Tag: military

New US Army regulation could result in more soldiers failing body fat assessments | CNN Politics

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As the US Army moves to a new way to measure soldiers’ body fat, officials acknowledged Wednesday that some soldiers who had previously passed under the old regulations may now fail under the new.

The Army is changing its tape test – a method to measure soldiers’ body fat by taking the circumference of various parts of a soldier’s body with a measuring tape. The tape test, an often-dreaded practice among soldiers, is used when soldiers’ weights do not fall within the mandated body mass index screening table.

Previously, men were taped around their neck and abdomen, while women were taped around their neck, waist, and hips. Now, all soldiers regardless of gender will be taped in one area – around the navel – to calculate their body fat.

Many soldiers had cheered the Army’s efforts to update its Body Composition Program when the study started in 2021.

But Holly McClung, a lead researcher on the Army’s Body Composition Study that resulted in the change, told reporters Wednesday that more soldiers will fail the new test.

Army data provided to CNN showed that 34% of people were passing the previous version of the tape test when they should have failed. The new test is expected to align with the regulations and lead to more failures, the data said.

The change is a potential concern considering that soldiers who fail to meet the weight standards can be separated from the service, after several months of attempting to get within their weight standard.

Asked about concerns over more soldiers potentially failing because of the updated body composition study, Sgt. Maj. Christopher Stevens, the senior enlisted leader of the Army’s personnel office, told reporters on Wednesday that the Army is “putting everything on the table to really look at how we can ensure that we continue to assess and retain quality.”

The tape test practice has long been criticized as outdated and inaccurate, particularly as the Army shifted to a new fitness test that introduced more weightlifting than the old test, sparking concerns that the body assessment wouldn’t account for gaining muscle mass.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the measurement of waist circumference can help predict who may be at higher risk of developing obesity-related health problems like diabetes and heart disease, but it is not a diagnostic tool to determine body fatness or health.

Indeed, the Army said in March that soldiers “with a high volume of lean muscle mass were still at risk of failing the body fat assessment.” So the Army made an exemption for soldiers who scored a 540 out of 600 total points on the Army Combat Fitness Test, saying that those soldiers would not need to be taped. The exemption requires a minimum of 80 out of 100 points earned in each of the six fitness tests.

“As soldiers leverage all domains of Holistic Health and Fitness and strive to reach their maximum potential, our policies should encourage their progress, not constrain It,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston said at the time.

McClung said Wednesday that efforts by the Army to link data of body composition to soldiers’ performance is “kind of groundbreaking.”

“And what we hope is that over years to come, maybe the bar will get heightened and that it won’t be a 540 it’ll be a 550, it’ll be a continuous moving benchmark because the soldiers will become more fit,” she said.

For the next year, soldiers will have the option of using the previous measuring methods if they fail the tape test under the new regulations. If a soldier fails both, they have the option of requesting another assessment using specific machines that use X-ray or other methods to measure body fat.

Soldiers who still weigh outside the required standard for their gender and height are enrolled in the Army Body Composition Program, which is meant to help them lose weight and get back within standards. Army regulations say they will be provided “exercise guidance” by a fitness trainer in the unit and meet with a registered dietitian.

Soldiers who fail to get within standards after six months can be separated from the service.

McClung said Wednesday that those who had been inaccurately passing would not be “necessarily separated from the Army.”

“We want to help them,” she said, “we want to put them on a health promotion track, work with some dietitians and some trainers, and bring them up to standards.”

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April 12, 2021
US airstrikes kill 10 al-Shabaab members in Somalia | CNN Politics

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Ten al-Shabaab members were killed by airstrikes conducted by US Africa Command in Somalia in the overnight hours of Saturday, the Defense Department announced.

“At the request of the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted three collective self-defense airstrikes overnight in a remote area near Afmadow, approximately 105 kilometers north of Kismayo, against al-Shabaab terrorists,” US Africa Command said in a statement Sunday.

The initial assessment of the Somali National Army and US Africa Command found that 10 members of the terrorist group were killed and there were no civilian casualties, per the statement.

Al-Shabaab is the largest and most active al Qaeda network in the world, according to the US Africa Command. The group controlled a vast area of Somalia before being pushed back by government counteroffensives last year, according to Reuters.

However, the militants continue to launch lethal attacks across the country with the aim of toppling the central government and establishing a rule based on its strict interpretation of Islam’s Sharia law.

In late May, al-Shabaab fighters launched an attack on an African Union military base in Somalia, in which at least 54 Ugandan soldiers were killed, according to Ugandan officials.

The US has provided ongoing support to the Somali government since President Joe Biden last year approved a Pentagon request to redeploy US troops to the area in an attempt to counter the terrorist group.

The approval to send fewer than 500 troops was a reversal of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 decision to withdraw nearly all US troops from the country.

The US has launched a number of strikes against al-Shabaab this year, including one that killed 30 fighters in January and three in February that killed a total of 24 soldiers.

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April 12, 2021
US gives ‘green light’ to European countries to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets, Biden official says | CNN Politics

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The US will allow European countries to train Ukrainians on F-16 fighter jets, a top Biden administration official confirmed Sunday, a potential boon for Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russia’s air superiority.

“The president has given a green light and we will allow, permit, support, facilitate and in fact provide the necessary tools for Ukrainians to begin being trained on F-16s, as soon as the Europeans are prepared,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

The decision cements a stark turnaround for President Joe Biden, who said earlier this year that he did not believe that Ukraine needed the F-16s. One of the main issues Kyiv’s ground forces have faced as their counteroffensive gets underway is Russian air power holding them back. Russia still maintains air superiority, which makes it difficult for ground forces to advance.

In May, Biden had informed G7 leaders that the US would support a joint effort with allies and partners to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth generation aircraft, including F-16s, though it was unclear at the time when that training would star.

The US-made jet has air-to-air refueling capabilities and is compatible with most NATO weapons already being supplied to Ukraine. Despite first entering production in the 1980s, it has gone through several upgrades, making it more advanced and versatile that any jet Ukraine currently has in its fleet, and a fierce rival for most Russian aircraft, with the exception of newer models that Moscow has hesitated to deploy in Ukraine.

Sullivan noted Sunday that European allies have said they need several weeks to prepare training abilities and that the US would meet whatever timeline they set out.

“The United States will not be the hold-up in ensuring that this F-16 training can get underway,” he said.

Turning to US national defense, Sullivan lamented the House-passed defense policy bill that includes the adoption of several controversial amendments that touched on hot-button social issues.

“This legislation is never getting to the president’s desk because what you’ve seen from an extreme group of Republicans is to put forward a set of amendments that try to mix domestic social debates with the needs the security needs,” Sullivan said.

The addition of amendments pushed by conservative hard-liners related to abortion policy and transgender health care access as well as targeting diversity and inclusion programs infuriated Democrats – and will now set up a clash with the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Pressed to acknowledge that the bill was passed along party lines but supported by a majority of House GOP lawmakers, Sullivan argued that the process had been hijacked by a, “small group of Republicans.”

“A huge number of folks in the House, including Republicans, in my view, are not particularly interested in having politics come into the middle of the (National) Defense Authorization Act,” Sullivan said, referring to the official name of the defense policy bill.

“So it was a small group of Republicans who essentially created a trap. A circumstance we don’t need to find ourselves in.”

CLARIFICATION: This story and headline have been updated to better describe the Ukrainian F-16 trainees.

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April 12, 2021
Best drip coffee maker in 2023 | CNN Underscored
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There are so many brewing methods to choose from (French press, the currently trendy dalgona whipped, pour-over), but many coffee lovers still rely on the classic, automatic drip for their daily fix. That’s why we tested the best-rated drip coffee makers using a wide range of criteria (outlined below) over the course of several weeks. Bags upon bags of dark roast, light roast and medium roast coffee beans were ground and brewed. We made full carafes, half carafes and single cups. And we tasted the results black, with cow’s milk, almond milk, sweetened condensed milk, cold-brew strength over ice — you name it.

Many, many pots of coffee later, we settled on four standout drip coffee machines.

Best drip coffee maker overall

The Braun KF6050WH BrewSense Drip Coffee Maker produced consistently delicious, hot cups of coffee, brewed efficiently and cleanly, from sleek, relatively compact hardware that is turnkey to operate, and all for a reasonable price.

Runner-up with a modern bent

This was, to our eye, the most handsome and minimally designed of the straightforward auto-brewers, delivering a clean, tasty cup. It lost first place only because the touchscreen may not be for every consumer, and brew time is significantly longer than the other machines we tried out.

Luxury pick for the design-obsessed

In just near five minutes, the Technivorm Moccamaster 59636 KBG Coffee Brewer turns out a whole pot of pretty perfectly brewed coffee, and the process is as entrancing as a targeted Netflix trailer.

Best affordable drip coffee maker

One of the cheapest options we tested, the Mr. Coffee 12-cup brewer is compact, simple to operate and yields a very competitive cup.

We brewed countless pots of coffee with the BrewSense, ranging from light to dark roast, and each one yielded a strong, delicious cup with no sediment, thanks to the gold tone filter, designed to remove the bitterness from coffee as well reduce single-use paper-filter waste. The machine we tested was white — a nice option for those with a more modern kitchen design — but it also comes in black, and it’s compact enough to fit under the cabinets in a smaller space compared to some of the more cumbersome machines we tested.

The BrewSense is straightforward to operate: It’s designed like a traditional automatic drip machine with manual operating buttons, but with a sleek, modern upgrade. The hardware is a sophisticated combination of brushed metal and plastic, with a glass carafe that feels comfortable in the hand.

The BrewSense doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles compared to some of the machines we tested, and that functional ease helped elevate it to the top of our list. You could unbox this machine, flush it through with water once, and be drinking a freshly brewed cup within 15 minutes, all without reading the manual. Brewing is also a nearly silent process, which can be pleasing on early mornings. Some consumers may want a machine loaded with special features, but for those who just want delicious, hot coffee every morning, without spending over a hundred bucks, this is your best bet.

The BrewSense isn’t perfect: It’s not the fastest we tested — to brew a full pot of 12 cups took upwards of 11 minutes. And we found an annoying error in the instruction manual around how to program the clock (call us rigid, but we insisted on programming the time before using each of the machines!); the directions read to press and hold CLOCK and then SET, but that didn’t work. We had to simply press and hold the CLOCK button and then sort of trial and error our way through the hours and minutes. Meanwhile, the auto-program setup is not as obvious as we’d have liked; though once we got it, it worked like a dream. But otherwise, we found this machine intuitive and easy to operate even without the instruction manual.

Cleanup could at times be a little messier than some of our other machines. The hot water comes up through the filter basket and spreads the grounds up to the top of the cone, and during one brewing, a tiny bit rose up outside the cone so the top of the brew apparatus needed a little wipedown. Overall, though, for less than $80, this machine delivers the best bang for your buck of anything on the market.

Coming in just a few points behind the Braun BrewSense was one of the three Cuisinart automatic drip machines we tested: the Touchscreen 14-Cup Programmable.

We rated all three Cuisinarts highly, but the Touchscreen ranked highest for its combination of progressive design and everyday efficacy. All the Cuisinart products we encountered were well designed, but this one feels special, like when you unbox a brand-new Apple product: Its all-black, shiny surfaces and touchscreen control panel look and feel next-level for an everyday coffee maker (and the price, $235 at Macy’s, more than three times that of the Braun, reflects that).

But this isn’t just a fancy, aesthetically pleasing machine: It brewed strong, delicious coffee that tasted cleanly filtered but rich. It’s also relatively easy to program and use, given its tech-centric platform. The touchscreen panel features cute little icons signifying one-touch commands to help customize your brew: If you like your coffee bolder, you can select the BOLD feature; if you’re brewing less than half a pot, select the 1 to 4 cups feature for a slower brew with the proper extraction time; adjust the hot plate temperature to low, medium or high; turn the audible brew-cycle-finished tone on or off.

