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A $3 cold coin is expected to fetch $4 million when it goes up for auction next month. The 1870-S is one of just two ever made and is one of the rarest coins in US history. It was discovered in a San Francisco bookshop in 1997 by a European tourist, who found it glued to the inside pages of a souvenir book.

The Royal Canadian Mint just can't sit still. Like a hyperactive kid, it has revamped Canadian cash, first introducing plastic bills and then killing the penny. Now it wants people to play with glow-in-the-dark quarters. The mint's latest collectible coin features a dinosaur whose skeleton shines at night from beneath its scaly hide. It's actually two images on one face, which could be a world's first. The other side depicts Queen Elizabeth. Her Majesty does not glow in the dark. Made of cupronickel, the coin has a face value of 25 cents but is much larger than a regular Canuck...

Vice President Biden announced Tuesday that the U.S. Mint would discontinue production of presidential dollar coins. Stopping production of the coins is part of the Obama administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste. Biden’s announcement came at a Cabinet meeting focused on that campaign.

As Defense Secretary Leon Panetta prepares his recommendations for Pentagon budget cuts, he is likely to reduce the military's resources for future, large-scale counterinsurgency operations of the sort that were ballyhooed just a few years ago in Iraq and Afghanistan. The boom in "COIN," as these operations are known, has proved to be something of a bubble. Budget pressures have curbed the appetite for the ambitious, "protect-the-population" missions that were promoted with such enthusiasm by Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The focus increasingly is on raids by the tighter, more kinetic Special Operations Forces, which are seen as...

Small Weapons for Light Fighters In the recent weapon test campaign AT-6 completed firing of 2.75” unguided rockets, conducted captive carry test with guided 2.75" rockets and dropped general purpose bombs, four GBU-12, and four GBU-58 laser guided bombs (LGB - above), all LGBs scored direct hits. Additional tests are planned with other weapon types including Raytheon Griffin 35-lb. GPS/laser-guided bomb and Hellfire guided missile from Lockheed martin.. Under the U.S. Air National Guard evaluation of a future Light Attack and Armed Reconnaissance (LAAR) to be operated by the U.S. and Afghan air forces, the Air Force is seeking a...

South Africa's AHRLAC draws numerous potential buyers Craig Hoyle London 05:01 27 Sep 2011 South Africa's newly unveiled advanced high-performance reconnaissance light aircraft (AHRLAC) design has already attracted significant market interest, according to its main industrial backer. Paramount Group executive chairman Ivor Ichikowitz told Flightglobal that negotiations are already underway with several air forces in Africa, eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, with further interest also coming from other European nations. "The real interest is from the developed, first-world markets," he said. Early demand is being placed mostly on the proposed high-end, armed version of the aircraft, but...

South African arms company unveils first African-made military plane By: Gillian Gotora, The Associated Press PRETORIA, South Africa - The first military aircraft designed and built by African companies was unveiled Tuesday by a South African arms company which said it had already received orders for the lightweight plane. Ivor Ichikowitz, head of Johannesburg-based arms maker Paramount Group, called the plane a breakthrough, but experts said its simple design was similar to planes produced by other countries, and said it will have tough competition. Ichikowitz said the AHRLAC plane can be used for peacekeeping missions and reconnaissance and is armed...

Despite the headline, the US Government is not giving out frequent flyer miles to anyone with good credit. At least, not directly. The background: The United States government recently minted about $1 billion in gold coins. Each coin is worth a dollar, much like the well-known Sacagawea coin, and each one is printed with a different president. It was supposed to be part of a series of coins that would eventually feature every single president, but they’re only partway through the list. Unfortunately, they have been having trouble getting them into circulation, because no one really wants $1 coins all...

Politicians in Washington hardly let a few minutes go by without mentioning how broke the government is. So, it's a little surprising that they've created a stash of more than $1 billion that almost no one wants. Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007. And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate. The pile of idle...

In a better time, when the burdens of war were shared by an engaged nation and not shouldered exclusively by military families making up less than 1 percent of the population, the high farce that is the Afghanistan mission would have been obvious before President Obama uttered one word on Wednesday night. All you’d need to know is the story that came to light the day before. Turns out that the U.S. government has embraced a core tenet of sharia — that archaic corpus of Islamic law that Mitt Romney recently assured us would never gain traction in America. Patrick...

AT-6 Seen As Versatile Combat Aircraft By David Fulghum Washington The turboprop-powered T-6 Texan II began life as a trainer and then morphed into the AT-6 light attack aircraft for the Greek air force. Now, as the AT-6B/C, it is promising to become an inexpensive path to network-centric operations, precision strike and advanced surveillance for other air forces. Nor is there a foreseeable end to the development potential envisioned for the two-seater. It offers 1,600 shp, 5-6-hr. endurance and an A-10C cockpit—a combination that’s being created by the team of Hawker Beechcraft and Lockheed Martin. As for what a light...

