do the same today to incentivize independent energy producers to fulfill data centers' energy demands rather than investor-owned utilities. This would shield regular consumers from the rapid spike in electricity costs. First, Indiana would have to deregulate their energy supply. Utility monopolies have had complete control over energy distribution in the state in their government-granted service territories since 1983. 'Utilities were fighting over customers and there was no real competition. There weren't independent energy producers or transmission owners… [but] what has happened in the last 20 years is we have had major reforms that have created a competitive wholesale market,' said Kristina Wheeler, former vice president and staff counsel for Indiana Municipal Power Agency and general counsel for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. 'Anyone approved and qualified… [to] build generation or transmission can do so [but] they can't sell directly to any business or home, they have to go through the utilities that existed in 1983.' As such, utilities are able to keep a chokehold on their service territories. Takanock, Inc., for example, aims to develop data centers and provide 'reliable and resilient power solutions for those facilities.' They tried to purchase energy from producers independently from investor-owned utilities, to avoid passing on costs to consumers earlier this year. NIPSCO, however, denied their request, despite allowing many other large-load customers to do so. 'Takanock understands that cost-shifting to 9 other utility customers is a non-starter, and is willing to bear the reasonable costs to extend service to its future data center developments,' Kenneth Davies, founder and CEO of Takanock Inc., wrote in a petition to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. 'We also believe there are reasonable regulatory methods to protect consumers and balance the interests of the significant economic development these projects will bring to Indiana.' Georgia recently resolved this issue by forcing utility companies to allow large-load customers like data centers to buy energy from independent producers. 'Everybody should have an opportunity to serve and take on the associated risk, and my concern is what's been happening in Indiana is we're just being very protective of those legacy providers,' Wheeler added. Reliable Energy, Inc. is working toward leveling the playing field in Indiana for independent energy producers, and recently won a settlement requiring Duke Energy to study if their coal plants could be sold to a third party instead of being retired. If our energy supply were deregulated, and the federal government were able to invest in independent energy production facilities, they would likely focus on natural gas-fired power plants, since they are one of the cheapest to build. Just 10 new data centers proposed in the state will likely require 9,700 megawatts of energy. Building natural gas-fired power plants to fulfill this demand would likely cost around $7,954,000,000, or $820 per kilowatt of energy based on national average construction costs from 2022. However, natural gas plant construction by Indiana's legacy utilities routinely runs more than double that amount per kilowatt, likely due to the cost of aging infrastructure. Duke's Cayuga power plant and NIPSCO's R.M. Schahfer gas peaker plant are two such examples. For comparison, data centers built across the country in 2024 only added around 7,000 megawatts of demand to the energy grid. If nationwide trends continue, expanding the grid would only require a $5,740,000,000 yearly investment from the federal government. The federal government is one of the few entities capable of making such large investments, but could easily recoup the cost by requiring these energy producers to return a percentage of plant profits until the capital costs are paid off. The federal government already spends around $20 billion to subsidize the fossil fuel industry simply to lower energy costs, and does not get most of this money back. The Chips and Science Act involved a $52 billion investment in semiconductor manufacturing, so comparatively, it would be a small investment to prepare the energy grid to meet the demand of data centers. It has taken mass blackouts and electricity rationing for China to treat energy production like the national security issue it is. Hopefully, Indiana and the U.S. will take action before then, otherwise the utility monopolies' stranglehold on consumers will continue, and energy will become increasingly unaffordable.
