The U.S. Air Force’s fighter fleet is nearly 50 aircraft short of the number required by Congress, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report that outlines questions lawmakers face as the service plans its future fighter force.The fighter fleet inventory currently falls short of the statutory requirement of 1,145 fighters, with 1,098 aircraft currently in the fleet. The service also operates an aging and “heavily used” fleet, with aircraft averaging 27.4 years old, according to the report. The authors highlighted that the fighter inventory may continue to decline until 2030 before it begins to grow again. Although Congress has always reserved the authority to weigh in on the force’s fleet size and composition, issues with sustainment, personnel and training — identified by the service in a 2025 report to lawmakers — spurred different considerations on its fighter force structure to account for capabilities and readiness.“USAF’s proposed fighter force structure plan raises potential issues for Congress regarding the size, capability, affordability, and feasibility of achieving planned inventory levels,” the report reads.As the aircraft inventory was expected to fall below the mandated minimum, the Department of the Air Force’s 2025 report proposed using Combat-Coded Total Aircraft Inventory (CC TAI) rather than…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Chris Rock this week said that Hollywood exposes a dark “underbelly” in Los Angeles that people want to pretend doesn’t exist.”L.A. is a complicated place, man,” the comedian said in an interview with Variety that was published on Tuesday. “Fame’s a complicated thing. I’ve seen the switch in my lifetime.”The 61-year-old said that people who came to Hollywood used to want to be “great — a great singer, great actor, great comedian. Now it’s just fame, and the greatness is almost assumed.”HOLLY MADISON SAYS PLAYBOY MANSION FELT LIKE A ‘SAFE HARBOR’ AFTER SHE ENCOUNTERED HOLLYWOOD’S DARK SIDE “I mean, you’re always gonna be outed at some point if you don’t have the goods,” he continued. “But L.A. is the mecca of that. It can be beautiful. It’s got the best weather in the world. But it also attracts an underbelly that people want to pretend doesn’t exist.”Rock said he has a home in both New York and Los Angeles, adding that loves “parts” of the West Coast city.The comedian jokes that he “winters” in California.”It can be beautiful. It’s got the best weather in the world. But it also attracts an underbelly…

A Georgia naval base agreed to revise its social media policy as part of a settlement with a military spouse who sued after officials blocked him from the base’s Facebook page over comments questioning its handling of a power outage.In the agreement filed last month, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay agreed to no longer block or remove comments based on their expressed viewpoints, which aligns its policy with the Navy’s social media handbook.While there was no monetary award, the base agreed to admit that it violated the Navy’s policy and the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Officials also had to update the base’s social media pages to state that comments by the general public “will not be banned or blocked” because of their opinions.In a statement, Michelle Scott, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, or CIR, which filed the case, said plaintiff Sergio Rodriguez asked the kinds of questions anyone would ask during a long power outage.“The Navy doesn’t get to open a comment section, invite the public, and then delete anyone who asks an inconvenient question,” Scott said. “This settlement makes clear that the government can’t silence its critics with the click of a button.”In July, a CIR plaintiff…

A bug out location is not a campsite. It’s somewhere you may need to live, defend, and feed your family for weeks, months, or longer. That means the land itself has to work in your favor. Some regions have short growing seasons, brutal winters, or almost no surface water. Others are packed with people, hostile to gun owners, or so expensive to own that most preppers could never afford to hold the land in the first place. A spot that looks perfect on a map can turn into a liability once the grid goes down. This is exactly why you should choose your location ahead of time rather than in the middle of a crisis. Buying land, learning the terrain, building relationships with neighbors, and getting a garden established all take years, not days. By the time you actually need your retreat, the work should already be done. Picking the right state is the first and most important step in that process. To narrow down the field, it helps to score states against factors that actually determine how survivable a piece of land is. The list below was built by weighing population density, concealed and open carry laws, overall tax…

