What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Thursday threw out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s revised effort to restrict press access at the Pentagon, saying the Defense Department “cannot simply reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking ‘new’ action.” Suppression of “political speech is the mark of an autocracy, not a democracy,” U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman wrote in his opinion, siding with The New York Times for the second time in a month in its challenge to Hegseth’s restrictions on reporters’ access to Pentagon sources and information.

Who said what

Almost all reporters in the Pentagon press corps walked out in October after Hegseth tied their credentials to an agreement to “publish only information preapproved by Department of Defense channels,” Politico said. Friedman found that unconstitutional in a March 20 ruling, and on Thursday he “voided the key parts of the revised policy,” including banning all unescorted movement through the Pentagon and evicting reporters from their longtime Correspondents’ Corridor offices to an “annex that has yet to be opened.”

“The curtailment of First Amendment rights is dangerous at any time, and even more so in a time of war,” Friedman said. Hegseth is trying to “dictate the information received by the American people” and “control the message” they “hear and see,” he added. “The Constitution demands better. The American public demands better, too.”

What next?

Frieman ordered the Pentagon to “fully restore Times reporters’ access,” The Washington Post said, and to “file a sworn declaration from a department official by April 16 detailing compliance.” A Pentagon spokesperson said the department will appeal the ruling.

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday forced out Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. A Pentagon spokesperson gave no reason, saying only that George “will be retiring” as the Army’s top uniformed officer, “effective immediately.” Hegseth also reportedly fired Gen. David Hodne, head of the Army’s new Transformation and Training Command, and Maj. Gen. William Green, chief of the Army Chaplain Corps.

Who said what

With George’s dismissal, Hegseth has “removed most of the leaders of the military services,” The Wall Street Journal said. He has “moved quickly” to reshape the Pentagon, Reuters said, but “firing a general during wartime is nearly without precedent.”

“Senior Army officers reacted with anger and frustration” to George’s abrupt removal, The New York Times said. His tensions with Hegseth were “not rooted in substantive differences” over Army policy, but instead reflected Hegseth’s “long-running grievances with the Army,” his “troubled relationship” with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and a clash over Hegseth’s “highly unusual” decision to block the promotion of four Army officers, two of whom are Black and two women. George had forged a tight partnership with Driscoll, whom Hegseth “has perceived as a threat” due to his close White House ties, CNN said. “Hegseth can’t fire Driscoll,” an administration official told The Washington Post. “So he’s going to make his life hell.”

What next?

Hegseth was expected to replace George with Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the recently installed Army vice chief of staff and Hegseth’s former top military aide.

What happened

A federal judge in California on Thursday temporarily blocked the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” a designation that effectively blacklisted the AI company from U.S. government contracts. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin said the “broad punitive measures” imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likely violated Anthropic’s due process and free speech rights.

Who said what

The ruling was a “clear victory” for Anthropic in its “bitter power struggle with the Defense Department over the use of its Claude system by the military,” The Washington Post said. During negotiations for a $200 million contract, Anthropic wanted to keep safeguards against using its AI on autonomous weapons and surveilling Americans, and the Pentagon rejected any limits imposed by a private contractor. When the dispute became public, Hegseth blacklisted Anthropic using an “obscure government-procurement statute aimed at protecting military systems from foreign sabotage,” Reuters said.

“Nothing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary and saboteur of the U.S. for expressing disagreement with the government,” Lin wrote in her 43-page ruling. If the Pentagon had real national security concerns, it “could just stop using Claude.”

What next?

Lin paused her ruling for seven days to give the Pentagon a chance to appeal. The outcome of the case and a similar challenge pending in Washington, D.C., have broad “implications for AI use in war,” The New York Times said. While the Trump administration has said it would “transition away” from Anthropic’s AI, the Post said, Claude is “deeply embedded in the military’s systems” and the Pentagon “has been continuing to use it in support of its bombing campaign in Iran.”

What happened

Anthropic on Monday sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Defense Department and several other federal agencies in federal court, arguing that the administration’s move to blacklist the AI firm as a national security risk was “unprecedented and unlawful.” The Constitution “‌does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” Anthropic said in its filing.

Hegseth last week formally designated the company a “supply chain risk” over Anthropic’s insistence that its AI tool Claude not be used for autonomous lethal weapons or mass surveillance of Americans. President Donald Trump said on social media that all federal agencies must stop using Claude within six months.

Who said what

The supply-chain risk designation “effectively cuts off Anthropic’s work with the Defense Department” and its contractors, The New York Times said, and it “has never been used on an American company.” The label is “usually reserved for Chinese and Russian firms suspected of helping foreign spies,” The Washington Post said. The Pentagon’s “unprecedented step” came “even as Anthropic’s tools were playing a central role” in “Trump’s bombing campaign in Iran.”

“It is absurd for the government to argue that Anthropic is the kind of company meant to be addressed by this statute,” especially when the Pentagon “has repeatedly sought to obtain Anthropic’s services for national defense,” Georgetown University law professor Mark Jia told the Post. It would be “perfectly reasonable” for the Pentagon to cancel its contracts with Anthropic because they don’t believe a private company should set policy or determine when “autonomous lethal weapons are ready for prime time,” Dean Ball, a former Trump White House AI policy adviser, said on “The Ezra Klein Show.” But they don’t have the “statutory power” to “completely destroy the company” in “a kind of political assassination.”

What next?

The White House is “preparing an executive order formally instructing the federal government to rip out Anthropic’s AI from its operations,” Axios said, and it “could be issued as soon as this week.” Anthropic’s “standoff with the Defense Department has cost it Uncle Sam as a customer,” The Wall Street Journal said, but it has also brought a “surge of public goodwill” and a “momentary advantage in the ferocious talent war between rival artificial intelligence labs.”

After months (if not years) of saber-rattling, President Donald Trump this past weekend made good on his longstanding threat to take military action against Iran, authorizing U.S. armed forces to partner with the Israeli military in a massive show of force against multiple Iranian targets. In this, his biggest military action to date, the man who ran for office on a platform of “no new wars” has shown the world an emerging new doctrine for the use of American military force. While there’s little question that Trump’s attack on Iran is intended in no small part as a message for the rest of the world, the specifics and logic of that message remain very much in question.

‘Coherent and prudent’ strategy

In many ways, Trump’s is the “anti–Powell Doctrine,” said Foreign Affairs, citing the policies established by then-General and eventual Secretary of State Colin Powell during the first Iraq war. While that philosophy held that war should only be undertaken as a last resort after exhausting other options and “in pursuit of a clear objective, with a clear exit strategy, and with public support,” Trump’s doctrine holds that military action is merely “one of several tools available” to be used to “increase leverage, maximize surprise, and produce outcomes.” The U.S under Trump appears “increasingly intent” on relying on “discrete yet disruptive military action” over “prolonged interventions,” said Responsible Statecraft. The administration operates to “secure advantage without costly military entanglements or the fatigue of colonial or quasi-imperial overreach,” even as it challenges the “post–World War II international institutional architecture.”

This new doctrine’s use of “tailored, overwhelming force to maximize deterrence and achieve long-term strategic benefits” marks a “coherent and prudent” strategy on the part of the president, said The Wall Street Journal. By “systematically pressuring exposed adversaries,” such as Venezuela or Iran, the “influence of strategic rivals is undercut.” And if the “military components” are “one part of its effectiveness,” it’s Trump himself who is “another” for having “proved to be the only U.S. president willing to wage a true war of attrition against Tehran.”

