Northeast
Wes Moore says he regrets not correcting interviewers who called him a Bronze Star recipient
AUSTIN, Texas– Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says he’s regretful over failing to correct past interviewers who wrongly claimed he was a Bronze Star recipient.
Moore, a rising star in the Democratic Party who served as an Army captain in Afghanistan, has been the target of critics after it was revealed he had included the prestigious military honor in his 2006 application for a White House fellowship, according to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by The New York Times. Subsequently, he did at least two interviews where he was identified as a Bronze Star recipient but did not correct them at the time.
“It was an honest mistake that I made nearly 20 years ago, and I own it,” Moore told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday.
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“When I was just coming back from a combat deployment, when I was now being thrust into a national media that I’d never been in before, when I was still very much dealing with a lot of the consequences of conflict,” he continued. “Should I have, in a long introduction, gone back and said something? In retrospect, I probably should have… And I take responsibility for that.”
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said he takes responsibility for not correcting interviewers who falsely claimed he was a Bronze Star recipient during an interview with Fox News Digital. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Moore was misidentified as a Bronze Star recipient in a 2008 interview by the late “PBS NewsHour” host Gwen Ifill and in a 2010 interview with comedian Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report.”
Moore remains proud of his service and said his love for the country is “undying.”
“I joined the military when I was 17 years old. I chose to raise my hand and serve with the uniform of this country, the flag of the country on my shoulder, and to serve with one of the most elite units in the entire United States military,” Moore said. “I led soldiers, I led paratroopers in combat, and I was rated as a top 1% officer. My senior rater said I was the best lieutenant that they worked with in all of Operation Enduring Freedom, in the entire Afghanistan campaign.”
“I am deeply proud of my service. I’m deeply proud of the work that we did. I’m deeply proud of the work that I did, that I’m doing now to support veterans and veterans’ families now as the governor of Maryland. And I will always do that, and I will always be very proud of the service I did,” he added.
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Moore first admitted his mistakes to the Times, but that didn’t stop his critics from linking him to the controversy surrounding Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whose military service record has been scrutinized since he joined the 2024 Democratic ticket.
During Moore’s introduction on a 2008 installment of “PBS NewsHour” where host Gwen Ifill claimed he “earned a Bronze Star medal.” (Screenshot/PBS)
The subject was broached during a conversation at the Texas Tribune Festival where he was asked whether Walz as well as his GOP rival Sen. JD Vance were having their military service “maligned.”
“It’s happened to me,” Moore told NPR’s Michel Martin. “Less than 1% of this country has worn the uniform of this country. And so when we’re talking about veterans issues, frankly, when you’re having a national conversation with this country, it’s more of a voyeuristic conversation because people haven’t experienced it.”
“I look at what’s happened to so many of these soldiers and airmen and Marines and sailors, how you’re watching this pushback from their service. Like, these are not people who raised their hands when the country asked. Like, these are not people who were willing to not just leave their families, but willing to leave their bodies when the country asked,” Moore later said. “And so, you know, I don’t have patience nor tolerance to be lectured by anybody, particularly from people who have no idea what they’re talking about and have no idea about the emotions that are going through that soldier or sailor or airman and Marine’s mind as they’re getting ready to say goodbye to their family, not knowing that’s the last thing they’re going to be able to say to them.”
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“And so whether we’re talking about Sergeant Major Walz, someone who’s devoted 24 years of his life wearing the uniform in this country and willing to leave it all on the line, or whether we’re talking about Corporal Vance, people who raise their hands as the country asked, I frankly just think that we have to remember that ‘Thank you for your service’ cannot just be a statement. There needs to be meaning behind it. And when we have two people who truly were willing to pay the highest price to be called American and who now we know that the next vice president of the United States will be someone who has worn the uniform of this country, no matter who wins in this thing. I just say there’s a deep sense of pride as a veteran that I have in that.”
According to the Minnesota National Guard, while Walz served as command sergeant major and long referred to himself as a retired command sergeant, he “retired as a Master Sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.”
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore publicly addressed the Bronze Star controversy at the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Tx. on Sept. 6, 2024. (Joseph A. Wulfsohn/Fox News Digital)
Moore later addressed his own dust-up, explaining how he was instructed by his commanding officer and a former White House fellow to include the Bronze Star in his application.
“He told me that I was going to be awarded it. He instructed me, ‘Put it on your application,’ and the paperwork [for the Bronze Star] never processed,” Moore said.
“Because that never happens in the army,” Martin sarcastically chimed in.
“Yeah, because paperwork issues never happen in the army,” Moore also quipped with a chuckle. “And people have said, ‘Well, why don’t you go back and correct it,’ something that happened 20 years ago? The truth is I forgot about it. The truth is that I was just happy to make it home. The truth is that I didn’t serve because I was looking for a medal. I didn’t serve because I was looking for an award. I serve because I love my soldiers. I serve because I love this country.”
