Latest news with #UnitedStatesDepartmentofDefense
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Pennsylvania residents can properly retire tattered American flags in York County
YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM)– Central Pennsylvania residents can properly retire their worn and tattered American flags in York County. The United States Department of Defense says throwing a worn-out American flag in the trash is considered disrespectful, and there are alternatives to getting rid of a tattered flag before replacing it. One Midstate police station says residents can do it properly here. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now According to the Penn Township Police Department, Midstate residents with tattered American flags can take them to the Penn Township Recycling Center at 1020 Wilson Avenue in Hanover. Here, worn-down American flags are given to the Hanover Elks Lodge #763 to be properly retired with honor, police said. The U.S. Department of Defense says flags are typically retired with honor through a ceremony that involves properly burning the flag if they are deemed no longer serviceable. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Colorado company to become first to refuel Space Force asset
DENVER (KDVR) — Queue the 'Also sprach Zarathrustra' — a Colorado company will become the first to perform an on-orbit refueling of a United States Department of Defense space asset. 'Disgruntled' employee damages Douglas County doughnut shop, faces charges Astroscale U.S. Inc., a Denver-based on-orbit services and logistics company, will perform two refueling operations of a U.S. Department of Defense satellite that is in geostationary orbit for the United States Space Force, according to a press release from the company. 'We're changing the reality of what's possible,' said Ron Lopez, president of Astroscale U.S. 'This mission proves that in-space logistics does not have to be years away. We're a focused team with one goal: deliver and operate an operational prototype spacecraft for the Space Force. That's only possible because of our agile structure, solution-oriented design, close collaboration with Space Systems Command's Servicing Mobility and Logistics program office, and our incredible team. The Astroscale U.S. Refueler is proof that commercial space companies can develop and deliver new, operational capabilities on time and on budget.' The Astroscale U.S. Refueler is expected to launch in the summer of 2026 and will provide on-orbit services to a warfighter. The servicing will be the first to ever support a DoD asset, while simultaneously becoming the first spacecraft to conduct hydrazine refueling above geostationary orbit, according to the company. The Refueler was designed for maneuverability and is a 300-kilogram spacecraft that will carry a refillable hydrazine tank used in two operations that will enable an end-to-end ecosystem between a client, servicer and depot in space. Astroscale developed the spacecraft by selecting Southwest Research Institute to build the bus and using Orbit Fab's refueling interfaces. 'We're not just enabling a refueling mission — we're laying the groundwork for scalable, flexible logistics across space,' said Ian Thomas, Astroscale U.S. Refueler program manager. 'This is infrastructure that expands options for the warfighter and demonstrates what rapid innovation looks like in action.' Former Avs player Chris Simon diagnosed with CTE after he died, analysis finds The company said the Refueler is part of a growing commercial ecosystem supporting dynamic space operations and enhanced options for mission planning, resilience and responsiveness. For more information about the project, visit the Astroscale U.S. Inc. website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Forbes
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Signal Chat Leak Shows Human Element Remains The Weakest Link
Despite the claims that the social messaging app Signal provided an encrypted means of communication, there were reportedly repeated warnings from within the United States Department of Defense that the platform wasn't as secure as some may have believed. Advisories were issued that mobile apps shouldn't be used for sending "controlled unclassified information." According to a report on Tuesday from NPR, a memo was even sent out earlier this month that warned, "A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messagener application," and it further stated that "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations." Yet, it wasn't hackers that breached the communication between top Trump administration officials this month that included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Rather, Michael Waltz, President Donald Trump's national security advisor, inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to the joint communication. This highlights that often times with classified communications; it isn't the technology that is at fault, but the human element where there is a failure. History is filled with similar tales. During the First World War, the German government was unaware that its telegraph lines were being monitored by the British military in London. That led to the British learning of Berlin's plans to try to entice Mexico to join the war. In January 1917, German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sent a coded telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico City, but British intelligence intercepted and decoded the message, sharing it with the U.S. government. It led to widespread anti-German outrage and shifted public opinion towards supporting the Allies in the war. Two decades later, the U.S. military had cracked the codes of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which contributed to the U.S. Navy's victory at the Battle of Midway – while Nazi Germany also put great faith in its enigma machine believing it was unbreakable, though Allied efforts managed to crack it as well. "This newest example of leaked military secrets is hardly unprecedented," explained technology industry analyst Charles King of Pund-IT. "This week's embarrassment is closer to the Special Order 191 fiasco during the American Civil War." That occurred in 1862, when Confederate General Robert E Lee issued an order detailing his plans for the Maryland campaign that culminated in the Battle of Antietam. "Some feckless idiot wrapped a copy of the order around three cigars that he then proceeded to drop and lose," added King. "The package was discovered by a pair of Union soldiers who made