The first distribution of badly needed aid is expected to begin this weekend after rolling off a newly built U.S. pier off the coast of Gaza. But aid workers warn much more access is needed to the besieged territory where famine might be under way. United Nations officials have not said where the truckloads of food would be distributed. Israel's war with the Hamas militant group is now in its eighth month, and there is growing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from multiple fronts. The U.S. national security adviser is expected to meet with Netanyahu this weekend.

After 73 years and a long fight with the Army, a Korean War veteran from Minnesota who was wounded in combat finally got his Purple Heart. The U.S. Army notified 96-year-old Earl Meyer last month that it had granted him the medal, which honors service members wounded in combat. He received it in a ceremony Friday in St. Peter. An Army review board had rejected Meyer’s application several times due to a lack of paperwork. It reversed course after a campaign by his three daughters, and intervention by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and the service’s top noncommissioned officer.

The U.S. ambassador to Japan has stressed the importance of increased deterrence and his country’s commitment to its key ally as he visited two southwestern Japanese islands at the forefront of Tokyo's tension with Beijing. Rahm Emanuel on Friday visited Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost island just east of Taiwan, a self-governed island also claimed by China. He later visited another Japanese island, Ishigaki, home to Japan Coast Guard patrol boats defending the disputed East China Sea islands and Japanese fishermen from armed Chinese coast guard ships that routinely enter Japanese waters. Japan is further accelerating its military buildup under a 2022 security strategy that focuses on counter-strike capability with long-range cruise missiles.