After the US officially admitted it deployed weapons into outer space earlier this week, Russia and China expressed concerns, calling it a threat to international peace and demanding the immediate stoppage of all such activities.

During a regular press conference on Tuesday, September 15, Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that “China opposes any arms race in outer space or any attempt to weaponize it and turn it into a warzone.”

He further said that “China stands for the peaceful use of outer space and keeping it safe” and urged the US to “stop expanding military build-up in outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the US weapons deployment is a threat to international security and puts a question mark on the stability in outer space. 

“Russia has for many years been consistently drawing the attention of the global community to the grave consequences for international security that Washington’s destructive course may lead to,” Zakharova said.  

She said her country seeks “urgent practical measures to prevent arms race in outer space” and reiterated Russia’s push for a “multilateral legally binding instrument banning the deployment of weapons in outer space.” 

Though it has long been a subject of speculation, a couple of US military officials, earlier this week, admitted that its military is operating weapons deployed in outer space.  

The admission was made by US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink on Monday during a conference. He said that the US “has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

Meink’s statement was substantiated by US Space Force chief Douglas Schiess, who a day later, on Tuesday, said that in the coming years the US is even planning to increase the number of orbital weapons already used by the members of his military unit.

Urgent need of legal prohibitions

Underlining the threat that the deployment of weapons in outer space poses, several countries, including Russia and China, have been calling for an international treaty to prevent any arms race in outer space for decades now.

The existing instrument, the UN Outer Space Treaty (1967) makes clear that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

It also prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or stationing them in outer space in any other manner,” but it says nothing about the deployment of conventional weapons, despite declaring it should be used for peaceful purposes only.

None of the US military officials spoke about the nature of weapons deployed by the US in outer space.

Though only a handful of countries have the technological capability to explore outer space in any significant way, several countries have used satellites for military and war purposes for decades now.

The US has a dedicated space force which has recently held exercises related to possible military conflicts in space.

The deployment of weapons and claims of exclusivity, apart from increasing possibilities of an arms race between the existing powers in space; the US, Russia, and China, may also make the rest of the world more insecure.

Zakharova said that Russia is planning to submit a proposal for the creation of an international instrument legally prohibiting all weapon deployment in outer space during the upcoming annual UN General Assembly session.

She asked for more countries to join the Russian initiative and co-author the treaty document.

The U.S. military’s top officer on Wednesday talked about how AI is changing the character of warfare and offered two examples to illustrate his points. His comments included new insights into how two U.S. Army AH-64 Apache crew members were rescued after being shot down by an Iranian drone near the coast of Oman in June. The recovery effort involved America’s first known use of an uncrewed surface vessel (USV) executing a personnel recovery action as part of a military search and rescue operation.

“Information moves so fast that leader decision times have compressed from weeks down to days down to seconds,” explained Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during his keynote speech at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending. “In the future fight, advantage will go to the side who can see first, who can understand first, decide first, and act first, and along the way, be a learning organization, and no factor is accelerating change as fast as artificial intelligence and advancing cyber capabilities.”

“AI is here now, and it’s already changing the way militaries see, sense, decide, and act across the joint force,” the chairman proclaimed.

The first example Caine used to highlight these changes took place on June 8. After the Apache went down, “U.S. CENTCOM launched a rapid, responsive joint search and rescue effort to recover the crew. That response drew on the totality of the joint force, and ultimately was required to use enabled unmanned vessels to participate in the rescue of downed U.S. service members for the first time ever.”

As we noted in our previous coverage, CENTCOM deployed “a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel,” the command’s spokesman told us at the time.

The ability to pull off that rescue mission “did not appear overnight,” Caine pointed out. “It came from the men and women of Task Force 59, CENTCOM’s forward-leaning unmanned joint maritime unit who spent the last several years testing, integrating, and operationalizing unmanned systems and AI in one of the most demanding and kinetic environments on Earth right now.”

“What helped make this possible was not a bunch of general officers and flag officers,” Caine continued. “What made this possible was a bunch of entrepreneurial sailors and members of the joint force on watch floors, at piers, managing networks of unmanned systems across thousands of miles of water, and using AI to turn massive amounts of data into a crisp, clear, perfect maritime picture that allowed us to go grab those two soldiers in the water.”

The second example Caine shared about the use of AI “points in the other direction, not how quickly we are using these tools, but how quickly these tools are changing the threat.”

In Ukraine, “we see first-person view drones operating in heavily contested EMI [electromagnetic interference] environments. Some now using AI-enabled computer vision to continue to drive towards targets, even when there’s no GPS or the links are cut. That gives small units affordable precision and shows how quickly software and autonomy are changing what is possible at the tactical edge, and the results are stark.”

The use of AI to enable lower-end drone warfare is a topic TWZ has been among the first to point out.

“In certain locations on the front line of troops right now, the life expectancy of a new Russian recruit arriving on the front lines is as little as 20 to 30 minutes,” Caine added. “Think about that. This is what happens when low-cost precision is fielded fast, adapted quickly, and scaled across the battlefield.”

“The price of lethal exchange is decreasing day over day,” the chairman noted. “One wonders what the future of close air support looks like, but I am comforted by the fact that each and every one of you are in this room thinking about that. Taken together, these examples from the Straits of Hormuz to the front lines in Ukraine show how quickly technology is changing the character of war, and this means our joint force needs to do two things at one time.”

“[W]e need to prepare the joint force to win in this kind of conflict,” the general stated. “We have to assume from now on that our formations will be hunted by autonomous systems, jammed across the spectrum, and tracked in real time, and we have to transition the joint force to be prepared to fight and win our future war by generating and delivering lethality at scale with an agile, optimized, high-low mix of combat capabilities to give the young members of the 2.8-million member all volunteer joint force the tools that they need before they need them.”

Contact the author: howard@twz.com 

The post Apache Crew Rescue Highlights Need For AI In Combat Says Joint Chiefs Chairman appeared first on TWZ.

The U.S. Air Force has been taking a new look at the feasibility of restarting production of the C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane as part of its still-evolving next-generation airlift plans. The service also continues to explore a wide range of next-generation aerial refueling concepts, including new stealthy and/or uncrewed tankers, but a firm vision for the way forward there has yet to emerge.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Daniel Tulley, head of Air Mobility Command (AMC), shared new details about future airlift and aerial refueling efforts, with TWZ and other outlets at a roundtable at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.

On the airlift side, the Air Force’s stated plan to date is to replace both the C-17A and C-5M Galaxy with a single Next-Generation Airlift (NGAL) platform, starting in the mid-2040s. Separately, the service is pursuing what could be a family of future aerial refueling capabilities under what is now called the Advanced Tanker Systems (ATS) program. Very broadly speaking, ATS presents a path toward what might come after the retirement of the aging KC-135 tanker fleet, though those aircraft are still expected to keep flying for years to come. The Air Force is also moving to further expand its fleet of newer KC-46A tankers in the interim, but persistent technical and other issues with that design continue to present hurdles.

At the roundtable today, Lt. Gen. Tulley was asked explicitly about restarting C-17 production. The manufacturer of those aircraft, Boeing, shuttered that line in 2015. The company also just marked the 35th anniversary of the design’s first flight yesterday.

“Heck yeah, but with a caveat, right?” Tulley said in response. “So we were just asking this question over the course of last week, and it’s in the context of next-generation airlift. So we are about to embark on the Analysis of Alternatives to replace the C-17 and replace the C-5. All options are on the table.”

“There’s always the option to service life extend the C-17, but the [production restart] question came up,” he continued. “I’ve heard this my entire career. Once we terminate an assembly line, can we ever bring it back? Does somebody store all the machinery and the dies and whatnot, and can you bring that out? So we’re asking that question.”

“But then whatever that answer is from the vendors, what will be the price tag associated with that?” he added. “You have to ask yourself, okay, is rebuilding a C-17 even if you make improvements – and there’s a loose analogy with the C-130J, [a] much more modern, capable variant of the C-130E [author’s note: the C-130J evolved more directly from the C-130H variant] I first learned to fly – if you do that with the C-17, is that the best move? Or are there new technologies that we can incorporate into it so that it can defend itself, so that it’s connected, it’s networked, it does all the things that maybe the current C-17 doesn’t do?”

“We’re looking into it as part of the Analysis of Alternatives. I’m hopeful that we’ll get to answer that question.”

In June, the House Armed Services Committee also directed the U.S. Air Force to prepare a formal briefing on the matter of new C-17 production in a report accompanying a draft of the annual defense policy bill, or National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for Fiscal Year 2027.

The RAND Corporation did conduct a detailed, independent analysis more than a decade ago that assessed the costs and complexities that could come from Boeing building more C-17As, as well as other variants and derivatives of the design. RAND’s conclusion was that any of the courses of action would require billions of dollars of new investment and entail risks, as you can read more about in more detail here.

Foreign participation in a new C-17 production run could help at least defray costs. Australia, Canada, India, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom all currently fly Globemaster IIIs. The Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC) initiative, a multinational arrangement with several European members, as well as the United States, also operates three of these aircraft.

Boeing told TWZ directly in June that unnamed C-17 operators had been reaching out about the prospect of restarting the production line, and that the company was “encouraged” by those discussions.

As Lt. Gen. Tulley stressed, there are significant questions about whether buying new-production C-17s, even with substantial improvements, is not only feasible, but a good use of resources. The Air Force’s Globemaster III fleet today continues to prove itself to be critical to the U.S. military’s ability to project power globally, and is in very high demand right now, especially amid the ongoing conflict with Iran.

The Air Force’s desire to replace both the C-17 and C-5, which are very different aircraft in form and function, could still easily lead the service down a different route. Boeing is not the only one looking at future NGAL opportunities. Another company, Radia, has been very actively pitching a clean-sheet design that is physically bigger than either the C-17 and the C-5, and that is geared toward greater operational flexibility, at the Air Force. Radia is targeting a first flight of its aircraft, called Windrunner, by the end of the decade, but it is still in a very aspirational stage at present.

Many questions also still remain about how the Air Force will ultimately proceed on the next-generation aerial refueling front.

