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END? 83 HC?
Drop Date 17th.
Kid Reporter Damon Weaver Who Interviewed Obama Is Dead At 23
The student reporter who managed to score a sit-down interview at the age of 11 with then-President Barack Obama in 2009 has died at 23, his family announced.
Damon Weaver won America’s heart when the young journalist fired off several questions for Obama during his 10-minute interview in the White House Diplomatic Room. Weaver asked Obama if he got “bullied a lot.” Obama said he just tries to good job and that “keeps me going.”
Weaver also asked if Obama would be willing to play Miami Heat hoops star Dwayne Wade one-on-one. Obama said he’d be willing, even though Wade is a “little bit better at basketball than I am.”
He thanked the president for “making my dream come true.” Weaver asked Obama to become his “homeboy.”
Weaver, a native of Pahokee, Florida, became the youngest person to interview a sitting president.
Weaver died May 1 of natural causes, his sister Candace Hardy told The Palm Beach Post. He was studying communications at Georgia’s Albany State University to fulfill his dream of becoming a sports journalist, and was looking forward to returning to school in the fall, according to Hardy.
She called her brother’s interview with Obama “life-changing for him,” adding that it was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
She said her brother was an inspiration for other children.
“A lot of people looked up to him,” she told the Post. “With him being so young, he made a way for more students to engage in journalism.”
She described her brother as “just a nice person, genuine, very intelligent.” He was a “ball of light with so much energy. He was always a joy to be around. He left an impact on a lot of people,” Hardy said.
On an earlier trip to Washington, D.C., Weaver also interviewed Oprah Winfrey, Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Tucker and LL Cool J.
“I got to interview a lot of famous people, and also I got to be on the red carpet,” he said. “I thought that was cool.”
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/damon-weaver-barack-obama-interview-dead-23-124050009.html
Japan, US, France hold military drill eyeing China presence
KIRISHIMA TRAINING AREA, Japan (AP) — Dozens of Japanese, American and French troops landed amid pouring rain from a CH-47 transport helicopter onto a grassy field at a training area in southern Japan, part of Saturday's joint scenario of defending a remote island from an enemy invasion.
The three nations’ first joint drills on Japanese soil — dubbed “ARC21” and which began Tuesday — come as they seek step up military ties amid growing Chinese assertiveness in the region.
Japanese soldiers and their counterparts from the French army and the U.S. Marine Corps also conducted an urban warfare drill using a concrete building elsewhere at the Japanese Self-Defense Force’s Kirishima Training Area in the southern Miyazaki prefecture. Around 200 troops took part in Saturday's exercises.
On Saturday, the three countries were also joined by Australia in an expanded naval exercise involving 11 warships in the East China Sea, where tensions with China are rising around the island of Taiwan.
The drills come as Japan looks to bolster its military capabilities amid a deepening territorial row with China in regional seas. Japan is increasingly concerned about Chinese activity in and around Japanese-claimed waters surrounding the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands, which Beijing also claims and calls Diaoyu.
Since the end of World War II, Japan’s constitution has limited the use of force to self defense. Japan in recent years has continued to expand its military role, capability and budget.
Japan's Vice Defense Minister Yasuhide Nakayama, who observed the exercise, stressed the significance of French participation in the joint exercises regularly held between Japan and the U.S., and often with Australia.
“It was a valuable opportunity for the Japanese Self-Defense Force to maintain and strengthen its strategic capability necessary to defend our remote islands,” Nakayama said. “Together we were able to show to the rest of the world our commitment in defending Japanese land, territorial seas and airspace.”
France, which has territories in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, has strategic interests in the region.
"It is obviously very important for us because we need to be side by side with people who are sharing this part of the world,” Lt. Col. Henri Marcaillou from the French army told reporters after Saturday's exercise.
U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Jeremy Nelson said the three countries showed they can work together “for a common goal or common cause.”
Britain, which recently adopted a policy of deeper engagement in the region, is sending the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth and its strike group, due to arrive in the region later this year. Germany is also set to deploy a frigate to the region.
Japan and the U.S. have been promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific vision of defense and economic framework based on democratic principles in the area in a group known as the Quad, which also includes Australia and India, seen as a move to counter China's escalating influence in the region.
China has criticized the U.S.-Japanese framework as an exclusionist bloc based on a Cold War-era mindset.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/japan-us-france-hold-military-122455219.html