A growing number of civilians and police officers are demanding the dismissal and arrest of Haiti’s police chief as heavily armed gangs launched a new attack in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Gunmen seized control of yet another police station after raiding the coastal community of Gressier in the western tip of Port-au-Prince starting late Friday. They injured people, burned cars and attacked homes and other infrastructure as scores of people fled into the nearby mountains following a barrage of gunfire overnight late Friday. It was not immediately known if anyone died.
TOP NEWS
U.S. special operations commanders are having to do more with less and they're learning from the war in Ukraine, That means juggling how to add more high-tech experts to their teams while still cutting their overall forces by about 5,000 troops over the next five years. The conflicting pressures are forcing a broader restructuring of commando teams that often are deployed for high-risk counterterrorism missions and other sensitive operations around the world. The changes under consideration are being influenced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including lessons learned by British special operations forces there.
The Biden administration says Israel’s use of U.S-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law. But the administration says wartime conditions in the Palestinian territory prevented U.S. officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes. The administration’s findings of “reasonable” evidence to conclude that its ally had breached international law in its conduct of the war in Gaza represent the strongest such statement from Biden officials. The findings were released to Congress on Friday.
The families of five Hawaii men who served in a unit of Japanese-language linguists during World War II have received posthumous Purple Heart medals on behalf of their loved ones nearly eight decades after the soldiers died in a plane crash in the final days of the conflict. The five were among 31 men killed when their C-46 transport plane hit a cliff while attempting to land on Aug. 13, 1945. Army records indicate only two of the 31 ever received Purple Heart medals, which the military awards to those wounded or killed during action against an enemy.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed proposed restrictions on foreign ownership of land in Kansas. Kelly rejected a bill that top Republicans argued would protect military bases from Chinese spying. Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins accused Kelly of “apathy” toward serious national security threats from China and other nations declared by the U.S. government to be adversaries “of concern.” Those nations include Cuba, Iraq, North Korea and Venezuela. The bill would have prohibited more than 10% ownership by foreign nationals from those countries of any non-residential property within 100 miles of any military installation. That would have been most of Kansas. Kelly said it was too broad.
Kuwait’s emir has again dissolved the small, oil-rich country’s parliament amid continuing political deadlock. Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber made the announcement Friday in an address carried by state television. He says other unspecified portions of the constitution have been suspended as well. He says the suspension will run for “a period of no more than four years,” without elaborating. Domestic political disputes have snarled Kuwait for years, including over changes to the welfare system, and the impasse has prevented the sheikhdom from taking on debt. That has left it with little in its coffers to pay bloated public sector salaries despite generating immense wealth from its oil reserves.