That tech-centric design is also one of the reasons this didn’t come in at number one, however. As exciting and different as it felt, we did feel that this machine — the only touchscreen model we tested — would feel less intuitive and more laborious than some consumers would want as part of their morning coffee routine. The touchscreen goes dark during the brew process, which yes, is nice-looking, but also feels a bit jarring, like you’re literally in the dark, asking yourself, “What’s going on? Is coffee brewing?” The settings and operating buttons are clear enough when illuminated, but it did take us a few times brewing to get used to how much pressure you need to apply with your fingertip to the touchscreen. We could easily think of people in our own lives who would be flummoxed by this machine if left alone with it and a bag of coffee — and for that, it lost a few points in functionality.

Also, like its Cuisinart cousins we tested, this one’s a slower brewer. We clocked 11 minutes for eight cups, and if you’re watching your coffee maker brew like, well, a watched pot, it seems like it … takes forever. We understand the appeal of a slower brewing process (pour-over and Chemex fans, we hear you!), but 12 to 14 minutes for a full pot of coffee seems like a long time to wait when you’re thirsty for your morning Joe and you’re not doing it by hand. Finally, not everyone will want to spend more than $200 on a coffee maker. But many may.

While some consumers might be flummoxed by the technology of this higher-end product, others will embrace it and make it a centerpiece of their kitchen, and rightly so. Form plus function equals morning happiness here.

We had heard about the Technivorm Moccaster, a machine beloved for its innovative and old-school industrial design, handmade and tested in the Netherlands since 1968, even before we received it for this story. Multiple friends reached out upon hearing that we were testing a Moccamaster, singing the brand’s praises, and one declared it superlative via Instagram DM: “Moccamaster? Test over!” And the Moccamaster arrives with its own best PR too. Its user manual applauds buyers: “Congratulations on your purchase of the World’s Finest Coffee Brewer!” (If you’re spending more than $300 on a coffee maker, perhaps the enthusiasm feels validating.)

Once we got the apparatus set up — which takes a little focus and time, to be honest — it really did pay off, with possibly the most delicious, hot, fresh cup of coffee we have ever tasted from a home-brewed machine. What’s more, you barely have time to peruse the morning news headlines before the process is done. The Moccamaster brewed 10 cups in less than six minutes, and, on a second trial, six cups in under four minutes. The brew function is almost jarringly fast: Once you turn on the machine, the brewing starts immediately. Then, seeing the water heat in the tank and bubble up through the water transfer tube into the brewer was a throwback to middle-school science experiments in the most pleasing way, like if a lava lamp produced fresh hot coffee after a few mesmerizing undulations.

We discovered much to love about the Moccamaster, but there also were elements we didn’t adore. Perhaps ironically, they’re about the design. Some love a more hands-on coffee-making process, but some might find that there are just too many moving parts here, literally. We needed to read the directions pretty closely to assemble the parts. Once assembled, and once we digested what was happening brew-process-wise, the machine became fairly easy to operate.

But each time you use this machine, you have to take the brew basket apart to add a new paper filter (yes, it requires a paper filter, if that makes a difference to you) and coffee grounds, and that basket removal sometimes disrupts the outlet arm and the reservoir lid — not a huge deal, but it could feel like you have to put your coffee maker back together from scratch every morning. Also, the basket lid and outlet arm, through which the hot water travels from the tube to the brew basket, get very hot during the process. It’s fine if you’re aware and cautious, but you wouldn’t want someone to wander up and unknowingly touch the hot part of the brewer.

And finally, perhaps our most significant beef with this model: When you return the glass carafe to hotplate in between pours, the glass scrapes the warmer in a slightly cringey way.

The coffee that this striking machine yields, though, may diminish other distractions — we found ourselves moving this maker back to the kitchen counter time and again, because the brew process and its results were superior. If you, like us, are a fan of the Moccamaster, you’re likely to be one for many years to come, which will amortize the steep price tag accordingly.

We won’t go on and on about the Mr. Coffee 12-Cup, but it brewed a very workable 12 cups, in both taste and temperature, in just nine minutes. The machine came packaged in some pretty intense plastic and cardboard — the unboxing took a full five minutes and a pair of scissors — but once separated from its packaging, this machine’s a breeze to put together. The hardware is very easy to use (and to program to brew at a specific time), even without reading the directions. It’s compact — one of the best small drip coffee makers we tested — and durable, and the lid, brew basket, carafe and removable top half are all dishwasher safe, which wasn’t common among the machines we tested.

The testing process for these coffee makers was intensive, lasting more than a month. We evaluated each machine based on what would be most important to the user — namely, functionality, durability and design. We tested each machine at least twice (but four to eight times for some) with both dark and light roast freshly ground beans, did a programmed/timed brew when available, and tested the additional functions of the more specialty machines (single-cup, cold brew, tea, milk frothing). We jotted notes about every machine’s unboxing, read every instruction manual, handled and rehandled the hardware, timed the brew of each machine, noted the temperature of the resulting coffee, and tasted and had others taste and weigh in on user experience. We tried to get as acquainted as possible with each of these machines, became fond of a good many of them — and as a result, we drank way too much coffee over the month in question.

Read on for the categories and their breakdowns.

Brew function
Optimal temperature: We didn’t take the actual temperature of the coffee from each machine, because we don’t think that’s how the average coffee drinker evaluates home brewing — experts recommend that coffee be brewed at between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit, and served immediately, at 180 to 185 degrees — but we scored the perceived temp of each brew against all the others. We tasted each cup immediately after brewing, black, and then with added cold milk, and recorded the results.

Taste: The taste of coffee is, obviously, subjective. Two people could spend a lifetime tasting the different coffee varietals and never agree on one. That being said, we tested each machine with both a dark roast and a light roast, keeping the amount of grounds consistent to the machine’s directions. As a result, some machines that recommended using more grounds yielded stronger brews — in those instances, we retested those with less grounds accordingly.

Time to brew: For each carafe brewed, we timed the process on an iPhone timer, both for a full carafe and half. For those machines that made single cups, we timed that process as well.

Heat retention: We noted whether the machine brewed into a glass or a thermal carafe, and how hot the coffee remained a half hour to an hour after brewing.

User-friendliness: We did an initial scan of each machine, evaluating whether a new customer would be able to brew coffee without reading the instruction manual. We then assessed whether the design of each machine is immediately intuitive, and on a more micro level, assessed the settings and buttons on the face of the machine, the markings on the water tank and carafe, how easy the carafe is to fill, and the design of the brew basket.

Volume yield: We noted how many ounces each machine can brew.

Programmability: We recorded whether you can program the machine to brew at a set time.
Durability
Everyday durability: For this category, we assessed how the machine responded to being handled during setup, filling the water tank, adding the grounds, removing and replacing carafe to serve, cleanup, and how durable the hardware felt.

Build quality: We noted what materials the machine is built from, e.g., plastic, metal, brushed metal, glass, and the tangible feel of each machine in a user’s hands.

Serviceability: We noted the ease of opening and taking apart the removable parts of each machine, in the case it would need to be serviced.
Setup and breakdown
Ease of assembly: We observed how long it took to unbox the machine, put it together, and do an initial water flush before the product could be used.

Size of machine: We assessed how much counter space each machine took up, and how easy it is to move and store.

Ease of clean: After each brewing, we took note of how easy it was to clean the brew basket, the carafe, and the surrounding hardware.
Aesthetic
First impression: We observed our first impression of each machine, noting details of design, color, size, feel — whether this machine looked attractive on our counter.

Color options: We researched if the machine came in any colors besides black.
Warranty
We checked the number of years of warranty of each machine.
Ninja Hot and Cold Brewed System

We tested two Ninja machines, both of which have some very appealing features. The hot and cold brew system brewed an excellent pot of hot coffee in less than five minutes, as well as a very tasty single cup (in multiple sizes), a less easy feat to perfect. It also brews coffee intended to be served directly over ice, an option that lots of consumers will like. We love the cool, minimalist glass carafe, though the lid features a big hole in the middle for pouring, which can lead to some splashing.

This machine, though prolific in function, lost points because the water tank — plastic with prominent ridges — feels cheap and devolves the user experience a bit (with this machine, thankfully, the plastic tank is in the back, hidden from view, but does need to be handled every time you add water). Another problem with this machine: The water tank doesn’t have marking measurements, only half carafe, and full carafe, and two sizes of single cup. Without ounce or cup markings, how does one know how much water to add versus amount of coffee grounds? The Ninja machines come with a special-sized coffee scoop, different amounts on each end of the scoop, but it was bothersome that the water and the coffee amounts couldn’t be more standardized without relying only on the provided removable accessories (which, for the record, are cute — there’s a removable frothing wand). A lot of performance features with this machine also means a busy control panel that also feels a bit high-maintenance.

The Ninja Specialty is similar to the hot and cold brewed one, with one major difference: The water tank is adjacent to the brew basket, and visible to the eye. This one also brews a very nice cup of hot fresh coffee, and has nifty added functions, too, like myriad sizes of individual cups, half and full carafes, and an over-ice option. The placement of the water tank front and center here, though, makes this one less appealing than the hot and cold option; the tank, similarly, feels flimsy and cheap, a factor that’s difficult to overlook in user experience. For those who like the Ninja brand products (they make blenders and other items), though, there’s a lot of function for your buck here.

The most basic of the Cuisinart options we tested, this one brewed a nearly perfect cup at, for this reviewer, a perfectly hot temp (even after adding significant cold milk, we still had a steaming hot cup), thanks to an adjustable carafe temp. This machine is solid and well-designed, with one downside (for us): Brewing time was 14 minutes for eight cups, nearly double the time of some of the other brewers we tested.

Cuisinart Coffee Center 10-Cup Thermal Coffee Maker and Single Serve Brewer

Our third Cuisinart brews only 10 cups into a thermal carafe, but has the handy bonus feature of a single-serve brew — with an attachment to use prepackaged coffee pods, or an adorable mini filter to use fresh grounds. (Note: The mini filter is a bit of a chore to clean because it is so small.) Like its Cuisinart siblings above, this machine makes good coffee, but the single-serve brewer does make the whole of the hardware more cumbersome. One annoying design issue: There’s an on/off switch on the side of the machine, whose placement feels not intuitive.

The De’Longhi TrueBrew is a superautomatic machine, meaning it incorporates a grinder so you can start with whole beans and have it do the rest for you. At the touch of a button, it can produce a single cup or a whole pot of coffee. The TrueBrew is incredibly convenient, but it’s quite expensive, and despite its wide range of options in our testing we got better tasting coffee from dedicated pour-over coffee and espresso setups. Unless you really want the ease of use of a pod machine along with the ability to use fresh whole beans it may not be for you.

The most affordable automatic drip machine we tested, the Black & Decker 12-cup, is also a solid choice. It brewed eight tasty cups in eight short minutes — overall a good user experience. Hardware-wise, it felt a bit less durable than its closest rival, the Mr. Coffee, but it’s programmable and super easy for near the cost of two lattes with an extra shot.

The Bonavita Connoisseur has its fans, but we had multiple issues with the machine. This pleasingly retro-looking apparatus brews a nice cup quickly and at a good temperature, but the user experience leaves much to be desired. Simply put, the design feels flawed. The lid of the carafe needs to be removed before brewing, so the coffee just brews directly into a wide-open carafe — this was so counterintuitive to us, even after three or four brew tries, that it diminished the experience of the brew process. The brewer also gets very hot during brewing — so hot that we wondered if it might actually be a safety issue. Lastly, after brewing, we screwed the carafe lid back on and tried to return the carafe to underneath the brewer — sure, maybe we were still sleepy, maybe not enough caffeine yet — but the carafe doesn’t fit under the brewer with the lid on; the entire top of the machine popped off. This affects storage of the machine, too; because the carafe lid and the brew basket don’t both fit into the hardware at the same time, there’s always one piece loose.

We were giddy upon opening this fancy brewer with much to offer: standard brew, fast, gold (what even is that, I wondered at first glance!), cold brew, single cup (with a sold separately attachment), and a customizable to your preferences setting. The options are exciting, but also overwhelming. The user is prompted to enter the consistency of their water, on a hard to soft scale — do all home coffee drinkers know the texture of their tap water? Also, does the average coffee drinker know what Gold Cup certification is? These feel like niche details for an automatic drip machine.

