Author: Michael

The Navy’s longest serving aircraft carrier is now operating in the Caribbean. The USS Nimitz, the 51-year-old carrier that recently got its service extended, arrived in the sea on Wednesday, joining an American military presence that has been in place for several months. It also brings more naval power to the region as the United States ramps up pressure on Cuba.
The Nimitz and its strike group, including the USS Gridley and USS Patuxent as well as Carrier Air Wing 17, entered the Caribbean earlier this week after conducting operations with Brazil, U.S.

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Captain John Monroe Hawk Smith was the executive officer of the U.S. Navy’s TOPGUN program — and one of the most lethal air-to-air aviators in the Navy across a 30-year career. In one storied TOPGUN engagement, Hawk flew a smaller, older Northrop F-5 Tiger so close beside a second F-5 that two Block 90 F-14 Tomcats with the powerful AWG-9 radar and television unit could paint only a single target. Hawk then dove for the deck, where the AWG-9’s Pulse-Doppler mode could not pick him up. The desert lizard paint scheme blended into the sand.

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Key Points and Summary: China holds approximately 1.4 billion barrels of oil in its Strategic Petroleum Reserve — the largest in the world. The U.S. SPR is now below 375 million barrels and is dropping by 10 to 18 million barrels per week, according to various analyses. Most experts estimate the SPR needs to hold 500 to 700 million barrels to remain effective in mitigating short-term energy disruptions in a country the size of the United States.

-Gerald Ford created the SPR in 1975 after the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo.

-The last shipment of oil from the Strait of Hormuz bound for the U.S.

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Summary and Key Points: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a recent NBC interview he would support Vice President JD Vance if Vance runs for the 2028 Republican nomination — and that he would prefer to continue serving as secretary of state under a Vance administration.

Rubio has become the public face of the Trump administration’s Iran and Venezuela diplomacy and is now overshadowing Vance in the polls.

F-15EX Eagle II In the Sky. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The Iran War may complicate that race.

A March 2026 Marist poll found 84% of Republicans support U.S.

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The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird intentionally leaked JP-7 fuel onto the ground. The airframe was designed to seal its own fuel tanks only when hot — at Mach 3, thermal expansion from air friction caused the aircraft to grow several inches in length, tightening panels and joints and closing the gaps that let fuel seep out at ambient temperature. The aircraft took off with a partial fuel load and rendezvoused with a tanker shortly after takeoff. Approximately 85% of the SR-71’s structure was titanium, chosen because aluminum would soften above 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Ukraine’s armed forces retook 116 square kilometers of Russian-occupied territory in April 2026 — the largest monthly rollback since Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, according to the Institute for the Study of War. UK Senior Military Advisor Colonel Joby Rimmer told the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on April 30 that Russia’s average monthly casualties in early 2026 exceeded 30,000. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said the combat loss ratio is now 7 to 8 Russian soldiers dying for every one Ukrainian.

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