Trump’s ordering of military operations in Africa, Central America and the Middle East has been seen as an “escalating cycle of force,” stoking fears that are “understandable given the administration’s inflammatory rhetoric,” said the National Post. The “common thread,” however, is “not escalation, but political opportunism,” wherein force is applied solely when “political and military costs appear low” and in “pursuit of quick wins that serve a limited foreign policy agenda.” As the administration frames every military action for “maximum political effect,” this pattern “becomes clear” when combined with Trump’s “over-the-top rhetoric” and bluster: His is a doctrine designed to “project strength” while avoiding the “political costs of sustained engagement.”

National interests made ‘personal’

The new Trump doctrine is about “removing foreign leaders who threaten the U.S., without being drawn into a military quagmire,” explained Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to “Meet The Press,” per MS Now. But critics contend that Trump is “creating the worst of both approaches to intervention” by “using U.S. military force aggressively and recklessly” while simultaneously counting on his adversaries to “capitulate” as they have “in business and politics.”

Broadly, Trump’s moves against Venezuela, and now in the Middle East, are designed to “cement America’s status as the number one energy superpower,” as he said at a recent rally. In the wake of his attack on Venezuela earlier this year, Trump’s decisions were seen as more than just a “return to such de facto imperialism,” as outdated notions of “great spaces” of influence, said The Guardian. Instead, Trump’s pledge to “run” Venezuela on behalf of oil companies signals the “internationalization of one aspect of his regime — what has rightly been called the logic of the mafia state.” Here, corruption is not conducted clandestinely, but rather “public procurement is rigged,” with large companies “brought under the control of regime-friendly oligarchs,” who in turn “acquire media to provide favorable coverage to the ruler.”

Under this iteration of Trump’s rule, America is “not a state looking after itself” but rather “leadership, and in particular one leader” tapping national resources to “serve his very individual and selfish interests,” said Phillips O’Brien, an international studies professor at the University of St. Andrews, on Substack. This dynamic “destroys much international relations theory,” which assumes that “regime type/leadership matters very little” since they are all merely looking to “get as big and strong as they can in a chaotic world.” In other words, America’s war on Iran is a “war of choice, chosen by Donald Trump to meet some very personal needs.”

What happened

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) on Monday sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon over the Trump administration’s retaliation for his appearance in a video reminding military members of their obligation to reject illegal orders. Kelly, a retired Navy captain, is asking a federal court to block Hegseth’s “unlawful and unconstitutional” bid to reduce his rank and pension and other threatened punishments “for engaging in disfavored political speech.”

Who said what

Kelly’s lawsuit “seeks to reverse the administrative rebuke” from Hegseth, the Arizona Republic said, “but it could also establish new clarity on whether the Pentagon can invoke military law to effectively limit what a senator who oversees that agency can say.” The lawsuit says the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee “applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy.”

It is “rare, if not jarring,” for a sitting senator to sue the defense secretary, The Associated Press said, but Kelly is the latest of several lawmakers to “push back against what they see as an out-of-control executive branch.” Hegseth “wants our longest-serving military veterans to live with the constant threat that they could be deprived of their rank and pay” because he or a future defense secretary “doesn’t like what they’ve said,” Kelly said in a statement. “That’s not the way things work in the United States of America, and I won’t stand for it.”

What next?

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has scheduled a Thursday hearing on Kelly’s request for a temporary restraining order, and the “next steps in the case” could “come quickly,” The Washington Post said. Hegseth directed Kelly to respond to his censure by Jan. 20, but the senator’s lawyers are asking Leon to block the proceedings from moving forward while his challenge is litigated.

By extending military honors to Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran shot and killed by police as she breached a restricted area during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the White House is not simply paying respect to a veteran. Babbitt will receive military funeral honors nearly six years after her death became a rallying cry for MAGA faithful. Consequently, President Donald Trump is continuing a years-long effort to reframe Jan. 6 participants as patriotic heroes maligned by the previous administration. In doing so, Trump is delivering on the historical revisionism he promised on the 2024 campaign trail.

'The previous determination was incorrect'

Providing military funeral honors for Babbitt is "long overdue," said Air Force Undersecretary Matt Lohmeier on X. In 2021, then-Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, Air Force deputy chief of staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services, denied a request from Babbitt's family for similar honors in a letter citing the "circumstances preceding her death." However, after reviewing those circumstances and additional unspecified information that has "come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect," Lohmeier said in an Aug. 15 message to the Babbitt family notifying them of the reversal. Lohmeier is a former Space Force officer fired for claiming that "Marxism was rampant in the ranks of the military," said Military.com.

The undersecretary also invited the Babbit family to visit the Pentagon so he could "personally offer my condolences." The decision "comes on the heels of a wrongful death settlement" that saw the government agree to a nearly $5 million payout for the Babbitt family, said Fox News.

Babbitt and her death have "continued to be a focal point" for the president and various conservative lawmakers and activists who have "organized to support the Jan. 6 rioters," said The Washington Post. Trump has cast Babbitt as a "martyr" in his "broader push to rewrite the history" of the "violent effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election."

Trump is working to reframe the day as a "patriotic stand, given he still denies he lost that election," said The Associated Press. Judicial Watch, the conservative legal advocacy group that represents the Babbitt family, "cited Trump's pardons and clemencies" of 1,500 insurrection participants as one reason why the Biden administration's decision should be reversed, said Task and Purpose.

Critics contend that the granting of military honors in particular represents a "broader shift" in Trump's effort, said Newsweek. By taking a "step further" beyond his previous overtures, the president is both "legitimizing the actions of the rioters" and "blurring the line between service to the country and an assault on democratic institutions."

Indefensible or true leadership?

Babbitt's death, cleared by federal prosecutors, is "absolutely tragic," said former GOP congressman and Air National Guard Lt. Colonel Adam Kinzinger on X. "I wish it hadn't happened." But given that she "dishonored her service by committing insurrection," Babbitt being awarded funeral honors is "in itself a dishonor."

There is "no better example of how a leader is supposed to act" than in Lohmeier's letter to the Babbitt family, said former National Security Adviser and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.) to Fox News. Military funeral honors vary based on rank, but "typically involve the playing of 'Taps' and the folding and presentation of the American flag to the next of kin by at least two uniformed service members," said Military.com.

What happened

The U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday damaged but did not destroy core components of Tehran's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, not years, according to an initial assessment from the Pentagon's intelligence arm, shared with CNN and other news organizations Tuesday. The assessment, if accurate, contradicted President Donald Trump's repeated claim that the "bunker buster" strikes he ordered had "completely and fully obliterated" the Iranian facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.

Who said what

The Defense Intelligence Agency judged that "at least some of Iran's highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved" before the U.S. strikes "and survived," The Associated Press said, and that Tehran's "centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact." The DIA assessment "is that the U.S. set them back maybe a few months, tops," a person familiar with the report told CNN.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the DIA's "alleged 'assessment' is flat-out wrong" and was leaked to "demean" Trump. "Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."

Trump "started using the word 'obliterated' before he received his first battle damage report" and has "closely monitored which members of his administration have used the same language," The New York Times said. Trump "had been eager to celebrate his success" at a NATO summit that started last night in the Netherlands, but his "upbeat demeanor" from the "fragile ceasefire" he cajoled and cursed Israel and Iran into accepting "crumbled" after the "damaging" intelligence findings became public.

What next?

The damage assessment by the DIA and other spy agencies "is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available," CNN said. The White House canceled classified top-level House and Senate briefings on the Iran strike Tuesday and rescheduled them for later this week, fueling speculation about the effectiveness of the attack. "They don't delay briefings that have good news," Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) told The Washington Post.

