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  • Japan’s Cabinet OKs record defense budget that aims to deter China

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    Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region.The draft budget for fiscal 2026, beginning April, is up 9.4% from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2% of gross domestic product.“It is the minimum needed as Japan faces the severest and most complex security environment in the postwar era,” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, stressing his country’s determination to pursue military buildup and protect its people.“It does not change our path as a peace-loving nation,” he said.The increase comes as Japan faces elevated tension from China. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that her country’s military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its rule.Takaichi’s government, under U.S. pressure for a military increase, pledged to achieve the 2% target by March, two years earlier than planned. Japan also plans to revise its ongoing security and defense policy by December 2026 to further strengthen its military.Missiles and drones will add to southwestern island defenseJapan has been bolstering its offensive capability with long-range missiles to attack enemy targets from a distance, a major break from its post-World War II principle limiting the use of force to its own self-defense.The current security strategy, adopted in 2022, names China as the country’s biggest strategic challenge and calls for a more offensive role for Japan’s Self-Defense Force under its security alliance with the U.S.The new budget plan allocates more than 970 billion yen ($6.2 billion) to bolster Japan’s “standoff” missile capability. It includes a 177 billion yen ($1.13 billion) purchase of domestically developed and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).The first batch of the Type-12 missiles will be deployed in Japan’s southwestern Kumamoto prefecture by March, a year earlier than planned, as Japan accelerates its missile buildup in the region.The government believes unmanned weapons are essential, in part due to Japan’s aging and declining population and its struggles with an understaffed military.To defend the coasts, Japan will spend 100 billion yen ($640 million) to deploy “massive” unmanned air, sea-surface and underwater drones for surveillance and defense under a system called SHIELD planned for March 2028, defense ministry officials said.For speedier deployment, Japan initially plans to rely mainly on imports, possibly from Turkey or Israel.Tension with China growsThe budget announcement comes as Japan’s row with China escalates following Takaichi’s remark in November that the Japanese military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.The disagreement escalated this month when Chinese aircraft carrier drills near southwestern Japan prompted Tokyo to protest when Chinese aircraft locked their radar on Japanese aircraft, which is considered possible preparation for firing missiles.The Defense Ministry, already alarmed by China’s rapid expansion of operations in the Pacific, will open a new office dedicated to studying operations, equipment and other necessities for Japan to deal with China’s Pacific activity.Two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted in June, almost simultaneously operating near the southern Japanese island of Iwo Jima for the first time, fueling Tokyo’s concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders and areas around the disputed East China Sea islands.In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the Takaichi government has “noticeably accelerated its pace of military buildup and expansion” since taking office.”Japan is deviating from the path of peaceful development it has long claimed to uphold and is moving further and further in a dangerous direction,” Lin said.Japan plans joint development of frigates and jetsJapan is pushing to strengthen its largely domestic defense industry by participating in joint development with friendly nations and promoting foreign sales after drastically easing arms export restrictions in recent years.For 2026, Japan plans to spend more than 160 billion yen ($1 billion) to jointly develop a next-generation fighter jet with Britain and Italy for deployment in 2035. There are also plans for research and development of artificial intelligence-operated drones designed to fly with the jet.In a major boost to the country’s defense industry, Australia selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in August to upgrade the Mogami-class frigate to replace its fleet of 11 ANZAC-class ships.Japan’s budget allocates nearly 10 billion yen ($64 million) to support industry base and arms sales.Meeting targets but future funding uncertainThe budget plan requires parliamentary approval by March to be implemented as part of a 122.3 trillion yen ($784 billion) national budget bill.The five-year defense buildup program would bring Japan’s annual spending to around 10 trillion yen ($64 billion), making it the world’s third-largest spender after the U.S. and China. Japan will clear the 2% target by March as promised, the Finance Ministry said.Takaichi’s government plans to fund its growing military spending by raising corporate and tobacco taxes and recently adopted a plan for an income tax increase beginning in 2027. Prospects for future growth at a higher percentage of GDP are unclear.

    TOKYO —

    Japan’s Cabinet on Friday approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year, aiming to fortify its strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region.

    The draft budget for fiscal 2026, beginning April, is up 9.4% from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to 2% of gross domestic product.

    “It is the minimum needed as Japan faces the severest and most complex security environment in the postwar era,” Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said, stressing his country’s determination to pursue military buildup and protect its people.

    “It does not change our path as a peace-loving nation,” he said.

    The increase comes as Japan faces elevated tension from China. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said in November that her country’s military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its rule.

    Takaichi’s government, under U.S. pressure for a military increase, pledged to achieve the 2% target by March, two years earlier than planned. Japan also plans to revise its ongoing security and defense policy by December 2026 to further strengthen its military.

    Missiles and drones will add to southwestern island defense

    Japan has been bolstering its offensive capability with long-range missiles to attack enemy targets from a distance, a major break from its post-World War II principle limiting the use of force to its own self-defense.

    The current security strategy, adopted in 2022, names China as the country’s biggest strategic challenge and calls for a more offensive role for Japan’s Self-Defense Force under its security alliance with the U.S.

    The new budget plan allocates more than 970 billion yen ($6.2 billion) to bolster Japan’s “standoff” missile capability. It includes a 177 billion yen ($1.13 billion) purchase of domestically developed and upgraded Type-12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

    The first batch of the Type-12 missiles will be deployed in Japan’s southwestern Kumamoto prefecture by March, a year earlier than planned, as Japan accelerates its missile buildup in the region.

    The government believes unmanned weapons are essential, in part due to Japan’s aging and declining population and its struggles with an understaffed military.

    To defend the coasts, Japan will spend 100 billion yen ($640 million) to deploy “massive” unmanned air, sea-surface and underwater drones for surveillance and defense under a system called SHIELD planned for March 2028, defense ministry officials said.

    For speedier deployment, Japan initially plans to rely mainly on imports, possibly from Turkey or Israel.

    Tension with China grows

    The budget announcement comes as Japan’s row with China escalates following Takaichi’s remark in November that the Japanese military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own.

    The disagreement escalated this month when Chinese aircraft carrier drills near southwestern Japan prompted Tokyo to protest when Chinese aircraft locked their radar on Japanese aircraft, which is considered possible preparation for firing missiles.

    The Defense Ministry, already alarmed by China’s rapid expansion of operations in the Pacific, will open a new office dedicated to studying operations, equipment and other necessities for Japan to deal with China’s Pacific activity.

    Two Chinese aircraft carriers were spotted in June, almost simultaneously operating near the southern Japanese island of Iwo Jima for the first time, fueling Tokyo’s concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders and areas around the disputed East China Sea islands.

    In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the Takaichi government has “noticeably accelerated its pace of military buildup and expansion” since taking office.

    “Japan is deviating from the path of peaceful development it has long claimed to uphold and is moving further and further in a dangerous direction,” Lin said.

    Japan plans joint development of frigates and jets

    Japan is pushing to strengthen its largely domestic defense industry by participating in joint development with friendly nations and promoting foreign sales after drastically easing arms export restrictions in recent years.

    For 2026, Japan plans to spend more than 160 billion yen ($1 billion) to jointly develop a next-generation fighter jet with Britain and Italy for deployment in 2035. There are also plans for research and development of artificial intelligence-operated drones designed to fly with the jet.

    In a major boost to the country’s defense industry, Australia selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in August to upgrade the Mogami-class frigate to replace its fleet of 11 ANZAC-class ships.

    Japan’s budget allocates nearly 10 billion yen ($64 million) to support industry base and arms sales.

    Meeting targets but future funding uncertain

    The budget plan requires parliamentary approval by March to be implemented as part of a 122.3 trillion yen ($784 billion) national budget bill.

    The five-year defense buildup program would bring Japan’s annual spending to around 10 trillion yen ($64 billion), making it the world’s third-largest spender after the U.S. and China. Japan will clear the 2% target by March as promised, the Finance Ministry said.

    Takaichi’s government plans to fund its growing military spending by raising corporate and tobacco taxes and recently adopted a plan for an income tax increase beginning in 2027. Prospects for future growth at a higher percentage of GDP are unclear.

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  • Nonprofit uses underwater technology to search for missing service members

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    More than 80,000 service members who went missing in action in previous conflicts are still unaccounted for. However, through research and new technology, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency estimates the remains of 38,000 fallen veterans could be recoverable. Nonprofit organization Project Recover is working with the agency to bring some of those service members home through complex underwater missions.  

    “This is a great American story here,” former Navy Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet said. “Our work is to use technology, like underwater drones and scuba diving gear, to find the platforms that these members perished on and then do the DNA analysis of detecting and recovering their remains and matching them to those that are missing.” 

    Project Recover members stand with folded American flags during a ceremony honoring fallen World War II aviators. (Project Recover)

    Gallaudet also serves as a Project Recover advisory council member. The group was founded by Dr. Patrick Scannon. He came up with the idea in 1993 when he was touring the Palau islands with his wife and discovered a downed plane from World War II. 

    “That 65-foot wing essentially changed my life,” Scannon said in an interview with GoPro.

    NEWLY RELEASED AMELIA EARHART DOCUMENTS REVEAL VIVID DETAILS OF JAPAN’S ROLE IN SEARCH FOR DOOMED AVIATOR 

    Project Recover teams have located dozens of aircraft sites around the Palau islands associated with nearly 100 service members who went missing in action.

    “The recovery is difficult. We first have to find the aircraft or ships,” Gallaudet said. “And then we’ve got to go determine if there are any remains there and then ID them, match them to the service members. “

    In 1944, U.S. officials determined the Palau islands were a crucial part of a larger mission to liberate the Philippines. The effort to capture the island of Peleliu ended up being a costly effort for the U.S. Located around 500 miles away from the Philippines, the island held an airfield, which U.S. officials believed could be used to launch an attack during their larger mission. More than 10,000 Japanese troops were stationed on Peleliu at the time.  

    U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers sit on a military airfield as ground crews work nearby.

    U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers are parked on a military airfield. (B-52 Bomber Down)

    The battle was expected to last just a few days but ended up going on for 74. The U.S. began its bombardment by dropping more than 600 tons of bombs, but the Marines had little intelligence on enemy positions. Japanese troops hid in coral caves and mine shafts around the islands. The initial aerial attacks had little impact unless pilots flew dangerously close to the island.

