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U.S. military does not plan to deploy troops to the polls in November, general says
Responding to a senator’s questions, Gen. Dan Caine said the Pentagon did not plan to send military personnel to voting sites or to seize ballots or voting machines.
Pentagon Agreement With N.I.H. on Biodefense Draws Alarm From Democrats
Under a new partnership, the Defense Department would play a larger role in biodefense and pandemic preparedness. Democrats warned it could allow a Pentagon cash grab.
Trump cuts military drills with South Korea citing ‘very good relationship’ with Kim Jong-un
President orders Pentagon to scale back ‘inappropriate and hostile’ exercises with South Korea
Iran war has cost $45.1 billion, Pentagon tells Congress
The US war with Iran has cost $45.1 billion, the Pentagon informed Congress on Friday, according to one source familiar with the matter.
Sen. Slotkin presses Hegseth, Caine for
The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence.
Chevron to expand Venezuela operations, says U.S. official
President Donald Trump last week announced an ambitious deal to develop Venezuela's oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits
CIA chief reportedly warns Russia against attacking Nato countries on visit to Moscow
Kremlin dismisses US media reports after meeting as ‘scare stories’, as Pentagon policy chief prepares to meet Nato secretary general
9/11 Pentagon official remembers his survival 25 years later
For Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell of Texas, the Pentagon is more than a workplace, it’s the spot where his life nearly ended. Twenty-five years later, he’s walking its halls again, carrying with him a story of survival and a connection to the day that changed a generation.
Pentagon's counter-drone force rolls out new online marketplace
Developed with Kaizen Laboratories, the new shop allows users to find systems based on price, features, performance reviews, and requirements.
The Science Behind the Fleet: Eleven Naval Research Lab Experts Earn Etter Awards
Eleven U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) engineers and scientists received the prestigious Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientists and Engineers of the Year Awards during a ceremony at the Pentagon, July 29, recognizing their exceptional contributions to naval science and technology.
Sen. Slotkin presses Hegseth, Caine for
The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence.
Pentagon grants DHS permission to test heat ray weapon for potential use at border
The Pentagon has given the Department of Homeland Security permission to test a military-grade heat ray and develop tactics to potentially use it in operations at the southern US border, according to a memo signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month and obtained by CNN.
The Politics of Shared Scarcity
Five weeks before the war against Iran began, the Pentagon published a strategy warning that the United States could find itself facing simultaneous major conflicts across several theaters.
CT manufacturing suppliers face costly cybersecurity rules to keep defense business
Connecticut defense suppliers like Windsor’s NE-XT Technologies are still investing in cybersecurity despite the Pentagon’s pause on CMMC audits.
Supreme Court backs Pentagon decision to throw out plea deals for 9/11 alleged conspirators
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to cancel plea agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants accused of plotting the 9/11 terror attack.
Trump says he will observe the 25th anniversary of 9/11 at the Pentagon
Vice President JD Vance will attend the New York observance and other administration officials will go to the ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Judge lets Pentagon move forward with firing Stars and Stripes journalists
Iranian strikes have damaged hundreds of structures at U.S. bases, watchdog says
The report by the Pentagon's inspector general also detailed the extent of munitions shortfalls in the first comprehensive public accounting of the cost and military impact of the war with Iran.
Democratic senator presses Pentagon over ‘broken toilets’ and ‘mental health’ aboard USS Lincoln
After families of sailors aboard the USS Lincoln described concerns to MS NOW about poor conditions and mental strain, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is demanding details from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Sen. Slotkin presses Hegseth, Caine for
The Pentagon said in an email that it will respond directly to Slotkin, as it does with all congressional correspondence.
Trump orders Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea
Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that the exercises slated to begin this week are costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” while Trump has been in the White House.
How the Pentagon Is Getting Into the Venezuelan Oil Business Under Trump
The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, founded by the Biden administration to give loans to bolster the U.S. defense industry, is helping lead President Trump’s oil deal.
Exclusive: Pentagon sends ‘political loyalty’ survey to US allies
US fired $22 billion in weapons fighting Iran, drained stocks: report
The Pentagon inspector general also found that the US lost $3.7 billion in equipment during the war.