Moore added that he was “humbled” that his commanding officer, who learned that the governor never received his Bronze Star after hearing the reports, told him he was going to “resubmit” him for the honor.
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Moore is widely seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, landing a prominent time slot during this year’s DNC convention in Chicago. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Despite his remorse, the Democratic governor chalked up the attacks against him as “foolishness.”
“I don’t have time to play these games. I’m too busy trying to make the lives of Marylanders better. I’m too busy trying to make sure that our veterans are taken care of,” he said.
“I don’t have time for foolishness. I never have. I never will. And so I think the thing that we do- what real patriots do- we keep our heads down and do the work, and that’s how I respond to this,” he later added.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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Northeast
Family claims casino staff mistook veteran’s illness for intoxication, delaying care before his death
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A “proud veteran of the U.S. Army” died after suffering a medical emergency while visiting Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip, where, according to a lawsuit, employees and security guards allegedly “presumed, incorrectly” that he was drunk and called him an Uber instead of seeking medical help.
According to a wrongful-death complaint obtained by the Las Vegas Review Journal, 64-year-old Gary Perrin was gambling at Caesars Palace in November 2024 when he began exhibiting “visible signs” of an undisclosed illness. The symptoms allegedly included “sudden onset of sweating, double vision, dizziness and vomiting.”
“Due to, but not limited to, a lack of training, a lack of supervision, laziness, being overworked and tired, profiling, and or a lack of policies and procedures, it was presumed, incorrectly, that Perrin was intoxicated,” the complaint read.
U.S. Army veteran Gary Perrin’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Caesars Palace, claiming casino workers allegedly failed to provide medical attention in November 2024. (Care Cremation & Burial )
Workers decided to “call an Uber/Lyft instead of onsite paramedics or EMR transport” for Perrin, leading to a “critical delay of medical care that ultimately led to, caused, or contributed substantially to his death” weeks later, the lawsuit claimed.
Perrin’s family said that the casino had knowledge of the victim’s serious illness, and yet “did not render immediate and/or reasonable medical attention nor did they take steps to call for medical attention.”
Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas. (Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In the lawsuit, Perrin’s family did not disclose how he died but said the employees’ decision to call a rideshare over an ambulance allegedly led to “severe injuries, including but not limited [to] surgical scars and disfigurement, pain and suffering, and loss of life.”
His family is seeking $15,000 from the iconic Las Vegas strip resort, according to the lawsuit.
Aerial view of Las Vegas Strip. A 64-year-old U.S. Army veteran died after suffering a medical emergency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where a lawsuit alleges staff mistakenly presumed he was drunk and called a rideshare instead of paramedics. (iStock)
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An obituary for Perrin describes him as a proud veteran who served for four years and then worked for UPS.
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He retired from the shipping company after 29 years of “dedicated service,” then worked as an assistant to the dean of students and football coach at Goffstown High School in New Hampshire. In his later years, he also worked as a driver at the Maher Center in Middletown, Rhode Island, until his death.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Caesars for comment.
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How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.
We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?
Sara Robinson boarded a Greyhound bus from Oregon to New York City to attend Hunter College in the early 2000s, bright-eyed and eager to pick up odd jobs to fuel her dream of living there.
For a long time, she made it work. But recently, that has been more challenging than ever.
Right around her 40th birthday, Ms. Robinson began to feel financially squeezed in Brooklyn, where she had lived for years. Ms. Robinson (no relation to this reporter) was also feeling too grown to live with roommates.
“As a child,” she said, “you don’t think you’re going to have a roommate at 40.” She decided to move into a place of her own: a one-bedroom apartment in the Tompkinsville neighborhood of Staten Island.
After she moved, the preschool where she’d worked for over a decade closed. Now, she works two jobs. She is a seasonal employee for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, working from Tuesday to Saturday. And on Monday nights, she sells concessions at the West Village movie theater Film Forum, which pays $25 an hour plus tips.
Ms. Robinson, now 45, loves her job as an environmental educator at a state park on Staten Island. Her team runs the park’s social media accounts and comes up with event programming, like a recent project tapping maple trees to make syrup.
But the role is temporary. Her last stint was from June 2024 to January 2025. Then she was unemployed until August 2025. Ms. Robinson’s current contract will be up in April, unless she gets an extension or a different parks job opens up.
Ms. Robinson’s biweekly pay stubs from the parks department amount to about $1,300 before taxes. She barely felt a difference, she said, while she was out of work and pocketing around $880 every two weeks from her unemployment checks. (Her previous parks gig paid $1,100 a check.)