Finders fail to become keepers as £100,000 worth of American money is returned to the family of its original owner The glass jar contained 80 American coins dating from 1854. Photograph: Hackney CouncilA hoard of gold coins found in Hackney by a local resident in 2007 does not qualify as treasure and should be returned to the descendent of the man who originally buried them, ruled an inquest last week (Monday 18 April).In 2007, Hackney resident Terence Castle was digging a frog pond with three others in a back garden in Stamford Hill when they struck suddenly struck gold, discovering...

U.S. Wants COIN Aircraft For Foreign Training By Graham Warwick, Bill Sweetman Washington, Washington For a time it looked as if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan might spark demand for dedicated counterinsurgency (COIN) aircraft, the way Vietnam gave new life to the A-1 Skyraider and spurred development of the OV-10 Bronco. A little more than two years ago, the U.S. Air Force envisioned operating a fleet of 100 light-attack/armed reconnaissance aircraft as part of a specialized irregular-warfare wing, and the Navy was evaluating an organic light-attack platform for its special operations forces. Now it looks unlikely that U.S. forces...

Fifty thousand Roman coins found in a field in Somerset, England, in 2010 (including the artifacts above) amount to the largest hoard of coins discovered in a single vessel—and the second largest hoard of ancient coins ever found in Britain, according to British Museum experts. The coins, along with recently discovered Iron Age gold jewelry—both found by amateur treasure hunters—will be acquired by museums, thanks to a series of grants and donations, officials recently announced. The coins will go to England's Museum of Somerset, which will put them on display after it reopens this summer. The haul, most of which...

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I first learned of John Bernard through Diana West (“ROE Are Merely Symptom of ‘Hearts and Minds’”) and the Stars and Stripes blog entry, “Photo of dying Marine forces a difficult decision.” Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan murdered Mr. Bernard’s son, Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard. Media outlets ignored his wishes and the wishes of the Department of Defense by running a photograph of his son as he lay dying from his wounds. This initially outraged me but because our nation bombards us with insult after insult, my outrage has subsided and now I simply keep this action in mind as the...

That's Kate Middleton? Critics Slam New Royal CoinCritics say Kate Middleton has a reason to be mad about her likeness. The Associated Press 12:05 p.m. EST, December 24, 2010 LONDON -- Britain's Royal Mint has released a commemorative coin featuring supposedly lifelike portraits of Prince William and his bride-to-be - but critics say Kate Middleton has a right to be horrified. Images of the couple on the memento bear little resemblance to either the prince or his 28-year-old betrothed. Middleton appears plump in the face and lips and has bags under her eyes. Some critics claim William looks like Al...

PICTURE: Air Tractor prangs precision strike demonstrator By John Croft A too-short landing at an Army reserve base in California caused substantial damage Air Tractor's AT-802U surveillance, precision strike and utility demonstrator aircraft on 21 October. According to a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report, a pilot and flight test engineer flying in the two-seat modified agricultural single at the time were testing maximum performance takeoffs and landings on the 1,829m (6,000ft) hard clay Schoonover runway at Fort Hunter Liggett California when the accident occurred. Neither was injured. ©NTSB "The pilot was attempting a short field landing and had full...

Complementing Air Support? Tanks In Afghanistan: Supplementing or Augmenting Air Power Via Direct Fire Support By Murielle Delaporte md@sldinfo.com Leopard 2 (www.forces.gc.ca) 12/09/2010 – M1A1 Abrams vs Leopard 2A6M? If the Canadians and the Danes regularly use their tanks in the Afghan theatre – respectively since 2006 and 2007 — the U.S. military leadership has always been reticent to imitate its allies out of fear to replay the scenario of the Soviet intervention in the eighties in the minds of the Afghan population. The Canadians were the very first ISAF members to deploy seventeen Leopards 1C2, which they had to...

Indonesia has reduced its original order of sixteen Brazilian EMB-314 Super Tucano aircraft, to eight. The Indonesian generals wanted sixteen, but the politicians, and budget realities, cut that in half. The Tucanos will replace twelve 1960s era American OV-10s. The two seat, 5.2 ton, single engine turbo prop Super Tucano will be used for COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations. It can fly low and slow, yet still has a 1,000 combat kilometer radius, five hour endurance, 600 kilometers per hour top speed, and a 35,000 foot ceiling. The Super Tucano armament consists of twin 12.7mm (.50 caliber) machine guns and nearly...