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A specialist Royal Air Force regiment counter-drone unit in Belgium, boosting security after an urgent plea for help with drone incursions. Credit: Crown Copyright / UK Ministry of Defence. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced its entry into a new European project to develop a new surface-to-air weapon A lightweight, affordable weapon is needed to down uncrewed air systems (UAS) and missiles UK entry comes ahead of the postponed Defence Investment Plan (DIP), which will provide a cost breakdown for its strategic ambitions The UK Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, revealed plans to collaborate with…

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) is developing the addition of long-range standoff weapons to its top-of-the-line MQ-9B SkyGuardian® and SeaGuardian®. GA-ASI press release Demand continues from naval and air warfighters for platforms that can hold targets at risk from great ranges, especially over the expanses of air and water in the Western Pacific. That’s why GA-ASI engineers have begun the work of adapting MQ-9B’s payload, stability, range and other features to accommodate the new generation of extended-range precision weapons. “MQ-9B continues to impress in the field and we keep adding to our global customer list,” said GA-ASI President David R.…

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holds a briefing following another night of Russian strikes on 22 February. Credit: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via X An apparent terrorist bombing in the western city of Lviv over the weekend raised the prospect of increased threat to civilians The prospect of localised attacks conducted by people recruited by Russia is the latest evolution of the four-year-old war Hopes that a US-brokered peace deal can be agreed in 2026 remain, although significant obstacles persist The four-year anniversary of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine will be marked with faint but persistent hope for a potential cessation of…

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would deploy a hospital ship to Greenland, alleging that many people there are sick and not receiving care, even though both of the U.S. Navy’s hospital ships are currently docked at a shipyard in Alabama.Trump’s announcement prompted a defense on Sunday of Denmark and Greenland’s health care system from their leaders, and it was the latest point of friction with the American leader who has frequently talked about seizing the massive Arctic territory.“It’s a no thank you from here,” said Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.Trump’s social media post about a hospital ship came after…

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly employed as judges to evaluate open-ended outputs from AI systems in benchmarking and evaluation tasks. Prior work has shown that automated LLM judges (a.k.a. autograders) can approach human-level agreement in evaluating open-ended text responses, often outperforming traditional metrics. However, research also highlights reliability concerns: prompt sensitivity, verbosity bias, self-preference bias, miscalibration, and hallucination. Recent studies confirm that a simple rubric-based autograder performed as well or better than more complex methods across multiple domains, while being orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than non-expert human graders. This underscores the need not for more complex graders,…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. The U.S. Air Force has given us our first look at one of Anduril’s YFQ-44 Fury ‘fighter drone’ prototypes carrying an inert AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). “The Air Force has entered the next phase of developmental testing for its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, initiating disciplined weapons integration and captive carry evaluations using inert test munitions to validate airworthiness, safety, and systems performance,” according to an Air Force press release put out this evening. “This milestone represents a deliberate…

The U.S. Air Force and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. recently completed a successful manned-unmanned teamed demonstration between an F-22 Raptor and an MQ-20 Avenger unmanned aircraft, advancing the integration of autonomous systems into tactical fighter operations, according to a Feb. 23 company release. The live-flight exercise, conducted at Edwards Air Force Base in California, featured a human-piloted F-22 issuing real-time commands to the MQ-20 via advanced autonomy software and a tactical data link. The Avenger drone responded by executing a range of mission tasks, including waypoint navigation, combat air patrol patterns and simulated engagement of airborne threats, functioning as…

Iran Press TV Sunday, 22 February 2026 10:16 AM Sudan’s mining sector has incurred $7 billion in losses as the country’s 34-month-long war continues to disrupt operations, the national minerals authority reports. Ahmed Haroun al-Tom, Director of the General Authority for Geological Research, said in a statement on Saturday that “the losses of the mining sector in Sudan due to the war amounted to about $7 billion.” Sudan’s public and private sectors have been subjected to looting and sabotage due to the conflict, leading to the total or partial loss of infrastructure and losses ranging from millions to billions of…

Sean Strickland entered UFC Houston as a sizable underdog, but he delivered, quite possibly, the best performance of his entire career stopping Anthony Hernandez in the third round of their middleweight main event matchup. Where does Strickland go, and could it be ahead Nassourdine Imavov in the title conversation?On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what’s next for Strickland after his spectacular performance at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card over Hernandez. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Uros Medic after his thrilling knockout of Geoff Neal in the…

Bottom lines up front Prominent in recent assassinations, terrorist plots, nation-state research programs, and lethal accidents, toxins are not a danger relegated to the past but persist as a current threat. And the risk is expanding, as toxins remain accessible, difficult to detect and attribute, and potentially easier to weaponize due to advances in artificial intelligence. Governments must prioritize toxin biodefense, investing in biological attribution, rapid diagnostics, and biosurveillance to detect and respond to intentional, accidental, and natural toxin exposures. WASHINGTON—From the rolling hills of California to the bustling cities of India, the households of Australia, and frozen penal colonies…