Big picture, the Breville brewed a good pot of coffee, quite quickly, but we didn’t find it hot enough. The whole apparatus is beautifully designed, with sleek brushed metal and a lightweight, handsome carafe lovely enough to join a brunch table. But digging in further, we found this machine just to be… well, just a little too much. Too much hardware — it doesn’t fit easily under our cabinets. Too many options — we needed to read up on a bunch of coffee wisdom before we could even set up the machine to our preferences. There are lots of users who would find this machine the sweet spot of function and sophistication, and enjoy exploring all of its specialties, but for those looking for turnkey coffee-making, this is a little extra.

Read more from CNN Underscored’s hands-on testing:
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April 12, 2021
US orders deployment of fighter jets and Navy destroyer to Middle East in response to Iranian activities | CNN Politics

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US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered F-35 and F-16 fighter jets deployed to the Middle East, as well as the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, in response to Iranian activities in the Strait of Hormuz.

“In response to a number of recent alarming events in the Strait of Hormuz, the Secretary of Defense has ordered the deployment of the destroyer USS Thomas Hudner, F-35 fighters and F-16 fighters to the US Central Command Area of Responsibility to defend US interests and safeguard freedom of navigation in the region,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said Monday.

The deployments come after two incidents earlier this month in which Iranian Navy ships attempted to seize merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

The US Navy intervened in both incidents on July 5. In one instance, in which an Iranian vessel was approaching the Richmond Voyager oil tanker, Iranian personnel opened fire on the tanker and hit the ship near the crew’s living spaces.

“In light of this continuing threat, and in coordination with our partners and allies, the department is increasing our presence and ability to monitor the straight and surrounding waters,” Singh said. “We call upon Iran to immediately cease these destabilizing actions that threaten the free flow of commerce through this strategic waterway of which the world depends on for more than one fifth of the world’s oil supply.”

Last week, a senior defense official said that US air and maritime forces are working together to continue monitoring the waterway, recently starting to fly A-10 attack aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz. The A-10s were deployed in late March.

The US also bolstered its forces in the Middle East in May after destabilizing actions from Iran in the Persian Gulf.

“[The] United States will not allow foreign or regional powers to jeopardize freedom of navigation through the Middle East waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said at the time.

He added that there is “simply no justification” for Iranian actions to interfere, harass or attack merchant ships.

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April 12, 2021
US troops restricted to American base in Niger | CNN Politics

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US troops in Niger have been restricted to the American military base in Agadez, Niger, as the Biden administration works to restore democratically-elected President Mohamed Bazoum to power.

A US military official said the approximately 1,000 troops were “retrograded” back to the base last week, shortly after Bazoum was seized by members of the presidential guard on Wednesday.

The US has not yet formally decided if the situation constitutes a coup – a designation that would require the US to cut foreign and military assistance to the Nigerien government, which could have serious consequences for the fight against terrorism and stability in the region. There is no timeframe in which the US is required to make a coup designation.

“We’re working really, really hard to see if we can turn this around,” said a senior State Department official on Monday. “Since the situation is not yet set and concrete, we think we should try and take that opportunity.”

On Thursday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley spoke with his counterpart in Niger.

“The two leaders discussed the safety of Americans and the developing situation in Niger,” Col. Dave Butler said in a statement Monday.

US officials continue to stress that the situation is incredibly fluid, and that their focus is on diplomatic efforts, along with regional partners, to restore democratic rule in Niger.

The US overall force posture in the country has not changed, as that would require a separate policy decision. But the Pentagon is engaging in “strategic patience as we monitor the situation and see how it resolves itself,” the military official said.

The US has had troops in Niger for around a decade, mostly advising and training Nigerien forces on counterterrorism efforts.

The senior State Department official said Monday that the situation on the ground is relatively calm.

“There’s really no unrest in the city or the country. It’s really all focused on the president’s residence,” where Bazoum is detained, the official said.

The US continues to perceive the takeover as stemming from an internal domestic dispute between Bazoum and the head of the presidential guard, Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani, who was appointed by the previous president and believed he was going to be dismissed.

In the days since, Nigerien forces have come out in support of the putschists, though the senior State Department official said that “in subsequent conversations with some key military leaders, they’ve told us that they did not object to what was taking place because they couldn’t figure out how to get the presidential guard to stand down without risk to the life of the President and his family, because the presidential guard had surrounded the president’s residence.”

The official said it does not appear that Tiani has been able to build consensus among the military on his actions, and that his decision to name himself as president “might have been a surprise to some of the other military leaders in country.”

“We don’t have an understanding that he is wildly popular,” the official said.

There are still no indications that groups like Wagner have played any role in the takeover or subsequent protests, but “of course, it is our expectation – you’ve already seen (Wagner founder and financier Yevgeny) Prigozhin speak – that they’ll try and take advantage of it,” the official said.

“I think the coup leaders will try and take advantage of the anti-French sentiment in the region,” they added.

While there have been public protests that appear to support the military takeover, the official said that the US believes the public would prefer a democratic government.

“It’s our expectation that generally speaking, the public would prefer to have their democratically-elected government and not suffer these consequences. But they may not feel free to speak about it,” the official said.

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April 12, 2021
Exclusive: Ukraine has cultivated sabotage agents inside Russia and is giving them drones to stage attacks, sources say | CNN Politics

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Ukraine has cultivated a network of agents and sympathizers inside Russia working to carry out acts of sabotage against Russian targets and has begun providing them with drones to stage attacks, multiple people familiar with US intelligence on the matter told CNN.

US officials believe these pro-Ukrainian agents inside Russia carried out a drone attack that targeted the Kremlin in early May by launching drones from within Russia rather than flying them from Ukraine into Moscow.

It is not clear whether other drone attacks carried out in recent days – including one targeting a residential neighborhood near Moscow and another strike on oil refineries in southern Russia – were also launched from inside Russia or conducted by this network of pro-Ukrainian operatives.

But US officials believe that Ukraine has developed sabotage cells inside Russia made up of a mix of pro-Ukrainian sympathizers and operatives well-trained in this kind of warfare. Ukraine is believed to have provided them with Ukrainian-made drones, and two US officials told CNN there is no evidence that any of the drone strikes have been conducted using US-provided drones.

Officials could not say conclusively how Ukraine has managed to get the drones behind enemy lines, but two of the sources told CNN that it has established well-practiced smuggling routes that could be used to send drones or drone components into Russia where they could then be assembled.

A European intelligence official noted that the Russian-Ukrainian border is vast and very difficult to control, making it ripe for smuggling – something the official said the Ukrainians have been doing for the better part of the decade that they’ve been at war with pro-Russian forces.

“You also have to consider that this is a peripheral area of Russia,” the official said. “Survival is everyone’s problem, so cash works wonders.”

Who exactly is controlling these assets is also murky, the sources told CNN, though US officials believe that elements within Ukraine’s intelligence community are involved. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set general parameters for what his intelligence and security services are allowed to do, two of the sources said, but not every operation requires his sign-off.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the head of the Ukrainian Security Service suggested to CNN that the mysterious explosions and drone strikes inside Russia would continue.

“We will comment on instances of ‘cotton’ only after our victory,” he said. Quoting the head of the Security Service, Vasyl Malyuk, the spokesperson added that regardless, “‘cotton’ has been burning, is burning, and will continue burning.”

“Cotton” is a slang-word that Ukrainians use to mean explosions, usually in Russia or Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. Its origins date back to the early weeks of the war and stem from the fact that the Russian word for a “pop” is very similar to the Ukrainian word for cotton.

There has been a steady drumbeat of mysterious fires and explosions inside Russia over the last year, targeting oil and fuel depots, railways, military enlistment offices, warehouses and pipelines. But officials have noticed an uptick in these attacks on Russian soil in recent weeks, beginning with the attack on the Kremlin building. It appears to be “a culmination of months of effort” by the Ukrainians to set up the infrastructure for such sabotage, said one of the sources familiar with the intelligence.

“There has been for months now a pretty consistent push by some in Ukraine to be more aggressive,” this person said, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of US intelligence. “And there has certainly been some willingness at senior levels. The challenge has always been their ability to do it.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, has consistently proposed some of the most brazen plans for operations against Russia and values symbolic acts, US officials told CNN.

Classified Pentagon documents leaked online earlier this year revealed that the CIA urged Budanov to “postpone” attacks on Russia on the anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine, according to the Washington Post. Budanov agreed to the CIA’s request, the classified documents reportedly said. But drones were spotted near Moscow on February 28, just days after the one-year anniversary of the war.

Another leaked US intelligence report obtained by CNN, which is sourced to signals intelligence, says that Zelensky in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” using drones, since Ukraine does not have long-range weapons capable of reaching that far.

It is not clear whether that plan moved forward, but oil facilities in Rostov Oblast have caught on fire after being hit by suspected drones several times over the last year – attacks Russia is now investigating and has blamed on “criminal actions by the Armed formations of Ukraine.”

“All I will comment on is that we’ve been killing Russians,” Budanov told Yahoo News last month when asked about the car bomb attack that killed the daughter of a prominent Russian political figure in Moscow’s suburbs last year. The US intelligence community assessed that that operation was authorized by elements within the Ukrainian government.

“And we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine,” Budanov added.

Publicly, senior US officials have condemned the strikes inside Russia, warning of the potential for an escalation of the war. But speaking privately to CNN, US and western officials said that they believe the cross-border attacks are a smart military strategy that could divert Russian resources to protecting its own territory, as Ukraine gears up for a major counteroffensive.

On Tuesday, the UK’s Foreign Secretary told reporters that Ukraine has “the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself. Legitimate military targets beyond its own borders are internationally recognized as being part of a nation’s self-defense…We should recognize that.”

French Vice Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, chief of operations of the Joint Staff, told CNN on Friday that the attacks inside Russia are merely “part of war” and offer an opportunity to send a message to Russia’s population.

“There is a war there and it could concern you [the Russian public] in the future,” Vaujour said of the attacks. “And so it’s a good way for Ukrainians to address a message not only to Vladimir Putin, but to the Russian population,” he added.

Regarding the attacks, he said that it wasn’t “forbidden” for Ukraine to think about that.

Ukrainian officials, moreover, have said privately that they plan to continue the attacks inside Russia because it is a good distraction tactic that is forcing Russia to be concerned with its own security at home, according to a US source who has spoken to Ukrainian officials in recent days.

In an intelligence update, the UK Ministry of Defense said that attacks by pro-Ukrainian partisan groups and drone strikes in the border region of Belgorod have forced Russia to deploy “the full range of military firepower on its own territory.”

“Russian commanders now face an acute dilemma,” the update said, “of whether to strength defences in Russia’s border regions or reinforce their lines in occupied Ukraine.”

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April 12, 2021
A top House Republican backs Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, while a prominent Democrat disagrees | CNN Politics

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A top House Republican said Sunday he agreed with the Biden administration’s contentious decision to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package, while a prominent progressive Democrat said the US risks “losing our moral leadership” over the move.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, and Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, made their remarks in separate interviews with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”

McCaul said the weapons “would be a game-changer” in the war in Ukraine, noting that “Russia is dropping with impunity cluster bombs” on Ukrainian territory.

“All the Ukrainians and (President Volodymyr) Zelensky are asking for is to give them the same weapons the Russians have to use in their own country against Russians who are in their own country,” he said. “They do not want these to be used in Russia.”

‘That’s crossing a line’: Democrat responds to Biden’s decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine

The munitions, also known as cluster bombs, spread shrapnel that is designed to kill troops or take out armored vehicles such as tanks, but they also scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines.

Over 100 countries, including the UK, France and Germany, have outlawed the munitions under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but the US and Ukraine are not signatories to the ban – a point that McCaul emphasized on Sunday.

CNN previously reported that President Joe Biden mulled over the decision before approving the weapons transfer on Friday.

Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that it was a “difficult decision” but he was ultimately convinced to send the controversial weapons because Kyiv needs ammunition in its counteroffensive against Russia.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC on Sunday that the administration was “mindful of the concerns about civilian casualties” but reiterated that Ukrainian forces plan to use the cluster munitions to “defend their own territory, hitting Russian positions.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan sought Sunday to downplay any concern that Biden’s decision would present any “fracture” with allied countries that oppose the use of such weapons ahead of the president’s high-stakes trip to Europe.

“We have heard nothing from people saying this cast doubt on our commitment, this cast doubt on coalition unity or this cast doubt on our belief that the United States is playing a vital and positive role as leader of this coalition in Ukraine,” he told reporters traveling with Biden en route to London.

Lee, however, told CNN that cluster bombs “should never be used. That’s crossing a line.”

“They don’t always immediately explode. Children can step on them,” she said. “The president’s been doing a good job managing this war, this Putin aggressive war against Ukraine. But I think that this should not happen.”

Asked by Tapper if the US could be engaging in war crimes by providing the weaponry, Lee said, “What I think is that we … would risk losing our moral leadership because, when you look at the fact that over 120 countries have signed the convention on cluster munitions saying that they should never be used, they should never be used.”

The remarks underscore the sensitivity surrounding cluster munitions, which US forces began phasing out in 2016 because of the danger they pose to civilians.

Another Democrat, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, said Sunday he appreciated that the Biden administration “grappled with the risk and reached agreements with the Ukrainian military” about the use of the munitions but he has “real qualms” about the decision.

“There is an international prohibition. And the US says, ‘But here is a good reason to do something different.’ It could give a green light to other nations to do something different as well,” Kaine said.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, welcomed the sending of cluster munitions to Ukraine but said the US was taking “too long” to supply weapons to the country.

“The best thing we can do now is to step up,” Barrasso told Fox News. “It just does seem to me there is so much delay in the activity of this administration and ultimately getting to Ukraine what they need.”

Lee and McCaul also diverged Sunday on the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has reemerged as a topic after the recent release of a State Department report that found that both the Trump and Biden administrations’ decisions to pull all US troops from Afghanistan had detrimental consequences.

“I don’t believe the (Biden) administration deserves any blame for this,” Lee said.

“We have to remember that Donald Trump made this agreement with the Taliban. Secondly, the Trump administration literally gutted our State Department and our diplomatic corps. I believe that the State Department and those who were involved in the end of the Afghanistan war, which should have happened before then, I believe, did the best they could,” Lee said.

McCaul called the report “damaging” and said the entire ordeal was a “huge foreign policy blunder.”

The report was publicly released on June 30, more than a year after the 90-day review of the evacuation was completed and includes findings around the tumultuous final weeks of the US presence in Afghanistan, as well as several recommendations for improvement moving forward.

The Biden administration’s frenzied withdrawal after 20 years of US involvement has come under immense scrutiny by predominantly Republican lawmakers. However, accusations about who was responsible for the chaotic final weeks have fallen largely along party lines, with Republicans pointing fingers at the Biden administration and Democrats, including the White House, casting blame on the Trump administration for the deal that set the US withdrawal into motion.

Asked on June 30 about the report and whether he admitted there were “mistakes during the withdrawal,” Biden noted that he had vowed that al Qaeda “wouldn’t be there.”

“I said we’d get help from the Taliban,” the president said. “I was right.”

McCaul on Sunday said the president’s response was “devoid of reality.”

“It’s a little bit eerie that a president of the United States would … be so disillusioned about what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan, the idea that al Qaeda is gone,” the Texas Republican said. “He just really wants to sweep Afghanistan under the rug.”

Since retaking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban has rolled back decades of progress on human rights.

According to a recent report by United Nations experts, the Taliban has committed “egregious systematic violations of women’s rights,” by restricting their access to education and employment and their ability to move freely in society.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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April 12, 2021
5 ways a debt default could affect you | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden and House Republicans may have as little as a month to prevent the US from defaulting on its debt, which would impact millions of Americans and unleash economic and fiscal chaos here and around the world.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Monday that the government may not be able to pay all of its bills in full and on time as soon as June 1. However, the forecast was uncertain, and the default date might come several weeks later, she said. The US hit its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in January, and Treasury has been using cash and “extraordinary measures” to satisfy obligations since then.

Just what would happen if the nation defaults on its debt is unknown since it’s never actually happened before. A close call in 2011 roiled the financial markets and prompted Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the US’ credit rating to AA+ from AAA.

Yellen gave a sense of the turmoil it would cause in her letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday.

“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, it would cause severe hardship to American families, harm our global leadership position, and raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests,” she wrote.

To be clear, a debt default doesn’t mean all payments would stop and people would permanently lose out on money they are owed. Treasury would have the funds to satisfy some obligations, but it’s not certain how the agency would handle the disbursements. Much would also depend on how long it takes Congress to address the borrowing cap.

“Tens of millions of people across the country who expect payments from the federal government may not get them on time,” said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Here are five ways that Americans could be affected by debt default:

About 66 million retirees, disabled workers and others receive monthly Social Security benefits. The average payment for retired workers is $1,827 a month in 2023.

Almost two-thirds of beneficiaries rely on Social Security for half of their income, and for 40% of recipients, the payments constitute at least 90% of their income, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

These payments could be delayed in a debt default scenario, though it’s possible Treasury could continue making on-time payments because of the entitlement program’s trust fund, Akabas said.

The benefits are disbursed four times a month, on the third day of the month and on three Wednesdays. Roughly $25 billion a week is sent out, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Even a short delay in the payment of Social Security benefits would be a burden for the millions of Americans who rely on their earned benefits to pay for out-of-pocket health care expenses, food, rent and utilities,” Max Richtman, the committee’s CEO, said in a statement.

Many other government payments could also be affected, including funding for food stamps; federal grants to states and municipalities for Medicaid, highways, education and other programs; and Medicare payments to hospitals, doctors and health insurance plans.

More than 2 million federal civilian workers and around 1.4 million active-duty military members could see their paychecks delayed. Federal government contractors could also see a lag in payments, which could affect their ability to compensate their workers.

Also, certain veterans benefits, including disability payments and pensions for some low-income veterans and their surviving families, could be affected.

“Such calamity would place further stress on our servicemembers, retirees, and veterans, as well as their families, caregivers, and survivors,” Rene Campos, senior director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America, said in a blog post. “Though life in uniform is not always predictable, those who serve or have served their country expect their country to honor their commitment to service.”

About $25 billion in pay or benefits for active-duty members of the military, civil service and military retirees, veterans and recipients of Supplemental Security Income is sent out on the first day of the month, according to the CBO.

Americans’ investments would take a direct hit. Case in point: Markets had what was then their worst week since the financial crisis during the 2011 debt ceiling standoff after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade.

Even if the debt ceiling impasse is resolved soon after a default, stocks could shed as much as a third of their value. That would wipe out around $12 trillion in household wealth, according to Moody’s Analytics.

If a default occurs, yields on US Treasuries will inevitably rise to compensate for the increased risk that bondholders won’t receive the money they’re owed from the government.

Since interest rates on loans, credit cards and mortgages are often based on Treasury yields, the cost of borrowing money and paying off debt would rise. That’s on top of the increased costs Americans are already facing from the Federal Reserve rate hikes.

Families and businesses would also have a tougher time getting approved for lines of credit since banks would have to be more selective about to whom they loan money. That’s because their costs of borrowing money will also rise, which limits the amount of money they can lend out.

A debt default could trigger an economic downturn, which would prompt a spike in unemployment. It would come at a particularly fragile time – when the nation is already dealing with rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation.

How much damage would be done would depend on how long the crisis continues. If the default lasts for about a week, then close to 1 million jobs would be lost, including in the financial sector, which would be hard hit by the stock market declines. Also, the unemployment rate would jump to about 5% and the economy would contract by nearly half a percent, according to Moody’s.

But if the impasse dragged on for six weeks, then more than 7 million jobs would be lost, the unemployment rate would soar above 8% and the economy would decline by more than 4%, according to Moody’s. The effects would still be felt a decade from now.

“It would be a body blow to the economy, and it would be a manufactured crisis,” said Bernard Yaros, an economist at Moody’s.

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April 12, 2021
Biden picks Air Force general to lead NSA and Cyber Command | CNN Politics

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President Joe Biden has nominated an Air Force general to head the nation’s powerful electronic spying agency and the US military command that conducts offensive cyber operations – a crucial position as the US continues to battle Russia, China and other foes in cyberspace.

Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who has served for years in senior US military cyber positions, is Biden’s choice to replace outgoing Army Gen. Paul Nakasone as head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command, an Air Force official confirmed to CNN.

Politico first reported on Haugh’s nomination.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Haugh’s nomination could face a roadblock in the Senate after Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama put a hold on senior military nominations because he objects to the department’s abortion travel policy.

Haugh is currently deputy of US Cyber Command, a command of thousands of US military personnel who conduct offensive and defensive cyber operations to protect US critical infrastructure. Officials from the command traveled to Ukraine in late 2021 to prepare Kyiv for an onslaught of Russian cyberattacks that accompanied the full-scale Russian invasion.

The command and NSA also have taken an increasingly active role in helping defend American elections from foreign interference under Nakasone’s leadership over the last five years.

During the 2020 election, Iranian hackers accessed a US municipal website for reporting unofficial election results and Cyber Command kicked the hackers off the network out of concern that they might post fake results on the website, a senior US military official revealed last month.

Haugh’s nomination signals a continued emphasis on election security work at Fort Meade, the sprawling military base in Maryland where the NSA and Cyber Command are housed. As a senior US military cyber official, Haugh has been involved in election security discussions in recent midterm and general elections.

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April 12, 2021
Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

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The senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East ordered that his command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by an American drone strike in Syria earlier this month – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed in the strike, according to multiple defense officials.

Nearly three weeks later, US Central Command still does not know whether a civilian died instead, officials said. CENTCOM did not open a review of the incident, officially known as a civilian-casualty credibility assessment report, until May 15 – twelve days after the strike. That review is ongoing.

One defense official with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN that some of CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla’s subordinates urged him to hold off on the tweet until there was more clarity on who was actually killed.

Two other officials denied that, and said they were not aware of any staffers voicing consternation or disagreement with the announcement.

Either way, the statement ultimately posted to Twitter from the official CENTCOM Twitter account did not identify the supposed senior al Qaeda leader, raising more questions about what had occurred.

“At 11:42 am local Syrian time on 3 May, US Central Command Forces conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader,” the tweet read. “We will provide more information as operational details become available.”

The tweet has not been taken down and CENTCOM has not tweeted about the strike again.

The episode raises questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations.

The policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is “absolutely” confident in the Defense Department’s civilian harm mitigation efforts.

“In terms of CENTCOM’s strike, as you know, they conducted that strike on the third of May. They are investigating the allegations of civilian casualties,” Ryder said at a Pentagon news briefing. “So, you know, I think our record speaks for itself in terms of how seriously we take these. Very few countries around the world do that. The secretary has complete confidence that we will continue to abide by the policies that we put into place.”

CENTCOM acknowledged last week following a Washington Post report questioning the strike that the operation may have resulted in a civilian casualty and said in a statement that it was “investigating” the incident. The civilian casualty review was not launched until a week after the Post began presenting information to CENTCOM suggesting that the strike had killed a civilian.

CENTCOM still has not opened a formal investigation into the strike, known as a 15-6 investigation, defense officials told CNN. The officials said the civilian casualty review first needs to determine that a noncombatant was indeed killed in the strike. Then, a commander needs to decide that there are other unanswered questions remaining about the operation that require a more thorough investigation. A 15-6 investigation was launched less than a week after the errant Kabul strike.

Defense officials told CNN that in the immediate aftermath of the strike, Kurilla and his staff had high confidence that they had killed the senior al-Qaeda leader, though they declined to say why they were so convinced. But they also knew it would likely take a few days to confirm the person’s identity definitively. The US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

But as the days passed, CENTCOM still could not determine the identity of who they had killed. Some defense officials considered that a red flag, they told CNN.

