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      U.S.S. Cole Case Judge Sets Goal of 2025 Trial

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      The NewsAn Army judge who was in law school at the time of the U.S.S. Cole bombing restarted hearings in the case on Monday and declared it was his intention to put the accused mastermind of the attack on trial at Guantánamo Bay in 2025. If he does, the trial would start a quarter century after the terrorist attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors off Aden, Yemen.“I think it’s important to set benchmarks,” said Col. Matthew S. Fitzgerald, adding that he expected to serve as a military judge through 2026. He replaced the third judge to preside in the case at Guantánamo, Lanny J. Acosta Jr., who held his last hearing in the case in June.The destroyer Cole, at port in Aden, Yemen, after it was heavily damaged in an attack in 2000.Dimitri Messinis/Associated PressWhy It Matters: Families are waitingIt has been a long wait for survivors of the attack and relatives of the sailors who were killed. A Saudi prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, has been in U.S. custody since 2002 and was first charged in 2011, making his the longest-running capital case at Guantánamo Bay.Paul Abney, a senior sailor on the ship, called the judge’s announcement “delightful words to hear.” He was in court on Monday for the hearings and has traveled to Guantánamo about 10 times since 2012 to watch the legal wranglings.“Even if it doesn’t happen next year, the fact that he’s willing to put a target date down, and make it a goal to shoot for is, I think, inspiring,” said Mr. Abney, a retired Navy master chief.What’s Next: More hearingsColonel Fitzgerald has 14 more weeks of hearings on the 2024 calendar. Pretrial matters yet to be tackled include the admissibility of some evidence, proposed witnesses, whether Mr. Nashiri can be tried by a military commission, how to seat a panel of military officers and whether Mr. Nashiri would be entitled to administrative credit if he is convicted but not sentenced to death.Even before court began, the judge issued an order with deadlines for both sides to prepare for trial. The timetable orders lawyers for Mr. Nashiri to provide prosecutors with a list of witnesses they would want to call to testify at the trial by Jan. 9.Facts to Keep in Mind: An appeal loomsThe judge announced the goal in his first hour on the bench. But he made no mention of a government effort to get an appellate panel to overturn a decision by his predecessor.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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      Life at Guantánamo Bay

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      Inside a new season of “Serial.”Around 780 people have been detained at the prison at Guantánamo Bay since it opened in January 2002. Thirty men remain there today, many of whom have not been charged.The podcast “Serial,” which debuted in 2014 with the story of a questionable murder conviction, has dedicated its new season to Guantánamo. Over nine episodes, it tells the story of the prison through a personal lens, by way of conversations with people who worked or were detained there.I spoke with the hosts, Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivvis, about the show. Desiree: There’s an interesting political story to be told about Guantánamo, but why did you decide to tell this story through the people who lived through it?Sarah: The government threw all of these normal people on Guantánamo, and they had to sort out how on earth are we supposed to behave in here, how are we supposed to make sense of this? So over the course of 20 years, you saw this thing, which was kind of like a terrible spasm in the national response to 9/11, harden into something that was trying to justify and sustain itself. I think that’s what we were interested in: Who were those people who are having to make decisions, who are having to survive a thing not of their own making, and what did that look like and what did that feel like?In the reporting of the podcast, did anything upend your preconceived notions or surprise you about Guantánamo?Dana: The people who work in Guantánamo for the military rotate in and out about every nine months, but the prisoners have been there, so very quickly the prisoners learned how the prison operated better than the guard force did. I heard a lot of stories about prisoners who would correct the guards and be like, “No, no, you need to give me 10 squares of toilet paper,” or “You’re not handcuffing me right. Let me show you how to do it.”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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      Final Delta IV Heavy Launch: Finale for a Rocket That Brings the Heat

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      The ignition of the Delta IV Heavy rocket is perhaps the most visually striking liftoff you’ll ever see — the rocket seemingly burns itself up on the launchpad before it heads to space. Now, the very last Delta IV Heavy ever is on the launchpad.Liftoff is scheduled for 1:40 p.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral, Fla., although winds and clouds could keep the rocket on the ground for another day or a bit longer. Forecasts give only a 30 percent chance of favorable weather. Conditions are expected to be better during backup launch opportunities.“A bittersweet moment for us,” Tory Bruno, the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, the maker of the Delta IV Heavy, said during a news conference on Wednesday ahead of the flight, which is carrying a secret spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. “This is such an amazing piece of technology. Twenty-three stories tall. Half a million gallons of propellant. A quarter million pounds of thrust.”When it does launch, it will look as if it is catching on fire, with flames racing up the sides. That is by design.Fiery scenes from a Sept. 24, 2022, liftoff of a Delta IV Heavy rocket. Video by United Launch AllianceThe Delta IV Heavy burns ultracold liquid hydrogen, which is a high-performance fuel. In the final part of the countdown, to cool down the engines and prevent a sudden temperature shock that could cause cracks, liquid hydrogen starts flowing through the engine into the flame trench.But when the hydrogen warms above its boiling temperature of minus 423.2 degrees Fahrenheit, it turns into a gas. Hydrogen is lighter than air and rises upward. When the engines ignite, so does that cloud of hydrogen — like a space-age Hindenburg.“A very dramatic effect,” Mr. Bruno said.The rocket designers of course took this into account and applied sufficient insulation to the boosters to keep the rocket from actually burning up. The orange shade of that exterior takes on a burned-marshmallow sheen as the rocket leaves the Earth.“And away she goes,” Mr. Bruno said.Photographs by United Launch Alliance. Mobile photo illustration by Antonio de Luca. More

