Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Tuesday in the Pentagon that vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz currently have access to a secure lane, as the U.S. seeks to restore freedom of navigation through the embattled sea passage.The guarantee comes a day after U.S. Naval Forces Central Command issued a security warning regarding maritime explosive devices to vessels passing through the strait.“Transit via or in close proximity to the traffic separation scheme should be considered extremely hazardous due the presence of mines that have not been fully surveyed and mitigated,” a memo with the warning read.The U.S. instructed vessels to travel through an enhanced security area south of the traffic separation scheme in Oman territorial waters and coordinate with Oman authorities to ensure safe passage amid anticipated heavy traffic.The traffic separation scheme refers to two lanes in the Strait of Hormuz that were previously deemed safe.“Any follow-on effort if there are mines identified, would be something that some of our units could undertake or the world could undertake,” Hegseth said. “But right now we know we have a lane of safe passage that commercial shipping can flow through.”Iranian naval mines have proven a constant threat throughout the Iran war.RELATEDWhile the…

United States ruler Donald Trump is struggling to win over the American civilians. His disapproval rating is now at an all-time high of 62%. In a survey published by the Washington Post on Monday, most Americans are dissatisfied with Trump’s job performance, while his approval stands at just 37%. Trump has repeatedly attacked the outlet, accusing it of publishing “fake” news stories. However, with the War Department’s push toward Christian nationalism, many Americans are feeling like they are sliding into tyranny. Christian Nationalist Pete Hegseth Pushes Religion In The Military Opposition to the Iran war is a key factor in Trump’s declining popularity. A whopping 66% are disapproving of his handling of the conflict. His weakest ratings are on the economy, with 76% disapproving of the cost of living, 72% disapproving of inflation, and 65% disapproving overall. While nothing was mentioned about the cost of fuel specifically, that is likely to also cause some issues with regard to Trump’s ratings. Americans are struggling to make ends meet, while the current ruler decides to start a war, which massively impacts the costs of gasoline and diesel. Of course, that wasn’t going to bode well for his ratings. But, to be fair, he…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Since her appointment by President Joe Biden, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has quickly developed a radical and chilling jurisprudence. Her frequent sole dissents and accusatory rhetoric have drawn not just the ire of her conservative colleagues but also that of her liberal colleagues. This week, that tension deepened with a stinging rebuke from Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.At issue is the finalization of the court’s opinion in Louisiana v. Callais, where the court ruled 6-3 to bar racial gerrymandering. The court reaffirmed the use of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to ban intentional racial discrimination in the design of voting districts but effectively found many districts to be unconstitutional in their current form.There is no reason why the decision should not be finalized except for a blatantly partisan effort to protect Democrats from losing seats in the midterm elections. After all, if these districts are unconstitutional, why shouldn’t states guarantee that voters are given representatives chosen free of racially discriminatory preferences?That question is even more confusing given the long wait for this opinion. Not only was the case reargued, but there were…

Aurora, Colo. — An increasingly contested global order is pushing demand for commercially-generated intelligence, but NATO needs to replace outdated policies to share that intelligence quickly and without barriers, said Maj. Gen. Paul Lynch, a British Royal Marine and NATO leader.Currently, the 32 countries that make up the alliance share commercial data through exceptions and workarounds, said Lynch, NATO deputy assistant secretary general for intelligence. NATO needs new data-use policies, security classification guides, contract frameworks and releasability rules — “unglamorous work” that would have a big impact on military decision-making, he said.“This past year has made one thing crystal clear: The security environment remains contested, and the advantage belong to those who combine unity of purpose with the speed of action,” Lynch said Monday at the annual GEOINT Symposium, hosted by the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.The symposium attracted companies, many of the U.S. military vendors, that among other things track Russian military activity in the Bering Strait, monitor China’s military exercises and last year provided the technology to determine the extent of the damage to Iranian nuclear facilities following Operation Midnight Hammer.Lynch urged the intelligence professionals present Monday to help NATO update its framework for data-sharing.Governing commercial intelligence becomes “significantly…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A new U.S.-backed proposal to build a network of overland energy pipelines bypassing the Strait of Hormuz is gaining attention as tensions in the region expose a critical vulnerability in the global energy system.A policy memo reviewed by Fox News Digital outlines the concept, known as “ARAM Express,” a proposed consortium between the United States and Gulf partners to develop a multidirectional overland network for oil, gas and petrochemicals, originating with Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.The plan envisions pipelines extending westward to the Red Sea and Mediterranean, as well as southern routes toward the Arabian Sea, creating multiple export pathways that would reduce reliance on the strait, through which roughly one-third of the world’s seaborne oil currently flows.TRUMP OPENS HORMUZ UNDER FIRE WITH ‘PROJECT FREEDOM’ AS IRAN WARNS OF ATTACKS The proposal would rely on broad international participation, with European and Asian buyers investing in infrastructure and securing long-term supply agreements.”European buyers are desperate for long-term supply resilience, and Asian customers are equally exposed,” Goldberg said. “Even China cannot tolerate the risk of a sustained disruption.”The push comes as Iran’s threats to commercial shipping and ongoing U.S. efforts…

