Air

The US coastguard says it has dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket.

An air ambulance has gone missing while carrying six people on a flight from Bermuda to Boston.

The US Federal Aviation Administration told the coastguard early on Saturday that it had lost contact with the plane, a Gulfstream jet, ⁠a coastguard spokesperson told the Reuters news agency by email.

The ⁠coastguard said it dispatched air and surface crews to search for the plane near Nantucket, an island community south of mainland Massachusetts.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the situation on Saturday morning but had no further update to share.

The Canadian-registered air ambulance jet had four crew members and two passengers on board when it departed Bermuda’s LF Wade International airport overnight for the flight to Massachusetts, according to a statement from the Bermuda airport’s operator, Skyport.

Canada’s Minister of Transport Steven MacKinnon said in a social media post that four Canadians were on the plane.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and are working with the relevant authorities as search and rescue ‌efforts continue,” MacKinnon wrote.

The aircraft, registered to Latitude Air Ambulance, departed Bermuda at 12:41am local time (03:41 GMT), according to data from flight tracking website FlightAware.

The plane was flying at 24,000 feet (7,300 metres) for much of the flight before descending 13,000ft (3,960 metres) in about two minutes shortly before flight controllers lost contact, data showed.

Last communication

Air traffic control audio posted by LiveATC.net offered a glimpse of the flight’s final communications before it went missing.

“Roger, you said you’re coming in blind. Is that what you said?” a controller can be heard asking the pilot.

The pilot’s transmission could not be heard in the recording. The controller later confirmed the pilot was declaring an emergency just before losing contact with the plane.

The Bermuda government is in contact with US ‌authorities and families of the passengers, Bermuda Premier David Burt wrote in a statement posted on Instagram.

“We are praying that all six people will ‌be ‌found safe,” he wrote.

Latitude Air Ambulance is based in Ontario, Canada, and provides medical evacuation services. The company ⁠did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

No warning given before Israeli deadly strike hit Rimal area, one of Gaza City’s most densely populated neighborhoods.

An Israeli air attack on a residential apartment in western Gaza City has killed at least five people and severely wounded at least six others, according to medical staff at al-Shifa Hospital.

The strike hit the al-Asala building in the Remal neighbourhood early on Saturday without prior warning, according to Al Jazeera’s Hani al-Shaer, reporting from Khan Younis.

Remal is one of Gaza City’s most crowded residential areas, home to thousands of displaced people sheltering in makeshift camps across the neighbourhood.

Al-Shaer said the attack came in the middle of the night, when residents were asleep.

“We heard fighter jets getting louder, then three strikes followed, hitting the apartment and killing those inside,” he said.

The strike penetrated the targeted apartment and tore through the floors below, causing further destruction throughout the multi-storey building.

Fires burned for at least an hour before Palestinian Civil Defence crews managed to put them out.

Al-Shaer described the scene as “horrific”, with people buried under the rubble as they slept.

Civil defence crews were still searching the site for missing people and bodies, he said, as Israeli drones continued flying over the area and fighter jets were heard flying low across the Strip.

Al-Shifa Hospital said the dead included four women, among them an elderly Christian woman and her daughter.

The six wounded were taken to al-Shifa Hospital for treatment.

For aerospace aficionados, it’s like we have entered into an alternate dream reality. The idea that we are seriously talking about the possibility of bringing back the SR-71 Blackbird to flight status is hard to comprehend, but amazingly this is where we are at. The biggest question I am getting about all this is why? We touched on the likely primary answer to that in our original reporting — high-speed is back in tactical vogue, and the Blackbird can sustain it in a realm of great interest, between Mach 3 and 4, and do it over and over again. It can also carry very large things and even launch them off its back at those extreme speeds. But those are not the only potential reasons for taking on such a gargantuan, high-profile, and costly technical challenge. Learning from the journey itself could be just as valuable as the actual flight test data a revived SR-71 produces.

Let me explain.

The Blackbird was as close to alien tech as it gets over 60 years ago, and even today, we have nothing like it in known operation. Yet it has been dormant for nearly three decades. Much of the expertise that built, supported, and operated it is sadly gone. But the exercises of reverse engineering and leveraging breakthroughs in additive manufacturing and rapid prototyping, as well as injecting new material sciences, avionics, propulsion and other technologies where applicable, and above all else, building the digital toolkit to make it all happen as fast and efficiently as it can be done, are all of extreme learning value.

I would not be surprised if a ‘digital twin’ is being created right now of the SR-71 using NASA’s SR-71 tail number 844 — the jet in question that has mysteriously disappeared from its display pad. Once such a model exists, breakthroughs in digital engineering can be brought to bear to see how fast the program can be accelerated, both in terms of development and flight testing. This could include not only getting the SR-71 back in the air, but improving its performance and reliability, possibly substantially, using all the new technologies we have today. It’s even possible a clone of sorts leveraging all these advances could be built using digital engineering tools.

This is not necessarily an unprecedented concept. Just look at similar exploratory engineering programs like the X-55. But when it comes to partially reverse-engineering an airframe you have no support for, and few, if any, spare parts, America’s highly-secretive foreign materiel exploitation (FME) community could potentially lend a hand.

Operating in the shadows, they have been able to not only get totally foreign aircraft divorced from American supply chains pieced back together and flying, but they sustained them for years in total secrecy. They also did this long before the advent of rapid prototyping and digital engineering assets that we have today. Imagine what they can do now. They could be a top source for NASA to pull in to help in its far less sensitive but uniquely similar endeavor. This is just one example of many of how government and industry could come together to support and benefit from the SR-71 resurrection program.

Now, about those supply chains. During its heyday, the SR-71’s logistical tail was one of the most exotic ever created. It supported the Blackbird, as well as its progenitor, the A-12, for the better part of half a century. Reestablishing this supply chain would be a highly challenging, but rewarding exercise that could have major impacts across the aerospace industry, as well as others. So, how can we use all the capabilities we have now to jump-start the sustainment of the highest-performing air vehicle from an era of slide rules and drafting tables?

The idea of putting aircraft out of production back into production is not a foreign one to the U.S. military, either. NASA’s SR-71 program could serve as a pathfinder for better evaluating such proposals and their costs, while pushing the envelope forward on exactly how it can be done efficiently. The same can be said for simply keeping aging aircraft (or any vehicle or system for that matter) operating longer and for cheaper, by applying cutting-edge technologies and practices. NASA can create the playbook for doing so, and that playbook could end up being more valuable than the flight testing a reborn SR-71 does.

I think it’s fairly clear that we have lost something when it comes to aerospace engineering as of late. With all our advances and incredible tools even legendary Skunk Works founder Kelly Johnson could have only dreamed of, it seems like we have to relearn even simple lessons from decades ago, and oftentimes that can be a very expensive, time consuming, and even deadly process. In some ways, it seems like we have gone backward, or at least stalled out in certain engineering areas. The simple things become hard and hard things have become simpler. How did they do so much protractors and pencils way back then? Getting a Blackbird flying again can help explore and possibly answer this and other questions, and help mitigate these deficiencies going forward, as well.

Even if NASA’s dormant SR-71 never ends up getting back in the air, even attempting such a challenge could be considered a success. Doing so could identify core areas across multiple disciplines that could be improved and areas of existing technology that could be better exploited for a whole array of tasks. It can also develop and refine new technologies in the process. All this sits at the core of NASA’s mission, and there is no vehicle on Earth that could drive people and organizations to give it their all for such a comeback dream as the Blackbird. It’s even possible that we could see corporations or even individuals help foot the bill for it.

And yes, all these benefits need to be weighed against cost. Surely there is a limit to how much the government can invest in such a program. Now corporations and individuals, that’s a different story.

So, yes, the main goal of this effort will likely be high-speed flight testing, but so much can be learned in the journey to get there that it must be quantified in the ‘business case’ for reviving the Blackbird.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

IF YOU are due to head to or from Italy today you might want to check your flight as strikes across the country have seen huge cancellations.

Strike action is set to take place across Italy today between 1pm and 5pm with ENAV – the company that runs Italian air traffic control – walking out at all 33 Italian airports.

The main airports expected to be affected include Rome, Naples, Milan and Venice.

Flights cancelled today already include:

• 10:15am British Airways flight to Milan from London Heathrow
• 3:25pm British Airways flight to London Heathrow from Milan
• 11:50am British Airways flight to Venice from London Heathrow
• 5:20pm British Airways flight to London Heathrow from Venice
• 1:25pm British Airways flight to Milan from London City
• 2:25pm British Airways flight to London City from Florence
• 5:50pm British Airways flight to London City from Milan
• 3:50pm Ryanair flight to Bologna from London Luton

Currently, flights to Italy from London Heathrow and London Gatwick state they are scheduled as planned, though this may change.

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ITA Airways has already warned that 29 per cent of its scheduled flights are cancelled today.