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      U.S. Military Enters a New Phase With Gaza Aid Operations

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      As the United States continues providing Israel with munitions, the Pentagon will deliver food and other assistance to Gazans by sea and air.The United States has a history of using its military to get food, water and other humanitarian relief to civilians during wars or natural disasters. The walls of the Pentagon are decorated with photographs of such operations in Haiti, Liberia, Indonesia and countless other countries.But it is rare for the United States to try to provide such services for people who are being bombed with tacit U.S. support.President Biden’s decision to order the U.S. military to build a floating pier off the Gaza Strip that would allow aid to be delivered by sea puts American service members in a new phase of their humanitarian aid history. The same military that is sending the weapons and bombs that Israel is using in Gaza is now also sending food and water into the besieged territory.The floating pier idea came a week after Mr. Biden authorized humanitarian airdrops for Gaza, which relief experts criticized as inadequate. Even the floating pier, aid experts say, will not do enough to alleviate the suffering in the territory, where residents are on the brink of starvation.Nonetheless, senior Biden officials said, the United States will continue to provide Israel with the munitions it is using in Gaza, while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians under bombardment there.So the Pentagon is doing both.For decades the Army Corps of Engineers, using combat engineers, has built floating docks for troops to cross rivers, unload supplies and conduct other military operations. Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said on Friday that the Army’s Seventh Transportation Brigade (Expeditionary), out of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, near Norfolk, Va., would be one of the main military units involved in the construction of the floating pier for Gaza.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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      Ronny Jackson, Former White House Physician, Was Demoted by the Navy

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      Now a Republican member of the House and a Trump ally, his previously unpublicized demotion from rear admiral to captain came after a Pentagon investigation found misconduct on the job.In a report completed three years ago, the Pentagon found that Rear Adm. Ronny L. Jackson had mistreated subordinates while serving as the White House physician and drank and took sleeping pills on the job. The report recommended that he face discipline.Now it turns out that the Navy quietly punished him the next year. Though he had retired from the military in 2019, he was demoted to captain — a sanction that he has not publicly acknowledged.Mr. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas and an outspoken ally of former President Donald J. Trump, whose care he supervised in the White House, still refers to himself as a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral on his congressional website.According to a former defense official and a current military official, Mr. Jackson was demoted from rear admiral to captain in the summer of 2022. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. Mr. Jackson could not be reached for comment. His lawyer, Stanley Woodward, declined to comment.In a statement on Thursday, a Navy official said only that the findings led the Navy to take administrative actions against him. The official would not say what those actions were.The findings of the internal investigation into Mr. Jackson “are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders,” the Navy said in a statement on Thursday. “And, as such, the secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022.”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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      Chuck Mawhinney, 74, Dies; Deadliest Sniper in Marine Corps History

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      He put the experience behind him after he returned from the Vietnam War. But fame finally caught up to him in the 1990s.Chuck Mawhinney, whose ability to creep through the dense jungle and looming elephant grass of South Vietnam and then wait for hours with his scoped rifle to pick off an enemy soldier made him the deadliest sniper in the history of the Marine Corps, died on Feb. 12 in Baker City, a town in the northeastern corner of Oregon. He was 74.His death was announced by Coles Funeral Home in Baker City. No further details were available.Mr. Mawhinney, who served in Vietnam from May 1968 to March 1970, had 106 confirmed kills and another 216 probable kills, averaging about four a week — more than the average company, which comprised about 150 soldiers.Among American military snipers, only Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who served in Iraq and had 160 confirmed kills, and Adelbert Waldron, an Army sniper during the Vietnam War with 109 kills, had higher numbers than Mr. Mawhinney.As a sniper, Mr. Mawhinney filled a number of roles. He would stay up all night with his rifle and night scope, watching the perimeter of an encampment for incursions. He would go out on patrol with other Marines, ready to support them if a firefight broke out. But mostly he and his spotter, a novice sniper who helped him identify targets, went out alone, looking for individual targets to kill as a way of sapping enemy morale.Most of his kills came slowly, a single shot from his bolt-action M40 after hours of waiting. But some came in bursts: On the night of Feb. 14, 1969, Mr. Mawhinney watched as a column of North Vietnamese soldiers crossed a shallow river near Da Nang, making their way toward a Marine encampment. He started firing, quickly but methodically, and in 30 seconds he had killed 16. The rest retreated.He claimed no special talent as a sniper, just the willingness to put in endless hours of practice. But he also demonstrated an unusual ability to tolerate grueling hours of stillness hiding in the jungle, alert for targets while bugs and snakes crawled over him.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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      A Century Later, 17 Wrongly Executed Black Soldiers Are Honored at Gravesites

