Joe Biden called me out of the blue last month. Something was on his mind. It was a few weeks before he went in for tests on the small nodule found on his prostate and received the tough diagnosis that was released publicly Sunday. “Mr. President, what’s up?” I asked, as I stepped outside of a D.C. restaurant to hear better, leaving my family at the dinner table.

What was up? He wanted to talk about “the future of the NATO alliance.”

He told me he was planning to give a speech to remind people how incredibly valuable the Atlantic alliance has been over decades to preserve world peace and prosperity and how crazy it was to think that the Trump administration and its congressional allies would risk breaking it up. He wanted to bat around some ideas. He would call a few days later, he said, but we never had the follow up, because, I suspect, cancer got in the way.

I am not going to get into the argument today over whether Biden should have dropped out earlier from the 2024 presidential race. Immediately after his disastrous performance in the debate with Donald Trump, I urged him to do so then — but with a heavy heart.

The heavy heart was not just because we have known each other since we traveled together to Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in 2001.

It is because Biden has an unbreakable gut connection to how important America is to the world, one that I deeply share.

Biden understands something that — even if he cannot express it as well as he and we would always like — is embedded deep in his soul: That the world is the way the world has been since 1945 — which is to say one of the most relatively peaceful and prosperous eras in history for more people on the planet than ever — because America was the way America was.

That America is an America committed to the rule of law at home and a universal mission abroad to constantly work, within our means, to make the world a freer and more democratic and more decent and healthier place for more people.

So, what I told my family and friends when they asked me what Biden had said when he called was this: Joe Biden — even at his most inarticulate, and even with his voice weakened by age — has more gut commitment to and understanding of what America at its best means to the world, and who our real friends are and must always be, than every member of the Trump administration combined.

We will miss his gut when it’s gone. So, Mr. President, I am wishing you a speedy recovery. No matter how soft your voice or unstable your gait or weak your heart, you have the gut instincts of a healthy 20-year-old when it comes to articulating what America’s mission in the world must always be. We need to hear that — the world needs to hear that — now more than ever.

Thomas Friedman writes a column for the New York Times.

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Today is Tuesday, May 20, the 140th day of 2025. There are 225 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On May 20, 1956, the United States exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.

Also on this date:

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for private ownership and farming. About 10% of the land area of the United States (270 million acres, or 1.1 million square km) would be privatized by 1934.

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In 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.

In 1932, Amelia Earhart departed from Newfoundland in an attempt to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. (Because of weather and equipment problems, Earhart landed the following day in Northern Ireland instead of her intended destination, France.)

In 1948, Chiang Kai-shek was elected as the first president of the Republic of China (Taiwan).

In 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.

In 1969, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Ap Bia Mountain, referred to as “Hamburger Hill” by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.

In 1985, Radio Marti, operated by the U.S. government, began broadcasting. Cuba responded by attempting to jam its signal.

In 2015, four of the world’s biggest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup’s banking unit Citicorp, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland — agreed to pay more than $5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to rigging the currency markets.

Today’s Birthdays:

Japanese baseball star Sadaharu Oh is 85.
Singer-actor Cher is 79.
Actor-comedian Dave Thomas is 76.
Sen. Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, is 74.
Political commentator Ron Reagan is 67.
Musician Jane Wiedlin (The Go-Go’s) is 67.
Actor Bronson Pinchot is 66.
TV personality Ted Allen is 60.
Actor Mindy Cohn is 59.
Actor Timothy Olyphant is 57.
Former racing driver Tony Stewart is 54.
Rapper Busta Rhymes is 53.
Actor Matt Czuchry (zoo-KREE’) is 48.
Actor-singer Naturi Naughton is 41.
Cyclist Chris Froome is 40.
Country musician Jon Pardi is 40.

Additional aid soon could be on the way to assist with northeastern Minnesota’s wildfires, as St. Louis County Board chair Annie Harala declared a state of local emergency and disaster Monday.

She signed the declaration eight days after the Camp House Fire began, and one week after the Jenkins Creek and Munger Shaw fires ignited. The three wildfires have combined to scorch more than 30,000 acres of land in St. Louis County, destroying more than 150 structures, including houses and cabins, in their wake.

A county news release described the declaration as a procedural step toward requesting state public disaster assistance for wildfire response and recovery activities.

Harala’s declaration will remain valid for up to three days or until the County Board has an opportunity to gather and vote on a declaration. Commissioners plan to hold an emergency meeting at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the county board room of the St. Louis County Courthouse in Duluth. Sheriff Gordon Ramsay is slated to update commissioners on wildfire activities and response at that meeting.

The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Emergency Management Division is working with affected municipalities to document and assess damages, which will then be reported to the Minnesota Homeland Security and Emergency Management to determine eligibility for state public disaster assistance.

Meanwhile, even as crews continued to make progress controlling the three wildfires, the weather threatened to make their work more difficult.

The return of “near-critical fire weather conditions” Monday included gusting northeast winds bringing cool, dry air north of U.S. 2.

