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The US Navy is ramping up delivery of its new Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers just as there is demonstrable increased strategic and operational need for the capability an aircraft carrier provides, the Executive Director for the USN’s Program Executive Office (PEO) Carriers told the Surface Navy Association annual symposium in Arlington, Virginia.

The Democrat-controlled Massachusetts House will take up legislation this week that would require licensed concealed carriers to ask permission before entering someone’s home while armed. The legislation would also expand many of the state’s already stringent gun controls. Mike Bloomberg-affiliated Everytown for Gun Safety currently ranks Massachusetts the No. 6 state in the Union for gun control strength.

The United States has decided to extend the deployment of the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group to provide options to policymakers after last week's deadly attacks in Syria by Iran-backed forces, U.S. military officials said on Friday. The decision likely means the Bush strike group and its more than 5,000 U.S. forces, which are now in the European Command operational area, will not be returning to home port in the United States on schedule. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Colonel Joe Buccino confirmed the carrier group's extension, which was first reported by Reuters.

Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed legislation Thursday limiting the locations in which concealed carry permit holders can be armed for self-defense. The gun control was passed in reaction to SCOTUS’s June 23, 2022, Bruen decision, which struck down New York’s proper cause requirement for concealed carry permit issuance. NJ.com reports that the legislation, A4769, creates “sensitive places” in which firearms cannot be carried.

Halloween is going to be an extra scary day for the logistics world. A total of 60,000 containers have been marked as beyond the dwell time and need to be moved out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach by the carriers or the penalties will start racking up. A total of 33,000 containers need to be rolled out of the Port of Los Angeles and 27,000 loaded containers for the Port of Long Beach — a whopping $2,633,940,000 value in trade.Carriers were put on notice this week when the ports announced that, starting next Monday, a daily...

ction class="post-body"> When Joe Biden signaled his open borders plan, it triggered human traffickers south of the border to start teeing up swarms of people to storm the U.S. border and flood the already COVID pandemic-slammed U.S. labor market. But now we learn that the Biden administration has not been COVID testing the illegal immigrants swarming the border before they’re released into the interior of the US.Joe Biden knew this before he opened the borders, gobsmackingly asserted that the US “didn’t have a COVID vaccine,” and claimed the pandemic was so severe he had to spend nearly $2 trillion to...

Photos have emerged on Chinese social media showing the assembly of two massive warships at the Jiangnan Shipyard outside Shanghai, where the PLAN’s next two aircraft carriers are being built. Anonymous, independent sources told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) they are indeed the first two Type 002 carriers, the first of which will be completed next year.

Seoul, South Korea (CNN)South Korea plans to start building its first aircraft carrier next year, and acquire fighter jets to operate on it, the country's Defense Ministry has announced. Last year, South Korea hinted at its interest in an aircraft carrier, saying it would build a "multi-purpose large transport vessel." But in its national plan for 2021-2025, published this week, the government for the first time explicitly committed to building the billion-dollar equipment. "The 30,000-ton level aircraft carrier can transport military forces, equipment and materials and can operate fighter jets that are capable of vertical take-off and landing," said...

JERUSALEM - Concerns of a widening threat from coronavirus spiked just as millions of Israelis are preparing to gather at polling places for national elections next week, following reports that a group of South Koreans who had visited some of the country’s most popular religious and tourist spots tested positive for the infection. Dozens of school students who may have been in proximity to the South Korean tourists were directed to stay in home-based quarantine for two weeks, as were hotel housekeepers and employees of Masada, Tel Ber Sheeva and other national parks. Officials, who had previously expressed cautious optimism...

At the most recent meeting of the Aspen Strategy Group — which includes current and former senators, former senior officials, retired military, leading academics and analysts — a number of the participants expressed considerable doubt about whether the United States could defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, or even whether it would attempt to do so. Behind the concerns voiced at Aspen, Colo., was the shadow of a potentially brutal Chinese paramilitary operation to crush the dissenters in Hong Kong. The fear was that once Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy toward Hong Kong was terminated, Taiwan...

Nearly a dozen stakeholders representing local governments and the freight and commuter sectors on Feb. 7 urged a House transportation panel to identify a sustainable source of funding for an infrastructure bill. As the panel prepares to craft legislation, lawmakers agreed infrastructure policy should top their priorities this year. Yet, they continue to differ on a way forward for ensuring the sustainability of the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. The idea that former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to consider is increasing and indexing the fuel tax by about 10 cents. Doing so, LaHood argued, would...

The navy times has published, apparently, that DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is now moving forward with a flying aircraft carrier. Before you scoff, they aren't talking about putting wings on a nuclear carrier. They will be using a long loiter time C-130 as a carrier for drones, recon and armed. What the oldtimers here know, of course, is that these will not be the first Navy flying aircraft carriers. In fact it was way back in the early 1930's, when the USS Akron and the USS Macon, 2 of what might have become a long class of...

Mattis wanted to send a third aircraft-carrier group to the Persian Gulf earlier this year, The Daily Beast has exclusively learned, in what would have been a massive show of force at a time when Iranian military commanders were publicly threatening to sink American ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The four-star Marine Corps general and CentCom commander believed the display could have deterred Iran from further escalating tensions, according to U.S. military officials familiar with his thinking. But the president wanted to focus military resources on new priorities like China, and Mattis was told a third carrier group was...

ARLINGTON, Va. — When the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz emerged from an extended period in a shipyard last week, it featured a new installation of an anti-torpedo system. Nimitz is the Navy’s fifth carrier to have the Anti-Torpedo-Defense System installed. The system includes the Torpedo Warning System, an acoustic sensor that detects an incoming torpedo; a tactical control station; and the Countermeasure Anti-Torpedo (CAT). The CAT, a small torpedo designed to intercept an incoming torpedo, was developed by Pennsylvania State University’s Applied Research Lab. Compared with air- or ship-launched cruise missiles, anti-ship torpedoes are much more difficult for a...

If the United States Navy is either unwilling or unable to conceptualize a carrier air wing that can fight on the first day of a high-end conflict, then the question becomes — why should the American taxpayer shell out $13 billion for a Ford-class carrier? That’s the potent question being raised by naval analysts in Washington, noting that there are many options that the Navy could pursue including a stealthy long-range unmanned combat aircraft or a much heavier investment in submarines.

The United States’ aircraft carriers have always been an almost untouchable deterrent, steel behemoths capable of projecting the full weight of the U.S. military wherever they deploy. Yet while many militaries could never hope to match the U.S. carrier fleet in size and strength, countries such as China, Iran and Russia have spent recent years adjusting their forces and fielding equipment designed to counter one of the United States’ greatest military strengths.

The U.S. Navy’s latest and greatest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, when completed, will join the ranks of the world’s most advanced warships ever put to sea. It will carry an air wing with firepower second to none. It will be defended by some of the most powerful naval vessels on the planet. And yet, coming in at an astounding $15 billion dollars—the most expensive naval vessel ever—its time as the symbol of U.S. power projection and military dominance may be over. Notice I used the words may be over. The simple fact is this: no one really knows...

Call it the Three Presidents Crew. In a historic game of naval musical chairs, sailors from San Diego’s aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan will serve on three different flattops over the next six months. The Navy is saving $41 million by doing a massive, complicated crew swap involving 9,000 sailors and the carriers George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to the Reagan. At the end, the U.S. Navy will have a new face in Asia, and an American aircraft carrier will enter a mid-life nuclear overhaul that was at one time uncertain. Also, San Diego will have a new hull...

WASHINGTON — A rare gap in the presence of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf this fall could hinder military capabilities in the war against the Islamic State, the Obama administration’s nominee to lead the Navy told the Senate Thursday. Adm. John Richardson conceded the effects of a two-month gap in carrier presence — the first since 2007 — under intense questioning from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as the Senate Armed Services Committee weighs whether approve the admiral’s nomination as chief of naval operations. “Without that carrier, that will be a detriment to our capability, yes, sir,” Richardson...

A battle of the hawks is raging on Capitol Hill. Defense hawks say the nation’s security will be endangered if the caps imposed under the 2011 Budget Control Act aren’t lifted, allowing for more defense spending. Fiscal hawks assert with equal vehemence that the nation’s long-term economic health — the foundation for all government activities, including defense — will be permanently harmed if burgeoning deficits and debts are not addressed. Defense hawks argue for a massive investment to maintain the United States’ position as the world’s strongest power. Fiscal hawks argue for innovative improvements in efficiency to sustain U.S. leadership.