WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Wednesday that boot camps for all the military services are once again requiring the flu vaccination for all recruits after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the shot optional for the military at the end of April. The development, confirmed to The Associated Press by a Pentagon official, comes amid a growing, weekslong, flu outbreak at the U.S. Air Force’s boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base that has sickened nearly 300 people. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not cleared for public release, maintained that the permission to…
This article was originally published by Jimmy Alfonso Licon at The Mises Institute. People are falling in love with their chatbots, mourning deleted AI companions, and treating artificial systems as romantic partners or family members. As AI becomes more sophisticated, these relationships will become more common. And, as a result, so will political conflict over whether artificial systems deserve moral consideration. To understand why, consider the underlying moral ambiguity. The standard markers of moral standing—the ability to suffer, self-awareness, rationality—are inner features that are not directly observed so much as they are inferred. With our fellow humans we manage to recognize moral standing…
Rep. Rosa DeLauro is both an anti-gunner and someone who clearly got her hair styled at a place specializing in serving Batman villains. Her leftist leanings are well-known, and that includes the view that the American people shouldn’t be trusted with guns, even if the Constitution says she can pound sand. It seems DeLauro isn’t fond of the ATF’s slate of proposed rule changes.It also seems that the National Shooting Sports Foundation is more than willing to tell her why she’s wrong about just about everything.Rep. DeLauro’s argument rests on the tired gun control premise…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans who were berated by President Donald Trump on Wednesday over opposition to his war in Iran held a late-night vote to try to appease him, voting down a war powers resolution a day after a similar measure passed. Trump harangued GOP senators face to face earlier in the day for allowing a vote to block his war in Iran on Tuesday, further escalating a feud that has diverted GOP efforts to focus on election-year affordability issues and brought much of the chamber’s business to a halt. He exchanged particularly harsh words with Louisiana Sen. Bill…
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A series of tankers made their way out of the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday despite threats to shipping from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, using a new route close to Oman’s shore that has been promoted by a U.N. maritime agency. The development comes as tensions rise between Iran and the United States over their interim accord aimed at permanently ending the Iran war. From getting ships through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf to the future of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the sides are increasingly debating the terms of the…
This year’s Fourth of July celebrations promise to be epic, marking the nation’s 250th anniversary. But for some veterans, the bangs, flashes and noise from fireworks blasting in the night sky can be a nightmare. However, Dr. Nikki Wooten, an Army veteran and professor at the University of South Carolina College of Social Work, believes there are suitable ways veterans can still enjoy the holiday without being emotionally and physically triggered. “The debris created by fireworks can remind them of the debris from roadside bombs, IEDs, explosions, and mortar attacks,” Wooten told Military.com. “The sounds can remind them of incoming…
From the moment it went viral, the video of a DEA agent saying he was “the only one professional enough” to handle his handgun moments before shooting himself in the leg has become kind of the calling card for why a career in law enforcement doesn’t automatically mean an individual is a responsible gun handler. Just 10 days ago, I wrote about an incident where a Pasadena police officer shot a coworker in an incident described as “horseplay,” all caught on dashcam, and that was definitely an example of what I mean.This one out of…
A hidden camera installed by the wife of a disabled Marine veteran has triggered criminal charges, calls for a broader investigation, and a pledge from Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins to remove a federal employee accused of abusing the veteran inside a New York state-run veterans home. The case centers on Albert O’Toole, a Gulf War Marine veteran whose wife, Angela Sangro, said he suffered a traumatic brain injury during his military service and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. According to Sangro, concerns about her husband’s treatment led her to secretly place a camera in his…
Gearing up for a powder day and top-of-mountain concert, I knew I was heading out for one of the best bell-to-bell days of my season. I would need a day’s worth of food, sunscreen, a 360 camera, a selfie stick, a beanie, earplugs, and more. I contemplated bringing my full backpack. But it was one of the better powder days of the year for the pow cam, and I wanted to ride hard without a bigger bag. Yet, I needed to carry all of my gear. I wanted to look stylish for both the camera and the concert. Luckily, I had the…
North Carolina wildlife officials are weighing a rule change that would restrict firearm hunting and deer hunting with dogs on a small section of public game land near Falls Lake. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission scheduled a virtual public hearing on June 23 regarding a petition to amend the rules for the Butner-Falls of Neuse Game Land. The affected area covers about 230 acres south of Purnell Road, north of Bent Road, and east of New Light Creek. Butner-Falls of Neuse Game Land spans roughly 37,500 acres across Durham, Granville, and Wake counties. The proposed restriction would apply to…
