NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The NCAA has been a bit of a mess as of late.Between players getting popped for sports betting scandals and guys in their mid-20s eschewing both the professional ranks and the workforce to stay in college, Van Wilder style, it’s hard not to be black-pilled about the current state of college sports. Speaking of which, we saw yet another case of a college basketball team tapping into the pro ranks to land a player, as the LSU Tigers and head coach Will Wade signed G League guard RJ Luis Jr. earlier on Tuesday.Luis comes to the Tigers by way of the Maine Celtics, the G League affiliate of the Boston Celtics, and was previously undrafted out of St. John’s, where he won Big East Player of the Year a season prior.FORMER NBA PLAYER AND EX-UCLA STAR EYES RETURN TO COLLEGE BASKETBALL AMID NCAA SCRUTINY: ‘WHY NOT ME?’To give LSU even a shred of benefit of the doubt here, the Tigers didn’t sign Luis in the middle of the season fresh off a G League roster to try and bolster a tournament, so this isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison to the infamous Charles…

The Trump administration is considering a military escalation to break the diplomatic impasse with Iran, despite having formally notified Congress that Operation Epic Fury has been terminated. Adm. Brad Cooper, the chief of U.S. Central Command, said on Tuesday that American forces in the Middle East remain deeply entrenched in the region and are at the highest level of readiness. “I am prepared to execute a broad range of contingencies,” Cooper testified before the House Armed Services Committee. “We’re prepared for further direction depending on how negotiations go.”In the meantime, Cooper told lawmakers that CENTCOM will maintain its blockade on all vessels entering of leaving Iranian ports — a posture that has led the military to redirect a reported 88 commercial vessels since it went into effect on April 13. The United States said it had also disabled four boats “to ensure total compliance.” Washington and Tehran are deadlocked over how to resolve their nearly three-month conflict, with no discernible path toward a peace deal. The talks have foundered over the specifics of Iran’s nuclear program and access to the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed since the beginning of the war. In ordinary conditions, the strait accounts…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! MS NOW host Katy Tur was called out for a question she posed to guests on her show Monday about House Speaker Mike Johnson putting “God over the Declaration of Independence.””What about this passage from Mike Johnson declaring that our rights do not derive from government, they come from you, our Creator and heavenly father. Is this him putting God over the Declaration of Independence?” Tur asked during her MS NOW show.The clip went viral on social media, as Johnson and others were quick to call it out.”Wow. Newsflash to MS Now: The 2nd paragraph of the Declaration literally proclaims the self-evident truth that our rights come from our Creator,” Johnson wrote in response to the viral clip.KAINE SPARKS BACKLASH AFTER CALLING DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE’S GOD-GIVEN RIGHTS ‘EXTREMELY TROUBLING’Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called out the MS NOW host on X, quoting the most famous line from the Declaration. “How can @KatyTurNBC & MSDNC be so historically ignorant? The Speaker is not putting God ABOVE the Declaration — he is literally QUOTING FROM the Declaration: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by…

During the Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing today, Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, announced that the MQ-25A Stingray is now moving into the low-rate initial production and deployment phase.Boeing’s MQ-25A is the first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft and as the Stingray enters the force, it is intended to relieve the Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornets of their aerial refueling role. “Integrating unmanned refueling extends the lethality of our Carrier Strike Groups and equips our force with a decisive advantage to fight and win against any adversary,” Cao wrote in a post on X. The Stingray has reached milestone C, which in the defense acquisition process, authorizes a program to transition from the Engineering and Manufacturing Development (EMD) phase into production and deployment — a process that in this instance has been nearly eight years in the making.Inked in 2018, the $805 million Boeing-Navy contract covered the design, development, fabrication, test and delivery of four Stingray aircraft, a program that the service expects will cost about $13 billion for 72 aircraft, according to previous Military Times coverage. Despite its first test flight running a year later than previously planned, on April 25 the Stingray inched closer to operability when it…