Passengers are being advised to check their flight status with their airline and airport before travelling.

If you are due to fly this morning between 7am and 10am or this evening between 6pm and 9pm then your flight is guaranteed to go ahead as normal, under Italian law.

All connections to Italian islands also remain guaranteed.

If you are able to move your flight, then it might be worth doing this to avoid disruption.

Unfortunately though, if your flight is delayed or cancelled you won’t get any compensation as a strike is deemed to be outside of the airline’s control.

But airlines do have a duty of care so should provide you with food and water and if necessary, accommodation overnight.

There is also set to be a strike on October 16 in Italy, lasting 24 hours – but this time it will be easyJet flight crew walking out.

Nearly half a million people are displaced in Rakhine as a result of the conflict between the military and rebel groups.

An air strike carried out by Myanmar’s military has killed at least 33 people in territory controlled by rebel factions.

The attack near a market in the north of the Rakhine state in the west of the country on Monday also wounded 36 people, rescue and rebel group officials reported. The strikes are the latest in a series of assaults against pro-democracy and ethnic armed groups by the military government, which took power in a coup in 2021, sparking armed opposition.

The Arakan army said a fighter jet dropped two bombs near a local market in the town of Kyauktaw at noon local time (0530 GMT), killing 33 people, including vendors, shoppers, and pedestrians. It said the death toll “may continue to increase”.

Wai Hun Aung, a senior rescue official in Rakhine, confirmed the details to the Associated Press news agency. He said the market was the region’s main wholesale centre, drawing traders and shoppers from across the state.

“This is one of the most severe airstrikes in Rakhine,” he said. Photos and videos posted on social media showed buildings on fire, damaged vehicles and parts of a nearby bridge destroyed.

Myanmar’s military did not immediately comment, but it has previously said it strikes only legitimate military targets and accused resistance groups of “terrorism”.

Myanmar has been gripped by ⁠conflict since the elected ⁠government led by Aung San Suu Kyi was ousted in the 2021 coup. A nationwide resistance movement has since evolved into a civil war between the ‌military government and an array of armed ethnic and pro-democracy groups.

President Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s former military government chief, was elected by ‌a military-backed Parliament in April, formalising his grip on power after five years of army rule.

The Arakan army is a well-trained and well-armed military group seeking autonomy for Rakhine’s ethnic minority. It launched an offensive in November 2023 and has since captured strategically important military headquarters and 14 of the state’s 17 townships.

The military has imposed severe restrictions on trade routes to Rakhine since the fighting there intensified, worsening food shortages.

In December, a military airstrike on a hospital in Rakhine’s Mrauk U township killed at least 33 people and wounded 70 others.

Nearly half a million people are displaced in Rakhine as a result of the conflict, according to United Nations data. The UN added in August that the human rights situation in Myanmar has plummeted “to a new low”, citing “brutal abuse” against the Rohingya minority and the devastating impact of illicit economic activity, including illegal mining for rare earth minerals.

Rebel groups and Myanmar’s military are now both using drones in the protracted conflict, which has killed more than 100,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) project.

Remnants claimed to be photographed in Iran have been identified as belonging to a Raytheon ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD). The wreckage was reportedly recovered after an Iranian interception that occurred earlier in the day, although the exact location and circumstances remain unconfirmed and there is reason for caution. Iranian state and military media have a long record of presenting unverified or exaggerated claims, especially during periods of conflict, and imagery released through those channels warrants independent scrutiny. Still, the MALD identification appears credible based on the visible wreckage, but its provenance, location, and the circumstances of its loss have not yet been independently established. MALDs were likely used at least in the opening stages of Operation Epic Fury, as well.

With that being said, the showing off of the MALD wreckage, regardless of its original use case, is something of a reminder that U.S. and Israeli forces are continuing to evaluate Iran’s electronic order of battle, which can include probing activities that leverage deception and decoys to better understand the state of Iran’s air defenses and command and control architecture. This is critical information that needs to be constantly updated for contingency and future potential air campaign purposes.

Iranian sources today reported the destruction of an Orbiter-type reconnaissance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, before the separate imagery emerged showing what appears to be the wreckage of a MALD. It is not yet clear whether the two reports refer to the same incident or separate losses.

The appearance of the wreckage could also shed a light on how the U.S. and Israel can conduct ongoing air operations against Iran, even if kinetic actions have largely slowed to a trickle.

MALD is an expendable store, launched from another aircraft. The ADM-160 family was developed to provide a flexible way of decoying and distracting an enemy’s air defenses, while also adding to the survivability of allied aircraft and standoff weapons. Raytheon won the U.S. Air Force development contract for the current-generation ADM-160B in 2003. The B design is significantly different from the initial A-model from Teledyne Ryan (later Northrop Grumman), the development of which had started in the late 1990s. The B also features a more powerful turbojet engine and possesses greater range.

The ADM-160B is approximately 6.5 feet long, has a wingspan of roughly 5.6 feet when deployed, and is powered by a small turbojet. It has an operational range of around 550 miles.

Rather than carrying a conventional warhead, the MALD carries equipment intended to reproduce the radar signature of specific aircraft or standoff weapons. It can therefore provide additional and often highly enticing tracks for an adversary’s radar operators and surface-to-air missile crews to respond to. It can be programmed to fly intricate routes to better rival the target it is emulating and to provoke the attention of air defenders.

The related ADM-160C MALD-J adds an electronic warfare capability, allowing it to perform stand-in jamming and other forms of active electronic attacks against enemy air defense nodes. Further improved variants of the MALD, which the U.S. Navy has also been acquiring, have since been developed as you can read more about here.

The exact variant involved in today’s incident cannot be established from all publicly available imagery at this stage.

The possibility that the United States had used MALDs against Iran had already attracted considerable attention following Operation Midnight Hammer, the U.S. strike against Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025.

During the operation, U.S. officials described a complex deception plan involving aircraft and other decoy measures designed to prevent Iran from determining the true direction and composition of the attack.

This strongly pointed to MALD as one likely component of that deception architecture.

The opening hours and days of Operation Epic Fury also likely saw MALD employments. ADM-160s have also been used extensively by Ukraine against Russia, primarily for provoking air defense systems into radiating and as penetration aids for cruise missiles.

MALD® Operational Scenario & Capabilities

In the Strait of Hormuz context, the MALD could serve a dual purpose. It could act in its primary role, as a defensive measure for allied aircraft and standoff weapons, drawing Iranian air defense systems away from it and toward the decoy. It can also be used more independently, triggering Iranian defenses and revealing their locations and operating characteristics, as well as the state of Iran’s command and control for those assets. Surveillance platforms, especially those in the air, can then soak up all that signals data. This can then be used to generate intelligence for future operations, and all without putting a person or an expensive piece of equipment at risk.

The unique nature of the current state of the Iran conflict would allow for MALD to be used in this unique manner. While kinetic actions have become sporadic, they are still occurring, so firing a decoy that looks like something much more threatening to Iranian air defenders would not be an unprecedented escalation.

Iran has characterized the incident as a shoot-down. If Iranian forces did successfully engage the MALD, that would represent a real air defense interception of a U.S. deception system, although these are expendable by design. It is equally possible that the MALD malfunctioned or just flew its route and ran out of fuel and crashed, as designed.

The wreckage also does not, by itself, identify the aircraft that launched the MALD.

The system has been integrated with a broad range of U.S. aircraft. In the course of U.S. operations against Iran, we have notably seen Air Force A-10C Thunderbolt II attack jets returning from theater with markings depicting MALD missions.

It is also worth noting that the MALD wreckage has appeared at the same time as reports of unusual, UAP-like objects over Iran, with videos and eyewitness accounts circulating online. Their authenticity and nature remain unclear.

A number of videos are circulating showing an unidentified object in the skies above Tehran, Iran, it’s not immediately clear what is being filmed. pic.twitter.com/bHNAQGFPNv

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 21, 2026

Such reports come amid an increasingly sophisticated use of low-end drones, decoys, and other forms of deception. These kinds of systems can be employed not only to stimulate adversary air defenses, but also to distract populations and probe how information moves out of a denied area. In such an environment, unusual aerial sightings should be viewed with caution — but not necessarily dismissed as irrelevant. We have been talking about how new forms of misdirection and guile will leverage relatively low-end technologies in future conflicts for many years now. While it isn’t clear if this light show in the sky over Iran was such an activity, it is certainly a reminder to keep that possibility in mind.

I don’t know what this is, or if it’s legit BUT remember we are in a new age of misdirection, decoy and guile. Specifically using low end drone technology. There are more ways to stimulate an enemy air defense system, distract a populous, assess the flow of public info from a… https://t.co/wW7YVlbayB

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) September 21, 2026

Meanwhile, the prospect of renewed U.S. strikes is increasingly being raised on both sides. Iran’s central military command said Sunday that it had received information that Washington was preparing to resume attacks, while President Donald Trump told Fox News that he was in a “deciding mode” and was considering further military action alongside economic pressure and a deal.

