officially

TENNESSEE’S governor Bill Lee announced on Friday that Nashville International Airport will be no more – as the state looks for a new name in tribute to late icon Dolly Parton.

It comes just three days after the superstar’s death at 80 with Dolly Parton fans begging lawmakers to rename a major hub after the country icon.

The movement has also received support from lawmakers.

The petition to rename the Nashville International Airport after Parton gained nearly 130,000 signatures.

“We request that the airport’s name be changed to Dolly Parton International Airport to honor an icon who has given so much to our state and to the world,” the petition on Change.com read.

“Sign the petition to make this change a reality. We could all be Departin’ from Parton!!”

The petition had originally started in January 2025, but has gained 80,000 signatures since Parton died on Tuesday.

“Dolly deserves to be remembered and celebrated,” the updated petition reads.

“What a wonderful way to share her light and magic across Tennessee and the world.”

It called on Governor Bill Lee and state Representatives Todd Warner, Bob Freeman, and Fred Atchley, to make the change.

Warner pledged his support for the measure.

“Yes I will definitely introduce legislation to rename the BNA airport Dolly Parton International Airport!” he wrote.

Sheryl Crow also joined in on the calls to rename the airport.

During an Instagram Live with Katie Couric, she said, “Yes! I think we should,” and joked that she didn’t know what Nashville’s call sign BNA meant.

Governor Lee didn’t take long to act, announcing his intention to rename Nashville Airport on Friday afternoon.

“Dolly Parton’s extraordinary life is forever woven into the fabric of our state,” he said.

“From her rural mountain home in East Tennessee to global stages, Dolly carried the Volunteer Spirit with her.

“At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state’s favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly’s music, generosity, faith, and kindness.”

The exact new name of the airport remains unclear – as is the official date the change will happen.

A meeting is currently scheduled for September 17 to discuss.

The country music icon passed away in a Nashville hospital after a brief battle with cancer.

“BNA is the front door to Music City, and with that comes a responsibility to reflect the very best of who we are as a community,” said Doug Kreulen, president and CEO, Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority.

“Dolly’s remarkable legacy reminds us that what makes Nashville special is our ability to welcome people from every walk of life.

“She understood that dignity, kindness and opportunity should never be defined by where you come from or your socioeconomic status.

“At BNA, we share that commitment. Whether you are boarding a private aircraft or taking your first flight, you deserve to be welcomed, respected and served with the same level of care. That spirit is what defines BNA and it is a fitting reflection of the values Dolly shared with Tennessee and the world.”

Aug. 24 (UPI) — The U.S. State Department officially delisted Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday, marking a significant step toward the country’s reintegration into the global economy and the international community.

The announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio comes about a month and a half after President Donald Trump informed Congress of his intent to lift Syria’s decades-old terrorism designation that barred it from most U.S. foreign assistance and clamped down on what could be exported to it. It also meant the United States would oppose foreign institutions, such as the World Bank, granting it loans.

Along with the delisting of Syria, Rubio said he also removed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, the coalition of northern Syria-based Sunni Islamist groups that led the military campaign that toppled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in late 2024, from its list of specially designated global terrorists.

“These actions were all taken in recognition of the positive actions taken and further commitments by the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa to fully distance Syria from acts of international terrorism,” Rubio said in a statement, listing as reasons Damascus’ joining the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State and conducting terrorism-disrupting operations targeting ISIS and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Rubio said removing the designations “eliminates the final major barrier for private sector investment in Syria and promotes economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy.”

Al-Sharaa issued a statement congratulating the Syrian people on their country’s removal from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list.

“Today, Syria is casting off a black mark from its shoulders, and with its own hands, tearing out a page from its painful past, so that it may set out toward development, reconstruction and building,” he said in a recorded statement.

“Great people of Syria, you have done it again. The sanctions have been lifted from you and the restrictions have been removed. I ask almighty God to help us serve you.”

Syria was among the first countries designated by the United States as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979 over its hostility to Israel, fighting with Lebanon, partnership with Iran, alignment with Russia, support for terrorist groups and development of weapons of mass destruction, according to a Congressional Research Service report.

Since the fall of al-Assad in late 2024, Syria’s relations with the United States — and much of the Western world — have steadily improved. In June, Trump signed an executive order ending most U.S. sanctions on Damascus and informed Congress in July of his intent to delist it as a state sponsor of terrorism, starting the 45-day congressional notification clock before it could be formally removed.