“So thinking beyond the current KC-46 buy and the program extension, whatever that next tanker looks like, our Advanced Tanker System, it’s got to be connected. It’s got to be able to defend itself,” Lt. Gen. Tulley said at the roundtable. “But it begs the question: does it need to be manned? Could it be optionally manned? Could it be autonomous? Or is there a family of solutions maybe that would answer that question? So I do not believe that it has to be manned.”

The AMC head was responding to a specific question about how autonomy could play into the Air Force’s future aerial refueling plans, which included a reference ot the U.S. Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray tanker drone. The Navy just announced its first low-rate initial production contract for MQ-25s on Monday.

“I think you’re seeing that with the MQ-25 and the Navy’s work, but then, how do we, the U.S. Air Force, bring that to bear in scope, scale, and range?” Tulley continued. “An optionally manned or an unmanned tanker, at range, the ranges we need to operate at, it’s a very large aircraft. And we’re not yet to where we’re employing fully autonomous large aircraft, but the technology, I would say, is there and rapidly getting there if it’s not.”

The MQ-25 is another Boeing product, and that company has shown a rendering of a larger, land-based derivative in the past. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works has also put forward several advanced tanker concepts in the past, including stealthy and potentially uncrewed designs.

“We will be going after how to make the tanker survive,” William Bailey, the Air Force official currently performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, had also told TWZ and other outlets at a separate roundtable at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference yesterday. Bailey was responding to a direct question about whether the service was moving away from the idea of a stealthy tanker as part of the ATS plan.

“So, lots of work around what do we do in the future for our tankers, and we spent a pretty dedicated effort to go through and look at what do we think those design solutions could look like,” Bailey also said. “We looked internally. We went out to industry, had those guys come back with their thoughts on how to provide a more survivable aircraft.”

“The stuff that was coming in for me might have been an incremental improvement, but [it was] not clear that that represented the next step, the next phase,” he added. “What you’ll see is we’ll take our efforts, and we’ll look at, hey, if the real question is tanker access, then let’s not constrain ourselves to just the aircraft itself and trying to make a stealthy tanker. We need a tanker to have access, so we’ll talk about all those systems that it would take to protect that tanker.”

Bailey said the question of operational “access” applied to next-generation discussions, as well.

As is the case with the Air Force’s airlift fleets, the service tankers are in high demand due to the conflict with Iran and other current operational requirements. Stress on the existing tanker force, compounded by the ever-advancing age of the KC-135s, has been a steadily growing point of concern for years now. U.S. military officials have long been drawing attention to the limits of available aerial refueling capacity to meet even routine peacetime demands. The Air Force, as well as the U.S. Navy, have also expanded their use of contractor-owned and operated tankers to perform certain non-combat aerial refueling missions to help ease this strain.

In the meantime, the Air Force is still pursuing upgrades for its existing airlift and tanker fleets, with heavy focus on increased network connectivity and improved self-protection capabilities.

Greater connectivity “can be a game changer, and it has been a game changer in Operation Epic Fury [against Iran],” Lt. Gen. Tulley said at today’s roundtable. “The ability for air crews to communicate, to coordinate tanker orbits and rendezvous, to pass threat information, to save lives and save aircraft has been everything we expected it to be and more.”

“We have MAF NEXUS that we’re pursuing. The goal is to have this on all mobility aircraft, whether they’re future-built and it’s incorporated, or it’s an add-on capability to existing aircraft,” he continued. “It brings edge compute, the ability to then employ AI [artificial intelligence] and much more computing core power forward on the aircraft, and it does network with the rest of the joint force and the Air Force’s battle management system.”

When it comes to new options for protecting existing tankers, “nothing’s off the table,” the AMC boss added. “Whether it’s [in the] electromagnetic spectrum, whether it’s kinetic self-defense, a layered approach, we’re looking at everything to come up with what might be the best system. But it’s got to be a system that we can afford, and it’s got to be one that we can put on all the aircraft we have and the ones we’re about to build.”

Using Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) or other types of drones to help provide localized defense for airlifters and tankers could be another option. The Air Force has already experimented with this, at least to a degree.

The Air Force is otherwise still clearly continuing to shape its future airlift and aerial fueling visions. As part of that work, the service is now at least considering the possibility of rebooting C-17 production.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post USAF Assessing Feasibility Of Restarting C-17 Production As Part Of Its Future Airlift Vision appeared first on TWZ.

Senior U.S. Air Force leaders in Europe say NATO allies are increasingly looking to participate in the development and employment of collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs), even as several of those same countries pursue their own indigenous fighter and drone programs. American commanders say they are looking forward to CCAs expanding the alliance’s overall capacity, and are already pushing for such systems to work together from the outset.

Speaking yesterday at the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending, Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, U.S. Air Forces Africa, and NATO’s Allied Air Command, and Chief Master Sgt. Joshua J. Wiener, USAFE-AFAFRICA’s command chief, discussed how the command is preparing for an eventual European role in the U.S. Air Force’s planned fleet of hundreds of CCAs.

The issue is particularly significant for USAFE, which operates a fraction of the fighter force it maintained in Europe during the Cold War, even as many of its NATO allies contend with shrinking fleets of crewed combat aircraft. This comes against a backdrop of deepening tensions with Russia and the emergence of new kinds of threats. Autonomous aircraft that can augment crewed fighters could provide the alliance with additional combat mass without requiring a corresponding increase in the number of crewed aircraft and personnel permanently based in Europe.

“I’m excited about what CCAs have in store for the Air Force,” Hinds said, pointing to recent comments from the Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, including the aim of having at least 500 CCAs in service by 2032.

He added that European interest in these kinds of platforms is already growing.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more interest from other nations inside Europe about what is America doing with CCAs and how they can join this party, if you will,” Hinds said.

Germany is “heavily involved,” he said, while Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are also showing interest.

In the case of Germany, we have previously explored how that country is looking to procure CCAs by 2029. Sweden, too, recently unveiled a concept for a high-end, stealthy CCA-type drone, while the Dutch are looking to become more closely alligned with U.S. Air Force CCA efforts.

USAFE is currently using two broad operational scenarios to explain to allies how CCAs could fit into NATO’s force structure.

The first is defensive. A CCA could operate as part of an integrated air and missile defense network, potentially engaging one-way attack drones or cruise missiles without the need for expensive crewed fighters.

The second is offensive. In that scenario, autonomous aircraft could help suppress or destroy integrated air defense systems and potentially attack fielded forces during an effort to repel a hostile incursion into NATO territory.

Allies are interested in both missions, Hinds said, and want the ability to incorporate CCAs into their own force designs. Interestingly, only yesterday, Anduril shared photos of its YFQ-44A Fury configured with air-to-ground weapons, underscoring the fact that the CCA could take on an air-to-ground role in the future in addition to its current air-to-air focus.

That kind of interest has already prompted work at the NATO level. Hinds pointed to a study by the Joint Air Power Competence Center, the alliance’s airpower think tank based in Kalkar, Germany, examining how NATO members could employ CCAs in a modular fashion, including issues such as sustainment, training, and exercises.

“It was a pretty long paper, but the nations wanted it,” Hinds said.

Initial experimentation is expected to take place in the United States, but European experimentation could follow, including by Sweden and potentially other NATO members.

At the same time, European countries are not simply waiting for an American CCA to arrive.

The United Kingdom has launched its own Storm Fighter CCA program. Germany is pursuing a separate loyal-wingman effort, while the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan are meanwhile jointly embarked on the Global Combat Air Program, or GCAP, which is intended to produce the Tempest next-generation crewed fighter and associated uncrewed systems.

The proliferation of national programs raises an obvious question: How does NATO prevent a growing fleet of autonomous aircraft from becoming a collection of incompatible national systems?

Hinds said the answer starts with commonality.

“The first and foremost thing is we want to strive for commonality,” he said. “Commonality means we don’t even have to worry about interoperability.”

Where common equipment is not possible, however, USAFE wants interoperability built into national systems from the beginning.

“Interoperability by design” is the preferred approach, Hinds said, with NATO data standards and other requirements incorporated before a system enters service rather than retrofitted later.

The good news for USAFE is that NATO already has extensive experience establishing common standards for interoperability, covering everything from tactics and procedures to communications, datalinks, weapons employment, and other technologies. That existing framework gives the alliance a foundation for integrating increasingly diverse national systems without requiring every member to field identical equipment.

Hinds did warn that some countries have previously acquired equipment that was not compatible with NATO systems, leaving them with the choice of paying to modify their own equipment or forcing the alliance to adapt its systems around it.

That problem becomes particularly important as autonomous aircraft are connected to increasingly complex sensor and weapons networks. Even more important is the requirement for a baseline command-and-control network for CCAs themselves, allowing different platforms to manage them seamlessly.

The ability to share and control CCAs across a complex battlespace is already emerging as both a major opportunity and a significant integration challenge. The U.S. Air Force and Navy, for example, have made clear that their respective CCAs are being developed with the ability to be controlled seamlessly across services, pointing toward a future in which autonomous aircraft need not remain tied to the service or platform that launched them.

Hinds described a potential kill chain in which an F-35 detects a target, passes the information to another node in the network, and a ground-based system operated by another NATO country ultimately launches the weapon.

In such an architecture, the aircraft, sensor, command-and-control network, and weapon do not necessarily have to belong to the same country.

As an example, Dutch F-35s, operating in Europe, have used a data-exchange system to transmit targeting coordinates to Israeli-made PULS (Precise and Universal Launch System) rocket artillery. The system, developed by Lockheed Martin is known as Keystone, and you can read more about it here.

USAFE is making “significant advances” in areas including cross-servicing, cross-loading, and cross-flying allied aircraft, Hinds said, all of which are intended to make multinational operations more seamless.

The same philosophy applies to weapons.

“We want to have all the fires, right? Whether it’s U.S. built or built inside European nations,” Hinds said.

That could prove increasingly important as European countries expand domestic production of missiles, drones, and other weapons alongside their aircraft programs.