Living in New York’s Greenest Borough
“It used to be, ‘There’s no way I’m moving to Staten Island,’” Ms. Robinson said. “But the place is close to the water. I’m three minutes from the ferry. The rest is history.” She lives on the third floor of a multifamily house, above an art studio and another tenant. Her rent is $1,600 a month, plus $125 in utilities, including her phone bill.
“If my situation changes, I don’t know if I could find something similar,” she said. “So much of my New York life has been feeling trapped to an apartment. You get a place for a good price, and you’re like, ‘I can’t leave now.’”
Staten Island is convenient for Ms. Robinson’s parks job, but it’s become harder to justify living in a borough where she knows few people. It takes more than an hour to get to friends in Brooklyn, an especially hard trek during the winter. After four years of living on Staten Island, Ms. Robinson feels somewhat isolated.
“All my friends on Staten Island are senior citizens,” she said. “It’s great. I love it. But I do want friends closer to my age.”
One of Ms. Robinson’s friends, Ray, took her on nature walks and taught her about tree identification, sparking an interest in mycology, the study of mushrooms. This led to a productive — and free — fungi foraging hobby during unemployment. She has found all sorts of mushrooms, including, after a month of searching, the elusive morel.
The Budgeting Game
Ms. Robinson doesn’t update her furniture often, but when she does, she shops stoop sales in Park Slope or other parts of Brooklyn.
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” she said. “You could make a whole apartment off the street, off the stuff that people throw away.”
She also makes a game out of grocery shopping, biking to Sunset Park in Brooklyn or Manhattan’s Chinatown to go to stores where there are better deals. She budgets about $300 for groceries each month.
Ms. Robinson bikes almost everywhere, sometimes traveling a little farther to enter the Staten Island Railway at one of the stations that don’t charge a fare. She spends $80 a month on subway and ferry fares, and $5 a month for a discounted Citi Bike membership she gets through a credit union, though she usually uses her own bike. She is handy and does repairs herself.
There are certain splurges — Ms. Robinson drops $400 once or twice a year on round-trip airfare to Seattle, where her family lives. She also spent $100 last year to see a concert at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.
She said she has many financial saving graces. She has no student loans and no car to make payments on. She doesn’t get health insurance from her jobs, but she qualifies for Medicaid.
She mostly eats at home, though sometimes friends will treat her to dinner. She repays them with tickets to Film Forum movies.
Nothing Beats the Twinkling Lights
Ms. Robinson’s friends often talk about leaving the city — and the country.
Two friends have their eyes set on Sweden, where they hope to get the affordable child care and social safety net they are struggling to access in New York.
Ms. Robinson can’t see herself moving elsewhere in the United States, but she is entertaining the idea of an international move if she can’t hack it on Staten Island.
Yet the pull of the city is hard for her to resist.
“I just get a rush when I’m riding the Staten Island Ferry across the bay,” she said. “You see all the little twinkling lights. It’s this feeling of, ‘everything is possible here.’”
That feeling, plus the many friendly faces Ms. Robinson sees every day — the ferry operators, the conductors on the Staten Island Railway, her co-workers at Film Forum — are what tie her to New York.
“My savings are not increasing, so there’s that,” she said. “But I’ve been OK so far. I think I’m going to figure it out.”
Applause and music echoed through the Hall of Flags at the Massachusetts State House Friday as lawmakers and community leaders gathered for the Black Excellence on the Hill and the Latino Excellence Awards.
The ceremony celebrates Black and brown residents committed to advancing economic equity.
“We’re honoring Black excellence,” said state Rep. Chris Worrell. “When we look at today, this is what it should look like. This is our house. Black people built this house, literally and figuratively.”
Honorees ranged from attorneys to former professional athletes. Nicole M. Bluefort of the Law Offices of Nicole Bluefort said she plans to use her platform to uplift others.
“I will use my advocacy skills as an attorney to move people forward,” she said.
Former NBA player Wayne Seldan Jr. talked about his journey from McDonald’s All American to a full scholarship at Kansas and a professional career.
“You always want to keep striving for continued betterment and for stuff to grow,” he said. “I don’t think there should be mountaintops. I think we should always be striving to keep building.”
The keynote address was delivered by Michelle Brown, mother of Jaylen Brown, who spoke about raising two children as a single mother and the importance of faith, discipline and education.
“There are no shortcuts. There are no guarantees,” she said. “There was faith, there was discipline, and there was a deep belief that education created mobility.”
Speakers emphasized that mobility is strengthened when communities work together for a common good. Bluefort highlighted the importance of mentorship and shared opportunity, while state Rep. Sally Kerans encouraged attendees to stand together across racial lines.
“In this moment, stand with others. Speak up. Don’t be afraid to say ‘That’s not normal.’ Be allies. Be supportive,” Kerans said.
Organizers said the ceremony was not only about recognition, but also about sustaining progress — encouraging leaders and residents alike to continue building toward a more equitable future.
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