News

On Monday, we reported on Sikorsky’s new U-Hawk cargo helicopter, which is a UH-60 Black Hawk that has been converted into an uncrewed hauler by removing the cockpit and adding clamshell doors in its place, fly-by-wire flight control systems, and additional modifications. You can read all about this aircraft, its genesis, and its capabilities in our report linked here.

Now we have gotten a tour of the actual helicopter on the show floor at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) main annual conference just outside of Washington, D.C. Erskine “Ramsey” Bentley, Strategy and Business Development, Advanced Programs at Sikorsky, gave us the walk around, explaining all the U-Hawk’s features.

Check it out in the video below:

Contact the author: [email protected]

Oct. 15 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security said it has credible intelligence that Mexican cartels have placed bounties on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers.

The Tuesday statement from DHS said criminal networks have instructed “U.S.-based sympathetics,” including Chicago street gangs, to “monitor, harass and assassinate” federal agents.

According to the federal agencies, the cartels are offering $2,000 for gathering intelligence, between $5,000 and $10,000 for kidnapping and assaults on standard ICE and CBP officers and up to $50,000 to assassinate high-ranking officials.

“These criminal networks are not just resisting the rule of law, they are waging an organized campaign of terror against the brave men and women who protected our borders and communities,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said.

ICE has been conducting an immigration crackdown in Chicago, employing aggressive tactics, such as the use of tear gas and forced entries, that have drawn criticism over the use of force and accusations of intimidation against residents. Local leaders have accused the Trump administration of overreach and violating the Constitution.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to deploy the National Guard to the city, but federal judges have blocked or delayed the move.

“ICE is recklessly throwing tear gas into our neighborhoods and busy streets, including near children at school and CPD officers,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday in a statement.

“The Trump administration must stop their deployment of dangerous chemical weapons into the air of peaceful American communities.”

Trump has criticized out at Pritzker for resisting troop deployments, saying he and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers.”

According to the DHS, gangs have established so-called spotter networks in Chicago’s Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. Groups including the Latin Kins have stationed members on rooftops with firearms and radios to track ICE and CBP movements to disrupt federal immigration raids being conducted under Operation Midway Blitz.

Last week, the Justice Department charged Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, with one count of murder-for-hire targeting a senior ICE agent involved in the Chicago operation.

Federal prosecutors alleged Martinez, identified as a Latin Kings gang member, sent a Snapchat message offering $10,000 “if u take him down” and $2,000 for information on the agent’s whereabouts.

On Oct. 3, DHS announced that more than 1,000 undocumented migrants had been detained under Operation Midway Blitz, which began Sept. 8.

The State Department says the US has ‘no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans’ after revoking visas over critical social media posts.

The US Department of State says it has revoked the visas of six foreigners over remarks they made on social media about Charlie Kirk, the conservative political activist who was shot dead at a rally in September.

“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans. The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk,” the department said in a post on X on Tuesday evening in the US.

The post was followed by a list of screenshots and critical remarks from six social media accounts, which the State Department said belonged to individuals from South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay and Mexico.

“An Argentine national said that Kirk ‘devoted his entire life spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric’ and deserves to burn in hell. Visa revoked,” the State Department tweeted along with a screenshot that had the username blacked out.

The screenshot post said Kirk was now somewhere “hot” – an allusion to religious descriptions of hell.

The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.

The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk. Here are just a few examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S.:

— Department of State (@StateDept) October 14, 2025

The news from the State Department came as Kirk was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Tuesday by President Donald Trump.

Kirk, who was 31 at the time of his death, was a cofounder of the conservative Turning Point student organisation. He was credited with driving young voters to vote for Trump during last year’s US presidential election.

His death led to a wave of social media commentary on the US left and right about his politics, as Trump elevated him to the status of a “martyr for truth” during a memorial service.

More than 145 people were fired, suspended, or resigned over social media posts or comments about Kirk, according to a New York Times investigation.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio previously said the Trump administration could revoke the visas of foreign nationals over comments on Kirk, while Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau urged internet users to report social media comments of people applying for US visas.

“I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalising, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” Landau tweeted in September. “Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the [State Department] can protect the American people.”

In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure, I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country. I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light…

— Christopher Landau (@DeputySecState) September 11, 2025

While the State Department has required visa applicants to share their social media handles on their applications since 2019, in June, it added the provision that student applicants must make all their social media accounts public for government vetting.

The move follows a crackdown on international students who supported pro-Palestine protests on university and college campuses across the US under the Trump administration.

In August, a State Department official told Fox News it had revoked more than 6,000 student visas this year.

About two-thirds of visas were revoked because students reportedly broke US law, the Fox News report said, while “200 to 300” were cancelled because they supported “terrorism” or engaged in “behaviour such as raising funds for the militant group Hamas”.

Gennadiy Trukhanov is alleged to have Russian citizenship, which is prohibited in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of Ukrainian citizenship over allegations that he possesses a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian leader has instead appointed a military administration to run the country’s biggest port city on the Black Sea, with a population of about 1 million.

“The Ukrainian citizenship of the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has been suspended,” Ukraine’s SBU security service announced on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, citing a decree signed by Zelenskyy.

The SBU accused the mayor of “possessing a valid international passport from the aggressor country”.

Ukraine prohibits its citizens from also holding citizenship in Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the move against Trukhanov could see him deported from the country.