The growth of GCAP and other European defense programs comes amid broader debate over how much Europe should depend on U.S. military equipment.

But Hinds rejected the idea that allies developing indigenous aircraft and autonomous systems necessarily signals a move away from American equipment.

“No, I don’t,” he said when asked whether allies were moving away from U.S. systems.

Instead, Hinds characterized the trend as an expansion of the transatlantic defense-industrial base.

Sweden was one example he cited. The country, which recently joined NATO, continues to produce new military equipment, including Gripen fighters, while those aircraft are already being operated by NATO members.

Swedish Gripens are currently leased to Hungary, and other countries are considering the aircraft, Hinds said.

The broader trend toward co-manufacturing and co-production is also something he welcomed.

“I’m seeing a lot of discussions about co-manufacturing and co-production, and I welcome those discussions as well,” Hinds said.

That approach could become increasingly important as NATO tries to expand its available combat power without relying exclusively on additional U.S.-built platforms.

For USAFE, the objective is to ensure that whatever aircraft NATO countries develop or purchase can plug into a common architecture, sharing data, receiving targeting information, drawing on common logistics networks, and contributing weapons effects across national boundaries.

For a U.S. Air Force command that has spent decades trying to cover Europe with far fewer fighters than it once had, hundreds of autonomous wingmen, whether American-built or allied, could provide a significant way to generate additional combat mass.

Senior U.S. Air Force officials are now working to ensure that the networking, weapons integration, logistics, and command-and-control architecture will be in place once those aircraft start to come online.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post How The USAF Is Preparing For European Allies To Join The Collaborative Combat Aircraft Club appeared first on TWZ.

The FBI isn’t the only interested party searching for Mary Carole McDonnell, the 74-year-old producer behind TV series like I Married a Murderer. There are the former employees who allege millions in unpaid wages, and the two sons who claim their mother forged their signatures on bank documents. There’s an entrepreneur in the United Arab Emirates who accuses her of “mind games,” and the former bank vice-president turned true-crime podcaster who’d like to make a documentary about McDonnell. Cheyenne Roundtree goes deep on the woman who, nearly a decade ago, walked into a California bank with a pecan pie and left with a $15 million loan before vanishing.

The story has all the makings of a viral documentary replete with breathless details, similar to the ones McDonnell’s company produced. Her backstory is littered with half-truths and deceptions, including a lie that her mentally disabled younger sister was murdered after being kidnapped. Questions remain on how she was able to pull off such a brazen heist. And it has sparked an ongoing hunt among the FBI, banking institutions, a true-crime podcaster, and television producers to see who can unravel McDonnell’s tangled history, track her down in a foreign land, recoup the financial losses she caused, and perhaps bring the unbelievable tale to screens.  

https://www.spreaker.com/show/2952221/episodes/feed

On August 27, registered nurses, patients, and community allies rallied and stopped traffic in cities around the US to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intelligence giant Palantir. In this episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of registered nurses—Kelli Brennan (Portland, Maine), Lee Barker (Kansas City, Missouri), and Kiera Arbour (Chicago, Illinois)—about National Nurses United’s “Purge Palantir!” campaign, and about the disturbing creep of Big Tech and Big Brother into a US healthcare system that is already in crisis.

Additional links/info:

• National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
• National Nurses United: “Nurses hold nationwide civil disobedience actions to demand ‘Palantir Out!’”
• Sheera Frenkel & Aaron Krolik, The New York Times, “Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans”
• Aisha Down & Robert Booth, The Guardian, “Palantir manifesto described as ‘ramblings of a supervillain’ amid UK contract fears”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. My name is Maximillian Alvarez, and today we are speaking with union nurses who are speaking out against big tech and big brother, sneaking more of their tentacles into our healthcare system and into our lives. They and their union, National Nurses United, participated in a National Day of Action on August 27th, which brought together hundreds of registered nurses, patients, and community allies in cities around the country to demand that hospitals and elected officials cut all ties with artificial intelligence giant Palantir. As a press release from NNU lays out, “The nurses who are members of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, stop traffic in an act of civil disobedience in eight cities, Palo Alto, California, Los Angeles, California, Chicago, Illinois, Washington DC, Portland, Maine, Asheville, North Carolina, Austin, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana.

Union nurses cannot be silent when our most vulnerable people, babies and children are being detained by federal immigration agents,” said NNU President Jamie Brown. “While our patients and neighbors are living in fear of immigration raids enabled by Palantir, our hospitals are facing huge cuts and our patients are facing mounting healthcare costs because of H.R.1. Nurses aren’t just saying no to Palantir, but we’re calling for our public resources to go toward the benefit of working people, not billionaires and their corporations. “The press release continues. From 2009 to 2025, Palantir received $2.5 billion in federal government funding, but this number has grown tremendously in just the past year. Last July, the Department of Defense announced a $10 billion agreement with Palantir to use its technology to share data across federal agencies, enabling unprecedented surveillance power. This followed a $30 million contract awarded to Palantir by the Department of Homeland Security to build an AI-powered system that would identify immigrants for deportation.

In February of 2026, the Department of Homeland Security and Palantir signed a $1 billion contract. In the hospital industry already, Palantir manages more than one fifth of US hospital beds. For nurses, this marks a dangerous threat to their nursing profession, which is seeing a glut of untested and unregulated technology introduced into patient care settings.” All right, so we got a lot to talk about here, and to talk about all of this, I am really grateful to be joined on the show today by three guests who are all registered nurses, all members of National Nurses United. Thank you all so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Please introduce yourselves to our listeners.

Kiera Arbour, RN:

My name’s Kiera Arbour. I’m a registered nurse from Chicago, Illinois.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

My name’s Kelli Brennan . I’m a registered nurse from Portland, Maine.

Lee Barker, RN:

I’m Lee Barker. I’m a registered nurse in Kansas City, Missouri.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, again, thank you all so much for joining me today. I really, really appreciate having you all three here to talk about this because there’s so much here that I didn’t even know before I saw the day of action and started digging into this. So before we really get into Palantir and all this AI stuff, I want to start at the shop floor worker’s eye level, and I want listeners to get to know more about you all and to have y’all give us more of a lay of the land here. So could you start by telling us more about the jobs that you do, the hospitals that you work at, the kind of patients that you care for? And I guess could we talk a bit about all the non-AI workplace issues that you and your coworkers are already dealing with on a daily basis?

Kiera Arbour, RN:

This is Kira. I am a nurse in the neurosurgical ICU at Stroger Hospital of Cook County. We are one of the largest safety net hospitals in the United States. So I am just finishing up my first year as a nurse. Just graduated from my nurse residency program last week, came to nursing late in life. I took my licensing exam the day after I turned 50. For me, I think the thing that has really been the most challenging part of my first year of practice as a nurse is the patient population that we serve at Stroger Hospital as a safety net hospital in the third largest city in the country is just all of the poverty related, social determinants of health related illnesses. So in the neurosurg ICU, anybody who’s a gunshot wound to the head comes to us, blunt force trauma to the head, two gunshots to the head on the unit last night, one blunt force trauma, and then a whole bunch of people who have had strokes because they live in food deserts, they don’t have access to healthy things to eat or they don’t know how to manage chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure.

And as somebody who grew up pretty privileged and whose parents are heading into their 80s over the next year and a half or so, I see my amount of death play golf every day. They go swimming with their grandkids every day because they grew up middle class, they grew up with money. And then I see people 20 years younger than them who are looking at end of life type of illnesses in our hospital. And it has really kind of overwhelmed me emotionally just because we live in a system that doesn’t do a very good job of allocating resources to folks. And so I’m watching people be very sick and eventually die from very preventable diseases and things that are associated with poverty. Violence is associated with poverty.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

I’m Kelly. I’m at Portland, Maine. Similar to Kara, I also work in neurosurgery, neurotrauma. My background is in stroke. I’ve been a nurse for a little over 17 years from Boston and then I moved to Georgia. I was a director of neurosciences in Georgia, so I was in management, left management to come back to the bedside and be a union nurse and use everything I learned as a manager now for the good of the union. So happy to be here. I’ve been at MaineMed for about five years. I was a member of the original facility bargaining committee when we were organizing for our union. And when I got here, I was coming from Georgia right after COVID and COVID in Georgia was awful, made me realize I needed to go back to New England. So I left the South, came back to New England, wanted to be near family.

So I came to Maine and just wanted to work at the bedside, work my three 12s, get my shifts done and go home and not have twenty four seven responsibility. Now I’m in the union and I have a different kind of twenty four seven responsibility, but I love it. So I started and when I got to the hospital in Maine, I was almost like, well, this is compared to where I came from in Georgia, I was like, “Well, this is pretty nice.What are you guys all upset about?” And started talking to the staff and learning things. And then I shifted my thinking and I was like, “I just came from a really bad situation. Things aren’t that bad up here in Maine, but I know that the way healthcare works, because what I saw in Georgia was consolidation of healthcare systems, lots of financial issues, lots of layoffs and closures and all that kind of stuff.

I didn’t want any of that bad healthcare to come up to this hospital.” So I was like, “You know what? The best thing is to start a union and to lock it in what we have now so that it can’t get taken away because we know the turnover in the C-suite is every five years. These people are not dedicated to the communities. They’re not dedicated to the hospital. They are there for five years just to make a resume, just to go on to the next place.” So I got all in with the union. I’m a charge nurse, I’m a steward, I’m chair of our professional practice committee, and I’m co-president of the Maine State Nurses Association. Yeah, I’m all in. And the things that we’re working on now outside of AI is staffing. There’s this huge misconception or this though process that there’s a nursing shortage.

And we’ve been saying for years there’s not a nursing shortage. There’s a shortage of nurses willing to work in unsafe conditions at the bedside. And that’s why I went into management when I did because the working conditions at the bedside suck and nobody wants to work every weekend. Nobody wants to work every holidays. You can go to management and have your weekends off, have your holidays off, get paid more. So you see the shift of people leaving the bedside because the work is just unmanageable. The working conditions aren’t safe. The patients are sicker, more complex. Our nursing turnover is super high. The years of experience on the floor are low. When I work, there’s a lot of times I’m the most experienced nurse on my unit by 15 years. So it’s a lot of challenges in that, and there’s no focus on nurse retention. They just let one go and then just hire a traveler or temporary staff and we try to make the best of it.

