For military personnel far from home for the holidays . . . few sounds are more welcome than the words MAIL CALL. And dedicated volunteers here on the home front are working hard to make sure that none our troops anywhere in the world is disappointed. Our Cover Story is reported now by Tracy Smith:

For a few days every year, hundreds of volunteers crowd a National Guard armory in Van Nuys, Calif., making boxes bound for war.

They’re packed with little bits of home: new toothbrushes . . . DVDs . . . Girl Scout cookies . . . hand-knit scarves . . . things that can make life in the combat zone easier, or at least bearable.

The name on the side says it all: Operation Gratitude.

When Tracy Smith asked if there were still a need for care packages since the U.S. has withdrawn troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, Carolyn Blashek – founded Operation Gratitude eight years ago – said, “There’s absolutely still a need.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — As thousands watched in horror, a World War II-era fighter plane competing in a Nevada event described as a car race in the sky suddenly pitched upward, rolled and did a nose-dive toward the crowded grandstand.

The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran Hollywood stunt pilot, then slammed into the concrete in a section of VIP box seats and blew to pieces in front the pilot’s family and a tight-knit group of friends who attend the annual event in Reno.

“It absolutely disintegrated,” said Tim O’Brien of Grass Valley Calif., who attends the races every year. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

New York (CNN) — Thousands gathered Sunday morning at New York’s Ground Zero, stood still in silence, some crying as they listened to the names of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks were read aloud.

“They were our neighbors, our friends, our wives, children and parents,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, along with President Barack Obama, helped lead the commemoration on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

The solemn ceremony at the site of the World Trade Center came amid a heavy security presence permeating the area in lower Manhattan, as authorities continued their search for possible plotters of another terrorist strike.

LE BOURGET, France — Airbus is trouncing Boeing in the race to be the world’s biggest plane maker, claiming over $72 billion dollars worth of orders and commitments at the Paris Air Show, where the popularity of its new fuel-efficient jets twice broke records for the largest order ever.

Airbus’ success cast a long shadow over Chicago-based Boeing, which recorded only $22 billion in orders and commitments, and raised questions over the U.S. planemaker’s ability to compete in a market dominated by concerns over high fuel prices.

NASA hopes to try again Monday for one of the highest-profile space shuttle launches, after delaying the mission Friday due to a problem with a heater in one of Endeavour’s auxiliary power units.

The countdown was called off even as the shuttle’s six-man crew was heading for Launch Pad 39A. Liftoff would be delayed for at least three days, and most likely longer, while engineers looked into the problem, NASA launch director Mike Leinbach said.

PHOENIX – Boeing was surprised when a section of a Southwest jetliner’s fuselage ripped open in flight because the plane wasn’t old enough to be worrisome, a company official said Tuesday, as the airline cleared most of its older 737 planes to return to the skies.

Southwest said it had inspected nearly all of the jets it grounded after the accident on Friday. Five were found with the same kinds of cracks suspected of causing the 5-foot-long hole to open as the jet cruised around 34,000 feet. The planes are being repaired, the airline said.

Washington (CNN) — An air traffic control supervisor and the crew of a Southwest Airlines jet have been suspended after the controller asked the Southwest Boeing 737 to fly in the vicinity of a small Cirrus aircraft in an effort to check on the welfare of the pilot, authorities said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the action resulted in the planes getting too close to each other, endangering people on both aircraft.

WASHINGTON: A US F-15 fighter jet went down in flames while enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya while ground fighting raged on Tuesday even as Washington’s interventionist policy in the region teetered over the lack of clarity about its intention and the endgame.

Equipment malfunction was cited as the reason for the crash of a US air force F-15 E Strike Eagle from which two pilots ejected safely and were rescued, but Washington battled to set right the domestic message breakdown in defining its mission in Libya.

BENGHAZI, Libya — A coalition of American and European forces bombed Libyan targets by air and sea Saturday in the first phase of a military campaign to drive Moammar Gadhafi from power.

French warplanes fired the first shots in the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war, destroying government tanks and armored vehicles in the region of the rebels’ eastern stronghold, Benghazi. Hours later,

A Virgin Blue flight attendant was fired after an angry mother claimed he locked her toddler son in an overhead bin, the Sunday Herald Sun reports. Natalie Williamson told the newspaper that she, her 17-month-old son, Riley, and her now estranged husband were traveling
on a Virgin flight from Fiji to Sydney, Australia, when the flight
attendant picked up Riley, placed him in the overhead bin and shut the
door.