Trump says Pentagon won't livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter
The Pentagon has said Hasan’s execution is scheduled for Dec. 3
Pentagon draws up new Iran strike plans as Trump hesitates
The U.S. military has drafted options for three days of strikes, but in recent months the president has repeatedly vetoed plans to restart the war.
Trump launches ‘Super Intelligence Force’ after calls for AI slowdown
Leaders from the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of Personnel Management will serve on the task force.
U.S. Has Deployed Weapons in Space, Air Force Secretary Says
Troy E. Meink’s comments were the first public acknowledgment of American weapons in orbit. The Pentagon has been preparing for potential conflict in space with Russia or China.
'These reports are FALSE': Pentagon responds to mental health concerns on aircraft carrier involved with Iran War
Democrats are demanding answers following reports of supply shortages, poor living conditions and mental health concerns.
'These reports are FALSE': Pentagon responds to mental health concerns on aircraft carrier involved with Iran War
Democrats are demanding answers following reports of supply shortages, poor living conditions and mental health concerns.
Bipartisan criticism from senators about Pentagon briefing on U.S. defense strategy
Tensions are mounting between the Pentagon and Congress over the flow of information to lawmakers about the U.S. military's priorities, with both Democrats and Republicans accusing a Defense Department leader of being frustratingly opaque.
Trump orders major cut to US-South Korea drills as North Korea ramps up missile tests
President Trump ordered the Pentagon to scale back Ulchi Freedom Shield drills, citing costs and a hostile signal to Kim Jong Un amid North Korea tensions.
Missile shortages, damage to US facilities: Pentagon watchdog issues first review of Iran war
The Pentagon’s official watchdog released a special report about the Iran war on Monday, representing the Defense Department’s first formal accounting of US equipment and facility losses from the conflict.
Former Pentagon official analyzes Strait of Hormuz oil threats
Former Pentagon official Brent Sadler discusses rising geopolitical risks including Iran's threats in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. envoys pushing for Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations and the new Russia-North Korea road bridge.
Republican launches impeachment effort against Pete Hegseth over Iran war
WASHINGTON – An anti-war Republican congressman introduced articles of impeachment on Sept. 15 against Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth over the Iran war, potentially causing a political headache for GOP
Red Cell Partners lands Pentagon contract that could generate $100M for its portfolio startups
Red Cell Partners, a McLean venture firm, won a Pentagon contract worth up to $100 million to identify cost-saving opportunities using AI technology from its portfolio startups.
Exclusive: Emails reveal Palmer Luckey’s political fundraising as his company wins sole-source contracts
Co-founder of defense firm Anduril has donated $5.9m to Republicans and bundled more, while reaping billions in Pentagon contracts
Trump says he will ‘make a decision’ on Hegseth plan to live-stream execution
The Pentagon has said a firing squad for the Fort Hood shooter is scheduled for Dec. 3. “By showing it, maybe other people won’t be doing what he did,” the president said.
The core anti-Pangram constituency is phony writers
Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week. The Verdict, by Kelsey Piper A lot of people hate AI for drowning the internet in slop and displacing human creatives. You might think that these people would be thrilled by a program that can identify and flag AI-generated work. But many people who hate AI also hate Pangram, an impressively accurate AI detector that produces very few false positives, according to high-quality independent research. This loathing found its most recent expression in a bizarre Wired article that amplifies a wide range of false arguments from Pangram skeptics: that AI detectors are racist (they’re not) or ableist (they’re not)1 or don’t work (this one does)2. Rather than starting from the premise that it would be really valuable to have a working AI detector and scrutinizing Pangram to make sure it lives up to that promise, the article starts from the premise that Pangram obviously has bad vibes and sets out to discover why. (One answer: The CEO microwaved lunch during an interview!) Why aren’t writers who resent Pangram more eager to distinguish themselves from posters who are having ChatGPT ghostwrite all their work? There are a few different things at play, but I think one key dynamic is this: These are often the same people. A core constituency for arguments like Wired’s is “writers” who are using AI to write their posts but resent this fact being made public. They stand to lose from AI detectors because AI detectors call them out. Share When Substack announced a partnership with Pangram, a sizable fraction of the platform’s authors rose up in outrage. Some people had experience with other AI detectors that