The 41st President: George HW Bush, the one-term 41st President of the United States and father of the 43^rd, has died at age 94. He was the last of the World War II generation to hold the office.

The former President had been in declining health in recent years, suffering a form of Parkinson’s Disease. He died less than eight months after his wife, Barbara.

Bush was the first vice-president elected President since Martin Van Buren in 1836. He was the first President whose son was elected President since John Adams.

A former college baseball player at Yale and Navy pilot who was shot down in the Pacific, Bush made a fortune in the oil business before spending 40 years in public service. He had been the director of the CIA and vice-president under Ronald Reagan before he was elected to the presidency.

Accepting the Republican nomination for President, he told his party’s convention in New Orleans, ““I am a man who sees life in terms of missions — missions defined and missions completed.”

Bush steered the country through turbulent times in the world at the end of the cold war. He assembled a coalition of countries to eject Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army from Kuwait, leading to the brief war dubbed “Desert Storm” and years of military containment. That set up a second war in which the elder Bush’s son George W. ordered the invasion of Iraq.

Unfortunately for his political career, Bush was seen as inattentive to domestic affairs, and fell in his bid for re-election to the relatively unknown Bill Clinton, whose campaign advisers drilled into him that, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Turndown Service: Hackers broke into the Marriott hotel chain’s Starwood reservation system stealing the personal and credit card information of as many as 500 million guests. The information was related to guests who checked into Marriott properties between 2014 and 2018.

The President’s Man:Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, has asked a federal judge not to be given jail time on his two guilty pleas. Cohen’s lawyers wrote to the judge that their client could have fought the charges and held out for a presidential pardon, but chose instead to admit what he did and cooperate with investigators.

The Police Beat: Three St. Louis police officers have been charged by a federal grand jury with the beating of an undercover officer during 2017 demonstrations after the acquittal of a white cop who killed a young black man.

A fourth officer was charged with helping to cover for the other three.

The three officers had texted each other about how they wanted to rough up demonstrators. One of the police texts had said, “”It’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these [expletive] once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!”

They picked out a man who happened to be a 22-year police veteran and beat him with a nightstick. Off. Luther Hall was beaten so badly he needed surgery on his neck and spine.

The Invasion:Washington DC is a country all to itself. Early last month a new Mexico man applying for a marriage license was rejected because the clerk thought New Mexico was a foreign country. She asked for his passport. The man told the Las Cruces Sun-News, “All the couples behind us waiting in line were laughing.”

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