I was at my professional practice committee meeting this morning and it was all about staffing. The hospital has budgets and staffing grids and plans, but they fall through. They don’t hold themselves accountable.

Lee Barker, RN:

Just wanting to build off of what Kelly said, staffing is also an issue at the hospital that I work at research in Kansas City, Missouri. I work specifically in our inpatient psychiatric population. Our staffing grids call for one nurse to every eight patients. That’s already an unsafe ratio and our management likes to push us to one to nine, one to 10. I’ve seen 11 and 12 as well. And like Kelly said, it’s not that there’s a nursing shortage in this country. There’s a shortage of nurses that are willing to work in the unsafe conditions that the hospitals push on us. At research, I mean, we used to have, I think, 800 nurses when we were fully staffed up. Currently we have like 550 and we just can’t. The hospital doesn’t care to retain nurses. Somebody leaves and, oh, we can hire in a new grad and they’ll stay for their two years, get their experience and leave and well, we’ll just hire another new grad.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and it’s like, I hate to make light of all the incredibly serious and important stuff that y’all just laid out, but in 2026, hearing all this, my mind is imagining the Pawn Stars meme of like, “Hey, hospitals, can you fix any of these problems?” And the response is, “No, the best I can do is nothing, and I’m going to add Palantir to your list of things to be worried about now.” So that’s the kind of upside down, topsy-turvy nightmare reality that we’re living in right now, but it is what it is and we got to deal with it.

I’m so grateful to all of you for laying that out for folks because it’s such important context for everyone to understand even though we’re all focused on AI and Palantir right now, let’s not lose sight of the forest from the trees here. There’s so many other systemic issues that are running workers into the ground and screwing over patients and all of us for the benefit of a few. Those sorts of dynamics are already at work in the stories you’ve been hearing on this show about the working conditions for healthcare workers around the country. We’ve been covering it for years, but now we got to worry about ICE coming into hospitals. We got to worry about these truly super villain-esque big tech oligarchs putting their AI into our most sensitive and private systems and information. So let’s talk about this gang, because I need your help unpacking this for myself and for our listeners.

So I want to stay in the world of healthcare right now, and I want to ask if you could sort of lay out for us how is AI in general and Palantir specifically seeping into your workplaces and your work lives?What are nurses seeing here that perhaps the average patient is not?

Lee Barker, RN:

So the hospital that I work at is owned by HCA or the Healthcare Corporation of America, and what HCA has done in their partnering with Palantir is to build an AI scheduler called Timpani. We don’t really know how it works. It’s like a black box. We put our preferred days of working in. Timpani spits out a schedule that’s allegedly balanced, so we have enough nurses working throughout the week. They’re supposed to also balance our level of experience so we don’t have a unit full of new grads and then all of the experienced nurses are working different shifts. These were the promises that we were made. And unfortunately, at the end of the day, Palantir is giving us a shitty product. Aside from all of the moral reasons that Palantir sucks, they can’t even provide us again with the product that meets the promises that they told us, which is that it would take the burden of scheduling off of our managers.

And now our managers in the building don’t have any way to adjust our schedules. So when the AI inevitably screws up, puts out a bad schedule, nobody in the building has any way to fix the schedule unless it’s, I think, within 24 or 48 hours of the shift beginning, which is ridiculous. Part of what Timpani does as well is HCA is using it to push short staffing. Allegedly, our understanding of how Timpani works is that it somehow looks at the average daily census on the unit and decides, “Oh, for 16 patients on this psych unit, we need two nurses every shift.” What Timpani doesn’t see is that that unit can hold up to 24 patients, and frequently we are trying to fill it up to 24. Timpani will schedule only two nurses and management will say, “Well, really, we could admit a couple more patients.

We’ll push you guys up to one nurse can take 10 patients instead of one to eight.” And so they’ll sneak in and just ask us to do more and more with less and less.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

So at MainMed or Maine Health, we have Palantir in our hospitals through their application called Foundry. When we first heard about the potential, we asked the hospital or MaineHealth to let us know what they were using it for. And at first they told us it wasn’t really any of our business. We further pushed, sent letters to the board asking what’s going on, what’s it for? And their response was that they’re using it for insurance denials. So they’re using it. So say a patient comes in and they have pneumonia and the doctor doesn’t write the details of the pneumonia clearly. The insurance company will deny the claim and say that there’s lacking documentation for payments or whatever. So the hospital or MaineHealth’s idea is that Palantir’s AI software will look at these denials and claims and figure out what the letter or what the documentation needs to be in order for the claim to get approved.

So this requires us, Maine Health, sharing information with Palantir of our patient’s information.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I’m sorry. So was our whole system of already not approving so many prescriptions and surgeries in our American healthcare system, was that all not bad enough that now we need a fucking AI bot denying us as well? I can’t believe that that is actually happening.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

It’s very much crazy. The argument is that the return on investment is already better than projected, so the hospital will be gaining so much money, but they’re claiming that they’re losing money because the insurance company is denying it because the insurance company changes the rules 15,000 times a year. It has no obligation to tell the hospitals, so that’s why they’re getting denied. So instead of holding the insurance companies accountable, now we’re introducing Palantir to help solve it. That’s the solution. It doesn’t make any sense, and it just makes us complicit in this whole thing.

Kiera Arbour, RN:

Thankfully, in Chicago, we don’t have Palantir software anywhere near our patient’s information. Our action was based on the fact that our pension fund has $28 million invested in Palantir. That includes all county employees, not just nurses. So everybody who works for Cook County, which is where Chicago is, including all the people who work at the hospital, the doctors, the administrators, the nurses, the PCTs, the environmental service people, the folks who work in the cafeteria, the people who work in the forest preserves of Cook County, where I like to ride my mountain bike. All these people unknowingly have their pension funds, A, invested in a company that’s heavily aligned with the current administration and could potentially go, if Democrats screw his spine, could go belly up in a couple years. And then B, is doing some pretty nefarious stuff, is collaborating with ICE and making it so.

Kellyann mentioned that the patients are getting sicker and sicker. One of the reasons the patients are getting sicker and sicker is because they know that they have the potential to get arrested if they come seek healthcare. So they delay and defer care and then they come to us and they’re a lot of times near death. I took care of somebody last night who intubated completely unconscious body full of ammonia because their liver had failed and they had deferred care. And I couldn’t get this person’s story because obviously they were intubated and in a coma, but judging from this person’s last name, they very easily could have been somebody who was undocumented. But for us, for me, for the nurses at Cook County, we became nurses because it sounds cheesy, but it is a calling. I walked away from a six-figure career in supply chain and logistics management to come do this with the rest of my life because I felt a calling to do so because in 2020, I was at the George Floyd protest.

I said, “Wow, I’m actually the baddie and I need to get my life right.” And so I was feeling really good about what I was doing every day, taking care of some of the sickest people, the poorest people, the least fortunate people in my community and serving my community. And then I find out the thing that I’m relying on for my retirement is heavily invested in a company that’s collaborating with ICE, that is writing software for the IDF, that is tracking kids home from school in Gaza so that the Israeli Defense Force can send a bomb to this person’s house because there’s a one in two million chance that this kid’s dad is part of Hamas. And so that doesn’t align in any way with my values. And so we felt the need to step up and demand that our pension board divest itself from Palantir, and we were kind of blown off.

So I am looking to put together a run to be part of the pension board in the next few months. So that’s where our involvement with Palantir is.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. Well, I want to keep going in the direction that y’all are leading us to. I want to keep zooming out here and take this discussion beyond the world of healthcare, but I think it bears repeating or reminding all of us who and what we’re talking about here. I mean, if you’re still asking yourself or you listen to this and you’re saying, “Well, why is Palantir so bad? Who are they?” They’re telling us who they are. They published a whole batshit manifesto about their evil vision of and for the world. Their CEO, Alex Karp is constantly saying super villain type stuff about the kind of future he imagines with AI. And there’s a piece that we’ll link to in the show notes from The Guardian that is literally titled Palantir Manifesto described as Ramblings of a Super Villain Amid UK Contract Fears. And in that article, here’s a quote that says, “Palantir’s manifesto, which embraces AI state surveillance of citizens along with national service in the USA is either a parody of a Robocop film or a disturbing narcissistic rant from an arrogant organization.” And that was actually from a liberal Democrat MP in the UK.

But read that, read the manifesto. They are telling us who they are and we should believe them. I don’t want this creep carp near my healthcare or my information or any of my government data. I don’t want them near anything having to do with the administration of our society or what remains of it these days. And yet they are getting in there in our government. The data centers that are popping up everywhere. They’re tied up in all of that too. So I wanted to ask y’all to sort of zoom out and keep talking about that bigger picture. And I wanted to ask why you and your union are demanding that not only hospitals, but elected officials cut ties with Palantir. Why is it important for you to speak out against this kind of larger onslaught of big tech and to speak out as union nurses to stop it?

Kiera Arbour, RN:

I would say first of all, we have our own manifesto. It’s called Vision for a Healthy Society, and it’s not super villainy. We want people to live happy, healthy, self-fulfilled, self-actualized lives where they have the resources they need to not just survive day-to-day, but to thrive as human beings in the way that human beings were meant to exist and to flourish, not to be beholden to these giant unelected powers, whether it’s Palantir, whether it’s Anthropic, who was just in the news yesterday because they have their own AI building dossiers on folks like us who are opposed to what they do, and nobody elected these people. They became billionaires because venture capitalists invested money in them, and now they call the shots. They own pretty much both parties. Shout out to Rokana for giving that money back from Palantir, but for the most part, they’re heavily invested in both Democrats and Republicans.

