WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) — The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, deployed in operations against Iran, is expected to temporarily pull into port after a fire on board, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, the 18th day of the war with Tehran.The carrier, America’s newest and the world’s largest, is currently located in the Red Sea. It is expected to temporarily go to Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete, the two officials said.The warship has been deployed for nine months, including taking part in operations against Venezuela in the Caribbean prior to arriving in the Middle East. The length of the deployment has raised questions about morale of the sailors on board and the readiness of the warship.The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not say how long the Ford was expected to remain in Crete. One of the officials said nearly 200 sailors were treated for smoke-related injuries when the fire broke out in the ship’s main laundry area. The fire took hours to bring under control and had an impact on roughly 100 sleeping berths.One service member was flown off the ship for injuries, the official said. The New York Times first…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that U.S. sanctions on Cuba are tied to political change on the island, as the country faces widespread blackouts, unrest and a worsening economic crisis.”Suffice it to say that the embargo is tied to political change on the island,” Rubio told reporters at the White House. “The law, it’s been codified. And, but the bottom line is their economy doesn’t work. It’s a nonfunctional economy. It’s an economy that has survived.… That thing they have, has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don’t get subsidies anymore. So they’re in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge of them don’t know how to fix it. So they have to get new people in charge.”Rubio’s comments come as Cuba faces a deepening energy crisis that has fueled protests and instability. A nationwide power grid collapse left roughly 10 million people without electricity, according to U.S. Embassy statements and Cuban authorities.PROTESTERS TORCH COMMUNIST PARTY HQ IN CUBA AS VIDEO APPEARS TO CAPTURE GUNFIRE President Donald Trump indicated his administration is actively engaged. “Cuba right now is in very bad shape. They’re talking…

As missile and drone attacks intensify across the Middle East, U.S. forces are leaning heavily on air defense systems like the Patriot missile battery to intercept incoming threats. The Patriot system is widely used to defend against incoming missiles and drones using radar and interceptor missiles — such as the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, or PAC-3, interceptor — to engage incoming threats. The system has become a key tool for protecting bases and infrastructure from aerial attacks, but at a high cost. PAC-3 interceptor missiles cost millions of dollars each, making them especially expensive when used against cheaper threats like drones. The tradeoff has put new focus on how the system is used in practice. Here’s how it works from detection to interception. DetectionA radar sweeps the sky, scanning for anything out of place. Within a Patriot battery, that radar is designed to track aircraft, missiles and drones across a wide swath of the horizon to build a picture of the airspace in real time. When an object appears in the airspace, the system locks in and begins calculating its speed, altitude and trajectory as it moves. Using that data, the system works to identify the object and discern if it…

Compact self-defense is the name of the game with the latest blade out of TOPS Knives’s Idaho Falls workshop. The Upswarm‘s unique blade shape actually emerged from a sharpening test. TOPS is a company well-known for tapping into the knifemaking talent of its entire team, not just the folks with “designer” in their job description. Case in point, the Upswarm is the brainchild of Eric Moony, who is a grinder at TOPS. Evidently Mooney was inspired by the way paper used in cutting tests would curl after being sliced to draw up a compact trailing point blade with a significant amount of curve relative to its 3-inch length. The half ring functions like a karambit finger ring in many ways. The design screams “tactical,” and in fact the Upswarm is one of those TOPS models that can be ordered with a sharpened swedge if your locale permits the ownership of such pieces. Blade steel is 1095 carbon steel – the flagship workhorse recipe over at TOPS HQ, with a long, long history of reliability attested to by many different makers. It’s offered here with either a full DLC coating, or a camo finish for those truly dedicated to the tactical…

An unidentified outbreak, likely bacterial, has killed two people and sickened 11 others in the United Kingdom. One student who died was a University of Kent student. The outbreak is thought to be linked to a party held in Canterbury that some of the students who became sick attended, according to the BBC. Multiple invasive meningococcal disease cases near the school were reported to the U.K. health officials. As of Sunday, two of the individuals have died. One of them was a student, a university spokesperson confirmed to PEOPLE. From Friday, March 13th, to Sunday, March 15th, 13 different cases of individuals with “signs and symptoms of meningitis and septicemia” at the University of Kent were reported to the U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the organization said in a statement shared with PEOPLE. A spokesperson for the University of Kent told PEOPLE on Sunday, “We are deeply saddened to confirm that one student from the University of Kent has died following a case of invasive meningitis. Our thoughts are with the student’s family, friends and the wider university community at this extremely difficult time.” The spokesperson continued, “The safety of our students and staff remains our highest priority. We are working…

