Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip have rolled across a newly built U.S. pier and into the besieged enclave for the first time. Friday's shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day. It comes as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hindered the delivery of food and other supplies seven months into the Israel-Hamas war. But the U.S. and aid groups warn that the floating pier project is not a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza. Before the war, more than 500 truckloads entered the territory on an average day.

Israeli troops have recovered the bodies of three hostages in the Gaza Strip. The military said Friday the three were killed at a music festival during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and their bodies were taken into Gaza. Among those found were German-Israeli Shani Louk. A photo of the 22-year-old's twisted body in the back of a pickup truck became emblematic of the attack. The military did not say where the bodies were found in Gaza. Israeli forces are currently invading the southern Gaza city of Rafah, saying it’s the last stronghold of Hamas and hostages are being held there.

Hundreds of Air Force members in dress blues have joined Roger Fortson’s family, friends and others at a suburban Atlanta megachurch to pay their final respects to the Black senior airman, who was shot and killed in his Florida home earlier this month by a sheriff’s deputy. People lined up well before the start of Friday's service at the church in Stonecrest to file past the open casket to say their goodbyes to Fortson. He was shot May 3 by a deputy responding to a possible domestic violence situation at Fortson’s apartment complex. During the service,

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.