In the coming days, the U.S. military in the eastern Mediterranean is expected to jab one end of a hulking metal dock into a beach in northern Gaza. And that may be the end of the easy part for the Biden administration’s $320 million effort to open a sea route to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Relief groups point to dangers and uncertainties ahead for aid delivery teams as fighting surges. They say Israel hasn't improved the humanitarian access and safety promised after an Israeli attack killed a team with World Central Kitchen. The Israeli prime minister’s office says it had enabled the entrance of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza and would continue to do so.
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A military hearing officer is deciding whether to recommend a court-martial for Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges for leaking highly classified military documents. Teixeira admitted illegally collecting some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and sharing them on the social media platform Discord. He's now facing military charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice. At a hearing Tuesday at Hanscom Air Force base, military prosecutors said a court-martial is appropriate given that obeying orders is the “absolute core” of the military. But Teixeira's lawyers argued further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.
The Air Force says an instructor pilot was killed when the ejection seat activated while the jet was still on the ground at a Texas military base. The instructor pilot was in a T-6A Texan II at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, when the seat activated during ground operations on Monday. The pilot was taken to a hospital and died Tuesday. The pilot’s name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin. In 2022, the T-6 fleet and hundreds of other Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps jets were grounded after inspections revealed a potential defect with one component of the ejection seat’s cartridge actuated devices, or CADs.
Authorities in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia have announced a curfew and banned gatherings after violent unrest on the archipelago with decades of tensions between indigenous Kanaks seeking independence and colonizers’ descendants who want to remain part of France. French media say the unrest started with protests against voting reforms that French lawmakers are debating in Paris which would expand voter lists. Opponents of the reforms say that would benefit pro-France politicians in New Caledonia and further marginalize the Kanak people. They once suffered from strict segregation policies and widespread discrimination.
The daily struggle to find work for Chinese immigrants living illegally in a borough of New York is a far cry from the picture Donald Trump and other Republicans have sought to paint. The former president has repeatedly suggested that Chinese migrants are a coordinated group of “military-age” men who have come to the United States to build an “army." Immigrants who talked to The Associated Press said they came to the U.S. to escape poverty in China or the threat of persecution in their repressive home country. Asian advocacy organizations say they're concerned the exaggerated rhetoric could fuel further harassment against Asians in the U.S.
Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko says the long delay by the U.S. Congress in approving military aid for his country was “a colossal waste of time.” He told The Associated Press on Monday that it let Russian President Vladimir Putin inflict more suffering in the 2-year-old invasion and only prolonged the war. Yushchenko is a pro-European reformer and he was in Philadelphia to speak at a World Affairs Council event. The lack of ammunition forced Ukrainian forces to surrender village after village on the front lines. U.S. officials say they’re rushing newly approved weaponry to Ukraine. President Joe Biden pushed for months to overcome resistance from hard-right Republican lawmakers before the aid was approved last month.
