
'A direct punch in the gut': Inside Biden's biggest crisis as he races to withdraw from Afghanistan
CNN
When Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley informed President Joe Biden just past 9:15 a.m. on Thursday that terrorists had detonated a suicide bomb at the Kabul Airport gates, the President was angry and dismayed — but not surprised.
Biden had just walked down from his third-floor residence to the basement Situation Room, where top national security officials were milling around the dark wooden table when first reports of explosions were transmitted into the basement command center. It was the nightmare scenario Biden had been fearing for days, one intelligence assessments -- derived partly from communication intercepts -- had warned was likely to happen. Yet the complexity of the situation on the ground, the urgency of the evacuation mission and the unlikely partnership with the Taliban to control security around the airport had left US troops dangerously exposed, and offered Biden and his team limited options to protect them.
The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting spies, diplomats and troops that are colloquially known as Havana Syndrome, according to four sources briefed on the matter.

Lawyers for Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s move to cut Kelly’s retirement pay and reduce his rank in response to Kelly’s urging of US service members to refuse illegal orders. The lawsuit argues punishing Kelly violates the First Amendment and will have a chilling effect on legislative oversight.