As far as union nurses, because we can’t, because our union has our backs, because they’re going to protect our free speech rights, they’re going to protect our right to go out there and say, “This is wrong. We don’t agree with it.” And they allow me, because they are themselves, my union is itself anti-colonial, anti-imperial. They stand up for these values that I try to model myself, and so I need to stand in solidarity with my working class siblings, and I need to work for the society that I think is going to allow human beings the best chance to live the lives they deserve.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

In Maine, in January, we had operation Catch of the Day, which Maine is one of the whitest states in the country. We have a Somali population. So for us to be targeted with this operation, it was devastating. It affected our community, it affected the hospital, our housekeeping workers, our transporters, our ancillary services, and all staff felt this. You could feel the emotions throughout the hospital as this was going on. About 30% of our housekeeping were calling out because they were afraid. We were picking up food because we had a food bank, but people were afraid to go to the food bank. So our C-suite was storing groceries, so we were bringing our immigrant vulnerable community members to get food. And then one of my coworkers, who’s of the vulnerable community, I offered to give her a ride into work because everything was so escalating. So I picked her up one morning and we were driving to the hospital to go to work, and it was about six o’clock in the morning.

It was dark out. We were driving down the street, and as we were driving, pulled up to what seemed to be ice activity. There was a bunch of unmarked cars, out-of-state license plates, just seemed suspicious. So I couldn’t just drive by. So I pulled into a parking lot across the street and started filming on my phone what these officers were doing, just trying to see if they had anybody, if anybody was in trouble. But I also had my friend in the car, so I didn’t want to draw too much attention, so I didn’t honk my horn. I didn’t get out. I didn’t yell. I just sat there with my phone on recording, and the officers saw me. They flashed their flashlight at me as to say, “Hey, we see you.” And then I saw them heading to their car. So at that point, I decided that this was not a safe situation and we should leave.

So we pulled out of the parking lot, carried on down the street, and realized that they were following us. So got to a red light, and they pulled up in the lane next to me, and I could feel them staring at me through the window. So I rolled my window down because I could see that they were wanting that, and they rolled down their window and they looked at me. It was a male and a female officer, and they said, “Can we help you?” I said, “Yeah.” I said, “You can get the fuck out of Maine.” To which they replied, “Oh, looks like we have another Karen here.” At this point, the light is still red, and I’m like, “Okay, this is going to escalate.” I was worried My friend. And so when the light turned green, they looked at me and they said, “I’m going to arrest three more people today just for you.

Ha ha ha ha ha.” And pulled out in front of me, did a U-turn and carried on down back to where they came from. I don’t think anybody was abducted that morning, but my friend and I continued to drive to work and it was just like I felt so awful. It was traumatizing. And so that right there for me was like, this isn’t okay. And so we went to work and then this was happening across our town and the hospital went through so much to help and support people. They changed where they were picking up employees so that the parking lot was gated so that there couldn’t be agents in there. And they did all these things. And then we find out that they have a contract with Palantir and it’s like, wait a minute, we just went through this in January. We felt the effects of this in the hospital.

So that’s where we all kind of started to get involved. And then fast forward through the summer, we get to July and we have the murder of Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, which is three miles down the street from a Maine health facility. And at this point we are aware about the app called Elite that Palantir is using to target immigrants in our communities. So at this point, we’re concerned that this is really ramping up in our community. And then fast forward to August when our own nurse was abducted by ICE at an airport in Portland. And then to still find out that MaineHealth is still doubling down on their contract and Susan Collins is still holding onto her money, it’s just infuriating. And I think for us up here in Maine, you’re going to see us out and doing everything we can to try to tell the community that Palantir has no place in our hospitals, no place in our community.

And that if patients can’t trust the hospital, if they can’t trust where they’re going is safe, they’re not going to come and get care. And that’s not what we’re here for. Nurses are advocates first. We’re trained to advocate and to speak up when something is wrong and that’s what we’re doing.

Lee Barker, RN:

I mean, exactly. I think the biggest reason that union nurses are speaking out against Palantir is simply because we can. It’s the right thing to do. And like Kelly said, we’re advocates for our patients, we’re advocates for our communities.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, my God, thank you all so much for that. That was really, I think, important, really powerful. And I’m really grateful to y’all again for speaking out the way that you are and letting our listeners know why this is important. And I want to end on that and bring us back to where we started in the beginning where I learned about this Purge Palantir campaign from NNU because of the day of action in August. So I wanted to ask if you could tell folks more about now that we’ve thoroughly covered why we should all be invested in this and horrified that these tyrants and oligarchs and freaks and villains who want to control everything and everyone, why we should not just go quietly into that dark night and why people should stand up and fight back and that we can choose a different path. We don’t have to go down this path.

And that’s what I see all around me and in every kind of story we cover at The Real News. People around the country are pissed, they are fighting back, they are doing so wherever they can, however they can, whether it’s speaking out as union workers in mobilizations or it’s people in deep red, rural areas where there are data centers popping up or people here in quote unquote deep blue cities like Baltimore where data centers are also threatening to pop up. This is kind of forcing us all together and we’re going to need to work together to figure this out. And so in that spirit, I wanted to end by asking y’all if you could tell folks more about what NNU is doing to fight back and what people listening, what your message is to them about why they should get involved and what they could do to get involved.

And if you have any final words about what will happen to all of us if people don’t fight back against this now.

Kiera Arbour, RN:

So I would say that, and probably understanding that the demographic of your podcast are what we like to call fellow travelers. They’re socialist, anarchists, anti-capitalists, what have you. We need to get people off the sidelines. We’ll take care of our own business here in Chicago with this pension fund. What I would suggest that your listeners do is reach out to somebody who they would probably consider a liberal or a conservative and do something simple like, I don’t know, go take them to see the movie American Doctor. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that. It’s the story, it’s a documentary of people trying to go provide aid in Gaza in the midst of a genocide because I really feel like there is a large percentage of the population out there who just doesn’t really understand. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that A, they don’t understand what’s happening and B, they don’t know or don’t feel like they have any sort of political agency to change it.

And there are a lot of people who probably identify as neither any sort of political affiliation, and those are the people that we need to reach out to to let them know what’s happening around us. So go see something like American Doctor, which is really going to get you right here. Understand that Palantir and all these big tech companies played a very large part in all the horrible things that you’re going to see in that movie. And then wherever you live, I guarantee you there are people that there’s an anti-war committee. There are mutual aid groups who are going out every day and collecting donations and trying to feed the less fortunate in our community, the people who are undocumented, who are afraid to go to work. There’s so many opportunities to go out there and connect with the people in your community and that’s what’s going to make you feel safe and that’s what’s going to make you feel like you have power over this and that’s what’s going to make you feel like you have agency over this.

And that’s how we defeat this in solidarity together as working class human beings.

Kelli Brennan, RN:

I think it’s going to be really important that people get out and vote in November. I think it’s really going to be, we don’t know what the outcomes of the elections will be, but if they go the way we want them to go, there’s a chance that those results aren’t going to be accepted. So I think we have to prepare and organize and make sure that we’re getting everyone out to vote, making sure people are registered. I think there’s no hesitation on my mind about that we need a huge voter turnout this midterm. And I think if people aren’t involved, be a poll watcher, drive people to the polls, make sure your community members know if they’re registered, how to register, where the voting locations are, and notify your elected officials that you don’t approve of Palantir. Whenever I do stuff lobbying, one things that representatives in Congress or locally or wherever, they say that I don’t hear from my constituents.

No one’s called me to tell me about this. And that really matters. So I think it’s important for people to get out and vote. I think it’s important for people to join an organization, unionize. If you’re not in a union, join one, make one, connect with one because there’s so many resources. And if we’re all doing different things, we need to all do the same thing together at the same time. And we need to sustain organizing, sustain networking, talk to people that you don’t normally talk to. What I love is our candidate for Senate, Troy Jackson, one of his sayings I love is we’re not from the left, we’re not from the right, we’re from the bottom and we’re rising. This is a working class issue. They’re sayings that unions save the middle class, unions built the middle class. We’re going to have to do that again.

And even if you’re not in a union, you’ve got to link up with somebody because it’s going to take all of us to get through this. And nurses are first and foremost humanitarians, right? We’re the trusted profession over and over again. So we know what’s needed in healthcare. And as a nurse for 17 years, I’m so sick and tired of apologizing to my patients and their families on behalf of health insurance executives and hospital CEOs. So everyone get out and do something.

Lee Barker, RN:

Absolutely. Just to echo that, getting out to vote, reaching out to your elected representatives, telling them to purge Palantir. I’m going to put a couple links in the chat also. There’s a purgepalantir.com. You can get on there and find out what’s going on with the Purge Palantir campaign, Actions Near You. The other link I put in there is there’s a letter that people can fill out that will go to HCA specifically telling them to cut ties with Palantir. Anyone can sign that. Anyone can sign that. Anyone can find that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us today. I want to thank our guests, Kelly Brennan, Lee Barker and Kira Arbour, all three registered nurses, all three members of National Nurses United, all participating in NNU’s Purge Palantir campaign. And you can learn more about that campaign in the links that we provided in the show notes for this episode. And of course, I want to thank you all for listening and I want to thank you for caring about this. We do this work for you, but we cannot do it without you. Working People is brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by the great Jules Taylor and is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. We’ll see y’all back here next time for another episode of Working People. And in the meantime, go explore all the great work that we’re doing at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots reporting that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our great podcasts like Under the Shadow and the Mark Steiner Show and connect with us on social media and get updates on our reporting there and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you guys, it really does make a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

The left’s capacity to build knowledge, organization, and struggle was a central theme at this year’s ManiFiesta, introduced during a discussion of Peter Mertens’ new book, “The Last Days of the Old Normal“. In the context of Europe’s ongoing armament, these questions are crucial not only for progressive movements in core countries but also for those building alternatives in Central and Eastern Europe.

The festival featured several sessions examining developments in Central and Eastern Europe, including an intervention by Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko on the class character of the Ukraine war. Another session – “East of the former wall: the AfD, the industrial crisis, and the war economy” – brought together Markéta Juřicová of the Czech party Levice, Orsolya Haboczki from the Hungarian progressive movement Szikra, German Bundestag representative Cem Ince from Die Linke, and Member of the European Parliament Marc Botenga from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA). 