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NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! Former San Jose State University volleyball star Brooke Slusser has been banned from TikTok after posting several videos discussing her alleged experience sharing a team and apartment with a transgender teammate. “I’m pretty mad about it,” Slusser told Fox News Digital. Slusser’s account is gone from the platform, and she has provided screenshots to Fox News Digital showing the notification of her banishment and an unsuccessful appeal. The notifications cite violations of “community guidelines.””We ask that all users follow our Community Guidelines to help us maintain a safe, respectful TikTok community,” the notification read.  Fox News Digital has reached out to TikTok for comment. TikTok previously banned the activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics, which Slusser is signed with, after it posted an advertisement video advocating for the protection of women and girls’ sports from biological male trans athletes.TikTok was previously owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, before finalizing a $14 billion deal to shift its U.S. operations to a new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, to avoid a federal ban. However, ByteDance still owns approximately 20% of the company. Slusser has been the target of a viral left-wing hate campaign on TikTok and X over…

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) — The war on Iran has not delayed shipments of weapons to Taiwan or changed U.S. policy toward the island, officials from President Donald Trump’s administration told members of Congress on Tuesday, despite the demands of the intense air campaign.“Have we delayed moving things to Taiwan? We haven’t,” Stanley Brown, principal deputy assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.The U.S. and Israel began airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28, a campaign that has raised concerns among some U.S. officials that the U.S. defense industry would be unable to keep up with demand and could be forced to slow shipments to buyers such as Taiwan, which faces steadily rising military pressure from China.There was already a multi-billion-dollar backlog of U.S. arms shipments to Taiwan before the Iran war started. Brown said the administration was looking at ways to expedite shipments, without providing specifics.Trip to China postponedSeveral members of the House committee raised concerns about the island during the hearing, which took place on the day Trump said he was postponing a highly anticipated trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.Taiwan was one of the issues…

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! A former top advisor to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was ousted amid a high-profile leak investigation, has been hired to work under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, according to a source familiar with the move.Dan Caldwell’s return to a sensitive intelligence role comes less than a year after he was publicly accused of leaking classified information — allegations that have never been publicly substantiated — and as the Trump administration navigates an escalating war with Iran. The hiring also places a prominent advocate of a more restrained U.S. foreign policy inside the intelligence apparatus at a moment of growing internal tension. PENTAGON PROBE INTO SECRET SIGNAL CHATS ON HOUTHI STRIKES SET TO DROP THURSDAY AS HEGSETH FACES SCRUTINYEarlier Tuesday, National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent resigned, citing opposition to the Iran war and arguing Tehran, Iran, did not pose an imminent threat to the United States — a rare public break from within the administration.A source familiar with the move described Caldwell’s new position as an “administrative role,” focused on internal management and coordination rather than directly shaping intelligence assessments or national security policy. However, the Office of the Director of National…

The U.S. Navy is taking steps toward remedying ongoing maintenance delays by enlisting the help of artificial intelligence and robotic systems, the service announced. The sea service reached an agreement with the Pittsburgh-based Gecko Robotics, the company confirmed Tuesday, to deploy tech capable of streamlining repairs and reducing maintenance delays for a surface fleet that continues to be stretched thin.The contract will begin as a 5-year, $54 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity deal that will soon see Gecko begin work on 18 ships assigned to the Navy’s U.S. Pacific Fleet. To expedite what has in recent years become a headache for naval readiness, Gecko uses drones, wall-climbing robots and fixed sensors to gather data on components, decks, welds and hulls. That information, paired with AI tools, is used to identify current and potential structural issues that may remain hidden to the naked eye. “A single robotic evaluation and digital rendering of a flight deck eliminated over three months of potential maintenance delay days,” the company release stated about one such procedure. These measures have expedited maintenance “up to 50 times faster and more accurately than manual methods,” the company added. “Readiness isn’t just a metric, it’s all that matters,” Jake…