JUNEAU — The Coast Guard, the National Park Service, and the Holland America cruise ship Volendam responded to a report from the 79-foot sightseeing vessel Baranof Winds, after it reportedly struck a rock and started taking on water in Glacier Bay, Sunday.

The Baranof Winds had 76 passengers on board.

The Coast Guard launched an Air Station Sitka MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew with a dewatering pump and diverted the Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa to assist the Baranof Winds crew.

WASHINGTON — Sarah Palin and George W. Bush won’t be in Tampa, Fla. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Al Gore won’t make the trip to Charlotte, N.C. And scores of other Republican and Democratic stars are taking a pass as their parties gather for this year’s national conventions.

The reasons are varied — and often, of course, political.

Our men and women in uniform take a solemn vow to protect the country we love and to put their lives on the line in order to allow us all to possess the freedoms envied by the rest of the world. They deserve our honor, they deserve our respect, support and prayers. They do not deserve to have their service and sacrifice devalued and desecrated by impostors.

JERUSALEM — In an step that could intensify a major rift among Israelis, the defense minister on Tuesday ordered the army to prepare for a universal draft of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.

Many in the insular and rapidly growing community say they would rather go to jail than comply with an end to the decades-long draft exemptions that have caused increasing outrage in the country.