“Lifting Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism is a historic step that returns it to its natural place within the global economic system,” Safwat Raslan, the governor of the Central Bank of Syria, said in a statement Monday.

“And we at the Central Bank of Syria are working to build a modern and reliable financial system, capable of keeping pace with and benefiting from all opportunities. And what is to come is better, God willing.”

The head of U.S. Space Command (SPACECOM) says having a “credible, acknowledged” means of damaging or even destroying enemy assets in space is vital to deterring opponents and surviving if a major fight in orbit does break out. American officials have already been steadily more open about their desire for new offensive “orbital warfare” capabilities. China’s breakneck expansion of its intelligence-gathering and other capabilities in orbit, as well as its arsenal of anti-satellite weapons, has been a central factor behind this push.

U.S. Space Force Gen. Stephen Whiting made an explicit call for new “integrated space fires” capabilities, including both non-kinetic and kinetic options in orbit and/or within the atmosphere, during a talk yesterday at the annual Space & Missile Defense (SMD) Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, at which TWZ is in attendance. SPACECOM is the main joint service command in charge of all U.S. military activities in space.

“From the broadest perspective, maybe the most critical characteristic of the responsive and adaptive national security space architecture called for in the President’s Ensuring American Space Superiority executive order is that survivability matters at least as much as performance,” Whiting said. “In space, there is no safe harbor. You can’t dig a trench or build a shield. Our satellites are consistently or predictably in an opponent’s weapons engagement zone. And we can build the most high-performing, exquisite satellites in human history, but if they depend on fragile, targetable supporting infrastructure, their performance will drop to zero on the first day of the next war.”

“Space survivability isn’t just good to have or nice to have. It is need to have. Now let’s get specific. I’ve explained how durable we need our kit to be, but now I want to tell you about our FY29-to-33 [Fiscal Years 2029 to 2033] integrated priorities list,” the SPACECOM boss continued. “We’ve looked at risks and potential gaps and determined these are the top five capabilities we need to meet our Title 10 and Unified Command Plan responsibilities. This isn’t just a wish list. It’s a clear demand signal to several audiences, describing the warfighting capabilities we need to meet our mission.”

“Number one and two are integrated space fires and counter-pLEO that enable us to establish space superiority,” he said. pLEO, also sometimes written P-LEO, stands for proliferated low Earth orbit, and refers to distributed constellations of hundreds or potentially thousands of satellites in that orbital region. The U.S. military itself is investing heavily in this arena to develop and field new space-based capabilities that are more resilient to attack.

The other three lines of effort Gen. Whiting outlined during his talk had to do with improved command and control, better situational awareness in space, and increased ability to maneuver assets in orbit.

“We’re a combatant command, and we fight to win wars,” Whiting declared. “To win, we need credible, acknowledged, kinetic, and non-kinetic fires. They are a key component of how we establish space superiority and restore credible deterrence.”

“Our space assets need to shoot, move, and communicate just like the rest of the joint force, so that our space assets can enable the joint force to shoot, move, and communicate,” the head of SPACECOM also said. “In short, space needs to fight like the joint force to empower the joint forces’ ability to fight and undermine our adversaries’ ability to do so.”

Whiting did not elaborate on what these future integrated fires and counter-pLEO capabilities might look like. An accompanying briefing slide did include a graphic depicting a kinetic attack on a satellite originating from within the Earth’s atmosphere utilizing what might be a laser-directed energy weapon.

The threats that directed energy weapons, as well as cyber attacks, pose to friendly satellites, even ones in distributed constellations, had come up at a separate panel discussion at the SMD Symposium on Tuesday.

“If you have 10,000 satellites that are providing you with service, surely you’re not going to try and attack with a direct ascent ASAT [anti-satellite interceptors fired from within the Earth’s atmosphere] 10,000 satellites,” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Rick Zellmann, Deputy Commander of SPACECOM, said during the panel. “I encourage our adversaries to try and shoot down 10,000 satellites that way. I don’t think they will. And, so, just like we do, our targeting folks will try to find the various nodes where you can get a one-to-many solution.”