In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said he had held a meeting with the head of the SBU, which had reported on “countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the front-line and border regions, as well as in the south of our country”.

The SBU chief “confirmed… the fact that certain individuals hold Russian citizenship – relevant decisions regarding them have been prepared. I have signed the decree”, Zelenskyy said.

I held a meeting on the security situation in some of our regions – these are matters of principle.

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk reported on countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the frontline and border regions, as well as in the south… pic.twitter.com/MxKyKjPYc9

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 14, 2025

“Far too many security issues in Odesa have remained unanswered for far too long,” the president also said, according to reports, without providing specific details.

A former member of parliament, Trukhanov has been the mayor of Odesa since 2014. He has consistently denied accusations of holding Russian citizenship, an allegation that has dogged him throughout his political career.

“I have never received a Russian passport. I am a Ukrainian citizen,” Trukhanov stressed in a video message posted on Telegram following the announcement of his citizenship revocation.

Trukhanov said he would “continue to perform the duties of elected mayor” as long as possible and that he would take the case to court.

Images of a Russian passport allegedly belonging to Trukhanov have been shared widely on social media in Ukraine.

SBU says: pic.twitter.com/fcRe8acOgo

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 14, 2025

Once considered a politician with pro-Russian leanings, Trukhanov pivoted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and has publicly condemned Moscow while focusing on defending Odesa and aiding the Ukrainian army.

A source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency that Zelenskyy had also removed the Ukrainian citizenships of two other people.

Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent identified the two as Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and former Ukrainian politician and now alleged Russian collaborator Oleg Tsaryov.

Polunin, who sports a large tattoo of Putin on his chest, was born in southern Ukraine but obtained Russian citizenship in 2018. He supported Russia’s 2022 invasion and, earlier in 2014, backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where he lived and worked.

In July, Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the head of the formerly Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The White House says it will release a list of programmes to be cut on Friday after earlier eliminating 4,200 positions at a range of government departments.

President Donald Trump has renewed his threat to cut “Democrat programmes” as the United States government shutdown heads into its fifteenth day without resolution.

“The Democrats are getting killed on the shutdown because we’re closing up programmes that are Democrat programmes that we were opposed to… and they’re never going to come back in many cases,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday, according to ABC News.

Trump said a list of programmes may be released as soon as Friday, although he did not provide further details in his remarks. He said that “Republican programmes” would be safe.

Trump has already used the government shutdown to pause or cut $28bn in federal funding for infrastructure and energy projects in Democrat-leaning states like California, Illinois and New York.

The White House has also started making cuts to the federal workforce. About 4,200 employees from eight government departments and agencies received “reduction-in-force notices” on Friday, according to CNBC.

Major cuts were made at the Treasury Department, the Health and Human Services Department, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some programmes on the chopping block included those historically supported by Republicans as well as Democrats. They included the entire staff of the Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which works with low-income communities, according to CNBC.

There are about 2.25 million civilian federal employees, according to the Congressional Budget Office, of whom some 60 percent work in the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

Approximately 750,000 federal employees have been on furlough since the shutdown began two weeks ago, while “essential” workers have continued working without pay until they can be reimbursed when the shutdown ends.

The White House says it will take the unusual move of reallocating $8bn in existing funds to keep paying military and coastguard personnel throughout the shutdown, although historically, they also work without pay.

The Senate remains deadlocked over a government spending bill needed to end the shutdown.

A Republican-backed spending bill, which would have extended government funding to November 21, on Monday failed in a vote of 49 to 45, broadly down party lines.

The bill needs 60 votes to pass, but Republicans have failed to sway more Democrats to their side after gaining the support of a few individual legislators. Democrats are blocking the bill to force Republicans to negotiate on healthcare subsidies.

The latest round of qualifiers around the globe for the FIFA World Cup 2026 has seen the number of entrants rise to 28.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at some of the best photos from the nations that confirmed their qualification on Wednesday for the FIFA World Cup 2026.

Handover comes as Trump says Hamas must disarm or be disarmed, ‘perhaps violently’.

T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach, the former “Good Morning America” co-anchors who were embroiled in a cheating scandal in late 2022, are ready to tie the knot.

“We are sharing with all of you that we are engaged and we’ve been engaged for a month now,” Robach, 52, announced Tuesday on their “Amy & T.J.” podcast.

“We’re actually surprised we’re just now talking about it,” Holmes, 48, added. “We wanted to let you all know before anybody was able to. We learned that lesson I guess in the past about our relationship: We want to be the first to talk about it.”

The former ABC News personalities infamously found themselves at the center of controversy in December 2022, when several outlets reported they had engaged in a monthslong affair while they were still with their respective partners. Both Holmes and Robach began their ABC News tenures in 2014 and co-hosted the daily program “GMA3: What You Need to Know” starting in 2020. They were known among viewers for their playful interactions and onscreen chemistry.

News of the affair dominated headlines, prompting ABC to bench the anchors. Weeks after news of the scandal broke, ABC News parted ways with both Holmes and Robach. “We all agreed it’s best for everyone that they move on from ABC News,” a representative for the news division said at the time.

ABC filled the former co-anchors’ positions, and Holmes and Robach went Instagram official. Their respective ex-spouses also found comfort in their shared experiences and sparked up a romance of their own.

In December 2023, Holmes and Robach finally broke their silence together about their “year of hell.” The pair said they wanted to disclose their relationship before outlets including Page Six and the Daily Mail ultimately beat them to the punch. They also discussed the scandal’s toll on their mental health.

