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In a rare move, the top Marine on Monday forced two generals into retirement after concluding they should be held accountable for failing to secure a base in Afghanistan against a Taliban attack that killed two Marines.

Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said that Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus and Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant "did not take adequate force protection measures" at Camp Bastion, a sprawling British-run airfield in southwestern Afghanistan that was the Taliban target.

The Sept. 14, 2012, attack by 15 Taliban fighters caught the Marines by surprise and resulted in the deaths of Lt. Col. Christopher K. Raible, 40, and Sgt. Bradley W. Atwell, 27. The Taliban also destroyed six Marine Harrier fighter jets valued at $200 million and badly damaged others. It was one of the most stunning and damaging attacks of the war. Fourteen of the 15 attackers were killed; one was captured.

Gurganus, who was the top American commander in that region of Afghanistan at the time, did not order a formal investigation after the attack. In June, Amos asked U.S. Central Command to investigate, and he said he decided to take action against the two generals after reviewing the results of that investigation.

"While I am mindful of the degree of difficulty the Marines in Afghanistan faced in accomplishing a demanding combat mission with a rapidly declining force, my duty requires me to remain true to the timeless axioms relating to command responsibility and accountability," Amos said.

Amos added that Gurganus bore "final accountability" for the lives and equipment under his command, and had made "an error in judgment" in underestimating the risk posed by the Taliban in the Bastion area of Helmand province, which included his own headquarters at a sprawling base known as Camp Leatherneck.

Sturdevant was in charge of Marine aviation in that region of Afghanistan. Amos said Sturdevant "did not adequately assess the force protection situation" at Bastion.

Amos asked the two generals to retire and they agreed.

Gurganus, who had referred to the Taliban's penetration of Camp Bastion's supposedly secure perimeter as a "lucky break," had been nominated for promotion to three-star rank; that nomination had been put on hold during the investigation. He will retire as a two-star.

A few weeks after the Taliban attack, Gurganus told a news conference that "there's no mystery" to how the Taliban managed to get onto the supposedly secure base and launch their deadly attack using rocket-propelled grenades.
Gurganus said they used simple wire cutters to penetrate the perimeter fence, which was not equipped with alarms. "We have sophisticated surveillance equipment, but it can't see everywhere, all the time," he said. "This was a well-planned attack. I make no excuses for it. This was well planned and it was well executed."

In fact, at least one of the guard towers near the Taliban fighters' entry point was unoccupied at the time, officials have said.

The Vatican said Monday that it has set April 27, 2014, as the date that popes John Paul II and John XXIII will be "raised to sainthood."

Their canonization will come on "the Second Sunday of Easter and Divine Mercy," the Holy See added.

That date has significance because in 2000, as AmericanCatholic.org writes, Pope John Paul II celebrated at the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska and declared that "from now on throughout the Church this Sunday will be called Divine Mercy Sunday." The Polish-born Helena Kowalska, who as a young woman became Sister Faustina, reported seeing visions of Jesus Christ and "devoted the rest of her life to spreading the message of divine mercy and the growth of popular devotion to it."

John Paul II was pope from October 1978 until his death in April 2005. John XXIII was pope from October 1958 until his death in June 1963. Pope Francis announced in July that they would be made saints. As we wrote then:

"A committee of theologians [recently] approved a second miracle attributed to Pope John Paul II's posthumous intercession — a sine qua non for sainthood. That miracle involved a Costa Rican woman. It's believed she was cured of a severe brain injury after her family prayed to the memory of the late pope. ...

"Pope John XXIII is being made a saint even though theologians have not attributed two miracles to him — as normally required for sainthood. Pope Francis has apparently decided to make John XXIII a saint in part because of the work that pope did during the Second Vatican Council and the reforms that followed."

And they are almost entirely forgotten — except by a few people, like me, who remember those long still afternoons in the library. Skurnick says that's because most of these books were written by women, for teenaged girls — and written off by everyone else. "I've never met anybody who didn't know this period of literature and doesn't immediately assume that it's cutesy and about romance."

Some of the books are romances — and what's wrong with that? — but Skurnick is also publishing things like Sydney Taylor's All-of-a-Kind Family stories, about a Jewish family on the Lower East Side before World War I. And A Long Day in November, Ernest J. Gaines' novel about a young boy on a Southern sugarcane plantation.

Skurnick herself is a teen author; she's written several books in the Sweet Valley High series, and a few years ago she started a column for Jezebel devoted to discussing the books she remembered reading as a girl. That column became a book, called Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. And it attracted attention from publishers.

"I had followed her columns and remembered these books that I loved from the past," says Elizabeth Clementson, who runs Ig Publishing with her husband, Robert Lasner.

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What Terrifies Teens In Today's Young Adult Novels? The Economy

Months after federal agents raided its Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters over charges that it withheld millions in diesel fuel rebates from customers at its truck stops, Pilot Flying J says it is paying the companies that were cheated.

From Nashville, Blake Farmer of member station WPLN filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"The family-owned company is accused of withholding millions of dollars' worth of diesel rebates. Seven members of the Pilot Flying J sales staff have pleaded guilty to fraud charges, and others have been put on administrative leave during the federal investigation.

"CEO Jimmy Haslam – who also owns the Cleveland Browns – says the shortchanging represents a fractional part of the company's $30 billion in annual sales. He says most has been paid back, with interest. Still, he says the episode has taken a toll.

"'This has been a very humbling, very embarrassing time for myself, for our family and for Pilot Flying J. There's no other way to say it.'"