Food Aid for Gazans Was Sent Back to Cyprus

World Central Kitchen, the charity group that paused its operations in Gaza this week after seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli strike, sent three ships with hundreds of tons of food meant for Gazans back to port in Cyprus. It was the most tangible sign yet that the attack, which Israel called a mistake, has set back efforts to address severe hunger that experts say is approaching famine.

At least one other aid group also announced it was suspending its operations in the enclave, and the U.N.’s World Food Program stopped its overnight work while it evaluated security.

The halting of the maritime aid organized by World Central Kitchen will probably be felt most in northern Gaza, where food shortages are most dire. The ships were intended to supplement the roughly 117 aid trucks that enter Gaza each day — a tally that is less than half what the U.N. estimates is needed to meet basic food needs.

Before the strike, the World Central Kitchen team had spent the day getting 100 tons of supplies off the group’s ship at a rudimentary jetty, which had been built in six days from the rubble of bombed buildings, and to their warehouse. Here is an account of the strike and its aftermath.

In need of more troops, Ukraine lowered its draft age

In an effort to combat Russia’s relentless campaign in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law this week three measures aimed at replenishing his country’s exhausted military. The most significant and politically toxic change was a lowering of the draft eligibility age from 27 to 25.

Zelensky had delayed signing the new draft rules for nearly a year, but many soldiers have now been on continual combat duty for two years. Casualty rates are high. Zelensky also eliminated some medical exemptions and created a database of men to crack down on draft dodgers.

Disney fended off an activist investor, for a second time

The Walt Disney Company announced today that shareholders had voted to elect its entire slate of board nominees, capping off one of the priciest and nastiest corporate board elections in history.

The result suggested that shareholders still have confidence in Disney’s chief executive, Robert Iger, who for the second time in two years has fended off a high-profile activist investor from securing board seats. That investor, Nelson Peltz, along with Ike Perlmutter, the former head of Marvel, spent about $25 million in the effort to shake up the company. The two businessmen had criticized Disney’s streaming strategy and lagging stock price.

A powerful earthquake shook Taiwan

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake centered near the city of Hualien rocked Taiwan this morning, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 1,000 others. As of nightfall, 71 people were trapped in two mining areas near the epicenter.

It was the strongest quake to hit Taiwan in 25 years, and many other aftershocks — at least one as powerful as magnitude 6.5 — continued every few minutes throughout the day. The shocks toppled buildings and left two others teetering perilously. With rain in the forecast, officials warned of possible landslides in the coming days.

Here are images of the aftermath.

European soccer has changed its tune on Ramadan

For Muslim players in the world’s most competitive soccer leagues, like the Premier League, Ramadan used to be a challenging month. Some players were pressured to avoid daily fasts, and some teams would use fake injuries to allow Muslim players to surreptitiously break their fasts midgame.

Alice Randall’s music, as she intended it to sound

Three decades ago, Alice Randall cracked a color barrier in Nashville by becoming the first Black woman to write a chart-topping country hit. But she soon quit writing songs in the genre after finding it impossible to enlist Black country singers for her music — the only singers she believed could tell her stories the way they were intended.

Next week, that will change. A dozen Black voices, including Rissi Palmer and Rhiannon Giddens, will reimagine Randall’s best-known songs in a new compilation, “My Black Country.” Randall is also releasing a memoir under the same title, weaving her country career into a corrective genre history.

Two guys who know a good stick when they see one

Boone Hogg and Logan Jugler, who are both 30, have built a sizable online community by critically reviewing sticks. That might sound like a joke, but Hogg and Jugler actually do post pictures of sticks picked out of the woods, assessing their shape, feel and overall quality.

The reviews were always intended to be a gag. But after a while, Hogg and Jugler started to realize that some of their audience members had a genuine interest in the bits of branch that fall off trees.

Have a whimsical evening.

Thanks for reading. Emree Weaver was our photo editor today. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Matthew

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