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CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Australia issued updates for two pivotal planning documents this week – its National Defence Strategy 2026 and Integrated Investment Program 2026 – while simultaneously promising a boost in defense spending.Defence Minister Richard Marles pledged defense accounts would receive an additional A$14 billion (US$10 billion) over the next four years, and an extra A$53 billion over the coming decade.The government is promising cumulative defense expenditure of A$887 billion over the coming decade. It also laid out an aim for defense spending to reach 3% of gross domestic product by 2033-34.This is the National Defence Strategy’s first revision…

The General Services Administration conducted staff cuts in 2025 without analyzing what skills it needed in order to fulfill its mission managing federal buildings, the top federal watchdog found in a new report, leaving the agency scrambling to address ensuing gaps in service. GSA’s Public Buildings Service oversees about 8,500 owned and leased government properties. As part of the Trump administration’s push to reduce the number of federal employees, the division went from more than 5,600 employees to approximately 3,100 over the course of 2025. The agency achieved these reductions mainly through voluntary separation incentives (such as the deferred resignation program) and…

In 1969, with the Cultural Revolution raging at home and tensions rising abroad, Chinese leader Mao Zedong instructed four elder military leaders to study the relationships between China and the world’s two superpowers. Using Mao’s theoretical framework of “contradictions,” which states that the struggle between opposing forces is what drives history forward, they posited that the contradiction between the United States and the Soviet Union was greater than that between China and the Soviet Union, which in turn was greater than that between China and the United States. In other words, the most powerful force shaping world politics was the…

Media release Thursday 16 April 2026 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese The Hon Anthony Albanese MP Prime Minister of Australia Senator the Hon Don Farrell Minister for Trade and Tourism Special Minister of State The Hon Chris Bowen MP Minister for Climate Change and Energy The Albanese Labor Government has secured approximately 100 million litres of additional diesel for Australians, with two shipments coming from Brunei and South Korea. This is the first of the expected shipments of fuel secured under the Government’s new Strategic Reserve powers. Under these new powers, Export Finance Australia (EFA) has partnered with Viva Energy to…

My coach Greg Jackson will not be coaching me on the White House fight for personal reasons,“ Hokit wrote on X. ”I don’t have a coach now … will the ring girls corner me please … tag them for me”Hokit is a massive favorite over “The Black Beast,” but could an upset be brewing here? Hokit isn’t going to be able to take much time off after absorbing a ton of punishment from Blaydes, and now he won’t have his main coach with him on fight night. That’s a risky recipe against the heaviest-handed man in UFC history, who will…

The Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower sustained a small fire on Tuesday while it was sidelined for maintenance. The carrier is currently at Naval Support Activity Portsmouth, Virginia, after arriving at Norfolk Naval Shipyard on Jan. 8 to begin planned incremental availability following a nine-month deployment.“Eight sailors were treated by ship’s medical and returned to full duty,” a Navy spokesperson told Military Times in an emailed statement.The small fire that occurred was immediately contained, the spokesperson said, and extinguished by ship and shipyard personnel.The Navy did not specify the cause of the fire.The Eisenhower “remains on track”…

U.S. officials have informed some European counterparts that some previously contracted weapons deliveries are likely to be delayed as the Iran war continues to draw on weapons stocks, five sources familiar with the matter said.The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the communications were not public, said several European countries will be affected, including in the Baltic region and in Scandinavia.Some of the weapons in question were purchased by European countries under the Foreign Military Sales program, or FMS, but have not yet been delivered, the sources added. Those deliveries will likely be delayed, U.S. officials told European…

Views of a US Army National Guard CH-47F Chinook helicopter landing. Credit: US Army photos/Boeing graphic. A US Army CH-47F Chinook helicopter has recently performed its first “fully automated approach and landing” using Boeing’s Approach-to-X (A2X) technology.   During the flight test, the helicopter touched down with all four wheels on the runway using Boeing’s Digital Automated Flight Control System (DAFCS) software.   Discover B2B Marketing That Performs Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms. Find out more The manoeuvre was completed without any pilot interaction, Boeing stated.  The A2X software is designed to lower pilot workload and enable “automated tactical approaches” in line with pilot flight…

The Atlantic alliance can no longer be managed through reassurance, communiqués, or the fiction that its internal tensions are political noise. They are structural. Mark Rutte’s recent visit to Washington made that clear. NATO requires rebalancing: a more credible distribution of responsibility, capability, and strategic weight across the alliance.Beneath this lies a growing crisis of trust. Europeans no longer simply ask whether the United States will stay engaged; they worry that ambiguity or sudden shifts in Washington could hollow out deterrence and tempt adversaries to test what was once an ironclad commitment. Unequal burden‑sharing has shifted from a long‑running grievance…

We’re now less than two weeks away from the next big fighting game launch in Invincible VS, and some adjustments are being made from what people just experienced in it. Following Invincible VS’s open beta last week, Executive Producer Mike Willette recently put together a recap going over what they learned from the test and what needs changing. One issue many players ran into was a surprising amount of rage…