Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The U.S. Navy is rolling out retention bonuses for select active-duty aviation billets in an effort to retain skilled personnel in certain mission-critical roles, the service announced. “The AC Aviation Command Retention Bonus (ACRB) program incentivizes highly talented, hardworking Naval Aviators and Naval Flight Officers (NFO) screened for aviation command to choose to remain on Active Duty,” a NavAdmin released Friday states. “Our return on investment is the retention for continued Naval Service of our aviation warfighters, with their invaluable, irreplaceable skillsets and leadership.”Bonuses start at $37,000 and cap at $150,000, according to the memo. Applicants “must have screened during…

Imagine an alternate near-future in which the U.S. military had more vigorously pursued the development of hypersonic weapons. When a major U.S. Air Force exercise deploys such weapons to Guam, Tinian, and Saipan, it surprises Chinese military leaders who believed that U.S. hypersonic missile development had been stymied by underfunded research, technological gaps, and a lack of prioritization. This month’s Fictional Intelligence is a “what if” thought experiment that takes the form of a memo on this stunning turn of events, written by a colonel in the PLA Intelligence Bureau of the Joint Staff of the Central Military Commission. In this…

In my journey towards finding a more positive outlook on games, one of the struggles I have found most common when writing for Strategy and Wargaming (and doing the whole thing, in fact), is how serious the whole gaming industry takes itself, for no apparent reason, with every small bit and mistake being picked apart by everyone. This led to me, eventually, being a lot more carefully with what I put out there in terms of content, and this is made even more sensitive when you’re one of the few outlets still covering a niche such as this, and there’s…

Jaime Oberlander was a foreign service officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development stationed in Ethiopia last year when administration officials folded USAID into the State Department, resulting in nearly all USAID employees losing their jobs. She said the layoffs hit employees serving overseas—and their families—particularly hard.“You’re being forced to make this huge international move with not a lot of information, changing guidance, not a lot of the resources needed for that level of move when you have to set up housing, set up schooling, set up these things all again,” she said. For example, Oberlander questioned if her family…

SOF News: Drone Monthly Update – July 2026 | Small Wars Journal by Arizona State University wpDiscuzInsert

MMA Fighting has UFC Belgrade results for the Uros Medic vs. Daniel Rodriguez fight, a live blog for the main event, and more from Belgrade Arena in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday afternoon.In the main event, No. 15-ranked welterweight Uros Medic looks to continue his climb up the charts as he takes on veteran Daniel Rodriguez. Medic has rattled off three straight knockout wins, all in the first round, and takes on the returning Rodrigue, who is eager to get back on track following an eight-month stint in a Mexican prison.Former UFC champion Jan Blachowicz and Navajo Stirling square off in…

The press up is one of the simplest and most effective exercises you can perform. It requires no equipment, can be done almost anywhere, and develops strength, muscular endurance, joint stability, and body control. Despite its simplicity, many people have no idea how many press ups they should actually be able to perform. The answer depends on your age, sex, training experience, and body weight. A competitive gymnast and someone who has never exercised obviously have very different standards. However, scientific research and large population datasets allow us to establish realistic performance benchmarks that most healthy adults can use. Being…

The Trump administration has finalized a major overhaul to federal employees’ avenues for disputing adverse actions, while also revising how agencies prioritize which employees to retain — or remove — during reductions in force. Taken together, a host of final rules that the Office of Personnel Management issued on Friday mean that federal employees will now, in many cases, have to appeal their case to OPM if they believe their agency wrongfully terminated them — transitioning the deciding authority away from the Merit Systems Protection Board, where it has been for decades. Going forward, OPM will retain the “sole and…

Strike VOA Handguard for the Beretta 1301TAC Now Fully Compatible with the A300 Ultima Patrol Strike Industries has introduced an adapter which makes their Strike VOA Handguard for the Beretta 1301TAC compatible with the A300 Ultima Patrol. Offered in Black and FDE, it is manufactured from a hard-anodized 6061-T6 aluminum extrusion which is then CNC milled. Features: Aggressive Ridges for Dexterity and Enhanced Weapon Manipulation M-LOK Rail System AT 10, 2, AND 6 O’clock Positions for Mounting Accessories 4 AntiRotating QD Sockets / Two at the Front and Rear of the Handguard Handguard Bottom Rear End Is Angled to Prevent…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency next week will kick off its inaugural Lift Challenge, a weeklong competition that aims to “revolutionize heavy vertical-lift aviation” by finding a drone capable of lifting and transporting a payload four times its own weight. The agency will award $6.5 million in prizes to the winners. Phillip “Donna” Smith, the Lift Challenge program manager and a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, said that multirotor drones are limited in their usability because of their low payload-to-weight ratios, meaning they can only transport a payload equal to or less than their own weight. “This…