Free Republic

SINGAPORE (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reassured allies in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday that they will not be left alone to face increasing military and economic pressure from China, while insisting that they also contribute more to their own defense. He said Washington will bolster its defenses overseas to counter what the Pentagon sees as rapidly developing threats by Beijing, particularly in its aggressive stance toward Taiwan. China has conducted numerous exercises to test what a blockade would look like of the self-governing island, which Beijing claims as its own and the U.S. has pledged to defend. China’s...

References to a World War II Medal of Honor recipient, the Enola Gay aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan and the first women to pass Marine infantry training are among the tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge diversity, equity and inclusion content, according to a database obtained by The Associated Press. The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher....

A journalist with The Associated Press thought she had a big scoop. Little did she know she would have to be scooped off the ground after being obliterated in a fact-check by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.FAA staff fired over the weekend included personnel that worked radar, landing and navigational aid maintenance, among others. Hundreds were fired, just weeks after a fatal mid-air collision in DC killed 67. One employee said they were harassed on Facebook by @DOGE… — Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) February 17, 2025 More fake news from the @AP 1. DOGE doesn’t even have a Facebook page...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday will visit the Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces. He is expected to go to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant to kick off a busy week in the United States shoring up support for Ukraine in the war, according to two U.S. officials and a third familiar with Zelenskyy’s schedule who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that were not yet public. He also will address the U.N. General Assembly annual gathering in New...

The Pentagon could get weapons moving to Ukraine within days if Congress passes a long-delayed aid bill. That's because it has a network of storage sites in the U.S. and Europe that already hold the ammunition and air defense components that Kyiv desperately needs. -snip- If about $61 billion in funding for the war-torn country gets the green light, “we have a very robust logistics network that enables us to move material very quickly,” Ryder told reporters Thursday. “We can move within days.”

Ukrainian troops are probing Russian defenses as spring gives way to a second summer of fighting, and Kyiv's forces are facing an enemy that has made mistakes and suffered setbacks in the 15-month-old war. But analysts say Moscow also has learned from those blunders and improved its weapons and skills.Russia has built heavily fortified defenses along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, honed its electronic weapons to reduce Ukraine's edge in combat drones, and turned heavy bombs from its massive Cold-War-era arsenal into precision-guided gliding munitions capable of striking targets without putting its warplanes at risk.The changing Russian tactics along with...

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AP) — Ukraine will have to wait longer to find out if it will get advanced German-made battle tanks. A dispute over sending the tanks from Western allies to help Ukraine against Russia’s invasion played out both in public and private on Friday, as more than 50 defense leaders meeting in Germany failed to hammer out an agreement — stalled by Berlin’s hesitation. Failure to reach agreement on what has become an urgent request from Ukrainian leaders largely overshadowed commitments from a number of nations — including the U.S. — to send billions of dollars in...

A Lockheed Martin honcho refuses to explain a video splashed on social media showing a UFO saucer-like aircraft being wheeled into a top-secret US military base. "I can't [speak about it]," said a grinning Jeff Babione, Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works Vice President and General Manager when asked about the extraterrestrial tech... ..Babione was asked about security protocols at Skunk Works' facility. "We're good," Babione said, according to The Drive. Another chat between Defense One's Tara Copp and Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown tried to get answers about the object. But Brown only said that he was...

KISS lead singer Gene Simmons visited the Pentagon Thursday for a very different mission from entertaining fans since the 1970s in a band famous for wild pyrotechnic displays on stage. Instead, Simmons spoke emotionally about what the country means to him. “I’m a proud son of a concentration camp survivor of Nazi Germany. My mother was 14 when she was in the camps,” he said. She died recently at the age of 93.

Seventy-two years after eight airmen in the B-24 Liberator Hot as Hell crashed in violent weather over India during World War II, part of the crew began their final journey home after a full-honors ceremony Wednesday, April 13, 2016, at Air Force Station Palam in New Delhi, India. TARA COPP/STARS AND STRIPES AIR FORCE STATION PALAM, NEW DELHI, India — Seventy-two years after eight airmen in the B-24 Liberator Hot as Hell crashed in violent weather over India, part of the crew has begun the final journey home. In a full-honors ceremony Wednesday at New Delhi’s airport, Secretary of Defense...

AUSTIN Headliners Club roasts Rove Presidential adviser takes ribbing from both sides of aisle. By Tara Copp AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, January 13, 2006 To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Austin Headliners Club, members roasted a prolific hometown newsmaker: presidential adviser Karl Rove. Since it was opened decades ago, the Headliners Club has been a high-cotton watering hole for Texas' press and politicians — where folks made news whether they meant to or not, amid the heady mix of free-flowing liquor and ideas. Both were in overdrive Thursday night. Mark McKinnon, who developed President Bush's media campaign in 2000...