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      Democrats Turn to Their National Security Go-To for Trump Assassination Inquiry

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      Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, whom Democrats tapped for impeachment, investigations and tough questioning of President Biden, is their top member of a task force investigating the shooting.Representative Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and former Army Ranger, had just ordered his second martini at a bar in Bucharest, Romania, when Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, called him with an urgent question: How quickly could he get to Ukraine?It was April 2022, weeks after Russia had invaded Ukraine and touched off an international crisis, and two Republican lawmakers had rushed to be the first to travel to the besieged country. Now Ms. Pelosi wanted to quickly arrange her own visit — and she wanted Mr. Crow, whose national security background distinguished him in his party, to come with her.A late-night phone call from Ms. Pelosi to Mr. Crow would have been improbable when he first came to Congress in 2019. Hailing from a competitive district in Colorado, he had run as a centrist and avowed detractor of the liberal Ms. Pelosi, and after he knocked off a Republican incumbent he pledged that he would not vote for her for speaker.But since then, his credentials — including three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and a Bronze Star, as well as a law degree and a background in private-sector investigations — have made Mr. Crow a go-to lawmaker for Democratic leaders on difficult national security issues.Ms. Pelosi tapped him in 2019 to manage the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. He was part of the whip operation to rally support for legislation to send tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine. He was selected as the top Democrat on a subcommittee investigating the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.And last month, he was named the senior Democrat on a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia, Facing Ukrainian Incursion, Maintains Pressure in Eastern Ukraine

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      Russian forces are pummeling Ukrainian positions along the front lines, Ukrainian military officials said, as an incursion onto Russian soil by Ukraine continues.Russian forces, even as they scramble to respond to a surprise incursion from northern Ukraine into Russia last week, are pummeling Ukrainian forces along the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian military officials said Monday.“Our guys do not feel any relief,” said Artem Dzhepko, a press officer with Ukraine’s National Police Brigade, which is fighting near the strategically important town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.He said Russian forces were continuing to use aerial bombs, as many as 10 a day, against Ukrainian positions. Mr. Dzhepko added: “It’s hard. Unfortunately, the pressure of the Russians did not decrease.”At the same time, Ukrainian troops have been pushing to the northwest and west in Russian territory, according to a briefing Sunday from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank.Several thousand Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia on Aug. 6, a new front in the third year of the war and the first time the Ukrainian army has made such an extensive foray into Russia, military analysts say.Instead of pulling brigades from the front lines in eastern Ukraine to help stop the incursion into Kursk, the region along Russia’s southwest border with Ukraine, Russia appeared to be redeploying lower-level units to the Kursk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s briefing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Walz in the National Guard: A Steady Rise Ending With a Hard Decision

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      In a military career that spanned three decades, Tim Walz achieved one of the highest enlisted ranks in the Army. Some peers took issue with the timing of his retirement.In the 1980s, the U.S. military was in the middle of a transformation. The Vietnam War was over, and a force once staffed with drafted troops who had fought and died in the jungles of Southeast Asia was transitioning to ranks filled solely with volunteers.In Nebraska, Tim Walz was one of those volunteers.Mr. Walz, now Minnesota governor and the presumptive Democratic candidate for vice president, raised his hand to join the Army National Guard just two days past his 17th birthday on April 8, 1981. In a career in the military that spanned three decades, he battled floods, managed an artillery unit and achieved one of the highest enlisted ranks in the Army. He also navigated a full-time job teaching social studies alongside his part-time military occupation as an enlisted combat arms soldier, a role that trained him for war.Mr. Walz never went to war. Most of his service covered a period when America was bruised from foreign entanglements and wary of sending troops into combat overseas for long stretches. And it ended when Mr. Walz was 41, as the military ramped up for war after Sept. 11.Since being picked as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate this week, he has found himself facing allegations previously aired by Minnesota Republicans and newly amplified by JD Vance, former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate.Those criticisms center on Mr. Walz’s decision to retire from the Army in 2005, the year before his artillery battalion deployed to Iraq. He was thinking seriously about a run for Congress and spoke with other soldiers about being torn between his loyalty to his fellow troops and his desire to move on with his life. At the time, there were vague expectations that the unit might deploy, but actual orders came several months later.The unit deployed to Iraq for more than one year beginning in 2006. During that time, soldiers in the unit provided security for transportation convoys and other tasks common in a combat zone. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Russia Pushes Back at Ukraine’s Cross-Border Assault, but Kyiv Presses On

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      After several days of fighting in southwestern Russia, both sides are claiming successes. The battles are still being waged.Russia is pushing back against Ukraine’s largest assault into Russian territory since the start of the war, sending troop reinforcements, establishing strict security measures in border areas and conducting airstrikes, including a strike on Ukrainian troops with a thermobaric missile that causes a blast wave and suffocates those in its path, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.But even as Russia has halted the quick advances made by Ukrainian troops with a surprise cross-border attack five days ago into the southwestern region of Kursk, Ukrainian forces seem to be holding ground. They claimed on Saturday to have captured a small village in the neighboring Belgorod region, and analysts say their forces control most of the Kursk town of Sudzha, about six miles from the border.Pasi Paroinen, an analyst from the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield, said in an interview that evidence suggested that Moscow had been able to stall the major advances in Russian territory late in the week.“We’re now entering the phase where the easy gains have been made,” he said of Ukraine’s initial advance. “This phase, for the first three days, saw the most rapid movement,” he added. “And yesterday, I think, we started to see the effects of the Russian response.”What all of this means for Ukraine is not yet clear. In the third year of a war that has seemed largely frozen along a 600-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, the decision by Ukrainian troops to cross the border into Russia apparently surprised not just Russia, but also the United States, other Western partners and analysts who spend their days following the war’s troop movements.Some have speculated that Ukraine hopes to draw Russian troops away from the front lines in Ukraine, giving battle-weary Ukrainian troops a needed rest, although analysts say that has not happened. More

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      Why Is Iran Expected to Attack Israel? What to Know About the Crisis.