“We have had each other through it all,” Robach said during the debut of their podcast. “It has been the most beautiful relationship I have had in my life.”

Oct. 14 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday failed for the eighth time to pass legislation that would end the government shutdown that is now two weeks old.

A Republican-backed bill that would temporarily fund the government through Nov. 21 failed on a 49-45 vote, requiring 60 votes to advance under Senate rules.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against the bill. On the other side of the aisle, Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Angus King of Maine voted in favor of the bill.

The vote means that the shutdown will extend into its 15th day on Wednesday with no clear offramp.

Democrats have demanded that extensions of health insurance subsidies be included in any funding deal. Tens of millions of Americans are expected to see their health insurance premiums skyrocket after the subsidies expire at the end of the year.

During a floor speech Tuesday, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chastised President Donald Trump for meeting with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei to offer a $20 billion bailout for his nation’s struggling economy.

“This Argentina bailout is a slap in the face to farmers and working families worried about keeping healthcare,” he said. “If this administration has $20 billion to spare for a MAGA-friendly foreign government, they can’t turn around to say we don’t have the money to lower health care costs here at home.”

During a press availability earlier that day, Senate majority leader John Thune, R-S.D., blamed any pain from the shutdown on Democrats, demanding that they agree to fund the government before negotiating on healthcare subsidies.

“This is outrageous what they are doing,” he said. “They ought to be ashamed.”

Thune called Schumer “checked out” and said the end will come from working with enough “reasonable Senate Democrats.”

Senators last voted on funding legislation on Thursday before heading into a long break coinciding with Monday’s bank holiday. With no action on the issue in several days, lawmakers in both chambers — and within the Trump administration — have used the time to trade criticisms over who’s to blame for the shutdown, which has left about 750,000 federal workers furloughed or working without pay.

In addition to furloughs, the Trump administration has begun carrying out mass firings, including 1,446 employees at the Justice Department and another 1,200 at the Department of Health and Human Services, USA Today reported.

The Trump administration said it’s working to make sure active-duty military service members receive their next paychecks Friday by repurposing about $8 billion Congress had appropriated for other areas of the Defense Department. President Donald Trump took to Truth Social over the weekend to announce he ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th.”

Johnson held a news conference Tuesday morning at the Capitol and said Trump had “every right” to repurpose the funds.

“If the Democrats want to go to court and challenge troops being paid, bring it,” Johnson said.

Romina Boccia, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Cato Institute, told The Hill on Monday that it is legal for Congress to repurpose un-obligated funds, but for the administration to do so unilaterally “is likely illegal.”

“An un-obligated balance does not give the administration the right to use the money as it wishes,” Boccia said. “If Congress wants to ensure that America’s troops will be paid during the ongoing government shutdown, Congress should pass a bill that authorizes funding to pay the troops.”

Doing so would require a vote by the House, which is on recess for the rest of the week. Johnson has said he will not call House members back to Washington, D.C., early.

At the heart of the deadlock are subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums set to expire in the new year.

Schumer has said Senate Democrats wouldn’t support the stopgap legislation unless Republicans back extending the subsidies.

The Trump administration has said it’s against extending the ACA subsidies, falsely claiming undocumented immigrants are benefitting from it. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for health insurance under the ACA, the federal healthcare.gov website states.

Here are the key events from day 1,329 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 15, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched powerful glide bombs and drones against Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in overnight attacks, hitting the city’s main hospital, wounding seven people, and forcing the evacuation of 50 patients, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces have taken control of the village of Balahan in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
• A convoy of United Nations vehicles carrying aid supplies came under fire from Russian forces near the town of Bilozerka in the Kherson region, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, describing the attack as “utterly unacceptable”. There were no injuries in the attack on four UN trucks, two of which were set on fire by remote-controlled drones.
• Local authorities have ordered the evacuation of families from dozens of villages near the all-but-destroyed northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, citing the “worsening security situation”.
• Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, said that a total of 409 families with 601 children were told to leave 27 localities. Another official in the affected area later told public broadcaster Suspilne that the list of localities to be evacuated by families had been expanded to 40.
• Russia will be able to deploy about 2 million military reservists to fight in Ukraine if needed under amendments to a law likely to be backed by the Russian parliament, according to reports.
• Power outages were reported in the Ukrainian capital and other regions late on Tuesday due to a network overload and the aftermath of Russian attacks, the Kyiv City State Administration said. Power was cut in three central Kyiv districts on the west bank of the Dnipro River running through the city. Ukrenergo, which operates Ukraine’s high-voltage lines, said that lingering problems from Russian attacks on the country’s energy system had triggered outages in regions across northern, central and southeastern Ukraine.
• Work is to begin this week to restore external power links to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which has been running on emergency diesel generators for three weeks. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisation based in Vienna, told the Russian state news agency RIA that it was “vital to agree on a local ceasefire in areas where the repair work is to be carried out”.

