Connecting - July 23, 2024

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July 23, 2024

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Colleagues,

Good Tuesday morning on this July 23, 2024,

A recent story in the Concord Monitor called our colleague Norm Abelson a vivid storyteller.

No surprise to us, say his Connecting colleagues who have been treated to his stories and poetry for years.

We lead with the Monitor story in today’s Connecting that focuses on Norm and another prolific writer in her 90s, Ellen Oppenheimer. Both are outstanding people - and you'll learn about their fascinating lives and marvel over such people.

In a letter to the editor, in response to the article (which he had shared with Connecting), our colleague Adolphe Bernotas wrote:

“Thank you for the Weekend Monitor’s story about Ellen Oppenheimer and my dear friend and colleague Norm Abelson. Marguerite and I visit him, Magdalene and his late wife Dina’s memories at least annually in Maine. Norm, 10 years my senior, mentored me in New Hampshire politics when I arrived in Concord to take a job with Associated Press in 1967, a career that would last 39 years.

“Nowadays, Norm is known in a special circle of AP retirees as ‘the Bard of Connecting.’ Hardly a week goes by when Norm’s poetry, anecdotes, or adventures in his Boston area upbringing, journalism, politics or his Southern Maine University course on memoirs doesn’t appear in Connecting, a five-day-a-week digital newsletter. Bravo to Monitor writer Sophie Levenson."

CORRECTIONS: In a story in Monday’s issue, the photographer who took the Pulitzer Prize-winning Iwo Jima photo was incorrectly referred to as Abe Rosenthal. Heavenly apologies to AP's Joe Rosenthal.

In the Best of AP feature on Monday, the name of Gene Puskar is misspelled in the headline and credit line. It is spelled correctly in the body of the story.

Finally, let me beat you to the punch on an item in today's Connecting by a four-legged contributor: Connecting has indeed gone to the dogs!

Here’s to a great day – be safe, stay healthy, live it to your fullest.

Paul

Living history keeps the past alive

In their 90s, Norm Abelson and Ellen Oppenheimer remain vivid storytellers

By SOPHIE LEVENSON

Concord Monitor

Norman Abelson sometimes has trouble remembering what happened five minutes ago, but stories from decades ago stick like glue.

He recalls with incredible detail the time his local rabbi knocked on his front door at midnight in the 1950s, John F. Kennedy’s funeral in 1963, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which he saw firsthand.

He remembers all the details of the stories of his life and everything he ever learned about Auschwitz from his late wife, Dina, and her family.

Dina survived Auschwitz as a young woman before she and her remaining family were able to escape to the United States. Abelson, a former writer for the Associated Press, has spent decades learning and telling her story, doing his best to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.

So has Ellen Oppenheimer, with her own story. She and her immediate family narrowly escaped Nazi Germany in 1942 after it became perilous to be Jewish. Oppenheimer, who lives in Concord — where Abelson spent most of his life — published the story of her family’s journey in a memoir called “Flight to Freedom,” which came out in 2017.

The 38,000 or so Holocaust survivors left in the U.S. are all over the age of 78, and most of them are older than 85, according to the Claims Conference, an organization that provides resources to those survivors around the world. English is rarely a first language for them, and the Washington Post reported in 2021 that a third of the survivors in America live in poverty. Their numbers are shrinking; their stories are drifting away.

Read more here. Shared by Adolphe Bernotas.

Your first job with the AP

Henry Bradsher - My first AP job was in Atlanta. After three years as an Air Force intelligence officer, I returned home to Baton Rouge in May 1955 with the hope of becoming an AP foreign correspondent -- something I had decided upon by junior high school. In editing my 1948 high school yearbook, I specified that I would later report for AP from India, whose 1947 partition horrors had held my Time-magazine-reading interest. I became an AP correspondent in India in 1959.

After the Air Force, on the understanding that it was temporary, the local morning paper (edited by a classmate of my mother's) hired me as a reporter at minimum wage, $55 a week, affordable while living with my parents. I went down to AP's New Orleans bureau to take the application test.

