Trump has previously announced the defeat of the group, but sleeper cells of fighters have re-emerged. With no signs of fighting Wednesday, however, the long-running battle to retake the militants' last outpost in eastern Syria appeared to have reached its conclusion.

"The caliphate is gone as of tonight," Trump said in a speech at a factory in Lima, Ohio, where military tanks are assembled.

The complete fall of Baghouz would mark the end of the Islamic State group's self-declared caliphate, which at its height stretched across large parts of Syria and Iraq. Controlling territory gave it room to launch attacks around the world.

During his speech, Trump held up two maps of Syria — one covered in red representing territory held by the militant group when he was elected president in November 2016 and the other that had only a speck of red.

"When I took over, it was a mess. They were all over the place — all over Syria and Iraq," said Trump, who has said the U.S. will keep 400 troops in Syria indefinitely.

For the past four years, U.S.-led forces have waged a destructive campaign against the group. But even after Baghouz's fall, IS maintains a scattered presence and sleeper cells that threaten a continuing insurgency.

The militants have been putting up a desperate fight, their notorious propaganda machine working even on the brink of collapse. The battle for Baghouz has dragged on for weeks and the encampment had proven a major battleground, with tents covering foxholes and underground tunnels.

The siege has also been slowed by the unexpectedly large number of civilians in Baghouz, most of them families of IS members. Over past weeks they have been flowing out, exhausted, hungry and often wounded. The sheer number who emerged — nearly 30,000 since early January, according to Kurdish officials — took the Syrian Democratic Forces by surprise.

Ciyager Amed, an official with the Kurdish-led SDF, said they were searching for any IS militants hiding in tunnels in a riverside pocket in the village of Baghouz. The SDF has not yet announced a victory over IS.

Associated Press journalists saw SDF soldiers loading women and children into trailer trucks on the hilltop over Baghouz — a sign that evacuations were still underway Wednesday. Black smoke was rising from the village.

On Tuesday, the SDF seized control of the encampment held by IS after hundreds of militants surrendered overnight, signaling the group's collapse after months of stiff resistance.

Teague made the introductions. Neither she nor Anderson wore a uniform, except for the patch on their jackets and the ID tags clipped to their shirts.

"I'm a social worker, and this is my partner, T-bone," she told the man. "We are from the VA. You're not in trouble."

Encounters such as this one represent a new approach to dealing with veterans in crisis. Against the backdrop and heartache of their persistently high suicide rates, authorities are touting the Los Angeles County program as a breakthrough in policing that could save lives.

At its core is the belief that veterans are often best equipped to talk brethren back from the brink - and to guide them to services. Since the program's launch in September, local law enforcement agencies answering such 911 calls have dispatched not only deputies or officers but also two-person teams from the Veterans Affairs hospital in Long Beach.

The duos have responded to more than 125 emergencies. A Vietnam vet whose thoughts had become so bleak he'd hung a noose in his backyard. A former soldier who'd run through traffic on a busy L.A. thoroughfare, swinging a knife and yelling at drivers that a voice was telling her to kill herself.

Vets "speak their own language," said Lt. John Gannon of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, who helped create the program and believes it's already made a difference. "It's a subculture."

On the call outside that transition house in a Los Angeles suburb, the distress was all too familiar: The man had PTSD and a brain injury suffered in combat. He also had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

As Teague and Anderson learned, the veteran had spent the last three days wandering the streets. The home's operators refused to allow him back in given his repeated violations of their no-drugs rule. That's when he started shouting threats and kicking the door.

The pair coaxed him out of the squad car and into the back of their unmarked SUV to talk.

"It seems like you're having a rough morning," Teague said. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"You're probably going to laugh."

She remembers assuring him that she wouldn't judge him. He seemed exhausted. He apologized that his feet were smelly.

"I can see evil in people," he told her. "I can tell which people are evil."

Was anyone at the house evil? she asked.

"Yes."

What did he want to do to people who are evil?

"Cut their heads off."

—

The Veterans Health Administration runs about 170 medical centers across the country and employs roughly 4,700 sworn officers to patrol the grounds of its hospitals. With rare exceptions, officials acknowledge, they stay within their campus confines.

But the pilot program run by the VA Long Beach Healthcare System sends officers and clinicians off the grounds, either to respond to emergency calls or to check on veterans who have missed therapy appointments.

Supporters call the program the first of its kind and hope it will be replicated nationwide.

"Instead of telling veterans, 'Hey call the crisis line and then figure out a way to get to the hospital to get care,' we're going to change things up. . . . We're coming to you," said David Weiner, who recently retired as the Long Beach VA police chief.

About 20 veterans kill themselves every day in the United States - a suicide rate that is 1.5 times that of the civilian population, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. On average, officials say, nearly three-quarters of those veterans had not sought therapy, drug rehab and other services for which they are eligible.

Teague doesn't need statistics to understand the magnitude of the problem. Just in the past two years, three of the roughly 75 soldiers from her unit who served in Iraq have taken their own lives.

"It's really hard to be on Facebook and you see somebody starting to decline and showing those signs of, like, 'Dude I'm struggling really bad,' " she said. "And then, next thing you know, we find out he's passed."

She and Anderson make an interesting pair. She's 37, a social worker with two sleeve tattoos that end in messages at each wrist - Love God on the left, Love Others on the right. He's 55, tall and bald, a longtime cop whose demeanor seems as suited to teaching as policing.

Both faced their share of trauma while in the Marines. Anderson was shot at repeatedly during his tour of Lebanon, where he arrived just after 17 comrades from his company were killed in a 1983 terrorist attack. And Teague broke her neck during a training exercise before her unit's deployment in 2003.

As a rule, neither shares their war stories with the vets they assist, nor do they pry for details about their clients' combat histories.

"Sometimes you don't want to bring stuff up, because there are certain trigger mechanisms that can set people off," Anderson said.

The work that brought them together on the Veterans Mental Evaluation Team - VMET for short - was inspired by a tragedy in early 2018. As a former Marine who had been making threats was being arrested, he wheeled around and clocked a deputy. In the ensuing melee with other deputies, 47-year-old Jeremy Spencer started having trouble breathing. He died at the scene. (No cause of death has been released, and the county district attorney continues to investigate, a homicide detective confirmed.)

"Most of our people were not connecting with this guy on a personal level," said Gannon, who runs the Sheriff's Department Mental Evaluation Teams - also clinician-cop pairings dispatched to scenes where mentally ill people are posing a danger to themselves or others. He wondered whether that effort could add a veterans component and pitched the idea to area VA officials.

The Long Beach facility was receptive. Talks are underway about a similar program at the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center. The VA in Spokane has also expressed an interest.

During VMET's first four months, Teague and Anderson - with help from a night crew of two VA officers - responded to about 275 calls. About half of them were urgent calls in the field; the other half were follow-ups monitoring the progress of vets they'd helped connect to services.