    SEARCH FOR MISSING MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370 TO RESUME AFTER MORE THAN A DECADE

    On Peleliu, 1,800 Americans were killed in action and more than 8,000 were wounded or missing. Nearly all the 10,000 Japanese troops were killed in action. Across the Palau islands, the U.S. had carried out nine major air campaigns in which around 200 aircraft were lost.  

    Now Project Recover is working to bring some of those service members home. 

    “There were three service members on the aircraft that perished, a lieutenant and then two enlisted crew members. And over the last few years, we were able to recover the remains of all three. And we didn’t identify them all at the same time. It took forensic analysis and DNA. Technology. But the last one was finally identified,” Gallaudet said. 

    Lt. Jay Manown, AOM1c Anthony Di Petta and ARM1c Wilbur Mitts took off for a bombing mission in September 1944. They were conducting pre-invasion strikes in preparation for the invasion of Peleliu when their plane spun out of control and crashed into surrounding waters.

    “The plane was hit by enemy fire, and it burst into flames,” Di Petta’s niece, Suzanne Nakamura, said in an interview with Media Evolve.

    Project Recover located the plane in 2015. After more than a dozen dives to investigate the wreckage, teams began removing the remains of the three service members. Lt. Manown was the last to be repatriated. 

    “We held the ceremony in his hometown in West Virginia, and the relatives of all three service members came to that final ceremony,” Gallaudet said. 

    The three nieces of the men have become especially close.

    A scuba diver examines a submerged World War II aircraft wreck during an underwater recovery mission.

    A diver examines a wreck during an underwater mission to locate and recover missing U.S. service members. (Project Recover)

    WWII HERO’S REMAINS FINALLY COMING HOME AFTER 80-YEAR MYSTERY IS SOLVED THROUGH MILITARY DEDICATION 

    “We’ve communicated beautifully and become friends through this experience and almost a sisterhood of type,” Manown’s niece, Rebecca Sheets, said in an interview with Media Evolve.

    “We’ve talked so much by phone and feel so close,” Mitt’s niece, Diana Ward, told Media Evolve. “This is just a joy to meet each other in person, and we’re just sharing the emotion we’ve felt about bringing our uncles home.” 

    The three women have also connected over how their grandmothers, or the mothers of Manown, Di Petta and Mitts, may have felt about their sons finally coming home. 

    “We have a connection because our uncles were involved in not only defending the freedom of the United States, but as human beings who fought together and died together,” Nakamura said.

    AMELIA EARHART MYSTERY EXPEDITION HALTED AS RESEARCHERS SEEK ANSWERS ON MISSING PLANE 

    Including their work in Palau, Project Recover has completed more than 100 missions across 25 countries. They have repatriated 24 missing Americans and have located more than 200 missing in action awaiting further recovery efforts. The group is raising money for a mission it hopes to complete in 2026 — the search for a B-52 aircraft that disappeared during a training accident. 

    “It’s off the coast of Texas. We’ve not yet found the aircraft. And of those eight service members, they all had families,” Gallaudet said. “There are about 32 of those family members still alive today who want the answers to know what happened to their loved ones.”

    In addition to the more than 80,000 missing-in-action service members, 20,000 are missing from training accidents. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency is not permitted to allocate funds toward a search effort for the eight men who disappeared along with their B-52 because the crash occurred during a non-conflict training accident. 

    “Not having found the wreck yet, we don’t know what the cause of the failure was. And so it’s our goal to find that wreckage and then take the remains and repatriate them to the families,” Gallaudet said. 

    Servicemembers pose in flight suits in front of a B-52 bomber on a military airfield.

    U.S. Air Force B-52 crew members pose for a group photo. (B-52 Bomber Down)

    The Air Force Bomber was on a routine training mission in February 1968 when it disappeared from radar and radio contact. The Air Force immediately conducted an extensive nine-day search of the flight path but found no trace of the bomber. As the military concluded its search, determining it went down in an unknown location, three pieces of debris washed ashore in Corpus Christi, Texas. 

    “This B-52 off the Texas coast hasn’t been located yet, but we think we know where the area is. We’re going to find it,” Gallaudet said.

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    More than $300,000 has been raised for the mission so far. Project Recover estimates another $200,000 is needed to search for the eight men. If the organization can locate the remains, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency will be able to allocate resources for a recovery effort. 

    You can learn more about Project Recover and the missing B-52 and donate to help with the search on Project Recover’s website.

    Bret Baier currently serves as FOX News Channel’s (FNC) anchor and executive editor of Special Report with Bret Baier (weeknights at 6-7PM/ET), chief political anchor of the network and co-anchor of the network’s election coverage. Baier is also host of FOX News Audio’s “The Bret Baier Podcast” which includes Common Ground and The All-Star Panel. He joined FNC in 1998 as the first reporter in the Atlanta bureau and is now based in Washington, D.C. where he was recently described as “the most influential news anchor in America right now” at the 2025 Semafor Trust in News summit.

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  • Police/Fire: City welcomes two new firefighters

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    The Gloucester Fire Department has welcomed two new firefighters.

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  • Mohammad Bakri, renowned and controversial Palestinian actor and filmmaker, dies at 72

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    Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2025Bakri was best known for “Jenin, Jenin,” a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.Bakri also acted in the 2025 film “All That’s Left of You,” a drama about a Palestinian family over more than 76 years, alongside his sons, Adam and Saleh Bakri, who are also actors. The film has been shortlisted by the Academy Awards for the best international feature film.Over the years, he made several films that spanned the spectrum of Palestinian experiences. He also acted in Hebrew, including at Israel’s national theater in Tel Aviv, and appeared in a number of famous Israeli films in the 1980s and 1990s. He studied at Tel Aviv University.Bakri, who was born in northern Israel and held Israeli citizenship, dabbled in both film and theater. His best-known one-man show from 1986, “The Pessoptimist,” based on the writings of Palestinian author Emile Habiby, focused on the intricacies and emotions of someone who has both Israeli and Palestinian identities.During the 1980s, Bakri played characters in mainstream Israeli films that humanized the Palestinian identity, including “Beyond the Walls,” a seminal film about incarcerated Israelis and Palestinians, said Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma.“He broke stereotypes about how Israelis looked at Palestinians, and allowing someone Palestinian to be regarded as a hero in Israeli society,” she said.“He was a very brave person, and he was brave by standing to his ideals, choosing not to be conformist in any way, and paying the price in both societies,” said Morag.Bakri faced some pushback within Palestinian society for his cooperation with Israelis. After “Jenin, Jenin,” he was plagued by almost two decades of court cases in Israel, where the film was seen as unbalanced and inciting.In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a ban on the documentary, saying it defamed Israeli soldiers, and ordered Bakri to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to an Israeli military officer for defamation.“Jenin, Jenin” was a turning point in Bakri’s career. In Israel, he became a polarizing figure, and he never worked with mainstream Israeli cinema again, Morag said. “He was loyal to himself despite all the pressures from inside and outside,” she added. “He was a firm voice that did not change during the years.”Local media quoted Bakri’s family as saying he died Wednesday after suffering from heart and lung problems. His cousin, Rafic, told the Arabic news site Al-Jarmaq that Bakri was a tenacious advocate of the Palestinians who used his works to express support for his people.“I am certain that Abu Saleh will remain in the memory of Palestinian people everywhere and all people of the free world,” he said, using Mohammad Bakri’s nickname.___AP correspondent Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

    TEL AVIV, Israel —

    Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.

    Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2025

    Bakri was best known for “Jenin, Jenin,” a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.

    Bakri also acted in the 2025 film “All That’s Left of You,” a drama about a Palestinian family over more than 76 years, alongside his sons, Adam and Saleh Bakri, who are also actors. The film has been shortlisted by the Academy Awards for the best international feature film.

    Over the years, he made several films that spanned the spectrum of Palestinian experiences. He also acted in Hebrew, including at Israel’s national theater in Tel Aviv, and appeared in a number of famous Israeli films in the 1980s and 1990s. He studied at Tel Aviv University.

    Bakri, who was born in northern Israel and held Israeli citizenship, dabbled in both film and theater. His best-known one-man show from 1986, “The Pessoptimist,” based on the writings of Palestinian author Emile Habiby, focused on the intricacies and emotions of someone who has both Israeli and Palestinian identities.

    During the 1980s, Bakri played characters in mainstream Israeli films that humanized the Palestinian identity, including “Beyond the Walls,” a seminal film about incarcerated Israelis and Palestinians, said Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma.

    “He broke stereotypes about how Israelis looked at Palestinians, and allowing someone Palestinian to be regarded as a hero in Israeli society,” she said.

    “He was a very brave person, and he was brave by standing to his ideals, choosing not to be conformist in any way, and paying the price in both societies,” said Morag.

    Bakri faced some pushback within Palestinian society for his cooperation with Israelis. After “Jenin, Jenin,” he was plagued by almost two decades of court cases in Israel, where the film was seen as unbalanced and inciting.

    In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a ban on the documentary, saying it defamed Israeli soldiers, and ordered Bakri to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to an Israeli military officer for defamation.

    “Jenin, Jenin” was a turning point in Bakri’s career. In Israel, he became a polarizing figure, and he never worked with mainstream Israeli cinema again, Morag said. “He was loyal to himself despite all the pressures from inside and outside,” she added. “He was a firm voice that did not change during the years.”

    Local media quoted Bakri’s family as saying he died Wednesday after suffering from heart and lung problems. His cousin, Rafic, told the Arabic news site Al-Jarmaq that Bakri was a tenacious advocate of the Palestinians who used his works to express support for his people.

    “I am certain that Abu Saleh will remain in the memory of Palestinian people everywhere and all people of the free world,” he said, using Mohammad Bakri’s nickname.

    ___

    AP correspondent Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

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  • How US troops celebrate Christmas abroad

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    As families across the United States gather for the holidays, thousands of U.S. service members are spending the season overseas, marking the occasion far from home while continuing their duties.

    American troops remain deployed across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, supporting missions that range from NATO deterrence operations to maritime patrols and humanitarian assistance. While Christmas abroad rarely resembles celebrations back home, service members often find ways to recognize the holiday within the constraints of their mission and location.

    Across overseas installations, troops commonly decorate workspaces, living areas and dining facilities with lights, trees or improvised decorations. Many bases organize special holiday meals, often with commanders and senior enlisted leaders serving food. 

    Chaplains typically hold Christmas services when schedules and security allow, sometimes in chapels, hangars or temporary facilities. For sailors deployed at sea, Christmas is often marked between watches, with decorated mess decks and holiday meals worked around operational demands.