They discussed how the growth of the far right in core EU countries is interacting with events eastwards – and what lessons Western left movements can learn from their Eastern counterparts.

Read more: ‘Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country,’ says sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko

As Juřicová and Haboczki pointed out, while movements in the West are worried about the popularity of parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), many nations in Central and Eastern Europe already have experience with far-right participation – even leadership – in government. More than 15 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule in Hungary, Haboczki noted, offers an important lesson on far-right governments’ economic agendas and tactics. As the Orbán administration used identity issues to capture opposition parties’ attention, it channeled resources into the hands of the local bourgeoisie and served transnational capital by securing huge state subsidies, she said. 

Right-wing parties in Eastern Europe also look to their international peers for inspiration. In the Czech Republic, Juřicová said, the far right “loves” the AfD, picking and choosing many of the same topics the German group campaigns on. The discussion signaled this is particularly important to recognize as the growth of extreme right parties is fueled largely by popular dissatisfaction with mainstream parties’ programs. 

Read more: Far-right victory in German state elections shocks the center

Ince emphasized this was the case in Germany, where a large share of AfD votes came from those believing the party would bring upheaval compared to the status quo, marked by massive job losses and cuts to welfare. But while European progressives recognize this, they still struggle to incorporate it into their programs, recent experiences show. Instead, many of them ponder attempts to prevent the far right from seizing institutional power by providing support to establishment parties, failing to shape a concrete alternative to both the mainstream and the extreme right.

In Central and Eastern Europe, the work of progressive parties is further complicated by the need to rebuild credibility after decades of vilification of socialism and austerity measures implemented by liberal options, Haboczki added. 

Read more: “We cannot eat grenades once the grains no longer grow:” European peace movements organize against militarization

While recognizing workers’ material concerns in Central and East Europe is imperative for building local alternatives, the panel showed, it will also be necessary to build region-wide partnership to challenge topics dominating the narrative in Germany, Belgium, and other core countries.

Militarization stands out among these topics, Botenga and Ince outlined in their interventions, though its implementation might differ by sub-region. Botenga added that German industry stands to gain the most from European armament, yet these gains will not trickle down to the working class – meaning the left in the region can find in anti-militarism a common cause to rally around. 

Ince echoed these observations by emphasizing that, even as their profit lines stand to gain from billions of euros directed towards rearmament, German companies continue to shift significant parts of their operations to countries including Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – making most of eroded workplace protections and labor rights. This shows that the left across Europe must work together to protect workers’ interests everywhere, building a joint struggle for peace and civilian industry, he indicated.

Yemen’s Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, has released imagery that it says shows the downing of a Royal Saudi Air Force F-15 fighter over Marib governorate. The material includes photos of the wreckage of an F-15 on the ground. At this stage, the fate of the two crew members is unclear. The incident comes amid a major escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

A video of what Ansar Allah says is the successful shootdown of the F-15 shows the typical ground-based forward-looking infrared (FLIR) systems we have seen in use by air defenses in Yemen previously, and, more recently, in Iran.

Onboard footage of a Houthi SAM system shooting down a Saudi F-15 overnight over Yemen’s Marib province. pic.twitter.com/6mh23B2Ovu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 16, 2026

After a period of relative calm following the 2022 truce, fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Houthi forces making significant advances against Saudi-backed Yemeni government positions, including around the strategically important coastal areas of Marib and Taiz. The group has also stepped up missile and drone attacks against southern Saudi Arabia, targeting military and energy infrastructure while strangling the kingdom’s ability to move oil through the Red Sea. The Houthis have further declared the Bab el-Mandeb closed to Saudi oil traffic, directly challenging one of Riyadh’s key energy-export routes.

Prior to the release of imagery, earlier today the Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed that Houthi forces had shot down a Saudi F-15 while it was conducting operations in support of Saudi-backed forces in Marib. Saree said the aircraft was engaged by a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile, although he did not identify the weapon. Reuters likewise reported that the Houthis had claimed the shootdown but that the claim had not been independently verified.

Saree also claimed that Houthi air defenses subsequently engaged formations of Saudi F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons that entered the area while attempting to locate the downed aircraft. According to the Houthi account, those aircraft were forced to withdraw. That portion of the claim has likewise not been independently verified.

Saudi Arabia has not, at the time of writing, publicly acknowledged the loss of an F-15. Reuters reported that the Saudi-led campaign had intensified considerably in recent days, with Saudi aircraft striking targets across Yemen while the Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Saudi territory.

The aircraft appears to be an F-15SA, the most advanced variant of the Eagle operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force. Specifically, it appears to be tail number 5539, assigned to the 55th Squadron based at King Khalid Air Base.

The Royal Saudi Air Force received 84 of the new-build F-15SA. Meanwhile, the 68-strong fleet of earlier F-15S aircraft has been upgraded locally to a similar standard, also known as F-15SR (for Saudi Retrofit). Aircraft 5539 is understood to be among the latter.

The reported shootdown highlights the continuing threat posed by Houthi air defenses, which have proven considerably more capable and difficult to suppress than their improvised appearance might suggest.

As TWZ has previously detailed, the Houthi air-defense network includes mobile surface-to-air missile systems, repurposed infrared-guided R-73 and R-27 air-to-air missiles, and Iranian-derived systems such as the Saqr/358.

Of particular concern is the group’s use of passive infrared sensors for detection, tracking, and missile cueing. Unlike conventional fire-control radars, these sensors do not provide an aircraft’s electronic-warfare systems with an early warning that it has been detected or targeted. TWZ has noted that this combination of mobility and passive sensing can create a difficult problem even for highly sophisticated combat aircraft, with the Houthis having previously demonstrated the ability to threaten U.S. crewed and uncrewed aircraft.

That capability does not mean that Houthi air defenses constitute a conventional, integrated air defense network comparable to those operated by major state militaries. However, they can still be effective through a combination of concealment, mobility, passive detection, unconventional employment of missiles, and the difficult operating environment over Yemen.

Previous Saudi aircraft losses attributed to Houthi air defenses during the Yemen war from 2015 to 2022 include several helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and drones. Total Saudi losses to all causes in the conflict amount to around a dozen helicopters, five jets, and as many as 30 drones. A Saudi F-15 crashed in the Red Sea at the start of the war in 2015 and Eagles were also reportedly engaged and damaged by Houthi surface-to-air missiles in 2018, although they returned safely.

Video footage that emerged in 2021 shows Saudi troops on the ground watching an F-15 swoop in a relatively low level to knock down a Houthi Qasef-series suicide drone:

In the past, Houthi forces have come close to engaging U.S. F-35s and have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to bring down MQ-9 Reaper drones. If the Saudi F-15 loss is ultimately confirmed, determining precisely how the aircraft was detected, tracked, engaged, and hit could therefore provide valuable insight into how this unusual air defense architecture is being employed against Saudi and other combat aircraft.

As we discussed at the time, the clear risk posed by Houthi air defenses is likely the main factor behind Saudi employment of a Chinese-made short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) in the current fighting with Yemen.

العثور على بقايا صاروخ صيني من طراز DF-15A في اليمن. pic.twitter.com/af9mGNNxiA

— إيران بالعربية (@iraninarabic_ir) September 14, 2026

The timing of the reported shootdown is also notable. It comes amid a sharp escalation in the conflict, with Saudi Arabia conducting air operations against Houthi positions in Yemen and Ansar Allah launching missiles and drones toward targets inside Saudi Arabia. Reuters reported that the Houthis had attacked the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu and a southern airbase at Khamis Mushait, while Riyadh has reported intercepting Houthi drones.

The F-15 incident also follows a separate confrontation over an alleged Houthi drone attack near Mecca. Saudi authorities said their air defenses intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered the restricted airspace over the city. The Houthis denied targeting the holy city.

Meanwhile, there are reports that U.S. officials met representatives of the Houthis in Oman over the weekend, with the Houthis apparently telling the U.S. officials that they had no intention of attacking American vessels and that they remained committed to the 2025 ceasefire with ​the United States unless they stepped in on behalf of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom reportedly requested exactly this in recent weeks but was denied.

For the moment, the most that can be established from the available imagery is that a Saudi F-15 was destroyed, with Ansar Allah claiming responsibility.

This is a developing story and will be updated as additional imagery, official statements, or other independently verifiable information becomes available.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Houthis Claim Saudi F-15 Kill Over Yemen appeared first on TWZ.

La présidente ⁠de la Commission européenne ​Ursula von der Leyen a émis mercredi l'hypothèse que le Canada devienne le premier "membre associé" de l'UE, ​dans un contexte de détérioration marquée des relations entre Ottawa et Washington. En réaction, Donald Trump a menacé de rompre les échanges commerciaux avec l'UE.

Athens Mayor Haris Doukas on Wednesday delivered a report by experts on the damage sustained by buildings in Athens’ Kypseli district by the works to open up Athens Metro Line 4 to the head of the First-Instance Court Public Prosecutors, Aristides Koreas. The expert report compiled by independent consultants as part of the municipality’s support […]

The post Experts’ report on damage to Kypseli buildings from metro works delivered to prosecutor appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

A Câmara de Santarém aprovou a abertura de um procedimento para contratar um empréstimo de médio e longo prazo até 2,1 milhões de euros, destinado a financiar intervenções na Muralha, na Biblioteca Braamcamp Freire e na Loja do Cidadão. O município pretende avançar desde já com as obras, enquanto procura obter financiamento que permita reduzir posteriormente o recurso à dívida.

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Israel’s Rafael and Lockheed Martin are working to accelerate integration of the 1,000-pound-class SPICE standoff weapon with the Israeli Air Force’s F-35I Adir. The development could potentially open the door for the precision-guided munition to be offered to other Joint Strike Fighter operators.

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced the effort September 15 during the Air & Space Forces Air, Space and Cyber Symposium that TWZ is attending. The work is being conducted as a joint project with Lockheed Martin at the U.S. contractor’s facilities in the United States and is expected to take several months.