"When there are situations that could potentially lead to really bad outcomes, we need to be out there and we need to be getting our veterans the care that they need," said Larry Albers, chief of psychiatry at the Long Beach VA. He believes lives have already been saved, though the program is too new for any studies of its outcomes.

On at least one occasion, the situation was very far afield, involving a 27-year-old combat veteran in Phoenix who'd texted his brother a disturbing message and a photo of a shotgun. Their aunt knew Weiner and so contacted his office at the VA. The chief had Teague phone the vet, who'd recently lost two cousins - also combat veterans - to suicide.

"Him getting a call from the VA - the exact organization he feels has abandoned him - meant the world to him," April Peters said of her nephew. Teague persuaded him to try therapy.

—

Any intervention that keeps a vet safe is considered a success, yet there's no certainty for what happens after that. The veteran at that suburban transition house agreed to a psychiatric evaluation at the Long Beach VA and then was sent to an outside detox facility. By early March, he seemed to have disappeared.

Sometimes, though, a full transformation takes place.

Thirty-six-year-old Jermaine Petit was a tragedy waiting to happen when Teague and Anderson first met him.

As an Air Force medic in Germany during the early 2000s, he'd treated U.S. soldiers gravely wounded in Iraq. But when he returned to Los Angeles after his tour, his life began unraveling. He started using crystal meth. He'd often wander the streets, homeless, paranoid and delusional, armed with hatchets and knives. He was arrested more than a dozen times, with police once subduing him with a Taser.

The VA team got called late one night after Petit had a confrontation with some men his mother feared were gang members. The team drove 30 miles to her home, arriving to find the veteran clutching a hammer. They eventually persuaded him to set it aside and go with them to the VA hospital in Long Beach.

Teague and Anderson began visiting Petit there in the psychiatric ward. At first he was nonresponsive. "He felt we kidnapped him," Anderson remembers.

Yet in rehab, he started focusing on goals and even mentoring others. These days he hugs his visitors.

"When you see someone at one of their lowest points and you see them in such desperation, and then to be able to kind of follow them through their journey of recovery, to see them at a point where they are flourishing - it's really heartwarming and gratifying," Teague said.

Petit is now in a transitional living house. He wants to go to school, find a place of his own and rekindle his relationship with his estranged 14-year-old daughter.

He says he is trying to reinvent himself: "I don't want my mom to die from a broken heart."

Charlotte Blackwell is grateful. Her son "sounds like the old Jermaine," she says. Without the VA program's help, he "would be out there on the streets, dead."

Intercontinental Terminals Company spokeswoman Alice Richardson said at a news conference Wednesday that crews were cleaning up the facility in Deer Park, located southeast of Houston, so the investigation can begin into what caused the blaze.

The fire, which started Sunday , sent a huge, dark plume of smoke thousands of feet into the air before being extinguished at 3 a.m. Wednesday. The tanks that caught fire contained components of gasoline and materials used in nail polish remover, glues and paint thinner. ITC said 11 of the 15 storage tanks located in the area where the fire occurred were damaged.

The blaze briefly flared up late Wednesday afternoon. The flare-up, which sent flames and smoke into the air, was contained within 30 seconds by firefighters, the city of Deer Park said in a tweet.

The Environmental Protection conducted air quality tests throughout the Houston area, both on the ground and from a small airplane, and "measured no levels of hazardous concentrations," said agency official Adam Adams.

The EPA also reviewed data collected by ITC, Harris County, where Houston is located, and by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and that data did not show hazardous concentrations of volatile organic compounds, Adams said.

The state environmental agency said in a statement Wednesday that the benzene levels it found near and around the storage facility do not pose a health concern.

But some residents who live near the storage facility said Wednesday they don't have confidence in the air quality test results.

"Everything has been wrapped up in this nice perfect bow in saying that there were no problems. Every air quality was perfect. Every wind was perfect blowing it away. And if everything was so perfect, why did it happen?" longtime Deer Park resident Terri Garcia said.

Bryan Parras, an organizer in Houston with the Sierra Club, said some residents who live near the facility have experienced various symptoms since the fire, including headaches, nausea and nose bleeds. He said his environmental group has concerns not just about the air quality, but about potential impacts to the environment and the fishing industry if chemicals from the storage facility or foam used to fight the fire leaked into the Houston Ship Channel, which leads to the Gulf of Mexico.

"This issue isn't over just because the fire is out. We want systems in place that will protect our communities," Parras said.

The EPA and the TCEQ said they are waiting for test results of water samples to determine any potential impacts from the foam used to fight the fire on waterways next to the storage facility, including the Houston Ship Channel.

Sema Hernandez, who lives in Pasadena, just west of Deer Park, said all four of her children have experienced headaches since the fire started Sunday. But she has not been able to take them to a doctor because she doesn't have health insurance.

"This shouldn't have happened. ... But it did. My question is, what do we do now?" Hernandez said.

The Harris County Public Health Department said in a statement Wednesday that based on current health-related data from multiple sources, "there continues to be a low health risk for the general public."

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who took office in January, said she understands the fears and concerns some residents have had but she and other officials have worked to be transparent with the public.

"From the beginning of taking office, I said we need to move toward a place of transparency and we need to move toward a place where we recognize our environment and our health as a human right," said Hidalgo, the county's top administrator.

Richardson said her company has been in Deer Park for more than 40 years and would work to regain the community's trust.

"We want to operate safely with minimal impact around us," Richardson said. "We're sorry for what has happened."

Garcia said she fears that she and other residents will be dealing with the impacts of the fire long after people have forgotten about it.

"We are going to be the ones figuring out what was really in the air ... because our families are the ones going to be sick," she said.

___

Associated Press writer David Warren in Dallas contributed to this report.

A recipient of the Silver Star, Cowart brushed it off, assuming someone wanted to send him an invitation to an event. A second phone call later that day from the Pentagon triggered his curiosity. He was told to expect a third call from a senior ranking official in the next day or two – and that it was good news.

The next day, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel Dailey called to congratulate Cowart — his Silver Star would soon be upgraded to the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second highest award for valor.

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“I had no idea my award was under review,” said Cowart, who now lives in Santa Fe, Texas, near Houston. “The Distinguished Service Cross is a great honor.”

Cowart’s award is one of a dozen Silver Star medals announced recently by the Army for upgrade through a review process of post-9/11 valor awards that began in 2016. All military departments have completed their respective reviews, said Air Force Lt. Col. Carla Gleason, Pentagon spokeswoman. However, there are a few Army cases still pending final decision or announcement. Of the Army’s 12 awards announced this year, only five names have been released.

The review encompassed about 100 citations of the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Air Force Cross and about 1,000 Silver Star recommendations.

It has resulted in 57 upgrades: four Medals of Honor, 16 Distinguished Service Crosses, 12 Navy Crosses, two Air Force Crosses and 23 Silver Stars, Gleason said.

