Ukraine ready to sign landmark drone defense deal with U.S., sources say, amid new details on Kyiv's role in Iran war
www.cbsnews.com

... Ukraine is ready to sign a landmark drone defense deal with the United States, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is prepared to sign the deal on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York City, but the sources said the deal may instead be finalized at a later date, when the U.S. is ready to sign.

Over the past year, the Department of Defense and its Ukrainian counterpart have developed a framework that would allow the two countries' militaries to expand testing and production of Ukrainian defense technology in the U.S.

The importance of expanding partnerships with Ukraine's defense industry has become increasingly clear to the U.S. and its allies throughout the war with Iran. During the first days of the war, Iran began targeting American military installations across the Middle East with Shahed one-way attack drones -- the same type of drones Russia has used to attack Ukraine's cities. As the U.S. and the Gulf states initially lacked cost-effective means to intercept the drones, Kyiv sent drone interceptors and pilots to help.

Ukraine has since signed defense agreements with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. The agreements match foreign financing with Ukraine's burgeoning defense manufacturing industry. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine aims to make 10 million drones this year. By comparison, the U.S. Army acquired roughly 50,000 in 2025, according to former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll. ...

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Navy says 8 USS Abraham Lincoln Strike Group sailors attempted suicide
www.upi.com

... [Senate Armed Forces Committee member Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.] rebuked President Donald Trump and the Pentagon on Wednesday for downplaying the impact the more than 250-day at-sea deployment had on the approximately 5,000 sailors on the Abraham Lincoln, saying the information provided by the Navy showed that conditions on the ship were "serious and deteriorating."

Gillibrand accused Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of openly disrespecting sailors' grievances after Trump said he was not concerned about the mental health of the crew and that the deployment actually should've been even longer while Hegseth said the reality had been "misrepresented."

"What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as 'fake news' turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members," she said.

"That this administration can find endless taxpayer dollars for bombs, ballrooms and billionaires, but cannot take care of our armed services members, is completely unacceptable," added Gillibrand.

The Navy's former top lawyer, Rear Admiral Donald Guter, said the attempted suicides was a "disturbingly high number indicating a serious stress level." ...

[emphasis mine]

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State error in Texas creates huge backlog in voter registration applications as midterm voting nears
apnews.com

... County election offices throughout Texas are scrambling to process a massive backlog of voter registration applications stemming from an error at the state level, a headache that is hitting just as they are preparing for voting to begin in the midterm elections.

The problem, which officials in the Republican-controlled state have not publicly defined, also could have disenfranchised people who wanted to vote in the state's March primary but whose registration applications were never processed, local election officials said during a news conference Wednesday.

"This is really out of left field. Knowing that this one element of (state) applications didn't come through, and we had no insight on it," said Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials.

The size of the backlog statewide hasn't been determined, but the association said it is in the tens of thousands for some of the state's most populous counties. In Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, the election office received about 45,000 backlogged voter registration applications.

Some election offices will need to hire temporary workers to handle the crush, officials with the association said.

The issue started last October in the Texas Department of Public Safety, which among other things allows people to register to vote or update their voter registrations when they renew their driver's license.

An unspecified error failed to send a large number of records to applicants' home counties, where the applications are processed and verified. Those records could be a new voter registration application or an update to an existing registration, such as a change of address.

The association of local election officials said its members did not receive any communication from the Department of Public Safety about why the backlog occurred or why they were not informed of the issue for nearly a year. ...