By May 8, CENTCOM still had not confirmed the person’s identity, and began receiving information from the Washington Post that raised questions about whether a civilian had been killed, defense officials said. The Post’s information led CENTCOM to open a review into the strike, and whether it had killed a civilian, on May 15.

There is still some disagreement within the administration about the identity of the person killed, defense officials told CNN. Some intelligence officials continue to believe that the target of the strike was a member of al-Qaeda, even if he wasn’t a senior leader. But there is a growing belief inside the Pentagon that the man – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.

“It’s impossible that he was with al Qaeda, he doesn’t even have a beard,” he said.

The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, told CNN they arrived on the scene of the strike after being contacted on their local emergency number.

“The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the White Helmets said, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.

“When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.

The White Helmets tweeted on May 3 that they had recovered the body of Mesto, who they described as “a civilian aged 60” who was killed in a missile strike while grazing sheep. CENTCOM was aware of the White Helmets’ tweet, officials said, but the group’s information was not considered solid enough yet to open a review.

The May 3 incident bears a stunning similarity to another CENTCOM operation: a US drone strike in Kabul during the closing days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. The Pentagon initially claimed it had eliminated an ISIS-K threat and defended the operation for weeks, with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley going as far as to call it a “righteous” strike in a Pentagon briefing two days later.

A suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport three days earlier, which killed 13 US service members, had added pressure on CENTCOM to act against any potential threats, and officials believed at the time that another attack was imminent.

Austin ultimately decided no one would be punished over the botched operation, even as he instructed Central Command and Special Operations Command to improve policies and procedures to prevent civilian harm more effectively.

Austin committed to adjusting Defense Department policies to better protect civilians, even establishing a civilian protection center of excellence in 2022.

“Leaders in this department should be held to account for high standards of conduct and leadership,” Austin said at the time.

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April 12, 2021
US received intel from European ally that Ukrainian military was planning attack on Nord Stream pipelines, officials say | CNN Politics

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The US received intelligence from a European ally last year that the Ukrainian military was planning an attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines three months before they were hit, three US officials told CNN.

The attack on the pipelines last September has been condemned by US officials and Western allies alike as a sabotage on critical infrastructure. It is currently being investigated by other European nations.

The intelligence assessment was first disclosed by The Washington Post, which obtained the document from a trove of classified documents allegedly leaked on the social media platform Discord by Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira.

CNN has not seen the document but the three officials confirmed the US was told about the Ukrainian plans.

According to the Washington Post, the intelligence cited a source in Ukraine which said Western allies “had a basis to suspect Kyiv in the sabotage” for almost a year. The intelligence said that those who may have been responsible were reporting directly to Ukraine’s commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, “who was put in charge so that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, wouldn’t know about the operation,” the Post reported.

But, the intelligence also said that Ukraine’s military operation was “put on hold.”

CNN has reached out to the Ukrainian government for comment.

White House National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby declined to address the reporting directly on Tuesday.

“I think you know there are three countries conducting an investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage — and we called it sabotage at the moment — Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. Those investigations are ongoing and again the last thing that we’re going to want to do from this podium is get ahead of those investigations,” Kirby said.

The news comes less than a year after leaks caused by underwater explosions were discovered in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which funnel gas from Russia into the European Union and run under the Baltic Sea. The pipelines were controversial before the war in Ukraine began, stoking concerns about European dependence on Russian gas.

Neither of the pipelines were actively transporting gas to Europe at the time of the leaks, though they still held gas under pressure.

Sweden was the first to sound the alarm on the leak; Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson later said that it was “likely a deliberate action” but “not an attack against Sweden.”

Other European leaders such as the Danish prime minister and energy minister, and Norway’s minister of petroleum and energy, also concluded the leaks were a result of sabotage.

Ukraine denied any responsibility for the leaks at the time, with the top adviser to Zelensky referring to the idea as an “amusing conspiracy” theory.

“Although I enjoy collecting amusing conspiracy theories about [the Ukrainian] government, I have to say: [Ukraine] has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-[Ukraine] sabotage groups,’” Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Ukrainian officials sought to keep Zelensky out of the loop on the Nord Stream planning in order to give him “a plausible way to deny involvement in an audacious attack on civilian infrastructure” that could impact relationships with countries supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

And while the intelligence said that Ukraine’s plan was paused, the Post’s report said that the details emerging from Germany’s investigation of the attack “line up with the earlier plot.”

The intelligence the US received from a European ally last year said six Ukrainian special operations forces service members intended to use fake identities to rent a boat and destroy or damage the pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor by using a “submersible vehicle,” the Post said.

Details that German officials are piecing together say that six individuals who were “skilled divers” used fake passports and embarked from Germany on a sailing yacht, then planted explosives on the pipelines, according to the Post.

The details between the two plans differ in some regards, the Post said, and the CIA “initially questioned the credibility of the information.” Nevertheless, sources previously told CNN that the US had warned several European allies over the summer that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines could be attacked.

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April 12, 2021
Ron DeSantis is campaigning on his record. Judges keep saying it’s unconstitutional | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Gov. Ron DeSantis has toured the country calling Florida the place “where woke goes to die.” But it’s still alive at the company Sara Margulis runs.

At Honeyfund, a website for engaged couples to create gift registries that can pay for their honeymoons, Margulis’ Florida employees learn about privilege and institutional racism. Margulis, the CEO and co-founder, said the training makes her staff better suited to serve couples of any background. Planning for this fall’s employee retreat is underway, with a session scheduled on DEI – or diversity, equity and inclusion, a term DeSantis often rails against.

DeSantis tried to ban such employee training in 2022, when the Florida Republican championed what he called the Stop WOKE Act. But Honeyfund and others sued on the grounds that the law violated their free speech. A federal judge agreed and blocked it from going into effect. The DeSantis administration then appealed – one of many of the governor’s ongoing legal battles as he pursues the presidency.

“Companies aren’t ‘going woke’ out of allegiance to Democrats. Time after time, diversity has proven to be good for the bottom line,” Margulis said. “Valuing diversity means understanding it, understanding means training and training means having to deal with this law. We were really handed a chance to make a difference for other business owners by challenging it, and we took it.”

In his early outreach to Republican voters as a presidential candidate, DeSantis has portrayed himself as a fighter and, crucially, a winner in the cultural battles increasingly important to conservatives. If elected to the White House, he’ll take those fights to Washington, he has said.

“I will go on offense,” DeSantis said in Iowa last month. “I will lean into all the issues that matter.”

But back in Florida, the agenda at the centerpiece of his pitch remains unsettled. Still ongoing are more than a dozen legal battles testing the constitutionality of many of the victories DeSantis has touted on the campaign trail. Critics say DeSantis has built his governorship around enacting laws that appeal to his conservative base but that, as a Harvard-trained lawyer, he knows are unconstitutional and not likely to take effect.

In addition to halting parts of the Stop WOKE Act, judges have also intervened to freeze implementation of other DeSantis-led laws cracking down on protesters and Big Tech. The six-week abortion ban he signed this year – which he has called the “heartbeat bill” when speaking to conservative, and especially evangelical, audiences – won’t take effect unless the state Supreme Court determines that a privacy clause in Florida’s constitution doesn’t protect access to the procedure. Disney – the most famous of DeSantis’ political adversaries – has argued in court that the governor overstepped his power when he orchestrated a takeover of the entertainment giant’s special taxing district to punish the company for speaking out against his agenda. So did Andrew Warren, the twice-elected Tampa prosecutor whom DeSantis suspended last year in another act of political retaliation.

DeSantis has repeatedly predicted he will ultimately prevail in these challenges. Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for his campaign, called the lawsuits “the tactics of activists who seek to impose their will on people by judicial fiat.”

“These attempts to circumvent the will of the legislature are not indicative of anything beyond the failure of the left’s ideas at the ballot box,” Griffin said in a statement. “Governor DeSantis is a proven fighter who will bring the same temerity to the presidency.”

Recent weeks, though, have seen a handful of reminders that several pillars of his record remain fragile even as they figure prominently in his stump speeches.

On Friday, a federal judge blocked a new Florida law that gave the DeSantis administration the power to shut down bars or restaurants that admit children to certain “adult live performances,” widely seen as a crackdown on drag shows.

Another federal judge said Wednesday that Florida could not restrict transgender adults on Medicaid from receiving gender-affirming care. The same judge earlier this month had stepped in to allow three transgender children to receive puberty blockers while a lawsuit seeking to overturn a state ban on the treatment proceeds. In both rulings, the judge said there was “no rational basis” to prevent the care and declared “gender identity is real,” casting doubts on the future of the state’s prohibition.

DeSantis, as a presidential candidate, has seized on conservative concerns over such treatment, particularly for minors. His efforts to halt it – including signing a law that prohibits transgender children from receiving gender-affirming treatments and punish doctors who run afoul of it – are prominently featured in his stump speeches. Speaking to North Carolina Republicans after the ruling, the governor acknowledged the legal fight, but he assured the audience: “We are going to win.”

“It is mutilation, and it is wrong, and it has no place in our state,” he said.

DeSantis of late has also taken credit for the GOP’s narrow US House majority, noting the highly partisan map he pushed through his state legislature, which ultimately helped Republicans net four critical seats. But those suing Florida to invalidate the state’s congressional boundaries have new reason for optimism after the US Supreme Court ordered Alabama officials to redraw its map to allow an additional Black-majority district. The DeSantis map was similarly criticized as diminishing the power of minority voters in Florida.

“Many of the things coming from the governor are form over function,” said Cecile Scoon, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, one of plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit. “They want to get to a certain result, so they find a means to do it, whether it makes logic or legal sense or not.”

The US District Court for the Northern District of Florida has in particular stymied DeSantis’ agenda. Two judges on the bench, Mark Walker and Robert Hinkle, have repeatedly ruled against the governor, often punctuating their opinions with harsh and colorful repudiations.

Walker, in one ruling blocking parts of the Stop WOKE Act, compared Florida’s treatment of the First Amendment under DeSantis to the “Upside Down,” the nightmare alternative dimension from the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” In another lawsuit over the law, this one filed by college professors, Walker called the law “dystopian” and wrote that DeSantis and Florida Republicans had “declared the state has unfettered authority to muzzle its professors in the name of ‘freedom.’”

Hinkle, in January, chided DeSantis’ suspension of Warren as political, unconstitutional and executed with “not a hint of misconduct,” though he ultimately ruled he was powerless to intervene. Warren is appealing, though he suffered another defeat when the state Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a separate request to reinstate him.

Ruling this month against the state in the two cases dealing with transgender care prohibition, Hinkle called the law “an exercise in politics, not good medicine.”

“Nothing could have motivated this remarkable intrusion into parental prerogatives other than opposition to transgender status itself,” he wrote.

DeSantis has shrugged off these defeats as the work of left-leaning judges. President Barack Obama nominated Walker to his district court judgeship in 2012, and Hinkle was selected by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Neither nomination drew objection from Senate Republicans at the time.

When Walker ruled to block Florida’s anti-riot law – comparing it to past attempts to squash dissent from Civil Rights activists in the 1950s and 60s – DeSantis dismissed it as “a foreordained conclusion in front of that court.”

“We will win that on appeal,” DeSantis said. “I guarantee we’ll win that on appeal.”

That assurance came 21 months ago. In the meantime, the law has yet to take effect.

Dana Thompson Dorsey, a professor of education law, was among seven Florida college professors who sued to block the Stop WOKE Act over provisions that limited how she and her colleagues could talk about race and sex with students. She called Walker’s decision halting the law a “work of art.”

Since then, she has continued to teach critical race studies to her doctoral students at the University of South Florida, while DeSantis has taken his fight against the concept national. But despite winning injunctive relief, she remains troubled by the new environment for higher education under DeSantis.

“There is a lot at stake and it’s not just for those of us brave enough to be plaintiffs,” she said. “The idea of telling adults what they can and cannot learn is unfathomable. The students who become our future leaders will repeat our mistakes if they don’t understand the past.”

While legal challenges have prevented DeSantis from fully realizing his vision for Florida, the uncertainty has not always benefited opponents and the plaintiffs suing to block his agenda.

