Now for the day's other headlines, starting in the Middle East.

Syrian state media says that Israel carried out two air strikes today, killing at least 15 people.

The attacks happened in the capital city of Damascus and in one of its northwest suburbs.

Israel has ramped up attacks on Iran-linked targets in Syria since the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel.

Israeli military officials claim they struck strongholds of the Palestinian Islamic jihad,

which supports both Hamas and Hasbullah.

We are identifying rockets and other weapons that Hezbollah is launching at Israeli territory

that were manufactured in Syria and given to Hezbollah from Syria.

We will attack all infrastructure we identify in Syria, whose purpose is to produce weapons for Hezbollah.

Explosions also rumbled through the suburbs of Lebanon's capital, Beirut, where Israel has carried

out intense bombing for a third straight day. State media said a separate strike in the east

killed at least nine people. Also today, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the

Gaza Strip.

The group points to the forced displacement by Israel of nearly 2 million Palestinians, amounting

to what it called ethnic cleansing.

Israel has rejected similar such accusations in the past.

Suicides within the U.S. military increased last year, continuing a long-term trend that the

Pentagon has struggled to bring under control.

A Defense Department report out today shows there were 523 suicides reported in 2023.

That is up from 493 such deaths in 2022 when the number of suicides had actually gone down.

Most of the 2023 cases involved young men who used a firearm.

The long-running rise in suicides comes despite efforts by military leaders to expand mental health assistance and gun safety education.

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