When my application, specifying my desire to become a foreign correspondent, circulated around, it was noted by Lew Hawkins, the Atlanta bureau chief. He was the man in AP's London bureau who had taken Edward Kennedy's phone call and filed what was probably a flash: GERMANY SURRENDERS -- that led to Kennedy's being fired for (quite justifiably) breaking an invalid embargo.

I began work in Atlanta in October 1955. At first, I did odd jobs, mostly rewriting regional material for the wires. When not working mornings, I sometimes went to the Georgia legislature to try to take down speeches in Gregg shorthand that I was seeking to master (but never did really master, only using for some frequently used words).

After several months, I was moved to the radio desk to rewrite wire stories of interest in Georgia and Alabama into short, readily readable sentences. These summaries were punched into the teletype system by the unionized teletype operators for the few regularly scheduled splits to member radio stations.

Sometimes radio desk shifts were days, sometimes into the night before departing after midnight, leaving material to be transmitted to members by 6 a.m. or so.

One Sunday afternoon when I was working, a string of tornadoes swept across Alabama, causing significant loss of life and heavy damage. Wire stories poured in from Birmingham and Montgomery. I kept batting out readable accounts, but no scheduled splits were coming up. So I asked the desk man in charge of the bureau if I could get a special split. He talked to the operators. Well, it was unusual, and they had their own union working schedule. But, finally, one agreed to put in some extra time to make the special update for stations.

It was 1 a.m. or so when I finally departed for my bachelor pad, leaving tornado summaries and other material for the regular early morning split.

Soon after in early 1956, Lew sent me over to Montgomery to replace the third man in Rex Thomas's bureau there. Rex had decided that man was not up to handling the rising pressure of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s bus boycott.

Rex was a great boss, teaching me a lot. And, being a touch typist, I quickly learned to punch teletype tape myself and transmit, since Montgomery lacked an operator in my night hours. That was a talent that later served me well on Moscow's teletype to London and in other places.

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Bill McCloskey - I had to do a little research to find my start date because it was close to New Year's Day. As I now recall, my AP start date at APRadio Washington was January 1, 1975, and my last day at Metromedia was January 1, 1975. I got paid for the holiday by both companies and didn't have to go to work.

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Jim Reindl - I started my 32-year career with AP in my hometown bureau, Detroit. It was January 1983. I had just graduated from the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Reporting at Ohio State with my MA in September 1982. Newspapers were suffering a recession (how familiar) but I did get a series of interviews with some Gannett papers. I managed to blow them all in one innovative way or another from being the only one to order a drink at the interview dinner with a group of editors at one paper to laughing at the ridiculous test assignment at another. Classy.

My friend had a job at a once famous but dying marketing company in Detroit and he got me a temporary gig cleaning out an old film warehouse. I vented my frustration at being jobless by flinging the round cinema cans across the room (then cleaning them up).

In desperation and with my wedding date getting closer and closer, I decided to call the AP and see if I could take the test. I had always thought of myself as a newspaper man, having started at the Muskegon Chronicle five years earlier. I showed up to test with my AP Stylebook under my arm and no one said I couldn’t use it. Of course, that didn’t help my notoriously bad spelling and about a week later a letter showed up at my folks’ house where I was living in the basement. I opened it assuming I’d be a film warehouse cleaner the rest of my life given the collection of Gannett rejections I had amassed.

Instead, I found a note from CoB Chuck Green inviting me to interview but with the notation that I had missed an inordinate number of spelling words. I still remember showing up for that interview at the old Edison Plaza bureau and surveying the room. I didn’t know who I was looking at then, but it was Mike Graczyk in the news editor’s seat, Rick Vernaci in the Day Desk slot and Mark Berns working the broadcast desk. All taught me more than I can thank them for and all became good friends (RIP Rick).