sure that the order was delivered to Union General George McLellan, who was able to match Lee's actions and largely blunt the Confederates at Antietam." King said it would be wrong to suggest that the Houthi forces targeted by the plans discussed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and his planning group achieved the benefits McLellan enjoyed at Antietam, but it serves to highlight that the weakest link in both situations was human in nature. "Instead, Hegseth's profound error in trusting state secrets to an insecure and unapproved messaging app might have gone unnoticed if The Atlantic editor Jeffery Goldberg had not been inadvertently invited to the chat," King continued. "Fortunately for U.S. military personnel involved in the attacks on the Houthis, Goldberg seems to have a greater understanding of and respect for maintaining military secrets than Secretary Hegseth and his cronies." Since the disclosure of the group chat designated the "Houthi PC small group," officials have attempted to deny that the discussion was classified, while Hegseth made the claim "nobody was texting war plans" and further downplayed the significance of the chat. The Pentagon chief also suggested Goldberg is "a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist," even after the White House and other officials confirmed the authenticity of the message. Yet, deflection is now the course of action for the administration and its supporters. Fox News host Jesse Watters tried to suggest it was an honest and simple mistake, and on his show on Monday, argued, "Did you ever try to start a group text? You're adding people, and you accidentally add the wrong person?" Though Watters failed to address the gravity of the situation, he is right that social media apps are ripe for such mishaps. "Unfortunately, we should not be surprised. Washington insiders have been leaking information throughout the last few decades for one purpose or another, but the recent incident shows how out of control this kind of activity has become," said Dr. Julianna Jeanine Kirschner, lecturer in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. "The likely scenario here is that these Washington insiders overestimated their ability to mask messaging on Signal," added Kirschner. "The fact is they used an interface that is not encrypted in any meaningful way, and it has no governmental communicative protections. This should concern the broader public, but it is even more sinister than it appears. It is quite possible that communicating issues of critical war strategy in various forms of non-secure modes is common practice." Human error is ultimately the problem in situations like this, and it wasn't a case of Goldberg actively trying to hack the Signal group or code breakers working tirelessly to access the information. Instead, this was very much akin to the Special Order 191 wrapped in cigars. Yet, in this case, Goldberg was invited to the group. "Hubris is also to blame, because these insiders think they can use an unprotected channel of communication to share critical war decisions and not get caught," suggested Kirschner. "This line of thinking is unhealthy, unsafe, and questionable in terms of strategy. It also suggests a serious lack of judgment by those making life-or-death decisions." It is also true that social media and messaging platforms have improved their security over the years, but it has not approached any level worthy of sharing such vital information between such high-ranking officials. "The average person should not be concerned about their everyday use of these messaging platforms," said Kirschner, "Yet, a government official or insider sharing information that is likely classified should consider otherwise."
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Family of WWII veteran who fought alongside Navajo Code Talkers responds to DEI scrub from Pentagon
ALEXANDRIA, Ohio (WCMH) – The United States Department of Defense removed thousands of news articles and other content earlier this month. The removal of articles was part of the DEI purge set in motion by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Records of Jackie Robinson's service during World War II and the Navajo Code Talkers who were integral in winning the war were just two examples of articles removed from the website. The impact of that decision was felt here in Central Ohio by Michele Adkins, whose father Allen Pratt served in the Marines alongside the Code Talkers in the Pacific during World War II. Adkins recalled her father, who died in 2010, never really talked a lot about his time in the Marines. 'My father suffered from PTSD. You know, his whole life he suffered with depression. He never very rarely talked about it,' she said. So, when she had an opportunity to hear him tell stories, she listened closely. 'He says, you know, I drove the code talkers all over the Pacific. I was a Jeep driver. I said, well, I didn't know you were a Jeep driver. He said, yeah, he I drove those men everywhere. They probably would have not won the Pacific War without those gentlemen, because they, the Navajo language and the other native languages are, passed down from family to family. It is not a written language. You and I wouldn't be able to just go find the Navajo language written and try to figure it out. Unless you were Navajo. So it was a code that was unbreakable,' she recalled of one conversation with her father before he passed. When Adkins saw the 'scrubbing' of government websites she was devastated. 'The Department of Defense put, you know, this email out, basically to scrub, any information on African-American, Asian Americans, a big impact on my life. It also included disabled women, which was very bothersome to me considering I have a disabled daughter. So, the scrubbing of materials has just a huge effect on individuals. You know, you just can't get rid of history. And so I hope they make progress in putting it all back.' Adkins has a collection of old photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, and telegraphs from her father's time in the Marines. Before he was drafted, Allen Pratt was a basketball player for Middletown High School. Since he was 18 years old, he was drafted before he graduated and before the team finished their season. That team won the State Championship in Class A in 1944. They sent Pratt a photo of the team with the trophy, and Pratt's father let him know of the victory via telegram. His story is just one of thousands that may be lost to history if not for archives, stories, articles, and collections like his daughter Adkins'. 