didn’t work, and some felt that AI writing ought to be encouraged — both of which are fair enough. But the fury was fueled by authors passionately insisting that Pangram kept wrongly accusing them on almost every post they published. Pangram can be wrong, especially on short passages. But in the overwhelming majority of cases where Pangram looked at a whole blog post rather than a single paragraph, the program correctly detected work as AI. Even if we can’t be 100% sure in any individual case, we can notice the trend in the aggregate. Wired quotes Sam Illingworth, a professor of critical AI literacy at Edinburgh Napier University, who said, “I don’t think [AI detectors] work. … I think that detectors are prejudiced against certain people.” This spring, he said that he used AI for research and editing; this summer he acknowledged that in addition to research and editing, he also uses it “now and then for a turn of phrase I keep.” Pangram informs us that most of his posts are 100% AI-written (some are mixed AI-and-human) and that 100% AI-written posts started appearing last year. The favorable interpretation is that, as someone whose recent work Pangram consistently mistakes for AI, Illingworth sees Pangram’s flaws firsthand. The unfavorable interpretation is that the tool’s credibility trades off against his own, because its account of who writes his posts is not consistent with his. Illingworth is not alone in insisting the detector does not work. “It’s a Monday night in late July, and I’m pasting my own Substack draft into an AI detector for the first time. Not because I’m worried. Because I’m curious. I wrote every word of it myself, the way I write everything, out loud in my head first, in a rhythm that still carries the accent of a language I learned to think in before I learned to write in this one,” begins one Substack post by an author indignant that Pangram flags her writing as AI. “That’s the part I had to sit with before I could write this.” If you, like me, have worked with AIs a lot, you won’t even need Pangram there. The author of that piece is AI. It is obviously AI! I checked 10 other posts on the blog, and they were also obviously AI! “I have spent 22 years as an award-winning author and essayist. And now this bullshit tool that learned from MY writing is going to accuse me of plagiarism,” popular Substack writer Carlyn Beccia wrote in an anti-Pangram post. “For the last and final time, AI DETECTORS DO NOT WORK.” Here’s what her writing sounded like in 2020: “Most success stories revolve around one person who believed enough in you to say — give it a try. We call these people muses, but they are so much more than that. They are the strong man giants whose shoulders we stand on so we can see the horizon. Throughout the editing process, I am sure my editor felt less like a giant of greatness and more like Atlas with the world on her shoulders.” Pangram says it was 100% human-written. (So were other articles of hers in 2020.) And here’s what it sounds like now: “And then there is the reshuffling, which sounds like paperwork until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork. The Trump regime recently moved special education oversight from the Education Department to HHS. That is not a minor bureaucratic transfer. It changes the frame.”3 Pangram says this is mostly AI. I am not convinced that Pangram is wrong. In my own experience, Pangram is very effective on long texts — if it marks a long essay as AI, the essay was either written by AI or deliberately written to sound like AI. On tweet-length or paragraph-length texts, it’s not perfectly reliable. It seems to work just as well for non-native English speakers as for native speakers. While I have seen dozens of claims of pre-2022 text returning a positive result on Pangram, I have tried repeatedly to corroborate those and have never once succeeded. To be clear, I’m absolutely not saying that complaining about Pangram suggests a writer is a cheat. There are plenty of other concerns. Most are mistakenly premised, such as the false claim that Pangram trains on work you put into it, but others are reasonable: It’s unreliable on sufficiently short text segments; it creates an internet witch-hunt mentality when there are defensible uses of AI; people who are open about their AI use are sometimes blamed, when the only people really doing something wrong are the ones who hide it; and it isn’t perfect, so a single positive result shouldn’t be taken as decisive proof of misconduct. I’m happy to concede that Pangram is imperfect and possible to over-rely on. If an author’s posts are mostly non-AI and one scans as partially AI, this could be a mistake. It’s also possible to defeat Pangram with intentional effort. If you think we need something more robust and more reliable, fine! But if you don’t like AI and don’t like Pangram, your attitude really ought to be that it’s a shame that our existing tools for AI detection are imperfect, and it’s important to invent better ones. If your stance is instead that AI is evil and so is looking for AI, then ultimately you’re contributing to the sloppification of the internet. You’re making it harder for people who write their own text to distinguish