Unlike his first term effort to laud "my generals" straight out of "central casting" who would "keep us so safe," President Donald Trump has taken a different tack toward the military during his second administration. Eschewing previous attempts to work with existing leadership (many of whom ultimately earned positions on the president's list of perceived enemies), Trump is opting for a more wholesale approach this time around. He has replaced top Pentagon brass and, alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is working to change the way America goes to war. Capitalizing on his prerogative as commander in chief to oversee a military more to his liking, Trump's plans to remake the armed forces are transforming one of the nation's foundational institutions.

'Quiet but seismic recalibration'

During his short tenure atop the Pentagon, Hegseth has so far focused on creating a military that is "more aggressive on the battlefield" while being "potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict," The New York Times said. Hegseth has "prioritized the 'lethality' of the armed forces by 'reviving warrior ethos'" on Trump's behalf, The Hill said. To that end, Hegseth has engaged in a "quiet but seismic recalibration" by "broadening the range of people who can be targeted" in airstrikes and special operations raids, CBS News said. This move "signals a return to more aggressive counterterrorism policies" like those from Trump's first term.

Beyond merely expanding the rules of engagement for certain types of combat operations, Hegseth is also planning a "sweeping overhaul of the Judge Advocate General's corps" (JAG) to further make the Pentagon "less restricted by the laws of armed conflict," The Guardian said. By also "retraining military lawyers," they can then "provide more expansive legal advice to commanders" regarding "more aggressive tactics" and a "more lenient approach in charging soldiers with battlefield crimes."

'Roadblocks' or 'role models'?

Hegseth has vociferously defended his decision to fire a suite of Army JAG attorneys last month, insisting they might present "roadblocks to orders that are given by a commander in chief." Crucially, JAG officials merely advise commanders on the potential legalities of a given situation, rather than participate in enacting and following through on orders. Given Trump's "history of suggesting that he would use troops against U.S. citizens despite federal legal restrictions," Military.com said, the traditionally apolitical JAG Corps could soon find itself "at the center of such historic and consequential legal decisions."

"My fear is there will be officers in the room that say, 'sure, we will shoot them in the legs,'" said Rear Adm. James McPherson (Ret.) to "PBS Newshour," referencing Trump's alleged push for protesters to be shot during the 2020 George Floyd demonstrations. Sometimes a JAG attorney has to be a "roadblock if someone desires to do something illegal," said former Navy JAG and Emory University Law Professor Mark Nevitt to NPR.

More intangibly, any perceived politicization of the JAG Corps could permanently alter the reputation of a group that has "often been a role model for other nations," said Military.com. The corps has garnered "great respect and even deference to U.S. perspectives on the law when working with allies and partners."

What happened

A federal judge in Boston Tuesday sentenced Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who leaked classified military documents on Discord, to 15 years in prison. Teixeira, 22, was arrested in April 2023 and pleaded guilty in March to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, called Teixeira "one of the most prolific leakers of classified information in American history."

Who said what

Teixeira posted classified information on the social media app Discord nearly every day for more than a year, Cohen said after Tuesday's sentencing hearing. He "grossly betrayed our country and the oath he took to safeguard its secrets in order to boost his ego and impress his friends," and the "exceptionally grave damage he caused will impact our national security for decades to come." The documents Teixeira shared included secret information on how the U.S. transported military equipment to Ukraine and how it would be used, and reports on Russian and Ukrainian troop movements that may have compromised America's intelligence-gathering methods.

The case "raised questions over how easily a relatively low-level member of the guard" had accessed "some of the country's most sensitive secrets," The New York Times said. In the subsequent investigation, The Washington Post said, military officials "disciplined at least 15 people after finding that a 'lack of supervision' and a 'culture of complacency' had permitted Teixeira to sneak photographs of classified information out of his workplace" even after colleagues "raised concerns after he was observed looking up government secrets to which his military job did not require access."

What next?

Teixeira is separately "set to face a military court-martial in the spring," the Times said. If convicted, he "could be subject to a dishonorable charge, stripping him of his rank and military benefits," the Post added. Currently, The Associated Press said, Teixeira "remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status."

What happened

The Pentagon will rush $300 million worth of military aid to Ukraine, mostly for badly needed ammunition, the White House said Tuesday. The money for the aid package came from "unanticipated cost savings" in contracts to replace munitions sent to Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

Who said what

This "one time good deal" is "not a sustainable way to support Ukraine," said Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder. This ammunition will sustain Ukraine for only "a couple of weeks," Sullivan said, urging the House to approve a $95 billion security package with $60 billion for Ukraine. Kyiv's artillery shortfall is "costing terrain. It's costing lives."

What next?

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has not said if he will hold a vote on the Senate-approved Ukraine-Israel aid package. House Democrats tried to force a vote Tuesday by launching a long-shot discharge petition. "The Ukrainians are not running out of courage and tenacity," CIA Director William Burns told Congress. "They're running out of ammunition. And we're running out of time to help them."

The “most important whistleblower of our times”, Daniel Ellsberg was the military analyst who smuggled hundreds of pages of top secret material about US actions in Vietnam out of his office at the Rand Corporation, and shared them with a reporter from The New York Times, said The Guardian.

Published in 1971, the so-called Pentagon Papers (an assessment of US decision-making in Indochina since 1940 commissioned by the defence secretary Robert McNamara) made it clear that almost everything the American public had been told about the Vietnam War was false – from its origins to contemporary views about its winnability. Ellsberg’s leaks did not end the war, but they set in chain a series of events that led to the resignation of President Nixon.

The immoral war

A former hawk, Ellsberg had grown concerned about the direction of US foreign policy while conducting research in Vietnam for the state department in the mid-1960s. When he was asked to work on McNamara’s report, he became convinced that continuing a conflict that had already killed tens of thousands of Americans, and millions of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians, was not only a mistake but also immoral. In the autumn of 1969, he started smuggling the papers out of Rand’s offices in Santa Monica, California, aided by his colleague Anthony Russo. Russo’s girlfriend then gave him after-hours access to her advertising agency’s office, where, over eight months, he used its Xerox machine to copy the 7,000 pages.

Ellsberg tried to persuade anti-war members of congress to act on McNamara’s report, said The Washington Post; when that failed, he made contact with Neil Sheehan, a New York Times war reporter whom he had met in Saigon. The NYT began publishing excerpts on 13 June 1971. Three days later, the government obtained an injunction banning further publication. But by then, Ellsberg had leaked the papers to other media outlets – and The Washington Post decided to risk all by publishing them. Citing their First Amendment rights, the papers then fought their case all the way to the supreme court, and won.

Having been charged with espionage, Ellsberg and Russo were still facing up to 115 years in jail. But when their trial began in 1973, the judge threw out the charges, citing gross government misconduct. There was evidence of illegal wiretapping, and that government agents had broken into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in search of dirt on him. This, it turned out, was the work of a secret unit that Nixon had set up in 1971 to plug leaks, the Plumbers. It then emerged that the Plumbers had also been behind the break-in at the Democratic National Committee HQ in the Watergate building – the scandal that led to Nixon’s downfall in 1974. The war finally ended in 1975.

The most dangerous man in America

Born in 1931, Daniel Ellsberg was brought up in a middle-class family in Detroit, said The Daily Telegraph. His mother wanted him to be a pianist, and made him practise for eight hours a day. Then, when he was 15, she and his sister were killed in a car crash in which he was severely injured. Nevertheless, he did well enough at his studies to win a scholarship to Harvard. He undertook postgraduate work at Cambridge and Harvard; then, after military service in the marines, he joined the Rand Corporation as a military analyst, and became sought-after in policy circles. McNamara recruited him to work on his report in 1967. In 1971, Henry Kissinger branded Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America”, and some persisted in viewing him as a traitor.

But he claimed never to have regretted leaking the Pentagon Papers, and spent the rest of his life campaigning for peace, and standing up for whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.

