National Guardsmen to wear special shoulder patch to ID themselves during inauguration; Pentagon leadership succession plan still uncertain; and release of Israeli and Palestinian hostages begins following ceasefire.
1. When thousands of National Guard forces and law enforcement officers locked down Washington during racial protests and the Jan. 6 riot four years ago, the blur of camouflage and helmets made it nearly impossible to tell the difference between cops and troops. This year's inauguration will be different. National Guard leaders have authorized the use of a special shoulder patch with the Guard motto “Always Ready, Always There," to ensure that people coming to the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday will know who is who. “It is to make sure it’s easier to identify who’s participating for the National Guard,” said Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, adjutant general of the Washington, D.C., Guard. The patch, he added, will “connect each of the participants from the National Guard back to the mission set, back to what they’re doing and the importance of participating in this peaceful transition.”
2. It is unclear who will take over at the Pentagon and the military services when the top leaders all step down Monday as President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office. As of Friday, officials said they had not yet heard who will become the acting defense secretary. Officials said the military chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force were getting ready to step in as acting service secretaries — a rare move — because no civilians had been named or, in some cases, had turned down the opportunity. As is customary, all current political appointees will step down as of noon EST on Inauguration Day, leaving hundreds of key defense posts open, including dozens that require Senate confirmation. In addition to the top job and all three service secretaries, all of their deputies and senior policy staff will leave.
3. After 15 months of collective grief and anxiety, three Israeli hostages left Hamas captivity and returned to Israel, and dozens of Palestinian prisoners walked free from Israeli jail, leaving both Israelis and Palestinians torn between celebration and trepidation as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took hold Sunday. The skies above Gaza and Israel were silent for the first time in over a year, and Palestinians began returning to what was left of the homes they fled across the war-ravaged enclave, started to check on relatives left behind and, in many cases, to bury their dead. After months of tight Israeli restrictions, more than 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid rolled into the devastated territory. The ceasefire that went into effect Sunday morning stirred modest hopes for ending the Israel-Hamas war.
4. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have signaled they now will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships, just as a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip entered its second day Monday. The Houthis’ announcement, made in an email sent to shippers and others on Sunday, likely won’t be enough to encourage global firms to reenter the route that’s crucial for cargo and energy shipments moving between Asia and Europe. Their attacks have halved traffic through the region, cutting deeply into revenues for Egypt, which runs the Suez Canal linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. “The ceasefire is considered fragile,” said Jakob P. Larsen, the head of maritime security for BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners.
5. Two soldiers will posthumously receive Medals of Honor for their combat heroics in the Philippines in 1899 that they never got because of a mix up with their mailing addresses, the Army said. “It is a great honor to be able to correct a longstanding administrative error that prevented Pvt. McIntyre and Pvt. Harris from receiving the Medals of Honor that they both earned,” Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said in a statement. “The Army takes seriously its commitment to honoring its heroes, past and present, and this presentation is one more way in which we can fulfill that commitment.” Mary Constance Schrepferman, granddaughter of Pvt. William Simon Harris, and Inez Larson, granddaughter of Pvt. James McIntyre, received the news from Wormuth, who was delegated the medal presentation by President Joe Biden.
- Security