U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel to press for a cease-fire deal with Hamas, saying “the time is now.” Blinken warned that Hamas would bear the blame for any failure to get an agreement to halt the war in Gaza off the ground. He greeted the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza who were protesting outside a meeting between him and Israel’s president, telling them that setting their loved ones free was “at the heart of everything we’re trying to do.” Blinken is trying to advance a truce that would free hostages in exchange for a halt in the fighting and delivery of much needed food and aid to Gaza.

Georgia may soon have its first national park. Republicans and Democrats in the state's Congressional delegation introduced legislation Wednesday to protect some of the ancestral lands of the Muscogee tribe from development. The proposed Ocmulgee Mounds Park and Preserve in the center of present-day Georgia would include mounds and hundreds of other cultural or historic sites of significance to the Muscogee. About 700 acres surrounding seven mounds were declared a national monument in 1936. The boundaries of the proposed park were established in consultation with the Muscogee Nation, which was forcibly removed to Oklahoma roughly 200 years ago.

The U.S. military plans to return to Chad within a month for talks about revising an agreement that allows it to keep troops based there. The commander of U.S. Africa Command made the comments to reporters in Ghana on Wednesday. The U.S. said last month it was pulling most of its contingent of about 100 troops from Chad after the government questioned the legality of their operations there. This followed Niger’s decision to order all U.S. troops out of the country. That dealt a blow to U.S. military operations in the Sahel.

An exhibition of Western military equipment captured from Kyiv forces during the fighting in Ukraine has opened in the Russian capital. The Russian Defense Ministry that organized the exhibit says it features more than 30 pieces of Western-made heavy equipment including a U.S.-made M1 Abrams battle tank and Bradley armored fighting vehicle, German-made Leopard 2 tank and Marder armored infantry vehicle and the French-made AMX-10RC armored vehicle. The exhibition that opened Wednesday is set at a World War II memorial venue in western Moscow. It also displays firearms, military papers and other documents. Russian authorities have criticized supplies of Western weapons and military equipment to Ukraine and cast them as evidence of NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict.