USA

The announcement by the United States that it has deployed a space weapon in Earth’s orbit has raised questions about what weaponry is actually in space, and what role it could play in efforts by great powers to dominate that arena.

Washington has given away little in its announcement. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said the “on orbit” weapon was necessary to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action, but gave no details about the weapon’s capabilities or when it was put into orbit.

The US war with Iran has led to a shortage of key munitions, which has in turn exposed “bottlenecks” in the defense industry, the War Department’s Office of Inspector General confirmed in a report released Monday.

The 44-page document specified that “production of solid rocket motors, the availability of high-grade explosives and propellants and the recruitment of skilled manufacturing labor” are the biggest logistical issues plaguing Operation Epic Fury, launched by the US against Tehran Feb. 28.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday that the U.S. has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”

Yeah, elections sure do have consequences. Given the moribund state of the Republican Party in New York City, two socialists, Darializa Avila-Chevalier and Claire Valdez, are virtually certain to enter the House of Representatives next January, and they’re already excitedly making plans for the damage they’re going to do to the nation’s largest city, and the nation as a whole, once they get there.

US vice-president JD Vance has worn his religion on his sleeve since converting to the Catholicism in 2019. He recently published a book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, and memorably met the late Pope Francis at the Vatican on Easter Sunday in 2025, a day before the pontiff died.

But his religious identity could take on new weight as he positions himself for a presidential run in 2028, in which a successful campaign would make him only the third Catholic president in US history. Vance’s winding spiritual path – combined with his avowed evangelical roots – have the potential to stymie him, as he seeks to retain the Christian nationalist voters that have sustained Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) movement while wooing fellow Catholics.

In 1933, about one-quarter of America’s workforce was unemployed. Hunger and malnutrition were widespread, families had lost homes and savings, and millions were trying to survive an economic catastrophe.

Franklin Roosevelt’s government responded to part of that crisis by paying farmers to destroy things Americans could use.