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“The Army is currently in the process of scheduling the associated award presentation ceremonies,” she said.

When then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered the review, the Pentagon established a definition for combat that all services now use: “The definition will encompass meritorious service while personally exposed to hostile action or while under significant risk of hostile action.”

So far, three of the Medals of Honor have been presented and the fourth ceremony to honor the late Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins will take place at the White House on March 27. Atkins died June 1, 2007 while deployed near Bagdad, Iraq, with the 10th Mountain Division. He saved the lives of three other soldiers by shielding them from a suicide bomber.

Distinguished Service Cross presentations for the late Maj. Thomas G. Bostick and Capt. Andrew L. Bundermann took place earlier this year. A service for Sgt. Robert K. Debolt will take place March 28 at Fort Riley, Kan., and for the late Staff Sgt. Stevon A. Booker on April 5 in Pittsburg, Pa.

Cowart said Dailey told him during their call that he sat on the review board for Cowart’s medal review and the process took about one year.

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Cowart’s medal was awarded based on his actions May 13, 2007 in Samarra, Iraq, while serving as gunner with 1st Platoon, Delta Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment — part of the 1st Cavalry Division. At a traffic checkpoint operated by his platoon, two occupants from a vehicle exited a car — one opened fire on the soldiers and the other was wearing a suicide vest.

Cowart tackled the man in the vest, who ultimately detonated the device. While his actions limited damage from the explosion, Cowart’s platoon leader 1st Lt. Andrew Bacevich Jr., who was nearby, died as a result of the blast. Cowart lost his left leg.

"After the explosion, it starts to get a little blurry,” Cowart said in an Army new release. “I know I didn't see a weapon. I didn't see a suicide vest. I wasn't just going to shoot an unarmed guy. But I knew he was a threat and had to do something. We had a struggle, but then it was all black and I woke up in a hospital in Ballad [Iraq].”

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Eventually, Cowart was moved to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he would spend the next 15 months.

Jonathan Free served in Cowart’s platoon and was there that day. Cowart served as Free’s sergeant and described him as the type of leader who was actually looking out for his soldiers.

“It was such an intense moment,” said Free, who traveled from Colorado to witness the pinning ceremony. In the moments following the attack, “I felt if I wasn’t with him, he wasn’t going to be OK. That’s how I feel today with him getting the award.”

Craig Hall, a member of the platoon who was wounded two weeks before Cowart, was there with him at the medical center in San Antonio. Together, the two mourned the loss of their lieutenant and recovered from their wounds.

“(Cowart) is one of the only guys I was able to speak to afterward. We are mentally and spiritually connected. He’s a lifelong friend,” said Hall, who flew to Texas from Massachusetts for the ceremony because he felt he owed it to Bacevich.

The award upgrade “is a testament to the guy (Cowart). Really is. He’s selfless and he cares about everyone,” Hall said.

<element>

Returning to Fort Hood for the ceremony this week, the 1st Cavalry Division rolled out the red carpet for Cowart and his family. They were given access to view military vehicles up close, tour the museum and stables, and his 14-year-old twin daughters rode horses from the division’s Horse Cavalry Detachment.

“I am honored and humbled,” Cowart said Wednesday at the podium during his ceremony, standing before hundreds of active-duty servicemembers who filled the bleachers and spilled onto the surrounding grass.

Free and Hall were joined at the ceremony by about a dozen other veterans who served alongside Cowart, who poke of the joy of seeing his fellow soldiers again, as well as the difficult memories it conjured.

“Reuniting also brings sadness. Sadly, one member of the crew isn’t here,” he said, referring to Bacevich. “I think about those events every day.”

thayer.rose@stripes.com
Twitter: @Rose_Lori

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Transguard Group says its employee, who was not identified, made the comments on his personal Facebook page under an assumed name. Transguard says the employee was stripped of his security credentials, fired and handed over to authorities.

It says the UAE, where the official religion is Islam, deported him. Transguard, which is part of the Emirates aviation group in Dubai, did not elaborate.

The UAE's National newspaper said Wednesday the employee was believed to be a security officer whose Facebook post celebrating Friday's shooting included reference to a deadly attack on Indian soldiers in Kashmir last month.

<related>
 

Court proceedings for Nouran Ahmad Shiba Sueidan were held before Judge Robert T. Numbers in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Court documents filed Tuesday show that Sueidan faces seven charges that include: three counts of resisting, delaying or obstructing a public officer by refusing to provide identification documentation; resisting, delaying or obstructing a public officer by refusing to comply with instructions to “stand still''; resisting to be placed in hand restraints; operating a vehicle without a proper license; and operating a vehicle with a suspended or altered license or registration plate.

An affidavit of the criminal complaint filed against Sueidan states that he attempted to access Fort Bragg at 10:30 a.m. on March 12 without proper identification and repeated requests to tour “the special operations facility.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said Sueidan’s lawyer asked for a continuance to “pursue a forensic psychologist.”

Court documents state the request was granted, and the defense has to provide a written statement to the court by the close of business Friday.

The affidavit states that Sueidan provided an expired Jordanian passport, an expired Texas driver’s license, expired vehicle registration and no proof of vehicle insurance to gate guards on March 12, after originally refusing.

The gate guard expressed concern about the passport and visa’s legitimacy, which appeared to have handwritten modifications, an investigator with Fort Bragg’s Military Police Investigations and Provost Marshal Office wrote in the affidavit.

When going to the nearby visitor’s center, officials noticed Sueidan’s vehicle registration was expired and confirmed that his driver’s license was expired. Officers detained him for his safety and the safety of others, the investigator said.

Sueidan repeatedly made comments about needing to enter the installation and "take a tour of the special operations facility, the investigator wrote.

Sueidan was in the custody of U.S. marshals as of last week.

A spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said a detainer was issued against Sueidan last week. The detainer requests local authorities to notify ICE if Sueidan is released from criminal custody.

“(ICE) will seek to take him into custody for removal proceedings following the resolution of the criminal charges he currently faces,” Bryan Cox, a spokesman for the agency’s southern region, said last week.

rriley@fayobserver.com

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Despite a fireball and an explosion powerful enough to buckle the car's doors, the victim miraculously escaped injury when the bomb was detonated as he drove down a Bronx street in 2016.

U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said he would have sentenced Richard Laugel to 20 years in prison if not for his military heroism, which included two stints in Iraq.

"I want to thank you for your service to your country," Engelmayer said. "You have been a hero, and you have it in yourself to be that way again."

But the judge also said PTSD does not excuse Laugel's crime and he was "incredibly fortunate no one was hurt" when he tried to settle an ongoing feud with a neighbor who had quarreled with him over a parking spot.

"It's a rare person who tries to blow up their adversary's car with a pipe bomb," Engelmayer said.

Prosecutors said the March 2, 2016, attack came after Laugel put a pipe bomb in the rear tire well of his Bronx neighbor's car. They said he followed the car in his own vehicle a few blocks before activating the bomb remotely.

