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The news today that the Government Accountability Office has upheld Boeing's protest of an Air Force tanker contract award given to Northrop Grumman and EADS means that the $40 billion deal remains in doubt. Which is very good news for the campaign coffers of members of Congress. The Boeing vs. Northrop Grumman fight, which has played out publicly in dueling lobbying campaigns, hasn't just pitted two aerospace behemoths against each other. It's also been a matchup of two of the most generous political donors on Capitol Hill. The Boeing Political Action Committee has made just over $1 million worth of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. auditors urged the Air Force Wednesday to rerun its marathon, $35 billion competition for refueling aircraft, upholding a protest by losing bidder Boeing Co (BA.N). The Government Accountability Office found the Air Force made "a number of significant errors that could have affected the outcome of what was a close competition between" Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N). "We therefore sustained Boeing's protest," Michael Golden, head of the a GAO bid protest unit, said in a statement. Northrop was teamed with EADS, parent of rival passenger-jet maker Airbus. EADS (EAD.PA) had no immediate comment. --snip-- The...

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates summarily fired the top civilian and military Air Force officials last week, the reason he gave was a grave failure of leadership with respect to that service’s nuclear missions. The low priority assigned by the Pentagon to its nuclear stewardship responsibilities is systemic and acute. Consequently, this act of accountability is both warranted and a needed wake-up call to all the armed forces. As it happens, there is another ground on which the dismissal of Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne could be justified. He was specifically brought in to clean up Air Force procurement, but...

Loren Thompson, the well-regarded defense analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, has taken heat from Boeing backers over his reports about the Air Force tanker decision. But in his latest report, Thompson echoes many of Boeing's concerns about the decision.

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush may restore something of the United States' battered image and standing overseas, but that "the magic is over." In a wide-ranging conversation with Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune at the launch of a Forum for New Diplomacy in Paris, Kouchner on Tuesday also held out the hope of talking with Hamas, the Palestinian faction that rules the Gaza Strip but has been ostracized by the West and by its Palestinian rival,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing's loss of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus. There are other targets for their ire - the Air Force, the defense secretary and even the entire Bush administration. But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing now will miss out on a...

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Finance ministers from euro nations said Monday they were "concerned" about the strength of their currency as it hit an all-time high against the U.S. dollar. The euro purchased as much as $1.5266 in afternoon European trading, topping the previous record of $1.5238 it hit on Friday on speculation of a U.S. interest rate hike this month. The rising euro makes German cars and French champagne and other European Union exports increasingly expensive for the union's major trading partner, the United States. "In the present circumstances we face, we are concerned about excessive exchange rate moves,"...

JOBS at Airbus in Broughton are secure after the company scooped a £20bn deal with the U.S Air Force (USAF).

PALMDALE - Six years after the contract was first awarded, Northrop Grumman Corp. employees Friday marked another milestone along the path to fielding the nation's next fighter, the F-35 Lightning II. The center fuselage for the first Air Force near-production version of the fighter was unveiled Friday at the company's Palmdale Manufacturing Center. The fuselage incorporates design changes made during development to decrease weight in the final fighter. "This is starting a new phase for what will be a very unique fighter capability," said Air Force Maj. Gen. C.R. Davis, program executive officer for the F-35. The latest - and...

PALMDALE - Sen. Dianne Feinstein toured Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Palmdale Manufacturing Center on Thursday, learning of projects from upgrades for the proven B-2 stealth bomber to the company's latest endeavor, a demonstration version of an unmanned aircraft capable of operating from an aircraft carrier. snip Feinstein visited the site during production of the B-2s in the early 1990s, and praised the bomber for its successful operations since that time. snip Among the programs Feinstein learned about Thursday is the company's newest, the X-47B. Earlier this month, Northrop Grumman was awarded a $635.8 million contract from the Navy to demonstrate an...

PALMDALE - Northrop Grumman employees have begun work on a $171 million contract to develop and demonstrate a new extremely high frequency satellite communications system that eventually would enable B-2 stealth bombers to send and receive battlefield information up to 100 times faster than now. Expected to last more than five years and to be done in three phases, the first system design and development phase consists primarily of engineering work that will be based in Palmdale, with flight testing likely to be at Edwards Air Force Base\. "This SDD contract provides significant momentum for the work Northrop Grumman and...