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      Less than a week after the killing of a top Hamas leader in Tehran and a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, the entire Middle East is on edge. Fears of a broader regional war have been mounting amid vows of revenge from Iranian leaders that have left Israel in a state of deep uncertainty.Why is an Iranian attack expected?Iran has vowed to avenge the death of Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader who was killed in Tehran after he and other leaders of Iranian-backed militant groups attended the inauguration of the new Iranian president. Israeli leaders would not confirm or deny whether their country was behind the breach of Iran’s defenses, but Iranian leaders and Hamas officials immediately blamed Israel and vowed retaliation.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order.And Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaan, said on Monday that “Tehran is not interested in escalating the regional conflicts, but it is necessary to punish” Israel.How is Lebanon connected to the crisis?The killing of Mr. Haniyeh came just days after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top-ranking commander of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon. That killing raised tensions that were already running high between Israel and Iran and its proxies in the region. The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said last week that its conflict with Israel had entered a new phase and threatened a major retaliation in response to the assassination.Hezbollah has been engaged in tit-for-tat attacks with Israel for months, raising fears that the region was teetering toward a wider war. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets and drones at Israel, saying it was acting in solidarity with Hamas, which is also backed by Iran. Israel has retaliated and evacuated tens of thousands of its citizens in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ukraine Has Received F-16 Fighter Jets, Zelensky Says

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky did not say whether the jets had already flown combat missions. A shortage of trained pilots and a limited number of jets will constrain their immediate impact.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Sunday that his army had received a first batch of F-16 fighter jets. The long-awaited arrival of the Western-supplied jets should bolster the country’s defenses, although Kyiv appears to have received too few of them so far to have an immediate impact on the battlefield.“F-16s are in Ukraine. We did it,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video posted on social media networks showing him at an air base addressing and meeting Ukrainian pilots. He was standing in front of two F-16s, and two more flew overhead as he spoke.At the very least, the arrival of the jets will boost Ukrainians’ morale, which has been dampened by months of slow but steady Russian advances on the battlefield and devastating attacks on the country’s power grid.Mr. Zelensky said Ukrainian pilots “have already started using them for our country,” but he did not say whether they had already flown combat missions in Ukraine. Nor did he say how many jets had arrived in the country.Ukraine hopes the F-16s, highly versatile aircraft equipped with advanced radar systems and a variety of weapons, will help turn the tide on the battlefield, where Russia has held the upper hand for much of the past year.The presence of the jets will pose a new threat to Russian pilots and help deter them from entering Ukrainian airspace to attack troops on the front line and in cities. The F-16s are also expected to improve Ukraine’s ability to shoot down Russian missiles, easing the pressure on its weakened air defense systems.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Drone Strike in Sudan Targets Army Leader in Failed Assassination Attempt, Military Says

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      For 15 months, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has been leading a war for control of the country against his rival, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.Sudan’s army said two drone strikes hit an army base in the country’s east on Wednesday after a graduation ceremony attended by the country’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who has been locked in a civil war for over a year with a rival military general.At least five people were killed and several others injured in the attack in the town of Gebeit, the army said, which has been held by the army and is about 50 miles from its wartime capital of Port Sudan. The Sudanese army spokesman, Nabil Abdallah, told the BBC that General al-Burhan had survived an assassination attempt, and blamed it on the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group that has been battling the army for power for 15 months.A military spokesman could not be reached for comment. In statements posted on social media, the military did not say whether General al-Burhan had been hurt or where he was during the attack. But it posted videos showing him interacting with the soldiers and members of the public before and after the graduation ceremony.No group has claimed responsibility for the strikes. The paramilitary group’s media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The war between General al-Burhan and his rival, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, who leads the Rapid Support Forces, has devastated Sudan, one of Africa’s largest nations. More than 18,000 people have been killed, according to an estimate from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, though aid workers estimate the death toll to be higher.At least 10 million people have been driven from their homes, according to the United Nations, while more than half the country’s 48 million people face hunger, and hundreds of thousands of others are facing a looming famine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Says It Killed Hezbollah Commander in Airstrike Near Beirut

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      The strike was in retaliation for a deadly rocket attack this weekend in the Golan Heights. At least three civilians were killed and 74 others wounded on Tuesday, Lebanese officials said.Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field.The target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.The Israel Defense Forces later said in a statement that its fighter jets had “eliminated” Mr. Shukr, but there was no confirmation from Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group, and the claim could not be independently verified.Hezbollah has denied carrying out the attack in the Golan Heights on Saturday. The latest strikes were likely to fuel concerns that Israel’s long-running conflict with the group could escalate into a full-blown war even as Israel wages a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after that group led a deadly assault in Israel on Oct. 7.The attack on Tuesday is believed to be the first time since the war with Hamas began that Israel has targeted Hezbollah in Beirut. In January, an Israeli airstrike in a Beirut suburb killed Saleh al-Arouri, a senior leader of Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.The strike on Tuesday killed at least three other people — a woman and two children — and wounded at least 74 others, five critically, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. Officials were still searching the rubble for other victims, the ministry said. More