    The holiday season also brings outreach from senior leaders. In recent days, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth placed Christmas morale calls from the Pentagon to service members stationed across the globe, including troops in South Korea, Kuwait, Norway, Greenland and aboard a Navy aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific. The calls were intended to thank service members for standing watch away from home and to recognize the range of missions continuing through the holidays.

    AMERICANS TURNED CHRISTMAS DINNER INTO PATRIOTIC DUTY DURING WWI WITH WARTIME RECIPES

    In Japan, where thousands of U.S. service members are stationed year-round, bases often emphasize morale and community traditions during the holidays. At Yokota Air Base, leaders delivered baked cookies to airmen living in dorms as part of the installation’s annual “Cookie Crunch,” a tradition aimed at supporting those spending the holidays away from family. 

    Other installations across Japan and the Pacific typically host concerts, meals and volunteer events that sometimes include host-nation communities.

    Operation Christmas Drop 2025 volunteers smile for a photo at Guam Air Force Base. (Senior Airman Alexzandra Gracey/Air Force)

    U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Sara Wofford, 36th Airlift Squadron director of operations, stands before a formation of C-130J Super Hercules and C-130H Hercules aircraft from the U.S, Japan and Republic of Korea air forces participating in an elephant walk during Operation Christmas Drop 2025 at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Dec. 13, 2025

    Operation Christmas Drop highlights U.S., allies’ and partners’ capabilities to quickly mobilize and project power and airlift operations at a moment’s notice. (Senior Airman Samantha White/AIr Force)

    MILITARY REVEALS JUST HOW MUCH TURKEY SHIPPED GLOBALLY TO ENSURE AMERICAN TROOPS ENJOY THANKSGIVING MEAL

    Elsewhere in Japan, the U.S. Band of the Pacific performed holiday music for local audiences, using seasonal concerts as a way to engage surrounding communities during the holiday period.

    One of the military’s most visible holiday efforts in the region is Operation Christmas Drop, the Department of War’s longest-running humanitarian airlift mission. Now in its 74th year, the operation recently concluded at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, where multinational teams prepared and delivered hundreds of aid bundles by C-130 aircraft to remote Pacific island communities. 

    The mission combines humanitarian assistance with airlift training and regional cooperation.

    Holiday experiences also vary based on assignment type. In places like Japan and parts of Europe, many U.S. troops serve on accompanied tours, meaning spouses and children live with them overseas. 

    Bases in those regions often host larger holiday events and family-focused activities. 

    In contrast, deployments to the Middle East and parts of Africa are typically unaccompanied, with service members living on base or at forward locations without family present. In those environments, holiday observances are usually smaller and shaped by operational and security constraints.

    That distinction also affects leave. Troops stationed overseas on long-term assignments may be eligible to travel home during the holidays if schedules allow, while service members deployed on rotational or combat deployments generally remain in place, with units maintaining normal staffing and mission requirements throughout the season.

    U.S. Air Force Band of the Pacific members wave goodbye during a holiday concert at Tama Hills, Japan, Dec. 13, 2025. The event emphasized mutual respect and collaboration between the U.S. and Japanese communities through music.

    In Japan, the U.S. Band of the Pacific performed holiday music for local audiences, using seasonal concerts as a way to engage surrounding communities during the holiday period. (Airman 1st Class Kayla Karelas/Air Force)

    U.S. Army soldiers march in formation during Belgium’s National Day parade in Brussels.

    Soldiers of the U.S. Army take part in the military and civilian parade for National Day 2025 at Place des Palais – Paleizenplein on July 21, 2025, in Brussels. (Xavier Piron/Photonews via Getty Images)

    Across Europe, U.S. forces mark the holidays while supporting NATO missions and forward presence efforts. Senior leaders use the season to acknowledge the sacrifices of those stationed abroad. In a holiday message to troops, U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. T.J. Holland encouraged soldiers to spend time embracing local culture and connecting with family when possible. 

    U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich also thanked service members and their families for their service.

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    For many deployed troops, the United Service Organizations (USO) plays a key role during the holidays. Across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, USO centers, mobile vehicles and expeditionary teams provide festive meals, seasonal decorations and spaces where service members can rest and connect. 

    Mobile USO teams often reach personnel stationed at remote or demanding locations, offering brief opportunities to recharge.

    For deployed units, the holidays often are marked quietly rather than ceremonially. Traditions differ by location, mission and security environment, but service members continue to find small ways to recognize the season before returning to the routines of deployment.

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  • Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

    Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump’s appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the president had exaggerated the threat and overstepped his authority.

    The decision is a major defeat for Trump and his broad claim that he had the power to deploy militia troops in U.S. cities.

    In an unsigned order, the court said the Militia Act allows the president to deploy the National Guard only if the regular U.S. armed forces were unable to quell violence.

    The law dating to 1903 says the president may call up and deploy the National Guard if he faces the threat of an invasion or a rebellion or is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

    That phrase turned out to be crucial.

    Trump’s lawyers assumed it referred to the police and federal agents. But after taking a close look, the justices concluded it referred to the regular U.S. military, not civilian law enforcement or the National Guard.

    “To call the Guard into active federal service under the [Militia Act], the President must be ‘unable’ with the regular military ‘to execute the laws of the United States,’” the court said in Trump vs. Illinois.

    That standard will rarely be met, the court added.

    “Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from execut[ing] the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,” the court said. “So before the President can federalize the Guard … he likely must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be ‘unable’ with those forces to perform that function.

    “At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said.

    Although the court was acting on an emergency appeal, its decision is a significant defeat for Trump and is not likely to be reversed on appeal. Often, the court issues one-sentence emergency orders. But in this case, the justices wrote a three-page opinion to spell out the law and limit the president’s authority.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees appeals from Illinois, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cast the deciding votes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome, but said he preferred a narrow and more limited ruling.

    Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

    Alito, in dissent, said the “court fails to explain why the President’s inherent constitutional authority to protect federal officers and property is not sufficient to justify the use of National Guard members in the relevant area for precisely that purpose.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a brief in the Chicago case that warned of the danger of the president using the military in American cities.

    “Today, Americans can breathe a huge sigh of relief,” Bonta said Tuesday. “While this is not necessarily the end of the road, it is a significant, deeply gratifying step in the right direction. We plan to ask the lower courts to reach the same result in our cases — and we are hopeful they will do so quickly.”

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the deployments in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after ruling that judges must defer to the president.

    But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Dec. 10 that the federalized National Guard troops in Los Angeles must be returned to Newsom’s control.

    Trump’s lawyers had not claimed in their appeal that the president had the authority to deploy the military for ordinary law enforcement in the city. Instead, they said the Guard troops would be deployed “to protect federal officers and federal property.”

    The two sides in the Chicago case, like in Portland, told dramatically different stories about the circumstances leading to Trump’s order.

    Democratic officials in Illinois said small groups of protesters objected to the aggressive enforcement tactics used by federal immigration agents. They said police were able to contain the protests, clear the entrances and prevent violence.

    By contrast, administration officials described repeated instances of disruption, confrontation and violence in Chicago. They said immigration agents were harassed and blocked from doing their jobs, and they needed the protection the National Guard could supply.

    Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the president had the authority to deploy the Guard if agents could not enforce the immigration laws.

    “Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law,” Trump called up the National Guard “to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence,” Sauer told the court in an emergency appeal filed in mid-October.

    Illinois state lawyers disputed the administration’s account.

    “The evidence shows that federal facilities in Illinois remain open, the individuals who have violated the law by attacking federal authorities have been arrested, and enforcement of immigration law in Illinois has only increased in recent weeks,” state Solicitor Gen. Jane Elinor Notz said in response to the administration’s appeal.

    The Constitution gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

    But on Oct. 29, the justices asked both sides to explain what the law meant when it referred to the “regular forces.”

    Until then, both sides had assumed it referred to federal agents and police, not the standing U.S. armed forces.

    A few days before, Georgetown law professor and former Justice Department lawyer Martin Lederman had filed a friend-of-the-court brief asserting that the “regular forces” cited in the 1903 law were the standing U.S. Army.

    His brief prompted the court to ask both sides to explain their view of the disputed provision.

    Trump’s lawyers stuck to their position. They said the law referred to the “civilian forces that regularly execute the laws,” not the standing army.

    If those civilians cannot enforce the law, “there is a strong tradition in this country of favoring the use” of the National Guard, not the standing military, to quell domestic disturbances, they said.

    State attorneys for Illinois said the “regular forces” are the “full-time, professional military.” And they said the president could not “even plausibly argue” that the U.S. Guard members were needed to enforce the law in Chicago.

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    David G. Savage

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  • Trump announces plans for new Navy ‘battleship’ as part of ‘Golden Fleet’

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    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has announced a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a “battleship” as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet.”

    “They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump claimed during the announcement at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

    What You Need To Know

    • President Donald Trump has announced a bold plan for the Navy to build a new, large warship that he is calling a “battleship” as part of a larger vision to create a “Golden Fleet”

    • Trump claims it will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built”

    • Trump made the announcement Monday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida

    • Just a month ago, the Navy scrapped its plans to build a new, small warship, citing growing delays and cost overruns


    According to Trump, the ship, the first of which will be named the USS Defiant, will be longer and larger than the World War II-era Iowa-class battleships and will be armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns, and high-powered lasers — all technologies that are in various stages of development by the Navy.

    The announcement comes just a month after the Navy scrapped its plans to build a new, small warship, citing growing delays and cost overruns, deciding instead to go with a modified version of a Coast Guard cutter that was being produced until recently. The sea service has also failed to build its other newly designed ships, like the new Ford-class aircraft carrier and Columbia-class submarines, on time and on budget.

    Meanwhile, the Navy has struggled to field some of the technologies Trump says will be aboard the new ship.

    The Navy spent hundreds of millions of dollars and more than 15 years trying to field a railgun aboard a ship before finally abandoning the effort in 2021.

    Laser technology has seen more success in making its way onto Navy ships in recent years, but its employment is still limited. One system that is designed to blind or disable drone sensors is now aboard eight destroyers after spending eight years in development.

    Developing nuclear cruise missile capabilities or deploying them on ships may also violate non-proliferation treaties that the U.S. has signed with Russia.

    A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing plans, told The Associated Press that design efforts are now underway for the new ship and construction is planned to begin in the early 2030s.

