Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed military cyber and intelligence agencies to protect the midterm elections from foreign interference. The Pentagon’s response to questions about what changes under that directive was to point back to the announcement, leaving the public with a statement of purpose and little explanation of implementation. The Sept. 22 memorandum, officially released Sept. 28, prioritizes foreign election threats across defense intelligence organizations and directs U.S. Cyber Command to operate under existing authorities. Its accompanying release presents the effort as supporting President Donald Trump’s commitment to election integrity. When asked about new responsibilities, continuity of protection, resources,…
A North Carolina man is claimed to have financially exploited a 69-year-old disabled veteran, amounting to hundreds of thousands of stolen funds. Richard Allen Gilbert is alleged to have defrauded the veteran out of some $120,000 after the pair met via Facebook Dating, a virtual matchmaking service, and developed a relationship, according to the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina. Military.com reached out to Sampson County Sheriff’s Office for comment. Gilbert allegedly made false claims about connections to government agencies and the military to gain the victim’s trust before accessing her financial accounts and debit cards, according to multiple…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a wide-ranging “State of the Force” address Wednesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, announcing six major initiatives and a series of directives reshaping the U.S. military. Hegseth delivered this year’s speech to about 600 rank-and-file troops, a shift from the roughly 800 generals and admirals he gathered in 2025. The Pentagon released the text of the address along with a series of memos putting its directives into effect. He opened by declaring that the military is “no longer the woke department,” saying, “The ideological clowns are out. The patriotic cowboys are in.” The…
The Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy have awarded Boeing a $20 billion contract to develop F/A-XX Strike Fighter jets. The F/A-XX is the US Navy’s next-generation, carrier-based sixth-generation stealth fighter jet. They are being developed to replace aging F/A-18E/F Super Hornets by the 2030s, and will operate alongside F-35C jets and uncrewed autonomous drones as a crucial component of U.S. national security. DOD announced the contract on Tuesday, saying that Boeing will procure multiple test aircraft for ground, airworthiness, systems and weapons integration testing under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. “The F/A-XX is a critical pillar…
Excitement and angst are growing at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and its surrounding community in Anchorage, Alaska, over plans for a multibillion-dollar expansion of the military installation. The proposed project is expected to boost the local Anchorage economy. However, several lawmakers, military staff and community members are concerned that the expansion plan is missing a major component — funding for additional housing. “To meet JBER’s projected housing need, Anchorage would need an additional 1,200 two-bedroom units, 650 three-bedroom homes, and 645 homes with four bedrooms or more by 2030,” Joy Boston, a community partnerships and tribal liaison at JBER, told Military.com,…
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At first glance, the Avrocar looked like a prop from a 1950s science fiction movie. It was round, low to the ground and built for two people sitting on opposite sides of its center. But the VZ-9AV was a real aircraft project, backed by the U.S. Army and Air Force to explore whether a flying saucer could serve a military purpose. The idea began in Canada. In the early 1950s, Avro Canada envisioned a vertical takeoff and landing fighter-bomber that looked like it came from the comic books. The craft would eventually be able to fly at supersonic speeds. When…
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The Space Force has spent the past two years pushing artificial intelligence past pilot programs and into daily use, from launch control rooms to satellite operations centers. Some of it comes down from the Pentagon as enterprise-wide software; some of it is built by individual units solving staffing problems they’re living with day to day. Here are six ways AI is already up and running inside the Space Force. The 1st Range Operations Squadron at Patrick Space Force Base, Florida, built two AI tools to keep pace with a launch schedule that grew from 19 launches in 2019 to more…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce Wednesday that he will cut general and admiral positions across the military by 20%, effectively doubling the reduction he ordered last year as part of a broader plan to reshape the senior ranks by Jan. 1, 2027. Hegseth is scheduled to lay out the plan during a “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, according to Pentagon officials cited by several news outlets, including Fox News, which first reported it. Quantico is the same site where the secretary gathered the United States’ highest ranking generals and admirals…
Being a police officer is tough. I wouldn’t do it for three times the top-end pay for an officer, much less what they actually get paid. Growing up around the profession, I saw just what kind of toll it could take on a person, and that’s without losing a number of your colleagues in a single day. Just one was enough to rattle a lot of police officers’ families deeply. Officers in Charlotte, NC, dealt with that back in 2024 when four of their colleagues were gunned down by a convicted felon armed with a…
