Army special forces soldiers have joined the mission to locate and find two Navy aviators whose EA-18G Growler jet crashed Tuesday in a remote area east of Mount Rainier in Washington state.

The two-person fighter jet, assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 130 at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, crashed east of Mount Rainier at approximately 3:20 p.m. local time Tuesday while conducting training, the Navy said.

Wreckage was found Wednesday, but the Navy said Thursday night that it “rests at approximately 6,000 feet altitude in a remote, steep and heavily-wooded area east of Mount Rainier.”

Soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) based at nearby Joint Base Lewis-McChord are assisting in the search, the Navy said.

“The unit brings specialized mountaineering, high-angle rescue, medical, and technical communication skills necessary to navigate the difficult terrain associated with the Cascade Mountain Range that is inaccessible by other means,” the Navy said.

Any confirmation of whether either of the aviators survived the crash cannot be done without a debris area site assessment, according to the Navy.

“Our priority is to locate our two aviators as quickly and as safely as possible,” Capt. David Ganci, commanding officer of Electronic Attack Wing, said in a statement. “Adhering to [Pentagon] procedure, we cannot identify or confirm the names of aircrew involved in a mishap until 24-hours after their next of kin have been notified of their status. Please remain patient and limit speculation about the incident. That is one of the best ways we can respect the privacy of the loved ones who are impacted by this tragic event.”

Hamas marked the anniversary of its Oct. 7, 2023, attack by firing a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv, underscoring its resilience after a year of war and devastation in Gaza. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8 in support of its ally Hamas, fired more than 170 rockets despite its recent losses.

The conflict soon drew in the United States military as well, and troops levels there remain higher than normal in order to prevent a bigger war from breaking out.

A few weeks after Hamas’ attack, on Oct. 19, the Navy destroyer Carney became the first American warship to take out a salvo of drones and missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

That back-and-forth between the Houthis and the Navy has continued on a near-daily clip for the past year in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman, and Navy ships have also played a role in shooting down Iranian missiles fired at Israel on two occasions.

U.S. ground forces have also endured months of attacks by Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, although the frequency of such attacks has lessened.

Still, a January attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Syria killed three U.S. troops.

They are Sgt. Kennedy Sanders, Sgt. Breonna Moffett and Staff Sgt. William Rivers.

Questions have also emerged about how long the U.S. military — and the Navy in particular — can keep expending finite resources in the region.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press Israel’s campaigns on all sides, the military bombarded southern Lebanon with more than 120 strikes in an hour Monday, saying it was targeting Hezbollah positions. An earlier strike killed at least 10 Lebanese firefighters, the latest of dozens of first responders killed in recent weeks, according to Lebanon ‘s Health Ministry.

In a possible sign of the expansion of its campaign, the military said it would soon launch operations on Lebanon’s southern coast, telling residents to stay off the beaches and the sea for a 36-mile stretch along the Mediterranean.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot and killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in a refugee camp, Palestinian health officials said. The military said it opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones at its forces.

A year since Hamas’ surprise cross-border attack, the war in Gaza rages on even as Israel is fighting a new war against Hezbollah, escalating its bombing campaign in Lebanon the past three weeks. There is also a mounting conflict with Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — that threatens to drag the region into an even more dangerous conflagration.

And within Israel, two main commemorations for the day underscored the country’s divisions. One was held by the government, the other in Tel Aviv by families of those killed on Oct. 7 and of hostages still held in Gaza who refused to join the official ceremony.

It was a sign of how Israelis’ faith in their leaders and military were shaken when the militants stormed out of Gaza, catching the country unprepared on a major Jewish holiday. The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250. Around 100 hostages have not been returned, a third of whom are believed to be dead, and cease-fire efforts have ground to a halt.

No formal commemorative event is planned in Gaza, where Israel’s assault since Oct. 7 has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, huge areas have been completely destroyed, most of the population have been driven from their homes and hunger is widespread.

At 6:31 a.m., four projectiles were launched from Gaza toward the same communities that came under attack last year, without disrupting ceremonies there.

The military said another five rockets were launched from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis toward central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv. Two women were lightly wounded, according to first responders, and there was minor damage. The military said it struck the launch sites.

