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      US army to test enlisted men and women with same physical standards

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      The US army unveiled plans on Monday to require a fitness test with identical physical standards for men and women in combat positions after the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered the elimination of gender-based fitness requirements in frontline roles.The revamped army fitness test, which replaces the combat fitness test, will be “sex-neutral” and force female soldiers in 21 combat specialties to meet the same benchmarks as men – a change expected to drastically cut the number of women qualifying for these positions.“The five-event AFT is designed to enhance Soldier fitness, improve warfighting readiness, and increase the lethality of the force,” the army said in a press release.Gone is the “standing power throw” or “ball yeet”, replaced with a streamlined assessment of deadlifts, push-ups, planks, a two-mile run and a sprint-drag-carry exercise. For younger women, the standards jump significantly – deadlifting 140lb instead of 120, and shaving nearly 90 seconds off required run times.The new policy appears to contradict findings from a 2017 study of US army soldiers that concluded “gaps in cardiorespiratory and muscular performances between men and women should be addressed through targeted physical training programs that aim to minimize physiological differences” rather than applying identical standards.A 2022 Rand Corporation study also found that women and older service members were failing the previous fitness test “at significantly higher rates than men and younger troops”, which raises questions about the feasibility of the new standardized requirements.Combat soldiers must now score “a minimum of 60 points per event and an overall minimum score of 350” under the sex-neutral standards, according to the army’s press release. Active-duty troops have until January 2026 to meet requirements, while national guard and reserve members have until June 2026.Hegseth has previously said that he does not think women should be allowed to serve in combat roles, though he later moderated his stance. The former Fox News host wrote in a recent book that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men” and that mothers were needed “but not in the military, especially in combat units”.Soldiers who fail to meet the new standards twice consecutively face potential removal from the army or, according to Sgt Maj Christopher Mullinax, would be required to transfer to non-combat roles, which will continue using sex- and age-based scoring.The army will begin rolling out the changes on 1 June, with full implementation guidelines expected in May. More

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      Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat

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      Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.Hegseth was revealed to have shared, in a series of messages, plans about US strikes against the Houthis on 15 March before they happened in the Signal group chat that included his wife, his brother and a number of his top military aides.The details that Hegseth sent in were essentially the same information that he shared in a separate Signal group chat earlier this year that mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic in addition to JD Vance and other top Trump officials, a person directly familiar with the messages said.But pressure on Hegseth has so far come from people outside of the White House. Trump called the defense secretary on Sunday after the story broke and aides concluded that it had been leaked to the news media by a former Hegseth aide who was in the group chat but abruptly fired last week.Trump has resisted firing top officials in his second term, not wanting to be seen as caving to a media swarm even if he has been unhappy with the negative coverage. Trump also stuck by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who had added the editor of the Atlantic to the first chat.According to a person familiar with the call, Trump told Hegseth that he had his support and that disgruntled leakers were to blame for the story, which was first reported by the New York Times.Trump also told his team to back Hegseth in public, and senior Trump aides repeated their defense line that none of the information shared in either of the group chats were classified, although the accusations have centered on why it was shared with Hegseth’s wife, for instance, since she is not a Pentagon official.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe defense secretary himself appeared furious when asked about the second Signal chat during the White House Easter egg roll event on the South Lawn, telling reporters that the story was a “hit piece” that repeated his defense that it had been pushed by “disgruntled former employees”.But Hegseth faced growing pressure to resign after John Ullyot, his former spokesperson, wrote in an extraordinary opinion essay in Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon was “in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership”.Republican congressman Don Bacon, who sits on the House armed services committee, did not explicitly call for Hegseth’s resignation but suggested he would not keep Hegseth in place were he was the president.“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” said Bacon, a former air force general. “I’m not in the White House and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge.” More

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      ‘Full-blown meltdown’ at Pentagon after Hegseth’s second Signal chat revealed

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      Pressure was mounting on the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Monday following reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations, while a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US’s top military official’s leadership of the Department of Defense.John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in a opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and national guard officer, his job as defense secretary.“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote.Donald Trump Jr pushed back on the opinion piece, saying the author is “officially exiled” from Trump’s political movement. “This guy is not America First,” Trump Jr wrote on X. “I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today.”The warning came as the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details of a US attack on Yemeni Houthi rebels last month in a second Signal chat that he created himself and included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, were made public by the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the group.The existence of a second Signal chat, coupled with Ullyot’s devastating portrait of the Pentagon under Hegseth, is likely to increase pressure on the White House to take action.Trump defended Hegseth at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House.“Pete’s doing a great job,” the president said. “Just ask the Houthis how he’s doing. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”Hegseth himself blamed “disgruntled former employees” in remarks to reporters at the same event.“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”He continued: “Not going to work with me, because we’re changing the defense department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war-fighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, issued a statement in a post on X on Sunday night following the New York Times report.“Another day, another old story – back from the dead,” Parnell said. “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda. We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down.”Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois and combat veteran, said in a statement that the second Signal chat put the lives of US men and women in uniform at greater risk:“How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Duckworth said. “He must resign in disgrace.”Jack Reed, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate armed services committee, said the report, if true, “is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow”.Reed called on Hegseth to “immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American service members’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer”.Reed said he had “warned that Mr Hegseth lacks the experience, competence, and character to run the Department of Defense. In light of the ongoing chaos, dysfunction, and mass firings under Mr Hegseth’s leadership, it seems that those objections were well-founded.”Ullyot warned that under Hegseth “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama” and said “the president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.” More