    Both Trump and Navy Secretary John Phelan spoke about the new Trump-class warship as a spiritual successor to the battleships of the 20th century, but historically that term has referred to a very specific type of ship — a large, heavily armored vessel armed with massive guns designed to bombard other ships or targets ashore.

    This type of ship was at the height of prominence during World War II, and the largest of the U.S. battleships, the Iowa-class, were roughly 60,000 tons. But after World War II, the battleship’s role in modern fleets diminished rapidly in favor of aircraft carriers and long-range missiles. The U.S. Navy did modernize four Iowa-class battleships in the 1980s by adding cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles, along with modern radars, but by the 1990s all four were decommissioned.

    According to a newly created website for the “Golden Fleet,” this new “guided missile battleship” is set to be roughly the same size as Iowa-class battleships but only weigh about half as much, around 35,000 tons, and have far smaller crews — between 650 and 850 sailors.

    Its primary weapons will also be missiles, not large naval guns.

    Trump has long held strong opinions on specific aspects of the Navy’s fleet, sometimes with a view toward keeping older technology instead of modernizing.

    During his first term, he unsuccessfully called for the return to steam-powered catapults to launch jets from the Navy’s newest aircraft carriers instead of the more modern electromagnetic system.

    He has also complained to Phelan about the look of the Navy’s destroyers and decried Navy ships being covered in rust.

    Phelan told senators at his confirmation hearing that Trump “has texted me numerous times very late at night, sometimes after one (o’clock) in the morning” about “rusty ships or ships in a yard, asking me what am I doing about it.”

    On a visit to a shipyard that was working on the now-canceled Constellation-class frigate in 2020, Trump said he personally changed the design of the ship.

    “I looked at it, I said, ‘That’s a terrible-looking ship, let’s make it beautiful,’” Trump said at the time.

    He said Monday he will have a direct role in designing this new warship as well.

    “The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me, because I’m a very aesthetic person,” Trump said.

    Phelan said the new USS Defiant “will inspire awe and reverence for the American flag whenever it pulls into a foreign port.”

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    Associated Press

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  • Top military lawyer told chairman that officers should retire if faced with an unlawful order

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    How should a military commander respond if they determine they have received an unlawful order?Request to retire — and refrain from resigning in protest, which could be seen as a political act, or picking a fight to get fired.That was the previously unreported guidance that Brig. Gen. Eric Widmar, the top lawyer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave to the country’s top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, in November, according to sources familiar with the discussion.Related video above: US military strikes on drug boats in Latin America spark legal concernsCaine had just seen a video that included six Democratic lawmakers publicly urging U.S. troops to disobey illegal orders. He asked Widmar, according to the sources, what the latest guidance was on how to determine whether an order was lawful and how a commander should reply if it is not.Widmar responded that they should consult with their legal adviser if they’re unsure, the sources said. But ultimately, if they determine that an order is illegal, they should consider requesting retirement.The guidance sheds new light on how top military officials are thinking about an issue that has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, as lawmakers and legal experts have repeatedly questioned the legality of the U.S. military’s counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean — including intense scrutiny of a “double-tap” strike that deliberately killed survivors on Sept. 2.Caine is not in the chain of command. But he is closely involved in operations, including those in SOUTHCOM, and is often tasked with presenting military options to the president—more so than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CNN has reported.The Joint Staff declined to comment for this story.Several senior officers who reportedly expressed concerns about the boat strikes, including former U.S. Southern Command commander Adm. Alvin Holsey and Lt. Gen. Joe McGee, the former director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff, have retired early in recent months.Widmar’s advice to Caine was meant to help inform the chairman’s discussions with senior military officials should the issue come up, the sources said. The Democrats’ video had become headline news, enraging Hegseth and sparking debates across the country.A separate official familiar with military legal advice said that it is not uncommon for lawyers to urge servicemembers to consider leaving the force if they believe they’re being asked to do something they are personally uncomfortable with, but it’s typically handled on a case-by-case basis and tailored to the facts of the situation.Other current and former U.S. officials, however, including those who have served as military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, stressed that broadly encouraging servicemembers to quietly retire — if they’re eligible — rather than voice dissent in the face of a potentially illegal order risks perpetuating a culture of silence and lack of accountability.”A commissioned officer has every right to say, ‘this is wrong,’ and shouldn’t be expected to quietly and silently walk away just because they’re given a free pass to do so,” said a former senior defense official who left the Pentagon earlier this year.More than a dozen senior officers have either been fired or retired early since Trump took office in January, an unusually high rate of turnover. In a speech before hundreds of general and flag officers in September, Hegseth directed officers to “do the honorable thing and resign” if they didn’t agree with his vision for the department.But disagreeing with the direction of the military is different than viewing an order as illegal, legal experts said.Dan Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former JAG lawyer, said that the guidance, as described by CNN, appears to “misunderstand what a servicemember is supposed to do in the face of an unlawful order: disobey it if confident that the order is unlawful and attempt to persuade the order-giver to stop or modify it have failed, and report it through the chain of command.”Maurer added that “if the guidance does not explicitly advise servicemembers that they have a duty to disobey unlawful orders, the guidance is not a legitimate statement of professional military ethics and the law.”Widmar advised that an order may be unlawful if it is “patently illegal,” or something an ordinary person would recognize instinctively as a violation of domestic or international law, the sources said — the My Lai massacre in Vietnam is an oft-used example. But the guidance he provided was that an unlawful order should be met with retirement, if possible, and did not note that servicemembers have a duty to disobey unlawful orders, the sources said.”It’s a very safe recommendation in this current political environment,” said the former senior defense official. “But that doesn’t make it the right or ethical one.”Experts on civil-military relations have previously pointed to retirement as a reasonable option for officers who object to a particular policy, while noting that it comes with its own costs.In a September article that has been discussed amongst the Joint Staff and other senior military officials, Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University, and Heidi Urben, a former Army intelligence officer and current associate director of Georgetown University’s security studies program, wrote that “quiet quitting,” or opting for retirement “allows officers with professionally grounded objections to leave without posing a direct challenge to civilian control.”But while officers shouldn’t resign in protest or pick fights, they argued, they should “speak up” and “show moral courage” when the military’s professional values and ideals are at risk.And they should be willing to be fired for it. “Complete silence can be corrosive to good order and discipline and signal to the force that the military’s professional values and norms are expendable,” they wrote.Maurer, the former Army officer, said the advice to retire in the face of an unlawful order also functions to “keep that person silent in perpetuity, because as a retiree he or she remains subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalizes a broad range of conduct and speech that would be constitutionally protected for regular civilians.”Those constraints have been apparent as the Pentagon has launched an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and one of the Democratic lawmakers seen in the video encouraging troops to disobey unlawful orders, which prompted Caine to seek legal advice.As questions continue to swirl around the legality of the boat strike campaign, Widmar also advised Caine that Article II of the Constitution gives the president the authority to authorize lethal force to protect the nation, unless hostilities rise to the level of a full-blown war, in which case Congressional approval is required, the sources said.Whether the president’s orders are legal to begin with, Widmar advised according to the sources, is a question only the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel can answer, due to the executive order Trump issued in February that says the president and the attorney general’s “opinions on questions of law are controlling” on all executive branch employees — to include U.S. troops.The Office of Legal Counsel determined in September that it is legal for Trump to order strikes on suspected drug boats because they pose an imminent threat to the United States, CNN has reported.Since Sept. 2, the U.S. military has killed at least 99 people across dozens of strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, arguing that those targeted were “narcoterrorists” who pose a direct threat to the United States. The Trump administration has also not provided public evidence of the presence of narcotics on the boats struck, nor their affiliation with drug cartels.Lawmakers have said that Pentagon officials have acknowledged in private briefings not knowing the identities of everyone on board a vessel before striking it; instead, military officials only need to confirm that the individuals are affiliated with a cartel or criminal organization to target them.Some members of Congress, legal experts and human rights groups have argued that potential drug traffickers are civilians who should not be summarily killed but arrested —something the Coast Guard did routinely, and continues to do in the eastern Pacific, when encountering a suspected drug trafficking vessel.CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed to this report.

    How should a military commander respond if they determine they have received an unlawful order?

    Request to retire — and refrain from resigning in protest, which could be seen as a political act, or picking a fight to get fired.

    That was the previously unreported guidance that Brig. Gen. Eric Widmar, the top lawyer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave to the country’s top general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, in November, according to sources familiar with the discussion.

    Related video above: US military strikes on drug boats in Latin America spark legal concerns

    Caine had just seen a video that included six Democratic lawmakers publicly urging U.S. troops to disobey illegal orders. He asked Widmar, according to the sources, what the latest guidance was on how to determine whether an order was lawful and how a commander should reply if it is not.

    Widmar responded that they should consult with their legal adviser if they’re unsure, the sources said. But ultimately, if they determine that an order is illegal, they should consider requesting retirement.

    The guidance sheds new light on how top military officials are thinking about an issue that has reached a fever pitch in recent weeks, as lawmakers and legal experts have repeatedly questioned the legality of the U.S. military’s counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean — including intense scrutiny of a “double-tap” strike that deliberately killed survivors on Sept. 2.

    Caine is not in the chain of command. But he is closely involved in operations, including those in SOUTHCOM, and is often tasked with presenting military options to the president—more so than Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CNN has reported.

    The Joint Staff declined to comment for this story.

    Several senior officers who reportedly expressed concerns about the boat strikes, including former U.S. Southern Command commander Adm. Alvin Holsey and Lt. Gen. Joe McGee, the former director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff, have retired early in recent months.

    Widmar’s advice to Caine was meant to help inform the chairman’s discussions with senior military officials should the issue come up, the sources said. The Democrats’ video had become headline news, enraging Hegseth and sparking debates across the country.

    A separate official familiar with military legal advice said that it is not uncommon for lawyers to urge servicemembers to consider leaving the force if they believe they’re being asked to do something they are personally uncomfortable with, but it’s typically handled on a case-by-case basis and tailored to the facts of the situation.

    Other current and former U.S. officials, however, including those who have served as military lawyers in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, stressed that broadly encouraging servicemembers to quietly retire — if they’re eligible — rather than voice dissent in the face of a potentially illegal order risks perpetuating a culture of silence and lack of accountability.

