Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs Chairman, on Wednesday called on China to help the US and its allies counter growing security challenges created by North Korea’s aggression. “Now is the time for Beijing to step up . . . and help guide the North, and indeed, the entire region, toward a better future,” he said during a joint news conference in Seoul, South Korea, with Gen. Han Min-goo, South Korean military chairman. Mullen said North Korea’s “relentlessness and reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons . . . destabilizes the entire region.” Late last month, US and South Korean naval forces exercised in the Yellow Sea following North Korea’s unprovoked artillery attack on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. The Air Force also dispatched JSTARS ground-surveillance aircraft to the area. (AFPS report by Donna Miles)
Gene Smith, Former POW and AFA Chair, Dies at 91
Jan. 19, 2026
Lt. Col. Richard “Gene” Smith, who overcame five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973, died Jan. 16. He was one day short of his 91st birthday.