And I’ll never forget the day soon after my hire when I was on a day shift and Chuck walked by me on his way to his office. He clapped one of his big hands on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry about that master’s degree son, it’ll pay off for you someday.” Then he kept walking, laughing heartily into his office.

Whether it did or didn’t is irrelevant to the best career a former warehouse janitor could have asked for.

Connecting mailbox

As time marches on

Paul Albright - My wife frequently browses through nearby estate sales and has stockpiled attractive birthday, graduation, anniversary, and holiday cards to send to family and friends. As time has marched on, however, she now bypasses those types of cards and focuses instead on condolence and sympathy cards that, unfortunately, are increasingly put into use.

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Kathy Willens made her own breaks

John Doman – a friend who posted this on Facebook when Kathy retired in 2021 and reposted after her death – My friend Kathy Willens' last day as a staff photographer for The Associated Press in New York City will be next Wednesday, June 30, 2021. Her bittersweet day of retirement. Kathy started out in the business in the early seventies on suburban papers near to her hometown in Detroit, Michigan. One of the jobs was at the Observer & Eccentric newspapers. She had what I consider to be the most delightful photo byline of "Eccentric photo by Kathy Willens." Delightful maybe--but not enough to keep a talented young woman from widening her horizons and proving her ability. However, this was not a time when there were many women on photo staffs, nor were editors much interested in hiring them. It was going to take a whole lot of dedication and some true grit and talent to attain.

She pushed and pushed and eventually landed a place as a lab technician at the Miami News, at age 24.

Kathy made her own breaks--sheer determination, lots of extra hours and the legendary chief photographer Charlie Trainor, Sr., invited her to join the staff.

After a year and a half of outstanding work at the News, she received an offer to join the Miami Bureau of the Associated Press. She talked to Trainor and he honestly advised her to take the offer. The News was a wonderful newspaper but was losing the circulation battle to the morning Miami Herald.

Kathy's abilities blossomed and grew in a town afire with daily news--hot times in the tropics. The only woman on a small important staff-- The AP staffers, led by bureau photo chief Phil Sandlin, another living legend, were beset with almost constant daily national headline news. From "Cocaine Cowboys" to the McDuffie riots and other racial conflagrations to the Cuban "Mariel Boat Lift, and Hurricane Andrew; it just seemed to go on day after day.

Football was really big—great Miami Dolphin teams, University of Miami Hurricanes, Orange Bowls, Super Bowls--oftentimes Kathy and the cheerleaders were the only women on the sidelines. She always persevered with style, humor and excellent photography.

New York City called--Kathy Willens answered. Another great news town, probably the best. Kathy covered it all...with an emphasis on the New York Yankees. International travel, every sport imaginable, disasters, a couple of wars, Pope and Presidential visitations, the aftermath of 9/11, COVID in the city. Most all of it.

Kathy and I have been best friends for many years--since my Miami days. My daughters have her as their "fairy” Godmother. We've traveled to Cuba together, ran the streets of NYC together, gone birdwatching in the rain of upstate New York, were invited to thumb through the photo files at The Baseball Hall of Fame, watched meteor showers at Martha"s Vineyard, canoed and chased after eagles and loons on Minnesota's North Shore.

Kathy is a slightly statured giant. She paved the way for a lot of women in photojournalism--with a wonderful disposition and determination she faced down a lot of sweaty old camera-carrying guys who really didn't want her or any other “girls” in their closed fraternity.

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Bird walking in the park

Ollie Stevens – as relayed by Paul Stevens – So here we were, minding our own business in my private Lenexa park, Sar Ko Par Trails, sniffing out all the new scents and marking my own territory and allowing kids and adults of all ages to pet me, when out of the blue this lady with a strange white creature on her shoulder came walking toward us. “What the heck is that?” I barked to Paul. Instead of whisking me away, he introduced a nervous me to the lady and the 10-year-old cockatoo on her shoulder.

I was a bit dazed and confused, but when I learned the bird was a rescue, like me, well, I made myself a new friend. Paul asked if I would allow the bird to sit on my back - "People Magazine would snap it up!" he exclaimed. I respectfully demurred. People can wait.