Trump had also told Axios last week that he was approaching a major decision on whether to resume large-scale military operations, with U.S. forces in the region being maintained at current levels through the end of the year.

Iranian officials have warned that a renewed U.S. attack would trigger retaliation against American forces and interests across the region. At the same time, Qatar and Pakistan are pursuing diplomatic efforts to restart negotiations.

This situation is exactly why keeping as detailed intelligence on the status of Iran’s air defense overlay would be so critical. Building a highly detailed electronic order of battle and maintaining it is critical to the effectiveness of future air operations. There is usually an observable burst of such activity prior to a major operation kicking off, as well. There are also many unseen assets that help with this, from those in space to those in the air and even those under the sea. There have been reports of Israel’s secretive RA-01 stealth flying wing drone being spotted over Iran and of course the U.S. has its own RQ-170 and RQ-180 aircraft, just to name a couple known penetrating assets that are likely highly capable of collecting this information.

Regardless, the U.S. and Israel will have a lot of ‘maintenance’ to do in order to roll back any air defense capabilities Iran has been able to reconstitute should hostilities break out in full again, and a lot of critical intelligence data will need to be up-to-date in order to support such an operation.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The pilot of a U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon assigned to the 52nd Fighter Wing safely ejected before the aircraft crashed at Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, according to the wing.

The pilot is still receiving medical treatment, the wing said in a statement. Emergency response teams are still on the scene. The cause of the incident, which took place about 2:30 p.m. local time, is still under investigation and additional details will be released when available.

The crash happened as the jet was on approach to land at the installation, located in the western German region of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to the New York Post.  

“Following a plane crash in the vicinity of U.S. Air Base Spangdahlem, fire and emergency response teams from the Eifel District of Bitburg-Pruem were dispatched to the scene,” The Associated Press reported, citing the district. 

Images emerged on social media showing smoke rising in the distance.

The F-16 crash at Spangdahlem was the second mishap in a week for USAF F-16s. On Sept. 17, an F-16 from the 149th Fighter Wing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas crashed in northern Michigan. The pilot in that incident also ejected.

According to air traffic control (ATC) audio, the pilot’s wingman said at the time of the Michigan crash, “we have a possible mayday. My wingman may have taken a bird.” TWZ cannot independently confirm what caused the crash. The audio continues and offers a fairly dramatic and raw look at how the incident occurred over the air waves.

Rams coaches and personnel executives call it “the moment of truth,” the split second when a defensive back, usually on the run in full stride next to a receiver, must decide how he is going to play a pass that is already in the air.

Top NFL cornerbacks remain calm. They do not panic.

“It’s those guys that just kind of — their blood pressure never rises,” defensive coordinator Chris Shula said.

Trent McDuffie is one of those guys.

The Rams traded for the All-Pro cornerback in March, sending the Kansas City Chiefs the 29th overall pick and three other draft picks for the four-year veteran. They quickly signed McDuffie to an extension that includes $100 million in guarantees.

Last Monday, McDuffie intercepted a pass in the Rams’ 28-6 victory over the New York Giants, a win that helped erase some of the sting from their embarrassing season-opening defeat by the San Francisco 49ers in Australia.

In McDuffie, a two-time Super Bowl winner, the Rams got even more than expected, coach Sean McVay said.

“He just has an amazing emotional intelligence of how to uplift and lead his teammates and challenge them in a way that’s authentic to his personality,” McVay said. “He loves the opportunity to be able to have some of the hard downs that a lot of corners sometimes don’t want, but this guy wants them.”

McDuffie, 26, is looking to make more plays Sunday night when the Rams play the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High.

With the Chiefs, McDuffie played against the Broncos six times, and he is still looking for his first interception against the former AFC West rival.

But mainly, he aims to help the Rams continue their momentum after giving up only two field goals against the Giants.

“It was one of those attitude games, where we didn’t have the greatest Week 1 performance,” McDuffie said. “So there was a little chip on our shoulder, a little attitude we brought.”

McDuffie began his rise to NFL stardom during a high school career that featured stops at Santa Ana Mater Dei, Anaheim Servite and Bellflower St. John Bosco, before playing in college at Washington.

Rams cornerback Trent McDuffie walks off the field after a win over the New York Giants on Sept. 21.

(Kyusung Gong / Associated Press)

The Chiefs selected him in the first round of the 2022 draft, and he helped them make three Super Bowl appearances, winning two.

McDuffie said he learned a tough but valuable lesson against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII in Arizona in 2023.

With the ball at the Chiefs’ 45-yard line, the 5-foot-11 McDuffie lined up against 6-1, 225-pound receiver AJ Brown. As they ran downfield, McDuffie saw the ball in the air. But he did not know which way to turn his head. He did not know how he wanted to play the ball.

Brown caught the pass for a touchdown.

“Too much thinking in my head to where I didn’t make the play,” McDuffie said.

McDuffie turned the experience into a positive while developing into one of the NFL’s top players at his position.

“From then on, it was almost like, ‘All right, the ball’s in the air, it’s not so much a panic, it’s like you get an opportunity now,’” McDuffie said. “When you’re a DB in the NFL, there’s only so many times they’re going to throw the ball your way. There’s only so many times you’re in a position to make a play, so just kind of calming myself down.

“When the ball’s in the air, don’t panic — just become the receiver. Get back to the basics. You know how to play football. You know how to catch the ball. Just go make a play.

“And really, it’s the fear of failure that I don’t have anymore. Like if they make a play, they make a play. Let’s just line up and let’s keep attacking.”

The next season, despite not intercepting a pass, McDuffie earned All-Pro recognition. He forced five fumbles and had three sacks.

It did not take long for McDuffie to make an impression on his Rams teammates. During offseason workouts and training camp, he established himself as a leader and was voted a team captain.

His first interception for the Rams was the fourth of his career.

“I was in the right place at the right time to make the play,” said McDuffie, who also broke up three other passes, “but I think overall as a group we really took a step in the right direction, which looking back at the film was the most exciting part for me.”

Rams receiver Davante Adams raved about McDuffie during training camp. This week, he said McDuffie had been the “best-kept secret” in Kansas City.

“I’m just glad to see him making plays on guys that aren’t our receivers now,” Adams said. “Go out there and do his thing, show the world.”

Defensive lineman Aaron Donald did not see McDuffie up close until he came out of retirement to rejoin the Rams last month. McDuffie made an impression in Donald’s first game against the Giants.

“I usually don’t watch the DBs,” Donald said, “but he caught my eye. He’s something special.”

On Sunday, McDuffie won’t be the only elite cornerback on the field. “There’s a ton of great corners in the league,” McDuffie said, but he regards Patrick Surtain II of the Broncos, the 2024 NFL defensive player of the year, as the best.

“It’s always fun just being able to see him in person and work his craft,” McDuffie said.

McDuffie intends to showcase his own against a Broncos team that features quarterback Bo Nix operating coach Sean Payton’s offense.

The Rams are seeking another dominant performance.

“Now that we did it once,” he said, “now we have to prove it again.

“That’s kind of the standard.”

Sept. 25, 2026 6:59 PM PT

The White House signaled Friday night that CNN would be left off Air Force One for President Trump’s Saturday trip, the latest media restriction from the administration in an ongoing dispute with 1st Amendment implications.

The news organization was replaced by Real America’s Voice News, a conservative outlet.

The news came just after journalists from three news outlets that Trump banned last week from the White House grounds — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — returned to the executive complex with TV cameras, laptops and microphones in hand.

A judge temporarily struck down the ban in an overnight ruling early Thursday, but his decision didn’t directly address White House pool reporters. The networks continued to refrain from covering Trump as part of the pool, even as reporters from all three outlets were allowed back in the White House.

The temporary order from the judge mentioned only the White House grounds and said nothing directly about Air Force One.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., the news outlets’ attorney, did not immediately respond to an email and phone call requesting comment Friday night.

For a while during the day, the U.S. network video pool for the White House was back in operation for the first time since Trump banned the three news outlets in an extraordinary showdown over media access.

At noon on CNN, viewers could see Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping touring the National Archives Museum along with their wives, Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan. The banner along the bottom of the screen read: “Trump and China’s Xi Visit National Archives.” It was a routine report from a state visit — but for the fact that CNN had not aired live video of Trump in several days.

“As of now, all systems are go,” said a person familiar with the pool, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the fluidity of the situation.

The pool consists of five major U.S. broadcast outlets that take turns shooting and sharing video. When the White House banned CNN — which belongs to the pool — from White House grounds, along with MS NOW and Politico, the other four pool providers declined to participate in a show of solidarity.

CNN was not commenting directly earlier Friday, referring instead to its editorial coverage. But Brian Stelter, the network’s media analyst, posted on X that CNN had a pool assignment at the National Archives event and that the White House had approved the network’s credentials.