Abortions after 15 weeks have paused in most cases in Florida while providers await a ruling on the state’s ban. Andrew Warren remains out of office. Transgender care providers are in uncertain territory – Hinkle’s limited rulings provided relief but only for those who sued the state.

The League of Women Voters of Florida is taking the state to court over new restrictions on third-party voter registration. Fines for violating the law could cost as much as $250,000 a year and the organization has asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement. In the meantime, the league decided it would no longer collect and turn in voter registration forms, pausing for now a practice that has been central to its civic outreach for more than 75 years.

“That’s a very sad and horrible result, but we cannot figure out a way to protect ourselves without that major change,” Scoon said.

DeSantis has also managed to maneuver when legal challenges have threatened to stymie his efforts, thanks to a closely aligned Republican-led legislature.

When a lawsuit accused the governor of breaking state law when he sent two planes carrying migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, lawmakers helped change the law to allow him to do so. His administration recently orchestrated the transport of migrants from El Paso, Texas, to California.

After several individuals arrested last year for voter fraud by DeSantis’ new election security force had their cases dismissed, lawmakers again tweaked the law to try to make it easier for the state to secure convictions.

DeSantis and Florida Republicans have signaled they intend to keep fighting in court, too. The budget DeSantis signed earlier this month included $16 million for legal battles underway and the ones to come.

“We will never surrender to the woke mob,” the governor recently told an audience in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are going to leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history where it belongs.”

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April 12, 2021
Warren Buffett gives reason for surprise sale of stake in Taiwan’s TSMC | CNN Business

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CNN
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Warren Buffett says geopolitical tensions were “a consideration” in the decision to sell most of Berkshire Hathaway’s shares in global chip giant TSMC, which is based in Taiwan.

The 92-year-old “Oracle of Omaha” shed light on the investment call in a Tuesday interview with Japanese news agency Nikkei. He was quoted as sayiing that TSMC was a well-managed company but that Berkshire had “better places” to deploy its capital.

In February, Berkshire Hathaway

(BRKA) revealed that it had sold 86% of its shares in TSMC, which were purchased for $4.1 billion just months before.

The quick sale was considered unusual because the billionaire is known for making longer term bets. The size of the purchase suggested that the initial purchase was most likely made personally by Buffett himself, rather than one of his portfolio managers, Reuters reported.

TSMC is considered a national treasure in Taiwan and supplies semiconductors to tech giants including Apple

(AAPL) and Qualcomm

(QCOM). It mass produces the most advanced semiconductors in the world, components that are vital to the smooth running of everything from smartphones to washing machines.

The company is perceived as being so valuable to the global economy, as well as to China — which claims Taiwan as its own territory despite having never controlled it — that it is sometimes even referred to as forming part of a “silicon shield” against a potential military invasion by Beijing.

TSMC’s presence is seen as providing a strong incentive to the West to defend Taiwan against any attempt by China to take it by force.

This week, tensions soared across the Taiwan Strait after China simulated “joint precision strikes” on the island during a series of military exercises.

Beijing launched the drills on Saturday, a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and the United States where she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Chinese officials described the drills as “a serious warning against the Taiwan separatist forces’ collusion with external forces, and a necessary move to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Beijing conducted similar large-scale military exercises around Taiwan last August, after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.

Taiwan and China have been governed separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago, in which the defeated Nationalists fled to Taipei.

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April 12, 2021
Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

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CNN
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President Joe Biden made false claims about a variety of topics, notably including gun policy, during a series of official speeches and campaign remarks over the last two weeks.

He made at least five false claims related to guns, a subject on which he has repeatedly been inaccurate during his presidency. He also made a false claim about the extent of his support from environmental groups. And he used incorrect figures about the population of Africa, his own travel history and how much renewable energy Texas uses.

Here is a fact check of these claims, plus a fact check on a Biden exaggeration about guns. The White House declined to comment on Tuesday.

Beau Biden and red flag laws

In a Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut, Biden spoke of how a gun control law he signed in 2022 has provided federal funding for states to expand the use of gun control tools like “red flag” laws, which allow the courts to temporarily seize the guns of people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. After mentioning red flag laws, Biden invoked his late son Beau Biden, who served as attorney general of Delaware, and said: “As my son was the first to enforce when he was attorney general.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015. The legislation that created Delaware’s red flag program was named the Beau Biden Gun Violence Prevention Act, but it was passed in 2018, three years after Beau Biden died of brain cancer. (In 2013, Beau Biden had pushed for a similar bill, but it was rejected by the state Senate.) The president has previously said, correctly, that a Delaware red flag law was named after his son.

Delaware was far from the first state to enact a red flag law. Connecticut passed the first such state law in the country in 1999.

Stabilizing braces

In the same speech, the president spoke confusingly of his administration’s effort to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase stabilizing braces, devices that are attached to the rear of pistols, most commonly AR-15-style pistols, and make it easier to fire them one-handed.

“Put a pistol on a brace, and it…turns into a gun,” Biden said. “Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon – a higher-caliber bullet – coming out of that gun. It’s essentially turning it into a short-barreled rifle, which has been a weapon of choice by a number of mass shooters.”

Facts First: Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false. A pistol is, obviously, already a gun, and “a pistol brace does not have any effect on the caliber of ammunition that a gun fires or anything about the basic functioning of the gun itself,” said Stephen Gutowski, a CNN contributor who is the founder of the gun policy and politics website The Reload.

Biden’s assertion that the addition of a stabilizing brace can “essentially” turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle is subjective; it’s the same argument his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has made in support of its attempt to subject the braces to new controls. The administration’s regulatory effort is being challenged in the courts by gun rights advocates.

Gun manufacturers and lawsuits

Repeating a claim he made in his 2022 State of the Union address and on other occasions, Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in California on Monday: “The only industry in America you can’t sue is the – is the gun manufacturers.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false, as CNN and other fact-checkers have previously noted. Gun manufacturers are not entirely exempt from being sued, nor are they the only industry with some liability protections. Notably, there are significant liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and, at present, for people and entities involved in making, distributing or administering Covid-19 countermeasures such as vaccines, tests and treatments.

Under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun manufacturers cannot be held liable for the use of their products in crimes. However, gun manufacturers can still be held liable for (and thus sued for) a range of things, including negligence, breach of contract regarding the purchase of a gun or certain damages from defects in the design of a gun.

In 2019, the Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Remington Arms Co. to continue. The plaintiffs, a survivor and the families of nine other victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, wanted to hold the company – which manufactured the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the 2012 killing – partly responsible by targeting the company’s marketing practices, another area where gun manufacturers can be held liable. In 2022, those families reached a $73 million settlement with the company and its four insurers.

There are also more recent lawsuits against gun manufacturers. For example, the parents of some of the victims and survivors of the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have sued over the marketing practices of the company that made the gun used by the killer. Another suit, filed by the government of Buffalo, New York, in December over gun violence in the city, alleges that the actions of several gun manufacturers and distributors have endangered public health and safety. It is unclear how those lawsuits will fare in the courts.

– Holmes Lybrand contributed to this item.

The NRA and lawsuits

At a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, Biden said the National Rifle Association, the prominent gun rights advocacy organization, itself cannot be sued.

“And the fact that the NRA has such overwhelming power – you know, the NRA is the only outfit in the nation that we cannot sue as an institution,” Biden said. “They got – they – before this – I became president, they passed legislation saying you can’t sue them. Imagine had that been the case with tobacco companies.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.

Machine guns

At the same Tuesday fundraiser in California, Biden said that he taught the Second Amendment in law school, “And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.” One example Biden cited was this: “You can’t own a machine gun.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. The Second Amendment does not explicitly say people cannot own certain weapons – and the courts have not interpreted it to forbid machine guns. In fact, with some exceptions, people in more than two-thirds of states are allowed to own and buy fully automatic machine guns as long as those guns were legally registered and possessed prior to May 19, 1986, the day President Ronald Reagan signed a major gun law. There were more than 700,000 legally registered machine guns in the US as of May 2021, according to official federal data.

Federal law imposes significant national restrictions on machine gun purchases, and the fact that there is a limited pool of pre-May 19, 1986 machine guns means that buying these guns tends to be expensive – regularly into the tens of thousands of dollars. But for Americans in most of the country, Biden’s claim that you simply “can’t” own a machine gun, period, is not true.

“It’s not easy to obtain a fully automatic machine gun today, I don’t want to give that impression – but it is certainly legal. And it’s always been legal,” Gutowski said in March, when Biden previously made this claim about machine guns.

California, where Biden made this remark on Tuesday, has strict laws restricting machine guns, but there is a legal process even there to apply for a state permit to possess one.

The ‘boyfriend loophole’

In the Friday speech to the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden said “we fought like hell to close the so-called boyfriend loophole” that had allowed people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to buy and possess guns if the victim was not someone they were married to, living with or had a child with. Biden then said that now “we finally can say that those convicted of domestic violence abuse against their girlfriend or boyfriend cannot buy a firearm, period.”

Facts First: Biden’s categorical claim that such offenders now “cannot buy a firearm, period” is an exaggeration, though Biden did sign a law in 2022 that made significant progress in closing the “boyfriend loophole.” That 2022 law added “dating” partners to the list of misdemeanor domestic violence offenders who are generally prohibited from gun purchases – but in a concession demanded by Republicans, the law says these offenders can buy a gun five years after their first conviction or completion of their sentence, whichever comes later, if they do not reoffend in the interim.

It’s also worth noting that the law’s new restriction on dating partners applies only to people who committed the domestic violence against a someone with whom they were in or “recently” had been in a “continuing” and “serious” romantic or intimate relationship. In other words, it omits people whose offense was against partners from their past or someone they dated casually.

Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said there are “definitely some gaps” in the law, “so it’s not a blanket end-all be-all,” but she said it is “really a step in the right direction.”

Biden said at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday: “Let me just say one thing very seriously. You know, I think this is the first time – and I’ve been around, as I said, a while – in history where, last week, every single environmental organization endorsed me.”

Facts First: It’s not true that every single environmental organization had endorsed Biden. Four major environmental organizations did endorse him the week prior, the first time they had issued a joint endorsement, but other well-known environmental organizations have not yet endorsed in the presidential election.

The four groups that endorsed Biden together in mid-June were the Sierra Club, NextGen PAC, and the campaign arms of the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council. That is not a complete list of every single environmental group in the country. For example, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Earthjustice and Greenpeace, in addition to some lesser-known groups, have not issued presidential endorsements to date.

Biden’s claim of an endorsement from every environmental group comes amid frustration from some activists over his recent approvals of fossil fuel projects.

In official speeches last Tuesday and last Wednesday and at a press conference the week prior, Biden claimed that Africa’s population would soon reach 1 billion. “You know, soon – soon, Africa will have 1 billion people,” he said last Wednesday.

Facts First: This is false. Africa’s population exceeded 1 billion in 2009, according to United Nations figures; it is now more than 1.4 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa alone has a population of more than 1.1 billion.

At a campaign fundraiser in Connecticut on Friday, Biden spoke about reading recent news articles about the use of renewable energy sources in Texas. He said, “I think it’s 70% of all their energy produced by solar and wind because it is significantly cheaper. Cheaper. Cheaper.”

Facts First: Biden’s “70%” figure is not close to correct. The federal Energy Information Administration projected late last year that Texas would meet 37% of its electricity demand in 2023 with wind and solar power, up from 30% in 2022.

Texas has indeed been a leader in renewable energy, particularly wind power, but the state is far from getting more than two-thirds of its energy from wind and solar alone. The organization that provides electricity to 90% of the state has a web page where you can see its current energy mix in real time; when we looked on Wednesday afternoon, during a heat wave, the mix included 15.8% solar, 10.2% wind and 6.6% nuclear, while 67.1% was natural gas or coal and lignite.

In his Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden made a muddled claim about his past visits to Afghanistan and Iraq – saying that “you know, I spent a lot of time as president, and I spent 30-some times – visits – many more days in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim that he has visited Afghanistan and Iraq “30-some times” is false – the latest in a long-running series of exaggerations about his visits to the two countries. His presidential campaign said in 2019 that he made 21 visits to these countries, but he has since continued to put the figure in the 30s. And he has not visited either country “as president.”

