Nominated China Ambassador Tough on South China Sea
U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to China took a tough line on Tuesday on China's development of "artificial islands" in the South China Sea. "China cannot be allowed to use its artificial islands to coerce its neighbors or limit freedom of navigation or overflight," Iowa's Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said at his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing. (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle)
Governors Write Obama for Mississippi River Funding
The Governors of the five Upper Mississippi River States of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin are seeking President Obama’s support for critical investments in the Upper Mississippi River System as a nationally significant navigation system and a nationally significant ecosystem. In an August 20, 2014 joint letter to President Obama, the Governors expressed their ongoing commitment to the Navigation and Ecosystem Sustainability Program (NESP) authorized by Congress in 2007. NESP is an unprecedented, dual-purpose program that integrates lock capacity expansion and modernization (including seven new 1,200-foot lock chambers and several small-scale navigation efficiency measures) and ecosystem restoration efforts designed to improve the river’s ecological health.
Battleship Commissioned as Floating Museum
One of the most powerful battleships of all time, the Iowa was built starting in 1940. After it was commissioned, the ship transported President Roosevelt to the Tehran Conference in 1943. The ship also saw action in World War II and the Korean War. The Navy awarded the ship to a nonprofit group to display as an interactive naval museum that will highlight its place in American history, explains CBS News. Among those in attendance at the rededication included Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
USS IOWA Prepares for Final Transit
USS IOWA Takes on Iowa Coins, Regains its Mast, Prepares for its Final Journey; The Battleship of Presidents will open as an interactive naval museum in Los Angeles. The time-honored tradition of adding coins to the mast of a ship for good luck took place as two Iowans stood atop a 205-foot-tall platform and dropped Iowa state quarters into the mast of the USS IOWA as it hung from a barge crane. Former Iowa legislator Jeff Lamberti of Ankeny and Becky Beach of Des Moines released a handful of coins into the mast shortly before eight welders reattached it to the historic battleship.