The loud explosion created a fireball that blew out the car's air bags and buckled the car doors, though it failed to ignite the gas tank. An FBI analysis showed the bomb was loaded with nails.

Arrested on state arson and attempted murder charges in March 2016, Laugel remained incarcerated until February 2018. A May 2018 narcotics raid on his residence revealed he was manufacturing firearms and silencers in his garage, prosecutors said.

In court papers, attorney Troy A. Smith said his client suffered from classic post-traumatic stress.

He described one instance in which Laugel heard fireworks outside his then-California residence and ran outside in his underwear with his licensed firearm, "completely under the assumption he was in Iraq and defending himself and his fellow marines from harm."

"He was also experiencing nightmares containing images of combat and would wake up screaming and drenched in sweat," Smith wrote.

Engelmayer said it was "blatantly obvious" Laugel suffers from PTSD.

He read a letter in which Laugel said: "I constantly suffered from survivor's guilt."

The judge also cited a letter from Laugel's former platoon commander, retired Sgt. Maj. M. Dallas Miller, saying Laugel provided security during the initial invasion of Iraq for former Secretary of Defense James Mattis who led a Marine division at the time.

Miller said Laugel helped train, plan and execute high-risk missions in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2005.

He said it is easy for people to write someone off with PTSD.

"What we should be doing is wrapping our arms around him, help him address his issues that led him to make a poor decision, and help him get back on track," Miller said.

Torrential rains were expected to continue into Thursday and floodwaters were still rising, according to aid groups trying to get food, water and clothing to desperate survivors. It will be days before Mozambique's inundated plains drain toward the Indian Ocean and even longer before the full scale of the devastation is known.

People have been clinging to trees and huddling on rooftops since the cyclone roared in over the weekend, and aid groups were desperately trying to rescue as many as they can. The United Nations humanitarian office said the town of Buzi, with some 200,000 people, was at risk of becoming at least partially submerged.

"Floodwaters are predicted to rise significantly in the coming days and 350,000 people are at risk," the U.N. office said.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa received a somber welcome in the hard-hit mountain community of Chimanimani near the border with Mozambique. Zimbabwean officials have said some 350 people may have died.

"We do not want to hear that anyone has died of hunger," Mnangagwa said.

Clutching a bag of his few remaining possessions, Amos Makunduwa described the devastation with one stark sentence. "There is death all over," he said.

"It is beginning to smell really bad," he added. "The whole area is like one big body of water, huge rocks and mud. There are no houses, as if no one ever stayed here."

The force of the flood waters swept some victims from Zimbabwe down the mountainside into Mozambique, officials said. "Some of the peasants in Mozambique were calling some of our people to say, 'We see bodies, we believe those bodies are coming from Zimbabwe,'" said a local government minister, July Moyo.

Entire villages were swept away, said Gen. Joe Muzvidziwa, who was leading the military's rescue efforts in Zimbabwe. Some people had been out at beer halls when the cyclone hit and came home to find nothing left.

Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi said late Tuesday that more than 200 people were confirmed dead in his country. After flying over the affected region on Monday, he said he expected the death toll to be more than 1,000.

Aid workers were shocked as they arrived in the Mozambique port city of Beira, estimated to be 90 percent destroyed. The 500,000 residents of the city, which has some neighborhoods that are below sea level, were scrambling for food, fuel and medicine.

"The power of the cyclone is visible everywhere, with shipping containers moved like little Lego blocks," said Marc Nosbach, Mozambique country director for the aid group CARE.

In footage shot by South African broadcaster eNCA, food and other supplies were dropped from a helicopter to a survivor standing waist-deep in water outside Beira. Another man clinging to a tree branch was hoisted to safety. Rescuers cradled small children, keeping them warm.

Meanwhile, international aid started trickling in.

"Everyone is doubling, tripling, quadrupling whatever they were planning" in terms of aid, said Caroline Haga of the Red Cross in Beira. "It's much larger than anyone could ever anticipate."

The United Arab Emirates pledged $4.9 million to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, the Emirates News Agency reported, citing the Emirates Red Crescent. Norway said it was providing $700,000.

The chairman of the African Union Commission said it would provide $350,000 in immediate support to the countries, and the United Nations allocated $20 million.

The European Union released $3.9 million in emergency aid, and Britain pledged up to $7.9 million. Tanzania's military has sent 238 tons of food and medicine, and three Indian naval ships have been diverted to Beira to help with evacuations and other efforts.

Sacha Myers of the nonprofit Save the Children described overflowing rivers and dams, and said getting in aid was difficult, with roads and bridges washed away or submerged in the region.

Hunger and illness were growing concerns, with crops destroyed and waterborne diseases likely to spread.

"There are large areas where people are really finding it difficult to find sources of clean water," said Gert Verdonck, the emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders in Beira.

"On top of all of that, there's the issue of how to treat people who fall sick, with so many health centers damaged or destroyed."

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Meldrum and Cara Anna in Johannesburg and Matt Sedensky in New York contributed to this report.
 

Trump enumerated a list of grievances against McCain, who died in August, including that he had wrongly supported the war in Iraq, failed to “get the job done” for veterans and “badly” hurt the Republican party and the nation by voting against repealing Obamacare.

The president also complained that McCain had turned over the so-called Steele dossier to federal authorities during the 2016 presidential campaign instead of alerting Trump himself. The dossier is a private, uncorroborated intelligence report alleging ties between Trump and the Russian government.

“He got it, and what did he do? He didn’t call me, he turned it over to the FBI, hoping to put me in jeopardy,” Trump said.

Trump’s criticism of the late senator came after senior Republican lawmakers offered implicit and explicit criticism of the president for remarks earlier this week attacking McCain.

Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Johnny Isakson called Trump’s attacks “deplorable” in an interview with Georgia Public Broadcasting’s “Political Rewind” radio program earlier on Wednesday.

“That’s what I called it from the floor of the Senate seven months ago,” Isakson said, when the senator criticized the Trump administration for lowering the White House flag to half-staff for only a single day following McCain’s death. “It will be deplorable seven months from now if he says it again and I will continue to speak out.”

The flag was returned to half-staff following Isakson’s criticism.

Trump recalled the controversy over McCain’s memorial services during his remarks Wednesday, claiming that he “gave him the kind of funeral he wanted” but “didn’t get a thank you.” McCain laid in state at the U.S. Capitol — a decision made by congressional leaders, not Trump — before his burial last year.

Other Republican senators also weighed in on Trump’s fresh attacks on McCain, the former Armed Services Committee chairman who died of brain cancer. McCain, an Arizona Republican who had served in Congress since 1983, was a onetime Navy pilot who was North Vietnam’s most prominent prisoner of war.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised McCain in a tweet Wednesday that didn’t mention the president or his criticisms. McConnell, R-Ky., wrote that he missed McCain every day and added, “It was a blessing to serve alongside a rare patriot and genuine American hero in the Senate.”