Connecting wishes Happy Birthday

Hank Ackerman

Roger Schneider

Stories of interest

One Night of TV Canceled a President (New York Times)

By James Poniewozik

As soon as TV sets landed in American living rooms, media critics worried that television would dominate politics, and the medium wasted no time proving them right. Richard M. Nixon lost in 1960 to the glamorous John F. Kennedy after a shaky, sweaty debate that played better for him on the radio. After Ronald Reagan zingered his way to a second term in 1984, Neil Postman wrote that in the TV era, “debates were conceived as boxing matches.”

But not until now had a president KO’ed himself in one round.

On Sunday, President Biden announced his withdrawal from the 2024 campaign, ending an astounding disintegration that began with Mr. Biden’s discombobulated debate against Donald J. Trump late in June. Mr. Biden released his decision on X, formerly Twitter, but the moment recalled when Lyndon B. Johnson made a similar announcement on TV in 1968, or perhaps when Mr. Nixon resigned the presidency 50 years ago.

This collapse, however, was not the result of an overseas war. There was no break-in and coverup. There was simply a horrendous TV outing — less than two hours that changed history.

Read more here. Shared by Dennis Conrad.

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US-Russian journalist convicted in a rapid, secret trial, gets 6 1/2 years in prison, court says (AP)

BY DASHA LITVINOVA

The Associated Press

A court has convicted Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, of spreading false information about the Russian army and sentenced her to 6½ years in prison after a secret trial, court records and officials said Monday.

Kurmasheva’s family, her employer and the U.S. government have rejected the charges against her and have called for her release.

The conviction in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s central region of Tatarstan, came on Friday, the same day a court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in prison in a case that the U.S. called politically motivated.

Kurmasheva, a 47-year-old editor for RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir language service, was convicted of “spreading false information” about the military after a trial that lasted just two days, according to the website of the Supreme Court of Tatarstan. Court spokesperson Natalya Loseva confirmed Kurmasheva’s conviction and revealed the sentence to The Associated Press by phone in the case classified as secret.

Read more here.

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Trump wins round in libel suit against Pulitzer Prize Board over Russia stories (Politico)

By JOSH GERSTEIN

Donald Trump scored a significant court win Saturday as a state judge in Florida turned down attempts by the Pulitzer Prize Board to toss out a libel lawsuit Trump filed in 2022 relating to a series of reports in the New York Times and Washington Post on the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

In a 14-page ruling issued Saturday, Senior Judge Robert Pegg turned down arguments from the prominent journalism awards panel that their decision to bestow the national reporting prize on the staffs of the two newspapers in 2018 amounted to a statement of “pure opinion” rather than fact.

The libel suit does not hinge directly on the articles the Times and Post published about the Trump campaign’s links to Russia or on the decision to award the Pulitzer to the newspapers.

Instead, the case focuses on the board’s decision in 2022 to publicly reaffirm those awards despite repeated complaints by Trump that the the stories contained numerous falsehoods and were undermined by the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation into those issues.

Read more here. Shared by Carl Robinson.

The Final Word

Happy birthday, Edward Hopper

Happy birthday to Edward Hopper—born on this day (July 22) in 1882.

Recognized around the world, "Nighthawks" presents an all-night American diner. Three customers sit at the counter opposite a server; each appears to be lost in thought and disengaged from one another. As viewers, we are left to wonder about the figures, their relationships, and this imagined world. Hopper recollected, “unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.”

Explore this beautiful, yet enigmatic scene—on display in Gallery 262 of the Art Institute. (Hopper died in 1967.)

(Shared by Bill Hood)

AP classes, by the year...

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a listing of Connecting colleagues who have shared the year and the bureau where they started with the AP. If you would like to share your own information, I will include it in later postings. Current AP staffers are also welcome to share their information.)

