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A U.S. Navy ship and several Army vessels involved in an American-led effort to bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip are offshore from the enclave and building out a floating platform for the operation. The Pentagon said on Monday that the construction and operation of the pier and aid delivery will cost at least $320 million. U.S. officials have confirmed the ongoing construction off the Gaza coast. The U.S. and Israel have said they hope to have the mobile pier in place and operations underway by early May. Aid has been slow to get into Gaza, with long backups of trucks awaiting Israeli inspections.

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Authorities said a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels damaged a ship in the Red Sea in the latest assault in their campaign against shipping in the crucial maritime route. The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said the ship was damaged in the attack Monday off the coast of Mokha, Yemen, though the crew was safe. The agency urged vessels to exercise caution in the area. The U.S. military’s Central Command identified the ship damaged as the Cyclades, a Malta-flagged, Greece-owned bulk carrier. The military separately shot down a drone on a flight path toward the USS Philippine Sea and USS Laboon. A Houthi military spokesman claimed the attack on the Cyclades and targeting the U.S. warships.

Richelle Dietz is a mother of two and wife of a U.S. Navy chief petty officer living on a Hawaii military base who often thinks about water. The family has been using bottled water for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth ever since 2021, when leaking jet fuel infiltrated the water system on their military base. Dietz is among 17 people suing the United States over the leak and continuing health problems they argue are tied to the tainted water. Dietz's case goes to trial Monday. The outcome could help determine the success of several cases that include more than 7,500 people.

An immigrant from Laos who has been battling cancer won an enormous $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month. But Cheng “Charlie” Saephan's luck hasn't just changed his life — it's also drawn attention to Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War. During a news conference Monday introducing him as one of the jackpot winners, Saephan wore a sash identifying himself as Iu Mien. Cayle Tern, president of the Iu Mien Association of Oregon, says the win is significant because so many Iu Mien refugees came to the U.S. with nothing.

NATO's secretary general says the alliance's member countries have failed to deliver in time what they promised to Ukraine. Jens Stoltenberg said during a visit to Kyiv that “serious delays in support have meant serious consequences on the battlefield." Russia is hurrying to exploit its advantages before Kyiv’s depleted forces get more Western military supplies. Ukraine's president says new Western supplies have started arriving, but slowly. Stoltenberg says more weapons and ammunition are on the way, including Patriot missile systems to defend against heavy Russian barrages. In other developments, Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh made an unannounced visit to Ukraine – the first British royal to travel to the country since Russia’s 2022 invasion.