The Pentagon leaks “are staggering in scale and range”, said Kim Sengupta in The Independent.

The contents of more than 100 pages of highly classified CIA and US military documents, apparently leaked online by Jack Teixeira, a 21-year old Air National Guardsman, were sprayed across the world’s media last week. The Ukraine War was the common link in “a web of intrigue involving governments, politicians and diplomats, intelligence agencies and the military, mercenaries and arms dealers”.

Among other things, the leaks appear to reveal that the United States has been routinely spying on allies such as South Korea – which, it seems, has been grappling with US requests that it send weapons to Ukraine. Egypt, by contrast, had sought to supply Moscow with rockets, until the US intervened. British special forces, the documents suggest, have been operating on the ground in Ukraine, along with those from France and Latvia.

“America’s allies are quietly exasperated, as well they should be,” said Kori Schake in the FT. And serious damage will have been done to US intelligence networks. But the real worry is the effect that the leaks might have on Ukraine’s war effort. The documents contained thorough assessments of Ukrainian forces and their vulnerabilities, detailing supplies of ammunition and air defence missiles, including the specific dates on which these are projected to run out. The Pentagon can only hope that the intelligence isn’t useful enough to allow Moscow to “torpedo” Ukraine’s plans for a spring offensive. Given the US’s role in “creating this vulnerability”, it should be sending more weapons and helping Ukraine to make new plans. “Increasing its assistance is the least it should do.”

There has been a lot of “performative outrage” that the Americans have been spying on their allies, including Ukraine, said Mark Galeotti in The Spectator. “But what did anyone expect? Everyone spies on everyone else.” And among intelligence professionals, there is no doubt a sense that, but for the grace of God, there go all of us. “After all, everyone and everything leaks, whether because someone incautiously takes classified materials home and leaves them on the train, or talks too freely over drinks.” Nevertheless, this is a serious embarrassment for the US, not just for its scale but for its source: that it wasn’t a committed whistleblower or a deep-cover Russian mole behind this breach, but a naive IT expert barely out of his teens, trying to impress his fellow gun enthusiasts on a gaming chat site. “Move over, George Smiley.”

A bulldog puppy who chewed his owner’s toe to the bone may have saved his leg, reported Wales Online. David Lindsay was taking a nap on his sofa when he woke up to find that his seven-month-old puppy had been nibbling on his foot, so much so that his toe had been fractured and was covered in blood. When he was taken to hospital, he discovered that he had been unable to feel the chewing because he had blocked arteries in both legs. He might have lost both legs unless the problem was identified, he was told by medics. “You’ve got to laugh about it,” said Lindsay. “He’s done me a favour by chewing my toe.”

Bear breaks into car and necks 69 cans of drink

A thirsty bear broke into a car in British Columbia and necked 69 cans of fizzy drinks. Sharon Rosel said that after her dog woke her up in the early hours, she looked outside to see a bear had shattered one of her car windows and was helping itself to the cans of soda she had purchased for her business. “He was drinking massive amounts of soda,” Rosel told CBC News. Observing the mess made of her car, she said: “Of course, white leather interior goes really good with orange Crush.”

US says alien mothership may have sent probes to Earth

A Pentagon official has speculated that recent sightings in US airspace could actually be alien probes from a mothership sent to study Earth. In a new academic paper, Sean Kirkpatrick, head of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, claimed that the objects, which appear to defy all physics, could be “probes” from an extra-terrestrial “parent craft”. The development suggests that the Pentagon is open to scientific debate of the origins of UFOs, said Politico.

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A 21-year-old US airman is due to appear in court today in connection with the leak of highly classified military documents about the Ukraine war and other national security issues.

The leak is “probably the military’s largest in at least a decade”, said The Washington Post, and has “revealed secrets about everything from gaps in Ukrainian air defenses to the specifics of how the United States spies on its allies and partners”.

But how – and why – did a 21-year-old come to be the alleged culprit?

‘Showing off to friends’

The FBI arrested Teixeira yesterday, 90 minutes after The New York Times identified him as the administrator of the online group, Thug Shaker Central, where the cache of leaked intelligence documents first appeared.

The photos of documents posted online had included a “trail of clues”, said The Washington Post, with “items in the background that included Gorilla Glue, a Boston Red Sox hat, and hunting magazines”.

Members of the Discord group told The New York Times that Teixeira wasn’t trying to advance Russian or Ukrainian interests through his leaks but that he had a deep distrust of the US government. They added that the leaks were “a little bit of showing off to friends”, Forbes reported.

Some members showed the Washington Post footage of Teixeira “shouting racist and antisemitic slurs before firing a rifle”, said the Post. Racist jokes were also shared in the Discord group. But, said a friend, it was hard to assess Teixeira’s true feelings given “how many layers of irony that server was in”.

An AP source quoted in The Guardian said Teixeira had denounced the US military “since it was run by the elite politicians” and “expressed regret” that he ever joined.

‘Beware the quiet man’

A profile of Teixeira on Steam, a website popular with gamers, included a famous but unattributed quote: “Beware the quiet man. For while others speak, he watched. And while others act, he plans. And when they finally rest… he strikes.”

How did such a character gain access to sensitive files? There are “several possible explanations”, said the New York Post. It quoted a Pentagon spokesman saying that even in his “low position”, Teixeira’s job may have required clearance that would have allowed him access to sensitive material.

According to military records, Teixeira was stationed at the Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, home of the 102nd Intelligence Wing. The New York Post added that it’s “possible” that Teixeira’s work with the wing required him to have access to the “sensitive channels”.

A US official told The Washington Post that Teixeira had access to highly classified military intelligence through a Defense Department computer network, known as the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, which would have allowed him to read and potentially print classified documents.

As the Pentagon faced a deluge of questions, a spokesperson said the military often entrusts young people with classified information. However, observed The Times, if the allegations against him are proved, that faith in Teixeira was “misplaced”.

‘Stunning incompetence’

“The incompetence is stunning,” Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W Bush, told Fox News. Senator Tim Scott added that the leak is a “massive, catastrophic occurrence that should never have happened”. Earlier this week, MPs warned that British lives have been put at risk, noted The Times.

However, Forbes said that officials have “downplayed the significance of the leak”, with an aide for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy describing it as nothing more than “dust in the eyes”. Joe Biden insisted he’s not aware of any information “that is of great consequence”. Nevertheless, the leaks have “still roiled the Pentagon”, added the news site.

The arrest “exposes” a “larger classified documents problem”, wrote Zachary B. Wolf for CNN.

If the “many earlier and ongoing scandals” regarding classified information “aren’t a wakeup call that the US government has a problem, maybe the arrest of Jack Teixeira will do the trick”, he wrote.

Wolf noted that “a very large universe” of people have access to “Top Secret data”, with more than 2.8 million people enjoying security clearance as of October 2017 – more than 1.6 million with access to either Confidential or Secret information and nearly 1.2 million with access to Top Secret information.

The release of classified US defence department documents that reveal how the war in Ukraine is really playing out as well as security secrets relating to the US’s allies has been described as America’s most serious intelligence leak in a decade.

CNN reported that the Biden administration is “scrambling to assess and contain the fallout” from the release of top secret Pentagon files that “has rattled US officials, members of Congress and key allies in recent days”.

What do they contain?

Believed to number around 100 photographed pages in total, the documents analysed so far range from battlefield assessments of Ukraine’s war effort to intelligence on US allies and proof the Pentagon has penetrated Russian intelligence. Others reportedly focus on defence issues in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific region.

Analysis of 20 documents by the BBC related to the war in Ukraine “tell of the casualties suffered on both sides, the military vulnerabilities of each and, crucially, what their relative strengths are likely to be when Ukraine decides to launch its much-anticipated spring offensive”, said diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams.