“Those, I think, one-to-many solutions for proliferated constellations are twofold. One is cyber,” he continued. “I think the other is directed energy, because that doesn’t cost too much for a shot, right? So those two technologies are the ones I’d be concerned about.”

“Non-kinetic effects of directed energy, mounted on all types of platforms, from the surface all the way to space and everywhere in between,” could also be “opportunities,” Brig. Gen. Drew Morgan, the deputy head of the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), another one of the panelists, also said later on. In a space context, non-kinetic directed energy ‘effect’ could include what is known as ‘dazzling’ using lasers to blind optics on satellites without causing permanent damage. In the past, U.S. officials have said that friendly assets in orbit are routinely subjected to various kinds of non-destructive attacks.

At present, a family of ground-based electronic warfare systems called the Counter Communications System (CCS) is the U.S. military’s only publicly acknowledged offensive counter-space capability. In June, the U.S. Space Force announced it had “operationally accepted” the latest version of the system, called Block 10.3, and also known by the codename Meadowlands.

There have been hints for years that the U.S. military might have other operational anti-satellite capabilities in the classified realm, or at least have been actively experimenting with them. In 2019, then-Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson notably suggested a public live-fire demonstration of some kind could be necessary to deter potential opponents, such as Russia and China, from attacking American space-based assets.

It’s also worth noting that President Joe Biden’s administration announced a self-imposed moratorium on destructive direct ascent ASAT weapons testing in 2022, but it is unclear whether that is still in force. As TWZ pointed out at the time, this did not rule out the possibility that the U.S. military could use other testing means to help develop those capabilities. Space-based anti-missile interceptors are now a key component of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

“Protective measures on satellites is just like thinking about protective measures on aircraft, okay? And we’re working through that,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command (CFC), told TWZ and others more recently at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) Warfare Symposium in February. “I won’t provide specifics, because I want those protective measures to work, right? I don’t want to tell Beijing and Moscow what I’ve done.”

“But protecting and defending satellites can’t simply be done by protect and defend. You can’t run away from a bully forever. Sometimes you got to turn around and punch,” Gagnon continued. “So protect and defend, although necessary, is insufficient to deliver space control. We also need, as part of our joint force, the ability to attack.”

At that time, Gagnon also stressed that challenging China’s still-growing array of space-based capabilities was another key driver behind this desire for new offensive counter-space capabilities.

What “[China’s] President Xi [Jinping] has decided to do is build the second-best remote sensing architecture in the world from outer space, and that’s now what they have,” Gagnon also said at that time. “So when 2013 started, and he came to power, he had less than 100 satellites that were the total of what China had in outer space. They have about 1,900 today. Over 500 of those satellites are remote sensing satellites, which are purposely designed and networked to track mobile forces such as U.S. carriers, destroyers, and cruisers in the Pacific, as well as aircraft that deploy around the Pacific. Those have been built with a purpose. The purpose is to cue their long-range fire weapons.”

Gen. Whiting also said during his talk at the SMD Symposium yesterday that China, and its anti-satellite capabilities in particular, remained the greatest challenge facing the U.S. military in the space domain.

“Number one is the development of counter-space weapons that I highlighted in my remarks. These are not future possibilities,” the head of SPACECOM said. “Some of you have played the war games over the years where we have to give the ‘red force’ [the side playing the mock adversary] additional capability, maybe project five years forward and give them what we think they’ll have. And, no, the capabilities we talked about are real, they exist today, and we have to face them.”

“These include direct ascent ASAT missiles, ground-based lasers, jammers, and maneuverable co-orbital ASATs, and dual-use satellites like the SJ-21, which can target the satellites we rely upon for missile warning and defense missions,” the SPACECOM boss had said in his opening remarks. “They are, in no uncertain terms, expanding military options for sustained offensive operations against the satellites we rely on to defend the homeland and project power. These developments intend to degrade our current space superiority, and would potentially give China a maneuver and logistics advantage in space, something we would never accept on the land, at sea, or in the air.”

The SJ-21 satellite mentioned here has been a particularly hot topic of discussion since it was launched in 2021. It has a grappling arm with a demonstrated ability to tow other satellites in space. This is ostensibly intended to be used for non-military applications, such as on-orbit servicing and moving debris, but has obvious potential to be weaponized.

