Two U.S. pilots die in Afghanistan crash
KABUL, Afghanistan, July 18 (UPI) -- Two U.S. jet fighter pilots died Saturday when their F-15E crashed in eastern Afghanistan, officials said.
Their deaths brought the American death toll in Afghanistan to 26 for July, and 50 for the NATO-led coalition, making it the deadliest month yet for Western forces in the 8-year-old Afghan conflict, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The upsurge in deaths among U.S., British and Canadian troops are a result of a build-up of troops and a push into insurgent-controlled areas of the country, military officials say, warning of more casualties in the coming months.
Military officials told the Times they were conducting an investigation of the jet crash, but have ruled out the possibility it was shot down by enemy fire.
"The crash was not due to hostile fire," U.S. forces in Afghanistan said in a statement.
World's oldest man dies in Britain at 113BRIGHTON, England, July 18 (UPI) -- A Briton thought to be the world's oldest man -- and one of the few remaining World War I veterans -- has died at age 113, The Guardian reported Saturday.
The newspaper said Henry William Allingham, died Saturday morning at the St. Dunstan's care home in Ovingdean, near Brighton, East Sussex.
Allingham, who spent many years working for the Ford Motor Co. before retiring in 1961, spent 80 years refusing to talk about his experiences in the war, but later opened up and told researchers he endured horrific sights, and was present at the Battle of Ypres, observing men waiting to go "over the top."
"They would just stand there in two feet of water in mud-filled trenches, waiting to go forward," he said. "They knew what was coming. It was pathetic to see those men like that. I don't think they have ever got the admiration and respect they deserved."
The Guardian said Allingham began attending war remembrance events, visited schools to talk to children a century younger than he, and wrote an autobiography that was published last October.
Allingham is survived by five grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great grandchildren and one great-great-great grandchild, the newspaper said.
CBS News chief: Cronkite had swayNEW YORK, July 18 (UPI) -- Today's young U.S. media consumers have a hard time comprehending the sway Walter Cronkite had on the country, CBS News President Sean McManus says.
McManus, in an interview with Saturday's New York Times, said he struggled to describe to his own children an era in which the media was not yet fragmented, and how longtime "CBS Evening News" anchor Cronkite, who died Friday at age 92, dominated the industry.
"There probably will never be anybody who has the presence and the stature and the importance that Walter Cronkite had in this country," McManus said he told his children, ages 8 and 10. "I tried to explain to them that most people in America expected to get both good and bad news from one man, and that was Walter Cronkite. That will never be duplicated again."
McManus told the Times that young people are now so assaulted by constant streams of media it's hard for them to imagine a time when only four television networks provided most Americans' only visual connection to the wider world.
The CBS News chief said Cronkite paid an unannounced call to the newsroom in Manhattan a little more than a year ago.
CDC expects to have enough H1N1 vaccineATLANTA, July 18 (UPI) -- The U.S. government is planning for widespread H1N1 vaccination in the fall but federal officials say they are not worried about having enough vaccine.
"The yields, what we have heard about yields, is consistent with the way we were planning and we haven't heard news that has changed our expectations for vaccine availability in the fall," Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said at a telephone news conference.
"As you know, manufacturing is a challenging business and there can be additional surprises. Based on what has been described to us so far, it's within the range of our planning assumptions but that doesn't mean we won't have more surprises."
While the H1N1 flu has been decreasing overall in the United States, the CDC expects flu activity to start rising again in September, ahead of the regular flu season, when children return to school, Schuchat said.
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to hold a meeting at the end of July to discuss which populations should be targeted for the H1N1 flu vaccine and whether prioritizing would be appropriate, Schuchat told reporters.
Five-way meeting proposed without N. KoreaSEOUL, July 18 (UPI) -- The United States would resume disarmament talks with North Korea if that nation abandons its nuclear ambitions, a senior U.S. envoy said Saturday.
In the meantime, the United States will continue to back sanctions against North Korea, Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told reporters in Seoul.
North Korea launched a long-range rocket in April and conducted a second nuclear test in May, prompting the United Nations Security Council to impose new sanctions.
The United States is discussing a meeting with South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan, the five nations previously involved in disarmament talks with North Korea, Campbell said. A five-way meeting without North Korea "makes sense," Campbell said.
China, however, is concerned such a meeting would make North Korea feel more isolated and negatively impact six-party disarmament talks, should they ever resume, Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.
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