1951 - Norm Abelson (Boston)

1953 – Charles Monzella (Huntington, WVa)

1955 – Henry Bradsher (Atlanta), Paul Harrington (Boston), Joe McGowan (Cheyenne)

1957 - Louis Uchitelle (Philadelphia)

1958 – Roy Bolch (Kansas City)

1959 – Charlie Bruce (Montgomery)

1960 – Claude Erbsen (New York), Carl Leubsdorf (New Orleans)

1961 – Peter Arnett (Jakarta, Indonesia), Strat Douthat (Charleston. WVa), Warren Lerude (San Diego), Ed Staats (Austin)

1962 – Paul Albright (Cheyenne), Malcolm Barr Sr. (Honolulu), Myron Belkind (New York), Peggy Simpson (Dallas), Kelly Smith Tunney (Miami)

1963 – Hal Bock (New York)

1964 – Rachel Ambrose (Indianapolis), Larry Hamlin (Oklahoma City), John Lengel (Los Angeles), Ron Mulnix (Denver), Lyle Price (San Francisco), Arlene Sposato (New York), Hilmi Toros (New York)

1965 – Bob Dobkin (Pittsburgh), Harry Dunphy (Denver), John Gibbons (New York), Jim Luther (Nashville), Larry Margasak (Harrisburg), Rich Oppel (Tallahassee)

1966 – Shirley Christian (Kansas City), Mike Doan (Portland, OR), Edie Lederer (New York), Nancy Shipley (Nashville), Mike Short (Los Angeles), Marty Thompson (Seattle), Nick Ut (Saigon), Kent Zimmerman (Chicago)

1967 – Dan Berger (Los Angeles), Adolphe Bernotas (Concord), Lou Boccardi (New York), Linda Deutsch (Los Angeles), Don Harrison (Los Angeles), Doug Kienitz (Cheyenne), David Liu (New York), Bruce Lowitt (Los Angeles), Chuck McFadden (Los Angeles), Martha Malan (Minneapolis), Bill Morrissey (Buffalo), Larry Paladino (Detroit), Michael Putzel (Raleigh), Bruce Richardson (Chicago), Richard Shafer (Baltimore), Victor Simpson (Newark), Michael Sniffen (Newark), Kernan Turner (Portland, Ore)

1968 – Lee Balgemann (Chicago), John Eagan (San Francisco), Joe Galu (Albany/Troy), Peter Gehrig (Frankfurt), Charles Hanley (Albany), Jerry Harkavy (Portland, Maine), Herb Hemming (New York), Brian King (Albany), Samuel Koo (New York), Karren Mills (Minneapolis), Michael Rubin (Los Angeles), Rick Spratling (Salt Lake City), Barry Sweet (Seattle)

1969 - Ann Blackman (New York), Ford Burkhart (Philadelphia), Dick Carelli (Charleston, WVa), Dennis Coston (Richmond), Mary V. Gordon (Newark), Daniel Q. Haney (Portland, Maine), Mike Harris (Chicago), Brad Martin (Kansas City), David Minthorn (Frankfurt), Cynthia Rawitch (Los Angeles), Bob Reid (Charlotte), Mike Reilly (New York), Doug Tucker (Tulsa), Bill Winter (Helena)

1970 – Richard Boudreaux (New York), Richard Drew (San Francisco), Bob Egelko (Los Angeles), Steve (Indy) Herman (Indianapolis), Tim Litsch (New York), Lee Margulies (Los Angeles), Chris Pederson (Salt Lake City), Brendan Riley (San Francisco), Larry Thorson (Philadelphia)

1971 – Harry Atkins (Detroit), Jim Bagby (Kansas City), Larry Blasko (Chicago), Jim Carlson (Milwaukee), Jim Carrier (New Haven), Chris Connell (Newark), Bill Gillen (New York), Bill Hendrick (Birmingham), John Lumpkin (Dallas), Kendal Weaver (Montgomery)