As well as revealing that Ukraine’s air defences may be close to collapse, the documents show that “nearly every Russian security service appears penetrated by the United States in some way”, said The New York Times (NYT). As a result, the US is able to obtain daily real-time warnings on the timing of Moscow’s strikes and even its specific targets.

Other files reveal the “low confidence” the US has in the casualty estimates on both sides in the war, while also seeming to confirm a long-held suspicion that the US has been spying on close allies, including South Korea and Israel.

“This is bad news for everyone,” a European official told the Financial Times (FT). “It’s bad news for the Ukrainians, it’s bad news for the Americans because everyone sees how they operate, and it’s bad news for the allies more generally because we see that the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition, which is not the best message you want in the air.”

Time magazine sounded a note of caution, however, saying “it’s important to keep in mind that not all of the information may be reliable”, with some documents appearing altered to, for example, overstate American estimates of Ukrainian casualties and minimise estimates of Russian troops killed.

Who was responsible for the leak?

So far “little is known about who may have been responsible for the leak or how some of the nation’s most tightly guarded secrets ended up on social media sites”, said CNN.

First reported in mainstream media by The New York Times last week, some of the documents dated to January “could have been posted online even earlier, although it is unclear exactly when”, said Aric Toler, from open-source investigations site Bellingcat.

“While it has as yet not been possible to uncover the original source of these apparent leaks”, he said, an investigation by Bellingcat had been able to trace the spread of the documents back over a variety of internet forums. These included 4Chan and the Discord platform for gamers, before they began appearing on pro-Russian Telegram channels where they were picked up by major outlets.

Kremlin supporters have suggested it could be a deliberate ploy by the CIA to demoralise Russians by showing how badly the war in Ukraine is going. However, a more plausible theory is that it is a Russian hack designed to embarrass Washington, as one US official suggested to Reuters on Friday.

“The truth may be more worrying for the US and its allies,” wrote Julian Borger, world affairs editor for The Guardian – that it is just “another example of how carelessly Washington handles its secrets”.

According to The Washington Post, many of the leaked documents appear to have been put together for top military leaders, including General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, but were also available to other US personnel and contractors with the right security clearances.

What will the consequences be?

Whoever is responsible, the fallout from what The Economist called “America’s most serious intelligence leak in a decade” will be deep and long-lasting.

A lot of the detail here is familiar and some of the documents are as much as six weeks old, “but the implications are huge”, agreed the BBC’s Paul Adams.

The leak has “already complicated relations with allied countries and raised doubts about America’s ability to keep its secrets”, said the NYT. In another report by the paper, a senior intelligence official described it as “a nightmare for the Five Eyes” – the five countries that share intelligence information: the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

More significantly, it also has “the potential to do real damage to Ukraine’s war effort by exposing which Russian agencies the United States knows the most about, giving Moscow a potential opportunity to cut off the sources of information”, the paper added.

A source close to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN that Ukraine has already altered some of its military plans because of the leak.

The FT said that it has “sown chaos and paranoia among Washington’s national security apparatus ahead of a critical moment in the Ukraine war”, with Kyiv’s forces expected to launch a counter-offensive against Moscow soon. In addition the release “could jeopardise not only information critical to American policymaking, but also potentially the safety of individuals who provide intelligence”.

China has said it is looking into reports that one of its surveillance balloons has been spotted in US airspace.

Urging calm, the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was committed to international law but did not immediately deny reports that the balloon belonged to China.

“China is a responsible country and has always strictly abided by international laws, and China has no intention to violate the territory and airspace of any sovereign countries,” Mao said. “As for the balloon, as I’ve mentioned just now, we are looking into and verifying the situation and hope that both sides can handle this together calmly and carefully.”

The Pentagon said it is tracking what it called a “suspected Chinese surveillance balloon”, the BBC said, which has been seen flying over sensitive sites in the US in recent days. It was most recently seen above the western state of Montana, close to Malmstrom Air Force Base, which is one of the US’s three nuclear missile silo fields.

It also sailed over the Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska, and above Canada, Sky News reported. “Military and defence leaders have considered shooting the balloon out of the sky but decided against it due to the safety risk from falling debris,” the broadcaster said.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is due to arrive in China next Friday and, if the visit goes ahead, would become the highest ranking US official to visit the country since the Covid-19 pandemic began. But doubts have been raised about the trip due to the incident.

In her briefing today, Mao said it was important not to speculate about the object and its provenance, which may not have a bearing on Blinken’s proposed visit.

“What I want to emphasise is that before we have a clear understanding of the facts, speculation and sensationalising will be unhelpful to the proper handling of the issue. As for Blinken’s visit to China, I have no information,” Mao said.

A Sainsbury’s employee has revealed the most annoying things that customers do, reported the Daily Mirror. Speaking on his TikTok channel, Akafi Ali said the most irritating thing that customers do is arrive before the shop opens on a Sunday. He said he is also annoyed when customers say: “I’m never shopping here again”. He remarked: “What am I going to do with that information? Am I supposed to say, ‘no sorry, please come back, we want you?’”

Pentagon says time-travel is within our reach

Time-travel and anti-gravity technology could be achievable soon, according to documents released by the Pentagon. One document says “it might be possible to produce exotic phenomena such as faster-than-light travel... and time machines”. It also states that “wormholes” in spacetime could be used for interstellar travel, the Daily Star said.

Autonomous car drives off after cop stop

A video showing a driverless car being stopped by the police and then attempting to drive away has gone viral. Cops in San Francisco stopped an autonomous Chevrolet Bolt EV, seemingly because the car’s headlights were not on despite it being dark. After the police discovered there was no one in the car, the autonomous vehicle tries to drive away before pulling over to a stop a few hundred feet away. Ars Technica reported that the car did not receive a ticket.

The suicide attack at Kabul airport last week took place after the US decided to keep open a gate at the airport to assist the UK with its evacuation, leaked notes have revealed.

The UK-US special relationship “came under strain” last night after leaked Pentagon documents suggested the US had kept open Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate so that UK evacuation efforts could continue “despite knowing there was a high risk of attack”, reported The Times.

Senior government sources and Tory MPs have accused Washington of trying to “shift the blame” after it emerged that senior US military figures had wanted to close the gate on Thursday, just hours before the deadly bombing, said the paper.

Classified notes of calls with senior military figures and politicians obtained by Politico show Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, told his international counterparts on Wednesday morning last week to make preparations for a “mass casualty event”.

During the same meeting, General Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of “significant” intelligence indicating that Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate, Isis-K, was planning a “complex attack”.

Commanders calling in from the ground in Kabul warned that Abbey Gate was at “highest risk” from an attack.

On a separate call at 4pm that afternoon – or 12.30am on Thursday in Afghanistan – military and government officials were told by Rear Admiral Peter Vasley, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, that “he was looking to shut down Abbey Gate” having already closed two other gates.

Vasley had “discussed with the Taliban additional security measures outside the gates” which still remained open, and the commander planned to have Abbey Gate closed by Thursday afternoon, Kabul time, the site added.

Abbey Gate was “not closed on schedule” as British forces “accelerated” their withdrawal from the Baron Hotel, the main hub for evacuating UK personnel from the country, which is just a few hundred yards from the gate. The US kept the gate open to allow evacuations to continue, said Vasley, according to the leaked documents.

At 6pm, a suicide attack ripped through the crowds of civilians attempting to escape via the airport, killing hundreds of Afghans and 13 US service members.

The British evacuees had not arrived at the airport at the time of the attacks, but two British citizens were killed in the bombing: Musa Popal, a 60-year-old shopkeeper from London, and Mohamed Niazi, 29, a taxi driver from Hampshire. Niazi’s wife and their two daughters were also killed in the attack.