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      More than a century ago, 110 Black soldiers were convicted of murder, mutiny and other crimes at three military trials held at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. Nineteen were hanged, including 13 on a single day, Dec. 11, 1917, in the largest mass execution of American soldiers by the Army.The soldiers’ families spent decades fighting to show that the men had been betrayed by the military. In November, they won a measure of justice when the Army secretary, Christine E. Wormuth, overturned the convictions and acknowledged that the soldiers “were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials.”On Thursday, several descendants of the soldiers gathered at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery as the Department of Veterans Affairs dedicated new headstones for 17 of the executed servicemen.Just before he was executed, Private Hawkins wrote a letter to his parents, telling them: “Although I am not guilty of the crime that I’m accused of Mother, it’s God’s will that I go now and in this way.”Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesThe new headstones acknowledge each soldier’s rank, unit and home state — a simple honor accorded to every other veteran buried in the cemetery. They replaced the previous headstones that noted only their name and date of death.(The families of the other two who were hanged reclaimed their remains for private burial.)The headstones were unveiled after an honor guard fired a three-volley rifle salute, a bugler played “Taps” and officials presented the descendants with folded American flags and certificates declaring that the executed soldiers had been honorably discharged.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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      Nuclear Missile Remnants Found in a Garage

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      The police responded to a call from a U.S. Air Force museum that said a man had offered to donate a Cold War-era missile stored in his late neighbor’s garage.Garages are often cluttered with dusty boxes of heirlooms, untouched gym equipment or a multitude of tools.But how about a piece of a Cold War-era nuclear missile?Members of the bomb squad in Bellevue, Wash., on Thursday were called to inspect parts of a military-grade missile in the garage of a resident.Elements of the larger, intact missile, such as the warhead, were missing and the authorities deemed the piece to be inert and safe, the police said in a news release on Friday.An Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, contacted the police in Bellevue on Jan. 31 to report that a resident had offered to donate the missile, which belonged to his late neighbor.The resident had been put in charge of his neighbor’s estate, according to the Bellevue police, and said that his neighbor had originally purchased the missile from an estate sale.The police were unable to contact any of the neighbor’s family, and did not identify the Bellevue man out of respect for his privacy, said Officer Seth Tyler, a Bellevue Police Department spokesman.The next day, the man was “surprised” to hear from the police because he had not called them but invited the bomb squad to inspect the missile remnant, Officer Tyler said.Squad members identified the rocket as a Douglas AIR-2 Genie missile, designed to carry a 1.5-kiloton nuclear warhead.First put into operation in 1957, the Genie was the world’s first nuclear-armed rocket designed to destroy aircraft targets, and was the most powerful interceptor missile deployed by the U.S. Air Force, according to Boeing.In 1954, Douglas Aircraft began work on “a small unguided nuclear-armed air-to-air missile,” according to Boeing. Douglas Aircraft built more than 1,000 Genie rockets before discontinuing production in 1962.It was clear that the missile remnant did not pose a threat given that it was missing its warhead and did not contain rocket fuel, Officer Tyler said.“It was essentially just a rusted piece of metal at that point,” he said. “An artifact, in other words.”Because the military did not request it back, the police left it with the man to donate.It was not immediately clear whether the missile remnant would be destined for the museum in Ohio, and efforts to reach the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton on Sunday were unsuccessful.Given Bellevue’s proximity to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a large military base, Officer Tyler said it was not unusual for the police to respond to calls about hand grenades or other unexploded ordnance.But a missile from the Cold War would be a first, said Officer Tyler, who has worked for the department for 18 years. The department also seemed to believe it would be the last, referring to Elton John’s classic song “Rocket Man” in a social media post.“And we think it’s gonna be a long, long time before we get another call like this again,” the Bellevue police said. More