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who was just elected to a six-year term, said on Twitter, “I can’t understand why the President would, once again, disparage a man as exemplary as my friend John McCain.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., long McCain’s best friend in the Senate, tweeted praise for McCain without mentioning Trump. Graham has become perhaps Trump’s most important ally in the Senate, changing his tune dramatically from before Trump’s election, when the senator predicted that he would destroy the Republican Party.

Most Republicans go to great lengths to avoid criticizing Trump to keep from also becoming targets of presidential tirades on Twitter. Trump remains immensely popular among Republican voters, which makes such a move especially risky. Former senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee both tussled with Trump and retired rather than face tough Republican primary challenges in 2018.

Isakson, R-Ga., is somewhat insulated from political pressure because he won his third Senate term in 2016 and won’t be up for re-election until 2022. Still, he needs Trump for issues important to his state, such as a disaster-relief package scheduled to be on the Senate floor next week.

“We’re all Americans,” Isakson said on the radio program. “There aren’t Democratic casualties and Republican casualties on the battlefield, there are American casualties, and we should never reduce the service that people give to this country.”

Trump, as a candidate in 2015, picked a fight with McCain, declaring that the Navy veteran was “not a war hero” for spending five years being tortured in a Vietnamese prison and refusing advantages offered to him because his father was a prominent military leader. “I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said at the time.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Twitter he will reintroduce his legislation to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after McCain, whom he called an “American hero.” The building was named in 1972 after Georgia Democratic Senator Richard Russell, a proponent of racial segregation who fought the Civil Rights Act.

Isakson rejected Schumer’s call to rename the Russell building, saying Schumer is “just playing politics.”

The ruling brings to nearly $10 billion the fines imposed against Google by the European Union. And it comes at a time when big tech companies around the world are facing increasing regulatory pressure and fierce political attacks over privacy violations, online misinformation, hate speech and other abuses.

Still, the latest penalty isn't likely to have much effect on Google's business. It involves practices the company says it already ended, and the sum is just a fraction of the $31 billion in profit that its parent, Alphabet, made last year.

Alphabet stock rose 2 percent on Wall Street on Wednesday.

The EU ruling applies to a narrow portion of Google's ad business: when Google sells ads next to Google search results on third-party websites.

Investigators found that Google inserted exclusivity clauses in its contracts that barred these websites from running similarly placed ads sold by Google's rivals.

As a result, advertisers and website owners "had less choice and likely faced higher prices that would be passed on to consumers," said the EU's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager.

Anyone who suffered from Google's behavior can seek compensation through national courts, she said.

EU regulators opened their investigation in 2016 — seven years after Microsoft filed a complaint — though by that time, Google had already made some changes to give customers more freedom to show competing ads. For that reason, regulators did not require a specific remedy to restore competition.

But Vestager said it appeared rivals haven't been able to catch up, and some are "quite small." By contrast, the EU said, Google has more than 70 percent of the European market for selling ads that run alongside search results on third-party websites.

Google did not say whether it would appeal.

"We've already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the commission's concerns," Google's senior vice president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said in a statement. "Over the next few months, we'll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe."

E-marketing analyst Bill Fisher noted a "growing wave of sentiment" toward curbing the influence of Big Tech and said that even if the EU's rulings apply only to Google's European operations, Google should "begin to open up, become more transparent and possibly look to alter some of its business practices" worldwide.

Earlier this month, a British expert panel recommended the government curb the dominance of giants like Facebook, Amazon and Google. In the U.S., Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has proposed breaking up the biggest American tech companies, accusing them of wielding too much power.

This week, as part of a settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union and other activists, Facebook agreed to overhaul its ad-targeting systems to prevent discrimination in housing, credit and employment ads.

The EU has led the way in promoting tougher regulation of big tech companies. Besides cracking down on antitrust breaches by Microsoft and Intel, it has enforced stricter data privacy rules that affect Facebook and other social media companies.

U.S. regulators haven't been as tough, though the Federal Trade Commission recently created a task force focused on anti-competitive behavior in the industry.

Last year, Vestager fined Google a record $5 billion at the time for forcing cellphone makers using the company's Android operating system to install Google search and browser apps.

In 2017, she penalized Google $2.7 billion for manipulating online shopping search results and directing visitors to its comparison-shopping service, Google Shopping, at the expense of its rivals.

Google, which is appealing those two earlier fines, has said it has since made adjustments to its shopping results and will start asking European users of Android phones if they want to use other search or browser apps.
 

The investigation will determine whether Shanahan has promoted Boeing, where he worked for more than 30 years before arriving at the Pentagon in 2017, or disparaged the massive aerospace firm’s competitors, an IG statement said Wednesday. When Shanahan was sworn in as the deputy defense secretary in July 2017, he signed an ethics pledge, vowing he would recuse himself from any issues that could impact Boeing.

The probe follows a complaint issued last week by an independent and nonpartisan government watchdog group based in Washington, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which questioned Shanahan’s actions as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian and as the acting secretary, his job since since Jan. 1.

The acting secretary has been informed of the investigation, said Dwrena Allen, a spokeswoman for the IG.

Shanahan has previously denied any wrongdoing and told lawmakers last week that he welcomed the probe.

“Acting Secretary Shanahan has at all times remained committed to upholding his ethics agreement filed with the DOD,” Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for Shanahan, said Wednesday. “This agreement ensures any matters pertaining to Boeing are handled by appropriate officials within the Pentagon to eliminate any perceived or actual conflict of interest issue with Boeing.”

In its March 13 complaint, CREW cited several media reports that indicated Shanahan in private meetings had promoted Boeing products to his subordinates and had disparaged Lockheed Martin, which was chosen over Boeing to build the F-35 Lightning II advanced fighter jet.

Shanahan, 56, was named acting defense secretary by President Donald Trump on Jan. 1 after serving as the Pentagon’s No. 2 under former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis since July 2017. He had previously been employed at Boeing since 1986, working on military-related programs as well as commercial aviation. He was serving as the company’s senior vice president for supply chain and operations when he left to work at the Pentagon.

Shanahan has been considered among Trump’s top choices to be nominated to the defense secretary post, but Pentagon and White House officials have declined to comment publicly about him or others who could be tapped to fill the position.

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He shared his journey and message with both Georgia Military College and Prep School cadets throughout the day Monday. The local military college and school for grades 4-12 often brings servicemembers onto campus to speak with the cadets, and Dwyer provided a different perspective from most.

A third-generation military man — his father was in the Air Force and his grandfather served in the Navy — Dwyer was commissioned into the Army from Furman University in 1998 before joining Special Forces four years later. In 2006, while on his third tour in Afghanistan, a rocket-propelled grenade attack caused Dwyer to lose both his left hand and his left eye.

“Of course, it was challenging,” Dwyer said of coming back from his injuries. “Fortunately, I was surrounded by a ton of positive influences, and I ignored all the negative ones, which is always a bonus.”