Following the publication of the leaked documents, Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Defence Select Committee, said there appeared to be an “undercurrent of blame” which was “unhelpful”.

Speaking to The Telegraph Ellwood said: “It does not add up. If the US was anticipating a mass casualty event why did they still continue processing themselves? There is an underlying current of blame which is unhelpful. It’s a distraction from the main effort of what is happening on the ground.”

The Pentagon said that Politico’s reports are “based on the unlawful disclosure of classified information and internal deliberations of a sensitive nature”, while a spokesperson from the UK Ministry of Defence said: “We continue to offer our full support to our closest ally.”

The US response to UFO sightings represents a “massive intelligence failure”, a former defence official has warned ahead of the release of a report on what the Pentagon calls “unidentified aerial phenomena”.

Christopher Mellon, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence for intelligence under George W. Bush, told CNBC that “it’s extremely disturbing to think that, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars for so many years”, mysterious “vehicles” are still “operating in restricted military airspace with impunity on a recurring and sustained basis”.

Mellon spoke out as US intelligence agencies prepare to deliver a report on such incidents to Congress next month, sparking “renewed interest and speculation into how the government has handled sightings of mysterious flying objects - and if there’s any worldly explanation for them”, says NBC News.

Unidentified threat

The Pentagon last year declassified three videos filmed by US navy pilots that “show unidentified objects flying at high speeds in the Earth’s atmosphere”, CNBC reports. The grainy videos - one of which dates from 2004 and the other two from 2015 - were all filmed during training exercises and feature “audio of Navy pilots expressing shock and awe”, says the news broadcaster.

A statement from the Pentagon said that the videos were being made public to “clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos”.

The footage had been “circulating in the public domain after unauthorised releases in 2007 and 2017”, said the statement, adding that “the aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterised as ‘unidentified’”.

The posting of two of the videos on The New York Times website in 2017 had triggered a fresh wave of public interest in documented sightings of UFOs.

And more questions are being asked in the wake of an interview aired last weekend on CBS news show 60 Minutes in which two former navy pilots recounted a UFO sighting over the Pacific Ocean in 2004.

David Fravor - described as “a graduate of the Top Gun naval flight school and commander of the F/A-18F squadron on the USS Nimitz” - told how he saw a “little white Tic Tac-looking object” that he watched “for roughly about five minutes” until it “disappeared”.

Fravor said that “there was four of us in the airplanes literally watching this thing”, which had “no markings, no wings, no exhaust plumes”. When he tried to get closer, it began “mirroring” his movements, he said, adding: “It was aware we were there.”

With “some senators pushing other lawmakers and government officials to do more to investigate encounters with mysterious flying objects”, says NBC News, attention is now focused on the upcoming report to be shared with Congress next month.

Compiled by the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defence, the report “aims to make public what the Pentagon knows about unidentified flying objects and data analysed from such encounters”, the broadcaster adds.

‘Take it seriously’

US security forces have been investigating UFOs for more than a decade, at least, with an Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Programme established in 2007.

Funded from the Defence Department budget, the $22m (£15.5m) programme was kept secret from the public until The New York Times published an expose on military UFO sightings in 2017, by which time it had been shut down for five years. The cash to launch the “shadowy” project had been provided at the request of the then Senate leader, Democrat Harry Reid, “who has long had an interest in space phenomena”, the paper reported.

Despite wrapping up the programme, the Pentagon has also continued to show an interest in UFOs, with the US navy putting together formal guidelines in 2019 for pilots to report sightings. Navy officials told Politico at the time that there had been “a number of reports of unauthorised and/or unidentified aircraft entering various military-controlled ranges and designated airspace in recent years”.

Appearing on last weekend’s 60 Minutes, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “I want us to take it seriously and have a process to take it seriously.”

And it would appear that his call is being heeded, with the US government “getting serious” about the “now-established fact that some UFOs are real and true unknowns”, The Independent reports.

“Many government officials” think that it is “exceptionally unlikely that these UFOs are operated by China, Russia, or a tech genius such as Elon Musk”, because “no nation is known to have aerial platforms anything similar” to what has been reported by military personnel, the paper continues.

But on the other hand, “perhaps there are countries or individuals who live on our planet who have achieved technological feats that we previously couldn’t have even imagined”.

As speculation mounts ahead of the Pentagon’s report to Congress, former security official Mellon told NBC News said that he hopes Joe Biden’s administration will “provide our military people the support they deserve” to better understand and potentially defend against UFOs.

“That means determining ASAP what threat if any is posed by the unidentified vehicles that are brazenly and repeatedly violating restricted US airspace over hovering around our warships,” he said.

“Our people are naturally and rightly concerned and almost nothing has been done to address their concerns.”

A toddler is releasing the world’s first album made from sounds recorded inside the womb. Vibrations made by Luca Yupanqui while she was in her mum Elizabeth Hart’s womb were recorded by electrodes and then transformed into music using synthesisers. The ten-track album, Sounds of the Unborn, will be released on the label Sacred Bones.

Couples marry while riding elephants

Dozens of couples in Thailand got married while riding elephants on Valentine’s Day at a botanical garden in a province east of Bangkok. Reuters reports that dancers and a band led the procession of elephants and couples. A local official, also astride an elephant, oversaw the signing of the marriage licence.

Pentagon ‘has UFO metals’

The Pentagon holds and tests wreckage from UFO crashes, an author has claimed. Following a freedom of information request, Anthony Bragalia said: “The Pentagon has admitted to holding and testing anomalous debris from UFOs.” He adds that officials have “been able to learn some things… which will change our lives forever”.

US Navy chiefs have revealed new details of their pilots’ encounters with ”unexplained aerial phenomena”, following the release of three declassified videos by the Pentagon last month.

Documents from the Navy Safety Center, obtained by news site Drive under the Freedom of Information Act, detail several incidents where pilots came across “unmanned aerial systems”, says Sky News.

One report from March 2014 described how a pilot came across an “unknown aircraft” which was “approximately the size of a suitcase, and silver in colour”. A navy jet then “passed within 1,000 feet” of the object but could not identify it.

During another incident, in June 2013, an aircraft “white in colour and approximately the size and shape of a drone or missile” was spotted.

Another involved an unidentified aircraft with an “approximately five foot wingspan and was coloured white with no other distinguishable features”. When drone operators in the area were contacted, all denied knowledge of such aircraft.

The documents warn it could be “only a matter of time” before a navy aircraft collides with an unidentified drone, saying they “pose a greater midair risk than manned aircraft”.

These new details follow last month’s release of three declassified videos that show US Navy pilots encountering what appear to be UFOs.

Nick Pope, a former UFO investigator for the Ministry of Defence in the UK, said the videos could show extra terrestrial activity, but that he did not have a “definitive explanation”.

He told Sky News the unidentified aircraft could be “US black project technology being blind-tested against the military as part of the evaluation process, a Russian or Chinese drone engaged in reconnaissance, or something genuinely unknown and yes, perhaps even extra-terrestrial”.

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The videos, which the Pentagon says depict “unexplained aerial phenomena”, had previously been leaked. A spokesman said they were now being formally released “to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real or whether or not there is more to the videos”.

The footage shows what pilots saw during training flights in 2004 and 2015. One of the grainy videos was recorded over the Pacific Ocean. The second was captured off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida.

In one of the videos, a pilot exclaims: "What the f**k is that?!" In another, an object is seen racing through the sky and begins spinning in mid-air. “Dude, this is a f**king drone, bro,” a pilot says on the video. Another says “there's a whole fleet of them”.

