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The Pentagon is seeking USD 200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says. The department sent the request to the White House, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information. It's an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defence Department already received last year in President Donald Trump's big tax cuts bill. Congress is bracing for a new spending request but it is not clear the White House has transmitted the request for consideration. It is unclear the spending request would have support. The new funding request was first reported by The Washington Post. Asked about the figure at a press conference Thursday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not directly confirm the figure, saying it could change. But he said "we're going back to Congress and our folks there to to ensure that we're properly funded". "It takes money to kill bad guys," Hegseth said.
Anthropic's moral stand on US military use of artificial intelligence is reshaping the competition between leading AI companies but also exposing a growing awareness that maybe chatbots just aren't capable enough for acts of war. Anthropic's chatbot Claude, for the first time, outpaced rival ChatGPT in phone app downloads in the United States this week, a signal of growing interest from consumers siding with Anthropic in its standoff with the Pentagon, according to market research firm Sensor Tower. The Trump administration on Friday ordered government agencies to stop using Claude and designated it a supply chain risk after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to bend his company's ethical safeguards preventing the technology from being applied to autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance. Anthropic has said it will challenge the Pentagon in court once it receives formal notice of the penalties. And while many military and human rights experts have applauded Amodei for standi
The Pentagon has released the names of four of the six service members who were killed in the Iran war, saying they died in a drone strike in Kuwait. All four Army Reserve soldiers were killed Sunday when a drone hit a command centre in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait. That was just a day after the US and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran, which launched retaliatory strikes. All were assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command in Des Moines, lowa. Killed were Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota; and Spc. Declan J. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP's earlier story follows below.
A high-stakes dispute over military use of artificial intelligence erupted into public view this week as Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth brusquely terminated the Pentagon's work with Anthropic and other government agencies, using a law designed to counter foreign supply chain threats to slap a scarlet letter on a US company. President Donald Trump and Hegseth accused rising AI star Anthropic of endangering national security after its CEO Dario Amodei refused to back down over concerns the company's products could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones. The San Francisco-based company has vowed to sue over Hegseth's call to designate Anthropic a supply chain risk, an unprecedented move to apply a law intended to counter foreign threats to a US company. Anthropic said it would challenge what it called a legally unsound action "never before publicly applied to an American company." The looming legal battle could have huge implications on the balance of power in Big Te
The Pentagon allowed US Customs and Border Protection to use an anti-drone laser earlier this week, leading the Federal Aviation Administration to suddenly close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, according to two people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. The confusing arc of events began as the FAA announced on Wednesday that it was shutting down all flight traffic over the city on the US-Mexico border for 10 days, stranding some travellers, but the closure ended up only lasting a few hours. The Trump administration said it stemmed from the FAA and Pentagon working to halt an incursion by Mexican cartel drones, which are not uncommon along the southern border. One of the people said the laser was deployed near Fort Bliss without coordinating with the FAA, which decided then to close the airspace to ensure commercial air safety. Others familiar with the matter said the technology was used despite a meeting scheduled for ..
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Monday that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok will join Google's generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network, as part of a broader push to feed as much of the military's data as possible into the developing technology. Very soon we will have the world's leading AI models on every unclassified and classified network throughout our department, Hegseth said in a speech at Musk's space flight company, SpaceX, in South Texas. The announcement comes just days after Grok which is embedded into X, the social media network owned by Musk drew global outcry and scrutiny for generating highly sexualized deepfake images of people without their consent. Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked Grok, while the U.K.'s independent online safety watchdog announced an investigation Monday. Grok has limited image generation and editing to paying users. Hegseth said Grok will go live inside the Defense Department later this month and ...
A Navy admiral told lawmakers Thursday that there was no kill them all order from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth as Congress scrutinises an attack that killed two survivors of an initial strike on an alleged drug boat in international waters near Venezuela. Adm Frank Mitch Bradley "was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all. He was given an order that, of course, was written down in great detail, said Sen Tom Cotton, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, as he exited a classified briefing. Cotton defended the attack, but a Democrat who also was briefed said that while there was no kill them all order from Hegseth, he was still deeply concerned by video of the second strike. What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I've seen in my time in public service, Connecticut Rep Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters. You have two individuals in clear distress without any means of .
The New York Times has filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon, attempting to overturn new rules imposed by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth that have led to most mainstream media outlets being banished from the building. The newspaper said the rules violate the Constitution's freedom of speech and due process provisions, since they give Hegseth the power to determine on his own whether a reporter should be banned. Outlets such as the Times walked out of the Pentagon rather than agree to the rules as a condition for getting a press credential. The Pentagon press room now includes mostly conservative outlets that agreed to the rules, and representatives from those organisations participated Tuesday in a briefing with Hegseth's press secretary. The policy is an attempt to exert control over reporting the government dislikes, said Charles Stadtlander, spokesman for the Times. The newspaper filed the case with the U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday. The Pentagon had no immediate
The Pentagon's watchdog found that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth put US personnel and their mission at risk when he used the Signal messaging app to convey sensitive information about a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen, two people familiar with the findings said Wednesday. Hegseth, however, has the ability to declassify material and the report did not find he did so improperly, according to one of the people familiar with the report's findings who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the information. CNN first reported the initial findings. The review by the Pentagon inspector general's office was delivered to lawmakers, who were able to review the report in a classified facility at the Capitol. A partially redacted version of the report was expected to be released publicly later this week. The findings ramp up the pressure on the former Fox News Channel host after lawmakers had called for the independent inquiry into his use of the commercially available app