Names and faces
Melania Trump has made another secret trip, though this one was carried out closer to home. On Tuesday morning the first lady visited wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The visit to the Washington-area hospital was not publicly announced by the White House until after she arrived. Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokesman, tweeted that Melania Trump visited with “combat injured service members & their families.” She tweeted later Tuesday that she had a “wonderful visit” and offered thanks to the “many dedicated service members & medical staff who take such good care of our men & women in uniform.” The Walter Reed stop follows backto-back secret trips by the first lady to the U.S.-Mexico border in recent weeks to visit with migrant children who have been separated from their families under the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The first lady also spent five days as a patient at Walter Reed after kidney surgery in May.
Irish rock star Bono warned that the United Nations and other international institutions — including the European Union and NATO — are under threat and nations must work together to ensure their continued existence. The Dublin-born U2 singer and activist gave a sobering speech Monday to several hundred U.N. diplomats and staff at an event launching Ireland’s candidacy for a seat on the powerful Security Council in 2021-22 saying “you can count on Ireland to do its part in that work.” While Bono didn’t name any countries responsible for threatening global institutions during these “troubled times,” his words appeared aimed at President Donald Trump, who has criticized both the EU and NATO. The American leader has also pulled out of the Paris climate agreement which the singer cited, and taken aim at the World Trade Organization with new U.S. tariffs, an institution Bono said is also under threat, along with others that he described as “vital to human progress.” He then said the EU, NATO and the Group of Seven major industrialized nations have also been threatened. Bono, who is also a human rights and humanitarian activist and philanthropist, said the institutions stand for “an international order based on shared values and shared rules, an international order that is facing the greatest test in its 70-year history. Not just these institutions but what they’ve achieved is at risk.” Bono also said Ireland’s experience of colonialism, conflict, famine and mass migration “give us kind of a hard-earned expertise in these problems, and empathy and, I hope, humility,” adding, “If you look at the agenda of what the Security Council will be addressing in the coming years, doesn’t it look a lot like us?”