The United States is moving to bolster air defenses across the Middle East, notifying Congress of more than $16.5 billion in potential weapons sales aimed primarily at countering missile and drone threats. The packages include systems for the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan, and range from advanced radar and air defense sensors to counter-drone technology and aircraft munitions, according to several statements released Thursday by the U.S. Department of State. The notifications come as missile and drone attacks have intensified across the Middle East during the war with Iran, putting pressure on air defense systems used to protect U.S. forces and regional allies. The State Department said the secretary of state determined that an emergency justified the immediate sale, allowing the administration to bypass the typical congressional review process under the Arms Export Control Act. Among the proposed sales is a long-range radar for the UAE that is designed to integrate with its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, for $4.5 billion. The UAE package also includes a $2.1 billion fixed-site system designed to counter small drones, as well as $1.22 billion in air-to-air missiles and a $644 million set of F-16 munitions and upgrades to support…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The body of missing University of Alabama student James “Jimmy” Gracey was recovered Thursday in Barcelona, Spain, after a days-long search, authorities confirmed.Police recovered the body at Port Olimpic, a marina just steps from the waterfront nightclub where Gracey was last seen.A spokesperson for Mossos d’Esquadra said the remains recovered at Port Olimpic have been identified as belonging to the 20-year-old junior, who was last seen early Tuesday morning at the waterfront Shoko nightclub.Gracey, of Elmhurst, Illinois, disappeared around 3 a.m. after visiting the Shoko restaurant and nightclub.AUTOPSY REVEALS WISCONSIN GRAD SCHOOL STUDENT’S CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER SHE DISAPPEARED WALKING HOME FROM BAR “He was with friends, but they got separated at the end of the night,” his mother, Therese Gracey, said. Gracey never made it back to the Airbnb he had rented with friends, his family said.Divers were seen entering the water with a stretcher at around 7:05 p.m. local time and returned to the dock with a body bag 10 minutes later.LONG ISLAND TEEN WHO VANISHED AFTER TRIP TO NYC FOUND DEAD IN BROOKLYN WATERS The discovery came after a search that included helicopters, boats, dive teams and motorcycle units,…

A pair of U.S. Navy counter-mine vessels that are homeported in Bahrain arrived in Singapore this week, according to a U.S. Fifth Fleet spokesperson.The Independence-class littoral combat ships USS Santa Barbara and USS Tulsa entered the U.S. Seventh Fleet area of responsibility earlier in the week, the spokesperson said, stopping first in Malaysia for a port call.Each ship is equipped with a mine countermeasures mission package designed to detect and destroy naval mines.“Tulsa and Santa Barbara are conducting scheduled maintenance and logistics stop in Singapore,” the spokesperson said. The two nations, according to the spokesperson, have an agreement to allow littoral combat ships to operate primarily from Singapore as a logistics and maintenance hub.As of Monday, the USS Canberra, the other Bahrain-based LCS with a mine countermeasures package, was in the Indian Ocean, parts of which are in the U.S. Fifth Fleet area of responsibility.RELATEDThe U.S. Navy previously deployed four Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships in the Middle East, but they were decommissioned in 2025 after each serving for over 30 years.Those minesweepers are made of wood and fiberglass and possess a nonmagnetic signature and low acoustic footprint that allows them to operate inside and near a mine zone. The vessels…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Five Mexican nationals were indicted on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges this week after authorities discovered a clandestine methamphetamine lab in Northern California, leading to the seizure of nearly 3,000 pounds of the drug, officials said.The Department of Justice said a federal grand jury returned a 10-count indictment Thursday against Luis Reyna Carrillo, 33, Mariana Vanessa Mendoza Camacho, 33, Juan Jesus Manriquez Diaz, 31, Alvaro Rosales, 44, and Manuel Juan Madrid Perez, 38, charging them with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, along with multiple drug trafficking and firearms offenses.”These illegal aliens allegedly operated a secret lab on American soil producing thousands of pounds of deadly drugs to poison our communities,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. “This clandestine and illegal operation has now been dismantled – we will continue protecting Americans from the dangerous results of the prior administration’s open-border policies.”Carrillo and his wife, Camacho, came to the U.S. in March 2021 and were given a notice to appear in court at a later date. Diaz was removed from the U.S. in 2018, while Rosales was removed in 2024.FEDERAL AGENTS ARREST 12 ALLEGED MEMBERS OF LA’S MASSIVE 18TH STREET GANG DRUG…

Pentagon staffers, former officials and IT contractors who work closely with the U.S. military say they are reluctant to give up Anthropic’s AI tools, which they view as superior to alternatives, despite orders to remove them. After a dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon over guardrails for how the military could use its artificial intelligence tools, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated the company a supply-chain risk on March 3, barring its use by the Pentagon and its contractors following a six-month phase-out.RELATEDBut the move is running into resistance, with some military users dragging their feet and others preparing to revert to Anthropic’s platform in anticipation of the dispute being resolved.“Career IT people at DOD hate this move because they had finally gotten operators comfortable using AI,” said one IT contractor. “They think it’s stupid.” The contractor said Anthropic’s Claude AI model “is the best,” while xAI’s Grok often produced inconsistent answers to the same query. Recertifying systems could take monthsThe complaints suggest uprooting Anthropic from the Pentagon’s networks will be neither quick nor painless. One contractor said recertifying systems that run on Anthropic’s products for military use could take months.Some Pentagon officials, staff and contractors spoke anonymously because they were…