1972 – Hank Ackerman (New York), Bob Fick (St. Louis), Joe Frazier (Portland, Ore.), Terry Ganey (St. Louis), Mike Graczyk (Detroit), Denis Gray (Albany), Lindel Hutson (Little Rock), Brent Kallestad (Sioux Falls), Tom Kent (Hartford), Nolan Kienitz (Dallas), Andy Lippman (Phoenix), Ellen Miller (Helena), Mike Millican (Hartford), Lew Wheaton (Richmond)

1973 - Jerry Cipriano (New York), Susan Clark (New York), Norm Clarke (Cincinnati), Joe Galianese (East Brunswick), Merrill Hartson (Richmond), Mike Hendricks (Albany), Tom Journey (Tucson), Steve Loeper (Los Angeles), Tom Slaughter (Sioux Falls), Jim Spehar (Denver), Paul Stevens (Albany), Jeffrey Ulbrich (Cheyenne), Owen Ullmann (Detroit), John Willis (Omaha), Evans Witt (San Francisco)

1974 – Norman Black (Baltimore), David Espo (Cheyenne), Dan George (Topeka), Robert Glass (Philadelphia), Steve Graham (Helena), Tim Harper (Milwaukee), Elaine Hooker (Hartford), Sue Price Johnson (Charlotte), Dave Lubeski (Washington), Janet McConnaughey (Washington), Lee Mitgang (New York), Barry Shlachter (Tokyo), Bud Weydert (Toledo), Marc Wilson (Little Rock)

1975 – Peter Eisner (Columbus), David Powell (New York), Eileen Alt Powell (Milwaukee)

1976 – Brad Cain (Chicago), Judith Capar (Philadelphia), Dick Chady (Albany), Steve Crowley (Washington), David Egner (Oklahoma City), Marc Humbert (Albany), Steven Hurst (Columbus), Richard Lowe (Nashville), John Nolan (Nashville), Charlotte Porter (Minneapolis), Chuck Wolfe (Charlotte)

1977 – Bryan Brumley (Washington), Robert Burns (Jefferson City), Charles Campbell (Nashville), Carolyn Carlson (Atlanta), Dave Carpenter (Philadelphia), Ken Herman (Dallas), Mike Holmes (Des Moines), Brad Kalbfeld (New York), Scott Kraft (Jefferson City), John Kreiser (New York), Peter Leabo (Dallas), Kevin LeBoeuf (Los Angeles), Ellen Nimmons (Minneapolis), Dan Sewell (Buffalo), Estes Thompson (Richmond), David Tirrell-Wysocki (Concord)

1978 – Tom Eblen (Louisville), Ruth Gersh (Richmond), Monte Hayes (Caracas), Doug Pizac (Los Angeles), Charles Richards (Dallas), Reed Saxon (Los Angeles), Steve Wilson (Boston)

1979 – Jim Abrams (Tokyo), Brian Bland (Los Angeles), Scotty Comegys (Chicago), John Daniszewski (Philadelphia), Frances D’Emilio (San Francisco), Pat Fergus (Albany), Brian Friedman (Des Moines), Sally Hale (Dallas), Jill Lawrence (Harrisburg), Warren Levinson (New York), Barry Massey (Kansas City), Phillip Rawls (Nashville), John Rice (Carson City), Linda Sargent (Little Rock), Joel Stashenko (Albany), Robert Wielaard (Brussels)

1980 – Alan Adler (Cleveland), Christopher Bacey (New York), Jeff Barnard (Providence), Mark Duncan (Cleveland), Bill Kaczor (Tallahassee), Mitchell Landsberg (Reno), Kevin Noblet (New Orleans), Jim Rowley (Baltimore), David Speer (Jackson), Hal Spencer (Providence), Carol J. Williams (Seattle)

1981 – Paul Davenport (Phoenix), Dan Day (Milwaukee), John Flesher (Raleigh), Len Iwanski (Bismarck), Ed McCullough (Albany), Drusilla Menaker (Philadelphia), Kim Mills (New York), Mark Mittelstadt (Des Moines), Roland Rochet (New York), Lee Siegel (Seattle), Marty Steinberg (Baltimore), Bill Vogrin (Kansas City)