Golden and Noveck write for the Associated Press.

Will Best and AJ Odudu have sent fans into meltdown after sharing another Big Brother update live on air

ITV Big Brother fans have all said the same thing as hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best share a huge announcement live on air.

The hosts returned for tonight’s live eviction as one housemate was forced to leave immediately and say their goodbyes as their Big Brother journey came to an end.

Earlier this week, Pauline and Chesley received the highest number of nominations from their fellow housemates when they were asked to choose who they wish to face the public vote.

It came after a huge row broke out with Jedward earlier in the week, following this week’s theme of double trouble. Chelsey found herself at the centre of drama and chaos, with other housemates suggesting Pauline had a game plan.

For the last few days, it’s been up to the public to decide who leaves as they were asked to cast their votes. At the start of tonight’s live eviction (September 25), it was confirmed there had already been a staggering amount of votes cast, with over half a million at that point.

More came pouring in until the lines closed towards the end of the show. As Will and AJ returned to the stage for the second live eviction of the series, it was announced that Chelsey was the second housemate to leave the show.

But after her exit interview, viewers were greeted with another huge twist tonight, with hosts Will and AJ sharing an iconic announcement.

It was confirmed that this week’s theme was the “House Of Nothing”, but keeping in line with the theme, the hosts refused to say anything more about what it may involve, leaving it up to viewer imagination.

Viewers were quick to have their say though as one person wrote on X: “Oh the house of nothing is guaranteed to make this lot completely crack, I’m so ready #BBUK,”

Another said: “A house of nothing.. interesting, I wonder if they will take away their food and luxury items”, as a third added: “If the house of NOTHING means it’s really back to basics, I’m here for it.”

A fourth echoed: “House of Nothing. Please take all the furniture and beds away.” A fifth stated: “‘House of Nothing’ means No sofa, No dining room, no beds. Basically an empty house?!”

Viewers will need to wait until Sunday’s instalment to find out more, but if recent episodes are anything to go by, there is sure to be plenty of drama.

Big Brother continues on Sunday at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX

Strikes carried out in southeastern province of Khost cause no casualties, governor’s office says.

Pakistan says it has carried out air strikes on 10 locations in Afghanistan used to store and launch drones, some of which were used in cross-border attacks.

The air strikes on Thursday were carried out as tensions grow between the former allies over attacks by armed groups in Pakistan, which triggered their worst fighting in years in February.

Islamabad accuses Kabul of harbouring fighters who stage cross-border attacks, but Afghanistan’s Taliban government denies harbouring anti-Pakistani armed groups and says the attacks are Pakistan’s internal problem.

The air strikes were “deliberate, precise, calibrated, and proportionate, and strictly limited to identified military objectives directly linked to the attempted attacks against Pakistan”, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar wrote on X.

He condemned a “deliberate and unlawful incursion into Pakistan by drones” on Wednesday.

“This constitutes a blatant violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and is a grave and unacceptable act of aggression,” he said.

The Pakistani air strikes were conducted in several areas of Khost province in southeastern Afghanistan, Mustaghfir Gurbaz, spokesperson for the Khost governor, said.

There were no casualties, ⁠he said.

An attack on a police facility in northwestern Pakistan last week that killed at least 21 people has reignited ⁠fighting between the countries after nearly three months of ⁠relative calm. A Pakistan Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the blast and subsequent gun battle.

On Monday, air strikes targeting three locations in northeastern Afghanistan killed three civilians in the Nurgal district of Kunar province, Afghan officials said. Islamabad said it killed 28 “terrorists”.

The escalation threatens mediation efforts by China, Turkiye, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to broker a lasting peace between the two neighbours.

Relations between the former allies have been strained since the fighting in February, the worst for years.

A MUCH-LOVED BBC radio star has quit after 45 years on air.

Roy Noble, 83, revealed he would be hanging up his mic as he shared an emotional statement with his listeners about “hiccups in his health“.

The Welsh-native is stepping down from his job at BBC Radio Wales, where he has been broadcasting since the 80s.

Roy also revealed when his last day on air would be, in an emotional post to fans called “A Letter from Roy Noble”, that was shared on social media.

“My dear friends, compatriots and fellow travellers,” the veteran broadcaster penned.

“After a great deal of thought, I’ve decided that next year will be the right time for me to step away from my Sunday programme on BBC Radio Wales.

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“By the time I present my final show in March 2027, I will have spent 46 wonderful years with BBC Wales. It’s been the privilege of a lifetime.”

Continuing, Roy said: “Radio has changed enormously over the years. Wales has changed too. But one thing has remained constant and that’s the privilege of being welcomed into your homes and lives.

“The signs that retirement was approaching may have included my growing suspicion that ‘apps‘ were invented purely to confuse me. The odd hiccup in health has sent signals too.

“But the truth is I’ve simply reached a point where it feels right to begin a new chapter.

“After all, November will mark 84 of my years of yore. Apparently, 63 is the sweet spot or happiest age to retire so I’ve added a few furlongs to that.”

Roy ended by saying: “But for now, I simply want to say a heartfelt thanks to you all. It’s been an honour.”

Before finding fame on the airwaves in the early 80s, Roy was a teacher, but he left to pursue his passion for radio.

The presenter was an instant hit, and over the years hosted a number of different shows for BBC Radio Wales.

Faced with a growing threat to their bases and personnel from missiles and drones and some recent hard-learned lessons, two top Air Force officials on Monday announced plans to increase protection. The statements were made during the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending. They were delivered as the service is seeking to improve its organic ability to defend its bases and has developed new doctrine to do so. 

The war against Iran exposed gaps in how the U.S. can provide effective, sustained air defenses for its foreign installations and there are major concerns about a future fight against a peer competitor like China or Russia. Drone incursions at home have raised alarms about domestic base protection as has the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The following video shows a fatal Iranian attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan in July.

“For decades, American air and space power has often operated from a position of sanctuary. Those days are over,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said during a keynote speech. “We can no longer treat point defense as a side hustle. We must make it a core function of air and space power.”

He acknowledged the widespread damage Iran caused to U.S. bases and suggested that lack of base defense played a large role.

“So, if we had more robust base defense, perhaps those bases wouldn’t have been as damaged as they were,” the general admitted. “Look at Israel; they have a significantly layered, very robust defense of their country, and they didn’t take that many hits. Very few, in fact, and that shows you what a good defensive system can do, which can help you to operate not quite with impunity, but almost, and you can just keep generating air power, and your defensive systems take care of the incoming.”

Wilsbach offered some concrete suggestions about how to make improvements. 

“First, we will establish the point defense weapon system, bringing together kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities to secure our air bases,” the general said. He did not offer any specifics. 

While Wilsbach offered no details about what a point defense weapons system would entail, we recently wrote that the Air Force is seeking an anti-aircraft gun system to help defend its air bases around the world from drones and cruise missiles. Introduced via a Request for Information (RFI) recently posted on the government’s contracting website, the gun system concept is part of a larger Air Force effort to play a greater role in air base defense via ground-based air defenses (GBADs). This role is largely performed by the U.S. Army, most notably with surface-to-air missile systems like Patriot and the Humvee-based Avenger system. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system can also provide broader area defense against incoming ballistic missiles. Other short-range systems optimized to swat down drones and even incoming rockets include the Centurion Counter-Rocket, Artillery, Mortar (C-RAM) system, Coyote counter-drone interceptors and more.

The Air Force currently has no such systems. Now it is set on changing that.

The Air Force is also looking at directed energy weapons like lasers for force protection and especially for defending bases overseas. While gaining traction across the services due in large measure to the much lower cost of delivering effects, these systems are still works in progress.

It’s one thing to have equipment, but another to have experts that know how to use it, Wilsbach noted.

“Second, we have established a new career field of point defense airmen,” he added. “This new career field will be operational in two years. Together, these two new initiatives will strengthen our defenses, reinforce our ability to generate air and space power under fire, and protect our greatest advantage: our airmen and guardians.”

“Protecting the force and generating combat power are inseparable,” Wilsbach explained. “We need our airmen trained, equipped, and ready to fight from the opening moments of a conflict.”

“Don’t you think we ought to have them at every base?” he suggested when asked about point defenders during a media engagement at the symposium. “Because if every base is going to be threatened, we have to have somebody that knows how to defend it. So, obviously, that’s a long-term objective. But what I’ll tell you for right now is we’re going to develop the career field and push it forward to the critical bases that need protecting most, and then we’ll expand it beyond there.”

Though he wants the Air Force to come up with new defensive systems and personnel with the know-how to operate them, Wilsbach is not quite as sold on building out hardened aircraft shelters (HAS). This is his long-standing position that he reiterated on Monday.

“If you know where you’re going to fight from, hardened shelters aren’t that bad of an idea,” the general posited. “Deeply buried are even better. But if you are like us, and we don’t necessarily know where we’re going to fight from, if you build a hardened shelter and you don’t happen to be there, then you perhaps wasted that money.”

