Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

Harrison Schoen spent three months on the USS New Orleans staring at the ocean, watching for anyone who might fall overboard, when he decided his life needed to change. That decision eventually led him to a spotlight moment on national television, where he turned down $1 million rather than betray 60 strangers who had trusted him with the choice. Enlisting in January 2016, Schoen served four years as a logistics specialist aboard the USS New Orleans and the USS Theodore Roosevelt before separating in January 2020. It was during a deployment on the New Orleans, however, standing lookout watch for…

The arrival of low-cost, high-resolution and wide field-of-view head mounted displays combined with high-definition XR visual systems has revolutionised training. Such systems provide a new era of portable training that can be used at the conventional training centre or deployed on operations for air, land and sea training applications. nVIDIA defines Extended Reality (XR) as an umbrella or collective term that encompasses a spectrum of immersive technologies that include Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR). Focussing more closely on these technologies, VR immerses the user in a virtual environment; AR sees VR rendered images overlaid on…

The Pentagon on Friday fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence. It was the latest move by an administration that has grown increasingly aggressive toward the news media. The newspaper’s publisher, who announced his impending retirement days ago, was also dismissed. Erik Slavin, editor-in-chief of the military newspaper that is partly funded by the Pentagon, told The Associated Press he was dismissed for insubordination after an interview he gave that…

Okay, confession time. This list has been sitting in our drafts since 2022 (it happens). But we didn’t want to just delete it, because the funny thing about a good strategy game is that it doesn’t really go stale. Our editors each picked the 2022 release that stuck with them the most, and a few years on those games have only gotten more complete and a lot cheaper. So consider this less a “best of 2022” and more a handful of great strategy games you might have missed, most of which are probably on sale right now. Here’s what our…

LAUSANNE, Switzerland & ROSKILDE, Denmark — Hydromea and SepcoTech A/S have entered into a commercial partnership for Scandinavia. Under the agreement, SepcoTech will represent Hydromea’s EXRAY subsea inspection system across the region, initially focusing on naval, defense, maritime, and offshore applications. EXRAY is designed to inspect submerged and enclosed areas that are difficult, costly, or unsafe to access with divers or conventional tethered ROVs — such as ballast tanks, internal structures, and other flooded confined spaces aboard naval vessels and maritime assets. The system combines two coordinated vehicles: a tethered “mothership” ROV, which operates in open or turbid water for…

Darren Till is hoping to land back on the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) roster at some point down the road and he’s looking to score some big fights when he gets there.In case you haven’t been watching, Till has experienced a bit of a career resurgence since parting ways with UFC back in early 2023. The former UFC welterweight title challenger left UFC on a three-fight losing skid and appeared to be on the tail end of his combat career. Fortunately for Till, he’s been able to build himself back up with a 5-0 record across appearances in boxing and…

The Instructor Training Group (ITG) of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) is one of the Army’s most influential training assets. Based at Fort Benning, Georgia, the ITG delivers expert small-arms instruction to servicemembers across the force, ensuring marksmanship fundamentals, coaching skills and weapons proficiency remain at the highest possible standard. Mission and Core Purpose The ITG’s mission is to increase small-arms lethality across the force by training servicemembers and developing instructors who can return to their units and elevate marksmanship programs. As part of USAMU’s broader training mission, the ITG provides: • Mobile training teams that travel worldwide. •…

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – JULY 11: Conor McGregor of Ireland warms up prior to his fight during the UFC 329 event at T-Mobile Arena on July 11, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC) Welcome to Midnight Mania! Let’s start the night off by taking a look back over the three biggest stories of Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. 41-year-old Rafael dos Anjos returns to action after two years at UFC 332: I’d love to see Rafael dos Anjos still in good fighting form, but it’s hard to be optimistic after THREE knee surgeries in the last two…

HONOLULU — Faster intelligence gathering and analysis enabled by AI is allowing special operators to pull off missions that would have been impossible years ago, U.S. Special Operations Command leader Adm. Frank Bradley, said Wednesday. But malign actors empowered by simple AI tools are undermining military and civilian leaders’ confidence in digital information, he said. That credibility decay, raising doubt about what is and is not true, will affect not just operations but the ability of the United States to “generate that unity of effort” to deter or defend against adversarial attack, he said. “I have been plagued by my own…

The Pentagon took major action against Stars and Stripes on Friday, firing its publisher, editor and a Middle East reporter. The Aug. 21 terminations included publisher Max Lederer Jr., editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte, announced by the publication itself while the outgoing staffers vowed to maintain editorial independence. Slavin, who told CBS News in a July interview that he stood by the publication’s “editorial independence” and not kowtowing to the Pentagon’s agenda or control, told the publication following his firing that he received a notice of proposed separation and is reviewing it. Slavin became editor in 2025 after…