Military aid

• NATO defence ministers will meet on Wednesday to try to drum up more military support for Ukraine amid a sharp drop in deliveries of weapons and ammunition to the war-ravaged country in recent months.
• European military aid to Ukraine declined sharply this summer, despite a recent NATO initiative in which member countries bought US weapons and transferred them to Kyiv, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said.
• The United Kingdom has delivered more than 85,000 military drones to Ukraine over the last six months, Secretary of State for Defence John Healey has said, according to the Press Association.
• German Federal Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil said his country would continue to “financially secure Ukraine’s defence capabilities for the next few years”, while also working with the US to “massively increase pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to end his brutal war of aggression”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of the port city of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of his Ukrainian citizenship after it was discovered he held Russian citizenship. Trukhanov could now face deportation. Trukhanov denied the claim, saying, “I am a citizen of Ukraine”, and said he would challenge the decision in Ukraine’s Supreme Court and, if necessary, the European Court of Human Rights.
• Zelenskyy said he would appoint a military administration to govern Odesa, citing unresolved security concerns. Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship with Russia, and Trukhanov has long faced allegations of holding both.
• A Kyiv government source told the AFP news agency that Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin had also been stripped of citizenship. Polunin has been a vocal supporter of the Russian president. Pro-Kremlin politician Oleg Tsaryov, who survived an assassination attempt in 2023, was also among those who had their Ukrainian citizenship revoked, according to AFP.
• United States President Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Russian leader Putin in advance of a planned visit by Zelenskyy to Washington, DC, later this week. “I don’t know why he continues with this war,” Trump said of Putin.
• Zelenskyy is set to meet Trump in Washington, DC, on Friday, where the two will discuss Ukraine’s air defence and long-range strike capabilities.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said she was focusing on Russian attacks on her country’s energy grid in talks this week with US officials.
• Svyrydenko described the priorities of her visit to Washington, DC, as “energy, sanctions and the development of cooperation with the USA in new ways that can strengthen both our countries”.
• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had opened a criminal case against exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other prominent Kremlin critics, accusing them of plotting to violently seize power. The FSB said it was investigating all 22 members of the Russian Antiwar Committee – a group of Russian politicians, businesspeople, journalists, lawyers, artists and academics all based outside the country, who oppose Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Regional security

• Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski warned that Europe must be prepared for Russia to strike deep into the region, calling it “irresponsible” not to build defences such as a “drone wall” on its eastern flank.
• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has accused China of undermining the international rules-based order through its increasingly aggressive policies in Asia and its support for Russia.
• Wadephul also criticised Russia, saying Moscow is testing NATO’s resolve, violating European Union and NATO airspace, spying on Germany’s critical infrastructure and seeking to influence public discourse with propaganda and disinformation.
• Trump threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain, saying he was unhappy with its refusal to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and calling the move disrespectful to NATO.
• Pro-Russian hackers brought down the German government’s public procurement portal, the Sddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper reported on Tuesday. The cyberattack rendered this important interface between the state and businesses inaccessible for almost a week, the report said.
• Sweden will set up its first emergency grain stocks in the north of the country, a region that risks being isolated in a conflict, the government said. In its 2026 budget, Stockholm plans to invest 575 million kronor ($60m) to set up the grain reserves. Sweden revived its “total defence” strategy in 2015 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and more measures were introduced after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trade

• Russia’s war in Ukraine is bad for US businesses, which have heavily invested in Europe and whose profits are affected by the uncertainty that Moscow’s aggression creates, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. Dombrovskis said that in 2023, US-owned assets in Europe were worth an estimated $19.2 trillion, or roughly 64 percent of all US corporate foreign assets globally.

US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, took out “a couple of” gangs, without identifying which groups, Anadolu reports.

“They did take out a couple of gangs that were very bad, very, very bad gangs. And they did take them out, and they killed a number of gang members, and that didn’t bother me much, to be honest with you. That’s okay,” Trump told reporters at the White House, alongside Argentinian President Javier Milei. “It’s a couple of very bad gangs.”

His remarks came a day after Hamas and Israel carried out a hostage-prisoner swap that saw hundreds of Palestinian prisoners released from Israel’s notorious Ofer military prison and other prison facilities in the Negev Desert. All 20 living Israeli hostages were also released.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump announced the start of “phase two” of his Gaza ceasefire agreement, following the release of hostages under the first stage of the deal brokered by Türkiye, the US, Qatar and Egypt.

Phase two of the deal calls for the establishment of a new governing mechanism in Gaza, the formation of a multinational force and the disarmament of Hamas.

Trump said he spoke to Hamas and the group will disarm.

“They will disarm, and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them — and it’ll happen quickly and, perhaps, violently, but they will disarm,” he added.

Freed from Israeli prison: I still cannot believe I am out after 24 years

Oct. 14 (UPI) — News organizations on Tuesday broadly rejected new rules from the Pentagon demanding journalists only report approved information or risk losing their press credentials.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth unveiled the new rules last month requiring journalists to sign a pledge stating they would neither access nor report any information that had not been signed off by the Pentagon – even if it was unclassified. The Department of Defense threatened to revoke the press credentials of journalists, barring them from accessing facilities, if they refused to sign.

Press organizations immediately blasted the rules, calling them an affront to the First Amendment and independent reporting on the military and national security. Now, many national media outlets have refused the ultimatum.

ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FOX News Media and NBC News issued a joint statement indicating declined to agree to the new requirements.

“The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections,” the outlets said in the statement. “We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.”

Hegseth has had a contentious relationship with the media, blaming the press after he came under scrutiny for sharing sensitive military information on the Signal app. The former Fox News personality has previously issued a series of rules restricting press activities within the Pentagon to prevent inadvertent leaks.