AFA 2026: For the first time, Rafael's SPICE 1000 is being integrated on the F-35

Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is integrating its SPICE 1000 air-to-surface munition on the F-35 Adir fighter aircraft.

SPICE 1000 is an advanced air-to-surface munition capable of striking… pic.twitter.com/QOeNISGKFE

— Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (@RAFAELdefense) September 15, 2026

Rafael says the effort could eventually make the weapon available to other F-35 operators. “At a later stage, F-35 operators worldwide will be able to field SPICE 1000,” the company said.

The effort was previously referenced in U.S. government documentation before Rafael’s announcement. Published in August, the Pentagon F-35 Modernized Selected Acquisition Report identified the weapon as the “Israel-unique Smart, Precise Impact, Cost-Effective 1000B,” or SPICE 1000B, and said its integration was progressing “with a strategy to accelerate the implementation via a SPICE Lite process.”

The report does not explain what the “SPICE Lite” process entails.

SPICE — which stands for Smart, Precise Impact, and Cost-Effective — is a family of electro-optically guided standoff weapons developed by Rafael. The family includes SPICE 2000, SPICE 1000, and SPICE 250, with the numbers corresponding broadly to the weight class of the underlying warheads.

Based around a 1,000-pound-class bomb, SPICE 1000 uses pop-out wings to achieve a manufacturer-stated range of approximately 125 kilometers, or 78 miles. Rafael gives the weapon a claimed circular error probable of around three meters.

The glide bomb combines inertial and satellite-aided navigation with an electro-optical seeker. During the terminal phase, its seeker can compare the observed target area with stored imagery using scene-matching algorithms, allowing the weapon to continue its attack without relying exclusively on GPS. That feature allows it to engage targets autonomously, offering the launch aircraft a true ‘fire and forget’ capability, and provides resilience in GPS-denied or GPS-degraded environments.

SPICE can also be programmed to approach a target from a particular azimuth and impact angle. This provides flexibility in selecting the terminal attack geometry and can support steep attack profiles against targets where penetration from above is desirable.

SPICE 1000 is not a new Israeli capability. It has been operational with the Israel Air Force since 2017 and is already integrated with Israeli F-16I Sufa, F-16C/D Barak, F-15I Ra’am, and F-15 Baz fighters.

“SPICE 1000 has been sold to several countries and is in operational service with a number of air forces worldwide,” Rafael said. “It has served as a primary munition of the Israeli Air Force for several years, including extensive use in recent long-range operations flown from F-15 and F-16 aircraft.”

The Israeli Air Force has released footage showing SPICE weapons being used during recent operations, including imagery from the weapon’s own perspective during its terminal attack.

Israeli Air Force F-15 Bazs preparing for a strike on Iran, each carrying a pair of Spice 1000 glide bombs.

Notably, one of the F-15s, tail no. 450, took part in Operation Wooden Leg exactly 40 years ago, striking PLO targets in Tunisia. pic.twitter.com/FEy6PiDkdU

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) June 15, 2025

Combat validated.
The stand-off strike capability air forces are asking about. SPICE 250 at Farnborough.
Pinpoint accuracy against high-value targets. Real operational results.

Full details in our exhibition press release: https://t.co/FWYYvcM0Vw pic.twitter.com/lQV8sw32zN

— Rafael Advanced Defense Systems (@RAFAELdefense) July 22, 2026

Israel’s F-35I is already unusual within the international Joint Strike Fighter fleet. The IDF has developed and demonstrated an external Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) carriage capability, and said in March 2025 that the Israeli Adir was the only F-35 to have conducted operational strikes with an external weapons configuration. You can read more about that here.

However, according to The Jerusalem Post, the SPICE weapon is expected to be carried internally by F-35Is equipped with Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, hardware, which would maintain its low-observable configuration. Neither Rafael nor Lockheed Martin has publicly detailed the specific carriage configuration, aircraft modifications or software associated with the current integration effort.

The long-delayed TR-3 is a major upgrade to the F-35’s computing architecture and provides the processing infrastructure required for subsequent Block 4 capabilities. Israel received its first three F-35Is equipped with TR-3 hardware in January of this year.

Lockheed Martin describes Block 4 as the F-35 program’s “most significant evolution of F-35 capabilities to date,” encompassing more than 70 major upgrades, including increased weapons capacity, advanced electronic warfare capabilities, and improved target recognition.

It remains unclear if the SPICE 1000 integration itself requires the full Block 4 configuration.

The potential significance of the Israeli integration extends beyond the Israel Air Force. If SPICE 1000 ultimately becomes available to other F-35 operators, the completed Israeli integration could provide those countries with another pathway toward fielding a precision standoff weapon rather than requiring them to begin an integration effort entirely from scratch.

Integrating national weapons onto the F-35 can be a lengthy process. It involves not only the weapon itself, but aircraft software, interfaces, weapons-bay compatibility, flight testing, mission-system integration and certification within the U.S.-led F-35 program.

The United Kingdom’s experience with MBDA’s SPEAR 3 provides a good example of the challenges.

In 2022, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said that scheduled delivery dates for SPEAR 3 had been delayed because of “prioritisation in the overall F-35 development programme,” which is managed by the U.S.-led F-35 Joint Program Office.

The program has continued to progress, including F-35B integration work and flight testing. But in June 2026, the U.K. government said that completion of mission-systems integration and jettison trials remained part of a wider weapons-integration program and that SPEAR 3 integration and subsequent release to service would occur in the early 2030s.

The United Kingdom has consequently approved the acquisition of the GBU-53/B Small Diameter Bomb II as an interim standoff weapon for the F-35B until SPEAR 3 enters service.

Nevertheless, another F-35 operator would not be able to adopt the Israeli SPICE integration without additional work. National configurations, software baselines, certification requirements, weapons procurement, and export approvals would still have to be addressed.

Already, however, aided by its uniquely configured test jet, Israel has demonstrated an unusual ability to integrate nationally developed capabilities onto its F-35I. This has been aided by privileged access to the Joint Strike Fighter’s closely guarded software codes.

A U.K. parliamentary report noted delays in integrating British weapons onto the F-35B while contrasting that with Israel’s ability to integrate domestic electronic warfare systems, sensors, and communications technology onto its Adir.

Meanwhile, Rafael and Lockheed Martin already have experience working together on the SPICE family.

The companies signed a teaming agreement in 2019 covering the joint development, marketing and manufacture of SPICE guidance kits for the U.S. market. In 2021, they expanded the agreement to include SPICE 250, including development for potential sales to the United States and Poland. With some unque capabilities, SPICE could be of particular interest to the U.S. military, especially as it seeks to leverage multiple sources of precision munitions.

The SPICE family also extends beyond the 1,000-pound-class weapon now being integrated with the F-35.

At the other end of the family is SPICE 250, a much smaller weapon designed around a 250-pound-class payload. It incorporates a man-in-the-loop capability that allows an operator to redirect the weapon during its flight and abort the attack if necessary.

Its smaller dimensions also allow substantially greater weapon carriage. Rafael has marketed configurations in which a fighter can carry as many as 16 SPICE 250 weapons.

SPICE 1000, by comparison, is a substantially heavier weapon intended to provide longer-range precision attack capability with a larger warhead.

The SPICE effort is taking place alongside several other Israeli initiatives aimed at extending the F-35I’s range and weapons capabilities.

The Pentagon’s F-35 documentation has referenced ongoing work on extended-range fuel tanks and electronic warfare pods for the Israeli Air Force, although it did not provide fielding dates.

In May 2026, Israel’s defense ministry awarded an extended-range capability development contract for the F-35I to Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyclone. The capability is intended to increase the aircraft’s radius of action and reduce its reliance on aerial refueling during long-range missions.

Israel has also announced a major expansion of its F-35I fleet, with plans to increase the number of aircraft from 50 to 100. The country is simultaneously expanding its forthcoming F-15IA fleet from 25 to 50 aircraft.

For the F-35I, SPICE 1000 adds a long-range strike option that pairs the aircraft’s low observability with substantial standoff range and a relatively heavy warhead. This offers a survivability advantage in increasingly contested environments, allowing attacks from farther outside capable air defense systems and under heavy electronic warfare conditions. This factor will only become more important as integrated air defense systems become more capable and the F-35 more detectable.

Exactly how the weapon will be integrated remains undisclosed. Rafael and Lockheed Martin have not announced the final carriage configuration, aircraft software requirements, flight-test schedule, or expected date for operational clearance.

At the same time, Rafael is explicitly positioning the effort as a potential pathway for SPICE 1000 to become available to the wider F-35 community. This would conceivably give other operators another option at a time when integrating a new standoff weapon onto the fighter can take years.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post Israel Is Bringing SPICE 1000 Standoff Weapon To The F-35 appeared first on TWZ.

Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and MEP Dirk Gotink (EPP, Netherlands) Photographer: Mathieu Cugnot © European Union

The European Parliament has approved a major overhaul of the EU’s customs system, tightening requirements on e-commerce platforms, introducing a new handling fee for goods ordered from outside the bloc and creating a central EU customs authority.

“This is the biggest reform of European customs since 1968, supporting trade and the enforcement of EU rules,” said MEP Dirk Gotink, (EPP, Netherlands) who steered the legislation through Parliament. Gotink said European customs authorities had been overwhelmed by a “tsunami of Chinese parcels” and that the reform would give customs officers stronger tools to enforce EU standards.

Under the new rules, e-commerce platforms and sellers shipping goods directly from non-EU countries to European consumers will be treated as importers. That will make them responsible for providing customs data, handling applicable charges and ensuring products comply with EU law.

The reform also introduces an EU-wide handling fee on goods ordered directly from non-EU countries, with member states required to begin collecting it no later than 1 November, 2026. The European Commission will determine the amount and review it every two years.

Companies that repeatedly breach EU customs rules could face fines ranging from at least 1% to as much as 6% of the value of goods they imported into the EU during the previous 12 months.

The overhaul will also establish an EU Customs Data Hub, designed to replace at least 111 existing customs IT systems. A new EU Customs Authority, based in Lille, France, will manage the hub and coordinate customs cooperation and risk management across the EU.