Long March-3B launches Shijian-21

In general, so-called inspector-type satellites capable of rendezvousing and maneuvering closer to other objects in space have an inherent ability to be used to launch attacks, destructive and otherwise, using a variety of different means, as well as gather intelligence. This includes kinetic attacks where the inspector could be used as an interceptor and simply smashed into the target. U.S. military officials have been warning about the dual-use potential of inspector satellites for years now, especially in the context of examples that Russia has put into orbit.

This all speaks further to counter-space capabilities U.S. forces could themselves bring to bear in the future. Last month, Northrop Grumman in the United States notably launched the first of what it hopes will be a constellation of new Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) satellites capable of performing on-orbit refueling and other servicing missions for commercial and military customers. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) played key roles in the development of a payload equipped with a pair of robotic arms for the MRV. Questions about whether the MRVs with their arms could also have an offensive counter-space role have already been raised, as you can read more about here.

American officials also regularly point to Chinese and Russian anti-satellite developments, as well as those by other countries, in pushing back on concerns about the steady weaponization of space. As an aside here, two years ago, the U.S. government very publicly accused its counterparts in Russia of pursuing a new nuclear-armed space-based anti-satellite weapon.

“Depends on where you sit, right, you know? But to say that it’s the responsibility for the U.S. government to protect its citizens from emerging threats makes perfect sense to me,” outgoing Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said last year. “And we clearly see a country like the PRC [People’s Republic of China] investing heavily in these kinds of threats, whether it’s hypersonic [weapons], whether it’s threats from space. And so now it’s time for the U.S. government to step up to the responsibilities to protect American citizens from those threats.”

Saltzman was speaking at the time in the context of a discussion about Golden Dome’s space-based interceptors during an interview broadcast online as part of Defense One‘s State of Defense 2025: Air Force and Space Force virtual conference.

How much will ultimately be acknowledged about the U.S. military’s future planned “integrated space fires” capabilities, as well as exactly what might be in its anti-satellite arsenal already, remains to be seen. Regardless, Gen. Whiting’s comments this week have now at least made the active pursuit of new counter-space weapons a matter of public record.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Earlier cases of the disease were wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid, WHO said.

The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record started in February, months before it was officially declared in mid-May, said the World Health Organization (WHO) as responders in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) battle the surge in cases.

Mohamed Janabi, the WHO’s regional director for Africa, told a news conference on Monday that sequencing indicated the outbreak’s start, with some cases early on wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid.

“So we are chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us,” Janabi said.

Confirmed cases of Ebola in the DRC have reached 4,200, including at least 1,900 deaths, according to latest government figures.

The Ebola outbreak declared on May 15 is unlike most previous ones because the rare Bundibugyo virus has no approved vaccines or treatments. Early testing was conducted for the more common type of Ebola, contributing to delays.

The outbreak is unfolding in challenging conditions, with strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger among long-traumatised communities and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real.

Health teams travel on remote, unpaved roads and have reported shortages of protective gear, while the vast population of displaced people struggles to find reliable water sources for washing hands hygienically.

This Ebola outbreak has killed more people at a faster rate than any other, including the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa that is considered the worst on record with over 11,000 deaths in at least 28,000 cases. That outbreak took about eight months to reach 1,000 deaths.

Ebola is rare but highly contagious and can be contracted via contact with bodily fluids, such as blood or semen, and with contaminated surfaces and materials, such as bedding and clothing. The disease it causes is severe and often fatal.

Cases doubling in some regions

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Ebola is spreading faster than efforts to fight it. New cases are doubling in some hotspots, Tedros said on X after meeting with officials in the capital, Kinshasa.

Access to healthcare in the region had already been challenged by years of rebel conflict in one of the DRC’s most remote and vulnerable areas.

On Friday, the WHO recommended the start of full-scale human trials for the Ervebo vaccine, the only licensed Ebola vaccine. While Ervebo has proven to be safe and effective against the more common Zaire strain of the Ebola virus, WHO experts said early data showed it may also give some protection against the rare Bundibugyo strain.

A specific Bundibugyo vaccine is the preferred option for fighting the current outbreak, according to experts from the United Nations’ health agency. Two potential Bundibugyo vaccines are in the early stages of clinical trials on people, while a third is being worked on to get it to that stage.

Several previous Ebola outbreaks have also been declared weeks or months late, including the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak. That was declared in March 2014, although the first human case was later found to have occurred in December 2013.