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The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
★ Saturday, December 1,2018 3A
Former president Bush dies at 94
Associated Press
HOUSTON - George H.W.
Bush, a patrician New Englander
whose presidency soared with
the coalition victory over Iraq in
Kuwait, but then plummeted in
the throes of a weak economy that
led voters to turn him out of office
after a single term, has died. He
was 94.
The, who also presided during
the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the final months of the Cold
War, died late Friday night, said
family spokesman Jim McGrath.
His wife of more than 70
years, Barbara Bush, died
in April 2018.
The son of a senator
and father of a president,
Bush was the man with the
golden resume who rose
through the political ranks:
from congressman to U.N.
ambassador, Republican
Party chairman to envoy
to China, CIA director to two-term
vice president under the hugely
popular Ronald Reagan. The 1991
Gulf War stoked his popularity.
But Bush would acknowledge that
he had trouble articulat
ing “the vision thing,” and
he was haunted by his
decision to break a stern,
solemn vow he made to
voters: “Read my lips. No
new taxes.”
He lost his bid for re-
election to Bill Clinton in
a campaign in which busi
nessman H. Ross Perot
took almost 19 percent of the vote
as an independent candidate. Still,
he lived to see his son, George W.,
twice elected to the presidency
— only the second father-and-son
chief executives, following John
Adams and John Quincy Adams.
After his 1992 defeat, Bush
complained that media-created
“myths” gave voters a mistaken
impression that he did not identify
with the lives of ordinary Ameri
cans. He decided he lost because
he “just wasn’t a good enough
communicator.”
Once out of office, Bush was
content to remain on the sidelines,
except for an occasional speech
or paid appearance and visits
abroad. He backed Clinton on
the North American Free Trade
Agreement, which had its genesis
during his own presidency. He
visited the Middle East, where
he was revered for his defense of
Kuwait. And he returned to China,
where he was welcomed as “an old
friend” from his days as the U.S.
ambassador there.
He later teamed with Clinton
to raise tens of millions of dollars
for victims of a 2004 tsunami in
the Indian Ocean and Hurricane
Katrina, which swamped New
Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.
During their wide-ranging travels,
the political odd couple grew close.
Bush
Back-to-back earthquakes shatter
roads and windows in Alaska
MIKE DINNEEN I Associated Press
A tow truck holds a car that was pulled from on an off-ramp that collapsed during a morning
earthquake on Friday, Nov. 30, in Anchorage, Alaska.
DAN JOLING I Associated Press
Items from two shelves that came unbolted from a wall are
strewn across the floor of the stockroom of Anchorage True Value
Hardware following an earthquake Friday morning, Nov. 30, in
Anchorage, Alaska.
BY RACHEL D’ORO
AND DAN JOLING
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE - Back-to-
back earthquakes measuring
7.0 and 5.7 shattered highways
and rocked buildings Friday
morning in Anchorage, send
ing people running into the
streets and briefly triggering a
warning to residents in Kodiak
to flee to higher ground for
fear of a tsunami.
The warning was lifted with
out incident a short time later.
There were no immediate
reports of any deaths or seri
ous injuries.
The U.S. Geological Survey
said the first and more power
ful quake was centered about
7 miles north of Anchorage,
Alaska’s largest city, with a
population of about 300,000.
People ran from their offices
or took cover under desks.
“It had my heart racing and
I felt a bit of motion sickness
afterwards. I was scared!”
April Pearce wrote on Insta-
gram after being shaken at her
desk in the town of Soldotna.
A large section of an off
ramp near the Anchorage
airport collapsed, marooning
a car on a narrow island of
pavement surrounded by deep
chasms in the concrete. Sev
eral cars crashed at a major
intersection in Wasilla, north of
Anchorage, during the shaking.
Anchorage Police Chief
Justin Doll said he had been
told that parts of the Glenn
Highway, a scenic route that
runs northeast out of the city
past farms, mountains and
glaciers, had “completely
disappeared.”
The quake broke store
windows, opened cracks in a
two-story building downtown,
disrupted electrical service
and disabled traffic lights,
snarling traffic. It also threw
a full-grown man out of his
bathtub.
All flights in and out of the
airport were suspended for
hours after the quake knocked
out telephones and forced
the evacuation of the con
trol tower. And the 800-mile
Alaska oil pipeline was shut
down while crews were sent to
inspect it for damage.
