Air Force officials recently revealed new details about schedule delays and rising costs related to the service’s multi-billion dollar effort to modernize its long-range B-52 Stratofortress bombers, complications that prompted the service to bring on a seasoned negotiator to sharpen discussions with prime contractor Boeing.
Senate appropriators are highlighting some of the key investments in their fiscal year 2025 defense spending bill, which would increase the Defense Department's budget by 3.3 percent or more than $27 billion above what Congress enacted in FY 24. The $852 billion bill, however, is $21 billion above the cap mandated by the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act following a bipartisan deal struck to increase defense and non-defense “emergency” spending above FRA limits.
The Biden administration is convinced Iran is going to attack Israel in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this week and is preparing to counter it. U.S. officials say they expect any Iranian retaliation to be from the same playbook as their April 13 attack on Israel—but potentially larger in scope—and it could also involve the Lebanese Hezbollah.
The Air Force expects its annual foreign military sales to grow by 60 percent this fiscal year due largely to increases in F-35 and F-16 purchases. Air Force Foreign Military Sales officials told reporters that the service anticipates booking more than $46 billion in weapon sales in fiscal 2024, up from $28.7 billion in fiscal 2023.
The teenage brother of an Airman who was fatally shot in his home by a Florida sheriff’s deputy in May was killed in a shooting in the Atlanta area. Andre Fortson, Senior Airman Roger Fortson’s 16-year-old brother, was killed this week in DeKalb County, near Atlanta’s east side, police said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously advanced a version of the fiscal 2025 Pentagon spending bill that includes funding to cover a 5.5 percent pay bump for E-1s through E-3s and a 4.5 percent raise for all other troops next year, according to a summary of the bill released by the committee.
Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on July 31 by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official. The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.
Laurie E. Locascio, undersecretary of standards and technology at the Department of Commerce and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technologies told WIRED that it is crucial to invent new chip designs and manufacturing techniques to ensure U.S. technological preeminence in AI.
F-22 Raptors and F-35 Lighting II stealth fighters took turns flying as red air—the opposing force—during multinational airpower drills Down Under, mimicking the threat the United States and its allies might face in a conflict with China or Russia. Pitch Black, a biennial exercise that began July 12 and ends Aug. 2, brought 140 aircraft and 4,400 personnel from 21 nations to the Northern Territory and neighboring Queensland, Australia.
The Space Development Agency is preparing to award contracts to companies focused on satellite servicing. Through the contracts, SDA, which is part of the U.S. Space Force, will not hire companies to conduct demonstration or to deorbit satellites. Instead, the agency will pay companies to share technical designs and business-case analysis.
The Israeli military said Aug. 1 that it has confirmed that the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, was killed in an airstrike in Gaza in July. The announcement came a day after an apparent Israeli strike in the Iranian capital killed Hamas’ top political leader.
Vladimir Putin on Aug. 1 secured the release of spies, hackers, and his most coveted Russian prisoner in the West: an assassin linked to intelligence services convicted of murder in Germany. For the authoritarian Russian leader, it was the biggest victory yet stemming from his willingness to violate global norms to extract what he wants from Western leaders.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s just-revealed fiscal 2025 defense budget bill takes the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community to task for what it sees as shortfalls in promises to take better advantage of commercial space capabilities in a number of key areas.
The plane, known as Columbine II, lay neglected and rusting in a field at a rural Arizona airport. That is until aeronautical entrepreneur and aviation history buff Karl Stoltzfus discovered its pedigree and took it upon himself to restore the first Air Force One.