The Pentagon Press Association also issued a statement Tuesday saying the latest rule contradicted Hegseth’s pledge to improve transparency at the department. The association called it an “entirely one-sided move” that would cut the public off from reporting on issues of sexual assault in the military, conflicts of interest, corruption, as well as the well-being of service members.

“The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law,” the association said. “There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

Hegseth on Tuesday downplayed the rules, writing on X that the “Pentagon now has same rules as every U.S military installation.”

Other outlets that refused to sign the pledge include The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic.

Hegseth responded on X with an emoji waving goodbye.

The U.S. Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), better known as the Night Stalkers, has been exploring ways to ensure it can operate in more heavily defended airspace in the future. This includes making increased use of uncrewed aircraft, the employment of new electronic warfare and decoy capabilities, and just flying longer and faster. The U.S. special operations community as a whole continues to reorient itself around preparing for high-end fights, such as one across the broad expanses of the Pacific against China, after decades of low-intensity missions in much more permissive environments.

Army Col. Stephen Smith, head of the 160th SOAR, talked about planning for future operations in denied areas deep inside an opponent’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) ‘bubble’ during a panel discussion today at the Association of the U.S. Army’s main annual symposium. TWZ‘s Howard Altman was in attendance and had the opportunity to speak more with Smith directly afterward. The Night Stalkers publicly acknowledged fleets include a mixture of heavily modified MH-60M Black Hawk, MH-47G Chinook, and AH/MH-6R Little Bird helicopters. The 160th also has MQ-1C Gray Eagle drones. The unit expects to eventually receive special operations-specific versions of the Army’s future MV-75A tiltrotor.

“Over the last 20 years that I’ve been in the Regiment, we have been really, really good at deploying in an environment like GWOT,” Smith said, referring to the Global War on Terror era of operations in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. “What we have done over the last 10 years is, we’ve looked at the near-peer threats across the globe, and we looked at ‘how does the 160th expect to operate inside that environment?’”

“So, what we’re going to have on the aircraft to defend the aircraft, by itself, will not survive in the A2/AD environment,” he also said bluntly during the panel, speaking generally about the known Night Stalker fleets.

Specialized training for Night Stalkers to help them survive in more contested environments has existed, but there is clearly a new paradigm.

“What we realized was really two major takeaways. The number one takeaway is we can’t do it alone. The idea of ‘alone and unafraid,’ that does not exist in the denied area planning space,” he explained. “And then, second, we needed a team to look at that. So we stood up a five-person team that consisted of our aviation flight leads.”

“When we started looking at the training concept of how the 160th is going to operate, we leveraged the three range complexes on the West Coast of the United States to create an environment that provides us a ‘tyranny of distance‘ problem, but also the complexity of using those three ranges to replicate a near-peer,” he added.

The 160th’s commander says the unit has come from all this with new views on how it might operate in more heavily defended environments going forward. This includes additional emphasis on crewed-uncrewed teaming.

“Manned-unmanned teaming is the future. We’ve talked about the potential of launched effects off the aircraft, or a potential loyal wingman,” Col. Smith said. Launched effects is a broad term that the U.S. military currently uses to refer to uncrewed aerial systems configured for different missions, like reconnaissance or acting as loitering munitions, which can be fired from other aerial platforms, as well as ones on the ground or at sea.

“We see in the near future, for our primary mission of crisis response, and also denied area penetration, we still see a human in the loop,” Smith noted. “We don’t expect to send Kit [Col. Kitefre Oboho, commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment] and his team to the X without Night Stalkers in the front of the aircraft.”

Smith highlighted how the 160th has already been teaming its crewed helicopters with its MQ-1Cs drones as something the unit is looking to build on. “So, when we train on the West Coast, we’ll use an MQ-1 to lead the half [a group of helicopters] into the objective.”

This also leads into the electronic warfare and decoy capabilities the Night Stalkers are looking at as part of future denied area operations planning.

“We can hang different capabilities on that platform [the MQ-1C]. So that platform could look like a Black Hawk. It could look like a [CH-]47. It could look like a Little Bird,” Smith said. “So we’re using that as a decoy, [and there are] potentially other capabilities on [the] side of that aircraft.”

The 160th is also exploring other new electronic warfare capabilities, including improved self-protect jamming systems, according to Smith. “We’re also looking at a layered effect of using cyber and space to create a pulse for us to be able to penetrate,” he added.

There’s also just the matter of being able to fly longer and do so faster. The 160th is already well known for conducting long-duration flights in challenging and hostile environments. The unit’s MH-60Ms and MH-47Gs are capable of being refueled in flight to extend their range. Night Stalkers typically fly their missions at extremely low altitudes and under the cover of darkness, using terrain to help mask their ingress and egress.

“Leveraging the cover of darkness, leveraging weather, flying at low altitudes, and flying where the enemy systems are not. That seems somewhat obvious, but that is really driving the basis of our Night Stalker fundamentals, [and] mission planning to create those contingencies so we can buy down a number of the risk,” Col. Smith said.

However, historically, 160th operations have often been punctuated by stops at temporary forward arming and refueling points (FARP) along the way, to and from objectives. Smith says extending the range of his fleets will be key to future operations in denied areas because of the vulnerabilities that landing in the middle of a mission creates.

“One of the things we’ve learned is, if you go to ground, you’re vulnerable,” he said. “And so we have leveraged our aerial refuel[ing capability] to get after that, and we look at some of our collapsible fuel systems inside the aircraft to do that.”