Near the end of his recuperation, Dwyer ran an idea by one of those positive influences, his wife, Jennie. He said he wanted to remain in the Special Forces, go back to Afghanistan, and do everything he had done before his injuries. It was at this point in his story that he took a break from his interview with The Union-Recorder and turned to the GMC cadets he was eating lunch with, and shared another important message.

“The most important decision you will ever make in your life is who you’re going to spend the rest of it with,” Dwyer said. “I’ve made two good decisions in my life and a ton of bad ones. I picked the perfect woman to marry, which was good decision No. 1, and I joined the United States Army. Those two decisions set me up for where I am.”

With the support of his wife, Dwyer remained in the Army and now serves as the garrison commander at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah.

“The primary reason is the camaraderie and the brotherhood that I feel for the guys I’ve served with,” he said on why he stayed in the service. “I would do anything for them, and I know that they would do anything for me. I also want the people around me — my soldiers, superiors, peers, my kids, and everybody around me — to realize it’s not OK to quit doing what you love just because life is hard. That’s the time to double down and just make it happen.”

Some people wear their heart on their sleeve, but Dwyer wears at least a portion of his in his eye. The Special Forces crest is embedded into his left eye full-time, not just when he’s out on speaking engagements.

“I wear it as a tribute to my guys, and I wear it so people will ask me about it,” he said. “I want to tell them how proud I am of everything my guys have accomplished.”

His message to GMC cadets Monday was one of overcoming adversity and having the tools necessary to do so — not just as individuals, but as leaders to help them develop “resilient, bulletproof teams.”

“He’s what every infantryman aspires to be,” said Franco Videla, a GMC cadet from Roswell, Ga. “I know most infantrymen love their job. It doesn’t matter whether they’re hurt or not, they’ll always want to do it. Hearing his (Dwyer’s) story, I know that I’m not going to complain if I’m given a dumb task. I’m going to give it my all like I should be doing.”

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The Commemorative Air Force Red Tail Squadron’s “Rise Above” Traveling Exhibit opened Wednesday and will be on display through Sunday to showcase the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, also known as the Red Tails because of the distinctive red-tailed P-51 Mustang aircraft they flew during World War II.

The free exhibit is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily at the airport at 2020 Executive Airport Way in Fort Lauderdale.

Among other things, the exhibit features a movie theater with a 160-degree panoramic screen housed inside an air-conditioned 53-foot semitrailer with expandable sides and equipped with a ramp and a hydraulic lift for wheelchair users.

The movie helps audiences experience what it was like to be among America’s first black military pilots and their support personnel as they worked toward their goal of becoming Army Air Corps pilots in the early 1940s.

After the movie, audiences can take a virtual flight in the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang, the iconic aircraft of the Tuskegee Airmen.

A fully operational, twice-restored Red Tail P-51C Mustang also is on display as part of the exhibit. The aircraft is one of only four like it that are still flying, organizers said.

Retired Tuskegee Airmen pilot Lt. Col. George E. Hardy will be on site Thursday and Friday. He’ll be speaking about his experiences as a Tuskegee Airman at 11 a.m. on Saturday, during the executive airport’s annual Aviation Safety Expo.

Now in his mid-90s, Hardy is the youngest of the 13 known living Red Tail combat pilots.

More information can be found online at flyfxe.com or redtail.org.

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The White House meanwhile announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be welcomed in Washington over two days next week with Israel just two weeks from the April 9 polls.

Standing together, neither Netanyahu nor Pompeo made mention of the heated Israeli election campaign. But Netanyahu, facing a tough challenge from a popular former military chief and reeling from a series of corruption allegations , has repeatedly sought to focus attention on his foreign policy record and strong ties with President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu thanked Pompeo for the Trump administration's strong stance against Iran, which Israel regards as an existential threat.

The prime minister also accused Iran of attempting to set up a terrorist network to target Israel from the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in 1967. He used the incident to repeat his goal of international recognition for Israel's claim on the area.

"You could imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," he said. "You would have Iran on the shores of the Sea of Galilee."

Pompeo did not mention the issue, but the administration is considering recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan. Last week, in its annual human rights report, the State Department dropped the phrase "Israeli-occupied" from the Golan Heights section, instead calling it "Israeli-controlled."

Israeli and U.S. officials say they expect an announcement on U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan could come as early as Netanyahu's visit to Washington next week. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not yet been made public.

While Pompeo avoided the issue of sovereignty over the Golan, he touted last month's Mideast conference in Poland , where he said dozens of countries discussed ways "to stop Iran's regional rampage."

Accusing Iranian leaders of seeking the "annihilation and destruction" of Israel, he pledged continued American support. "With such threats a daily reality of Israeli life, we maintain our unparalleled commitment to Israel's security and firmly support your right to defend yourself," he said.

Netanyahu considers Iran to be Israel's greatest threat. In recent years, Israel has carried out many airstrikes in Syria to halt what it says are Iranian arms transfers to the Hezbollah militant group, and to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent military presence in the country. Iranian and Hezbollah forces have been supporting Syrian President Bashar Assad's troops since the early days of the eight-year civil war.

Netanyahu said he was working closely with the U.S. "to roll back Iranian aggression" in the region and around the world. "There is no limitation to our freedom of action and we appreciate very much the fact that the United States backs up our actions," he said.

He also welcomed last year's U.S. withdrawal from the international nuclear deal with Iran, as well as tough U.S. sanctions that were re-imposed on the country.

"This pressure is working," he said. "We need to increase it. We need to expand it."

Netanyahu is one of Trump's strongest backers on the global stage. Since taking office, Trump has upended U.S. policy and taken a series of steps welcomed by Israel, most notably by recognizing contested Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moving the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.

The step prompted the Palestinians to sever ties with the White House. Trump also has cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians and shuttered the Palestinians' de facto embassy in Washington.

The Palestinians have pre-emptively rejected a peace plan the White House is said to be preparing, saying that the Trump administration is unfairly biased toward Israel.

The White House said Netanyahu would be welcomed next Monday and Tuesday with both a working meeting and a dinner with Trump.

Netanyahu said he was looking forward to making the relationship "even stronger" during the visit.

Pompeo arrived in Jerusalem after a stop in Kuwait, where he renewed calls for a resolution to a festering dispute between Qatar and four other Arab nations, all of them America's partners in the Middle East. Kuwait has been attempting to mediate an end to the crisis.

Pompeo said the dispute, which has roiled the Gulf Cooperation Council for almost two years, is hindering efforts to combat regional threats posed by Iran, the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations.

In Israel, Pompeo also attended a summit of Mediterranean natural gas producers Israel, Cyprus and Greece.

From Israel, he is to travel to Lebanon.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed to this report.
 