Anchorage’s school system
canceled classes and asked
parents to pick up their chil
dren while it examined build
ings for gas leaks or other
damage.
Fifteen-year-old Sadie Blake
and other members of the
Homer High School wrestling
team were at an Anchorage
school gymnasium waiting for
a tournament to start when the
bleachers started rocking “like
crazy” and the lights went out.
People started running down
the bleachers in the dark, try
ing to get out.
“It was a gym full of
screams,” said team chaper
one Ginny Grimes.
When it over, Sadie said,
there was only one thing she
could do: “I started crying.”
Jonathan Lettow was wait
ing with his 5-year-old daugh
ter and other children for the
school bus near their home in
Wasilla when the quake struck.
The children got on the ground
while Lettow tried to keep
them calm.
“It’s one of those things
where in your head, you think,
‘OK, it’s going to stop,’ and you
say that to yourself so many
times in your head that finally
you think, ‘OK, maybe this isn’t
going to stop,”’ he said.
Soon after the shaking
stopped, the school bus pulled
up and the children boarded,
but the driver stopped at a
bridge and refused to go across
because of deep cracks in the
road, Lettow said.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin tweeted that her home
was damaged: “Our family is
intact — house is not. I imagine
that’s the case for many, many
others.”
Officials opened an Anchor
age convention center as
an emergency shelter. Gov.
Bill Walker issued a disaster
declaration.
Cereal boxes and packages
of batteries littered the floor
of a grocery store, and pic
ture frames and mirrors were
knocked from living room
walls.
People went back inside
after the first earthquake
struck, but the 5.7 aftershock
about five minutes later sent
them running back into the
streets. A series of smaller
aftershocks followed.
A tsunami warning was
issued along Alaska’s southern
coast. Police in Kodiak, a city of
6,100 people on Kodiak Island,
250 miles south of Anchorage,
warned residents to evacuate
to higher ground immediately
because a wave could hit within
about 10 minutes.
Michael Burgy, a senior
technician with the National
Tsunami Warning Center in
Palmer, Alaska, said the warn
ing was automatically gener
ated based on the quake’s size
and proximity to shore. Scien
tists monitored gauges to see if
the quake generated big waves.
Because there were none, they
canceled the warning within
about an hour and a half.
G20 SUMMIT
Tariff tensions
shadow US,
Canada, Mexico
trade pact signing
BY ZEKE MILLER AND CATHERINE LUCEY
Associated Press
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — President
Donald Trump signed a revised North American
trade pact with the leaders of Canada and Mex
ico on Friday, declaring the deal a major victory
for workers. But tensions over tariffs, looming
GM layoffs and questions about the pact’s pros
pects in Congress clouded the moment.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is meant
to replace the 24-year-old North American Free
Trade Agreement, which Trump has long deni
grated as a “disaster.” The leaders signed the
new deal on the sidelines of the Group of 20
summit in Buenos Aires after two years of fre
quently blistering negotiations. Each country’s
legislature still must approve.
“This has been a battle, and battles some
times make great friendships, so it’s really
terrific,” Trump said, before lining up next to
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and
outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena
Nieto to sign three copies of the deal — Trump
using a black marker for his signature scrawl.
The signing came at the beginning of a
packed two days of diplomacy for the Ameri
can president that will conclude with high-
stakes talks Saturday with Chinese President Xi
Jinping on ways to ease an escalating trade war
between the two countries.
“There’s some good signs,” Trump said.
“We’ll see what happens.”
For the new North American trade deal, leg
islative approval is the next step. That could
prove a difficult task in the United States, espe
cially now that Democrats — instead of Trump’s
Republicans — will control the House come
January. Democrats and their allies in the labor
movement are already demanding changes.
Within hours of the signing, Senate Demo
cratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the deal
must have stronger labor and environmental
protections in order to get majority support in
Congress and “must prove to be a net benefit to
middle-class families and working people.”
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi — who is seeking to become House
speaker — quipped, “The trade agreement for
merly known as Prince — no, I mean, formerly
known as NAFTA, is a work in progress.”
Still, Trump projected confidence, saying:
“It’s been so well reviewed I don’t expect to
have very much of a problem.”
MARTIN MEJIA I Associated Press
President Donald Trump, center, shakes hands
with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
as Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto
watches Friday, Nov. 30, after they signed a
new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
that is replacing the NAFTA trade deal, during a
ceremony before the start of the G20 summit.
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December 2, 2018
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