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.

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.

Israel plans on opening a major humanitarian aid crossing into hard-hit northern Gaza. That's according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who spoke Tuesday during his latest visit to the Mideast. Israel’s war against Hamas has flattened huge swaths of the territory’s north, and famine is imminent for the hundreds of thousands of civilians who remain. Blinken is trying to advance cease-fire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and talks appear to be gaining momentum. However, hours before he landed in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to launch a ground offensive into Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah — “with or without a deal” to halt the fighting and release Israeli hostages.