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Tonight on AC360°, the inside story on President-elect Barack Obama's meeting with President Bush at the Oval Office. Plus, the push to try to help America's "big three" automakers facing declining sales and profits. And, on this Veterans Day, Obama's battle plans for Afghanistan and Iraq.
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[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/POLITICS/11/11/obama.transition/art.wh.pic.jpg caption="President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office on Monday."]Maureen Miller
AC360° Writer
Tonight, we've learned new details on President-elect Barack Obama's meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office.
Sources on the Obama transition team say Mr. Obama urged Pres. Bush to take action to help the U.S. auto industry.
Here's a big reason why: 1,900 hourly workers are getting laid off at GM. That's on top of the 3,600 last week. And, shares of GM have fallen to their lowest level since World War Two.
America's so-called "big three" automakers (GM, Ford & Chrysler) are hurting badly. But should the U.S. government bail them out? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
A source tells CNN that Obama also talked with Pres. Bush about the need for a second stimulus package and an aid package for homeowners facing possible foreclosure.
And on this Veterans Day we're looking at Obama's battle plans for Iraq and Afghanistan. No new president has ever had to face so much on the job. CNN's National Security Analyst Peter Bergen has written a letter to Obama on how to rescue the war in Afghanistan. CLICK HERE TO READ BERGEN'S LETTER
Also tonight, President Bush talks with CNN's Heidi Collins. Hear what he says he regrets about his presidency and what he plans to do after he leaves the White House.
All that and more on AC360° at 10pm ET.
Cate Vojdik
AC360° Writer
Tick, tick… there are barely 70 days until Inauguration Day. (We’re counting so you don’t have to.) Tomorrow, President-elect Obama’s transition council holds its third meeting. There will be plenty to hash over: Treasury Secretary Paulson holds a news conference tomorrow to give an update on the financial rescue package; and Army Maj. Gen. Robert Cone will hold a press briefing on security and training operations in Afghanistan. These two crises are just two of the extreme challenges facing Obama. Candy Crowley will file a news-of-day piece on the latest in the transition.
On a lighter note, Randi Kaye will be digging deeper on Presidential Fitness and Americans’ fascination with it. Quick, how many of you have heard of Hooverball, the White House game du jour during the Hoover administration? If you’re drawing a blank, watch Randi’s report. President-elect Obama has already signaled that basketball, not Hooverball, will be the new game in town when he takes office. Randi will look at the fitness routines of presidents past and present to see what works best, what doesn’t and how former presidents’ preferred workouts have reflected on their presidencies. FULL POST
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Hillary Clinton attends the 2008 Glamour Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall on November 10, 2008 in New York City.
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Arwa Damon | BIO
CNN International Correspondent
Its 9:30pm in Iraq’s capital on veterans day – sitting on the edge of a blast wall, I can hear the shouts coming from the handful of US troops playing basketball on the court nearby. Its something they couldn’t do a year ago – this base in southern Baghdad was mortared on a regular basis.
Few of the soldiers are even aware that it’s Veterans Day – far away from the ceremonies and parades back home in America, they are still fighting a war that the world would rather forget about. Many are on their 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th deployments.
“It’s a hard thing” 23 year old SSGT Raymundo Rogriduez who we interviewed yesterday for our veterans day package had told us. “When I did it the second time, coming back for this deployment I kind of told myself not to get too attached towards the end…because I knew when the day came it would be harder for me to get on that bus, that one last hug, that one last kiss, and you know tell them I will see you when I finish working.”
So many Americans made that promise but couldn’t keep it. Others have returned home physically and emotionally scarred, trying to re-enter the “normal” world in a society that is distanced and disassociated from war, where few can even begin to relate to what life here in Iraq is like.
“I think the thing that will change the most for me is that I will feel a great need to try and educate family and friends and anyone who will listen to what its really like over here.” 25 year old Lt. Rob Ganim on his first tour who just stopped by for a chat said.
“I think I will find myself emotional towards people that don’t understand and say things that they don’t have any true experience or knowledge of. I feel like its my responsibility as a soldier and a leader to make it clear what we’re really doing.”
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Compiled by Gabriel Falcon
AC360 Writer
Welcome to the 360 Crime Blotter.
Some of the best crime writing comes from cops on the beat. But it’s not fiction. It’s fact, put down on paper in incident reports. We’re going to bring you their first-hand accounts. Taken from police department web sites, the official submissions run the gamut from mundane misdemeanors to the most serious of felonies. They all show what police officers across the country face 365 days a year. So let’s get started:
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Seattle police department
The Seattle Police Department is attempting to identify the individual pictured here. He is believed to be the suspect in a recent sexual assault that occurred in an area hospital in the 700 Block of Broadway. This crime occurred in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 1st. FULL POST
David J. DeJonge
President, DeJonge Studios
President & Co founder ~ World War One Memorial Foundation
I have spent many hours photographing historical figures and correspond off-and-on with some of them, but I am just a man from the Midwest who cares deeply for the American veteran.
This is the story of my effort to bring honor to an entire generation, a fight that has become deeply personal.
Twelve years ago I began a project titled ‘Faces of Five Wars,’ documenting the veterans who fought in the wars of the 20th century. I pleaded with a national organization of photographers to dispatch members to shoot portraits of every living World War I veteran. When this did not happen, I made it my mission and was honored to spend time with the last nine surviving Americans.
Photographing Lloyd Brown, the last World War I Navy veteran, changed my life.
When I contacted Lloyd’s daughter Nancy to schedule an interview and portrait session she said, “Just look for the mailbox. It will be the one with the name peeling off.”
How emblematic, I thought, of America’s failure to remember the veterans of a conflict marked by the horrors of poison gas and trench warfare. On Veterans Day or Memorial Day or when another World War I veteran died there would be a flurry of media attention, but like a wave on the sea this attention would splash ashore but then fade away.