1982 – Dorothy Abernathy (Little Rock), Al Behrman (Cincinnati), Tom Cohen (Jefferson City), John Epperson (Chicago), Ric Feld (Atlanta), Nick Geranios (Helena), Howard Gros (New Orleans), Robert Kimball (New York), Rob Kozloff (Detroit), Bill Menezes (Kansas City), David Ochs (New York)

1983 – Scott Charton (Little Rock), Sue Cross (Columbus), Mark Elias (Chicago), Diana Heidgerd (Miami), Sheila Norman-Culp (New York), Carol Esler Ochs (New York), Amy Sancetta (Philadelphia), Rande Simpson (New York), Dave Skidmore (Milwaukee)

1984 – Owen Canfield (Oklahoma City), Wayne Chin (Washington), Jack Elliott (Oklahoma City), Kelly P. Kissel (New Orleans), Joe Macenka (Richmond), Eva Parziale (San Francisco), Walt Rastetter (New York), Keith Robinson (Columbus), Cliff Schiappa (Kansas City), David Sedeño (Dallas), Andrew Selsky (Cheyenne), Patty Woodrow (Washington)

1985 – Beth Grace (Columbus), Betty Kumpf Pizac (Los Angeles)

1986 – Joni Baluh Beall (Richmond), David Beard (Jackson), Tom Coyne (Columbia, SC), Dave DeGrace (Milwaukee), Alan Flippen (Louisville), Jim Gerberich (San Francisco), Howard Goldberg (New York), Mark Hamrick (Dallas), Sandy Kozel (Washington), Robert Meyers (London), David Morris (Harrisburg)

1987 – Donna Abu-Nasr (Beirut), Dave Bauder (Albany), Chuck Burton (Charlotte), Beth Harris (Indianapolis), Lynne Harris (New York), Steven L. Herman (Charleston, WVa), Rosemarie Mileto (New York), John Rogers (Los Angeles)

1988 – Chris Carola (Albany), Peg Coughlin (Pierre), Kathy Gannon (Islamabad), Steve Hart (Washington), Melissa Jordan (Sioux Falls), Bill Pilc (New York), Kelley Shannon (Dallas)

1989 – Ted Bridis (Oklahoma City), Charlie Arbogast (Trenton), Ron Fournier (Little Rock)

1990 – Frank Fisher (Jackson), Dan Perry (Bucharest), Steve Sakson (Baltimore), Sean Thompson (New York)

1991 – Amanda Kell (Richmond), Santiago Lyon (Cairo), Lisa Pane (Hartford), Ricardo Reif (Caracas), Bill Sikes (Buffalo)

1992 – Kerry Huggard (New York)

1993 – Jim Salter (St. Louis)

1995 – Elaine Thompson (Houston), Donna Tommelleo (Hartford)

1996 – Patricia N. Casillo (New York)

1997 – J. David Ake (Chicago), Pamela Collins (Dallas), Madhu Krishnappa Maron (New York), Jim Suhr (Detroit), Jennifer Yates (Baltimore)

2000 – Gary Gentile (Los Angeles)

2006 – Jon Gambrell (Little Rock)

Today in History - July 23, 2024

Today is Tuesday, July 23, the 205th day of 2024. There are 161 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On July 23, 1967, the first of five days of deadly rioting erupted in Detroit as an early morning police raid on an unlicensed bar resulted in a confrontation with local residents, escalating into violence that spread into other parts of the city and resulting in 43 deaths.

Also on this date:

In 1903, the Ford Motor Company sold its first car, a Model A, for $850.

In 1958, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II named the first four women to peerage in the House of Lords.

In 1982, actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were killed when a helicopter crashed on top of them during filming of a Vietnam War scene for “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” (Director John Landis and four associates were later acquitted of manslaughter charges.)