Sirens blared a second time in central Israel hours later when Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile. The military said the missile was intercepted.

Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.

“We lost everything we have,” said Liyala al-Shanar, who fled her home in Gaza City. “We live in a tent that doesn’t protect us from the winter cold or the summer heat.”

Hamas’ fighters have repeatedly regrouped in areas where Israel carried out major operations. On Sunday, Israeli forces encircled the northern town of Jabaliya and launched another major operation there that the military says is aimed at rooting out militants.

The past year has seen a surge of violence in the West Bank, including Israeli raids on towns targeting armed groups, increased attacks by Palestinian militants and Jewish settler attacks on Palestinians.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has kept up its fire even after intensified Israeli strikes have killed many in its top command — including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah — and pounded large areas of Lebanon.

Israel’s strikes have killed at least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, and 1.2 million have been driven from their homes. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday’s strike that killed the 10 firefighters hit the municipality of the southern town of Baraachit just as they prepared for a mission. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel launched what has so far been a limited ground operation across the border last week. It says it aims to drive the militant group from its border so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.

Israel has also vowed to respond to a ballistic missile attack last week that Iran said was in response to the killings of Nasrallah, top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and one of its own Revolutionary Guard generals.

Hezbollah said Monday it would continue its attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, saying Israel “was and will remain a deadly, aggressive, cancerous gland that must be eliminated, no matter how long it takes.”

Navy leaders this week identified an aircraft carrier and two submarines affected by faulty weld issues during work at the Newport News Shipyard in Virginia, but say that the substandard work did not take place on components that affect ship safety or operations.

In a letter to House and Senate armed services committee members Thursday, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said impacted ships include the recently-revamped aircraft carrier George Washington and the brand-new attack submarines Hyman G. Rickover and New Jersey.

Citing shipyard officials, Del Toro wrote that the issue involved “welders who did not follow welding procedures properly.”

“Importantly, the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) has assessed that the welds were not on components or systems that affect ship safety or operations,” he wrote. “NAVSEA, as the technical warrant holder, has determined the ships are safe to operate.”

Del Toro wrote that he first became aware of the issue on Sept. 24.

The Navy had identified those three vessels as having been impacted as of Thursday, and Del Toro’s memo states that the sea service is examining welds on 23 ships under construction or in maintenance to see if faulty welds there may impact future operations.

Last week, officials with HII, the company that owns Newport News Shipbuilding, acknowledged that “some welders knowingly circumvented certain welding procedures” while working on military vessels.

“Malicious intent” was ruled out as a the source of the problem, HII said in a statement.

“Upon discovery of some welders not consistently following procedures, we followed our protocol, took action to communicate with our customers and regulators in a timely manner and began working the issue with the Navy,” the company said in an additional statement Friday.

The Department of Justice is investigating the matter, lawmakers confirmed this week.

Del Toro promised to cooperate with that probe and wrote Thursday that the Navy “is evaluating all legal options, and reserving our rights accordingly.”

Congressional leaders have pushed the Navy this week for more answers on the scope of the problem and how it was allowed to happen.

“These vessels are critical to U.S. defense,” House Armed Services Committee members wrote to Del Toro this week. “We must ensure that these vessels are protected against any bad actors seeking to put U.S. national security or our service members at risk.”

The Newport News yard is one of two in the United States focused on the nuclear fleet. The yard constructs parts of several submarine classes, as well as Ford-class aircraft carriers.

While the timeframe of the faulty welds has not been disclosed, George Washington left the Newport News yard in May 2023 following its midlife maintenance overhaul that began in 2017 and was originally supposed to wrap in 2021. Officials blamed the delays on extra unanticipated work during the so-called refueling and complex overhaul, or RCOH.

The carrier is currently underway in the Pacific Ocean and on its way to its new home port in Japan.

The submarine Hyman G. Rickover was commissioned in October 2023, while New Jersey was just commissioned on Sept. 14.

In the memo, Del Toro promised a full review of operations at the shipyard to ensure the welding problems do not occur again.

“The safety of our sailors and ships is of paramount importance,” he wrote. “We have given top priority to the task of defining and examining the scope of improper welds conducted on operational in-service ships, and I have directed my Navy technical experts to co-locate with the shipyard immediately to support a thorough review.”