“So, given a resource-constrained environment, I would like to put my dollars in systems that can go anywhere in the world and protect you with basically the same level of security by shooting down incoming rounds versus making a hardened shelter that is impervious to an attack,” Wilsbach explained. “You have to put it 200 or 300 feet underground. Any hardened shelter that you show me that’s above the ground, I can blow up. So unless it’s really deeply buried, and then if it is, it’s expensive. And so that’s my logic: the best bang for the buck.”

To speed up the fielding of defensive systems, the service is interested in building out a procurement process specifically designed to develop weapons and other equipment needed to defend bases.

“How do you make sure that [airmen] have the kit they need to do the job?” Air Force Secretary Troy Meink asked rhetorically at a separate symposium session.

The Air Force, he said, is considering creating a new base defense Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE). The service created PAEs at the beginning of the year as part of an overhaul of its acquisition process ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

“The creation of PAEs is a central element of that direction,” according to an Air Force memo on the topic. “By organizing acquisition leadership around portfolios of capability, rather than discrete programs alone, the Department seeks to improve integration, decision speed, and outcome-focused execution across the acquisition enterprise.”

Meink acknowledged that there are challenges to creating a new PAE, most notably the overhead cost of establishing a new office with its associated personnel and infrastructure.

“Probably not going to do it right away, but obviously I think we’re on a path to something like that in the future,” the secretary suggested. “But there definitely has to be a continually increasing focus on making sure we can defend our airmen and guardians wherever they are in the world. This is not just an overseas problem; it’s a U.S. problem as well.”

Though we have been raising the alarm for years about the need for domestic base protection, the issue came into sharp focus in December 2023 after Langley Air Force Base in Virginia was beset by mysterious drone incursions for much of that month. The nature of those flights, which we were the first to report, remains publicly unknown. Since then there have been incursions at several other bases in the U.S., including Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home of B-52 Stratofortress bombers and nuclear weapons storage facilities, and a key part of the airborne leg of America’s nuclear triad. There have also been numerous incursions over U.S. bases in Europe, many of which we were the first to report.

As we noted earlier in this story, the U.S. is already facing a challenge defending against Iranian threats. A war with China would be more devastating and, when it comes to the Air Force protecting its bases, require more robust defenses and a lot more of them at many more locations. At the same time, the Air Force is still very early in the process of taking on more responsibility for protecting its assets.

Meanwhile, the Army has its issues when it comes to air defense. Its existing Patriot battalions have already been shown to be worryingly inadequate to meet heavy existing operational demands, something TWZ has been calling attention to for years now. We have also been raising concerns for a long time about its lack of SHORADS.

For the Air Force, recognizing the problem and taking steps to fix it are important steps. Whether these are the right approaches is something we will keep an eye on.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

BBC Breakfast host Sally Nugent was left baffled as her co-star disappeared live on air while presenting

BBC Breakfast suffered a live on-air blunder during Monday’s show.

The latest installment saw hosts Sally Nugent and Jon Kay on the red sofa, where they delivered the latest news, including the death of show regular and Normandy veteran Ken Hay, who survived capture just weeks after D-Day and spent years educating children about the war. He died aged 101.

As usual with BBC Breakfast, the hosts heard from weather presenter, Matt Taylor, who gave a forecast update to viewers at home.

However, on Monday’s broadcast, Matt’s feed suddenly cut out, as he disappeared live on air and it left a blank screen on air, reading: “Weather presenter editing playlist…”

Host, Sally, 55, said: “Oh, where’s he gone? Just in time. We kept a hold of him there” to which Jon, 56, added: “He’s gone, finished for shift!”

Poking fun at the technical blunder, Sally quipped: “Need another 50p in the metre!” while Jon added: “Let’s get the news, travel and weather where you are. Hopefully they’re there!”

It comes as veteran weather presenter, Carol Kirkwood, left the BBC show earlier this year after more than 25 years presenting. The BBC favourite announced her decision to step down earlier this year on the programme, revealing she wishes to dedicate more time to her husband Steve.

When Carol announced her departure at the time, she became emotional whilst discussing the difficult choice with Jon and Sally. At the time, she expressed: “It’s really hard for me to say this because I love my job.

“I love all of you guys, my weather colleagues, every department I’ve worked with, and of course, all the viewers I’ve been so engaged with for many years.

“But it’s great! I don’t want to be coming in on my zimmer frame, going, ‘I can’t reach the Northern Isles anymore!'”.

Discussing her future plans post-departure, Carol disclosed she’ll be dedicating more time to her husband Steve.

She continued: “We only got married a couple of years ago and we’re like ships that pass in the night, so I’m so looking forward to doing that.

“I’ve still got my books, I’ve got a few other bits and pieces. I want to travel as well.”

BBC Breakfast continues at 6am on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

A GROWING number of UK airports are facing delays and cancellations following another air traffic control failure.

This comes just a fortnight after a major outage left thousands of passengers stranded at airports across the UK.

London Gatwick, Glasgow Airport and Belfast International Airport are amongst airports currently seeing disruptions.

Earlier this morning, it was reported that an issue with National Air Traffic Services (NATS) was affecting airspace in the north of England and Scotland.

NATS has stressed that the issue is unrelated to the major air traffic control outage that saw over 500,000 passengers stranded.

Belfast International Airport has confirmed on its website that it is experiencing NATS-related delays, saying: “We are currently experiencing some delays to flights due to a NATS air traffic control issue.”

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Passengers who do not have a confirmed flight have been instructed to not travel to the airport.

Glasgow Airport has also issued a statement on its website about the delays, saying: “A technical issue affecting NATS air traffic control services at the Prestwick Centre is causing disruption to some flight departures and arrivals.

“As a result, some services operating to and from our airports are experiencing delays, primarily at Glasgow Airport, and further disruption is expected due to the knock-on impact across the network.”

London City Airport said on X: “We are experiencing some disruption due to an issue at @NATS Prestwick.

“We are monitoring the situation closely and working with NATS as they resolve the issue.“

It also told passengers to check with their airline to find out the latest flight information.

Both London Gatwick and Stansted are “operating as normal”, the airports have confirmed, but a handful of departing flights may be delayed.

After over an hour of fixing delays, NATS has now confirmed the issue at its Prestwick centre in Scotland is now fixed.

The air traffic control firm has apologised for today’s flight disruption and said it is working with airports and airlines to “minimise any further disruption”.

Transport Secretary also commented on the incident, calling the disruptions “deeply frustrating” and warning passengers of “some delays”.

THE under fire boss of air traffic control has been told he “must quit” after a number of UK airports were hit with delays following another technical glitch.

Thousands of passengers saw their flights disrupted after an issue with the National Air Traffic Services [Nats] affected airspace in the north of England and in Scotland.

Holidaymakers are facing lengthy delays after the issue which began at Nats’ Prestwick centre in Scotland.

Airports in Edinburgh, Belfast and Manchester were registering delayed flights and urged passengers to check with their airlines while Luton Airport said domestic flights had been disrupted.

Nats has stressed that the issue was unrelated to a massive outage that saw hundreds of flights cancelled just two weeks ago.

In a statement on the most recent air traffic control outage, a Nats spokesperson confirmed the issue was now fixed – but disruption is still on the cards for many holidaymakers.

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But calls for Nats chief Martin Rolfe to resign have intensified after the latest debacle.

The 51-year-old senior executive of National Air Traffic Services was paid £1.5 million, including £871,000 in bonuses, last year and has already faced questions over his future.

The executive has previously been accused of overseeing a “litany of failures” during his time as CEO of the UK’s air traffic control services.

At least 200 flights departing or arriving into the UK have been cancelled so far today, aviation analytics company Cirium has said.

Ryanair has said more than 25,000 of its passengers are expected to be disrupted after the latest air traffic control incident and called for Rolfe to resign.

Chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: “Just three days after Nats assured airlines and passengers that it had introduced robust ‘mitigation plans’, its flight data processing system has failed again.

“More than 25,000 Ryanair passengers have already suffered disruption, with over 140 Ryanair flights delayed, yet Nats still cannot tell passengers when this disruption will end.

He added: “Rolfe has presided over repeated system failures, repeated passenger disruption and repeated failures to deliver an effective back-up system.

“Enough is enough. Martin Rolfe should resign today.”

Easyjet said in a statement: “A NATS Air Traffic Control system failure in its Prestwick Centre is causing delays to flights with some unable to operate.

“This, once again, calls into question the resilience of NATS’ systems and demonstrates the need for firm actions to prevent these repeated failures.

“We will do all we can minimise the impact of this for our customers and advise anyone due to fly today to check our flight tracker for the latest information.”

The airline said the latest disruption “calls into question the resilience of Nats’ systems.”

The firm said earlier this morning that engineers were working to resolve the issue but that regulations had been imposed to “maintain safety.”