themselves, and providing cover for authors who are definitely not writing their own text. Subscribe Top stories this week, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs Commentators often worry that the decline of reading could mean the decline of liberal democracy — but deliberative governance actually predated widespread literacy. This week, Maibritt Henkel pointed out that many liberal cultures thrive on a culture of raucous, interactive debate, which can happen in-person as easily, if not more so, than in text. Read on, dear reader, to learn more. It may actually cheer you up: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) [ Reading won’t save liberalism ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) Maibritt Henkel · Sep 1 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/reading-wont-save-liberalism) It used to be bad to downplay climate change (if we mean denying its reality). Today, it’s actually good to downplay climate change (if we mean keeping the issue out of political fights so we can make real progress). This counterintuitive view is called “climate hushing,” and contributor Alex Trembath argued that it’s the key to enacting good policy going forward. Get up to speed on the latest in climate politics: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) [ We won’t stop climate change by talking about it ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Alex Trembath · Sep 2 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-wont-stop-climate-change-by-talking) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is standing up for the forces of liberalism against Donald Trump’s assault on our closest ally. So, why is one prominent left-wing commenter attacking Carney? Columnist Matthew Yglesias explains: [ ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) [ When "economic liberty" means central planning ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) Matthew Yglesias · Aug 31 [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/when-economic-liberty-means-central) 🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟 Shout out to my home state of California, whose legislature passed two housing bills this week. One requires a housing density minimum in transit-oriented areas of the state’s most transit-rich cities (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, and Long Beach). Another bill closes two common loopholes used by third parties to delay housing projects, including an opportunity to challenge maps of a given lot created by the developer after a project has been approved. Shout out to our big-state rival, Texas, where pro-housing SB 785 took effect this week. The new state law requires municipalities to have at least one district permitted for manufactured housing without a special permit. This will promote zoning changes in 44% of municipalities. The company Fervo Energy signed a deal with Google for what is set to be the world’s largest enhanced geothermal facility, proving a technology can work at a scale that could be crucial to a decarbonized, energy-abundant economy. Share Worth watching… This week, forecasting legend Nate Silver joined Jerusalem, Matt, and Jeremiah on a crowded episode of the pod. It was a party. And speaking of parties, our round table debated the factional lines within the Democratic Party: Is it possible to be center-left and also anti-establishment? Watch or listen to find out: The Rio Grande Valley in Texas is one of the areas that swung hardest toward Trump in 2024, but musician Bobby Pulido is running to flip it back. Right now, The Argument/Split Ticket’s model has him running 1.1 points behind his Republican opponent in a district Trump won by 18 points. Tune in to find out how he differs from national Democrats and what he thinks he can to do win this seat. On Thursday, Bernie Sanders was among the first politicians to call for a ban on superintelligence. My guest this week, Andrea Miotti, has been lobbying to ban superintelligence for several years, most recently in the U.K., U.S., and Canada. I asked him how he gets legislators to take speculative risks seriously, and we dug into what plans might look like to actually pass a ban. Listen to learn more: What’s News with The Argument The Argument recommends, by Kobe Yank-Jacobs If we ever lose track of Justin Zuckerman, I’ll have the team split up and check all the movie theaters in the city. I’m shocked (and a little jealous) at how often he gets out to see good cinema. This week, he brings us It Ends, a “horror-ish movie,” which he described as a “Gen Z Waiting for Godot.” I was intrigued before he added that it was “funny, dark and existential” — at which point I was fully locked in. I guess I also had existential themes on the mind this week. One morning, a single line from a poem I read long ago just came to me: “Is death a stretch of time in which a life is just a flash?” The poem is called “From 20,000 Feet” by Heather McHugh. I suggest the version in The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, which, by tradition, my best friend and I always bring backpacking, extra weight be damned. We’ll stay thematically dark for just one more rec from senior editor John Robert Thomason, whose