US News

• The FDA will allow medical staff in the US to use Chinese made KN-95 respirators. The respirators are an alternative to the N-95s. [Link]
• Trump invokes the Defense Production Act to prevent 3M from exporting respirators. [Link]
• The fired Captain of the USS T Roosevelt tests positive for coronavirus. [Link]
• The military is seeking $20 billion in new weapons and equipment to deploy against China in the Indo-Pacific. [Link]
• Sources say Secretary of State Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Esper have agreed to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty with Russia. [Link]
• The Navy has expanded its deployment of warships off Venezuela’s coast. [Link]

Europe

• Julian Assange will not be released from prison during the coronavirus pandemic. The UK is allowing some prisoners with short sentences to be released, but Assange is only being held for the US extradition hearing. [Link]
• Germany accuses the US of diverting a delivery of 200,000 masks. The masks were rerouted in Thailand in an act Germany calls ‘modern piracy.’ The US denies rerouting the masks. [Link]

Afghanistan

• The sources say the US is planning to cut $1 billion in funding to the Afghan security forces. Secretary of State Pompeo announced the cut after traveling to Kabul and being unable to work out a power-sharing deal between the two men claiming to be the president of Afghanistan. [Link]
• The Taliban say the peace agreement with the US is at its breaking point because of the failure of the prisoner swap. [Link]