Justin Walters, 32, who served as an infantryman during two tours in Afghanistan, shot his wife Nichole Walters, 27, multiple times on July 9, 2017. Nichole died of her wounds inside the home, located in Theresa, about 80 miles outside of Syracuse.

Walters also fatally shot 36-year-old Joel Davis, a trooper and married father of three who had responded to the home.

A jury found Walters guilty Wednesday morning on 52 counts – including two counts of first-degree murder, as well as attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon. He did not display a reaction when the verdict was read.

Rather than argue that Walters had not committed the crime, his attorney Ed Narrow, argued – along with a psychiatrist, his only witness – that Walters was not responsible for the crimes due to PTSD, alcoholism and childhood trauma, rendering him incapable of controlling himself on that tragic night, WWNY-TV reported.

Davis, who had been a member of the force for four years, was responding to a 911 call citing an argument at the residence.

Upon arrival, he heard gunshots and ordered backup. Though he reached for his own weapon, a semi-automatic rifle, he was shot in the chest before he could defend himself, according to police. The trooper then fell into a ditch, making it difficult for his colleagues to locate him.

It wasn’t until after Walters surrendered that the troopers were able to locate Davis. He was taken to Watertown’s Samaritan Medical Center where he was pronounced dead within the hour.

Nichole’s friend, Rebecca Finkle, was also shot but survived.

At the time of the shootings, Walters was an active-duty soldier stationed at Jefferson County’s Fort Drum. He was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division.

Gov. Cuomo instructed that government buildings lower their flags to half-staff following Davis’ death.

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"Let it come out, let people see it," Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Wednesday for a trip to Ohio. "Let's see whether or not it's legit."

Mueller is expected to present a report to the Justice Department any day now outlining the findings of his nearly two-year investigation into Russian election meddling, possible collusion with Trump campaign officials and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Mueller is required to produce a confidential report that at a minimum explains decisions about who was and was not prosecuted. Attorney General William Barr is then expected to produce his own report for Congress and has said he wants to make public as much of Mueller's findings as he can under the law.

Trump said he was personally looking forward to reading the findings, even as he scorned the fact that Mueller was empowered to write the report in the first place.

"I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country. ... And now I have somebody writing a report that never got a vote?" Trump said. "It's called the Mueller report. So explain that because my voters don't get it. And I don't get it."

Trump went on to mischaracterize the effort, saying "it's sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report."

The House voted unanimously last week for a resolution calling for any report in Mueller's investigation to be made public. It was a symbolic action designed to pressure Barr into releasing as much information as possible.

Trump and his outside attorneys have worked for months now to undermine Mueller and cast doubt on his eventually findings. Trump continued that effort Wednesday, calling Mueller "conflicted" and criticizing the lawyers who have worked on the case.

Though Mueller's office has said nothing publicly about the timing of a report, several prosecutors detailed to Mueller's team have left in recent months, suggesting the investigation is winding down.

Trump, for his part, said he had no idea when the report would be released, but maintained his innocence, saying there was "no collusion" and "no obstruction. There was no nothing."

"With all of that being said," he added, "I look forward to seeing the report."

__

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

The Army’s March 8 budget request scratches the Chinook upgrade, stops production of Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and reduces planned purchases of Joint Strike Force vehicles, .50-caliber machine guns and forklifts, among other familiar war tools.

Instead, the military plans to spend billions of dollars more on new assault helicopters, robotic vehicles, digitally connected weapons, space communications and short-range missile defenses, among other priorities to cope with improved Chinese missiles and Russian missile defenses and cyberattacks, Army undersecretary Ryan McCarthy said in a March 11 talk at the Brookings Institution.

Though Chinooks were deployed more than 50 years ago in the Vietnam War, the heavy-lift helicopters are now “the youngest fleet in the Army,” given previous upgrades, McCarthy added. “The Army has over 10 percent more Chinooks than required.” Work is to continue on Special Forces helicopters now being upgraded at Ridley and on a separate production line for V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

Boeing officials still want to save the program. “Delaying CH-47F Block II production funding would have significant detrimental impacts for fleet readiness, the defense industrial base, and taxpayers, and hamper soldiers’ abilities to carry critical payloads,” the company warned in a statement sent in an email sent by spokesman Andrew Africk.

Defending the plant’s contracts kept former U.S. Reps. Patrick Meehan and Curt Weldon, both Pennsylvania Republicans, riding to the rescue during the past couple of decades to save Chinook upgrades and the construction of Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. A spokeswoman for freshman U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., whose district includes the plant, didn’t respond immediately to messages seeking comment.

McCarthy said military leaders had reviewed Chinook upgrades and hundreds of other programs before deciding what to cut. “Nothing was sacrosanct,” he said at Brookings. In all, he said, the Army cut or reduced 186 programs, including some at Army headquarters.

The retreat on Chinooks appears to have developed just this winter. “The Army announced in January it was set to award a contract for low-rate initial production of a maximum 14 CH-47 Block II aircraft” in fiscal 2021 and 2022, “but no award was made,” Inside Army, a publication that covers military contracting, reported earlier this month.

The Ridley plant completes work on about four Chinooks and one to two Ospreys per month, for the U.S. and also for allied military forces from countries including India, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. UAW local president Mike Tolassi was in a plant meeting and was unavailable for comment at midday Wednesday, his assistant said.

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Darlington entered a plea deal in a military court at Marine Corps Base Quantico in June 2015, pleading guilty to seven charges, including violating a protective order taken out against him by Campbell, strangling her "with a force likely to produce death" and inserting a loaded handgun into her mouth "while holding her down by the throat,"court papers state.

The decision Friday to send Darlington back to a re-entry management program was made by the commanding general of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune after a hearing held Monday on Campbell's request to have her ex-husband's suspended sentence reinstated.

The commanding general was not present, Campbell said, but made his decision based on the recommendation of a lieutenant colonel, who was present.

"I am livid. [Darlington is] being shown he can break the rules and all he gets is a slap on the wrist," Campbell said Tuesday.

In 2015, Darlington was dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps and sentenced to 11 years in prison, with all but five suspended, after pleading guilty to the seven charges, which included domestic violence.

According to the plea deal, the six additional years were to be reinstated if Darlington committed any misconduct or violated any terms of suspension. There was also a protective order in place prohibiting Darlington from contacting Campbell or their children.

Campbell argues that he violated that order by sending her more than 300 letters from jail and committing multiple disciplinary infractions, including threatening guards and prisoners.

Campbell tried for two and a half years — aided by at least six different attorneys assigned to her by the Marine Corps' Victim's Legal Counsel program — to get the Marine Corps to hold a hearing to see whether Darlington violated the terms of the pretrial agreement.

In late February, she learned that Camp Lejeune had agreed to a hearing. After being postponed twice, it was held March 11.

Campbell said she requested to attend, either in person or via video.

"They said, 'No, it's not that kind of hearing,'" she said. "The lieutenant colonel said he was just there to check boxes."

She said the defense attorney also argued that she not be allowed to read the impact statement she wrote.