At another campaign fundraiser in California on Monday, Biden reprised a familiar claim about his travels with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is, like him, a former vice president.

“It wasn’t appropriate for Barack to be able to spend a lot of time getting to know him, so it was an assignment I was given. And I traveled 17,000 miles with him, usually one on one,” Biden said.

Facts First: Biden’s “17,000 miles” claim remains false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. This is one of Biden’s most common false claims as president, a figure he has repeated over and over in speeches despite numerous fact checks.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that Biden and Xi often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of Biden’s flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which Xi was not with him.

A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with him” as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of his boasts about how well he knows Xi. Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.

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April 12, 2021
Exclusive: National security officials tell special counsel Trump was repeatedly warned he did not have the authority to seize voting machines | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Former top national security officials have testified to a federal grand jury that they repeatedly told former President Donald Trump and his allies that the government didn’t have the authority to seize voting machines after the 2020 election, CNN has learned.

Chad Wolf, the former acting Homeland Security secretary, and his former deputy Ken Cuccinelli were asked about discussions inside the administration around DHS seizing voting machines when they appeared before the grand jury earlier this year, according to three people familiar with the proceedings. Cuccinelli testified that he “made clear at all times” that DHS did not have the authority to take such a step, one of the sources said.

Trump’s former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, in a closed-door interview with federal prosecutors earlier this year, also recounted conversations about seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, including during a heated Oval Office meeting that Trump participated in, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Details about the secret grand jury testimony and O’Brien’s interview, neither of which have been previously reported, illustrate how special counsel Jack Smith and his prosecutors are looking at the various ways Trump tried to overturn his electoral loss despite some of his top officials advising him against the ideas.

Now some of those same officials, including Wolf, Cuccinelli and O’Brien, as well as others who have so far refused to testify, may have to return to the grand jury in Washington, DC, to provide additional testimony after a series of pivotal court rulings that were revealed in recent weeks rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.

Cuccinelli was spotted going back into the grand jury on Tuesday, April 4.

Without that privilege shield, former officials must answer questions about their interactions and conversations with the former president, including what he was told about the lack of evidence for election fraud and the legal remedies he could pursue.

That line of questioning goes to the heart of Smith’s challenge in any criminal case he might bring – to prove that Trump and his allies pursued their efforts despite knowing their fraud claims were false or their gambits weren’t lawful. To bring any potential criminal charges, prosecutors would have to overcome Trump’s public claim that he believed then and now that fraud really did cost him the election.

“There’s lots of ways you can show that. But certainly one of them is if they were told by people who knew what they were talking about, that that there was no basis to take the actions,” said Adav Noti, an election law attorney who previously served in the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, and at the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office.

“I would not want to be a defense lawyer trying to argue, ‘Well, yes, my client was told that, but he never really believed it,’” Noti said.

Inside the Trump White House after the 2020 election, the push to seize voting machines eventually led to executive orders being drafted in mid-December of that year, directing the military and DHS to carry out the task despite Wolf and Cuccinelli telling Trump and his allies their agency did not have the authority to do so.

Those orders, which cited debunked claims about voting system irregularities in Michigan and Georgia, were presented to Trump by his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and then-lawyer Sidney Powell during a now-infamous Oval Office meeting on December 18.

Smith’s team has asked witnesses about that meeting in front of the grand jury and during closed-door interviews, multiple sources told CNN. Among them was O’Brien, who told the January 6 House select committee that he was patched into the December 18 meeting by phone after it had already devolved into a screaming match between Flynn, Powell and White House lawyers, according to a transcript of O’Brien’s deposition that was released by the panel.

O’Brien told the committee that at some point someone asked him if there was evidence of election fraud or foreign interference in the voting machines. “And I said, ‘No, we’ve looked into that and there’s no evidence of it,” O’Brien said he responded. “I was told we didn’t have any evidence of any voter machine fraud in the 2020 election.”

When asked about that meeting by federal prosecutors working for Smith, O’Brien reiterated that he made clear there was no evidence of foreign interference affecting voting machines, according to the source familiar with the matter.

O’Brien met with prosecutors earlier this year after receiving a subpoena from Smith’s team and is among the Trump officials who could be called back to discuss conversations with Trump under the judge’s recent decision on executive privilege.

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who personally told allies of the former president that there was no evidence of foreign election interference or widespread fraud that would justify taking extreme steps like seizing voting machines, must also testify, the judge decided.

A spokesperson for Ratcliffe did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. Wolf declined to comment.

Cuccinelli acknowledged to the January 6 committee last year that, after the election, he was asked several times by Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani, and on at least one occasion by Trump himself, if DHS had authority to seize voting machines. Wolf told the committee he was repeatedly asked the same question by then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Giuliani, who was subpoenaed by the Justice Department before Smith took over the investigation, previously acknowledged to the January 6 committee that he participated in that December 18 Oval Office meeting and other conversations about having DHS and the military seize voting machines.

Giuliani told congressional investigators that he and his team “tried many different ways to see if we could get the machines seized,” including options involving DHS, according to the transcript of his committee interview. Giuliani also acknowledged taking part in conversations – even before the Dec. 18 Oval Office meeting – where the idea of using the military to seize voting machines was raised.

“I can remember the issue of the military coming up much earlier and constantly saying, ‘Will you forget about it, please? Just shut up. You want to go to jail? Just shut up. We’re not using the military,’” he added.

Robert Costello, an attorney for Giuliani, told CNN that Giuliani has not received a subpoena from Smith. Costello said that in early November, Giuliani was subpoenaed by the DC US Attorney seeking documents and testimony. Costello says he told the Justice Department Giuliani couldn’t comply with the given deadlines because they were in the middle of disciplinary proceedings at the time. That was the last time Giuliani heard from DOJ, says Costello.

“I haven’t heard a word since November 2022,” Costello told CNN on March 30.

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April 12, 2021
GOP battle brews over defense bill as McCarthy under pressure to appease the right on social issues | CNN Politics

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House GOP leaders are confronting a legislative landmine over a massive defense bill as right-wing lawmakers are pushing for a slew of hot button amendments that could put moderate Republicans in a complicated position and threaten Democratic support for the must-pass bill.

The lawmakers are demanding amendment votes this week on a wide-range of controversial issues – everything ranging from abortion to transgender rights to diversity programs at the Pentagon – and are even privately warning that they could scuttle the defense bill on the first procedural vote if they don’t get their way.

The move has once again put the focus on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he tries to navigate the unyielding demands from members on his far-right while pushing legislation that many of his most vulnerable members are eager to tout back home. If he caters to the whims of members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, he could win over more far-right Republicans but could jeopardize support from Democrats and moderate Republicans, both of which will be essential to getting the bill through the chamber.

Yet the votes could even put the White House in a jam as a group of lawmakers from both parties are pushing to halt President Joe Biden’s move to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine.

Even though the House Armed Services Committee sent its bill to the floor on a bipartisan vote, the top Democrat on that panel warned that his support would be in jeopardy if the final bill includes some of these controversial amendments, particularly around abortion.

“The committee did a good job of presenting a bipartisan bill,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state, the committee’s top Democrat, told CNN. “But I am worried that the full House Republicans are not going to do that, that they’re going to push this bill too far into an extreme anti-inclusion direction that makes it difficult to support.”

The House Rules Committee will meet Tuesday afternoon to decide which of the over 1,500 amendments that have been submitted will actually be made in order, with the GOP leaders hoping to pass the final bill by the end of this week.

But even the House Rules Committee has become a wild card for the National Defense Authorization Act. Republicans can only afford to lose two votes on the committee on a party-line vote, and McCarthy placed three far-right members on the panel in exchange for becoming speaker. At least one of the conservative lawmakers on the panel, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told CNN he plans to oppose the rule, citing concerns that the bill does not go far enough to target “woke” Pentagon policies, and won’t receive the amendment votes to change that.

GOP Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, one of the other far-right members on the panel said in a statement to CNN, “While this NDAA makes some improvements, there are still glaring issues at the DOD that it needs to address in order to receive my support” when asked how he plans to vote on the rule.

“The Department of Defense’s transformation into a social engineering experiment wrapped in a uniform is the single greatest threat to this nation’s ability to defend itself – and Republicans are complicit,” Roy added. “Year after year, Republicans pass an NDAA that propagates the cultural rot at DOD while massive defense contractors get rich.”

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the other conservative on the committee, has not returned a request for comment about how he plans to vote, though a Republican source said they’re not as worried about Massie breaking ranks.

While drama isn’t new in fights over the NDAA, which has been passed by Congress every year for the last six decades, this level of acrimony is something of a departure for what is a typically bipartisan affair. After receiving heat for the debt ceiling deal, McCarthy is under increasing pressure to cater to his right flank, ratcheting up concerns about the ability for lawmakers to reach a compromise that both chambers can agree on.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who represents a swing district and has long been pushing her Republican colleagues to soften their stance on abortion, told CNN, “I don’t anticipate the NDAA not passing but the GOP has an opportunity to show it can be compassionate and pro-woman, and I hope they don’t drop the ball.”

Aside from amendments that target culture war issues, Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs of California and GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who both serve on the Armed Services Committee, are also planning to offer an amendment aimed at stopping President Joe Biden’s cluster munition transfer to Ukraine. If it comes to the floor, the vote would reveal how much support Biden’s move has in the House.

“Cluster munitions are unpredictable weapons that maim and kill indiscriminately, wreaking havoc on civilian populations and undermining economic rebuilding and recovery for decades,” Jacobs told CNN. “This amendment sends a strong message to the world that we will stand by our values and our commitment to protect civilians.”

Gaetz voiced a similar refrain on Twitter.

“These cluster bombs will not end the war in Ukraine and will not build a more stable country. Children will be left without limbs and without parents because of this decision if we do not work together in a bipartisan fashion to stop it,” Gaetz tweeted Monday.

And while the version of the NDAA that passed out of the Armed Services Committee included more funding for the war in Ukraine, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and others are pushing to roll that funding back.

The NDAA, which outlines the policy agenda for the Department of Defense and the US military and authorizes spending in line with the Pentagon’s priorities, passed out of the House Armed Services committee with overwhelming bipartisan support, even though some controversial GOP amendments – including on banning drag shows on military bases and reinstating troops who refused to comply with the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate – were adopted.

Some of the amendments that will take center stage on the floor this week include prohibiting gender transition surgeries and treatments from Gaetz, eliminating any offices of diversity, equity and inclusion within the armed forces and Department of Defense from a number of members including Norman, and prohibiting the Department of Defense from “purchasing and having pornographic and radical gender ideology books in their libraries” from GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.

While a handful of Republicans do not believe those amendments go far enough, others warned their colleagues not to jeopardize the future of this crucial legislation as the $858 billion defense package boasts measures that modernize the US military, increase its readiness to counter foreign adversaries like Russia and China, and increase support for servicemembers and their families.

“We need to get the NDAA passed. … It’s not something to ever put at risk and national security needs to be a priority for each and every one of us. If we don’t have world peace, we have nothing,” Rep. Jen Kiggans, a freshman Republican from a Virginia swing district, told CNN. “And we do that through providing the budget that the military needs. … So, it’s a responsibility.”

GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who serves on the Armed Services committee and represents a district Biden won in 2020, told CNN, “I hope smart, common sense amendments are passed.”

“The committee passed a bill near unanimously with only one dissenting vote, and it will take bipartisanship to get it also through the Senate,” Bacon told CNN.

While the markup process of the NDAA touched on hot button issues, ultimately members on the committee came together to pass a package that most could support.

Reflecting on the markup process, one GOP staffer told CNN, “People were pushing for DoD funds to be used for supporting war fighters over wokeness.”

Those clashes, however, have only seemed to foreshadow the floor flights to come.

“I think in committee, we tried to craft a bipartisan bill that would be able to get through the Senate and I’m hopeful that’s what everyone will try and do on the floor as well,” Jacobs told CNN. “But I think we’re already seeing the extreme Republicans try and put some poison pills in there that will make it very hard for Democrats to vote for the bill.”

