This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.  The battle for Hormuz has ramped up after the United States has undertaken three consecutive nights of major bombing raids against Iranian targets. All the while, President Trump is said to be “very serious” about his plan to impose a 20% toll on cargo transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, a Semafor report says, citing a White House official who says the president has desired such a plan for months. Both warring sides are insisting that it is their side alone that will be the ‘guardian’ over the strait. AFP/Getty Images Iran’s foreign…

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Citing specialized training needs that exceed those of the other services, the Space Force is making its first move toward an eight-year enlistment model by offering a hefty bonus to those who choose a longer commitment.On Monday, the service announced the launch of its Initial Enlisted Bonus Pilot program, running July 1 to Nov. 30. The first-come, first-serve program will offer a $25,000 bonus to enlistees who commit to eight-year contracts until the cap of 100 bonuses is reached. The incentive is available to new signers regardless of their chosen specialty.In a conversation hosted by the Military Officers Association of…

The U.S. Navy is looking for a family of carrier-based drones that can fulfill a variety of missions, according to a July 14 Request for Information.The sea service “is exploring the industrial base’s capacity to deliver highly capable, autonomous platforms optimized for operations from Ford-class and Nimitz-class Nuclear Aircraft Carriers,” according to the RFI. The response deadline has been set for Aug. 13.The drones the service is targeting, part of the Air Wing of the Future Family of Systems, can be designed as “a single-role platform, a multi-role platform, or a modular FoS [family of systems],” according to the service.…

The Departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services signed an agreement Monday to increase coordination on research into psychedelic drugs for treating veterans’ mental health disorders.Under the new memorandum of understanding, VA and HHS plan to increase clinical trial participation, train therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they receive federal approval and collect data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators in considering such treatments.The agreement follows an executive order signed in April by President Donald Trump that directed the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate its review of several psychedelic treatments for…

Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news from Outdoor Life. You’ve probably heard the term “bugging out” a thousand times, but what does it really mean? “Bug out” is a military term from the 1950’s that has been adopted by the preparedness community to encompass any situation where you’d leave your normal haunts in a hurry. An emergency exodus, if you will. By now even your loopy great aunt is likely to have a bug out bag hidden under her pile of cats. But where is she bugging out to? She may have an expert-approved…

This article was originally published by Mike Adams at Natural News.  We Are Witnessing the Commoditization of Machine Intelligence A new frontier model emerges every week — Grok, Qwen, DeepSeek, GLM 5.2 — each one matching or exceeding the last. Yesterday’s marvel is today’s commodity, and the speed of this cycle is staggering. Consider Fable Five: a model so dangerous it was recalled after hacking government systems in hours. Then it was re-released and immediately outperformed everything by 8x in real-world coding tasks. It doesn’t need babysitting. It’s like a heat-seeking bomb that solves in hours what used to take…

Mechanical problems with a water treatment plant in Hawaii have left thousands of soldiers without central air conditioning in the barracks, a spokesman for U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii confirmed Tuesday in a statement to Military Times. Four thousand soldiers in Area North Barracks are opening windows, turning on fans or using other tools to beat the heat while the base grapples with pump issues. On July 10, deep-well pumps supporting Army installations in central and northern Oahu started experiencing problems. According to the garrison, only one pump is currently pushing water to the surface. To maintain essential water services, water…

The Marine Corps is engaged in a multi-year pilot program to determine whether the standardized test the military has used since 1968 might be swapped out for a more holistic way to capture troops’ experiences and abilities. In a senior enlisted leaders forum hosted last week by Military Officers Association of America, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz discussed the pilot and the Corps’ hopes of getting away from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, which is administered prior to enlistment and determines what jobs troops are eligible for. “Is the ASVAB … score the only indicator of…