In 1983, an Air Canada Boeing 767 ran out of fuel while flying from Montreal to Edmonton; the pilots were able to glide the jetliner to a safe emergency landing in Gimli, Manitoba. (The near-disaster occurred because the fuel had been erroneously measured in pounds instead of kilograms at a time when Canada was converting to the metric system.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush announced his choice of Judge David Souter of New Hampshire to succeed the retiring Justice William J. Brennan on the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Kerri Strug made a heroic final vault despite torn ligaments in her left ankle as the U.S. women gymnasts clinched their first-ever Olympic team gold medal.

In 1997, the search for Andrew Cunanan, the suspected killer of designer Gianni Versace and others, ended as police found his body on a houseboat in Miami Beach, an apparent suicide.

In 1999, the space shuttle Columbia blasted off with the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope and Eileen Collins became the first woman to command a U.S. space flight.

In 2003, Massachusetts’ attorney general issued a report saying clergy members and others in the Boston Archdiocese had probably sexually abused more than 1,000 people over a period of six decades.

In 2006, Tiger Woods became the first player since Tom Watson in 1982-83 to win consecutive British Open titles.

In 2011, singer Amy Winehouse, 27, was found dead in her London home from accidental alcohol poisoning.

In 2012, Penn State’s football program was all but leveled by penalties for its handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal as the NCAA imposed an unprecedented $60 million fine, a four-year ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it could award.

In 2019, Boris Johnson won the contest to lead Britain’s governing Conservative Party, putting him in line to become the country’s prime minister the following day.

In 2021, Cleveland’s Major League Baseball team, known as the Indians since 1915, announced that it would get a new name, the Guardians, at the end of the 2021 season; the change came amid a push for institutions and teams to drop logos and names that were considered racist.

Today’s Birthdays: Retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is 88. Actor Ronny Cox is 86. Rock singer David Essex is 77. Actor Woody Harrelson is 63. Rock musician Martin Gore (Depeche Mode) is 63. Actor & director Eriq Lasalle is 62. Rock musician Slash is 59. Basketball Hall of Famer Gary Payton is 56. Model-actor Stephanie Seymour is 56. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is 55. Actor Charisma Carpenter is 54. Country singer Alison Krauss is 53. R&B singer Dalvin DeGrate (Jodeci) is 53. Actor-comedian Marlon Wayans is 52. Actor Kathryn Hahn is 51. Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky is 51. Actor Stephanie March is 50. R&B singer Michelle Williams is 45. Actor Paul Wesley is 42. Actor Daniel Radcliffe is 35.

Got a photo or story to share?

Connecting is a daily newsletter published Monday through Friday that reaches more than 1,800 retired and former Associated Press employees, present-day employees, and news industry and journalism school colleagues. It began in 2013. Past issues can be found by clicking Connecting Archive in the masthead. Its author, Paul Stevens, retired from the AP in 2009 after a 36-year career as a newsman in Albany and St. Louis, correspondent in Wichita, chief of bureau in Albuquerque, Indianapolis and Kansas City, and Central Region vice president based in Kansas City.

Got a story to share? A favorite memory of your AP days? Don't keep them to yourself. Share with your colleagues by sending to Ye Olde Connecting Editor. And don't forget to include photos!

Here are some suggestions:

- Connecting "selfies" - a word and photo self-profile of you and your career, and what you are doing today. Both for new members and those who have been with us a while.

- Second chapters - You finished a great career. Now tell us about your second (and third and fourth?) chapters of life.

- Spousal support - How your spouse helped in supporting your work during your AP career.

- My most unusual story - tell us about an unusual, off the wall story that you covered.

- "A silly mistake that you make"- a chance to 'fess up with a memorable mistake in your journalistic career.

- Multigenerational AP families - profiles of families whose service spanned two or more generations.

- Volunteering - benefit your colleagues by sharing volunteer stories - with ideas on such work they can do themselves.

- First job - How did you get your first job in journalism?

- Most unusual place a story assignment took you.

Paul Stevens

Editor, Connecting newsletter

paulstevens46@gmail.com