Washington, D.C
Wisconsin man’s father to be honored in Washington, D.C. for role in “Ghost Army”
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WEAU) – On March 21st, a Wisconsin man’s father will be honored during a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington, D.C. for his role in a top-secret unit during World War II.
Donald Fox has many memories of his father Frederic Fox scattered around his La Crosse home.
His story of becoming a part of history begins right before WWII.
“What he majored in in college, what he liked most was musical comedy. You know, he’s 22 years old and you get big ideas. And he said, well, I’m going to go to Hollywood,” said Donald Fox. “Then December 7th, 1941, comes along and my father was smart enough say, well, I’m going to enlist before I get drafted.”
The high-ups at the Pentagon learned of Frederic Fox’s theatre background.
They found him to be a good fit for a top-secret unit known as the “Ghost Army.”
It used special effects of sounds and visuals to throw off the German Nazis.
The overall goal? Deception.
“And they yeah, they could have all been killed if the Germans had said, you know, if they figured it out,” said Donald Fox.
According to the Ghost Army Legacy Project website, “The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops staged more than 20 deception operations, often dangerously close to the front, in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. This ‘traveling road show of deception,’ of only 1,100 troops appearing to be more than 20,000, is credited with saving an estimated 30,000 American lives.”
“He would say, you know, I was. Over, you know, a frontline soldier, you know, I wasn’t a hero in the army,” said Donald Fox.
But, Frederic Fox was a hero. A notable battle the Ghost Army was involved in took place along the Rhine River in Europe.
“So, the Ghost Army was lined up. And, the Germans thought they were going to cross the Rhine there. So, the Germans are all massed in front of the Ghost Army,” said Donald Fox. “But then the real crossing happened. 30 miles north. And the estimation is that saves 30,000 lives.”
After the war, Frederic Fox was tasked to document the stories of the Ghost Army.
Only to have the Pentagon shut him down.
“And he tried twice to get the Pentagon to declassify the Ghost Army story, and they refuse,” said Rick Beyer, president of the Ghost Army Legacy Project.
The stories were declassified in 1996, according to the Ghost Army Legacy Project.
Beyer has worked with the organization to tell those stories in the past couple decades.
Even lobbying for something more started seven years ago.
“I decided to launch this effort to see if we could get Congress to award this unit a Congressional Gold Medal, which is their highest honor,” said Beyer.
Those efforts became successful, and the scores of military members involved will be honored. Seven are still alive to see the day.
“And I think it’s really sad had that almost everybody who served in it is no longer with us that the Ghost Army is an army of ghosts,” said Beyer.
“My father, he illustrated his history with a ghost. That’s a patch and that you know, that makes me proud,” said Donald Fox, showing the illustration of a ghost to honor the Ghost Army.
Frederic Fox died in 1981, which Donald Fox said was well over a decade before the Pentagon declassified the Ghost Army files.
Donald Fox will be at the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony on Thursday, March 21 in Washington, D.C. along with three of the seven living members of the Ghost Army. The ceremony is part of a two-day celebration for the veterans and their families.
According to the Ghost Army Legacy Project, the family members will be joined by House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and other Congressional leaders.
The ceremony is possible due to a bipartisan bill, the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act. President Biden signed it into law in February 2022. According to a news release from Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH), this law awards the Congressional Gold Medal to members of the WWII Ghost Army more than 75 years after their service. Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) led this legislation in the Senate.
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Washington, D.C
Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week
4 things to know about the weather:
- Chances of rain in the morning
- Gusty Sunday
- Chilly Monday
- Temps will rise again through the work week
Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to check the weather radar on the go.
After a nice and warm Saturday, changes arrive for part two of the weekend.
The first half of your Sunday will have a chance for showers. Winds will pick up with our next system and are expected to gust to about 20-30 mph. Cooler air will settle in, and lows Sunday night fall into the 40s.
Highs temps Monday will reach only into the mid to upper 50s.
However, temperatures will rise through the week, so you won’t need your jackets every day.
QuickCast
SUNDAY:
Showers, then partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 30 mph
HIGH: Lower 60s
MONDAY:
Partly cloudy
Wind: NW 10-15 mph
Gusts @ 25 mph
HIGH: Upper 50s
Stay with Storm Team4 for the latest forecast. Download the NBC Washington app on iOS and Android to get severe weather alerts on your phone.
Washington, D.C
‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington
The most severe energy shock since the 1970s, the risk of a global recession and households everywhere stomaching a renewed surge in the cost of living – hitting the most vulnerable hardest.
In a sweltering hot Washington DC this week, the message at the International Monetary Fund meetings was chilling: things had been looking up for living standards around the world. But then came the Iran war.