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who told CNN he was “proud” to be the only member to vote against NDAA in committee because he needed to see “greater investment” in the Pacific region, called out the amendments that “hurt diversity and inclusion, education, and do nothing to strengthen our national security.”

“I plan to vote no when it comes to the floor and encourage my colleagues to do the same,” Khanna added.

One Democratic aide claimed, “Republicans are trying to hijack NDAA to make it a culture war battle.”

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April 12, 2021
Martin UAV Unveils V-BAT 128, Featuring Increased Payload, Endurance for Defense and Private-Sector Application

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Agile VTOL UAV is now available for military missions, public safety, energy and emergency response

Press Release
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updated: Mar 30, 2021

PLANO, Texas, March 30, 2021 (Newswire.com)
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Martin UAV, a leading advanced aviation technology manufacturer in the United States, today announced the public release of the latest unmanned aircraft system (UAS), the V-BAT 128, for defense and commercial use, including search and rescue, firefighting, logistic resupply, and energy and oil and gas operations.

Martin UAV previously demonstrated its upgraded version of the V-BAT featuring an increase in power, payloads and endurance at the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment (AEWE). Over the course of several weeks, the V-BAT 128 flew numerous missions, showcasing its VTOL capabilities and the versatility of its small footprint; one of the impressive features noted from those involved in the exercise is the aircraft’s ability to transition from take-off to a vertical hover and persistent stare capability while maintaining a sensor line of sight, in spite of difficult terrain.

“Martin UAV continues to push the boundaries of what is possible for unmanned aircraft systems,” said Heath Niemi, chief development officer. “We have listened to the customer and expanded the capabilities and agility of the V-BAT 128, delivering technology that serves a wider range of mission needs. We’re proud to make the V-BAT 128 available to the broader market and to provide more power and payload that can be transported in the bed of a pick-up truck, or, inside a Black Hawk.”

As the interest and adoption of UAV/UAS increases across commercial industries, the company stated a renewed commitment to support these verticals adapting to new technologies. Most recently, the company announced the addition of industry veteran Bill Irby as the Chief Operating Officer, who previously held leadership roles with Textron, L3 Harris and Northrop Grumman. Martin UAV strives to make UAVs more accessible and easier to implement, empowering organizations to streamline operational efficiencies, security and increase the safety measures for its staff.

The V-BAT 128 is designed to make transportation and rapid tactical deployment easier for both defense and commercial applications. It can be assembled by two personnel in less than 30 minutes. The aircraft’s duct fan propulsion design provides for top operational safety by eliminating exposed rotors, which are commonly found in propeller-driven VTOLs.

V-BAT 128 is ideal for takeoff and landing on both stationary and moving platforms, in areas with a footprint of less than 12-feet by 12-feet. The upgraded V-BAT provides significantly enhanced payload capacity of 25 pound and interchangeable payloads to meet mission-specific requirements. Increased endurance of up to 11 hours, and higher thrust were made possible by leveraging a more powerful engine, the Suter TOA 288 model. With a wingspan of 9.7 feet, the V-BAT 128 can reach over 90 knots reaching altitudes of 20,000 feet.

For more information on Martin UAV, its V-BAT and use across industries, visit: martinuav.com.

About Martin UAV:

Martin UAV is a private, advanced technology company based in Plano, TX. The company specializes in building wholly-unique, unmanned aircraft systems and associated flight control software. The company’s systems are commercially developed to fill critical operational needs in tactical & confined operational environments. Its V-BAT series aircraft is the only single-engine ducted fan VTOL that has the ability to launch & recover from a hover, fly up to eleven hours in horizontal flight, and make mid-flight transitions to “hover & stare” at any time throughout a given mission set. For more information visit: martinuav.com.

Media Contact

Amy Kauffman I Newswire
Phone: 214.235.6043
Email: amy@newswire.com

Source: Martin UAV

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March 30, 2021
Customized Mobile Watermaker Unit for U.S. Air Force in Wake Island – AMPAC USA
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AMPAC USA dispatched a customized mobile reverse osmosis treatment system for the construction site at Wake Island. The unit shall be used for fresh water while construction of the airfield for the U.S. Air Force is underway. AMPAC USA in this piece throws light over the need and customizations of the particular unit for Wake Island. The company is a water treatment systems manufacturer and has been on the ground for 30 years. They provide expert consultation on various industrial, commercial, residential and military water problems.

Press Release
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updated: Nov 1, 2019
LOS ANGELES, November 1, 2019 (Newswire.com)
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AMPAC USA, one of the world leaders in reverse osmosis water treatment systems, recently customized a seawater desalination watermaker for the U.S. Air Force. With over 32 years of experience in the field, the company provided a mobile treatment system unit for the provision of freshwater on Wake Island, located in the Pacific Ocean. Sammy Farag, the CEO of the company, gives a glimpse of the product along with several other factors that were considered for designing the equipment.

“AMPAC USA strives for quality, above everything else. Especially for military purposes, we make sure to be extra careful as we know our product has a direct impact on the operations on the ground. Treatment systems are manufactured, customized even, for the individual requirements of every order that we get. Our systems are bespoke, reliable and durable.”

The particular product was customized for a construction site in Wake Island. The airfield, owned by the U.S. Air Force, required a constant supply of fresh water from the surroundings for a variety of purposes. This included the construction itself, drinking, cleaning, cooling, sanitation, etc. Here is an in-depth examination of the product and design process.

Type of Watermaker

The obvious choice for AMPAC while selecting from a wide range of products they offer was a seawater desalination watermaker. The island has access to abundant seawater, which meant supply for the unit to filter would never be a problem. Another factor that was immediately decided was the portability of the unit. Farag explains this further:

“At the island, the area is only a little more than 13 square kilometers with less than 8 square kilometers of the landmass. Considering the small size, we knew that a portable system that can be easily moved anywhere can be a very big advantage. The construction site will be covering almost half of the island and transport should, therefore, be easy. Portability was therefore included immediately into our plans.”

The unit is customized from a standard mobile water treatment system that is easy to transport with all of the systems required for water filtration. The capacity of this system was increased from 20,000 GPD to 80,000 GPD considering the various operations to be undertaken over a period of several weeks.

Features of the Product

The final designed product is very similar to the Emergency Portable 20,000 GPD Watermaker offered by AMPAC. The capacity was raised to 80,000 GPD and several other features remain the same, with increased reliability achieved by the careful assembly. These are:
- A PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) situated in front of NEMA 4X-rated control enclosure with multi-layer security login to keep tabs of several readings ranging over all the information about the unit’s operation.
- Has a multimedia carbon pre-filter for removal of excess chlorine injected at pre-treatment, pH adjustment, and bacteria removal. Also, there is a spin-down pre-filter, which is a manual see-through strainer with a cleanable mesh screen filter for corrosion resistance and particulate removal. The sediment pre-filter provides higher flow rates and removes dirt, sediment, and sand.
- On-demand Feed Supply Pump is added to supply the watermaker with seawater coming from a settling tank. These are made of Multistage 316L Stainless Steel Jet High-Pressure pumps with safeguards.
- The unit also includes a high-pressure plunger pump that delivers high pressure up to 1200 psi with increased reliability. It has a standard Motor Soft Start which reduces start-up power by 60%. It also has monitors with visual flowmeters, salinity measurement, hour meter and temperature monitor to help with additional information.
- The unit comes with in-built safety features such as low-pressure sensors for failsafe operation, high-pressure diverter valves for operator safety, etc. Every component is NSF-approved and the unit comes with a WQA certification.
Farag further elaborates, “Every system by AMPAC comes with an in-built Reverse Osmosis system. The process is proven to filter 99% of contaminants with just the use of a thin film membrane. The specifications of the membrane in the product for Wake Island were calibrated on the basis of the available water around the island that will eventually be feed water. This customization will ensure that the membrane does not wither soon due to excessive damage from the contaminants.”

Other Considerations

For the external part of the unit, weather conditions at the island were a major factor. The weather at Wake Island is very humid and hot over the year. It does not change much but sees occasional storms and showers majorly from July to October. The temperature varies from 74 to 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of the minute variance, there are no hot or cold seasons. This means that the mobile unit will have to face similar temperatures almost every day. Not many changes were made to the standard external features of the mobile treatment unit as Farag says the unit in itself is very sturdy.

“Our strive has always been to provide quality products that last longer. Durability, sturdiness against any weather and reliability are very important to us, which is why the treatment system did not require any extra customizations. These features and qualities of the product are automatically incorporated without having to mention it. The unit we have provided, with regular maintenance, will be able to run for years without any hassle.”

The final product is a good quality seawater desalination watermaker that can provide 80,000 gallons of fresh water each day, can run without much manual supervision and can withstand any weather coming right at it.

“Our experts worked for weeks on this unit,” adds Farag. “We know very well that our products are responsible for helping out operations at the construction site and any delays are not welcomed. We had a special team that worked in the facility and closely monitored the assembly and manufacturing of this unit. Some of these experts have been with us for more than 20 years and have unmatched experience in water treatment systems. We are confident that our product shall be an asset to the site at Wake Island and will be in constant touch for regular monitoring and maintenance.”

Wake Island primarily serves military flight activity within the region, however, military presence is minimum at this time. The island is a coral atoll in the Western Pacific region and is used for emergency flight landings of commercial jetliners that fly in the transpacific routes. It has also been used by airlines operating jet aircraft on scheduled flights in the past. The island is known to be one of the most isolated islands in the world. The unit shall be an important part of the construction operations on the island.

About the Author:

AMPAC USA is a world-renowned water treatment systems manufacturer and operates primarily with reverse osmosis systems. They provide solutions to industrial, residential, commercial and military water problems.

Source: AMPAC USA
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November 1, 2019
Financial Coach Chris Jackson Helps First Responders Launch a Board Game With His Heroes and Zeroes Initiative

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To be part of this wonderful project, please visit the Kickstarter page. Help build dreams for those who make the ultimate sacrifice.

Press Release
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updated: Sep 11, 2019

AUSTIN, Texas, September 11, 2019 (Newswire.com)
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A seasoned financial coach, Chris Jackson is known for his financial management skills and strategies. He has been using his pro bono platform to provide free financial planning to members of the military and first responders. Considered a visionary by peers and clients, Chris Jackson’s strength lies in his ability to see the big picture, identify gaps and employ creative solutions to get people’s finances on track.

Chris Jackson was fortunate to have a friend whose father was a police officer that practically took him in as his own during a tough time in his life. He also personally saw the effects of PTSD and how it affected his military friends that came back from the Middle East.

Chris Jackson discovered that access to expert financial advice is limited to those with certain asset minimums or with higher income. This means living first responders and the military are on their own when making critical personal finance decisions. Chris Jackson was inspired by community policing programs and police activity leagues that aim to heal strained relations across the country between urban communities and cops, and he wanted to give back to those making the ultimate sacrifices. Hence, the creation of his own pro bono program for ex-servicemen.

Here is what some clients that have benefited from his pro bono platforms have to say. “Chris Jackson has been a tremendous help to me in a difficult landscape. As a new firefighter and recently engaged man, Chris Jackson has really set me up for success. His friendly demeanor, professional courtesy and informed decisions have given me an edge in planning for the future. I cannot speak highly enough of Mr. Jackson; it truly allows me to focus more on what I need to do to keep the public safe.” Max Palmer – CA Firefighter

“Chris has helped me organized my financial life so I can have a game plan for managing my expenses and debt. He has also helped me plan for life after my time in the military as I pursue becoming a professional poker player.” Pherris Ash – USAF Officer

Chris Jackson is currently assisting Brandon Byler and Matt Ruggiero, two police officers, produce their first board game called Code 3, which launches tomorrow at noon, and Chris hopes those looking to give back will go to the Kickstarter campaign to help back the project. Backers of the project will receive incentives that are indicated on the campaign page. A percentage of the proceeds will go to the National Fallen Officer Foundation.

Media Contact:
Chris Jackson
Phone: (323)219-0633
Email: info@chrisojackson.com

Source: Chris Jackson

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September 11, 2019