    “A commissioned officer has every right to say, ‘this is wrong,’ and shouldn’t be expected to quietly and silently walk away just because they’re given a free pass to do so,” said a former senior defense official who left the Pentagon earlier this year.

    More than a dozen senior officers have either been fired or retired early since Trump took office in January, an unusually high rate of turnover. In a speech before hundreds of general and flag officers in September, Hegseth directed officers to “do the honorable thing and resign” if they didn’t agree with his vision for the department.

    But disagreeing with the direction of the military is different than viewing an order as illegal, legal experts said.

    Dan Maurer, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former JAG lawyer, said that the guidance, as described by CNN, appears to “misunderstand what a servicemember is supposed to do in the face of an unlawful order: disobey it if confident that the order is unlawful and attempt to persuade the order-giver to stop or modify it have failed, and report it through the chain of command.”

    Maurer added that “if the guidance does not explicitly advise servicemembers that they have a duty to disobey unlawful orders, the guidance is not a legitimate statement of professional military ethics and the law.”

    Widmar advised that an order may be unlawful if it is “patently illegal,” or something an ordinary person would recognize instinctively as a violation of domestic or international law, the sources said — the My Lai massacre in Vietnam is an oft-used example. But the guidance he provided was that an unlawful order should be met with retirement, if possible, and did not note that servicemembers have a duty to disobey unlawful orders, the sources said.

    “It’s a very safe recommendation in this current political environment,” said the former senior defense official. “But that doesn’t make it the right or ethical one.”

    Experts on civil-military relations have previously pointed to retirement as a reasonable option for officers who object to a particular policy, while noting that it comes with its own costs.

    In a September article that has been discussed amongst the Joint Staff and other senior military officials, Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University, and Heidi Urben, a former Army intelligence officer and current associate director of Georgetown University’s security studies program, wrote that “quiet quitting,” or opting for retirement “allows officers with professionally grounded objections to leave without posing a direct challenge to civilian control.”

    But while officers shouldn’t resign in protest or pick fights, they argued, they should “speak up” and “show moral courage” when the military’s professional values and ideals are at risk.

    And they should be willing to be fired for it. “Complete silence can be corrosive to good order and discipline and signal to the force that the military’s professional values and norms are expendable,” they wrote.

    Maurer, the former Army officer, said the advice to retire in the face of an unlawful order also functions to “keep that person silent in perpetuity, because as a retiree he or she remains subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which criminalizes a broad range of conduct and speech that would be constitutionally protected for regular civilians.”

    Those constraints have been apparent as the Pentagon has launched an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and one of the Democratic lawmakers seen in the video encouraging troops to disobey unlawful orders, which prompted Caine to seek legal advice.

    As questions continue to swirl around the legality of the boat strike campaign, Widmar also advised Caine that Article II of the Constitution gives the president the authority to authorize lethal force to protect the nation, unless hostilities rise to the level of a full-blown war, in which case Congressional approval is required, the sources said.

    Whether the president’s orders are legal to begin with, Widmar advised according to the sources, is a question only the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel can answer, due to the executive order Trump issued in February that says the president and the attorney general’s “opinions on questions of law are controlling” on all executive branch employees — to include U.S. troops.

    The Office of Legal Counsel determined in September that it is legal for Trump to order strikes on suspected drug boats because they pose an imminent threat to the United States, CNN has reported.

    Since Sept. 2, the U.S. military has killed at least 99 people across dozens of strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, arguing that those targeted were “narcoterrorists” who pose a direct threat to the United States. The Trump administration has also not provided public evidence of the presence of narcotics on the boats struck, nor their affiliation with drug cartels.

    Lawmakers have said that Pentagon officials have acknowledged in private briefings not knowing the identities of everyone on board a vessel before striking it; instead, military officials only need to confirm that the individuals are affiliated with a cartel or criminal organization to target them.

    Some members of Congress, legal experts and human rights groups have argued that potential drug traffickers are civilians who should not be summarily killed but arrested —something the Coast Guard did routinely, and continues to do in the eastern Pacific, when encountering a suspected drug trafficking vessel.

    CNN’s Haley Britzky contributed to this report.

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  • US military launches strikes in Syria targeting Islamic State fighters after American troop deaths

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    The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week ago. A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.The new military operation in Syria comes even as the Trump administration has said it’s looking to focus closer to home in the Western Hemisphere, building up an armada in the Caribbean Sea as it targets alleged drug-smuggling boats and vowing to keep seizing sanctioned oil tankers as part of a pressure campaign on Venezuela’s leader. The U.S. has shifted significant resources away from the Middle East to further those goals: Its most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in South American waters last month from the Mediterranean Sea.Video below: Trump commented on the strikes during a speech Friday nightTrump vowed retaliationPresident Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group.Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting IS “strongholds.” He reiterated his backing for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. effort.Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning IS against attacking American personnel again.“All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.,” the president added.The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the U.S. officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official added.U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a social media post that American jets, helicopters and artillery employed more than 100 precision munitions on Syrian targets.How Syria has respondedThe attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of U.S. strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”Syrian state television reported that the U.S. strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near the historic city of Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”IS has not said it carried out the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.The Americans who were killedTrump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, also was killed.The shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.___Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.

    The Trump administration launched military strikes Friday in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons sites in retaliation for an ambush attack that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week ago.

    A U.S. official described it as “a large-scale” strike that hit 70 targets in areas across central Syria that had IS infrastructure and weapons. Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

    “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on social media.

    The new military operation in Syria comes even as the Trump administration has said it’s looking to focus closer to home in the Western Hemisphere, building up an armada in the Caribbean Sea as it targets alleged drug-smuggling boats and vowing to keep seizing sanctioned oil tankers as part of a pressure campaign on Venezuela’s leader. The U.S. has shifted significant resources away from the Middle East to further those goals: Its most advanced aircraft carrier arrived in South American waters last month from the Mediterranean Sea.

    Video below: Trump commented on the strikes during a speech Friday night

    Trump vowed retaliation

    President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group.

    Trump in a social media post said the strikes were targeting IS “strongholds.” He reiterated his backing for Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. effort.

    Trump also offered an all-caps threat, warning IS against attacking American personnel again.

    “All terrorists who are evil enough to attack Americans are hereby warned — YOU WILL BE HIT HARDER THAN YOU HAVE EVER BEEN HIT BEFORE IF YOU, IN ANY WAY, ATTACK OR THREATEN THE U.S.A.,” the president added.

    The attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, the U.S. officials said. F-16 fighter jets from Jordan and HIMARS rocket artillery also were used, one official added.

    U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a social media post that American jets, helicopters and artillery employed more than 100 precision munitions on Syrian targets.

    How Syria has responded

    The attack was a major test for the warming ties between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago. Trump has stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops and said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack,” which came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

    Syria’s foreign ministry in a statement on X following the launch of U.S. strikes said that last week’s attack “underscores the urgent necessity of strengthening international cooperation to combat terrorism in all its forms” and that Syria is committed “to fighting ISIS and ensuring that it has no safe havens on Syrian territory and will continue to intensify military operations against it wherever it poses a threat.”

    Syrian state television reported that the U.S. strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near the historic city of Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

    IS has not said it carried out the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed responsibility for two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.

    The Americans who were killed

    Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

    The guardsmen killed in Syria last Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, also was killed.

    The shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

    The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.

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  • Immigration judge weighs release of activist Jeanette Vizguerra after ICE sought to block media’s court access

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    An immigration judge will decide in the coming days whether to temporarily release an immigrant rights activist after a Friday bail hearing that was delayed when authorities tried to block media access to the courtroom.

    Attorneys representing Jeanette Vizguerra told the judge, Brea Burgie, that government lawyers had provided no evidence that Vizguerra posed a flight risk or a danger to the community.

    Vizguerra, a nationally renowned activist, has been in the Aurora detention center since her March arrest, and her attorneys reiterated their allegations Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally targeted Vizguerra because of her public profile and advocacy. They asked Burgie to release Vizguerra, who was born in Mexico and does not have proper legal status, on bail while the rest of her immigration case proceeds.

    “Detention is not justified,” said Laura Lichter, one of Vizguerra’s lawyers.

    Shana Martin, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued that Vizguerra should continue to be detained indefinitely because, Martin said, she was both dangerous and a flight risk. Martin pointed to Vizguerra’s criminal conviction for using a fake Social Security card so she could work, as well as to traffic violations, as evidence that she “shows a lack of respect for authority.”

    One of Vizguerra’s daughters recently joined the Air Force, and Vizguerra applied for a form of legal status based on her daughter’s military service. Martin said that application has been denied — something Lichter said was news to Vizguerra and her lawyers.

    Lichter said after the hearing that she’d never seen that type of application denied in a case like Vizguerra’s. She told Burgie that the denial was “fantastic evidence” of the government’s bias against her client.

    CIting the extreme complexity of the case, Burgie said she would issue a written decision on whether to grant bail to Vizguerra at a later date. The Denver judge appeared remotely in the Aurora detention center’s hearing room.

    As Vizguerra waited in a hallway outside the courtroom, she blew a kiss to family members and waved to supporters.

    The hearing came two days after a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to provide Vizguerra with a bail hearing before Christmas.

    Proceedings were delayed Friday morning after personnel at the detention center, which is privately run by the Geo Group, told reporters and supporters that they couldn’t enter the courtroom. It’s typically open to observers, family members of detainees and journalists who provide photo ID and go through a security checkpoint.

    Earlier Friday morning, a Denver Post reporter was waiting for an escort to the courtroom when a Geo Group lieutenant approached and asked what courtroom he was visiting. When the reporter said he was there to watch the Vizguerra hearing, the lieutenant told him the courtroom was full and escorted him back to the lobby.

    Juan Baltazar, the facility’s warden, later told reporters that they wouldn’t be allowed into the courtroom “partially” because of space constraints, as well as because of unspecified “safety and security” concerns.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • Hegseth announces effort to ‘eliminate’ Islamic State fighters in Syria after deaths of Americans

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    Hegseth announces effort to ‘eliminate’ Islamic State fighters in Syria after deaths of Americans

    Updated: 2:39 PM PST Dec 19, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the start of an effort to “eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three U.S. citizens.“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said Friday on social media.Two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter were killed Dec. 13 in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Islamic State group. The slain National Guard members were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.Soon after word of the deaths, President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump has said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack” and the shooting attack by a gunman came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the start of an effort to “eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three U.S. citizens.

    “This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said Friday on social media.

