TV News LIES

The Air Force will deny early retirement benefits to transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of military service, even in cases where an early retirement was already approved, according to a new memo.

Transgender service members, who were made to either voluntarily separate or be forced out of the military under a policy instituted by the Trump administration, will instead be offered enhanced voluntary separation pay, which falls short of the early retirement benefit and is typically given to service members who choose to leave active duty before they are eligible for retirement, according to an Aug. 4 memo obtained by The Hill and first reported by Reuters.

An earlier memo, sent in May by Gwendolyn R. Defilippi, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said transgender service members with 15 to 18 years of service could request Temporary Early Retirement Authority (TERA). In most military branches, including the Air Force, service members are eligible for retirement after 20 years.

An Air Force spokesperson did not immediately return The Hill’s request for comment on the new policy but told Reuters on Thursday that roughly a dozen transgender troops with between 15 and 18 years of military service were “prematurely notified” that their TERA applications were approved, and a “higher level review” was required.

In the Aug. 4 memo, Brian Scarlett, performing the duties of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, wrote that, “after careful consideration of the individual applications,” he was “disapproving” TERA requests from trans service members with 15 to 18 years of service. The memo does not explain the decision.

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An active-duty soldier opened fire at Fort Stewart military base in south-east Georgia on Wednesday, wounding five other soldiers before being taken into custody.

All victims are in stable condition and expected to recover. Three of the soldiers required surgery, and two were transferred to Memorial Health University medical center in Savannah, the top-level trauma center for coastal Georgia.

Brig Gen John Lubas, commander of the third infantry division and Fort Stewart-Hunter army airfield, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the alleged shooter was 28-year-old Sgt Quornelius Radford, who was assigned to Fort Stewart.

“The shooting occurred at the soldier’s place of work,” Lubas said. “It did involve his co-workers. We’re still not certain about the motivations, but again, he’s been interviewed by army investigators, and we believe we’ll gain more information here shortly.”

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Five soldiers were shot Wednesday in an active shooter incident at Fort Stewart, an Army base in south Georgia, according to Maj. Charlie Egan, a 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson. Egan said the shooter has been apprehended.

The injured soldiers were "treated on-site and moved to Winn Army Community Hospital for further treatment," installation officials said in a post to the base's official Facebook page. The post did not specify their status.

Fort Stewart's commander, Brig. Gen. John Lubas, is expected to brief the media about the shooting around 3:30 p.m. Eastern, Egan said.

The shooting occurred shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday in an area of the south Georgia installation associated with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, a tank unit that returned from a deployment in Europe in the summer of 2024.

The entirety of the fort was locked down shortly thereafter, and the shooter was apprehended at 11:35 a.m., according to the post. Fort Stewart lifted the lockdown for much of the base shortly after midday, and declared the post "all clear" just before 2 p.m. Eastern.

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A search-and-rescue mission is under way in the Timor Sea for a US sailor believed to have gone overboard from the USS George Washington on Monday.

The aircraft carrier and its carrier strike group are conducting search-and-rescue operations in the sea, after “reports of a possible sailor overboard” on Monday afternoon, the US navy said in a statement.

Border Force are assisting in the search.

The sailor’s name or rank, or the circumstances of the incident, has not been disclosed.

A spokesperson for the Australian Department of Defence said the ADF was called in to support US search efforts “for a sailor … who was reported missing in the Timor Sea”.

“Australian Defence Force-owned and Australian Border Force-contracted assets are supporting the search, including Royal Australian Air Force P8-A Poseidon aircraft and Royal Australian Navy Cape Class Patrol Boat ADV Cape Otway.”

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The unexplained removal of the first female head of the U.S. Naval Academy last week is the latest in a string of top military women who have either been fired or redelegated to largely invisible roles under the Trump administration.

The ousting of Vice Adm. Yvette Davids from her post as the first female superintendent of the academy in Annapolis, Md., makes her one of at least five senior female service members who have been moved out of their roles since January.

That trend, coupled with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s well-documented antipathy toward women in combat roles prior to becoming Pentagon chief, could have a chilling effect on women enlisting in the armed forces, experts say.

"It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that it’s going to weaken our military force by undermining the role of women who have become, I believe, an intrinsic part of our military capability,” said Leon Panetta, a former defense secretary in the Obama administration.

Panetta, who in 2013 announced that all combat roles would soon be open to women — a shift that eventually came in 2015 — told The Hill that the Trump administration’s removal of female leaders from the ranks, often without explanation, will have impacts on morale for female service members.

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Most of defense department’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 went to military contractors.

A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was descrhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/08/pentagon-military-spendingibed as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.

Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration’s new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark.

That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said.

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