The U.S. Space Force’s unit tasked with deploying space technology announced the award of two agreements with a total of roughly $1.75 billion to field missile warning and tracking satellites in support of the Golden Dome initiative.The Space Development Agency selected L3Harris Technologies and Sierra Space Corporation for the delivery of a total of 36 space vehicles across four orbital planes, with an expected available launch by the end of 2028, according to a Monday release.The 36 Accelerated Missile Defense Tranche 3, or AMDT3, space vehicles will be made up of 18 missile warning and tracking variants and 18 missile…

Sign up for the Outdoor Life Newsletter Get the hottest outdoor news from Outdoor Life. This story, “Where Vultures Wait,” appeared in the August 1952 issue of Outdoor Life. Vultures bunched together mean a kill, in the wild Mato Grosso country of southwestern Brazil. There were close to 200 of them this time, an incredible flock of ugly, naked-headed ghouls perched in three trees at the edge of a strip of jungle, where the vines and thick stuff gave way to tall grass. That meant just one thing: A jaguar must have pulled down one of the wild cattle there…

The deadly screwworm is continuing to spread through the United States, confusing health officials who have put plans in motion to stop it. So far, US cases of screwworm infection are hovering at 35 animals, most of which are clustered in Texas. The parasite is flesh-eating, and sterile-fly projects are in place to control the spread of the New World screwworm. This parasite could reshape cross-border trade too, said Mexican cattle ranchers. Mexico’s cattle industry is in a bigger crisis than that of the US. It is facing what Álvaro Bustillos Fuentes calls “the worst storm in the history of…

The Navy this week awarded a $2.2 billion Vessel Construction Management contract to the Jacksonville, Florida-based TOTE Services LLC for the service’s new Medium Landing Ships.The Marine Corps commissioned the new Medium Landing Ships, or LSMs, with an eye toward potential conflicts with China in the Indo-Pacific. Measuring around 100 meters, the smaller, more agile ships were designed for island hopping with troops, equipment and supplies in tow.Under the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress directed the Navy to select a VCM outside of the military to manage the contract to procure no more than eight additional LSMs. The VCM…

A U.S. Air Force helicopter conducted an emergency landing in Northwest Washington, D.C., late Monday night after its crew heard vibrations while in flight.The aircrew of a UH-1N helicopter assigned to the 1st Helicopter Squadron, located at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, made the precautionary landing after noting “vibrating mechanical sounds,” an Air Force spokesperson confirmed to Military Times.A Joint Base Andrews spokesperson told Military Times that the crew was conducting a routine training flight. The helicopter landed near the Georgetown Reservoir, owned and operated by the Washington Aqueduct, on Monday at approximately 9:26 p.m. local time. “Joint Base Andrews takes…

Sign up for the On The Gun Newsletter The latest for gun hunters and competitive shooters. Suppressors are rapidly becoming standard kit on the modern hunting rifle, but there is still plenty of legend and lore around what they do, and how they affect your rifle’s performance. One of the biggest questions hunters often have is how it will affect the accuracy of their gun. Long-time suppressor owners will likely tell you that they’ll make your rifle more accurate, but we still see folks claiming that adding a can will hurt a finely-tuned rifle’s accuracy. What’s the truth? That’s what…

Iran has warned that during attacks by the United States on Iran and its interests, the Strait of Hormuz will never be reopened. Iranian military spokesman Brigadier General  Mohammad Akraminia said that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will fight for control of the vital waterway “until their last breath.” The United States president, Donald Trump, also delusionally claimed that US military forces are “taking over” the Strait of Hormuz, which is a key global energy supply bottleneck. The US would then charge vessels “20% on all cargo shipped” in exchange for protection. Washington would also reinstate its blockade of Iranian…

Manufacturing problems are dashing the U.S. Army’s plans to boost production of urgently needed 155-mm howitzer shells, a Pentagon watchdog warned. Despite a goal of 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025, the Army had only managed to produce 36,000 rounds per month as of March 2026, according to a report published this month by the Department of Defense Inspector General. Shell production requires first building the projectile at a metal parts factory, followed by packing the shell with explosives at another facility. But this means “projectile metal part production is the limiting factor for reaching the 100,000 round-per-month goal…