Special Interest Glance
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The Pentagon has found $2bn worth of additional errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine, increasing the improperly valued material to a total of $8.2bn, a US government report revealed on Thursday. In 2023, the Pentagon said staff used “replacement value” instead of “depreciated value” to tabulate the billions in materials sent to Ukraine. The $6.2bn error created a path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv. -
Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has called on Hong Kong to prevent Russia and Russian businesses from using the region to circumvent sanctions. Kuleba met with Hong Kong leader John Lee as part of a visit to China. He called on the administration to prevent Russia from using Hong Kong to circumvent restrictions resulting from Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a statement from the Ukrainian foreign affairs ministry. “These restrictive measures are necessary to weaken Russia’s potential to wage war and kill people in Ukraine,” the statement said.
Ukraine war briefing: Pentagon accounting error creates path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv
US priest’s sexual assault accusers felt they ‘could not say no’, police say
Two women let Roman Catholic priest Anthony Odiong become close to them because they believed he would provide them with spiritual advice they could use to confront difficult times in their lives.
But rather than simply minister to them, Odiong abused his position to have sexual intercourse with one of the women, police now allege. And he allegedly managed to pressure the other woman into letting her husband sodomize her despite her faith-based objections to that kind of encounter – while also successfully urging her to relay her experience to him.
Those graphic details were revealed in warrants obtained by Waco, Texas, police on Thursday that charged Odiong with two counts of violating a state law which criminalizes sexual activity between clergymen and adults who emotionally depend on their spiritual advice.
Two US astronauts stuck in space as Boeing analyzes Starliner problems
Boeing’s public relations crisis is now out of this world: the company’s Starliner spacecraft with two astronauts onboard – are currently stuck in space.
After what started as an eight-day mission, US astronauts Sunita “Suni” Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore have now spent the better part of a month in the International Space Station as engineers work out the problems with Starliner.
It remains unclear when exactly the astronauts will be able to make their return to Earth. A Boeing spokesperson said they have “adjusted the return of Starliner crew flight test until after two planned spacewalks on Monday 24 June and Tuesday 2 July” and that they “currently do not have a date for the return, and will evaluate opportunities after the spacewalks”.
The spokesperson also noted “the crew is not pressed for time to leave the station since there are plenty of supplies in orbit, and the station’s schedule is relatively open through mid-August”.
Wisconsin AG Josh Kaul charges Kenneth Chesebro, other Trump aides, in fake elector scheme
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has filed felony forgery charges against an aide and two attorneys who worked for former President Donald Trump in 2020 for their part in designing and executing a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by submitting false slates of electors for Trump.
The charges are the first to be filed by state prosecutors against anyone involved in the scheme that involved 10 Wisconsin Republicans meeting in the state Capitol in December 2020 to sign paperwork falsely claiming to be electors for Trump, despite Trump's loss to Biden.
UCLA threatens to withhold degrees from pro-Palestinian student protesters
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has threatened to discipline and withhold degrees from at least 55 students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to faculty members supporting the students.
Students who were arrested on 2 May when police forcefully raided the Gaza solidarity encampment received letters on Friday from administrators accusing them of violating the student code of conduct and warning them of a range of potentially serious sanctions. In the letters, copies of which have been reviewed by the Guardian, assistant deans write that the students failed to respond to police’s dispersal orders and engaged in “disorderly behavior”, “disturbing the peace” and “failure to comply”.
The students are required to attend a meeting to discuss the “allegations” against them, according to the letters, and “no degree may be conferred until any pending allegations and any assigned sanctions and conditions have been completed”.
Hawaii: families complain of sickness two years after Pearl Harbor fuel leak
Military and civilian families told a federal judge this week they continue to be sickened, more than two years after a US navy underground fuel storage facility leaked thousands of gallons of jet fuel into Pearl Harbor’s main drinking water and caused a water crisis in the Pacific.
United States district court judge Leslie Kobayashi heard testimony from nearly a dozen impacted families suing the US government over the leak from the second world war era storage tanks that has resulted in vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and other ailments. Plaintiffs said the illnesses are connected to the tainted water serving the nearly 93,000 residents in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
Natasha Freeman, who is one of the plaintiffs and lives a mile away from the fuel tanks, testified that all three of her sons experienced vomiting, seizures, lesions and tremors they never had before.
US calls for immediate Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal in draft UN resolution
The US has drafted a new UN security council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” and hostage deal in Gaza, amid mounting pressure on Israel to halt its military campaign and allow the delivery of substantial amounts of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.
The CIA and Mossad spy chiefs, William Burns and David Barnea, were expected to arrive in Qatar on Friday in the hope of clinching an elusive truce-for-hostages deal between Israel and Hamas. Speaking in Egypt, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said difficult work remained to be done but added: “I continue to believe it’s possible.”
Blinken characterised the UN resolution drafted by the US as calling for “an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages.”
TVNL Comment: Stop selling weapons to Israel.. Canada has done it. Show some backbone, Joe.
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