Author: Michael

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui in Moscow.

Choe pledged that Pyongyang “will stand by Moscow until victory is achieved in the Ukraine war”, and in return, Russia offered “full support” for North Korea’s national security.

Putin Meeting with Modi in 2018 Creative Commons Image

General Secretary Kim Jong Un had called from the very beginning for North Korea to “consistently and resolutely support and assist the Russian army and the Russian people in their sacred war, without regard for anyone else,” she reportedly said.

When a service member dies without updating a beneficiary form, the government pays whoever’s listed on the paperwork, even if it’s someone the recently deceased hadn’t spoken to in decades.
It happens because preparing for our untimely death isn’t usually anyone’s top priority. But for service members, whose jobs can routinely put them in dangerous situations, maybe it should at least be in the top five.
Also Read: Congress considers legislation to vastly improve VA dental benefits
For the roughly 1.

Trump Says Every Iranian Ship Attack Will Cost Tehran a Bridge or Power Plant: US President J. Donald Trump has announced a fixed retaliation rule for the Strait of Hormuz.

Each time Iran fires on a ship with a missile, rocket, drone, or another weapon, the United States will destroy one Iranian bridge or power plant, including infrastructure in or near Tehran. Trump announced the policy in a July 22 Truth Social post.

A 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron B-1B Lancer flies over the East China Sea May 6, 2020, during a training mission.

Stateside Marines who looked at the new enlisted barracks in Japan featuring private rooms should not get their hopes up about the possibility of living without a roommate.
The only enlisted barracks with individual rooms for corporals and below will be built in Okinawa and mainland Japan, a Marine Corps official told Task & Purpose.
The Marine Corps currently has no plans to open similar barracks at installations in the United States, the official said.

The war with Iran is back. For more than a week, American forces have attacked Iran night after night, the widest campaign since the war’s opening days, and this weekend it turned deadly for U.S. troops: an Iranian missile strike on a base in Jordan killed American service members, the first U.S. combat deaths from Iranian fire since March. Iran is hitting back across the Gulf, striking infrastructure in Kuwait, and Tehran’s new supreme leader has dismissed the deal that was supposed to end the war, calling the president’s signature on it “worthless.

Kremlin Supporters Worry Openly About A Coup Against Putin: For the first time, some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s biggest supporters are saying out loud what would have been unthinkable before…the threat of a coup against Putin is a real possibility.

And there is growing evidence indicating that the Kremlin and Putin’s inner circle are taking the threat of a coup and internal betrayal highly seriously.

Putin in Hanoi 2024 Image by Russian Government

European intelligence reports reveal that the Kremlin has drastically tightened Putin’s personal security.

Washington Has Six Years to Save Social Security. Congress Still Has No Rescue Plan: Washington has about six years before Social Security’s retirement trust fund can no longer finance full scheduled benefits. The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032. Continuing income would then cover only 78 percent of scheduled retirement and survivor benefits.

Social Security would not disappear. Workers and employers would continue paying payroll taxes, and monthly checks would continue.

The Pentagon has announced that Army Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, is “believed to have been killed” in a July 17 Iranian attack against Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan.
“The service member is ‘believed to be’ until the Armed Forces Medical Examiner can confirm her identity,” a Pentagon official told Task & Purpose. “AFMES will complete positive identification of the Soldier through fingerprints, dental records, and/or DNA.

The ongoing war in Iran has entered another period of escalation after a span of relative calm, with fighting extending well beyond just barrages between the United States and Iran.

Washington is asking Congress for significantly more funding — a marker of potentially extended operations against Iran — and Iran has continued its missile and drone attacks against its Gulf State neighbors that host American forces, while the Houthis, the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group, backed by Iran, are expanding the war to include an embargo of Saudi oil exports via the Red Sea.

As the war in Iran drags on, a new front is poised to open, one that would see the shuttering of another important waterway: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The Houthis, the Yemeni Shia rebel group backed by Iran, declared in a bombastic video statement that they would blockade the passage in retaliation for Saudi strikes on Yemen’s airport at Sanaa, in the Yemeni capital.

President Donald Trump participates in a welcome ceremony with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud at the Royal Court Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025.