Perhaps you’ve heard of The $64 Tomato by William Alexander. In it, he shares the details of just how expensive gardening can be when you are trying to create the perfect garden with the ideal produce. However, the problem is that this kind of gardening isn’t sustainable. It isn’t enough to get you through any type of crisis, it won’t really feed your family, and it isn’t sustainable gardening. But don’t worry, there’s a solution for that!  In this article, we’re going to give you plenty of ways to garden frugally and save money. Gardening frugally is about spending as little money as possible while maximizing as much yield as possible. Growing healthy, productive plants for less money is the goal of a frugal gardener.  Want to save this post for later? Click Here to Pin It On Pinterest! Choose The Right Plants Don’t fight your hardiness zone and climate Instead, choose plants that will do well in your hardiness zone, climate, and type of soil. Otherwise, it will be too hard for them to grow, and they’ll be more likely to die and need to be replaced. You can find your hardiness zone here. Then, try purchasing plants from the…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Venezuela defeated Team USA, 3-2, in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) final Tuesday, and the game was historic in more ways than one.Venezuela won its first-ever WBC title, and players flooded the field with emotion and pride as they celebrated the thrilling victory. History was also made during the telecast when 10,784,000 viewers watched the final on FOX and FOX Deportes. It became the most-watched WBC telecast of all time.  The telecast averaged 10,228,000 viewers, while hitting its peak at 12,148,000 from 10:30-10:45 p.m. ET on FOX. This number was up 128% from the Team USA-Japan WBC final on FS1 during the 2023 tournament, when Shohei Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to seal a third WBC win for his country. TRUMP RAISES EYEBROWS WITH ‘STATEHOOD’ COMMENT AFTER VENEZUELA BEATS THE US IN WORLD BASEBALL CLASSICWhile this game had all the thrills, the WBC turned out to be an exciting tournament from the very start with pool play. Whether it was feel-good stories like Ondřej Satoria’s standing ovation from Japanese fans at the Tokyo Dome during his final outing for Czechia or Italy’s espresso machine home run celebration, viewers from all over were tuning in to watch magic…

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) — Anduril Industries will begin building its new Fury, “loyal wingman,” high-speed combat drones in the coming days at a new facility in Ohio, as the U.S. military’s interest in unmanned aircraft surges following battlefield successes in Ukraine and Iran. Amid cornfields and horse farms 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Columbus, Ohio, the defense tech start-up is expecting its $1 billion Arsenal-1 autonomous systems manufacturing campus to employ more than 4,000 people over the next decade, starting with roughly 250 by the end of this year, officials said on Thursday.Anduril is one of a new but growing group of small defense firms hoping to win lucrative Pentagon contracts for next-generation weapons. The Trump administration hopes the newer firms will help upend weapons manufacturing by delivering cutting-edge technology more quickly and at a lower cost.Matt Grimm, Anduril’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said its approach to manufacturing differs fundamentally from traditional defense contractors.Rather than designing products first and worrying about production later, the company bakes manufacturability in from Day 1 — choosing commercial materials such as aluminum over titanium, using composite techniques borrowed from the recreational boat industry and selecting a commercial business jet engine for the…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Denmark prepared to sabotage Greenland’s airstrips using explosives and flew in blood supplies amid fears of a potential U.S. invasion earlier this year, according to a new report by Danish public broadcaster DR.The measures were said to be part of a contingency plan that included deploying troops to the island in January with explosives for possible runway demolition, aimed at preventing U.S. aircraft from landing, EuroNews said.The measures were outlined in a Danish military operations order dated Jan. 13, which DR said it had reviewed.RUSSIA, CHINA SQUEEZE US ARCTIC DEFENSE ZONE AS TRUMP EYES GREENLAND The preparations came as tensions escalated over President Donald Trump’s statement that the U.S. should control Greenland for national security reasons.Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen repeatedly rejected Trump’s demands to acquire the island.DR said it based its report on 12 sources within the highest levels of the Danish government and military, as well as sources among Denmark’s allies in France and Germany, the BBC said.TRUMP’S GREENLAND PUSH DRIVES DANISH PM TO CALL EARLY ELECTION “When Trump says all the time that he wants to buy Greenland … we had to take…

The U.S. Army used Apache helicopters to shoot down drones in air-to-air combat in Europe for the first time during an exercise in Germany this week.During Operation Skyfall held at Grafenwoehr Training Area, soldiers of the 2-159th Attack Battalion, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, used the Boeing AH-64E Apache to pursue and attack Unmanned Aircraft Systems. It is not the first time that the Army has ever practiced using Apaches against drones. In December, the service held an air-to-air combat training exercise in Yuma, Arizona, that saw the Apaches destroy a a variety of drones in flight using a 30mm fragmentation round called the APEX.The exercise in Germany, however, marks the first time that the U.S. Army has wielded Apaches for this purpose in Europe. It is a significant move due to the relevance of anti-drone training for NATO allies.Soldiers of the 12th CAB train regularly alongside British, Dutch and Polish NATO forces. They remain in Germany as “a tactical necessity,” the service said in a statement last month. Operation Skyfall is aimed to advance NATO’s Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative, or EFDI, to protect countries in Eastern Europe from incursions. The Apache has proved well-suited to chasing and killing drones as…