LONDON (AP) — The U.K. has “strong indications” that Iran played a part in the incident that saw five men arrested near a U.S.-run military air base in England late at night, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday. Burnham said U.K. and U.S. officials are carrying out a “complex and serious” investigation into how and why five men and three vans were near the perimeter of RAF Fairford, a base that has been used by American bombers striking Iran during this year’s war. Five British men in their 20s were arrested Sunday on suspicion of explosives offenses and planning an…
Can you be convicted of a crime when you act in self-defense but an errant shot strikes a home or another person? The answer may vary from state to state, and even from case to case, as the Ohio Supreme Court recently decided. This particular case involves a man named Timothy Bradley, who was originally charged with a variety of crimes after shooting a contractor named Zachary Burch at Bradley’s home in 2024. Bradley had hired, and then fired Burch, and the pair started arguing when Burch showed up to collect his tools. Video and audio…
Separating from the military sets off a series of financial deadlines that don’t run on the same schedule, and most of them aren’t automatic. Health coverage, life insurance, Department of Veterans Affairs disability filing and retirement account decisions all run on their own separate clocks, and missing any one of them can mean a gap in coverage or a benefit that closes for good. Here’s how the sequence goes, from before separation through the end of the first year. Before Separation: 90 to 180 Days Out The window to start planning opens well before your separation date. Veterans and service…
If you read my story about the Violence Policy Center’s so-called study, you had to know that sooner or later, the media would get hold of it. While I kind of expected the New York Times or someone to get hold of it and make a thing of it, I still knew someone would if they declined. And, sure enough, someone has.There’s this report out of South Carolina, and we need to talk about it.South Carolina’s rate of women killed by men remained above the national average in 2024, according to a nationwide study highlighted…
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A pilot on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed another pilot Wednesday and then apparently tried to crash the jetliner carrying around 170 people, Israel’s prime minister said. Passengers and crew subdued the attacker, and the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia. As some passengers screamed, the FlyDubai flight issued an emergency alert and abruptly descended thousands of feet (meters). Israel scrambled warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. As a plane carrying passengers from the flight landed Wednesday evening in Israel, it was not clear what motivated the attack. Video…
If a policy that won preliminary approval in the Lexington-Richland 5 school district this week is implemented, students may be protected by armed school staff in the future. Then again, they might not, even if the district allows for the practice. That’s because the policies that the district is planning on putting in place are so burdensome that officials might not find any staffers willing to shoulder the responsibility. The newly-drafted ordinance requires staff carrying weapons to wear a district Security Department badge visible or “clothing that clearly identifies the employee as a member of the…
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping left their Washington meetings last week with a list of eight “deliverables and understandings.” The list covers trade, artificial intelligence and Iran, along with diplomatic and symbolic commitments. It is not eight separately signed treaties or completed deals. A proposed military crisis agreement appears separately, and neither government has announced that it is in operation. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping participate in an arrival ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026.(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) China’s published list identifies these eight outcomes: Strategic stability: The leaders agreed…
Let’s start off by noting that yes, warning shots are stupid. I don’t feel like getting into why, generally speaking, in this piece, because it’s not about that. It’s about a California man facing charges for firing warning shots. It started with the nightmare scenario for many people: the proverbial bump in the night. Someone was inside of the home in the dark of night who shouldn’t have been there.So a man who works as a security guard decided he needed to do something, but he apparently didn’t want to hurt anyone.A security guard was…
An Air Force officer who was arrested after calling for President Donald Trump’s impeachment has been recommended to stand trial by general court-martial—the military’s most serious level of trial—on most of the charges against him, according to his attorney. Maj. Jason Watson was arrested in uniform on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in July as he called for Trump to be impeached, arguing that the president had violated the Constitution and that Trump and Vice President JD Vance should be removed from office. Watson has said he acted not out of partisanship but to uphold his oath to defend…
The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has already successfully gone after the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department over its unreasonable delays in processing concealed carry applications and recently targeted San Jose, California over its excessive fees for concealed carry permits, but now the division is seeking to strike down another local law on the books in San Jose. The Justice Department filed its first complaint against the city’s $1591 application fee a couple of weeks ago, but on Tuesday the agency filed an amended complaint this week that challenges San Jose’s requirement that concealed carry applicants undergo…