Gusting winds and lower relative humidity in the 15% to 25% range are expected in the same areas Tuesday, the National Weather Service said in Duluth. While rain was overspreading southern Minnesota late Monday, not much of it was expected to reach the Arrowhead.

On Monday morning, authorities said the Munger Shaw Fire southeast of Cotton had charred 1,259 acres and was 95% contained.

The perimeter of the Jenkins Creek Fire southeast of Hoyt Lakes was finally partially contained Monday morning after scorching 16,332 acres.

The U.S. Forest Service’s Eastern Area Incident Management Team reported that the fire perimeter was 6% contained.

“Great progress was made over the weekend as personnel took advantage of the cooler, wetter conditions,” the fire update read.

However, gusty, dry weather elevated the risk to the unincorporated community of Skibo and the city of Hoyt Lakes.

The Camp House Fire near Brimson was 40% contained Monday morning after burning 12,277 acres.

No evacuation orders had changed Monday.

Authorities say the causes of the fires remain under investigation.

Wayne Prokosch, of River City Welding in Stockholm, Wis., may never have to buy another drink in the St. Croix River Valley.

Prokosch spent much of the weekend working to remove an abandoned 54-foot cruiser from the St. Croix River near Hudson, Wis. — a move that’s led to numerous people up and down the river offering to buy him dinner and drinks. People were even cheering from shore as he towed the Sweet Destiny down river on Sunday morning, he said.

“I’m not a hero,” he said. “We do this every day on the job, so it’s no big deal to us. Everybody’s just happy to see it gone, you know? And so am I. I got sick of the phone calls about it. There’s not very many people who are capable of doing the project. Sometimes you just got to do the right thing, you know?”

Prokosch started the job, along with three other men, on Friday morning and got the boat — called Sweet Destiny — to the Hudson Excursion docks in Hudson owned by St. Croix River Cruises. Prokosch worked with Josh Stokes, a River City Welding employee, and Gordy and Dave Jarvis from St. Croix Cruises and the Afton House Inn to get the water pumped out from the boat and towed away.

Prokosch had a prior commitment on Saturday — his daughter was graduating from the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire — so the boat stayed docked at the Hudson Excursion dock with constant pumping and supervision, Dave Jarvis said.

By 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, Prokosch was back on site with his barge and crane.

“We had our equipment up in the area anyway, so we just decided we could take a few hours out of our day,” Prokosch said. “I figured we would just swing in there and make it happen, and get rid of the story and get rid of the headache and just all the crap that went with it.”

It took until about 1:30 p.m. to make the 50-mile journey to Hager City, Wis., which included a journey through Lock #3 on the Mississippi River.

“We had to keep the pumps running the whole time because the boat was leaking like crazy — 15 gallons every 10 minutes,” he said.

Once they got to Hager City, across the river from Red Wing, Minn., crews hauled the boat out on a hydraulic trailer and put it on the back of a semitractor trailer belonging to EdgeWater Boat Storage & Transport for the five-mile trip to the company’s storage area, he said.

Prokosch, who has worked on the river since 1992, said he has done work for the cities of Hudson and Prescott, Wis., in the past.

“That’s another reason why I did it: just to do a public duty,” he said. “I just wanted to get rid of all the talk about the boat on the river and just put it behind us.”

He said he hopes Grayson McNew, the man who abandoned the boat on Beer Can Island in August 2024, after it started to take on water, learned a valuable lesson from the experience.

“If it sounds too good to be true, most of the time, it usually is,” Prokosch said.

A man who hopes to restore the boat paid River City Welding $5,000 for their work; the job would normally cost much more than that, said Dave Jarvis, who helped coordinate the removal. The man, who asked not to be identified, also paid $1,300 EdgeWater for their services, Jarvis said.

“All these government agencies couldn’t get it done,” he said. “But two river veterans (Prokosch and Gordy Jarvis) could. It’s been an eyesore and, frankly, an embarrassing thing for our community for too long.”

McNew, of Afton, owes the City of Hudson about $21,000 in fines for abandoning the boat, Hudson City Administrator Brentt Michalek said Monday.

“It’s already gone to collections,” he said. “We could choose to waive some of it, but there are costs that are already incurred by the city that he is responsible for. This wasn’t a cheap thing for us. A lot of time was spent trying to get this individual to move his boat.”

The Jarvises plan to work with the Hudson business community to raise extra funds for Prokosch, Gordy Jarvis said.

“Wayne deserves some some recognition,” Gordy Jarvis said. “He’s such a humble guy that he doesn’t really want anything, but he’s so deserving, and the community knows it, and they want to be a part of that.”

Dave Jarvis said he hopes the man who paid the initial fee to remove the boat gets it fixed up and seaworthy again.

“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “All I can say is, God bless anyone who wants to try to fix it up. It’s going to take a lot of love and the right knowledge and the right person. But it may happen. You never know. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

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