And, British Airways said it is “disappointing” that some customers may experience disruption after “yet another technical fault with Nats”.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “Yet another technical fault with Nats means some of our customers are likely to experience disruption to their travel plans today.

“This is disappointing and whilst it is an issue that is entirely out of our control, we’re doing everything we can to limit the impact on customers and are keeping them updated.”

A Nats statement this afternoon read: “The issue in our Prestwick centre is now fixed. We are working with airports and airlines to safely lift air traffic regulations as quickly as we can to minimise any further disruption.

“Passengers should still check the status of their flight with their airline.

“We apologise for the disruption.”

Passengers tpoday are being advised to check with their airline for information on their flights.

Holidaymakers at Glasgow airport were reportedly been left waiting on the tarmac for hours amid the delays.

Meanwhile, Luton Airport said domestic flights had been disrupted by the air traffic control issue.

And several flights at Manchester Airport have been delayed with passengers warned to expect further disruption.

However, most airports south of Manchester are broadly unaffected by the issue but flights travelling north may be subject to some delays, Nats said.

British Airways and Easyjet have issued messages to passengers hoping to travel today, warning them that some delays are expected.

Highlands and Islands Airports Limited has said flights are being disrupted across all of the airports it operates.

Meanwhile, Belfast International Airport said it is experiencing some delays amid the air traffic control issue.

Passengers and airlines “deserve better”, an aviation industry body has said after the second air traffic control issue within two weeks.

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines UK, said: “The UK’s ATC (air traffic control) system is critical national infrastructure and it must be resilient enough to keep people moving.

“Passengers and airlines deserve better and the independent CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) report, together with the forthcoming Civil Aviation Bill, must address the underlying weaknesses in the system so that these failures stop happening.”

The previous Nats failure affected thousands of passengers with many stuck abroad amid the chaos.

Nats announced that a “technical issue” with its “flight processing system” had caused the widespread travel chaos just two weeks ago.

A majority of the UK’s biggest airports were brought to a standstill by the failure, which is understood to have been caused by a software error.

It led to calls for Nats chief Martin Rolfe to resign with furious airline executives blaming him for the failure.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander previously demanded Rolfe launch a rapid review into the chaos last week and said that she did not believe the most recent air traffic control issue was “unavoidable.”

He previously faced turbulence in 2023 when he oversaw his first failure in air traffic control, which affected more than 250,000 passengers.

The August bank holiday failure was sparked when a small piece of incorrect data set off a mass system failure lasting just a few hours.

The top U.S. Air Force officer in Europe, who also serves as the NATO Allied Air Command leader, said he has been tasked with enacting new alliance plans to defend against cruise missiles and drones. He was responding to questions about a drone that NATO had to shoot down after it entered Lithuanian airspace overnight. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday morning that the incident was “part of a broader pattern of Russian aggression and provocation against Europe, testing our readiness and our resolve.”

The drone incursion into Lithuania took place against the backdrop of the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine and amid a spate of so-called ‘hybrid’ or ‘gray zone’ actions Moscow has been accused of carrying out throughout Europe, including a recent attempted drone attack on the Leipzig-Halle airport in Germany.

“I don’t know what’s in the mind of Putin or his fielded forces about those one-way attack drones or even cruise missiles, like we’ve seen enter Polish airspace just a few months ago. In July, we had an AS-23 cruise missile enter Poland,” Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, Commander, U.S. Air Forces in Europe/U.S. Air Forces Africa (USAFE), and Commander of the Allied Air Command, said in response to a question about the drone shootdown over Lithuania. He was speaking during a media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending.

Hinds added that while he doesn’t “know the why behind” the drone incursion into Lithuania, he has been tasked by U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, who serves as NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), “to fully implement EVA [Enhanced Vigilance Activity] Eastern Sentry and now its Standing Defense Plan 12000, which gives the nations the capabilities that they need to defend their airspace against either one-way attack drones like the one that you described last night, or a cruise missile.”

EVA Eastern Sentry is a mission NATO stood up in September 2025 after “an unprecedented number of Russian drones and planes violated the airspace of several NATO Allies,” according to the alliance. “Allies are contributing additional capabilities and assets to NATO’s deterrence and defense – for instance, more fighter jets, helicopters, transport aircraft, air defense systems, surveillance aircraft and frigates – and improving the coordination of these assets through NATO.”

Is the Kremlin testing Europe’s defenses with drone incursions? | DW News

Standing Defense Plan 12000 is a new plan for integrated air and missile defense across the alliance. Grynkewich introduced the concept during testimony to Congress in March.

Hinds acknowledged that Russia could be testing the alliance.

“It’s not about the small UASs; that’s typically a national responsibility, and it could be probing,” the Air Force general noted. “Regardless of the intent behind it, what we want to be prepared for is the second that a one-way attack drone or a cruise missile is first and foremost detected – hopefully well before it enters NATO territory – we want to know it. We want to know where it’s coming from. We want to have the capability to sense it. We want to be able to have the C2 [command and control] systems to be able to decide what to do about it, and then have the right kit to be able to act.”

Despite an integrated air and missile defense system that includes Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries, NATO currently is primarily “using air power” against drones and cruise missiles “and that’s not putting us on the right side of the cost curve,” Hinds stated. “But we want to get there.”

Using NATO jets to take down drones “is very effective, just like what you saw last night, and many other times,” but not necessarily efficient, Hinds explained. 

Video shows debris after NATO jets shoot down a drone over Lithuania

“I think there’s been at least five other cases of allied nations providing air power to shoot down one-way attack drones,” he proffered. “I want to get to the point where we’re doing it efficiently, using lower-cost interceptors, hopefully ground-based, and in some cases air-based that are cheaper to use, so we’ll see what the intent may be. Intelligence organizations are going to provide us with that intelligence later on, but I just don’t know yet.”

You can see one of those NATO jet engagements with drones in the following video.

It should be noted that Europe is starting to follow the American lead in using less expensive laser-guided, air-to-air rockets as drone-killing weapons. TWZ was the first to report about the use of 70mm Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rockets by the U.S. The U.K. Royal Air Force announced in May of this year that its Typhoons were now equipped with APKWS rockets while the French recently tested their own 68mm laser-guided rockets from Rafale fighters.

The Defence Procurement Agency has successfully completed integration testing of 68 mm laser-guided rockets on the Rafale fighter jet. The time between the contract being awarded for this new capability and initial operational capability being achieved was less than 8 months. pic.twitter.com/rR2Nij9EzY

— French Aid to Europe 🇨🇵 🇪🇺 (@aidefranceukr) July 13, 2026

As the threats have evolved, NATO has “transitioned away from air policing, and we’ve transitioned to air defense for some specific reasons,” the general pointed out. “One is readiness. Air policing is a readiness decrementing mission that the alliance has done for years. There’s also an assurance mission that we did for 32 nations. That’s transitioned to air defense now. Air defense means we have the right kit, multi-domain, to be able to be put in the right place based on indications, warnings, or real threats, like you saw last night, inside of the Baltic nations, to be able to respond decisively and quickly.”

“There’s also a deterrence value there,” Hinds added. “So if Russia does fly a one-way attack drone or a cruise missile, they know that we’re going to be in the right spot to be able to detect it and then defend against it.”

“These are limited incursions, right? Small numbers. Here’s what I see: hybrid activities may, in fact, only be one of the few levers that Putin has available to him, because he sees that he does not have an advantage in geography, domain, or readiness,” Hinds suggested.

“Think about that,” he urged. “So what are we seeing? We’re not seeing a massing of forces across the opposite side of Finland, a new NATO nation. We’re not seeing a massing of forces whatsoever in any domain opposite of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia. You’re seeing a significant number of one-way attack drones in the Black Sea targeting Ukraine. Some of them are entering Romania. What you’re not seeing is a direct confrontation in geography. We’re not seeing direct competition in domains. And I think Putin knows that we are ready. I know he knows that we’re a defensive alliance. I know he knows that we have an advantage in every domain against them, and I think that’s likely why you’re seeing things like what you’re seeing with hybrid activity.”

Though below the level of armed conflict, these Russian activities raise the potential for something worse, Hinds posited.

“The risk about hybrid activity, from my perspective, is it could lead to escalation, and that’s where I hope that we get back towards deterrence again, and that the nations they’re going to decide to do what they want to do when it comes to these hybrid activities,” the general said. “Some of them are law enforcement. Some of them are military responses, and that’s up to the nations to decide how they’re going to deal with that. Not me.”

“But what I owe General Grynkewich is to ensure that we are demonstrating our deterrence each and every day, and we’re doing that effectively across all domains,” Hinds added. “And to ensure that Putin knows that if he tries something against the alliance, that we will be there, and we’re ready to win decisively if challenged.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

Whether it’s a brush fire, a mass shooting, a car chase or the aftermath of a major storm, viewers in Los Angeles are used to getting the news from above.

