US News

• Trump says the US is working on a deal with the Taliban. [Link]
• An FBI official is being investigated for changing a document related to Russiagate. [Link]
• The Navy is pushing back against Trump’s decision to restore the pay and rank of war criminal Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher. [Link]
• The Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer proposed a secret deal to the White House that would allow Gallager to retire a Navy Seal. Publicly, Spencer pushed to hold a hearing to determine if Gallager would be allowed to retire a Seal. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper asked for Spencer’s resignation in response to the secret proposal. [Link]

Japan

• The Pope visits Nagasaki to call for an abolition of nuclear weapons. [Link]

China

• The US accuses China of attempting to influence the Taiwanese election. [Link]
• The US sailed warships through waters claimed by China in the South China Sea. [Link]
• Pro-democracy parties win a majority of council seats in an election. [Link]

Middle East

• Israel’s Likud Party will hold leadership primaries. The current party leader and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu was just indicted on corruption charges. [Link]
• The US sanctioned Iran’s Information Minister. [Link]
• Nine protesters were killed by Iraqi security forces across southern Iraq. [Link]
• A UN official reports Saudi airstrikes in Yemen are down 80% over the past two weeks and, for the first time since the start of the war in 2015, there was a 48 hour period without a Saudi airstrike in Yemen. [Link]

Syria

• The US CENTCOM Commander says the US has 500 troops east of the Euphrates River in Syria and those troops will restart anti-IS operations in the coming weeks. [Link]
• A car bomb in a Turkish controlled Syrian town kills ten. [Link]
• Wikileaks releases an email by an OPCW whistleblower claiming the report on Douma was incorrect. [Link]