'When my father was shipped off to Peleliu, besides the basketball tournaments that he had been in, he had never been out of the state of Ohio. So what a shock that was to go from a sandlot kid to, you know, 18 years old, sitting in a foxhole on the beach and, you know, in Guadalcanal or Okinawa,' Adkins said. 'I wish the Department of Defense would look at a person like myself and say, wow, there was a person behind the code talkers and my aunt and Arlington National Seminary Cemetery, there's people behind it, you know, it's disheartening that they just got rid of that information.' 'Regardless of what a person's opinion is on DEI, and I'm not making any kind of political statement because it's just a matter of respect. You know, these people gave their life. They waved a magic wand, got rid of everything and all the history and, you know, based on culture or race and, you know, although my father was not Native American, he had just a strong connection with those individuals. And you can't remove that,' she said. Since the Pentagon removed thousands of articles from it's website, there has been an effort to replace many of the historical artifacts. 'Even if they scrubbed them and then you put them back into the record, you know, just for that short period of time, it's hurtful. To think that this information was just arbitrarily removed, you know, there's people behind, there's family behind these individuals. It doesn't matter what race or what color or nationality or gender. There are people and there's families that are associated with them. So don't scrub them. Celebrate them,' Adkins said. The Code Talkers were Navajo military members who worked in secret for the United States military to secure communications using a language only known to them. They weren't given credit for their service until they received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001. The program was a complete secret with no recognition until the program was declassified in 1968. Adkins believes it's important to know the history. Nobody thinks a whole lot about DEI until it affects you as an individual. And it did affect me because I was so intertwined with my father and his history with the code talkers. He transported the code talkers in those jeeps all over the Pacific Islands,' Adkins explained. Arlington National Cemetery also recently changed their website layout, removing references to notable gravesites of 'Hispanic, African-American, and Women.' The Cemetery did publish a message on March 19 clarifying that those notable individuals were not removed from the website, but placed into another category after mentions of race and gender were Great Aunt Mary was a Lieutenant Colonel at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. 'My aunt, was serving at the same time, and she was, President Eisenhower's private duty nurse in Washington, DC. He had his gallbladder removed. She cared for an awful lot of people that are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and she would have been heartbroken to have fought that you couldn't find information on women or minorities,' Adkins said. Adkins is very proud of her family's military history, and hopes to keep advocating for veterans and families in the future. She wrote letters to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump asking them to reconsider removal of military history from government websites. 'The military is very important to this family and the history. And I don't want it to disappear. Even though our government is trying to correct those, scrubbing and you know put it back into the record, it it still is very hurtful when you have a whole family, you know, that was involved in World War Two,' she said. Since the initial DEI scrubbing, thousands of articles and profiles have been returned to the Pentagon website. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Winona State loses $1.1M federal grant for civic engagement, public service
Winona State University has lost a $1.1 million grant from the United States Department of Defense that it was says was designed to promote civic engagement. The university received notice of the termination of the grant on Feb. 28, according to a WSU spokesperson. The letter references Code of Federal Regulations language that a federal award is subject to termination if the "award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities." The grant is part of $80 million in federal funds cut by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced earlier this week. The agency claims the funds slashed have been "wasted on programs that do not support [the Department of Defense's] core mission." A spokesperson for the university tells Bring Me The News the funds were intended to form a Civic Center unit that promotes engagement "among students, faculty, local government entities in the region, and nonprofit organizations." The university provided the following official statement regarding the terminated grant: "This grant represented a significant investment in student learning and regional community support for civic engagement, and we are disappointed the award has been terminated. "We plan to assess the progress and investments made to date in the Civic Center project and its stated goals and examine how we might continue to lead this work in partnership with our students and others in our surrounding communities." Winona State initially was awarded the grant in August 2024 by the Biden administration. The Civic Center held a series of events titled "Promoting Civility Through Dialogue" and launched an internship program to provide hands-on work experience for students from various majors. It also partnered with SE MN Together, a group of current and former local government administrators and employees, educators and leaders of nonprofit organizations who "work to strengthen regional connections and build local capacity to solve their communities' issues."A spokesperson says a speaker series was planned this spring on civic engagement, civility and public service. Community dialogues were also in the works with topics ranging from transportation coordination, building welcoming and inclusive communities, affordable housing and cooperation on regional development. "Although we are deeply disappointed, we are determined to keep moving forward. The purpose of the Civic Center is to bring students and the community together to solve public issues, and we will continue to do that in whatever capacity is available to us," the WSU Civic Center said on Facebook.