“Some countries are in panic,” said the fund’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, addressing the finance ministers and central bank bosses in town for the IMF and World Bank spring meetings. “The sooner it [the Iran war] ends, the better for everybody.”
Such gatherings are not typically used to fight geopolitical battles. “You don’t get people shouting at one another at these things,” one senior figure remarked. But, as a record-breaking April heatwave swept the US capital, no one could ignore the mounting damage from the Iran war.
Those familiar with the mood over breakfast at a meeting of the G20’s representatives on Thursday, which included Donald Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the outgoing US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell – said the atmosphere in the room was sombre amid an open exchange of serious views.
“It is such a twilight-zone meeting,” said Mohamed El-Erian, a former IMF deputy managing director who is now chief economic adviser at the Allianz insurance group. “There are several shadows hanging over it: one is the shadow that comes from concern about the global economy as a whole.
“The second is that some countries are going to be particularly hard hit, and it’s mostly countries that very few people are talking about. But the third concern is the adding of insult to injury: the fact that the US, which started a war of choice, is going to be hit, but by a lot less than elsewhere in relative terms.”
Before Thursday’s breakfast, Rachel Reeves had started her day with an early-morning jog. Joined by her counterparts from Spain, Australia and New Zealand for a run down the iconic National Mall, she posted an Instagram selfie with a not-so-subtle dig: “Friends that run together – work together.”
A day earlier, the chancellor had told a CNBC conference that she thought “friends are allowed to disagree on things” as she criticised Trump’s Iran war as a “mistake” and a “folly” that had not made the world safer.
Speaking at a venue just steps away from the White House, before a one-on-one meeting with Bessent, she said this “fair message” was needed because UK families and businesses were feeling the pain from higher energy prices triggered by the conflict.
Those close to Reeves insist her meeting remained cordial. Britain and the US have significant shared interests in AI, financial services and trade. The chancellor also said the UK government had little time for the Iranian regime.
But with the IMF having warned on Tuesday that the Iran war could risk a global recession – in which Britain would be the biggest G7 casualty – it was clear Reeves had travelled to Washington ready to pick a fight.
“I’m struck by how vocal she has been and the words she used,” said one global financier. “We know the disagreement between Bessent and [European Central Bank president] Christine Lagarde earlier in the year. But that was in private.”
At a cocktail party held at the British ambassador’s residence for hundreds of diplomats and financiers – including the Bank of England’s governor, Andrew Bailey, the chief executive of Barclays, CS Venkatakrishnan, and dozens of senior figures – this transatlantic tension, weeks before King Charles’s US state visit, was a major topic of conversation.
The other, in the balmy residence gardens, was one of its former occupants, Peter Mandelson, as revelations about the former ambassador’s appointment threatened to further rock the UK government.
Before the war, the agenda for the IMF had been about global cooperation; the adoption of AI, jobs and work to eradicate poverty. Each of those tasks had now been complicated, but not least the task of countries working together.
For many at the meetings, the focus was on forging closer global cooperation without the world’s pre-eminent superpower.
“Everybody is talking about how you hedge against American decisions,” said David Miliband, the former UK foreign secretary, who now runs the International Rescue Committee. “You can’t do without them, because they’re 25% of the global economy. But, in a lot of fora, they’ve pulled out.
“So everyone has to think, how does one structure international cooperation? The old west is not coming back. And so everyone has to figure out how to position themselves for that world.”
For those gathering in Washington, there was irony in the fact that they were meeting in the halls of institutions founded, under US leadership, to promote global cooperation after the second world war. The whole idea of the Bretton Woods institutions was to avoid the dire economic conditions and warfare of the 1930s and 1940s. Yet this year’s meeting was taking place amid these intertwining problems.
In their conversations about the best economic policy response to the shock of conflict, the economists also knew the real power to make a difference lay two blocks across town from the IMF and the World Bank – behind the security cordons and construction equipment blocking the White House from public view. “It is not clear they can do anything about it,” said El-Erian.
Still, with a booming economy driven by AI – including Anthropic’s powerful Mythos model, the topic of much conversation – most countries cannot afford to completely break off US ties.
“People want to find ways to insulate themselves from the mess. But, on the other hand, they admire the US private sector,” El-Erian said. “The best way I’ve heard it put, is: they want to go long the private sector and short the mess. But it’s almost impossible to do.”
Washington, D.C
Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos
Washington, D.C. (7News) — Rosselli is the newest restaurant to open in DC.
Bringing in classic Italian flavors, Chef Carlos explained how he hopes his food is a unique addition to the Italian food scene in the DMV.
Chef also demoed a signature dish with Brian and Megan.
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You can learn more and book your table here.
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