The Little League World Series (LLWS) has seen its players go on to play professionally in the MLB and even NFL and NHL. Despite this, only a single player’s number has been retired from the LLWS. Michael Cammarata, who played in the 1991 LLWS, went on to become a New York City firefighter. He was the youngest of the 343 firefighters who were killed on 9/11.
To observe the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks and celebrate Cammarata’s life, ESPN’s E60 released “Living On: The Michael Cammarata Story” at the start of the 2026 LLWS on August 19, 2026.

When Donald Trump got involved in the Iran War in February, coming off the successful intervention in Venezuela, it was almost certainly with the idea that the conflict would end with a quick U.S. victory over a regime long hostile to the United States.

After all, Trump had, in his presidential campaigns, repeatedly vowed to keep the country out of open-ended foreign wars, while implying that his opponents would get into such wars.

President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks at the David S. Mack Center for Training and Intelligence in Garden City, New York, Friday, August 14, 2026.

Military members in jobs deemed to be closest to combat will have to keep up higher scores on their annual fitness tests under new Pentagon rules, though each service will decide on its own what those standards will be.
A memo released Aug. 31 by the Department of Defense will require all “combat arms” troops — jobs whose duties and training are primarily aimed at direct combat — will need to maintain fitness scores of at least   70% in their service-specific fitness tests.
 Notably, the requirement applies to the regular service fitness tests.

Could this be the British Army’s next 4×

Ten years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to put 9/11 in perspective.
September 11, 2001, began as a picturesque day in Manhattan. It ended with nearly 3,000 dead after terrorists plowed hijacked planes into both towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The death toll would have been higher if not for the heroes on United Airlines Flight 93 who overpowered the terrorists and caused that aircraft to plunge into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  
On 9/11, America mourned and came together.

On Wednesday, Russia hit a border crossing near Ukraine’s border with Moldova. Also, in the last few days, Ukrainian drones have plunged into a gas-producing region 1,800 miles into Russia.

Two Civilians Killed in Odesa

A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) with the 1st Battalion, 181st Field Artillery Regiment fires toward a designated target at Yausubetsu Training Area, Hokkaido, Japan on Sept. 20, 2023. U.S. Army soldiers and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) members participated in showcasing their artillery prowess in front of VIPs and dignitaries. (Photo by U.S.

Oil prices rocketed above $100 per barrel on Wednesday, September 9, as fighting in the Middle East escalated.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted again, but so were some alternative routes and infrastructure that have helped keep oil moving over the last six months of conflict.

Aircraft Carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Brent crude surpassed $101 during trading on Wednesday, building on a rally that has increased the international benchmark by around 25% since August.

This time, the increase was caused by U.S.

This video describes the military situation in

NextGenDefense
Smart red blood cells use gene-editing techniques to detect physical exertion and respond by producing proteins that improve oxygen delivery to tissues

Allyson Park, NatDefense
As autonomous systems continue to define modern warfare, the United States is locked in a race for drone dominance, but the real competition is the speed of…

Trimble, Aviation Week
AI-enabled air combat is close to operational reality

Stars&Str.

John Croxton, Defense One
Maven Smart System (MSS) has replaced “six, eight, ten” systems that the military used to analyze data, AI chief says

If there is a revolution brewing in the automation of white-collar work, you wouldn’t know it at the Pentagon. Here, the typical action officers, staff who tackle the daily work of the bureaucracy, perform essentially the same duties as their predecessors in 1996 or 1956: creating charts, authoring papers, delivering briefings, and coordinating across offices. Given the promise of AI tools, allowing this staff ecosystem to remain stuck in the past represents a dangerous failure to adapt, especially as senior leaders criticize the workforce for lacking organizational speed.

For eight years I helped decide whether American counter-terrorism money was working.As a programs advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism from 2018 to 2025, I oversaw about 20 projects in East Africa worth roughly $80 million a year. None of that money moved without a performance monitoring plan. We established baselines before work started and agreed on indicators in advance. When a project underperformed, or the reporting came late, we withheld funding. Reporting tracked activities against those metrics across the life of the program.

Ukraine claims to have struck a Russian naval base in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk overnight.

Moscow also said that four people were killed and 29 wounded during this major Ukrainian drone attack, one of the biggest in the war so far.

Yasen-Class Submarine from Russian Navy. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Russian Naval Base Hit, Again
On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces had achieved “results in Novorossiysk,” hitting Russian military and energy infrastructure in a key Krasnodar region port.

Iran says that it captured a sophisticated American autonomous underwater vehicle near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington confirmed the incident, saying one of its drones was lost after it malfunctioned, but both sides are telling different stories with significantly different consequences.

U.S. Marines with Bravo Company, 2d Assault Amphibious Battalion, 2d Marine Division approach the USS Wasp (LHD 1) in assault amphibious vehicles off of Onslow Beach during a three-day ship-to-shore exercise on Camp Lejeune, N.C., June 27, 2020.