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Baker Mayfield wasn’t doing a new contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers once training camp began – until he did.He was headed to free agency after this season – until he wasn’t.Funny how money has a way of changing things from one month to the next in the NFL.PATRICK MAHOMES LEAPS PAST DAK PRESCOTT AS NFL’S HIGHEST-PAID QB WITH RECORD CHIEFS EXTENSION WORTH $504.75MMayfield has agreed to a three-year contract extension with the Bucs worth $165 million, OutKick has confirmed. The Bucs confirmed Mayfield isn’t going anywhere.The $55 million the quarterback will get on an annual average basis ties Mayfield with Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence and Matthew Stafford as the league’s third-highest paid QBs. Whether you think Mayfield should be in the same salary stratosphere as Burrow, Allen and last year’s MVP is not the point.The Bucs think so.They moved much closer to Mayfield’s negotiating position in the past week or so and that’s the reason they’ve locked up the player who has thrown 95 TD passes in 51 starts for them.A reminder: This wasn’t initially headed in this direction. The Bucs and their starting quarterback were at odds when training camp opened in July. The…

Advocacy groups joined together to continue a push to halt President Donald Trump’s plans to construct an arch that would obstruct the ability to view Arlington National Cemetery.VoteVets, a Democratic veterans group, was joined by Home of the Brave, a political advocacy group, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit focused on landscape heritage, in an effort to halt the build of the planned arch as the anticipated date of construction nears. Last week, it was announced on social media that construction would soon begin for the arch, which would be 250 feet tall and sit at Memorial Circle on Columbia Island between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.The groups released a new video Tuesday, saying that breaking the sightline from the Lincoln Memorial to the cemetery is “entirely inappropriate and borders on sacrilege” to the 400,000 service members buried there. “This proposal by this administration doesn’t bear well with me,” Karen Meredith, the Gold Star mother of 1st Lt. Ken Ballard who died in the Iraq War and is buried at Arlington, said in the video. “There will be an observation deck. We don’t need tourists overlooking funerals. I’m just appalled.”Placing that large of an arch, dubbed the…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday denied Missouri’s emergency appeal without comment, leaving in place the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling blocking the state’s revised Republican-backed congressional map from being used in November’s general election. Kavanaugh acted alone and did not refer the application to the full Supreme Court.The decision means Missouri will conduct the general election using its 2022 congressional districts after the state high court ruled the newer map never legally took effect because a voter-backed referendum suspended the law before it could go into effect.This is a developing story. Check back later for updates. Read the full article here

Ukraine is contracting a supply of around 1,000 missiles for U.S.-designed Patriot air-defence systems with the help of allies and through a European Union loan, Kyiv’s defense minister said on Tuesday. Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Yevhenii Khmara also said that the majority of the missiles would only be shipped in the coming years, and called for more urgent aid.In comments posted later by the Defence Ministry, Khmara said Ukraine was asking its Western partners to provide more air defense missiles from their stocks in exchange for improvements in missile performance under contracts signed with Kyiv.He said Ukraine was being hindered by a shortfall of $27 billion in financing for drone supplies.RELATEDThe ministry’s summary of the meeting said Khmara had presented a plan for Ukraine’s conduct of the war that was already being implemented along with a list of what Kyiv considered to be the biggest threats posed by Moscow.Khmara said Russia was making no strategic gains along the 1,200-km (750-mile) front line, but Moscow was making up for its battlefield failures with “terror against Ukrainians.”Russia resumed its near-constant drone and missile attacks on Kyiv on Tuesday after a brief halt for the visit of…

Whether you spend long days sitting at a desk, are taking a lengthy flight or, conversely, are on your feet for hours at a time, compression socks may help improve circulation and ease swelling, pain and that heavy feeling in your legs.We spoke with experts to find out how compression socks work and which brands are worth trying. Sigvaris, Sockwell and Nurse Yard topped their lists for comfort, style and compression strength.Why do experts recommend compression socks?Inactivity, sitting or standing all day can cause blood pooling, which leads to swelling and an uncomfortable, heavy feeling in the legs, explains Dr. Anne Sharkey, a board-certified podiatrist based in Austin, Texas. Compression socks work “by applying external pressure to the lower legs,” which helps move blood back to the heart and reduces blood pooling in the legs, feet and ankles, easing aches and fatigue.”Normally, the muscles in the legs pump and bring back the blood to the heart,” Dr. Samantha Landau, professor at Touro New York College of Podiatric Medicine, tells us. With age, genetics, too much pressure on the legs or lack of activity, the valves can weaken. According to Dr. Landau, compression socks help relieve pain and can lower the risk of…