upcoming trip to Baltimore reminded him to suggest Michael Clune’s memoir White Out (about being addicted to heroin in Baltimore in the 1990s). Ben Lerner’s blurb called it _“_Disturbing, brilliant, hilarious—it’s as if Proust had written Jesus’ Son.” John told me this “seems accurate, with the caveat that I’ve never read Proust.” I, personally, have also shelved Proust until retirement. At this point, I was a little concerned for the team since all of us tossed out such psychologically grim material — maybe we’re all down about the end of summer — but thankfully, at least a few of us were into more upbeat selections. Milan Singh recommended Made In’s 5-quart stainless clad saucier, suggesting he had some fun in the kitchen. Jeremiah Johnson asked if he could recommend yet more Carly Rae Jepsen. Once denied, he offered up Game Changer instead_,_ calling it “the most wildly creative game show, maybe in the entire history of the genre.” Eli Richman mentioned _Lucky, “_a B-tier show with an A-tier cast and an S-tier theme song.” I suppose he was recommending the song, Horns of a Bull. Still, despite these cheerier recs, I couldn’t help but be concerned that we were subconsciously worried about racing toward summer’s end — the end of swim trunks and splashing around. Then a message landed reminding me of the three-day weekend to come. A whole extra day for sunshine. One more swim in the lake. I was grateful this called to mind yet another line from a poem, one by Mary Oliver, the patron saint of every gorgeous summer day (and about whom a documentary is now out). Speaking to God in the poem “Thirst,” she wrote: grant me, in your mercy,a little more time. Love for the earthand love for you are having such a longconversation in my heart. We have merch! We have quarter-zips, keychains, hats, and stickers. Each one is a great conversation starter in its own way. Buy them here. Subscribe More to read: [ The Opening Argument ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite)[ Seeing like an elite ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) Kobe Yank-Jacobs · Sep 4 What do Americans hear when they watch Sen. Bernie Sanders or Vice President JD Vance rail against the elite? Are they thinking of right-wing tech billionaires? Imperious college professors? Liberal magazine writers? [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/seeing-like-an-elite) [ The Weekly Scroll ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline)[ God is back on the timeline ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) Jeremiah Johnson · Sep 5 This week, we’re talking about Substack’s new religious debates, the continuing MAGA influencer scandal, how to retire from YouTube, and aura battles. [ Read full story ](https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/god-is-back-on-the-timeline) 1 This was a legitimate thing to worry about, but doesn’t seem to be a problem given the actual technology: Marijke Van Vlasselaer, Filip Van Droogenbroeck, and Bram Spruyt’s 2026 paper looks at whether Pangram is less accurate when evaluating the work of non-native speakers of English. It isn’t. That’s because Pangram isn’t really looking at how “unusual” a piece of writing is but whether it has the characteristic patterns of LLMs. The Wired article makes an odd gesture at a different Pangram-is-racist argument. There were several controversies this summer during which upcoming books were canceled after being discovered to be AI-written: “The three novels mentioned earlier — Shy Girl, Daggermouth, and Call Me, easily publishing’s biggest AI-detection scandals — were all written by writers of color.” But come on! As Zvi Mowshowitz put it: “They were not primarily written by people of color. They were primarily written by AIs.” That’s the whole problem! And as my colleague Jeremiah Johnson recently observed with respect to Cambridge’s Arday scandal, a community being unwilling to call out fraud if it’s perpetuated by people of color is not an anti-racist tendency; it is ultimately quite racist. 2 Many non-Pangram detectors don’t work, but many possible airplane designs also don’t work, and no one considers this a general argument against aviation; the thing that matters is whether any detection works. 3 The phrase “empires have always loved” mysteriously became all the rage in the last few years. See here, here, here, here and here. Before 2025, the only use of that phrase I have been able to find is a single Tweet. The logic of the sentence, too, is incoherent in an AI-characteristic way. “...sounds like paperwork, until you remember that empires have always loved paperwork”? Does remembering that make it sound less like paperwork? It’s a craft-ful sentence, but what is it actually saying??
Congressional Democrats to investigate efforts to deport U.S. military members and their families
The Pentagon declined to comment, stating it would "reply directly to the authors of the letter."
Pentagon releases 5th batch of UFO files, with 41 more documents and videos
Hegseth’s military imposes testosterone testing despite concerns about the science
Former military doctors say the new policy won’t do what the Pentagon wants. Troops worry it will affect their careers.