    Two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter were killed Dec. 13 in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Islamic State group. The slain National Guard members were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

    Soon after word of the deaths, President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump has said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack” and the shooting attack by a gunman came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

    Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

    The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

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  • Merry Christmas, America! The Checks Are in the Mail!

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    Many times in the past decade, Donald Trump’s public addresses have reminded me of old TV commercials for the electronics chain Crazy Eddie that I used to watch as a kid in suburban New Jersey—the rat-a-tat delivery, the breathless hype, the memorably absurdist slogans. (“His prices are INSAAAANE!”) But somehow this was never more the case than on Wednesday night, when the President spoke to the nation from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, flanked by the soft glow of two Christmas trees and a portrait of George Washington.

    The comparison isn’t exact, to be fair. Crazy Eddie’s legendary pitchman, Jerry Carroll, actually dressed up as Santa Claus for the chain’s famous holiday ads, for which Crazy Eddie presumably had to pay. Trump, in contrast, got free airtime from all of America’s major television networks for his Christmas commercial, which was delivered in the form of an eighteen-minute-and-thirty-three-second run-on sentence. That’s an awful lot of words to string together without much in the way of periods or common sense, though, by now, we all know there’s only one form of punctuation that Trump has truly embraced: the exclamation point. “I am bringing those high prices down and bringing them down very fast!” he declared on Wednesday night. “Boy, are we making progress!” “There’s never been anything like it!”

    The centerpiece of the President’s speech was his announcement of a no-strings-attached deal for 1.4 million members of the U.S. military to receive year-end bonus checks of $1,776 each, in honor of next year’s celebration of the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “And the checks,” he said, “are already on the way!” More financial presents were promised by Santa Trump in the New Year: a great new housing policy, a great new health-care plan. As the President put it, “You the people are going to be getting great health care at a lower cost!” I, for one, can’t wait, having recently received a three-dollar-and-eighty-six-cent reimbursement check from our health-insurance company for my son’s thousand-dollar-plus annual checkup.

    If only Trump were actually selling discount electronics. Suffice it to say, there were never any examples of Crazy Eddie trying to sell new color televisions by claiming that Somali immigrants stole the old ones. When the website Defense One revealed overnight that the money for Trump’s so-called warrior dividend was being diverted from a $2.9-billion fund for military housing allowances set up by Congress, it was not so much surprising as predictable. Santa has to get the money for all those presents from somewhere, right?

    But, as an advertisement for Trump’s year-end accomplishments, the speech had a whiff of desperation about it. Can it be that the Presidential huckster, with his approval ratings sunk down in the thirties, secretly knows that America isn’t buying what he’s selling? Why else was he talking so fast? A few hours before the speech, even a few Republicans on Capitol Hill had started to rebel, demanding a floor vote to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies that are about to expire, which would send health-care prices skyrocketing for millions of people. In his address, Trump made no mention of this, instead blaming the coming price increases on Democrats, though they have spent the past few months fighting Trump to prevent them. That level of gaslighting, it seems, can take a lot out of a man. When his speech was over, according to a White House pool report, Trump turned to the press and said, “You think that’s easy?” then took a swig of Diet Coke. The sense that he was just going through the motions was only reinforced by what came next: “Susie told me I have to give an address to the nation,” he said, or, per the pool report, something closely approximating it.

    Susie, of course, is Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, and part of the point of Trump’s comment was no doubt to remind the reporters that she is still calling the shots in his White House. Wiles, who is famously low-profile, found herself facing a rare bout of bad publicity this week, when her lacerating comments about the President and much of his inner circle to the author Chris Whipple, in eleven taped interviews in the course of the past year, were published in Vanity Fair.

    Among the choicest bits: Wiles said that Trump, like her father, the late football commentator Pat Summerall, “has an alcoholic’s personality,” that Vice-President J. D. Vance has been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade,” and that Elon Musk was a drug-microdosing “odd, odd duck.” She also revealed herself to be a doubter when it came to many of the most famous outrages of Trump’s return to office, questioning everything from Musk’s destruction of the United States Agency for International Development—“no rational person” could be in favor of how it was handled, she told Whipple—to the Presidential pardons for violent pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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    Susan B. Glasser

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  • President Trump is right to get tough on Maduro. What comes next is critical

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    The Venezuelan narco-state poses a clear threat to America’s security and prosperity. Two decades of socialism have destroyed this once wealthy country, spreading instability and transnational crime across the Western Hemisphere. After four years of appeasement under President Joe Biden, we cannot afford to ignore the problem any longer.  

    President Donald Trump is sending a clear and necessary message to the Maduro regime that its days of destabilizing the Western Hemisphere with impunity are over. Trump is putting drug traffickers around the world on notice. Let’s be clear: Venezuelan narco-terrorists and their drug shipments represent a threat to the American people. Trump has both the right and the responsibility to use military force to stop them.  

    In many ways, Trump’s approach is a continuation of the tough policies we pursued during my tenure as secretary of state under the first Trump administration. We recognized the dangers that this narco-trafficking dictatorship, aligned with American enemies like Iran, Cuba, China, and Russia, posed to our interests, and we were determined to do the necessary to protect the American people.  

    That’s why we initiated a pressure campaign to isolate the regime and raise the costs for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro by crippling the country’s ability to export its biggest sources of revenue – cutting oil exports by 70% in just a few years. The Trump Justice Department indicted Maduro and his cronies on charges of narco-terrorism and drug trafficking, and the administration expanded its counter-narcotics operations targeting drug routes from Venezuela.

    TRUMP REWRITES NATIONAL SECURITY PLAYBOOK AS MASS MIGRATION OVERTAKES TERRORISM AS TOP US THREAT

    Soldiers of the Venezuelan army march with military vehicles during a parade as part of the Independence Day celebrations at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 5, 2023. (Pedro Rances Mattey/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

    We also put our support firmly behind the Venezuelan democratic opposition: When Maduro stole the 2019 presidential election from pro-democracy opposition candidate Juan Guaidó, we took the bold step of recognizing Guaidó as the rightful president of Venezuela and led diplomatic efforts to galvanize other countries to follow suit.  

    Unfortunately, those policies were abandoned by the Biden administration, and American deterrence promptly collapsed. Sanctions were removed or eased, throwing the regime a lifeline and emboldening Maduro to steal yet another election in 2024. Alex Saab – the alleged bagman for Maduro and Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, reportedly responsible for moving billions in money, gold and weapons between Venezuela and Iran – was released by the Biden administration as part of a prisoner swap in an act of rank appeasement that handed a major victory to the Maduro regime.  

    Meanwhile, the continued disintegration of the Venezuelan economy, combined with Biden’s de facto open border policy, brought hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants to the United States, including notorious gangs like Tren de Aragua. Maduro even leveraged the migrant flow to extract concessions from the U.S. and secure his hold on power.

    DEMOCRATS ESCALATE WAR-CRIME ACCUSATIONS AS WHITE HOUSE CALLS ‘INNOCENT FISHERMAN’ THE NEW ‘MARYLAND MAN’ HOAX

    Thankfully, Trump is starting to get things back on track. In addition to the targeted strikes on drug traffickers and the military buildup in the Caribbean, the new administration has canceled the oil concessions granted under Biden, imposed secondary tariffs on countries that purchase oil from Venezuela, doubled the reward for Maduro’s arrest as leader of the Cartel de los Soles, and gone after the Tren de Aragua. As his Venezuela strategy continues to coalesce around a more confrontational approach, a few key principles should guide us.     

    The United States should be clear that Maduro is illegitimate and throw our support behind the democratic opposition movement led by Maria Corina Machado. Maduro has remained in power by stealing not one, but two elections, and has no popular legitimacy whatsoever. Genuine democratic reform, while by no means easy to achieve, is the only way that Venezuela will set itself up for success in the future and become a source of prosperity and partnership rather than violence and instability.

    CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

    What’s more, we must understand that there can be no accommodation with Maduro’s regime, which threatens core American interests by destabilizing the entire region and exporting transnational crime to our shores. Accordingly, our strategy should use every available pressure point – including sanctions and kinetic actions where appropriate – to constrain the Venezuelan government’s ability to conduct business as usual. 

    Finally, we must remember that America’s adversaries want nothing more than for the U.S. to disengage in Latin America and elsewhere. While Venezuela’s collapse is causing even dedicated allies like China and Russia to take a step back, any situation in which the Maduro regime is able to stabilize will invite reengagement from the world’s worst actors and create an unacceptable threat extremely close to our borders.

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    Sanctions were removed or eased, throwing the regime a lifeline and emboldening Maduro to steal yet another election in 2024.

    As President Trump’s new National Security Strategy argues, it’s well past time we reasserted and enforced the Monroe Doctrine to protect American interests in the Western Hemisphere and prevent our adversaries from gaining the ability to project power in the Americas.  

    Venezuela’s collapse is yet another example of the inevitable endpoint of socialism: autocracy, economic disaster and spiraling instability. The longer the Maduro regime remains in place, the worse the situation will become for Venezuelans, neighboring countries in Latin America and for the entire Western Hemisphere. Our strategy must reflect that understanding and empower the administration to deploy every tool available to protect and advance American interests.  

    CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MIKE POMPEO

    Mike Pompeo serves as a contributor at FOX News Channel. Previously, he served in the Trump administration as the sixth director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the 70th U.S. secretary of state. He formerly represented Kansas’ 4th Congressional District.

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  • The Legal Consequences of Pete Hegseth’s “Kill Them All” Order

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    Last week, the Washington Post reported that, in early September, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the military to kill everyone on board a boat in the Caribbean suspected of carrying drugs. After an initial strike on the boat, two men were still alive; a second missile was launched to comply with Hegseth’s order. In the past three months, similar strikes on alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed more than eighty people; the Post report was only the most disturbing example in a campaign that many legal experts and government officials believe to be unlawful. (On Sunday, President Trump said that Hegseth told him he had not given such an order.) This past weekend, the Republican heads of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, in a rare break from Trump, joined the ranking Democrats on the committees in calling for further investigation of the September attack.

    To talk about the Trump Administration’s strikes, I called Todd Huntley, the director of the National Security Law program at Georgetown University Law Center. Huntley previously served as a judge advocate in the Navy for more than two decades. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the apparent illegality of what has been reported about this attack, the similarities and differences between this strike and the worst parts of America’s drone wars, and, more broadly, what the Trump Administration wants to do to the culture of the U.S. military.