There is a question here that is increasingly facing the entire U.S. military, about how existing non-stealthy aerial refueling tankers will be able to support any fixed or rotary-wing aircraft operating deep in high-threat areas. The U.S. Air Force, which currently provides the bulk of aerial refueling support to the 160th, has separately been looking at ways to get after that problem set, as you can read more about here.

This is also where the future special operations version of the MV-75A, which is set to offer the 160th an important boost in speed and range, especially over its MH-60Ms, could also come into the picture. Those tiltrotors are also expected to have aerial refueling capability. Questions do also remain about what the final special operations configuration of the MV-75A may look like, though we know the core design is already being developed with specific features to make it more readily adaptable to that role.

“That’s a great question, and we don’t know, and that’s why we’re actually having that conversation,” Col. Smith told TWZ‘s Howard Altman after the panel when asked for more information about what the special operations configuration of the MV-75A might look like. “We have not determined what that looks like. Is it the version that we’re all in lockstep with, is that going to be the version? possibly. Is [sic] there some minor modifications? potentially.”

What is clear is that the 160th SOAR is looking hard at ways to ensure that it can bring its unique skill sets and otherwise survive, even in more contested environments, while taking part in future high-end fights.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The United States and China have started charging additional port fees on ocean shipping firms that move everything from holiday toys to crude oil, making the high seas a key front in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

A return to an all-out trade war appeared imminent last week, after China announced a major expansion of its rare earths export controls, and US President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Chinese goods to triple digits.

But after the weekend, both sides sought to reassure traders and investors, highlighting cooperation between their negotiating teams and the possibility they could find a way forward.

China said it had started to collect the special charges on US-owned, operated, built or flagged vessels, but it clarified that Chinese-built ships would be exempted from the levies.

In details published by state broadcaster CCTV, China spelled out specific provisions on exemptions, which also include empty ships entering Chinese shipyards for repair.

Similar to the US plan, the new China-imposed fees would be collected at the first port of entry on a single voyage or for the first five voyages within a year.

“This tit-for-tat symmetry locks both economies into a spiral of maritime taxation that risks distorting global freight flows,” Athens-based Xclusiv Shipbrokers said in a research note.

Early this year, the Trump administration announced plans to levy the fees on China-linked ships to loosen the country’s grip on the global maritime industry and bolster US shipbuilding.

An investigation during the administration of former US President Joe Biden concluded that China uses unfair policies and practices to dominate the global maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, clearing the way for those penalties.

China hit back last week, saying it would impose its own port fees on US-linked vessels from the same day the US fees took effect.

“We are in the hectic stage of the disruption, where everyone is quietly trying to improvise workarounds, with varying degrees of success,” said independent dry bulk shipping analyst Ed Finley-Richardson. He said he has heard reports of US shipowners with non-Chinese vessels trying to sell their cargoes to other countries while en route, so the vessels can divert.

The Reuters news agency was not immediately able to confirm this.

Tit-for-tat moves

Analysts expect China-owned container carrier COSCO to be the most affected by the US fees, shouldering nearly half of that segment’s expected $3.2bn cost from the fees in 2026.

Major container lines, including Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM, slashed their exposure by switching China-linked ships out of their US shipping lanes. Trade officials there reduced fees from initially proposed levels, and exempted a broad swath of vessels after heavy pushback from the agriculture, energy and US shipping industries.

The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday said, “If the US chooses confrontation, China will see it through to the end; if it chooses dialogue, China’s door remains open.”

In a related move, Beijing also imposed sanctions on Tuesday against five US-linked subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean, which it said had “assisted and supported” a US probe into Chinese trade practices.

Hanwha, one of the world’s largest shipbuilders, owns Philly Shipyard in the US and has won contracts to repair and overhaul US Navy ships. Its entities will also build a US-flagged LNG carrier.

Hanwha said it is aware of the announcement and is closely monitoring the potential business impact. Hanwha Ocean’s shares sank by nearly 6 percent.

China also launched an investigation into how the US probe affected its shipping and shipbuilding industries.

A Shanghai-based trade consultant said the new fees may not cause significant upheaval.

“What are we going to do? Stop shipping? Trade is already pretty disrupted with the US, but companies are finding a way,” the consultant told Reuters, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with the media.

The US announced last Friday a carve-out for long-term charterers of China-operated vessels carrying US ethane and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), deferring the port fees for them through December 10.

Meanwhile, ship-tracking company Vortexa identified 45 LPG-carrying VLGCs — an acronym for very large gas carriers, a type of vessel — that would be subject to China’s port fee. That amounts to 11 percent of the total fleet.

Clarksons Research said in a report that China’s new port fees could affect oil tankers accounting for 15 percent of global capacity.

Meanwhile, Omar Nokta, an analyst at the financial firm Jefferies, estimated that 13 percent of crude tankers and 11 percent of container ships in the global fleet would be affected.

Trade war embroils environmental policy

In a reprisal against China curbing exports of critical minerals, Trump on Friday threatened to slap additional 100 percent tariffs on goods from China and put new export controls on “any and all critical software” by November 1.

Administration officials, hours later, warned that countries voting this week in favour of a plan by the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) to reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from ocean shipping could face sanctions, port bans, or punitive vessel charges.

China has publicly supported the IMO plan.

“The weaponisation of both trade and environmental policy signals that shipping has moved from being a neutral conduit of global commerce to a direct instrument of statecraft,” Athens-based Xclusiv said.

