The Pentagon says the United States will pull the majority of its troops from Chad and Niger as it works to restore key agreements governing what role there might be there for the American military and its counterterrorism operations. The Pentagon spokesman said Thursday the U.S. will relocate most of the approximately 100 forces it has deployed in Chad, and the majority of the 1,000 U.S. personnel assigned to Niger are also expected to depart. Both African countries have been integral to the U.S. military’s efforts to counter violent extremist organizations across the Sahel region. But Niger’s ruling junta ended an agreement last month that allows U.S. troops to operate in the West African country.

U.S. Army reservists who witnessed the mental and physical decline of a colleague who would commit Maine’s deadliest mass shooting told a commission that they tried to intervene before the tragedy. Six weeks before Robert Card killed 18 people at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, last October, his best friend and fellow reservist Sean Hodgson texted a warning to supervisors. Hodgson told a commission Thursday that is investigating the killings that he feared at the time that Card was about to conduct a mass shooting. The commission also heard Thursday from other Army personnel and from the state’s director of victim witnesses services.

Palestinian hospital officials said Israeli airstrikes on the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip killed at least five people. More than half of the territory’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah. Israel has conducted near-daily raids there as it prepares for an offensive in the city. Four people were killed in Israeli tank shelling in central Gaza. Officials said that a ship traveling in the Gulf of Aden came under attack Thursday. It was the latest assault likely carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels over the Israel-Hamas war.

Arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court have ended after more than 2 1/2 hours in Donald Trump’s bid to avoid prosecution over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The arguments had been scheduled to last for an hour Thursday but ran more than double the allotted time. The case delved deep into the nuances of immunity, and key questions of when the high court might rule remain unclear. The court usually releases its opinions by the end of June, and the timing of the ruling could be as important as the outcome.

Ukraine is seeking to reverse the drain of potential soldiers from the country. It has announced that men of conscription age will no longer be able to renew their passports from outside the country. The move late Wednesday comes as Ukraine works to get much-needed new supplies of weapons and ammunition from a huge U.S. aid package to the front line. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Poland's defense minister said Warsaw was ready to help ensure “those who are subject to compulsory military service go to Ukraine,” though he did not specify how.