Author: thaobh.leo@gmail.com

The biggest turn-based RPG news from August 17–23, 2026. Here is a new column I’d like to stick to for the next days, weeks, and months. A recap of all the major news from the last week, so you can have everything relevant in one place. I swear, I’ll try my best to be consistent. I thought this might be a relatively quiet week before Gamescom. It wasn’t. We got the final trailer for one of the biggest tactical games of the year, a surprisingly interesting discussion surrounding Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the reputation of turn-based RPGs, new Dragon…

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A plane that crashed at a remote military site in western Alaska, killing all eight people on board, was making its second runway approach in heavy fog when it lost contact, authorities said Friday. The Cessna’s two pilots could not see the gravel airstrip and were flying solely by instruments when the plane crashed about midday Thursday, Clint Johnson, the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska region chief, told a virtual news conference. Regulations required that they abort their first landing attempt because of the lack of visibility, he said, and the plane crashed on its second…

The Trump administration’s losses keep piling up in grievance cases over its return to office and telework policies for union employees. The latest loss came earlier this week when an arbitrator ruled that the Agriculture Department violated its collective bargaining agreement and committed unfair labor practices when it ended its telework and mandated Rural Development Agency employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) return to the office without negotiating the terms first. Margaret Donaghy, the arbitrator in this case, found USDA “committed unfair labor practices (ULPs) when it engaged in bad faith bargaining and…

Provide Duty Rifle Ammunition to Top Nordic Police Agencies Federal Ammunition, a member of The Kinetic Group owned by the industrial-technology group CSG, has been selected by the Nordic Police to supply duty and training ammunition. The Nordic Police, comprising Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland, selected Federal’s proven 62-grain Tactical Bonded load to support their .223 Remington duty ammunition requirements. The duty rifle ammunition contract provides for the supply of up to 35 million rounds to these agencies over seven years. In addition, Federal’s 5.56mm, 55-grain Disintegrator Jacketed Frangible was selected as the reduced-hazard training ammunition for the Nordic…

As a major North Atlantic NATO navy, the UK Royal Navy (RN) operates at the forefront of Alliance efforts to deter and defend against Russia’s resurgent underwater threat. Today, the RN is integrating traditional crewed anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platforms with emerging maritime uncrewed system (MUS) capabilities into a ‘hybrid navy’ force structure that will deliver – in North Atlantic terms – the ‘Atlantic fleet’ operational outputs series. In one of these ‘fleet’ areas – the  underwater-focused ‘Atlantic Bastion’ – ‘real-world’ Russian activities are illustrating the multi-faceted nature of both the threat and required response. For NATO, Russia’s underwater threat has traditionally…

Report August 21, 2026 • 12:25 pm ET Print this page By Atlantic Council experts Billions of dollars are expected to be pledged for Gaza’s reconstruction. But without a trusted way to move, monitor, and spend that money, funding alone will not rebuild the Palestinian economy. Gaza’s reconstruction requires secure, efficient channels to move capital at scale. Estimates put reconstruction needs above $70 billion, yet 93 percent of bank branches and 88 percent of microfinance institutions are inoperable. Liquidity shortages have pushed Gazans toward informal intermediaries charging high fees, while the wider economy remains constrained by withheld clearance revenues, shekel-transfer…

Key PointsThe U.S. Army tested a self-driving Ford F-250 fitted with an Edda counter-drone turret during a Project Sandhills 2.0 live-fire exercise at Fort Bragg on August 18, 2026.The vehicle combines Forterra’s AutoDrive autonomy system with a 9 Mothers-built turret designed to shoot down fast-moving drones at 10 to 100 meters.A Ford F-250 that can drive itself carried a shotgun-armed drone-killing turret onto a live-fire range at Fort Bragg on August 18, 2026, the latest test in a U.S. Army program built to get engineers out of the blast radius during breaching operations. The vehicle, tested at Range 63 as…

The TWZ Newsletter Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy. A new Chinese aircraft carrier, commonly referred to as the Type 004, is continuing to take shape, notably now featuring a more complete bow. This is set to be China’s fourth carrier, and there is strong evidence it will be its first nuclear-powered type, bringing an even more significant boost to the country’s naval power projection capabilities. The ongoing progress on the carrier is plainly visible in satellite imagery taken just yesterday, seen at the top of this story and below, which…

Guest article by Yan Zhijun. For more information about the author and his website, see the bottom of the post. Yan Zhijun (mid-air, center) with fellow Tagou students after a performance at the Longmen Grottoes, Luoyang, 2000 I was not a good student. School bored me. I was restless, mischievous, and had no interest in sitting still long enough to learn anything. My parents looked at my grades, looked at my attitude, and worried — genuinely worried — about what kind of future I was heading toward. One evening they sat me down and asked a question I was not…

Saab has displayed a full-scale model of a potential new collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), the Swedish company prefers to call Autonomous Collaborative Programme (ACP). And what better place to make the project’s first public viewing than at the Swedish Air Force’s 100th anniversary at Malmen air base, Linkoping, during August 22-23 airshow The ACP is Saab’s unmanned concept model for the Swedish Air Force Future Fighter System and the one on display is the imaginatively named A3 prototype. Not to be confused as an actual fighter system, as some of the local media suggested. Peter Nilsson, Head of Saab’s Advanced…