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      Pete Hegseth shared Yemen attack details in second Signal chat – report

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      Before the US launched military strikes on Yemen in March, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about the planned attacks to a private Signal group chat that he created himself, which included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people, the New York Times reported on Sunday.The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, was made public last month by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who had been accidentally added to the group by Waltz.The fact that Hegseth also shared the plans in a second Signal group chat, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Times, is likely to add to growing criticism of the former Fox weekend anchor’s ability to manage the Pentagon, a massive organization which operates in matters of life and death around the globe.According to the Times, the private chat also included two senior advisers to Hegseth – Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick – who were fired last week after being accused of leaking unauthorized information.Hegseth has previously been criticized for including his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, in sensitive meetings with foreign leaders, including a discussion of the war in Ukraine with Britain’s most senior defense officials at the Pentagon last month, during which she was pictured sitting directly behind her husband. Phil Hegseth, the secretary’s younger brother, is a podcast producer who was recently hired as a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon. It is unclear why either would need to know the details of strike plans in advance.According to the Times, Hegseth used his private phone, rather than a government device, to access the Signal chat with his family and friends.CNN reported later on Sunday that three sources familiar with Hegseth’s private Signal group confirmed to the broadcaster that he had used it to share Yemen attack plans before the strikes were launched.The same information was also confirmed to the Associated Press by a source familiar with the group chat who said that it included 13 people.Shortly after the news of the second Signal chat broke, Politico published an opinion article by Hegseth’s former press secretary, John Ullyot, which began: “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership”. More

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      Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

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      Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.In his 27 January executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States”.All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his so-called “department of government efficiency”.Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome was in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.
      The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the president for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines”.The White House, SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril also did not respond to questions.In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.The US space force general Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the US own and operate the system, or having the US own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.The retired air force general Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX adviser to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment.Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors.However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts.SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer”, a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the US, according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals.SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6bn and $10bn, two of the sources said. In the last five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said.Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued shortly before a 28 February deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites.The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said. More

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      Hegseth adviser placed on leave after investigation into Pentagon leaks

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      One of US defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s leading advisers, Dan Caldwell, was reportedly put on leave and removed from the Pentagon on Tuesday following a Department of Defense investigation into leaks.Caldwell was escorted out of the Pentagon after being identified during the investigation and subsequently placed on administrative leave for “an unauthorized disclosure”, a source told Reuters.“The investigation remains ongoing,” the source, an official within the administration, said. The source did not go into detail about the alleged disclosure of information, and they did not reveal whether it was made to a journalist or another entity.A memo signed 21 March by Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, requested an investigation into “recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications”. The memo also mentions a potential “use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation” but it is not currently known if Caldwell was subjected to a polygraph test.“I expect to be informed immediately if this effort results in information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure, and that such information will be referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” Kasper wrote in the letter.Caldwell has played a significant role as Hegseth’s adviser, with the defense secretary naming Caldwell as the best staff point of contact for the National Security Council as it prepared for the launch of strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in the leaked Signal chat published by the Atlantic last month.The decision to put Caldwell on administrative leave is reportedly separate from the wave of federal firings in the past few weeks under the Trump administration.Caldwell, a Marine Corps veteran, previously worked for Concerned Veterans for America, a non-profit group with strong ties to Republican lawmakers and promoting conservative policies.He had worked with Hegseth at that organization before he joined Hegseth’s defense department team. More

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      Trump authorizes US military to take control of land at US-Mexico border