Conducted from March 19 to April 19, 1967, Operation Prairie III was one of a series of movements by the 3rd Marine Division aimed at engaging and eliminating the communist units arriving in South Vietnam’s demilitarized zone. Instead of Viet Cong guerrillas, however, the Marines would be meeting soldiers of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), more trained, disciplined and aggressive than the VC had been. Although the Americans had the benefit of complete air superiority and air support, the PAVN usually did the choosing between flight or fight. This often led to a series of battles within battles — small in the overall scheme of things, but anything but minor to the combatants. One of these encounters, fought on March 30, 1967, 5.9 miles northwest of Cam Lo in Quang Tri Province, was named for Capt. Michael Getlin, commander of I Company, 3rd Battalion, 9th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division (Reinforced), famously known as “The Walking Dead.” Known as the Battle of Getlin’s Corner to the participants, that patch of contested real estate is also remembered for an officer who stood out in a field full of valor: 2nd Lt. John P. Bobo.After graduating from Niagara University in 1965, the…

The head of United States Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, told journalists on Monday that the US military “eliminated” a small Iranian naval force in the region. Iranian military officials have already said that the US is lying about these claims. Cooper claimed that the US military sank at least six Iranian boats, boasting of “an enormous amount of capability and firepower concentrated in and around the strait, including AH-64 Apache and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters.” “The US claim regarding the sinking of a number of Iranian combat boats is a lie,” a senior Iranian military official told IRIB news agency, as reported by RT on Monday. US forces claim to have sunk six Iranian naval vessels that were allegedly threatening commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Rival Vessel Passes Through Strait of Hormuz Despite Trump’s Blockade The reported strike was part of Project Freedom, which is an initiative announced by US ruler Donald Trump on Sunday to escort tankers and other vessels that have been stuck in the Strait of Hormuz since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The US and Iran appear to be having a back-and-forth rhetoric competition over who is lying. Our guess is,…

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become one of the Trump administration’s most visible multitaskers, racking up a string of additional titles that have fueled viral memes, and on Tuesday, he is set to add another spotlight role when he takes the podium of the White House press briefing. “As an invaluable member of President Trump’s national security team, Secretary Rubio will provide an update on the humanitarian successes of Project Freedom and other foreign policy priorities,” White House Principal deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital.Tuesday’s press briefing will mark the first since press secretary Karoline Leavitt took maternity leave at the end of April ahead of the birth of her second child. MARCO RUBIO SPOTTED BEHIND DJ BOOTH AT FAMILY WEDDING AS SOCIAL MEDIA REACTS TO VIRAL CLIP While Leavitt is on maternity leave, the White House is planning to have a rotation of Trump admin officials take the podium, such as Vice President JD Vance and even Trump himself.The Secretary has been a robust figure in the Trump administration, holding multiple public-facing official and unofficial titles that have led to a parade of memes on social media. For example, Rubio…

The Defense Department wants to change how it pays for the military health system, splitting the account into two programs to safeguard funds for providing medical care to U.S. service members.The Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget request calls for dividing defense health program funding into two: a Combat Operational and Medical Readiness account, or COMP, and a Private Sector Care Program section, or PSCP.The COMP budget would pay for healthcare and medical readiness of active duty personnel and support military treatment facilities, while the PSCP would cover Tricare, the department’s private health program and other care that is not offered at military hospitals, according to budget documents.The new structure would prevent one program’s costs from affecting the other, ensuring that “essential battlefield medicine and medical force generation is managed alongside other warfighting capabilities,” the budget documents state.“By splitting out the cost of private sector care into its own account, the department is enhancing transparency and accountability, making it easier to track how resources are balanced between military medical platforms and the care through our civilian partners,” Space Force Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney, director of force structure, resources and assessment for the Joint Staff, said during a Pentagon budget briefing April 21.The…