    If the Washington Post’s reporting is accurate, why exactly was this strike illegal?

    Basically, this is the one strike that we know about where even if you accept the Administration’s position that the United States is in an armed conflict with these drug cartels, this would still be unlawful under the laws of armed conflict, because the individuals were out of the fight and shipwrecked, and thus owed protection.

    So it is essentially the same as if you storm the beaches at Normandy and a German puts his hands up and you shoot him anyway?

    It’s kind of the same, but it is the law of the sea, and the law of naval warfare has developed separately from the law of land warfare and the law of armed conflict. And long-standing tradition around the law of the sea has come to take on a legal status. But in general it is the same.

    When you say it would potentially be a violation of the law, are we talking about international law? Are we talking about domestic law?

    It’s a violation of customary international law. And, again, this is accepting the Administration’s position that we are in armed conflict with drug cartels. [In October, the Administration notified Congress that it was in a so-called non-international armed conflict, which refers to a conflict with non-state actors.] So it’s a violation of customary international law and the law of armed conflict. Those provisions have also been incorporated into American domestic law. And so under domestic law it would be murder and it would constitute a war crime.

    You’re saying that all of these things would be true even if we take as a given the Administration’s position that we are in an armed military conflict with drug cartels, correct?

    Right.

    What has the Administration been saying about this so-called conflict? I sense from your tone of voice that you don’t find their arguments particularly compelling, but what is the Administration claiming, and why do you think what they’re claiming is problematic?

    Their claims have contradicted each other. Initially, the claim was that the United States was using force against these boats and members of the drug cartels as an act of self-defense, and they equated the importation of drugs to an armed attack against the United States. Then, in one of the notices to Congress, they claim that we are in a non-international armed conflict with the drug cartels. The factors that determine whether you’re in such a conflict with a non-state group are: You look at the level of organization of the group—it has to reach a certain level of organization, and have some sort of command-and-control structure, be able to resupply itself, be able to plan and carry out operations, those types of things. And then the violence has to reach a certain level of intensity, because if it doesn’t meet those factors, what you have is basically just unlawful violent action, which is a law-enforcement matter. And so the advantage, if you will, of triggering a non-international armed conflict is that you can use force against members of that group as a matter of first resort. It’s not like law enforcement, where you have to use the minimal amount of force. If you’ve identified a member of the group, you can kill him no matter where he is, and no matter what he’s doing.

    So that would be the legal basis under international law. The domestic legal basis comes from a line of several Office of Legal Counsel (O.L.C.) opinions. These O.L.C. opinions have stated that the President, as the Commander-in-Chief under Article II, has authority to use military force if it is in the U.S. national interest, and if it’s for a limited duration, scope, and intensity. The idea is that when the President has to respond to an attack on the United States, you shouldn’t require him to get congressional authorization before he does. But here, if they say we’re in a non-international armed conflict, an ongoing armed conflict, that contradicts the fact that this is of limited scope and duration. The domestic legal basis seems to conflict with the international legal basis.

    Aside from the fact that those two bases conflict, what do you make of them separately as arguments?

    Could we be in a non-international armed conflict with drug cartels? Yes, I think theoretically we could be, or the facts could support that. But I just don’t see the facts here. The level of violence, at least as directed against the United States, isn’t so great unless you’re going to count the effects of the drugs and the drug use itself. That is what the Administration is doing, but I think it is too indirect to be legitimate. The groups certainly are not organized at the level that we saw with Al Qaeda, for instance, and the Administration seems to lump all these drug cartels in together, when they’re really, in fact, rivals. They are not acting in concert. So I just don’t think that the Administration has shown the facts that support their legal analysis.

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    Isaac Chotiner

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  • Hegseth defends lethal strikes against alleged drug traffickers: ‘Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them’

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    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote on X that “Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them,” in a post defending the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Caribbean Sea. 

    The declaration came following reports from outlets such as The Washington Post and CNN claiming the U.S. military ordered a second strike on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean on Sept. 2 after the initial attack left two survivors.  

    The commander overseeing that operation told colleagues on a secure conference call that the survivors were legitimate targets because they could still contact other traffickers for help and ordered the second strike to comply with a directive from Hegseth that everyone must be killed, according to The Washington Post. 

    “As usual, the fake news is delivering more fabricated, inflammatory, and derogatory reporting to discredit our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland,” Hegseth wrote on X on Friday. 

    TRUMP SAYS US WILL BEGIN STOPPING VENEZUELAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS BY LAND

    Video footage shared by President Donald Trump on Truth Social showed the suspected drug vessel shortly before it was destroyed on Sept. 2.  (@realDonaldTrump via Truth Social)

    “As we’ve said from the beginning, and in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended to be ‘lethal, kinetic strikes.’ The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” Hegseth continued. 

    “The Biden administration preferred the kid gloves approach, allowing millions of people — including dangerous cartels and unvetted Afghans — to flood our communities with drugs and violence. The Trump administration has sealed the border and gone on offense against narco-terrorists. Biden coddled terrorists, we kill them,” he added. 

    Hegseth also said, “Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.”

    US FORCES KILL 3 NARCO-TERRORISTS IN EASTERN PACIFIC LETHAL STRIKE OPERATION TARGETING DRUG NETWORKS

    Pete Hegseth and Joe Biden

    Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, left, and former President Joe Biden. (Felix Leon/AFP via Getty Images; Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

    In a separate post on his personal X account, Hegseth wrote, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.” 

    Fox News Digital has reached out to a Biden spokesperson for comment.

    President Donald Trump also said on Thursday said the U.S. will “very soon” begin stopping suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers “by land.” 

    “From sending their poisons into the United States, where they kill hundreds of thousands of people a year — but we’re going to take care of that situation,” Trump said. “We’re already doing a lot … It’s about 85% stopped by sea.” 

    GIF of a boat strike in the Caribbean Sea

    War Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that the U.S. carried out a deadly strike on a vessel operated by alleged narco-terrorists in the Caribbean Sea on Oct. 24, 2025. (Department of War)

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    The president added, “You probably noticed that now people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.” 

    Fox News’ Sophia Compton contributed to this report. 

    Greg Norman is a reporter at Fox News Digital.

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  • Trump orders new immigration curbs as FBI probes guard shooting | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump’s administration is expanding its immigration crackdown in the aftermath of the shooting of a pair of National Guard members in Washington.

    The two guard members remained in critical condition on Thursday after they were shot in an ambush Wednesday near the White House. The suspect is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who was subdued and taken into custody shortly after.

    Federal authorities have launched a sprawling, nationwide terrorism investigation into what Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for DC, called a “brazen and targeted” attack. Police scoured the scene of the shooting, while authorities searched homes in Washington state and California. 

    Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others in the administration quickly blamed the Biden administration for letting Lakanwal into the US and seized on the case to push for deeper immigration curbs, including halting reviews of Afghan immigration proceedings and ordering a review of those already in the US. That raises the prospect that settlement rights for Afghan allies of US forces may be curtailed.

    “We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country,” Trump said in a recorded video address published by the White House Wednesday.

    On Thursday, Joseph Edlow, the head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in a social media post that his agency, under Trump’s orders, is conducting “a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern.” He didn’t name specific countries.

    Even before Wednesday’s shooting, the Trump administration had moved to slash legal migration to the US. Trump’s second term has seen the administration severely lower its refugee cap, end temporary protected status for migrants from numerous countries, impose a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visas heavily used by tech companies and universities to bring over high-skilled workers and revoke thousands of visas. It also plans to review the cases of all refugees resettled under the Biden administration, according to an internal Nov. 21 memo seen by Bloomberg News.

    Read More: Trump to Review Refugees Admitted Under Biden in New Crackdown

    The calls for further steps came swiftly after Wednesday’s shooting, even as the investigation is in its early stages. Authorities are treating it as a terror case but haven’t publicly described his specific motive. On Thursday morning, they said that interviews and search warrants were still being carried out.

    Lakanwal lived in Washington state with his wife and, authorities believe, five children. They say he drove to Washington, DC — a cross-country trip of nearly 3,000 miles — with the intent of carrying out the attack. He then drew a revolver and fired at two national Guard Members from West Virginia, blocks from the White House. The two victims are Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24; both remained in critical condition Thursday. 

    Lakanwal was evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021 around the time of the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. AfghanEvac, a nonprofit group dedicated to supporting resettlement of US allies in Afghanistan, said he served in an elite Afghan counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA with direct U.S. intelligence and military support to support their fight against the Taliban.

    Lakanwal arrived in the US in September of that year “due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement. 

    Lakanwal arrived under humanitarian parole and was granted asylum earlier this year by the Trump administration, according to AfghanEvac.

    But the administration’s response raises the prospect that it will seek to block or even revoke status of Afghan nationals who helped US forces fight the Taliban.

    The US immediately suspended processing of immigration requests related to Afghan nationals and is reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration, according to Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary of homeland security.

    Trump called for reviewing every person who came to the US from Afghanistan under the Biden administration, while Vance said they will “redouble our efforts to deport people with no right to be in our country.”

    And several top aides said that Lakanwal’s work with the CIA and other American agencies should not have meant that he was afforded residency or status in the US.

    Ratcliffe said “this individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here” while Attorney General Pam Bondi called Lakanwal a “monster who should not have been in our country” during a Fox News interview Thursday. FBI Director Kash Patel said at the Thursday press conference that “you miss all the signs when you do absolutely zero vetting” and Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for Washington, DC, said “this is what happens in this country when people are allowed in who are not properly vetted.”

    But while the Trump administration said it was a failure of vetting, the Afghan settlement rights group said there is vetting and that Lakanwal was a bad apple. 

    “Afghan immigrants and wartime allies who resettle in the United States undergo some of the most extensive security vetting of any population entering the country,” AfghanEvac President Shawn VanDiver said in a written statement. 

    The group supports “fully supports the perpetrator facing full accountability” and “rejects any attempt to leverage this tragedy as a political ploy to isolate or harm Afghans who have resettled in the United States,” VanDiver added.

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said the anger over the crime must be directed at the perpetrator and not every Afghan national in the US or seeking to move to the US. “Using this horrific attack as an excuse to smear and punish every Afghan, every refugee, or every immigrant rips at something very basic in our Constitution and many faiths: the idea that guilt is personal, not inherited or collective,” the group said in a written statement.