The Guardian says the release of the videos will “spur more speculation that humans have recently interacted with extra terrestrials”.

In 2017, retired commander David Fravor told ABC News about the 2004 encounter with unfamiliar craft. “I can tell you, I think it was not from this world," he said.

“I'm not crazy, haven't been drinking. It was… after 18 years of flying, I've seen pretty much about everything that I can see in that realm, and this was nothing close.”

Former senator, Harry Reid, welcomed the Pentagon's decision to officially release the clips. “I'm glad the Pentagon is finally releasing this footage, but it only scratches the surface of research and materials available,” he tweeted. “The US needs to take a serious, scientific look at this and any potential national security implications. The American people deserve to be informed,” he added.

Last year, the US Navy admitted that the videos had prompted new guidelines for how pilots should report sightings of “unauthorized and/or unidentified aircraft”.

US forces have carried out air strikes in Iraq against what the Pentagon claims are five weapons storage sites run by an Iranian-back militia.

The strikes came in response to a rocket attack which killed two American and one British soldier near Baghdad on Wednesday.

The Pentagon said the strikes were aimed at Kata’ib Hezbollah, a paramilitary group with strong ties with Tehran, which Washington blames for the attack.

A spokeswoman said the strikes were “defensive, proportional, and in direct response to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Shia militia groups who continue to attack bases hosting … coalition forces”.

US Defence Secretary Mark Esper said that Donald Trump had authorised him to take whatever action he deemed necessary.

“We’re going to take this one step at a time, but we’ve got to hold the perpetrators accountable,” Esper said. “You don’t get to shoot at our bases and kill and wound Americans and get away with it.”

The Washington Post reports that a separate Iran-backed militia, Harakat al-Nujaba, accused the US of hitting militia and Iraqi army headquarters, as well as a civilian airport. In a statement, it warned that further strikes could prompt retaliation involving an “eye for an eye”.

The latest exchange of fire comes two months after an escalation brought the US and Iran to the brink of direct conflict.

At least 12 people were injured in the rocket attack on Camp Taji, of Baghdad. Coalition and Iraqi officials say 18 Katyusha rockets struck the base, with a “rocket-rigged truck” later discovered a few miles away, reports Sky News.

Boris Johnson has described the attack as “deplorable”, while Defence Secretary Ben Wallace condemned the “cowardly and retrograde act”.

The soldier who died was identified yesterday as Lance Cpl. Brodie Gillon, 26. She was a reservist and combat medical technician with the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry.

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The Pentagon has admitted running a secret multi-million dollar programme to investigate reported sightings of UFOs.

Why was it set up?

Running from 2007 to 2012, the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Programme received $22m (£15m) a year in funding from the Pentagon, according to The New York Times, which broke the story.

The brainchild of former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat long known for his enthusiasm for space phenomena, the programme documented unidentified flying objects reported by US servicemen and was tasked with investigating suspicious incidents.

Most of the money went to an aerospace research company run by a billionaire entrepreneur, alien believer and longtime friend of Reid, Robert Bigelow, who is currently working with Nasa to produce expandable craft for humans in space.

According to the newspaper, the programme documented sightings of aircraft that seemed to move at very high velocities with no visible sign of propulsion, or that hovered with no apparent means of lift.

While not classified, the BBC says “only a small number of officials were aware of the programme”, with funding secretly tucked away in the US Defense Department’s annual $600bn budget.

Politico suggests there may have been a more earthly motive for the programme, with one congressional staffer telling the news site that is may have been set up to monitor the technological progress of rival foreign powers, namely Russia and China.

Why was it shut down?

Funding for the programme was terminated in 2012. Pentagon spokeswoman Laura Ochoa said: “It was determined that there were other, higher-priority issues that merited funding and it was in the best interest of the DoD to make a change.”

However, while it confirmed the existence of the programme, the Pentagon “was less clear about whether the UFO program continues to hover somewhere in the vast universe of the US defence establishment”, says The Guardian.

According to its backers, “the programme remains in existence and officials continue to investigate UFO episodes brought to their attention by service members”, says The Independent.

The gripping story behind the 1971 leak of the infamous Pentagon Papers, which revealed a massive US government cover-up spanning four presidents and three decades, is revealed in a new film by Steven Spielberg.

Starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, thriller The Post premiered yesterday in Washington DC, about a mile from the headquarters of the newspaper where much of the action is set.

Rolling Stone calls the film “one of best and tick-tock timeliest movies of the year”; a film that celebrates the “passionate bond between a free press and every thinking human being”.

The movie opens across the US on 22 December, and in UK cinemas on 19 January. But what are the Pentagon Papers and what did they reveal?

What are the Pentagon Papers?

The 3,000-page narrative and 4,000 appended documents summarised the history of the US in Indo-China from the Second World War up until May 1968.

Crucially, the papers “disclosed that successive US presidents – from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson – had repeatedly misled voters about the war in Indo-China”, according to The Daily Telegraph.

They were commissioned in 1967 by then-US secretary of defence Robert S. McNamara, and leaked to the media by Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst and research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.

The Post in Spielberg’s film title refers to The Washington Post, whose journalists scrambled to expose the cover-up, along with reporters from The New York Times. The movie chronicles the newspapers’ legal battle with the US government to publish material that the administration wanted to remain top secret.

What did the papers reveal?

Significantly, the papers showed that Harry S. Truman’s administration provided military aid to France in its war against the Communist-led Viet Minh independence coalition, directly involving the US in Vietnam.

They revealed that in 1954, president Dwight Eisenhower prevented a communist takeover of South Vietnam, and set out to undermine the North Vietnam communist regime.

The papers also revealed that president Lyndon B. Johnson intensified warfare against North Vietnam, and ordered bombing in 1965, and that he covertly expanded military operations into Cambodia and Laos despite telling Americans that “we seek no wider war”, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.

“Never before had voters been given such direct proof that they were being lied to,” says The Daily Telegraph.

In a TV interview in 1971, whistle-blower Ellsberg told CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite that the US was to blame for the Vietnam War. The US “now bear the major responsibility, as I read this history, for every death in combat in Indo-China in the last 25 years”, Ellsberg said, according to the US News and World website.

The US military has launched an investigation into reports that male members of the armed forces have been sharing nude photos of their female colleagues and veterans online.

Reports from the US last week uncovered widespread photo-sharing, initially by current and former marines on Facebook.

But the BBC says it has since seen a message board where servicemen from all branches have "shared hundred of photos".

According to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, investigators are considering felony charges that could carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.

How did the controversy begin?

Navy officials began investigating after the War Horse, a non-profit news organisation run by US Marine veteran Thomas Brennan, found details of a now-defunct Facebook group called "Marines United."

Picking up the story, the Centre for Investigative Reporting found that, since the beginning of the year, "more than two dozen women - many on active duty, including officers and enlisted service members - have been identified by their rank, full name and military duty station in photographs posted and linked to from a private Facebook page".

In one instance, "a woman corporal in uniform was followed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina by a fellow Marine, who surreptitiously photographed her as she picked up her gear", it said.

Those photographs were then posted online in the "Marines United" group, which had nearly 30,000 followers, drawing dozens of obscene comments, adds the website.

This week, two women who said they were victims spoke out publicly, urging others to come forward.

"I can tell you that this exact behaviour leads to the normalisation of sexual harassment and even sexual violence," said Erika Butner, who served in the Marines for four years.

What are the new developments?

According to the BBC, male service members from all military branches have been sharing nude photos of women on an anonymous message board.

They allegedly post photographs of clothed female colleagues and ask anyone on the message board if they have any "wins" – the term used for nude photos.

The host site seems to have little moderation and few rules, although it tells users: "Don't be evil," says Business Insider.

