The Israeli military’s departure from southern Gaza over the weekend has left the devastated territory in a state of suspense as active fighting there receded on Monday to its lowest ebb since a brief truce with Hamas in November. But even as some observers hoped Israel’s withdrawal from the area might portend a new cease-fire, both Hamas and Israeli officials suggested the war was not yet over.
Shaving waivers for medical conditions have skyrocketed for Air Force Airmen and Space Force Guardians over the past three years, allowing more service members to grow beards, according to service data provided to Military.com. Between 2021 and 2023, the number of active-duty Airmen with shaving waivers due to pseudofolliculitis barbae, a skin condition causing frequent and painful razor burn that disproportionately affects Black men, has grown from 10,965 to 18,991, the Department of the Air Force data shows.
The Navy is hoping that it can buy “cooperative combat aircraft” for about $15 million per system and not pump money into long-term sustainment, according to the program executive officer for unmanned aviation and strike weapons. The sea service is aiming to acquire AI-enabled drones that are “consumable,” Rear Adm. Stephen Tedford said April 8 during a briefing at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space conference.
Two people died and 10 aircraft were destroyed in aviation-related mishaps in fiscal 2023 as the Air Force’s most serious accidents hit a five-year high. The latest milestone was driven by a jump in the deadliest and most expensive accidents, most of which occurred in flight. But an Air Force Times analysis of the service’s safety data found that even as the number of airborne mishaps has plateaued, a spike in maintenance-related incidents has cost the Air Force millions of dollars and—increasingly often—injured Airmen on the job as well.
After decades of enjoying authority over how the US defense enterprise and Intelligence Community get access to satellite-gathered intelligence, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is in the midst of battle on two fronts to protect its turf in the heavens, each of which threatens to chip away at the storied agency’s founding purpose.
The Defense Department is directing investments towards a cadre of newer entrants in the solid rocket motors market. These bets on new suppliers come amid concerns about overreliance on a shrinking pool of domestic suppliers and a surge in demand for these solid rocket motors, a key component in hypersonic weapons, conventional and nuclear missiles. U.S. defense programs are now entirely dependent on Northrop Grumman and L3Harris, which acquired Aerojet Rocketdyne last year, for solid rocket motors. Unlike their liquid-fueled counterparts, these rocket engines use a solid propellant—a stick of fuel and oxidizer pre-mixed and molded into a specific shape.
The great strategic reorientation of the past decade—from counterterrorism to great power competition—is now unfolding against changes in the conduct of war itself. Air Force leaders are working to meet the challenges through a dramatic reorganization, rethinking how to deploy forces, and a renewed focus on uncrewed systems and next-gen technologies.
A legislative proposal from the Air Force to shift National Guard space operations directly into the Space Force would create a significant strategic and tactical gap in national security, top National Guard officials told reporters April 9. “When they transition out of the National Guard to the Active-duty, there’s nobody to take that mission right now,” Illinois Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Richard Neely said during a media roundtable to discuss completion of the Vulcan Guard Space Exercise.
Canada has pledged to increase national military spending by $5.9 billion over the next five years but that spending still will fail to meet the NATO target of contributing 2 percent GDP on defense funding until after 2030, at the earliest. The multiyear commitment was announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on April 8 as part of a new national defense policy paper.
Rocket Lab USA will launch a group of experimental payloads to very low earth orbit (VLEO) in April 2026 as part of a newly awarded $14.49 million task order from the U.S. Space Force. The service’s Small Launch and Targets Division awarded the contract to Rocket Lab for the Space Test Program-S30 launch service, an effort within Space Systems Command encompassing research experiments and technology demonstrations to guide future development.
Boeing is on track to stabilize its finances, but new leadership, a potential major acquisition, labor negotiations and tougher regulatory oversight over its quality controls and production could add uncertainty to its efforts. The aircraft manufacturer expects a cash hit of between $4 billion and $4.5 billion for the first quarter as a result of a production slowdown following a midair accident on an Alaska Airlines flight in January, Chief Financial Officer Brian West said at a conference last month.
Shield AI in the next year plans to have its Hivemind digital pilot working aboard three additional types of aircraft, bringing the total to nine. The California-based company has already folded the autonomous flight software into three classes of quadcopters, its own V-Bat drone, the F-16 fighter jet, and the Kratos-made MQM-178 Firejet drone. Up next are two more Kratos products, the XQ-58 and BQM-177, according to Brandon Tseng, the president of Shield AI. The firm has not picked a third candidate.
Searching for America’s unaccounted service members, last known as a prisoner of war (POW) or missing in action (MIA), is no easy task. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is charged with the sacred duty of locating the unaccounted for and has announced six service members now accounted for, along with the service members’ families briefed, within the past two weeks.