America’s highest-ranking military official urged industry stakeholders in Washington on Wednesday to join the Defense Department in embracing a more shared sense of risk when delivering in-demand technologies. 
During NDIA’s Emerging Technologies Conference and Exhibition, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine called on government buyers and commercial sellers to deliberately meet in the middle on cost, speed, and experimentation as they deliver and adopt new assets in the modern global security environment.

Russia is nearing completion of a major program to construct new aircraft hangars at Engels-2 Air Base, one of the most important facilities supporting the country’s strategic bomber force. Satellite imagery and photographs circulated by Russian and Ukrainian sources indicate that several large structures are gradually approaching their final configuration, potentially providing substantially greater protection for bombers against drone or missile attacks. The new hangars have approximate dimensions of 63 by 63 metres.

Emerging from two years of secret development, defense startup Covenant officially revealed its hallmark missile on Wednesday, opening up a new facility in Texas it hopes will help produce the low-cost, “deep precision strike” system by the thousands beginning next year.
Covenant officials advertised Anthem as a mass-producible, easy-to-store missile system made of mostly commercial parts that is capable of destroying hardened targets en masse from long distances using a heavy, 200-plus kilogram payload.

Iran’s oil exports have been on a downward spiral since fresh fighting in and around the Strait of Hormuz has pushed global crude prices up again.

Brent surged to $101.32 on Wednesday, while West Texas Intermediate reached $96.48 a barrel.

USS Iowa Harpoon Canister. Image Credit: Harry J. Kazianis/National Security Journal.

Harpoon Missile Onboard USS Iowa. Image Credit: National Security Journal.

In recent days, the U.S. has carried out strikes on five Iranian oil tankers, while Iran has also launched attacks close to the Strait of Hormuz along with a missile barrage on a U.S.

Riflemen from 3 Rifles face a week of gruelling

The Navy doesn’t have a handle on how aviation jobs increase risks of brain injuries or head trauma. Because of the knowledge gap, the service cannot protect or treat aviators dealing with these issues, a new Congressional report found.
The findings, published Tuesday in a report by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s military subcommittee, found a series of gaps in care, research, and cultural norms that may impact how Navy flight officers, like those in the famous TOPGUN program, get treatment for traumatic brain injuries and related mental health issues.

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Ukraine has been battered by Russia’s ballistic missiles in recent weeks, including a major barrage launched at Kyiv on Monday, hours after U.S. diplomats left the city.

And now, Ukraine is claiming that Russia is preparing a new type of ballistic missile and will test it by the end of the year, possibly on Western Ukraine.

Skyfall Missile Russian Flying Chernobyl. Russian Government/Screenshot.

Ukraine claims the new weapon will have a range of up to 800 kilometers (500 miles).

According to Kyiv Post, which cited a Telegram post by Maj. Gen.

The Strategic Reserve: What is it?

For years, Iran relied on a network of proxy militias in an attempt to assert control across the Middle East.

That all changed in 2023. Following the 7th October attacks on Israel by Hamas, the former obliterated the latter’s presence in Gaza, severely weakening Iranian influence in the region.

Iran’s Drones That Russia Is Using. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Iran F-14 Tomcat Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Soon after, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah suffered a similar fate, with conflict resuming shortly after the beginning of the Iran war earlier this year.

“I’ve enjoyed it more than being a player

Nearly two years ago, in September of 2024, Israel carried out an attack in which exploding pagers and walkie-talkies killed more than 40 people and injured over a thousand. Later that month, Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated.

Hezbollah, the Iran-allied political party and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon, still exists, but has certainly been battered, especially after years of war with Israel.

And now, with Iran engaging in conflict across the Middle East, Hezbollah has been supplanted by other organizations as Iran’s most active proxies.

Pentagon officials are sorting through a flood of industry feedback about the controversial Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program as the department weighs next steps for reform efforts, Defense Department CIO Kirsten Davies said Wednesday.
In July, Davies and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey announced the suspension of CMMC Phase 2 requirements that were set to take effect this fall, which included third-party attestation of compliance.

Chase Millsap isn’t sure how many times he’s watched “Band of Brothers” over the last 25 years, but he’s seen it a lot. A Marine who later served as a Green Beret, Millsap said he watched it while at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, then in training and then when deployed to Iraq, as DVD copies were passed between outposts. 
“It has always been there in the background, as a reminder of leadership, service and what we owe the people beside us,” he told Task & Purpose.
Now Millsap has a new documentary on the making of the show and its impact, out on Sept.

In 2019, Steve Fetter wrote “A Cheaper Nuclear Sponge,” in which he argued that building a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was unnecessary for strengthening U.S. land-based deterrence. After several years of changing defense budgets and strategic priorities, we asked Steve to revisit his arguments.Image: U.S. Air Force (John Ingle)In your 2019 article, you argued that building an entirely new ICBM was unnecessary and that the Pentagon could save tens of billions by extending the life of the Minuteman III instead.