Members are also instructed not to post personal details such as addresses, telephone numbers, links to social networks or last names.

However, says Business Insider, "many users on the board do not appear to follow those rules".

The message board may prove difficult to investigate properly. Unlike the Facebook group, where many users posted under their real names, the user base is mostly anonymous, says the BBC, and the site itself is registered in the Bahamas, outside the jurisdiction of US law enforcement.

What's the reaction been?

The incident has once again thrown light on the issue of gender equality in the US military.

According to Pentagon data, 20,000 service members were raped or sexually assaulted in 2014, accounting for approximately one per cent of men and 4.9 per cent of women. One in four servicewomen experienced sexual harassment or gender discrimination and these cases were often mishandled by officials - 44 per cent of victims were encouraged to drop the issue and 41 per cent said no action was taken.

Paula Coughlin, a former lieutenant in the navy, said: "For decades, our military and civilian leaders have failed to address a culture where sexual violence, harassment, misogyny and reprisal are commonplace."

Kate Hendricks Thomas, a former Marine Corps officer who is now an assistant professor at Charleston Southern University, said: "I'm kind of surprised. I'm still naive, I think, on some level."

Thomas criticised past responses to the problem, in which some had indicated the issue was too difficult for the military to wrap its arms around.

"This renders us less mission-effective. It's got to be a priority," she told Business Insider. "These websites are not boys being boys. This is a symptom of rape culture."

Fifteen detainees are being transferred from the US detention facility in Guantanamo to the United Arab Emirates in the largest single transfer of inmates of Barack Obama's presidency.

The transfer of three Afghan citizens and 12 Yemeni nationals brings the total number of prisoners at the controversial centre in Cuba down to 61. Most have been there for more than a decade.

The US Defence Department said six detainees were unanimously approved for release by a prison task force. "Periodic review boards" assessed that keeping another nine prisoners was also not "necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat", the department said.

"The United States is grateful to the government of the United Arab Emirates for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," said the Pentagon.

President Obama "has sought for years to make good on a campaign promise to shut down the camp and wants to transfer the final detainees to maximum-security facilities on US soil, but has been blocked by Congress", says The Atlantic.

Nearly 800 inmates have been held at Guantanamo since it opened in 2002. It was built after the 11 September attacks to detain terrorism suspects.

The US has launched air strikes on Islamic State forces in Libya following a request from the country's UN-backed government.

The action is "the first direct US involvement in the fierce battle" around the coastal city of Sirte, says the Washington Post, and is "a significant expansion of the American campaign" against IS.

The strikes were successful, according to Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, who leads the Libyan Government of National Accord.

"The first air strikes were carried out at specific locations in Sirte today causing severe losses to enemy ranks," he said.

The Pentagon confirmed US involvement in the raid, saying it had been authorised by President Barack Obama and is "consistent with our approach to combating IS by working with capable and motivated local forces".

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook also said "additional US strikes" would be carried out to allow local ground forces to make a "decisive, strategic advance" on the city after weeks of heavy fighting.

Libyan forces began their campaign to re-take Sirte three months ago. The city became an IS stronghold after the removal of Muammar Gaddafi's government in 2011.

According to the Libya Herald, "354 Libyan troops have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded since the start of operations against Islamic State in Sirte".

The involvement of the US in an ongoing air campaign in Libya may work in the short term, says BBC correspondent Rana Jawad, but the situation in the country is likely to remain quite volatile for some time.

"The wider military and militia forces across Libya are still embroiled in local rivalry," she says. "In the aftermath of campaigns of this kind, the US, and other countries involved in Libya, will probably be left with more questions than answers over the stability of the country and the local forces they backed."

Forget the Men Who Stare At Goats - the latest project undertaken by US defence research is even stranger: teaching computers to play jazz.

If the plan works, it could lead one day to a robotic jazz band, though there are other, more practical, applications.

Tech Insider website says the project is funded by Darpa, the American government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It has a pedigree with funding projects with wider applications, and created the original internet in the 1960s.

Jazz musician and computer scientist Kelland Thomas is leading the team hoping to teach an AI (Artificial Intelligence) programme to improvise jazz. He is starting by inputting transcriptions of jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis.

The programme will eventually learn to identify and analyse musical patterns - and it is hoped it will then use that knowledge to play its own improvised music. Thomas told Tech Insider: "A human musician also builds a knowledge base by practicing and by listening and by learning and studying.

"So the thing we're proposing to do is analogous to the way a human learns, but eventually it will be able to do this on a much larger scale. It can scour thousands of transcriptions instead of dozens or hundreds."

Of course, music isn't the ultimate point, the researchers hope to teach computers to think creatively. That ability would help them to communicate with humans better - and solve problems as they arise.

Thomas said: "The ability to, on the fly and in the moment, create melodies that are goal-directed, that are going somewhere, doing something and evincing emotion in the listener, is really, really amazing.

"In my mind, jazz and improvisation in music represent a pinnacle of human intellectual and mental achievement."

Thomas believes he will have his virtual musician improvising within five years, and he intends to create a robot that can join human musicians onstage to jam following that.

A secret US government rulebook, revealing details of how its internal terrorist watchlist is compiled, has been published in full by The Intercept, the investigative website set up by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

The 116 page document was written by the National Counterterrorism Center in March 2013 and includes input from the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, FBI and other national agencies. It authorises "a secret process that requires neither 'concrete facts' nor 'irrefutable evidence' to designate an American or foreigner as a terrorist", says the website.

What is the Terrorism Watchlist and how many people are on it?

The FBI describes the Terrorism Watchlist as one of its "most effective counterterrorism tools".

The list is shared with local US law enforcement, international governments and "private entities", helping them to identify confirmed and potential terrorists trying to secure travel documents, board planes or in engage in other potentially dangerous activities.

Over 1.5 million names have been added to the list in the last five years, according to the Associated Press.

What did the document reveal?

The document includes a "wide definition of what constitutes terrorism and a low threshold for designating someone a terrorist", says The Intercept.

Individuals are never told why they have been placed on the watchlist and the rules make it "nearly impossible to get off it".

So who can be placed on the list?

• US and foreign nationals who have previously engaged in terrorism.
• Anyone government agencies "reasonably suspect" to be a terrorist. The suspicion needs to be based on gathered intelligence, "mere hunches and guesses are not sufficient" to watchlist someone, the report states.
• Entire "categories" of people can be placed on the list if a terror threat is imminent.
• Someone who has already been acquitted of a terrorism crime by the courts can still be watchlisted.
• People who have died often remain on the watchlist in case their identities are stolen by other potential terrorists.
• The document contains "loopholes" whereby a suspected terrorist's family, friends and acquaintances can also be placed on the list.

What has the response been?

The rules are "an abuse of privilege" says The Freedom of the Press Foundation.

"Instead of a watchlist limited to actual, known terrorists, the government has built a vast system based on the unproven and flawed premise that it can predict if a person will commit a terrorist act in the future," says Hina Shamsi, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project.

"On that dangerous theory, the government is secretly blacklisting people as suspected terrorists and giving them the impossible task of proving themselves innocent of a threat they haven't carried out."

The government is yet to comment on the release of the documents.

What are the consequences?

A watchlist with over a million names on it has wider implications, not just for civil liberties, but for national security, law professor Anya Bernstein told MintPress news.

"Having irrelevant people on these lists is not something harmless, like receiving a couple of pieces of junk mail that you can throw out", she said. "It actually places us in danger, because the avalanche of irrelevance distracts agents from actual dangers. It's not a couple of pieces of junk mail, it's hundreds of thousands of spam emails cluttering up your inbox, making it hard to spot the important stuff."