Television news helicopter coverage has become one of the most important elements of any local newscast, with the high-flying helicopters roaring overhead a common fixture of breaking news scenes.

These images are so ubiquitous, it’s easy to take them for granted, until Tuesday, when an NBC4 helicopter carrying reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw crashed while covering breaking news in Chatsworth. Both died, along with a bystander on the ground.

The tragedy has prompted soul-searching in the world of TV news helicopter pilots and focused attention on safety issues.

Pilots describe a high-stakes race in the skies of Los Angeles, with the TV stations battling to get breaking news on the air first. The air space easily becomes crowded and in the case of moving stories like car chases, a bit unpredictable and chaotic. The crews who take to the air in Los Angeles must not only navigate each other, but air traffic to three regional airports and smaller, local air strips across the Southland when doing their job.

They say safety is always the top priority and that everyone in the air works together to avoid problems.

The NBC4 crash marks the most serious incident involving an L.A. news chopper crew since 2000, when a Fox 11 helicopter covering the Academy Awards crashed and burst into flames at Van Nuys Airport.

Nationally, National Transportation Safety Board data show that 16 people have died in eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the United States since 2000. A cause of Tuesday’s crash has not been determined, but some experts have said they believe mechanical failure might be the cause.

“It crushed us all,” said Tim Lynn, a now-retired helicopter pilot and reporter who flew for 16 years for KTLA-TV. Lynn worked with Moreno and knew how much she cherished her job.

“She loved the job so much that she put her all into it,” he said.

Camaraderie, competition in the air

For all the camaraderie in the air, there is also some competition.

Stations want to be first to get to the scene of breaking news.

Kurt Deetz, a former news helicopter pilot who retired five years ago, said it’s a difficult business to be in.

“It’s very competitive, and at what cost?” Deetz said.

News pilots tend to have plenty of experience, former pilots said, and dangerous incidents are rare. But Deetz said pilots are pushed to be out in the air first, get to the scene, and remain on scene for extended periods of time.

“If you can be the first on the scene, you’re a hero,” Deetz said. “I think about that now and think, that is so dumb.”

Deetz started his career with KMEX in 1995, and worked for nearly every station in the area while working with Helinet, he said.

In the sky, reporters and pilots keep an eye out for one another, warning when one is drifting too close to another or if there is something else to keep an eye on.

“We all know each other,” Lynn said. “Maybe we never met, but we’ve all talked on the radio and know the names.”

There are unspoken rules that news helicopter pilots learn once they join, Lynn said.

During a police chase, for example, the first helicopter on the scene immediately takes the front position left of the fleeing vehicle, he said. The next helicopter takes a position behind that helicopter. The third helicopter takes a spot in the front right side of the chase, and the fourth sits behind it. All four maintain those spots throughout the chase, regardless of the turns and twists throughout the area.

And when the pursued begins to circle a residential area — a common occurrence during police pursuits — all news helicopters are expected to stop and hover in place, even if their shots are temporarily blocked by trees and buildings.

That’s because the tight turns and circles could result in a crash if all helicopters remain in pursuit.

“You never move unless you say something,” Lynn said. “It’s a well-coordinated operation.”

Lynn remembers at least once when a new pilot joined in a pursuit.

“We were all stopped and he’s just chasing the guy like he’s the police,” Lynn said.

Lynn got on the radio and, as the other three choppers kept their position, Lynn asked him to stick to “one of the corners.”

“That was a learning curve for that guy,” Lynn said.

But Lynn said there’s respect for new staff and veterans in the field. Regardless of what station they work for, reporters and pilots are constantly helping each other, abiding by unspoken rules to keep each other safe.

‘A dangerous place to be’

There is one maneuver that pilots say brings them particular anxiety.

Jack Cress, a former helicopter pilot for the U.S. Marine Corps and a helicopter accident investigation instructor for USC’s Aviation Safety and Security Program, said news helicopters will often spend time hovering over an incident, sometimes at a low altitude.

“That is a dangerous place to be,” Cress said.

For Deetz, he said he’d often say that he wouldn’t hover low for extended periods of time, especially if he didn’t see a place he could land in case of an emergency.

“You set up, get your shot, and then you move on,” he said. “I made a point of saying, ‘I’m not going to hover here for hours.’ ”

He knows the practice is still popular among current pilots, which he thinks needs to be rethought.

“In this day and age, there’s no need to hover,” he said. “Those cameras are so powerful. There’s no need to be so low.”

Helicopter pilots are trained to stay away from those conditions because, in case of trouble like engine failure, the lack of altitude and forward momentum gives the pilot little recourse. If the engine were to fail, for example, a pilot can sometimes perform an “autorotation” procedure to use altitude and forward momentum to force the rotors to turn, easing their descent.

The procedure is one that Lynn is familiar with. In 2012, Lynn was covering an incident in Hollywood for KTLA when his helicopter started to smoke heavily. He had no idea until one of the other choppers radioed him to tell him.

“As soon as I turn it, he said, ‘You need to put it on the ground now,’ ” Lynn said.

Lynn headed down and started getting the helicopter ready for an autorotation, as heavy smoke started to shoot from the engine. Lynn looked toward the ground and was eyeing Highland or Los Feliz for a makeshift landing spot. He gripped the controls and expected the engine to give out at any second, until he spotted a parking lot. He watched for the wires, watched for the trees and set it down. The motor never gave out.

Pilots will constantly eye one another in the formation.

News helicopter pilots will normally stay around 1,200 to 1,500 feet above the ground, Lynn said. That is to stay above police helicopters, under commercial flights, and still have enough space in case they need to perform an emergency autorotation procedure.

Although news helicopters are touted as a cornerstone of local news broadcasts, the aircraft are owned and operated by third-party companies. KTLA and NBC4’s helicopters, for example, are owned and operated by Angel City Air, part of Welk Aviation. ABC 7’s helicopter is operated by Helinet, and KCAL’s helicopter is owned by Helicopters Inc.

Many of them are flying the same kind of helicopter that crashed Tuesday, the AS350 B2, which aviation experts said is a popular helicopter for news stations and police departments.

Deetz said he flew that helicopter for his entire career in news, and never once had a dangerous mechanical issue.

‘We all know each other’

It took minutes for word of the NBC4 crash to spread across the world of Los Angeles news chopper pilots and journalists.

“I immediately wondered who. We all know each other,” Lynn said.

One of Lynn’s former colleagues told him they saw a tail rotor on the ground, and Lynn quickly learned it was Moreno and Marciniw who were onboard.

A former police pilot for Huntington Beach and a retired news helicopter pilot after 16 years, Lynn said pilots have established rules in the air to keep each other safe.

He and others have shared several of those rules for new pilots and reporters who joined the business over the years, including Moreno, whom Lynn said he helped train when she first joined Angel City Air as a reporter.

Lynn remembers when she joined the company, he said. She picked up quickly on the equipment she had to use and eagerly sought advice to get better at the job.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, is expected to release a preliminary report on the incident in the coming days. A complete report on the incident is expected to take up to 18 months to be completed.

The head of Air Mobility Command (AMC) on Wednesday offered some new details about what went into repairing a KC-135 Stratotanker riddled with shrapnel holes from an Iranian attack. We have previously written about a couple of these jets damaged during Operation Epic Fury (OEF) as they came through RAF Mildenhall in the U.K. on their way back to the U.S. for comprehensive repair work. We are also getting new information of how AMC kept its fleet operating at such a prolonged high-tempo ahead of and during OEF.

The discussion about the damaged tanker took place during a panel at the Air & Space Forces’ Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. The tanker in question was damaged as it was preparing for a mission, explained AMC commander Lt. Gen. Daniel H. Tulley.

“A KC-135 ops crew is in the jet,” he said. “KC-135 maintenance team is about to launch this jet. Unexpected Alarm Red [an attack warning]. Everyone jumps in a bunker.”

After the barrage, the airmen emerged from their bunkers and checked out the plane.

“That aircraft is smoking,” Tulley said. “There are holes in it, and it’s a fully loaded KC-135. Two hundred thousand pounds of jet fuel. Took 48 hours for that [fuel] to be drained out of that aircraft. In the meantime, first on the scene was I think the pro super [production superintendent] and the expediter. They immediately began to collect the fuel… They start to patch the holes. They start to fix all the systems. Long story short, they were eventually able to get that plane to make a transoceanic flight back home to be fully repaired.”

Tulley did not say where the attack took place. However, as we have previously reported, five tankers were reportedly damaged in an Iranian long-range strike on Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia on March 14. That was later confirmed in a Department of War Inspector General report released earlier this week.

You can see two of the shrapnel-damaged KC-135s as they passed through the UK on the way home in the following photographs shared with us by aviation photographer Andrew McKelvey. We do not know if either of these is the one discussed by Tulley.

Lt. Gen. Linda Hurry, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), followed Tulley’s comments with additional details about the repair work.