By the standards of Mojang’s quarterly cadence, Minecraft’s second game drop of 2026, Chaos Cubed, is one of the more substantive updates in recent memory. Its headline feature, the Sulfur Cube, is a new mob that can absorb nearly any block and transform its properties accordingly, but beyond that, it’s remarkable how much Chaos Cubed actually includes. The latest game drop touches every facet of Minecraft, from a new Sulfur Caves biome with ecosystem mechanics like geysers and noxious gas pools, to an experimental Vulkan renderer overhaul, and a beta for social features, including a new friends list. To unpack…
France has just confirmed its first Ebola case. The patient is a doctor who had returned from a mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). The health ministry said the patient has a “very low” viral load and that contacts are “currently being identified”. The organization “confirms today the identification of a first positive case of Ebola virus disease on national territory”, said a statement. This is the first time Ebola has ever been detected in France, and the case is the first of the deadly hemorrhagic fever to be identified outside the African continent during the current…
Support us! GearJunkie may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More When you think of Opinel, you probably picture a classic wood-handled folding knife slicing through a block of cheese at a sunny campsite. But the French heritage brand, with roots dating back to 1890, is pivoting toward more modern, high-performance, purpose-built knives with its latest launch. On Monday, Opinel announced its Outdoor Collection: a trio of task-specific folding knives for mountain, trail, and marine tasks. Rather than the brand’s iconic wood-handled aesthetic, these new knives leverage advanced polymers, specialized coatings, and multitool functions built…
Guns are a staple of modern American entertainment, which is a little ironic since many of the people who run most of the companies that produce our entertainment seem to hate guns. From books and movies to television and video games, there are a lot of guns and a lot of people who seem to use the soapbox created by these forms of entertainment to tell us we suck because we like guns. Yet, because of this animosity toward guns, it’s pretty common to see some pretty dumb stuff show up in them. I remember…
A leaker with a strong record of accuracy alleges that Resident Evil: Veronica and the rumored Resident Evil Zero remake will tie into Resident Evil Requiem. The leak arrives while fans await Resident Evil Requiem DLC, as anticipation for Resident Evil: Veronica rises, and curiosity regarding other Resident Evil remakes abounds. Resident Evil has largely been on a roll in recent years, with both the remade games and the new arrivals being widely praised and selling well. Given their successes, and the recent reveal of Resident Evil: Veronica arriving as a remake of the classic Code: Veronica game, fans are…
Some fanny packs are better precisely because they don’t try to do too much. That’s the REI Co-op Trail 2 ($35) in a nutshell. It’s a 2L waist pack built strictly for the items I inevitably carry on quick outings: a phone, keys, wallet, sunglasses, lip balm, dog bags, and a snack. It doesn’t boast a maze of pockets or a technical harness system, but its low-profile simplicity is exactly what makes it so appealing. I tested the Trail 2 over 10 months on more than 30 outings, bringing it along for everything from short day hikes to bike commutes…
The head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has put California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta on notice: if the state tries to enforce its upcoming ban on Glocks and other other striker-fired pistols with cruciform trigger bars, it will be the next jurisdiction that faces federal litigation. Tick tock! On July 1, CA plans to impose an unconstitutional “Glock Ban.”Today, I notified @CAGovernor & @AGRobBonta to drop the unconstitutional restrictions on law-abiding citizens’ rights to purchase legal firearms before the ban goes into effect, or we will sue. Stay tuned!…
Saab officially closed its doors for good in 2014, but the last Saabs sold in the US were for the 2011 model year, when cars like the Saab 9-3 were struggling to move even a few thousand units. We actually really liked the Saab 9-4X, but one solid SUV clearly wasn’t enough to keep the brand in business. Saab may be dead, but it’s not quite buried. That is, if you take a look, you can see Saab DNA in brands like Polestar, Volvo, and Lucid. Many of the engineers who made the company what it was, they didn’t simply…
If you’ve ever hiked up Angel’s Landing — arguably the most iconic trail in Zion National Park — then you know how dangerous it can be. In fact, falling is by far the leading cause of death in America’s second-most-popular national park. That’s what happened to Bernadette Vander Meer in August 2006. She fell to her death from the hiking trail “under suspicious circumstances,” according to local authorities. But after 20 years, no arrest was ever made in connection with her death — until now. On Monday, police arrested David Vander Meer, Bernadette’s husband, on charges of murder and insurance…
Many gun rights supporters believe that gun owners tend to become gun voters, at least to some degree. That’s not universal, of course, because Kamala Harris has a handgun and she was all about banning them for everyone else, but we tend to think people like her are the exception, rather than the rule. However, the results of a survey from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions suggest otherwise. In fact, according to this survey, some of the gun control lobby’s biggest asks for state and federal lawmakers…
CHAMPVA and Tricare are both federal government health care programs tied to military service. They are run by different federal agencies, cover different groups of people and operate on different cost structures. Confusing them is easy. Losing health care coverage because of that confusion is a real and preventable problem that affects veteran families every year. The single most important thing to understand before anything else: If you are eligible for Tricare, you are not eligible for CHAMPVA, the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs. They do not stack. If your circumstances change and you…