Pentagon gives DHS green light to test heat ray weapon
Exclusive | Trump Administration to Award $2 Billion to Battery, Materials Companies
The deals add to a Pentagon funding spree to reduce U.S. dependence on China.
Trump Plans to Mark 9/11 at the Pentagon, Not Ground Zero
President Trump originally intended to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11 with remarks at ground zero, but the memorial’s organizers do not allow speeches. Mr. Trump changed his plans.
Stars and Stripes editor, reporter fired for insubordination after doing CBS interview
The Pentagon on Friday fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence.
'Right to repair' bill could free contractors' grip on military
The Pentagon spends billions of dollars fixing equipment, and Republicans and Democrats alike want to bring the work in house
Pentagon agreement with NIH on biodefense draws alarm from Democrats
The deal is being criticized by Democrats who warn it could allow the Defense Department to go around Congress and gain access to billions of dollars meant for infectious disease research.
Stars and Stripes editor says he has been fired for insubordination
The military newspaper is partly funded by the Pentagon but has a long legacy of editorial independence
Former President Joe Biden Will Attend Sept. 11 Ceremony in New York
Mr. Biden will join three other living presidents at the event. President Trump has decided to skip the ceremony and is expected to appear at the Pentagon on the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
Hegseth claims another scalp in Pentagon purge
Dan Driscoll resigned and warned the resident that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is doing serious damage to the military
Health Brief: Pentagon-NIH pact raises questions
Plus: Congress has little time to move health care policy, as Democrats formulate ambitious 2027 agenda
Dems demanding Venezuela brief face State Dept fury as senators leave town without answers
Senate Democrats challenge the legality of a Pentagon equity stake in Venezuelan oil company NABEP, but the State Department fires back sharply.
Inside the Trump administration’s UFO hunt
In 2022, the Pentagon took part in the first congressional hearing in more than a half-century to focus on military reports of unexplained phenomena.
US court upholds Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic
Conflict began in February when Anthropic refused to remove restrictions on use of Claude for fully autonomous weapons.
Judge refuses to block Pentagon from firing Stars and Stripes staffers over CBS interview
A federal judge has refused block the Pentagon from firing three Stars and Stripes staff members who claim they were illegally disciplined for speaking out about the military news outlet’s need to maintain its editorial independence | 830 WCCO
Federal appeals court rules Pentagon’s blacklist of Anthropic was legal
The Department of Defense can blacklist Anthropic’s artificial intelligence technology, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. The decision is a blow to Anthropic after it won a separate challenge in a California court in August that partially invalidated the Trump administration’s label.
Pentagon plan to livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter prompts fierce political backlash
The move has been branded as ‘disturbing’ and compared to the actions of terror groups by US lawmakers
Trump says he will observe the 25th anniversary of 9/11 at the Pentagon
Vice President JD Vance will attend the New York observance and other administration officials will go to the ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Hegseth directs military to defend US midterm elections from foreign interference
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signed a memo directing the military to defend the US midterm elections from foreign interference, the Pentagon said Monday.
He fought terrorism as an FBI agent, now he is fighting cancer and for the health of his fellow 9/11 responders
When American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, Jeffrey Miller rushed to the scene, spending weeks on site recovering evidence from the burned wreckage.
5,000 DOD civilian dependents in Japan gain access to health care assistance
About 5,000 dependents in Japan will gain access to a Pentagon program that helps Defense Department civilians find and pay for medical care off base.
9/11 families to gather at World Trade Center and Pentagon to remember victims on 25th anniversary
Victims of those killed in September 11 attacks honored at memorials across the US
Everforth (EFOR) Lands $30M Pentagon Health Deal But Growth Questions Persist
On August 11, Everforth (NYSE:EFOR) said its federal segment, Everforth ECS, had won a four-year, $30 million contract to support the Defense Health Agency’s technology modernization program. The deal lands less than two weeks after Everforth’s July 29, second-quarter report showed revenue, net income, and margins all landing above the high end of management’s own […]
Trump Says He Would Be OK With China Building Cars in US
WASHINGTON, Sept 11 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he would not oppose Chinese automakers buildings cars in the United States despite widespread opposition from U.S. lawmakers and car companies. "If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here,
Judge says Pentagon's measures against Anthropic were 'illegal and baseless'
The government labeled the company a supply chain risk earlier this year
Defeated by physics
The Pentagon's $3.2 billion bet on space-based boost-phase missile defense ignores basic orbital dynamics, offering no real protection while fueling a costly, destabilizing arms race in space.