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! The commander of U.S. Africa Command warned lawmakers that Africa has become Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “purse” for fueling the war in Ukraine, as a shrinking American military footprint leaves the U.S. facing an “intelligence black hole” across the continent.Gen. Dagvin Anderson told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday that Russia, China and terrorist groups are rapidly expanding their influence in Africa while the U.S. and allied drawdowns have weakened America’s ability to monitor emerging threats. Anderson warned that Africa has become the “epicenter of global terrorism,” with ISIS leadership now concentrated on the continent and al Qaeda affiliates threatening to seize territory and destabilize governments.”With a 75% reduction in our regional posture over the past decade, compounded by the drawdown of our allies, we struggle with an intelligence black hole,” Anderson said. “You cannot surge trust,” he added, arguing that reduced U.S. presence has damaged long-term relationships and crisis response capabilities across the continent.NIGER FALLOUT UNDER BIDEN LEAVES US TROOPS ‘BLIND’ IN BATTLE WITH TERROR GROUPSAnderson’s testimony painted a picture of adversarial powers and extremist groups exploiting the same instability and governance vacuums across parts of the continent.”Africa also serves as Putin’s…

PARIS — Europe should “absolutely” expect additional United States troop withdrawals in the future as European NATO allies strengthen their capability to provide more of their own conventional defense, according to the U.S. general who is the alliance’s top military commander for the region.The redeployment of U.S. troops from Europe will be an ongoing process for several years, even if there’s no exact timeline, Supreme Allied Commander Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said in a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday, following a meeting of NATO military chiefs. “What we’re basically saying is, as the European pillar of the alliance gets stronger, this allows the U.S. to reduce its presence in Europe and limit itself to providing only those critical capabilities that allies cannot yet provide,” Grynkewich said. “So we should expect there to be a redeployment of U.S. forces over time as allies build their capacity.”The remark comes as Polish government leaders expressed concern about the Pentagon abruptly canceling a planned rotation of an armored brigade combat team of more than 4,000 soldiers to the country on NATO’s eastern flank.The military chiefs discussed the U.S. decision to redeploy the armored brigade combat team, which Grynkewich said doesn’t impact what he…

The World Health Organization has declared a “global health emergency” after an Ebola outbreak surfaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). So far, there are at least eight confirmed cases, 246 suspected infections, and 80 suspected deaths reported in DRC, along with two additional cases in Uganda. Red Cross volunteers have already been going door-to-door to share health information. They are also helping to identify suspected cases, support contact tracing, and combat misinformation surrounding the outbreak. The DRC and Uganda confirmed their first Ebola cases on Friday. On the same day, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) stated that 13 out of 20 tested samples had returned positive for the virus. The WHO warned that the outbreak could already be spreading beyond what surveillance systems are catching, while stopping short of labeling the situation a “pandemic emergency.” According to WHO data, at least eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases, and 80 suspected deaths have been recorded in DR Congo’s eastern Ituri Province, while Uganda confirmed two imported cases in Kampala. Both patients in Uganda had recently traveled from the DR Congo and were admitted to intensive care units. –RT Health officials familiar with the outbreak stated…

Baseball is a game of rules. Written rules, unwritten rules, you name it.It seems like there are so many rules in the game of baseball it can be tough to remember them all, unless, of course, it’s your job to know those rules like the back of your hand.Speaking of which, the New York Mets and Washington Nationals had a wacky game on Monday night, with the Mets notching 10 runs in the top of the 12th inning to win by an absurd 16-7 score in extras.BRAVES, REDS COMBINE FOR HISTORIC 16-RUN 8TH INNING IN WILD GAME It was the most runs scored in an extra inning in over 40 years, but that might not have even been the craziest part of the game.During that onslaught of offense, the Nationals decided they were tired of watching their pitcher getting shellacked and called in a position player to take the rubber.The umpires looked like they were ready to lay down the law since the Mets were up by less than the requisite eight-run lead needed for the losing team to put a position player on the mound, but there was just one problem: the eight run rule doesn’t apply to extra…

For the past 10 days, naval aviators across six squadrons attached to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and carried out the time-honored tradition of field carrier landing practice — on Iwo Jima. Since 1991, Iwo Jima, known today in Japan as Iwo To, has been the practice site of “touch-and-go” landings for pilots looking to hone their skills and for those seeking to be qualified for carrier landings.Naval aviators must complete a minimum number of repetitive touch-and-go landings at airfields, which simulate landing on an aircraft carrier. “FCLP is required flight training that precedes carrier landing operations and simulates, as near as practicable, the conditions encountered during carrier landing operations,” according to the Navy.F/A-18 Super Hornet pilots with Carrier Air Wing 5, based at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, near Hiroshima, took to the skies — and briefly the land — to polish their skills over the past week prior to the USS George Washington setting off on its annual patrol on May 10.The George Washington is the sixth Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and serves as the nation’s only premier aircraft carrier forward-deployed to Japan, according to the Navy.During FCLPs, senior pilots typically fly a minimum of six sorties…