Qatar are the headline news in the latest group of confirmed entrants for next year’s FIFA 2026 World Cup following the most recent round of qualifying matches.

The hosts of the 2022 edition of the global showpiece event reached the finals for the first time through the qualification route, when they beat the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.

South Africa also clinched a tight group, with fellow African giants Nigeria pushed to the playoffs, on a tense final day of group stage qualifiers on the continent. This came a day after Cape Verde’s first qualification for the World Cup finals.

The European teams still have some way to go to finish their qualifying groups, but the picture has become far clearer with some progress already made.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a close look at how the qualifying process stands around the globe:

Which teams are in the FIFA World Cup 2026?

After the latest round of qualifying matches, here is a breakdown of the confirmed contenders from each of the six regions:

Hosts: Canada, Mexico, United States

Asia: Australia, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Uzbekistan

Africa: Algeria, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia

Europe: England

Oceania: New Zealand

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay

Who can still qualify for the FIFA World Cup 2026?

Africa: Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Nigeria will play off for the final intercontinental spot from the continent. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has yet to announce the dates for those matches.

Asia: The UAE and Iraq will vie for one intercontinental playoffs spot when they compete over two legs in the final stage of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) qualifiers in November.

Europe: 53 of the 54 European teams vying for 16 qualification spots can still confirm their berths, alongside England, as their first-round matches will run until November 18.

North, Central America and the Caribbean: With the World Cup host nations taking three spots, only three are left up for grabs. They will be decided on November 18. Bermuda, Costa Rica, Curacao, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago have all advanced to the third round. The three second-placed teams from each group will then fight for the intercontinental playoffs spot.

Oceania: New Caledonia have qualified for the intercontinental playoffs.

South America: Bolivia have qualified for the intercontinental playoffs, having missed out on one of the six automatic qualifying positions.

28/48 ✅@Aramco | #WeAre26 pic.twitter.com/eaksBnrBYM

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) October 14, 2025

Which major teams have been eliminated from qualification?

Peru and Chile, who were third-place finishers in 1962, were the biggest names to miss out from the South America qualifiers, where Venezuela were also eliminated.

Although not considered a powerhouse in Asia, China will be disappointed not to reach their first finals since 2002.

Angola, Libya, Mali and Namibia will be among those disappointed to be eliminated from the African qualification.

Indonesia were hoping to reach only a second World Cup, and made a valiant run to the fourth round of AFC qualification. But they will be disappointed not to have gone one step further following their Dutch recruitment drive, which included their coach, Patrick Kluivert.

Bahrain, who topped their 2023 AFC Asian Cup group stage ahead of South Korea, only to be eliminated by Japan in the round of 16, will be deflated to have missed out on the chance to showcase their skills on the global stage. Palestine were only seconds away from reaching the fourth round of the AFC qualifier and, following their historic run to the knockout stage of the last Asian Cup, will also be disappointed not to have at least gone one step further in their continental qualifiers.

When will all the teams for the FIFA World Cup 2026 be confirmed?

European qualification rounds stretch beyond the current group stages to March, while the intercontinental playoff final is scheduled for the same month, so the final 48 teams for the World Cup will not be known until less than three months before the tournament. March 31, 2026, is when all qualification will come to an end.

When and where is the draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026?

The World Cup draw, as revealed by US President Donald Trump in August, will take place on December 5 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

“It’s the biggest, probably the biggest event in sports, I guess,” said Trump, who made the announcement in an Oval Office event where he was joined by Vice President JD Vance and FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Trump also did not rule out overseeing the draw himself.

When is the FIFA World Cup 2026 scheduled?

The tournament begins in Mexico City on June 11, and ends with the final in New Jersey on July 19.

WASHINGTON — An extraordinary new policy from the Defense Department that equates basic reporting methods to criminal activity has prompted a revolt among Pentagon journalists that could leave the nation’s largest agency and the world’s largest military without a press corps.

The new policy, from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, is a dramatic departure from historic standards at the department, which previously required credentialed reporters to sign a simple, single-page document laying out safety protocols.

Replacing that document is a 21-page agreement that warns reporters against “soliciting” information, including unclassified material, without the Pentagon’s official authorization, characterizing individuals who do so as a “security risk.”

The policy would force journalists and media organizations to refrain from publishing any material that is not approved by the military — a clear violation of 1st Amendment protections to free speech, lawyers for media outlets said.

Major news organizations including the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, as well as right-leaning outlets such as Newsmax and the Washington Times, have refused to sign the document, with only one far-right outlet — the cable channel One American News — agreeing to do so.

The Los Angeles Times also will not agree to the policy, said Terry Tang, the paper’s executive editor.

In a rare joint statement, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC said that the policy “is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections.”

“We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press,” the news outlets said.

But Hegseth, who has aggressively pursued leaks and sources of unfavorable news stories since the start of his turbulent tenure as secretary, has doubled down in recent days, posting emojis on social media waving goodbye as media organizations have issued statements condemning the policy. Journalists were given a deadline of 2 p.m. PDT on Tuesday to either sign the document or relinquish their credentials.

It is unclear whether it will be viable for the Pentagon to maintain the policy, leaving the secretary without a traveling press corps to highlight his official duties or public events. And it is also uncertain whether President Trump approves of the extreme measure.

