A new report from USAID’s inspector general reveals the agency did not monitor the locations or uses of 5,175 Starlink satellite internet terminals sent to Ukraine during the war. The terminals — 1,508 purchased by USAID and 3,667 donated by SpaceX — were intended to restore life-saving connectivity for civilian services like healthcare, emergency shelters, and local governance after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

“My plea is aimed at everyone and anyone who might potentially have the means to help us. To those that want to help but do not have the means, please share Gerco’s story far and wide so that we can have everyone make a noise to bring him home."

(POC) — Gerco was kidnapped on November 3, 2017 while on his way to the Awbari power plant where he was employed as an on-site emergency medical practitioner.

(POC) — A global building materials manufacturer and its subsidiary pleaded guilty today to a one-count criminal information charging them with conspiring to provide material support and resources in Northern Syria from 2013 to 2014 to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF), both U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations. Immediately following the defendants’ guilty pleas, U.S. District Judge sentenced the defendants to terms of probation and to pay financial penalties, including criminal fines and forfeiture, totaling $777.78 million.

Hundreds of Filipino workers are marooned at a U.S. military base on an island in the Indian Ocean because of a dispute between their employer, a major American contractor, and the Philippine government over their wages, according to employees and Philippine officials.

The Taliban has freed Mark Frerichs, an American engineer in exchange for an Afghan tribal leader linked to the group the US had held on drugs charges since 2005.

Frerichs is an engineer and U.S. Navy veteran from Lombard, Illinois, who worked in Afghanistan for a decade on development projects. He was kidnapped in February 2020.