“I’ll pick right up on that because it was our aircraft battle damage repair team that was actually able to patch their aircraft back together to get it back to Tinker [Air Force Base in Oklahoma] that can put it completely back where it needed to be,” she noted. Tinker is home to the Expeditionary Depot Maintenance (EDMX), which is “responsible for maintaining the Air Force’s sole source for Aircraft Battle Damage Repair (ABDR) rapid repair capabilities for the entire tanker and bomber fleets,” according to the Air Force.

“So with Operation Epic Fury, we’re asking those questions: What can we sustain for how long? And it begs a question about regeneration,” Tulley further explained. “You know, our new teammates have regeneration as part of their doctrine, so readiness in contact is the way we’re approaching this. What can we do to improve how we generate capability while under fire, in contact, persistently in an extended or protracted conflict? Lots of great examples of work being done to get after this. General Hurry’s team has brought a lot of capability forward at Mildenhall Air Base.” 

One example of how this has worked has been repairing damaged aerial refueling booms in the U.K. instead of all the way back to the U.S., Tulley highlighted. The booms, which extend from the back of tankers so that receiving aircraft can get their gas, can be damaged by the process, especially during combat refueling.

“I think we turned 30 booms instead of bringing them all the way back to the states,” Tulley noted.

Repairing battle damage is certainly a unique situation for AMC airman, but keeping hundreds of the command’s tankers and cargo aircraft moving at such a high rate prior to and during the war was a huge undertaking that was helped by new maintenance concepts. The Air Force sent maintainers and parts to bases in Europe to drastically speed up major maintenance that would have demanded the aircraft return stateside.

“We moved some maintenance actions forward, so they didn’t have to – the aircraft didn’t have to go all the way back to the states,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach said during his keynote speech earlier this week. “We put some of them in Europe, so they could get through some normal safety inspections that were either due or deferred. Got those done, and the aircraft doesn’t have to go all the way back to the states. They can go somewhere in Europe, get the thing done, and then get right back to the flight. And so, those measures by Air Mobility Command paid dividends in the readiness of our mobility fleet.”

Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC), which maintains the service’s fleet of strategic bombers and its ICBM force, did something similar at RAF Fairford in the U.K., AFGSC commander Gen. Stephen L. Davis explained.

“It’s a complex problem,” said Davis. “I would say in the past we probably didn’t do this the right way. When we thought a conflict was kicking off, the first thing we do is start sending bombers forward, and that actually consumes our readiness. So I think we got it right during OEF.”

“We pushed maintainers and support personnel forward to RAF Fairford, and then we actually took the bombers, we loaded them up in CONUS [Continental United States]. We took them to the Middle East. They actually did a mission. They employed, deployed, conducted a combat mission, and then landed at Fairford. And then for the next, well, I guess they’ve been there for now six-plus months.”

“They’ve been conducting nearly daily operations out of there,” Davis proffered. “When bombers are back at home base, they build readiness. When we deploy it forward, they consume readiness. And then, as [Gen. Hurry] said, we’re getting great support in terms of parts, in terms of supplies, and in terms of forward depot support. So that fleet remains healthy.”

Being able to do as much repair and maintenance work as close to the front lines as possible will be hugely important in any future fight against China, and, unfortunately, repairing battle damaged aircraft will be necessary too. Clearly, the Air Force has learned some very important lessons from Epic Fury.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

WASHINGTON — 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.”

Meink did not detail what the weapons were or how they work. In 2024 the U.S. said Russia was developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could be launched from space. At the time the White House said the danger wasn’t imminent.

But reports of the anti-satellite weapon reflected longstanding worries about space threats from Russia and China, given that much U.S. infrastructure is dependent on satellite communications.

In his remarks, Meink also said the Air Force was adding more autonomous systems to its capabilities and predicted the service would look “radically different” by 2032. For example, he foresaw one-way attack drones replacing artillery as the “primary killer.”

“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” he said.

President Trump created the Space Force in 2019.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico won’t air on broadcast television amid the network’s high-stakes skirmish with the Federal Communications Commission.

Kimmel, during his Wednesday night monologue, said his talk with the 37-year-old Texas Democrat would instead stream on his show’s YouTube channel — depriving ABC viewers and TV stations of a potentially newsworthy interview with Talarico, who has been surging in the polls.

The Texas race is shaping up as a key contest in what could help decide control of the U.S. Senate in the mid-term elections.

Talarico is running against Texas Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who has been endorsed by President Trump.

Kimmel alluded to the Walt Disney Co. network’s ongoing dispute with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as the reason for the switch. This spring, Carr’s Media Bureau ordered ABC to submit to an early review of its TV station licenses for Disney’s eight owned stations. The FCC launched the review a day after President Trump demanded Kimmel be fired after First Lady Melania Trump became upset over a joke the comedian told on his program, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

ABC has since sued the FCC, alleging Trump’s disdain for Kimmel and other ABC programs has fueled the FCC’s heavy-handed approach to the network, in violation of its 1st Amendment rights.

Kimmel pointed to the “unusual circumstances” in his monologue.

“For the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like [David] Letterman did, [Jay] Leno did, Arsenio [Hall], etc. etc.,” Kimmel said. “I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates — from Hilary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump.”

But, Kimmel said that in the current climate, airing the Talarico interview on the public airwaves carried too much risk.

“Out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense,” the ABC interview, which was scheduled for Thursday, would instead play on YouTube, he said.

ABC declined to comment. An FCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The issue surfaced nearly one year after a major dust-up when ABC temporarily benched Kimmel after comments he made on his show over the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. During that episode, Carr seemed to threaten Disney by saying that Kimmel should be punished.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways … to take action … on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC.”

Two station groups removed Kimmel’s show, but ABC eventually stood by the comedian returning him to his perch the following week.

The Disney-owned station licenses were not set to expire for several years when the FCC demanded that Disney defend its stewardship of the outlets. The license for Disney’s KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles extends to 2030 but it is now being challenged.

The Burbank giant has asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunction to halt the FCC’s early station review.

ABC also is defending against an FCC probe into whether its daytime talk show, “The View,” should be entitled to an exemption from the so-called equal-time rule for political candidates who appear as guests.

Carr has challenged the status of “The View,” arguing that the topical chat show is not a bona fide news program and, thus, should not be entitled to the exemption.

The same issue tripped up former CBS late night comedian Stephen Colbert who interviewed Talarico in February — before his program, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was canceled.

At the time, Colbert told viewers CBS lawyers forbid him from airing a Talarico interview on his program due to the FCC’s increased scrutiny of exemptions to the equal-time rule, an allegation that CBS disputed.

But Colbert’s interview played on the program’s YouTube channel — not the CBS network.

The FCC has said it was investigating ABC stations over whether the company’s diversity and inclusion policies are in violation of the Communications Act of 1934 and the agency’s rules, including its “prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”

Last week, the FCC asked a federal judge in Washington to dismiss ABC’s 1st Amendment lawsuit, calling Disney’s challenge to the early review “meritless” because the commission hasn’t made a decision on whether to escalate the matter or rescind Disney’s station licenses.

Kimmel ended his monologue, saying he was grateful for the YouTube channel “because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do until November.”

MADRID: Charles Leclerc and Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton said they had cleared the air face-to-face after a clash at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix but there were still no written rules of engagement between the pair.

Seven-times Formula One world champion Hamilton had called for written rules after being forced off onto the gravel by Leclerc on the opening lap and dropping from fourth to 10th.

The Briton eventually finished sixth while Leclerc crashed out. Asked at the Spanish Grand Prix on Thursday whether ‌anything had been ‌put in writing, Hamilton replied, “There was not.

“I’m sure ‌at some stage we’ll discuss how we can be better but we’ve not had a lot of time to turn around. You can’t change things in two days.”

Hamilton said there had been no shying away between the two drivers when they came to discuss what had happened.

“We sat face to face, just him and I, and talked about it,” he said. “We were just both open and honest and we squashed it. And ‌we can move on… I think ‌it’s healthy. It’s a relationship we have built over time.”

“Of course there’s going ‌to be frustrations… I’m sure there will be more times (where) we ‌are close (on track) because we are very close on pace. We both want to win just as much as each other and we both want to do well for the team as well.”

Ferrari are second in the championship ‌after 13 rounds, 122 points behind Mercedes. Hamilton is third overall, 76 points behind Mercedes’ leader Kimi Antonelli.

Leclerc told reporters he had reviewed footage after the race and recognised he had gone too far.

“I said it to Lewis and I think it’s very clear what we should do or should avoid going forward but I won’t go into much more details of what we’ve said,” added the Monegasque.

“The only thing I can say is it definitely did not affect the good relationship that we have and it will not affect anything going forward and that is the most important for me really.”

Leclerc said his crash at Monza at the end of the second lap had felt like a big one and he had suffered a tight neck for a couple of days after but was now fine.