The Council has already given the reform its final formal approval, making Parliament’s vote the final step in the legislative procedure.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the podium Photographer: Dati Bendo © European Union

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union address on Wednesday (16 September) to make the case for a more independent Europe, confronting war, economic competition, AI disruption and climate change — while proposing Canada become the EU’s first associate member.

Opening her #SOTEU speech with Charles Dickens’ “best of times, worst of times”, von der Leyen described a Union stronger but also more exposed to external threats.

“The state of our Union is the strongest it has ever been,” she said, while acknowledging it could feel “as precarious as it has ever been”. “Europe has chosen to forge its own path. And a stronger, independent Europe is now emerging.”

Competitiveness and energy

Von der Leyen called kickstarting Europe’s economy her “number one priority”, promising faster permitting, less red tape and further integration of the Single Market.

The Commission will propose a new Banking Package and create a European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials to secure supplies needed for chips, batteries, clean technology and defence.

With high energy costs weighing on European industry, von der Leyen called for faster electrification and investment in grids, renewables and nuclear power to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.

Climate after a 'summer of truth'

After a summer of fires, drought and extreme heat, von der Leyen promised a climate resilience framework focused on 100 of Europe’s most vulnerable territories, alongside a Climate Insurance Alliance, European Heatwave Plan and Water Initiative.

She also floated a future European Firefighting Fleet, declaring that Europe “can, must and will stay the course” on its climate targets.

AI: Opportunity and threat

AI was presented as both an economic opportunity and an emerging security threat. Von der Leyen warned that advanced models could enable hacking “on a level we never thought possible” and pledged closer cooperation with Canada, the UK and others on AI security.

At the same time, Europe will expand computing capacity and push AI into health, transport, agriculture, manufacturing, defence and space. “Above all, we want AI with human agency,” she said.

Jobs, housing and social rights

The Commission plans a Quality Jobs Act before the end of the year and a European Care Deal, alongside measures tackling housing pressures.

Von der Leyen said technological change must benefit workers, while strongly defending women’s rights and Europe’s social model.

PHOTO  European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the podium Photographer: Dati Bendo © European Union

Canada moves closer

One of the biggest surprises came with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the chamber.

Von der Leyen proposed an “Alliance for the Future” spanning technology, defence, energy, critical minerals, AI and the Arctic — before going further.

“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU,” she told Carney. “We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world.”

Security, defence and Ukraine

With drone incursions, cyberattacks and sabotage raising security concerns inside the EU, von der Leyen proposed a new European security strategy and an Emergency Security Protocol for incidents falling below the threshold of armed aggression.

She also wants to establish a European Security Council and strengthen joint European defence capabilities.

Ukraine faces what von der Leyen called the “toughest winter of the war”. She promised humanitarian and energy support, stronger air defences and deeper defence-industrial cooperation with Kyiv.

Borders, democracy and children online

The Commission will propose an Emergency Response Framework for exceptional migration crises and strengthen Frontex, while launching a Mediterranean Youth Skills and Jobs initiative.

Von der Leyen also announced an EU KIDS ACT, including no social media for under-13s and restrictions for children under 15, followed by a broader Digital Fairness Act.

Political groups draw battle lines

EPP leader Manfred Weber backed the focus on AI, defence and competitiveness but pushed against restrictive climate policies. “Climate change is a reality,” he said, arguing Europe needed “innovation and not bans.”

S&D leader Iratxe García Pérez demanded that von der Leyen turn “words into action”, backing climate investment, housing and worker protections while warning that simplification must not become deregulation.

Renew Europe leader Valérie Hayer made a pointed appeal for the Parliament’s pro-European majority, as the EPP has increasingly worked with parties further to the right on some legislation. “There’s only one possible majority. It’s our pro-European majority,” she said. “We need to do more. We need more Europe, and we need it more quickly.”

Greens/EFA co-chair Terry Reintke accused EU leaders of failing to respond urgently enough to extreme heat and wildfires. “We are in the middle of a climate emergency,” she said, demanding stronger Green Deal implementation while insisting: “We are not powerless. Europe is strong, and Europe can be even stronger.”

ECR co-chair Patryk Jaki struck a sharply different note, attacking the Commission over bureaucracy, energy costs and industrial competitiveness. Europe, he argued, was “as weak as it’s ever been.”

Von der Leyen closed on the central theme running through the speech: European sovereignty in an increasingly hostile world.

“The fate of Europe,” she said, “must remain in the hands of Europeans.”

A proposta de alargamento do Parque Natural das Serras de Aire e Candeeiros (PNSAC) para os concelhos de Alcanena, Ourém e Torres Novas está em consulta pública, no Portal Participa, até segunda-feira. A proposta, submetida a consulta pública pelo Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e Florestas (ICNF), considera uma área de alargamento que se desenvolve ao longo do arrife e áreas adjacentes do…

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As both the Navy and the USAF were racing to field a new generation of advanced tactical jets, the seagoing service’s program hit a wall. A major reason behind this from the Pentagon was concern that the U.S. industrial base could not handle simultaneous final development and production of two extremely complex new fighter aircraft. This was a controversial justification that many had a hard time swallowing. The Navy’s program, dubbed F/A-XX, is supposedly back on and a down-select on who will build it is coming soon, but that concern appears to linger among at least one of the Department of War’s top acquisition officials.

Though he remains confident that the U.S. Air Force F-47 sixth-generation fighter will fly in the next two years, Air Force Gen. Dale R. White, Director, Critical Major Weapon Systems — the service’s leading weapons procurement advisor — remains concerned about the overall capacity of industry to provide the military with the aircraft it needs, including two new fighters. His comments were in response to questions about the Navy’s challenges in building its own sixth-gen fighter alongside F-47.

The concerns are “not unique” to the F-47 or the Navy’s program but the problem exists to various degrees across the industrial base too, White told reporters Tuesday during a media roundtable at the Air & Space Forces’ Air, Space and Cyber Conference that TWZ is attending.

White has a dual-hatted role, serving as the Pentagon’s top weapons procurement officer and as the senior acquisition advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force for all acquisition matters.

“We’re seeing it in multiple platforms,” said White, who did not elaborate. “And so what we’re having to do is, at some point, we’re having to make some trade space in between some of these.”

“I see Boeing making smart investments,” White said of the prime contractor of the F-47, selected for the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) ‘fighter’ initiative. “They have a lot of CAPEX [capital expenditure] that they’re pouring in, but we have to get through the process of the design piece, getting that completed and closed out. Then we all hit some major milestones with things like flight tests and software and those things.”

“Really, it’s just being able to manage the overall resourcing as it relates to number one, people resources,” the general added. “Number two, when you start getting into the production conversation, do we have enough capacity to be able to produce at that rate? And so, by and large, I have concerns. I have concerns about the capacity of our industrial base, but they are not unique to F-47 or to any program.”

As for the F-47, White said the program “continues to progress exceptionally well.”

“As you know, many, many years in tech maturation and risk reduction gave us a tremendous head start on this program,” White explained. “Extremely proud of what the team has done, what they continue to do each and every day. We are still absolutely on [the] path to be able to hit the mark of flying within this administration. So we see no issues in front of us right now.”

While the first example of the F-47 has been in production for about a year now, the Navy has yet to even select a prime contractor for its next generation fighter. The current competitors for the F/A-XX are Boeing and Northrop Grumman. A decision was supposed to have been made by last month.

“The F/A-XX program remains on track, and we have no further information to provide at this time,” a Navy official told us last week.

Despite intervention from Congress, the next-generation carrier-based fighter has remained in question since the Pentagon moved to effectively shelve the program last year.

In response to a question from TWZ earlier this year, the Chief of Naval Operations acknowledged the uncertainty over the F/A-XX program.

“One of the challenges we’re seeing is, not only [are] our peer competitors improving their capability for anti-air, either air-to-air or surface-to-air, but the lower cost of entry of very capable weapons is also making more players on the field in which that level of stealth and technology is required,” Adm. Daryl Caudle told us back in April at the Sea-Air-Space 2026 exposition. “So this is not about the need for a peer adversary. This is just having an aircraft that can operate with a level of uncertainty and with the acceptable level of risk.”

With Boeing as a finalist, it is also possible that F/A-XX could be a variant of the F-47. As we noted in a past story, the Boeing render for its F/A-XX concept is remarkably similar to artwork for its F-47.

Likely a navalized F-47 variant as expected. https://t.co/4lZkpUjqfz

— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) August 28, 2025

Last year, Steve Parker, Boeing Defense and Space CEO, said he didn’t see a problem with his company building both jets stating that this had been part of the strategy all along.

If this is the case, the company’s claim that it would not have a problem building both the Navy and Air Force next-generation fighters would make more sense. There are a number of advantages when it comes to establishing a high-degree of commonality between F/A-XX and F-47, although there would also be challenges, especially when it comes to getting the most out of a design that was not meant to operate from a carrier deck and scaling production up for both services. There is already significant sharing of elements of both the Navy’s and Air Force’s sixth-generation fighter programs. So commonality in some subsystems and interoperability are already baked in.

We should hopefully finally get a clearer picture in the coming weeks about the status of the F/A-XX and possibly the answer to who will actually build it, which will give us a better idea of what the industrial base impact actually will be.

Contact the author: howard@twz.com

The post Industrial Base Concerns Over Building F/A-XX And F-47 Remain: Top Pentagon Procurement Officer appeared first on TWZ.

Four of Ed Sheeran's support acts, including his backing band withdrew from the tour after Macklemore was removed for making remarks in support of a Palestinian state on stage.

Four of Ed Sheeran's support acts, including his backing band withdrew from the tour after Macklemore was removed for making remarks in support of a Palestinian state on stage.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen paid tribute on Wednesday to the Danish and Greek pilots who lost their lives while fighting wildfires in Greece, saying they had died as heroes. The two pilots were killed during a collision of two firefighting helicopters trying to extinguish a big forest fire in western Attica on […]

The post Von der Leyen pays tribute to Greek and Danish pilots killed fighting wildfires in Greece appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.