The Senate passed a defense bill Dec. 18 that authorizes significant pay raises for junior enlisted service members, aims to counter China’s growing power, and boosts overall military spending to $895 billion while also stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for children of military members.
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Brussels on Dec. 18 for talks with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, as Ukraine seeks to secure more air defense as well effective security guarantees from its Western allies.
The Washington, D.C., Air National Guard would transfer ownership of its F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter squadron to the Maryland Air National Guard as part of a proposed stopgap government funding bill unveiled in Congress on Dec. 17.
Elon Musk and his rocket company, SpaceX, have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting state secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders, according to people with knowledge of the company and internal documents.
Marine Corps F-35 jets enjoyed some of their highest-ever readiness rates during a five-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific—largely because amphibious warship Boxer had enough spare parts and manpower to maintain 10 of the jets but only carried six for most of the deployment.
Adversaries of the United States have ramped up partnerships, both in combat and influence operations, in ways that may require the unique intervention abilities of the special operations community to avoid conflict.
In her final months as the Pentagon’s second permanent Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer, Dr. Radha Plumb and her team have been reshaping some of the hub’s directorates and acceleration cells to more quickly and strategically scale proven and experimental AI-enabled capabilities across the U.S. military at a pace that more closely matches real-world needs.
The Navy today awarded a $3.5 billion contract to Northrop Grumman to be the mission systems integrator for Navy’s next-generation plane for commanding nuclear-armed forces in an emergency, beating out competitor Collins Aerospace.
The U.S. Space Force and Lockheed Martin plan to conduct its first-ever laser communications test from a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite. If successful, this technology could enhance the precision and efficiency of the navigation system used by billions worldwide. The demonstration will take place on the GPS III SV-10 satellite, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, which completed assembly in February 2023 and remains in storage awaiting launch authorization.
Craig Andrle was in the cockpit of his F-16, waiting to take off from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan when another American warplane descended out of the sky toward the runway—a hulking AC-130 gunship. ... The mere sight of the gunship was a tip-off that something had gone wrong in a firefight just over the horizon. In a mountain valley about 50 miles away, a unit of Army Rangers had run into a hornet’s nest of resistance. The AC-130 was returning from that fight, even though it should not have been.
Ladeania Jackson, an Air National Guard master sergeant, and three others who completed a 14-day challenge in the Southern Alps of New Zealand shared a $1 million prize on the reality TV show “The Summit.” The 16 contestants who started the show carried a share of the prize money in their backpacks but, as they dropped out, surrendered it to those who carried on.