Tensions are once again escalating in a long-running war in the Middle East.

For much of the past year, the conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran, and the repercussions on Middle Eastern neighbors, has dominated headlines.

(Feb. 13, 2013) A Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block 1A interceptor is launched from the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) during a Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy test in the Pacific Ocean. The SM-3 Block 1A successfully intercepted a target missile that had been launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii. (U.S.

The UK-Poland defence treaty has been questioned by an influential committee in the UK House of Lords amid a crisis in UK military readiness.

“Ministers will be fully behind and supportive

U.S. Destroys Five Iranian Tankers, Oil Market Responds – The United States hit and destroyed five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday, September 8, following Iranian ballistic missile attacks against U.S. warships.

U.S. Central Command said four Iranian crude carriers — the Kaviz, Charminar, Horizon 1 and Riesco — were struck in the Gulf of Oman. A fifth vessel, the Derya, was struck near Kharg Island, Iran’s most important oil export hub. American forces reportedly ordered the crew to abandon the vessels before they were attacked.

U.S. Rejects Iran Attack Disinformation – The U.S.-Iran war continues to ramp up in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran now says it has attacked commercial shipping and a base in Jordan after American forces torched five Iranian oil tankers.

U.S. Denies IRGC’s Hit Claims

The B-2 Spirit flies over the Rose Parade at Pasadena Ca., Jan. 1, 2024. The Rose Parade is a parade of flower covered floats, marching band, and equestrian units that is produced by the Tournament of Roses. (U.S.

Louis Skupien, the first British civilian to fl

What is Iran doing at Pickaxe Mountain? – Pickaxe Mountain is a mountain facility in Iran that the Iranian regime is widely believed to use as part of its nuclear program. President Donald Trump has threatened, at various times throughout the war, to attack Pickaxe Mountain, but the U.S. is not known to have struck the facility.

Now, a new report says there’s been an “uptick” in recent construction at the facility.

A B-2 Spirit soars after a refueling mission over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, May 30, 2006. The B-2, from the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

Elbit Systems UK provided its Recce Strike Training System to support British Army live virtual constructive training exercises.

Pilots and crews of the Vermont Air National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing returned home Sunday from a deployment that began before last Christmas and sent the unit into combat in two hemispheres.
The extended stint away from home for the F-35 unit included a rare back-to-back redeployment from one combat theater to another, first in operations in the Caribbean and South America and then directly to the Middle East.
The final deployed members of the wing arrived home Sunday in Burlington. An earlier group returned in early August, according to photos released by the 158th.

The Australian government has announced a A$2.4bn ($1.7bn) investment aimed at modernising the country’s air and missile defence systems.

“The Fix” has everything you could ever ask for from a Hollywood action-thriller: good guys versus bad guys, small arms combat, explosions, and a brotherhood of special operators coming together for one last, high-stakes, do-or-die mission deep inside enemy territory that will have you tearing through a bucket of popcorn.
What it also shows is an entire genre of military action movies slowly transitioning away from the Global War on Terror to what might be Hollywood’s new “big bad” guy—Iran.

There was much more activity overnight in the war in Iran, as the U.S.S, reacting to what they claimed was an attempt to attack one of their warships, struck five Iranian oil tankers. After that, Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Jordan.

U.S. Central Command issued a statement about the exchanges of fire, which included video of one of the tanker explosions. CENTCOM stated that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a Naval warship with ballistic missiles twice in two days, although neither ship was struck, and no American personnel were harmed.

(Aug.

Russian drones and missiles struck Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, on Tuesday, reportedly killing five people and wounding around 30 others. The attack, which targeted a number of civilian, non-military sites, came just after American envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, departed Ukraine.

The strikes marked a definitive end to the temporary three-day ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv that had been in place during Witkoff and Kushner’s visit to Kyiv.

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The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office is piloting a new “shared savings” contract model with venture studio Red Cell Partners that marks a clear pivot from long-standing traditional government buying structures.
This unique agreement for AI assets is designed to demonstrate a contracting framework where vendors are paid only for the costs they eliminate and the outcomes they deliver for the Defense Department, officials from the agency and venture firm revealed on Tuesday. 
The work will unfold via an Other Transaction Authority deal worth up to $100 million in the first year.

More than 80 military occupations are now designated as combat arms and require a combat field test be completed in addition to their standard service fitness test.
The Department of Defense’s physical fitness and body composition policy, which was updated on Aug. 31, lists Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force jobs that fall under the new requirements. They include soldiers in infantry and Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders, Air Force pararescuemen and dozens of other occupations.

How does a retired U.S. Marine Corps gunnery sergeant go from serving his country to weighing 424 pounds?
Jason Bush likely posed that question to himself countless times as the scale told no lies. It began when injuries slowed him down during the tail end of his military career. After he transitioned to the civilian world, Bush admittedly ate poorly and didn’t exercise much. That combination of factors, among others, caused him to put on excess weight—lots of it.
He realized something had to change in late 2020 and early 2021.

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