US News

• NYPD training documents show officers are taught how to access sealed arrest records. [Link]
• The National Parks Service is joining the surveillance state. The NPS will begin sending names of people who request permits to the White House database. [Link]
• An Oklahoma politician is seeking to use his state’s anti-BDS law to ban Ben and Jerry’s. [Link]

Foreign Policy

• Senate Republicans are pushing to increase Biden’s proposed military budget by $25 billion. [Link]
• The CIA is launching a new investigation into ‘Havana Syndrome.’ The illness is vaguely defined with a wide variety of symptoms. A previous study found that ‘Havana Syndrome’ was fake and the noises attributed to the mysterious weapons were just Cuban crickets. [Link]
• One detainee was transferred from Gitmo to Morocco. Abdul Latif Nasir was cleared for release in 2016. [Link]

Haiti

• Biden appointed Daniel Foote to be a special envoy to Haiti. [Link]

Russia

• Ukraine is unhappy with the US/German agreement over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. [Link]
• The US says Russia is increasing its aggression in the Black Sea. The US has carried out two large war games in the Black Sea this month. [Link]
• The US is set to begin the Agile Spirit war games in Georgia. Fifteen countries will participate in the operations. [Link]

Afghanistan

• The US requested three central Asian nations house 9,000 Afghans seeking special visas. Uzbekistan was the first to respond saying there was no legal basis to accept the US request. [Link]
• Joint Chiefs head Gen. Mark Milley says the Taliban now control half of Afghanistan’s district centers. [Link]

Israel/Syria

• Israeli policies are causing food to rot in Gaza. [Link]
• Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has prevented the High Planning Council from holding a meeting. The council approves settlements in the West Bank. Some in Israel believe the de facto freeze on new settlements is Bennett caving to pressure from Biden. [Link]
• Israel’s president called Ben and Jerry’s decision not to tell ice cream in the occupied territories a “new kind of terrorism.” [Link]
• Israel bombed near Homs, Syria. This is the second Israeli air raid in Syria this week. [Link]
• The US bombed a target in Syria, killing three. The strike appeared to be in coordination with Kurdish fighters. [Link]

Ethiopia

• The Ethiopian government reports fighters from Tigray have broken into a neighboring region and 50,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. [Link]