WATCH LIVE: Trump delivers remarks at Pentagon's Sept. 11 observance ceremony
'These reports are FALSE': Pentagon responds to mental health concerns on aircraft carrier involved with Iran War
Democrats are demanding answers following reports of supply shortages, poor living conditions and mental health concerns.
He fought terrorism as an FBI agent, now he is fighting cancer and for the health of his fellow 9/11 responders
When American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, Jeffrey Miller rushed to the scene, spending weeks on site recovering evidence from the burned wreckage.
Pentagon quizzes NATO allies on political loyalty, documents reveal
Growing girls sports in South Dakota
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — The visibility of volleyball and women’s basketball is only growing in South Dakota. South Dakota State hosted Sioux Falls native Bergen Reilly and volleyball powerhouse Nebraska on Sept. 2. It was the highest attended event in First Bank and Trust Arena’s history. The Sanford Pentagon sold out the state’s first […]
The Wall Street Veteran Trying to Solve the Pentagon’s Missile Problem
In his first interview on the job, Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg, a private-equity billionaire, defended his unusual approach.
Pete Hegseth creates a Pentagon Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is launching an office of religious affairs at the Pentagon.
Pentagon Deploys SCIFs to Encourage Small Business Participation – Association of Defense Communities (ADC)
The Pentagon recently announced a plan to deploy around 50 Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities across the country
Celebrities at the Pentagon: How unusual was the Paul brothers’ visit?
Pentagon Lays Foundation to Implement Trump Administration's 'Golden Age of Science'
Trump launched his "Science: A New Golden Age" initiative on Oct 8 to modernize DOD and recruit talent for the next frontier.
Judge says Pentagon's measures against Anthropic were 'illegal and baseless'
The government labeled the company a supply chain risk earlier this year
Republican launches impeachment effort against Pete Hegseth over Iran war
The Kentucky Republican, a noted political foe of President Trump, accused Hegseth of abusing the powers of the Pentagon amid the Iran war.
'These reports are FALSE': Pentagon responds to mental health concerns on aircraft carrier involved with Iran War
Democrats are demanding answers following reports of supply shortages, poor living conditions and mental health concerns.
EAST TEXAS POLITICS: Former ATF agent, now Smith Co. sheriff, remembers 9/11 Pentagon response
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith joins us for a special edition of East Texas Politics on East Texas Now to remember that day.
Statement by Chief Pentagon Spokesman, Sean Parnell, on the Clinical G
The War Department remains focused on building and maintaining a ready, lethal fighting force prepared to dominate the battlefield and achieve peace through strength.
How the Cold War US Military Modeled Itself on Private Business
The following is an excerpt from Pentagon Capitalism: How the Cold War US Military Modeled Itself on Private Business by A. J. Murphy, now out at Harvard University Press.
Debt service and the Pentagon. Private equity and the politics of the US housing market. The return of black lung disease & the Franco-Prussian War in color.
Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. RALPH BALSON. 1890—1964. Oil and enamel, signed. Source: Gavekal This going to hurt - the two 7s in the US: diesel and mortgage rates Source: Gavekal In the US housing market, costs are soaring and the role of corporate, private equity-backed buyers is high on the mid-term election agenda. HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh, what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $60. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don’t have to. Subscribe It is striking how, since 2020, big banks have dropped out of the political spotlight in the US. For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Rates of the lung disease pneumoconiosis among working US coal miners have risen to levels not seen in nearly 40 years Source: Bloomberg Chinese Clean Technology Exports For contributing subscribers only. Subscribe Ralph Balson (1939) Portrait of Grace Crowley Cole, G. O. & Haseman, S. M., (2023) “‘The Substance of Paint’: Class and Materiality in the Work of Ralph Balson”, Open Library of Humanities 9(2). Ralph Balson (1890–1964) was an English plumber and house painter who emigrated to Australia in 1913 and subsequently became a key member of Sydney’s artistic avant-garde. He is credited with having the first solo exhibition of purely abstract painting in Australia in 1941. Despite his role in developing Australian non-objective painting, Balson remained principally a house painter, working on his art practice at weekends. In 1955 he retired on a state pension and became a full-time artist. Balson’s artistic education and methods were critically shaped by his working-class background. He did not travel abroad until 1960 and was an avid auto-didact. His materials, palette, techniques and compositional strategies were likewise informed by his trade. Balson’s profession as a painter-decorator made him conspicuous within the predominantly middle-class Sydney art scene, though his painting partner Grace Crowley considered it an advantage in their pursuit of constructive painting. This paper explores the impact of Balson’s trade on his trajectory towards pure abstraction. While his art was at odds with the predominantly figurative mode of class-conscious art in Australian Modernism, we argue that it is embedded in the experience of class through its creative adaptation of labour into aesthetics. Source: OLH Svetlana Alexievich, The Art of Oral History No. 1 Paris Review Issue 257, Fall 2026 Interviewed by Elena Kostyuchenko INTERVIEWER How were you able to go to Chernobyl? Did you need special papers? ALEXIEVICH It was a time of chaos. They let me right into the zone. … More than anything, there was confusion. Adamovich [Ales Adamovich, the Soviet Belarusian writer], I remember, persuaded Gorbachev to send in the scientists, who showed up without even bringing their shaving kits. They were told that there had been an explosion at a nuclear power plant, but for some reason they thought that they’d be there for only a day or two. The first time I went was several months later, and people kept telling me about things they didn’t understand—how the fishermen couldn’t find worms, because they’d burrowed deep into the earth, how the milk wouldn’t curdle at the cheese factories. The honeybees wouldn’t come out of their hives. The evacuations started, I think, in the first month. The old women hid, they wouldn’t leave. I mentioned radiation to one of them and she said, “I’ve seen that radiation, all right! It’s yellow with green in it. I saw puddles of it in my garden, and I told the other women, and we ran and looked, and she had it in her garden, and the other one, too!” God, it was wild, the way the mind made sense of it. There was a story going around about Gorbachev telling the scientists to show him the radiation. “We can’t, it’s invisible.” “But I want to see it!” I also ran into the soldiers who’d been flown in on helicopters from Afghanistan. I asked them, “What are you doing here with your machine guns?” They said, “We’re collecting the radiation, that’s what.” So you had some of them running around with their guns, others out in the village washing off firewood or burying soil in the soil. These were the kinds of things that exploded our worldview. They made you realize that culture was just a chest filled with old manuscripts. There were no books in there that could help me. Our philosophers turned out to be useless when faced with the unprecedented. Derrida, Baudrillard—philosophy fell silent. What was happening? How would we live with it? That’s when I decided it simply needed to be witnessed. Which is what I did. INTERVIEWER I wanted to ask about how you talk to people. … ALEXIEVICH Yes, we sit and we talk—about what interests me and about life in general. About love, about everything in the world. That way, what comes out is three-dimensional. If you cut straight to the part you need, which is what journalists do, it won’t be interesting, and it won’t be the truth, either. Not the whole truth. INTERVIEWER Do people always open up when you ask questions, or can questions get in the way? ALEXIEVICH You have to ask questions, of course. Your job is to scour away the banality and return people to their true selves, to make them face what they rarely tap into. With every new person, you have to find a new way to do it. When you ask an interesting question or you share what happened to you, you help people really think about what they’re saying and not just repeat whatever they’ve picked up from the newspaper. But not everybody is capable of it, not everyone wants to put themselves through that. Either the chemistry starts to kick in or it doesn’t. A person might be wonderful, but you can tell that the conversation just isn’t going to happen. You can try to push it, but it will be a product of your own intellect, rather than of that mysterious connection. Life doesn’t come from the mind. Some people I can call two years after our last conversation, and they’ll say, “Oh, Svetochka! I think of you all the time,” and we’ll start talking again. With others, that won’t happen. That doesn’t mean they’re not extraordinary people, just that you can’t connect with them. They might have some insight, but you don’t have the right antenna to pick up their signal. Source: The Paris Review Colorized Franco-Prussian war … the ruins of Strasbourg with a French photographer and his mobile dark room. Ralph Balson (1961) Matter Painting If you’ve scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Subscribe
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