SORRY ‘BOUT THAT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted yesterday that Israeli forces had “unintentionally” killed seven aid workers riding in a vehicle convoy run by World Central Kitchen. A missile went right through the roof of the marked SUV killing all the occupants.

   “It happens in war; we are fully examining this,” Netanyahu said. “We are in contact with the governments, and we will do everything so that this thing does not happen again.”

  The Israeli military chief of staff said in a video delivering a rare admission of fault, “It was a mistake that followed a misidentification, at night, during the war, in a very complex condition,” and that “It shouldn’t have happened.”

  Chef José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, posted on Twitter/X, “Angels that the only crime they committed was feeding people.”

  Israel has claimed throughout its war to eradicate Hamas militants in Gaza that it is being careful with target selection to avoid civilian casualties, but nearly 33,000 people have been killed, the vast majority of them non-combatants.

  World Central Kitchen, which suspended operations after their people were killed, had become a vital distributor of food to Gazans blockaded by Israel from receiving commercial shipments. “These people are heroes,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “They run into the fire not away from it. They show the best of what humanity really has to offer when the going gets tough. They have to be protected.”

  Even while world opinion is condemning Israel for killing the aid workers, the Biden administration is resisting calls to limit arms sales and is pushing to sell Israel $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets.

SHAKY GROUND: A powerful magnitude 7.4 earthquake, the strongest to hit the country in 25 years, struck off the coast of Taiwan this morning, toppling some buildings, causing tremors that were felt across the region, and prompting a tsunami warning in Japan. 

  At least nine people were killed. Three of them were hikers hit by falling rocks. Fifty-six people were reported to have been trapped.

  A couple of buildings were left perilously leaning. One 10-story apartment building was angled more than the Tower of Pisa. Residents got out through windows and down ladders, some even evacuated by constriction crane. 

SIX WEEKS: Decisions by the Florida Supreme Court to uphold the state’s ban on abortions after six weeks while also allowing an abortion expanding ballot measure in the fall election has made Florida a target for national Democrats to turn blue in November.

  The Biden presidential campaign has issued a television commercial warning that Donald Trump is campaigning for a national ban on abortion. Biden gently says he’s campaigning for the opposite, a national approval for the right to choose. He says, “Donald Trump doesn’t trust women, I do.”

  Political operatives say the abortion issue gives Democrats a “path to relevance” in Florida this fall. Trump won Florida in 2016 and 2020, but Democrats are hoping that the abortion issue, as well as a ballot measure legalizing marijuana in Florida, will bring out more voters for their side.

CHINA SYNDROME: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen travels to China this week for talks to stabilize economic relations in a time of international tensions and political rancor here in the US. 

 Yellen is set to meet with representatives from American companies, Chinese students and professors, and top economic officials. This happens even while the Biden administration is restricting Chinese access to American technology and levying tariffs on Chinese exports, while at the same time trying to avoid an economic war. 

  President Biden spoke on the phone yesterday with Chinese President in what the White House described as a “check-in” regarding a number of conflicted issues between the two countries. Among the topics raised by Biden were fighting fentanyl production, the Middle East conflicts, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and China’s support of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

  As you might guess, nothing was resolved.

HEAVY WEATHER: Violent storms bringing damaging winds and tornadoes have swept across the Midwest as far East as Kentucky, tearing apart buildings and tossing mobile homes. The system is moving into New England. 

THE OBIT PAGE: Lou Conter, the last known surviving crew member of the battleship Arizona sunk in Japan’s December 7^th, 1941, sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, died Monday at home in Grass Valley, California. He was 102.

  Conter was on duty yet unhurt when a Japanese bomb penetrated deep into the Arizona’s hull, igniting a million pounds of gunpowder and thousands of rounds of ammunition. “The ship was consumed in a giant fireball,” he wrote in his memoir.

  The Arizona alone lost 1,177 sailors and Marines, and more grievously wounded. Only 93 crew members on board at the time survived. Conter was taken to shore in a lifeboat and spent the ensuing days putting out fires and recovering bodies.

  Conter then trained as a pilot, flew 200 combat missions in WWII, and 29 in Korea. After retiring from the Navy in 1967 he was a real estate broker and developer in the Los Angeles area.

 THE SPIN RACK: Democratic voters in Wisconsin sent President Biden a warning message in the party primary yesterday. With more than 90 percent of votes counted, 47,000 voters checked the “uninstructed” option on the ballots. That’s just over 8 percent of the Democratic presidential primary vote counted so far. A spokesperson for the group “Listen to Wisconsin” said Biden “needs to be paying attention and calling for an immediate, permanent cease-fire, as soon as possible.”

BELOW THE FOLD: A couple of Republican members of Congress have introduced a bill to re-name Dulles airport outside Washington for Donald Trump. The airport is named for John Foster Dulles, secretary of state under Republican President Dwight Eisenhower.

  The bill has no chance, but Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat with Dulles in his district said, “If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison.”

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