At a White House event Tuesday, Hegseth said that the policy was “common sense” and that he was “proud” of it. He said credentials should not be given to reporters who will try to get officials “to break the law by giving them classified information.”

Asked last month whether the Pentagon should control what reporters gather and write, Trump said “no.”

“I don’t think so,” Trump said, adding: “Nothing stops reporters.”

But Trump said Tuesday that he understands why Hegseth is pushing for the new policy.

“I think he finds the press to be very destructive in terms of world peace and maybe security for our nation,” Trump said. “The press is very dishonest.”

The widespread revolt has generated a show of solidarity from the White House and State Department correspondents associations, which characterized the Pentagon policy in a joint statement Monday as an attack on freedom of the press.

“Access inside the Pentagon has never been about convenience to reporters,” the statement reads. “The public has a right to know how the government is conducting the people’s business. Unfettered reporting on the U.S. military and its civilian leadership provides a service to those in uniform, veterans, their families and all Americans.”

Beyond the restrictions on media outlets, the Pentagon has taken a series of steps this year to try and identify officials who are deemed disloyal or who provide information to reporters.

In April, the Pentagon dismissed three top officials after an investigation into potential leaks related to military operational plans. That same month, Hegseth’s team began subjecting officials to random polygraph tests, a practice that was temporarily halted after the White House intervened, according to the Washington Post.

Then, in October, the Pentagon drafted plans to renew the use of polygraphs and to require thousands of personnel to sign strict nondisclosure agreements that would “prohibit the release of non-public information without approval or through a defined process.” The nondisclosure agreements include language that is similar to what reporters are being asked to sign by Tuesday.

Notably, many of Hegseth’s plans to target leaks have been leaked to news outlets, probably contributing to the Defense secretary’s suspicion about whom he can trust.

The timing of his efforts are also noteworthy, as they gained traction after he personally shared sensitive details about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that mistakenly included a reporter from the Atlantic. Hegseth also shared information about the attacks in a separate Signal chat that included his wife, a former Fox News producer who is not a Defense Department employee.

Hegseth denied that any classified information was shared in the chat. Yet the situation led to an internal review of whether the disclosures were in violation of Defense Department policies.

The Pentagon has taken an even more aggressive approach to restricting reporters’ access than the White House, which months ago took control over press operations from the White House Correspondents Assn. — an independent group that had organized the White House press corps for decades.

Still, the White House has refrained from implementing changes to the briefing room seating chart, evicting outlets from workspaces within the White House complex or revoking press passes, after facing a legal challenge over an attempt to bar one major outlet — the Associated Press — from covering some presidential events at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to single out individual outlets he dislikes. On Tuesday, for example, the president refused to take questions from ABC News because he said he did not like how a news anchor had treated Vice President JD Vance.

“You’re ABC Fake News,” Trump said at a public appearance in the White House. “I don’t take questions from ABC Fake News!”

Oct. 14 (UPI) — House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday demanded that former Special Counsel Jack Smith testify about his criminal probes of President Donald Trump that were ultimately dropped after the 2024 election.

Jordan, a Trump loyalist, made the demands in a letter to Smith, who had been appointed by the Biden-era Justice Department to oversee sprawling investigations into allegations Trump mishandled classified documents and tried to overturn the 2020 election.

The letter follows recent revelations that Smith’s team had obtained the cell phone data of nine Republican members of Congress, showing who they called in the days leading up to and immediately after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Trump and his allies have accused Smith of leading politicized investigations into the president meant to damage him politically as he was campaigning to return to the White House in 2024.

“As the Committee continues its oversight, your testimony is necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement,” Jordan wrote in his letter, accusing Smith of prosecutorial overreach and manipulating evidence.

Before resigning from his position in January just as Trump was about to be sworn into his second term, Smith issued a report to Congress stating that Trump would have been convicted of trying to overturn the 2020 election had he not been elected president in 2024. The Justice Department has a long-standing policy of not indicting sitting presidents.

Smith alleged that Trump had mounted a pressure campaign on state officials to throw out legitimate vote results in a scheme to have Trump certified as the winner of the 2020 election. As part of the effort, Trump directed a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was certifying the election results, Smith alleged.

Jordan wrote that his committee has already deposed several people who worked on Smith’s team and obtained FBI documents showing the surveillance of U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, who later had his cell phone seized. However, Jordan wrote that former Senior Assistant Special Counsel Thomas Windom refused to answer key questions from the committee. Jordan also demanded that Smith turn over documents.

Smith currently does not face any charges.

After leaving his position, the Office of Special Counsel, which is designed to operate with some independence from the Justice Department, began investigating Smith in August.

United States President Donald Trump says his Gaza ceasefire deal will bring peace to the Middle East.

Some 20 world leaders, including Trump, signed the agreement at a special summit in Egypt on Monday.

The deal outlines the steps both Hamas and Israel must take to maintain the ceasefire and end the war in Gaza.

But it does not quite address the bigger question of what will happen in the Palestinian territory beyond the next few months.

What about Israel’s larger occupation? And the establishment of a viable Palestinian state?

How will Trump’s plan address these important issues?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Ori Goldberg – political commentator

Phyllis Bennis – fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies

Muhammad Shehada – visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations

President Donald Trump said that Hamas “is going to disarm” but if they don’t the US would act to disarm them “quickly and perhaps violently.” Trump declined to elaborate or to explain how the group would disarm a day after the Gaza peace deal was signed.