    Aside from immigration reform, the political fallout from the attack could widen. Bondi also signaled that the administration may scrutinize Democrats who had criticized the deployments.

    Speaking on Fox News on Thursday morning, Bondi criticized Democratic lawmakers, without naming any, and media figures who have criticized Trump’s use of the National Guard. 

    “They should be praising our men and women in law enforcement. And we are looking at everything they have said, and why they said it, and if they encouraged acts of violence,” she said, without elaborating.

    The administration is already seeking to court-martial Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, after a video in which Democratic lawmakers told US service members that they can refuse unlawful orders. Trump has called the video “seditious” and reposted calls for the lawmakers to be killed.

    Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, meanwhile, condemned the shooting and pledged that the suspect will be prosecuted, but also hinted at her unease with the deployment. “These young people should be at home in West Virginia with their families,” she said. She didn’t elaborate.

    Pirro, separately, declined to discuss the issue. “I don’t even want to talk about whether they should have been there” she said. “We ought to kiss the ground and thank god that the president said it’s time to bring in more law enforcement.”

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  • White House blasts MS NOW correspondent’s ‘beyond sick’ reaction to DC shooting of National Guardsmen

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    The White House is taking aim at MS NOW correspondent Ken Dilanian over his initial reaction to Wednesday’s shooting of National Guard troops in Washington D.C. 

    Dilanian appeared during the network’s breaking news coverage and was asked about the environment in D.C. since President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard earlier this year. He responded by noting how the National Guard’s presence has been normalized, and it was no longer seen as controversial after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser embraced the deployment. 

    He then pivoted to the political climate around the country. 

    “Of course, you know, there’s so much controversy happening in the United States right now with ICE, who are also wearing uniforms and wearing masks,” Dilanian told MS NOW’s Katy Tur. “And so there’s — you don’t know — people walking around with uniforms in an American city. There are some Americans that might object to that. And so apparently this shooting has happened.”

    2 NATIONAL GUARDSMEN CRITICALLY WOUNDED IN ‘TARGETED SHOOTING’ BLOCKS FROM WHITE HOUSE

    MS NOW correspondent Ken Dilanian was slammed by critics for his commentary about the shooting of National Guardsmen in Washington D.C. (Screenshot/MS NOW)

    Tur and Dilanian also questioned the legality of the National Guard deployment in D.C., citing a federal judge’s ruling that it was unlawful, which the Trump administration is appealing. 

    The White House’s rapid response team slammed Dilanian’s comments on social media. 

    “@KDilanianMSNOW, two heroes were just shot protecting our nation’s capital — and this is your takeaway?” the White House wrote on X.

    “Democrats have relentlessly demonized these Patriots, calling them ‘illegal’ and even suggesting THEY might start shooting Americans. Get help. You are beyond sick,” the White House added.

    WHITE HOUSE CALLS MS NOW STORY ABOUT TRUMP CONSIDERING FIRING KASH PATEL ‘COMPLETELY MADE UP’

    National Guard DC shooting

    Law-enforcement officers secure the area after a shooting in downtown Washington, on November 26, 2025. On November 26, Police in Washington said they had detained a suspect after two National Guard troops were shot blocks away from the White House. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

    MSNBC TO MS NOW: WHAT’S BEHIND THE NETWORK’S BRANDING MAKEOVER?

    Other critics slammed the MS NOW correspondent.

    “MS NOW is about to have to rebrand again. This is truly disgusting,” Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet reacted.

    “How about blaming the murderer,” former ESPN reporter Ed Werder suggested.

    “Ken Dilanian is a disgusting individual,” Red State writer Bonchie posted.

    A spokesperson for MS NOW declined to comment. 

    Two National Guardsmen are in critical condition in what authorities call a targeted attack just blocks away from the White House. The gunman, who has not been identified, is in custody and is being treated for injuries. 

    U.S. Marshals and National Guard troops are seen after two National Guard soldiers were shot near the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    U.S. Marshals and National Guard troops are seen after two National Guard soldiers were shot in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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    Joseph A. Wulfsohn is a media reporter for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to joseph.wulfsohn@fox.com and on Twitter: @JosephWulfsohn.

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  • The US Military Wants to Fix Its Own Equipment. Defense Contractors Are Trying to Shoot That Down

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    Right to repair provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would secure funding for the US military in 2026, are likely to be struck from the final language of the bill despite enjoying broad bipartisan support, sources familiar with ongoing negotiations tell WIRED.

    They say that provisions in the act enabling servicemembers to repair their own equipment are likely to be removed entirely, and replaced with a data-as-a-service subscription plan that benefits defense contractors.

    The right to repair has become a thorny issue in the military. If a drone, fighter jet, or even a stove on a Navy vessel fails, US servicemembers in the field can’t always fix it themselves. In many cases, they need to call a qualified repair person, approved by the manufacturer, and bring them out to the site to fix the problem.

    The military would love to sidestep that hassle by giving personnel the tools and materials to make their own repairs in the field, and has repeatedly called for Congress to enable it to do so. However, some in Washington have been trying to neuter proposed right-to-repair provisions—a move that has been advocated for by defense contractor groups who sell the military the stuff they want to fix as well as the means to fix it, and stand to lose if the military is empowered to perform its own repairs.

    Differing versions of the NDAA have passed the Senate and the House and the process is now in a conferencing phase, where lawmakers meet to combine the versions into one bill. The final language is expected to come through by next week; after votes in both houses of Congress, it will then go to president Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

    Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, long a supporter of repairability legislation, added Sec. 836 to the Senate version of the NDAA, a provision drawing inspiration from the Warrior Right to Repair Act she introduced in July. It called for contractors to be required to provide the US Department of Defense with “the rights to diagnose, maintain, and repair the covered defense equipment.”

    A similar provision was also added to the House version of the NDAA, which was introduced by representative Mike Rogers, a Republican of Alabama and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. (Ranking member Adam Smith of Washington, also led on the bill.) Sec. 863 is a “requirement for contractors to provide reasonable access to repair materials.” In essence, it would empower servicemembers to fix their own stuff without having to rely on the manufacturer, saving time and taxpayer money.

    “Military leaders, service members, the White House, and hundreds of small businesses all agree these bipartisan right to repair reforms are desperately needed,” Warren told Roll Call last week. “The giant defense contractors fighting these reforms are more interested in innovating new ways to squeeze our military and taxpayers than strengthening our national security.”

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  • Solemn tradition at risk as wreath donations lag at Fort Logan

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    DENVER — Every December, volunteers place wreaths on the graves of veterans at Fort Logan National Cemetery — a solemn tradition that honors their service and sacrifice. But this year, many graves may go without one.

    Only about 14,000 wreaths have been donated for the more than 140,000 service members laid to rest at the cemetery, according to the nonprofit ColoradoHonor. That’s enough to cover just 10 percent of the graves, and there are thousands fewer donations than last year.

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    John Parker served in both the Army and Air Force during Vietnam and the Gulf War. He was buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery in 2021.

    Barbara Schneider said she’s been participating in wreath donations ever since her brother, John Parker, died in 2021.

    “John had always wanted to be in a veterans cemetery,” she said. “John was very much into the military, and that was, you know, very touching to him.”

    Parker served in both the Army and the Air Force. He was drafted out of college during the Vietnam War — “the last group out of our county, Sedgwick County in Julesburg, Colorado,” Schneider said — and spent two years in Okinawa. He later joined the Air Force and flew missions during the Gulf War.

    “He was very outgoing, loyal to a fault, with his friends that he’d had like, I say, since they were born,” Schneider said. “He liked the structure, I think, and especially the higher up he got.”

    Schneider said her pride in her brother drives her to give to the wreath program.

    “Every year, you know, they take care of putting one on his grave, but I give so that many others can have them too,” she said. “Knowing that they have a physical remembrance that somebody has remembered them.”

    ColoradoHonor founder David Bolser said the idea for the nonprofit came when he and other volunteers noticed how many graves lacked wreaths.

    VETERAN-WREATHS-NEEDED coloradohonor

    ColoradoHonor

    “We were walking through the cemetery after we donated these wreaths, and our board chairman, Craig Butterfield, said, Look, 95% of these graves don’t have a wreath,” Bolser said. “The rest of them don’t. And that’s what it was, bare gravestones, you know, on Christmas morning — just that image. That’s what did it.”

    Bolser said that each grave represents more than just a name.

    “On the front of all of these 220-pound white marble gravestones, there’s a name, and that name carries an extended family with it,” he said. Volunteers are instructed to “place the wreath, read the name out loud, and then salute.”

    He added that his ultimate goal is to place a wreath on every grave.

    “I think that number is almost irrelevant when you consider that there are 140,000 that are there, and so that’s the ultimate goal,” Bolser said.

    For Schneider, that mission is personal.

    “As time goes by, sometimes the real hard pain of losing a loved one ebbs, but around the holidays, you know you still have their spirit and their memories,” she said.

    Colorado Honor is continuing its donation drive in hopes of reaching more families and supporters before the wreaths are placed later this season. You can donate at the ColoradoHonor website. Donations are accepted until midnight on Thanksgiving Day.

    Solemn tradition at risk as wreath donations lag at Fort Logan

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  • Hegseth seeks briefing on Sen Mark Kelly ‘Don’t Give Up the Ship’ viral video

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    The Department of War released an update via X on Tuesday regarding “potentially unlawful conduct” exhibited by Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., in the viral video titled “Don’t Give Up the Ship” which critics claim encouraged treason from service members. 

    War Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded an update on the review by Dec. 10.

    “The Department of War recently received information regarding potentially unlawful comments made by CAPT (Ret) Mark E. Kelly in a public video, on or about November 18, 2025. I am referring this, and any other related matters, for your review, consideration, and disposition as you deem appropriate,” Hegseth wrote.

    “Please provide me a brief on the outcome of your review by no later than December 10, 2025,” his letter concluded.

    Hegseth addressed his letter to the Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan. Kelly served in the Navy as a captain before running for office.

    HEGSETH RIPS MARK KELLY’S POST ABOUT HIS SERVICE: ‘YOU CAN’T EVEN DISPLAY YOUR UNIFORM CORRECTLY’
     

    The Department of War received information regarding potentially unlawful comments made by Sen. Mark E. Kelly, D-Ariz. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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    The Department of War and the Office of Kelly did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

    This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

    Jasmine Baehr is a Breaking News Writer for Fox News Digital, where she covers politics, the military, faith and culture.

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