The service’s statement announcing the firing did not note a reason for Cmdr. Cameron Yaste’s relief, stating only that it occurred “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command the guided-missile destroyer.”

Yaste had been in command of the ship since October.

Capt. Allison Christy, deputy commodore of Destroyer Squadron 21, has temporarily assumed command of the warship.

The Everett, Washington-based McCain arrived in the Middle East in April as part of a scheduled deployment.

Yaste has been temporarily reassigned to Naval Surface Group Northwest.

The ground control station was part of a multiyear effort that took place aboard Bush during multiple ship maintenance stints and between deployments, Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, said.

Along with the required software and hardware, the drone nerve center features the first fully operational and integrated unmanned carrier aviation mission control system that the command says is critical to using the Stingray in operations.

Bush will conduct at-sea testing of the center early next year, according to NAVAIR.

The control station is the latest step toward getting the Stingray into the fleet, where it will refuel fighter jets midflight, helping the sea service’s strike arm to stay airborne longer — a capability that would be particularly helpful should war with China break out in the watery expanse of the West Pacific.

Standing up the Bush’s drone control room “lays the foundation” for how the Navy will operate and control unmanned aircraft, Unmanned Carrier Aviation (PMA-268) Program Manager Capt. Daniel Fucito said in a statement.

While such systems will initially support the Stingray, they will also be used for other services’ unmanned systems, such as the Air Force’s collaborative combat aircraft program, which seeks to pair air drones with unmanned aircraft in a so-called “air wing of the future.”

Such systems are also being planned for installation aboard fellow carriers Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan beginning in fiscal 2025, according to NAVAIR.

Palestinian civilians were dying five months into the Israel-Hamas war. Most of the territory was struggling to get food or near famine. And Israel wasn’t opening more land routes for assistance to flow in.

So the U.S. would make a route of its own.

“This temporary pier would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day,” Biden said during his State of the Union speech.

Instead, four months later, the pier’s mission is over and its clearest legacy is what wasn’t possible.

Despite the work of 1,000 U.S. soldiers and sailors using the Joint-Logistics-Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, capability, the pier couldn’t stay afloat for long due to choppy seas. And while it got aid into the Gaza Strip, it couldn’t fix another intractable problem: actually getting it to the Palestinian people — 96% of which face “acute food insecurity,” according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

The Pentagon estimated the pier would cost $230 million, though the final number isn’t yet certain, and Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, said it would come in well under budget.

A clearer cost has been to U.S. personnel: One soldier remains in the hospital due to a pier-related mishap in May, and is still recovering stateside.

Citing privacy regulations, DOD officials have declined to explain what injured the soldier and two other service members, who were able to return to duty after the incident.

U.S. officials have defended the mission as the safest and most efficient way to get American assistance into Gaza during the war. And they can cite almost 20 million pounds of aid as evidence.

“The pier has done exactly what we intended it to do,” said Cooper.

Many watching from the sidelines in Washington disagree.

The pier arrived at a moment of acute political pressure on the White House to help the Palestinian people, said Steven Cook, an expert on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite that, he said, it’s become an emblem of what the U.S. hasn’t learned in the region.

“This is a constant theme in American foreign policy in the Middle East,” he said. “Despite our best intentions, we didn’t really understand what we were walking into.”

‘I was hopeful that would be more successful’

When announcing that the pier was being dismantled, military officials came with a list of statistics. The JLOTS pier delivered 19.4 million pounds of aid, or enough to feed half a million Palestinians for one month.

By comparison, the U.S. has sent 2.4 million pounds via air drops and 33 million pounds via land crossings since the start of the war in October.

In its 20 days of operating, the admiral said, it carried double or triple the amount of aid the U.S. initially expected. Altogether, it was the most humanitarian support America has ever sent to the Middle East.

“That data stands on its own,” Cooper said.

And yet, those numbers have another side. The aid may have gotten onto Gazan territory, but much of it hasn’t reached people in need. Due to rough weather, the pier was in service only about one-third of the time since it was first anchored in May. At one point, it buckled under rough seas and had to be repaired in the Israeli city of Ashdod.

