Obama to honor 28 victims of 1961 tower collapse

BOSTON (AP) — He fused its steel with his welder's torch in an American shipyard. He was there when this Cold War radar station, known as "Texas Tower No. 4," first stood 80 miles (130 kilometers) offshore.

And when the tower collapsed, David Abbott went down with it, one of 28 men killed when the hurricane-weakened structure finally buckled under the North Atlantic's pounding.

Fifty years later, President Barack Obama is recognizing the sacrifice of Abbott and those killed in the Jan. 15, 1961, collapse. Within the next week, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's office, which lobbied for the honor, expects to deliver a letter from Obama to Abbott's son, Donald, in a gesture …