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25th High Plains Honor Flight takes veterans to Washington, D.C.

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25th High Plains Honor Flight takes veterans to Washington, D.C.


As High Plains Honor Flight went wheels up for its 25th expedition back to Washington, D.C., on Sunday morning, plenty of people on board knew exactly what to expect.

Honor Flight President Matt Voris said there are volunteers going on their 15th-plus trip. Voris himself said he has lost track of how many he’s been on.

But for the 120 veterans on board, the next 36 hours will be like almost nothing they’ve ever experienced.

“We find the magic of Honor Flight is when 120 of them are together, they start chatting. They’re in like company with people who have experienced the same kind of things they did,” Voris said. “And by the time we get back here, it’s like the weight of the world is lifted off of them.”

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Voris said many veterans — specifically combat veterans — return home from serving and bury most of what they experienced deep down, not even wanting to talk about it with their closest family. He’s noticed with those who have taken an honor flight, something loosens up inside them.

“We’ve had many, many families tell us after their veteran gets home from a trip, ‘Uncle Jimmy never talked about anything while he was overseas. And now since he took the trip, we can’t get him to shut up.’ ” Voris said. “It’s an awesome thing.”

The veterans started their 36-hour trip Sunday morning with the Escort of Heroes, which took them from the McKee 4-H Building at The Ranch Events Complex to the Northern Colorado Regional Airport. Thirteen veterans who served in Korea, 106 who served in Vietnam and one who served in both flew to Baltimore, where they were scheduled to attend a banquet in their honor. They will wake up Monday morning and head to D.C. to visit the World War II Memorial, Iwo Jima Marine Memorial, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Air Force Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial and Korean War Memorial and fly back. All before bedtime.

Buses carrying veterans to the Northern Colorado Regional Airport drive down Fairgrounds Avenue during High Plains Honor Flight’s Escort of Heroes on Sunday in Loveland. (Chris Bolin – Public safety reporter)

“We keep busy,” Voris said.

This year’s trip — named in honor of the late Col. William R. Suhre, an Army veteran and Greeley resident who was awarded a Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Silver Star for his heroics in Vietnam — will be the first without any World War II veterans.

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Along with the natural fight against time, that is in big part because the group has grown that much closer to fulfilling the original goal of founder Stan Cass.

Cass, a 29-year-old Army veteran, founded the organization in 2008 as Northern Colorado Honor Flight with the goal of giving every Northern Colorado World War II veteran an opportunity to see the then newly established World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Voris took over in 2008, reviving the program and renaming it to High Plains Honor Flight.

“There are not very many World War II guys left from this area that have not previously been on one of our flights,” Voris said.

Before the trip officially kicked off, High Plains Honor Flight paid tribute to those who have passed since last year’s flight as well putting on a pair of musical performances at the McKee 4-H Building.

Veterans along with their friends and family crowd the McKee 4-H Building at the Ranch Events Complex Sunday morning ahead of High Plains Honor Flight's 25th expedition to Washington D.C. (Chris Bolin - Public safety reporter)
President Matt Voris speaks as veterans — along with their friends and family — crowd the McKee 4-H Building at The Ranch Events Complex on Sunday morning ahead of High Plains Honor Flight’s 25th expedition to Washington, D.C. (Chris Bolin / Greeley Tribune)

Local artist Fleeka performed her song, “Lovin A Hero,” about saying goodbye to a soldier about to deploy; and Richard Kerns, a veteran who went on an honor flight last year, performed his song, “Take to the Sky.”

The lyrics of the chorus —  which he wrote on the flight back last year after being inspired by the journey — read:

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“Take to the sky, with honor they fly, serve those who served, take them higher than high.”

Veterans, with honor, took to the sky Sunday morning. And after a busy day-and-a-half, they will take to the sky again Monday evening and return home, hopefully, feeling higher than high.



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Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week

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Storm Team4 Forecast: A chilly, gusty Sunday before a cool start to the week


4 things to know about the weather:

  1. Chances of rain in the morning
  2. Gusty Sunday
  3. Chilly Monday
  4. 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.

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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.



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‘It’s a twilight zone’: Iran war casts deep shadows over IMF gathering in Washington

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‘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.

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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.

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Rachel Reeves posted this image on Instagram from Washington DC on Thursday with the message: ‘Friends that run together – work together.’ Photograph: Rachel Reeves/Instagram

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.

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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.”

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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.”





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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos

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Rosselli opens in DC, serving classic Italian flavors from chef Carlos


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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