Meanwhile, crowds ransacked at least one aid-laden truck coming from the pier before it could get to distribution points, The Associated Press reported, and the United Nations halted aid distribution at times due to security concerns.

“You can have the best fighting force in the world and the best logisticians in the world, but high seas and strong winds still create quite a dilemma,” said Brad Bowman, who researches U.S. defense policy at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

After the NATO summit in July, even Biden acknowledged that the pier could have performed better.

“I was hopeful that would be more successful,” he said.

A JLOTS test case

Still, using the pier in a real-world combat zone likely helped prove its use to the Pentagon, argued Keith Robbins, a retired Army officer who oversaw the JLOTS program for U.S. Transportation Command before his retirement in 2007.

JLOTS is, in essence, a set of metal pieces that can be assembled in multiple ways. It’s meant for calmer waters than the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Robbins said, but there were few better options for the mission itself: quickly shuttling tons of aid onshore.

“JLOTS is the perfect capability to handle that, but it has to be put in the right place in order for it to be successful,” he added.

Now that JLOTS has made its debut in a combat zone, Robbins hopes it will convince the Pentagon to continue funding it.

“Ten, 15 years ago, when I was doing it, the higher-ups didn’t really understand what the capability was,” he said. “I would hope that this has been a great illustration of how valuable this capability can be.”

‘The needs are staggering’

In their briefing last week, CENCTOM deputy commander Cooper and an official from USAID argued the pier hadn’t only finished its mission — it was also no longer necessary.

The maritime supply route was now moving from off the 25-mile Gazan coast to Ashdod, Israel, where aid will enter the strip via trucks.

As the U.S. and humanitarian groups have said for months, there is no substitute for these land crossings.

“The needs are staggering and continue to grow,” said Solani Korde, a USAID official, briefing alongside Cooper.

From the start, U.S. officials stressed that the pier was “temporary.” In other words, the U.S. was not committing to an indefinite mission attached to Gaza, and it wasn’t suggesting this path could replace others.

“A maritime route is not a zero-sum discussion,” said Chris Hyslop, a former U.N. official who now works with Fogbow, a humanitarian advisory group that assisted the pier’s mission.

But even when aid crosses into Gaza it has been extremely hard to deliver. Roads are damaged. Swathes of territory are dangerous. And the actors involved — from Egypt to Israel to Hamas to other groups in Gaza — often don’t have reason to distribute aid quickly, whether due to cronyism, domestic politics or the terrorist group’s total-war strategy, said Cook, the analyst at CFR.

“That is really, chiefly, the obstacle to ensuring that the innocent people of Gaza get the lifesaving food, water, medicine that they need,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a July briefing. “It’s distribution within as opposed to distribution from without.”

No pier or new land crossing can solve that problem. But while the pier’s mission may be over, some involved don’t think the maritime route should close.

Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon Middle East official who also works at Fogbow, the aid group, said the pier was a proof of concept, despite its limitations.

“I think it needs to be continued because quite frankly, the mechanism in Cyprus [where aid was sorted] and the aid delivery zone is already established,” he said. “If we don’t put something in its place that will be for naught.”

The unprecedented announcement, delivered less than four months before the election, immediately upended a campaign that both political parties view as the most consequential in generations.

The president — intent on serving out the remainder of his term in office — quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump and encouraged his party to unite behind her, making her the party’s instant favorite for the nomination at its August convention in Chicago.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, nominated by Biden in late 2020, praised Biden as “an extraordinary guardian of America’s national security” in a statement Sunday.

“I am deeply grateful for his leadership and statesmanship,” Austin said. “He has a secure place in American history as one of our great foreign-policy presidents.”

Biden’s Sunday announcement is the latest jolt to a tumultuous campaign for the White House, coming a week after the attempted assassination of Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.

A party’s presumptive presidential nominee has never stepped out of the race so close to the election. President Lyndon Johnson, besieged by the Vietnam War, announced in March 1968 that he would not seek another term after just a single state’s primary. Biden’s July decision comes after more than 14 million Democrats cast votes supporting him through the primary process.

Harris, in a statement, praised Biden’s “selfless and patriotic act” and said she intends to “earn and win” her party’s nomination.

“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” she said.

