NATO kicks off exercises with Sweden and Finland, D-Day crowds turn and ‘Top Gun:Maverick’ still flying high.
1. NATO kicked off nearly a two-week U.S.-led naval exercise on the Baltic Sea on Sunday with more than 7,000 sailors, airmen and marines from 16 nations, including two aspiring to join the military alliance, Finland and Sweden.
2. When D-Day veterans set foot on the Normandy beaches and other World War II sites, they express a mix of joy and sadness. Joy at seeing the gratitude and friendliness of the French toward those who landed on June 6, 1944. Sadness as they think of their fallen comrades and of another battle now being waged in Europe: the war in Ukraine. For the past two years, D-Day ceremonies were reduced to a minimum amid COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. This year, crowds of French and international visitors — including veterans in their 90s — were back in Normandy for the 78th D-Day anniversary to pay tribute to the nearly 160,000 troops from Britain, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere who landed there to bring freedom.
3. The U.S. and South Korean militaries launched eight ballistic missiles into the sea Monday in a show of force matching a North Korean missile display a day earlier that extended a provocative streak in weapons demonstrations.
4. Eighty years ago in the Pacific Ocean 3,500 miles off San Diego, a military miracle unfolded. The U.S. Navy ambushed the Japanese fleet at the Battle of Midway and altered the course of World War II. Saturday night, aboard the USS Midway Museum in San Diego -- a retired aircraft carrier named after the battle -- the Navy commemorated the anniversary with an invitation-only ceremony that carried an undertone of sadness.
5. A week after taking off at the box office, "Top Gun: Maverick" is still flying high. The sequel to the 1986 blockbuster — which has Tom Cruise's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell teach a new set of recruits about the need for speed — made an estimated $86 million domestically in its second weekend, according to Paramount.
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