As Campbell listened to the hearing in the Marine Corps Base Quantico office of her attorney, she learned that Darlington's defense attorney had brought Darlington's father, boss, fiancée, future sister-in-law and a Catholic priest to give character statements. Darlington also spoke on his own behalf.

"Everyone spoke but me," Campbell said.

Campbell said her attorney requested that since character statements were given on Darlington's behalf, the convening authority should also consider her impact statement.

"The [lieutenant colonel] said that was reasonable," she said. "But I have no idea if he really read it."

In her impact statement, Campbell wrote that after Darlington's original trial, she took "solace in that I knew he would have to conduct himself accordingly [or violate the terms of the pretrial agreement]."

"The fact remained, though, that I was and am terrified of him," she continued. "In a controlled environment such as prison, though, I expected some level of freedom from him for the coming years. I was wrong. How quickly I was wrong.

"I believed that the Marine Corps would fight for injustices," she added. "I am asking the Marine Corps to hear me now.

To see the violations that Darlington has made; to see how these repeated violations affect me; and be the one to show Mr. Darlington that one cannot continually get away with breaking the rules, and face no punishment."

Campbell said that as far as she can see, her case is done.

"I can't change my case," she said. "But if I can prevent this from happening to another military wife, I will."

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Abigail Spanberger have both reached out to Campbell in the past few weeks, she said, and she hopes she can work with them to bring forward legislation that might change how domestic violence is prosecuted in the military.

—
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The man, whom The Palm Beach Post is not naming, died about 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner confirmed.

Citing privacy laws, the VA would not identify the man nor say which branch of service he’d served in, nor when, and would not provide any details about his death.

The suicide took place 15 days after a patient opened fire in the center’s emergency room, injuring two people. The medical center, at Military Trail and Blue Heron Boulevard, has not said what safeguards, if any, it would add as a result of that incident.

It also occurred as several VA centers across the nation have had to respond to patients who have taken their own lives. The Washington Post reported in January that 19 suicides occurred on VA campuses between October 2017 and November 2018; seven of those were in parking lots.

Kenita Gordon, a spokeswoman at the Riviera Beach center, said Tuesday in an email that the center’s staff has stopped two on-campus suicide attempts in the past five years.

“Patient deaths deeply affect the entire West Palm Beach VA Medical Center staff — especially the health care team members involved with a veteran’s care. Whenever an unforeseen patient death occurs, we conduct an internal review of the case,” Gordon said in an email.

“As a result of this incident, West Palm Beach VAMC is reviewing its processes and has changed certain patient monitoring protocols,” Gordon said. She did not elaborate.

The man’s mother declined Tuesday to provide details or to comment.

Gordon said the VA is working with the Defense Department and other agencies “to deploy suicide prevention programming that supports all current and former service members — even those who do not come to VA for care.”

The agency said any veteran in distress can call the veterans crisis line anytime at 800-273-8255, Option 1.

“One life lost to suicide is one too many,” Gordon said.

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been campaigning for local elections due at the end of the month, suggested this week that Australia and New Zealand had sent troops to fight in WWI's Gallipoli campaign due to their opposition to Islam.

In more inflammatory comments, Erdogan said any Australians and New Zealanders traveling to Turkey with anti-Muslim sentiments would be sent back in coffins "like their grandfathers" were in the Gallipoli campaign.

The battle, marked by heavy casualties on both sides, was a disastrous defeat for the allies against the then Ottoman Empire. Although the battle later helped cement friendship between the three countries, more than a century later it remains a highly sensitive subject in both Australia and New Zealand.

Australia was aghast at Erdogan's comments, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison summoning Turkey's ambassador Wednesday and demanding Erdogan take the comments back, saying "all options are on the table" if he did not.

On Wednesday, a senior Turkish official said Erdogan's words "were unfortunately taken out of context."

"As he was giving his speech at the (Gallipoli) commemorations, (Erdogan) framed his remarks in a historical context of attacks against Turkey," said Fahrettin Altun, director of communications for the Turkish presidency, on Twitter.

"Turks have always been the most welcoming and gracious hosts to their Anzac visitors," he said.

It is not the first time Erdogan has sparked outrage abroad by making controversial statements about foreign countries, particularly during pre-election periods to stir up nationalist sentiment and consolidate his support base. He has sought to patch-up relations after the elections.

In 2017, in the run-up to a referendum on expanding the powers of Turkey's president, Erdogan had lashed out at the Netherlands and Germany, comparing them to Nazis after they barred Turkish officials from holding campaign rallies there.

He also recently engaged in a war of words with Israel's prime minister and frequently slams the European Union over its immigration policies and what he says is rising Islamophobia.

Local elections are set to be held in Turkey on March 31. With the economy struggling, Erdogan's party risks losing the capital, Ankara, to the opposition. Such an outcome would be a severe blow to the president, whose ruling Justice and Development Party and its predecessor have run the city for the past quarter century.

On Wednesday Erdogan, inaugurating a theme park in Ankara as part of his pre-election campaign, called for votes for his ruling party candidates as a response to "occupiers who attempt to threaten our nation from tens of thousands of kilometers away."

Australia has issued a travel advisory warning people visiting the Gallipoli battlefields for remembrance ceremonies during next month's anniversary of the campaign to exercise caution.

Erdogan has also sparked outrage abroad by screening at his campaign rallies excerpts of a video taken by the gunman who killed 50 people in mosques in Christchurch, to denounce what he has called rising hatred and prejudice against Islam. Three Turkish citizens were among the dozens wounded in the attack.

Erdogan, whose party has roots in Turkey's Islamic movement, has also been showing parts of a manifesto said to have been left by the gunman in which he threatens Turks and Erdogan himself.

New Zealand has been trying to prevent the use of the videos. New Zealand's Foreign Minister Winston Peters is due in Istanbul this week for a meeting of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation to discuss the mosque shootings and was expected to take up the issue during the visit.

In Australia, Turkish ambassador Korhan Karakoc said he had a "frank" conversation with Morrison when the envoy was summoned to Parliament House on Wednesday.

"Remarks have been made by the Turkish President Erdogan that I consider highly offensive to Australians and highly reckless in this very sensitive environment," Morrison told reporters in Canberra, Australia's capital.

"They are offensive because they insult the memory of our Anzacs and they violate the pledge that is etched in the stone at Gallipoli," he said, referring to a promise made by the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, that those who are buried rest on friendly soil.

"I do not accept the excuses that have been offered for those comments," Morrison said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu later held a telephone conversation with his Australian counterpart, Marise Payne, Turkish Foreign Ministry officials said. They did not provide further details about the call.

In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Wednesday, Erdogan said the attacker in New Zealand is no different from the Islamic State group. He also called on Western leaders to learn from "the courage, leadership and sincerity" of New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and "embrace Muslims living in their respective countries."

____

Elena Becatoros contributed from Athens, Greece.