Biden’s decision to bow out came after escalating pressure from his Democratic allies to step aside following the June 27 debate, in which the 81-year-old president trailed off, often gave nonsensical answers and failed to call out the former president’s many falsehoods.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted Sunday to his X account.

Nearly 30 minutes after he delivered the news that he was folding his campaign, Biden threw his support behind Harris.

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” he said in another post on X. “Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump.”

There were early signs that the party was moving to coalesce around Harris, who scored the endorsements of the Congressional Black Caucus and former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even before she had commented on Biden’s decision to quit the race. But notably, former President Barack Obama held off, pledging support behind the eventual party nominee.

“We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

But Obama, who had privately shared doubts about Biden’s reelection chances, stopped short of endorsing Harris even as he praised Biden for his decision to leave the race.

“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges,” he said in a statement.

Biden’s decision came as he has been isolating at his Delaware beach house after being diagnosed with COVID-19 last week, huddling with a shrinking circle of close confidants and family members about his political future. Biden said he would address the nation later this week to provide “detail” about his decision.

Harris found out about Biden’s plans on Sunday morning and senior campaign and White House staff were notified just minutes before the letter went out, according to people familiar with the matter who commented on the private discussions on condition of anonymity. Biden had been reflecting on his future for the past couple days and the decision was closely held.

Now, Democrats have to urgently try to bring coherence to the nominating process in a matter of weeks and convince voters in a stunningly short amount of time that their nominee can handle the job and beat Trump. And for his part, Trump must shift his focus to a new opponent after years of training his attention on Biden.

The decision marks a swift and stunning end to Biden’s 52 years in electoral politics, as donors, lawmakers and even aides expressed to him their doubts that he could convince voters that he could plausibly handle the job for another four years.

Biden won the vast majority of delegates and every nominating contest but one, which would have made his nomination a formality. Now that he has dropped out, those delegates will be free to support another candidate.

Harris, 59, appeared to be the natural successor, in large part because she is the only candidate who can directly tap into the Biden campaign’s war chest, according to federal campaign finance rules.

Biden’s campaign formally changed its name to Harris for President, reflecting that she is inheriting his political operation — a sign of the leg up she has in the race for the Democratic nomination. Democratic groups, including the Democratic National Committee, also filed paperwork changing the names of their joint fundraising committees to reflect Harris’ candidacy.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 19-22 in Chicago, but the party had announced it would hold a virtual roll call to formally nominate Biden before in-person proceedings begin.

It remained to be seen whether other candidates would challenge Harris for the nomination. The Democratic National Committee’s chair, Jaime Harrison, said in a statement that the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process” to select “a candidate who can defeat Donald Trump in November.”

Harris was spending Sunday afternoon calling Democratic elected officials and delegates as she works to lock up the nomination.

Harris received her first delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sunday. The Tennessee Democratic Party posted on X that its delegation voted during a meeting Sunday to back Harris after Biden’s departure from the campaign.

Trump reacted to the news in a post on his Truth Social site, in which he said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve.”

“We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly,” he added. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

While Trump and his team had made their preference for facing Biden clear, his campaign had nonetheless ramped up its attacks on Harris as pressure on Biden to step down intensified.

Democratic officials, including many who were behind the effort to push Biden from the race, quickly released statements praising Biden’s decision.

“His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Joe, today shows you are a true patriot and great American.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York praised Biden as “one of the most accomplished and consequential leaders in American history.”

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said Biden should immediately resign if he is not fit enough to run for office. In a statement, Johnson said, “November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.”

In addition to his planned address to the country, Biden still intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House this week, according to a person familiar with the president’s schedule who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The exact timing of the meeting is still not set in stone as Biden continues to recover from COVID. Netanyahu is scheduled Wednesday to deliver an address to Congress and he is also expected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris while in Washington.

In 2020, Biden pitched himself as a transitional figure who wanted to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. But once he secured the job he spent decades struggling to attain, he was reluctant to part with it.

Biden was once asked whether any other Democrats could beat Trump.

“Probably 50 of them,” Biden replied. “No, I’m not the only one who can defeat him, but I will defeat him.”

Biden is already the country’s oldest president and had insisted repeatedly that he was up for the challenge of another campaign and another term, telling voters all they had to was “watch me.”