WASHINGTON - While no longer the dominant economic force in the Antelope Valley, the area's aerospace industry is still a vital part of the economy. Leaders of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade heard largely positive reports from representatives of the major aerospace companies during their annual visit to the nation's capital this week. In visits to the Washington offices of The Boeing Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. - they received updates on the companies' ongoing work at Palmdale's Air Force Plant 42 and Edwards Air Force Base and prospects for its continuance. One new topic...

Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) shareholders may get a say on executive pay after all. The Los Angeles defense company had sought to block a vote on the matter at its 2007 annual meeting, but regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission rejected that, saying "we do not believe that Northrop Grumman may omit the proposal from its proxy materials" for the annual meeting on May 16. Northrop spokesman Daniel McClain confirmed the company had received the SEC staff's response in a Feb. 14, letter, and said the firm plans to include the proposal in proxy-voting materials. The proposal calls for...

Defanging Hezbollah: A Directed Energy Defense Could Help by James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., and David D. Gentilli WebMemo #1169 July 20, 2006 | Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks have killed and wounded dozens of Israelis, destroyed property, and sent thousands to bomb shelters. They threaten to plunge the entire region into conflict. There is a way to shoot these missiles out of the sky, limiting the danger to innocents and mitigating the serious threat of one of the region’s most dangerous terrorist groups. The U.S. Army and Israeli Defense Ministry have a joint program that has developed a high-energy laser that...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. A Louisville publisher will face incumbent Anne Northup in the Third District congressional race in the fall. John Yarmuth defeated Iraq war veteran Andrew Horne in tonight's primary for the Third District. The third is made up of Louisville and Jefferson County. With 80 percent of precincts reporting, Yarmuth had 54 percent (22,759) of the vote, to Horne's 33 percent (13,834). Northup -- a Republican -- has held the seat for five terms. Yarmuth publishes LEO, a weekly alternative magazine. Two other candidates in the Democratic primary, James Moore, an engineer, and perennial candidate Burrel Charles Farnsley combined...

Global defense firm Northrop Grumman Corp. will compete against the Boeing Co. for a multi-billion-dollar Air Force contract that could bring thousands of jobs to San Diego during several decades. ...Northrop is proposing a KC-30 Advanced Multi-Role Tanker Transport for air refueling, and cargo and passenger transport that is based on the A330 commercial aircraft made of lightweight composites.

As plans are announced for the possible successor to the space shuttle, area supporters are stepping up efforts to ensure that this spacecraft shares the same birthplace as the soon-to-be-retired orbiters. NASA has announced plans for a new system for manned space travel to take the place of the space shuttles, set to end their service in 2010. The same criteria that brought development of the space shuttles to the Antelope Valley - all five space orbiters and their prototype were built at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale - remain viable reasons for that craft's successor to be built...

PALMDALE - Production will be ramping up at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Palmdale manufacturing facility as the result of a $272 million contract for four additional Global Hawk unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and their associated ground systems. The Air Force contract is for the new "B" model of Global Hawk, a larger version capable of carrying greater payloads and more sensor equipment than the first version, Northrop Grumman spokeswoman Revelle Anderson said. Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned aerial reconnaissance system designed to provide military field commanders with high-resolution, near-real-time imagery of large geographic areas. It is designed to fly to...

Even as NASA prepares to return to space with the space shuttle, efforts are under way to ensure the agency's next manned spacecraft will share the same California birthplace. Each of the five space shuttle orbiters and one test vehicle were built at the Rockwell International - now The Boeing Co. - facility at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale. Now, NASA has awarded contracts to two teams in a competition to develop and build a replacement spacecraft, the crew exploration vehicle. Both teams, one headed by Lockheed Martin and the other a joint project of Northrop Grumman Corp. and...

Over today's battlefields, unmanned aerial vehicles such as Global Hawk and Predator are already showing their usefulness in gathering information for planners on the ground and, in limited situations, delivering weapons on targets. The battlefield of tomorrow may see even more of these unmanned weapons systems, delivering initial strikes on well-defended targets and capable of working in teams and reacting and adapting to changing circumstances - all on their own. That scenario is the ultimate goal of the Pentagon's Joint Unmanned Combat Air System, or J-UCAS, a program intended to develop and prove the technologies necessary to field such weapons...