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      Donald Trump has authorized the military to take control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration.The authorization came late on Friday in a memorandum from Trump to interior secretary Doug Burgum, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins, outlining new policies concerning military involvement at the US’s southern border.The memorandum, entitled “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions”, allows the US’s armed forces to “take a more direct role” when it comes to securing the boundary in question.“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” the order claimed. “The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past.”The memorandum added that the Department of Defense should be given jurisdiction to federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60ft-wide strip that stretches over California, Arizona and New Mexico. Doing that would give troops stationed there the legal right to detain immigrants accused of trespassing on what in effect is an elongated base – and unauthorized immigrants would be held in custody until they could be turned over to immigration agents.Military activities that could be carried out on federal land include “border-barrier construction and emplacement of detection and monitoring equipment”, according to the memorandum.After 45 days, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will assess the “initial phase” of the order. But at any time, Hegseth could extend the amount of federal land included in the memorandum.The ordered military takeover excludes Native American reservations, according to the memorandum.Friday’s order is the latest step from Trump in his administration’s ongoing focus on immigration enforcement, which has involved declaring a national emergency on the southern border.On Thursday, a US federal judge ruled that the Trump administration was allowed to require people who are in the country but not citizens to register with the federal government, a requirement that advocates say hasn’t been universally implemented since it was enacted as a law in the 1940s.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe ruling comes after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the new requirement on 25 February, adding that those who failed to report could face fines or possible prison time.The DHS’s announcement was widely seen as a workaround of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that bars US military troops from participating in most civilian law enforcement actions.One of the purported justifications for militarizing the US border most commonly cited by Trump and his Republican colleagues is that people crossing the border with Mexico without permission carry much of the fentanyl sold in the US. Yet official statistics show 90% of convicted fentanyl peddlers are US citizens. More

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      Panama opposition party accuses US of ‘camouflaged invasion’

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      Panamanian opposition politicians have accused the US of launching a “camouflaged invasion” of the country, amid simmering discontent over the government’s handling of the diplomatic crisis.After a three-day visit by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump appeared to confirm that US military personnel had been deployed to the Central American country on Thursday, telling reporters: “We’ve moved a lot of troops to Panama.”Hegseth said that the US would increase its military presence at three former US bases in the country to “secure the Panama canal from Chinese influence”.The last US military bases in Panama were vacated in 1999 as a condition of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter treaties to hand the canal to Panamanian ownership. Under the canal’s neutrality treaty, no foreign power can “maintain military forces, defense sites and military installations within its national territory”, and the US comments have prompted outrage in Panama.“This is a camouflaged invasion,” said Ricardo Lombana, the leader of the opposition Other Way Movement. “An invasion without firing a shot, but with a cudgel and threats.”At a Wednesday press conference to announce the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the US, Panama’s minister of public security, Frank Abrego, said the agreement would not impinge on his nation’s sovereignty and that the country would not accept military bases.However, a full text of the MOU included aerial photos of Fort Sherman, Rodman naval base and Howard air force base, with areas outlined for “training”, “humanitarian activities” and the “installation of US property”.The Panamanian government says they are not “military bases” and that the deal is temporary, but opposition parties have rejected such claims.“If you have an installation which is for use of foreign soldiers and they have control over what happens inside – and Panama has to ask in advance to enter – that’s a military base,” said Lombana.For many Panamanians, the return of US armed forces – even for supposed “joint operations” – will bring back uncomfortable memories of 1989’s Operation Just Cause, when American troops killed thousands of civilians.A second agreement allows US navy ships to be reimbursed for the fees they pay to the canal. That preferential treatment would appear to violate the neutrality treatment and could open the door to further attempts to negotiate down the fees charged by the canal.On Thursday a local lawyer filed a legal case against the Panamanian president, José Raúl Mulino, accusing him of “crimes against the international personality of the state”.Frustration is growing over the government’s handling of the diplomatic crisis. Since Trump declared his plan to “take back” the Panama canal on his 20 January inauguration speech, all communication on the topic has been through Mulino and the details of negotiations kept largely secret.This has led to serious differences in the US and Panamanian accounts of those negotiations. When the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited in early February, Mulino told press that the meeting had been “very cordial” and that the canal was not under threat. Later, however, Rubio said the situation around the canal was “unacceptable” and Trump continued to call for the return of the canal.The latest example came on Tuesday when two different statements concerning Hegseth’s meeting with Mulino were published. In the Panamanian version, Hegseth was said to have recognized Panama’s “inalienable sovereignty” over the canal, but those words were absent from the secretary of defense’s statement and Hegseth refused to acknowledge Panamanian ownership of the canal at Wednesday’s press conference. Panama says that the US omitted the phrase from the agreed joint statement.Mulino has also opted to avoid engaging with other countries – such as Canada and Mexico – to gain international support for his country’s cause.On Thursday the local chapter of Transparency International requested on X that Mulino “inform the country of all the details of what is happening, the agreements in process and the pressures he is receiving if that is the case. The country requires transparency in order to achieve unity against this threat to our sovereignty.”Even before Hegseth’s visit, Mulino had faced heavy local criticism for offering concessions to the US without gaining firm assurances over the future of the canal.Two-thirds of Panamanians disapprove of the way he is running the country. In addition to the diplomatic crisis he has passed an unpopular social security reform and angered environmentalists by opening talks with a copper mine closed down in 2023 due to popular protest. He lacks the backing of many of his party’s deputies in congress who are loyal to his political patron, Ricardo Martinelli, who has been residing in the Nicaraguan embassy to escape corruption charges and recently saw his attempt to gain exile in that country rejected.Popular demonstrations against US policy and the handling of the government are expected on Saturday. More