And watch him they did. His poor debate performance prompted a cascade of anxiety from Democrats and donors who said publicly what some had said privately for months, that they did not think he was up to the job for four more years.

Concerns over Biden’s age have dogged him since he announced he was running for reelection, though Trump is just three years younger at 78. Most Americans view the president as too old for a second term, according to an August 2023 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A majority also doubt his mental capability to be president, though that is also a weakness for Trump.

Biden often remarked that he was not as young as he used to be, doesn’t walk as easily or speak as smoothly, but that he had wisdom and decades of experience, which were worth a whole lot.

“I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job,” he told supporters at a rally in North Carolina a day after the debate. “Because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high.”

But voters had other problems with him, too — he has been deeply unpopular as a leader even as his administration steered the nation through recovery from a global pandemic, presided over a booming economy and passed major pieces of bipartisan legislation that will impact the nation for years to come. A majority of Americans disapprove of the way he’s handling his job, and he’s faced persistently low approval ratings on key issues including the economy and immigration.

Biden’s motivation for running was deeply intertwined with Trump. He had retired from public service following eight years serving as vice president under Obama and the death of his son Beau but decided to run after Trump’s comments following a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, when white supremacists descended on the city to protest the removal of its Confederate memorials.

Trump said: “You had some very bad people in the group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. On both sides.”

Biden’s wife, first lady Jill Biden, responded to the president’s announcement by reposting Biden’s letter announcing his decision and adding red heart emojis.

Granddaughter Naomi Biden Neal said on social media, “I’m nothing but proud of my Pop.” She said he has served the country “with every bit of his soul and with unmatched distinction” and “our world is better today in so many ways thanks to him.”

Paparo, who recently served as head of the Navy’s U.S. Pacific Fleet, relieved Adm. John Aquilino, who has led the combatant command since 2021.

He will oversee a joint combatant command that encompasses more than 380,000 U.S. troops across all services, as well as 38 nations, 14 time zones and more than 50% of the world’s population, according to the Defense Department.

During the ceremony, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the command’s mission lies “at the heart of American security in the 21st century,” according to a news release.

“When I assumed command three years ago, I said I’d give you my full and unwavering commitment to take on this great responsibility and do my best to meet it,” Aquilino said to Austin during the ceremony. “I hope you believe I’ve met that mark.”

A TOPGUN graduate who once led a provincial reconstruction team in one of Afghanistan’s most-kinetic corners, Paparo has in recent years warned repeatedly about the threat that the Chinese military poses to the Western-led global order.

“The [command’s] team is uniquely ready to shape the current strategic environment to our nation and our Allies and partners’ advantage,” Paparo said Friday. “We must act now with a sense of urgency.”

Dozens of sailors and Marines were injured Wednesday evening after an at-sea mishap during a training event off the coast of Florida, the Navy said Thursday.

Thirty-five Marines and sailors suffered injuries, with five sailors medically evacuated to Savannah Memorial University Medical Center for further care, according to the Navy.

The service initially reported 30 sailors and Marines were injured but later updated that number to 35. “As the incident unfolded and aid was rendered, additional personnel received medical care, increasing the total number injured to 35 personnel,” the Navy said in a Friday release.

“Four of the five Sailors have been released from the hospital after treatment,” the Navy said Thursday afternoon. “One Sailor remains under medical care and is being assessed for further treatment.”

The incident involved two of the Navy’s Landing Craft Air Cushion vehicles, or LCACs, 91-foot-long, air-cushioned vessels used to move troops and materiel from ship to shore.

The Navy’s statement did not say what specific training the LCACs were undertaking before the mishap, nor did it address the nature of the injuries.

Asked by Navy Times about the nature of the injuries and what the LCACs were doing before the mishap, U.S. 2nd Fleet officials emailed a statement that repeated the original statement the Navy released earlier on Thursday.

Troops that sustained minor injuries were treated aboard the amphibious assault ship Wasp and the amphibious transport dock New York, two of the three ships that comprise the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group.

The unit spent much of April in pre-deployment training, according to the Navy.

Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors assigned to the Wasp Amphibious Ready Group were involved.

One of the LCACs was with the amphibious assault ship Wasp, while the other belonged to the amphibious transport dock New York.