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The New York Times sued the Defence Department on Monday for the second time in five months, arguing that a requirement that journalists be escorted while on Pentagon grounds violates the First Amendment. The escort policy is "an unconstitutional attempt by the Pentagon to prevent independent reporting on military affairs," a Times spokesman, Charlie Stadtlander, said in an email to The Associated Press. "As we have said before: Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars." On X, Defence Department spokesperson Sean Parnell called the Times' latest lawsuit "nothing more than an attempt to remove the barriers to them getting their hands on classified information." Continuing tension between the administration and the media ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Times lawsuit is another salvo in what has become an escalating tension between the U
The Pentagon has begun releasing new files on UFOs, saying members of the public can draw their own conclusions on "unidentified anomalous phenomena." In addition to the Pentagon, the effort is led by the White House, the director of national intelligence, the Energy Department, NASA and the FBI. The Pentagon said Friday in a post on X that while past administrations sought to discredit or dissuade the American people, President Donald Trump "is focused on providing maximum transparency to the public, who can ultimately make up their own minds about the information contained in these files." The Pentagon says additional documents will be released on a rolling basis.
A US federal judge on Thursday ruled that the Defence Department is violating his earlier order to restore access to the Pentagon for reporters. US District Judge Paul Friedman sided with The New York Times earlier this month in deciding that the Pentagon's new credential policy violated journalists' constitutional rights to free speech and due process. He sided again with the Times in saying that the Pentagon had tried to evade his ruling by putting in new rules that expel all reporters from the building unless guided by escorts. "The department simply cannot reinstate an unlawful policy under the guise of taking new action and expect the court to look the other way," Friedman wrote. Friedman had ordered Pentagon officials to reinstate the press credentials of seven Times reporters and stressed that his decision applies to "all regulated parties". The Pentagon building serves as the headquarters for US military operations.
A federal judge has ruled in favour of artificial intelligence company Anthropic in temporarily blocking the Pentagon from labelling the company as a supply chain risk. US District Judge Rita Lin on Thursday said she was also blocking President Donald Trump's directive ordering all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic. Lin's ruling followed a 90-minute hearing in San Francisco federal court on Tuesday at which Lin questioned why the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of denouncing Anthropic as a supply chain risk after negotiations over a defence contract went sour over the company's attempt to prevent its AI technology from being deployed in fully autonomous weapons or surveillance of Americans. Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, had asked Lin to issue an emergency order to remove a stigma that the company alleges was unjustifiably applied as part of an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" that provoked the San Francisco-based company to sue the Trump ...
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic is asking a federal judge on Tuesday to temporarily halt the Pentagon's "unprecedented and stigmatising" designation of the company as a supply chain risk. A hearing scheduled for Tuesday in a California federal court marks a critical step in the feud between Anthropic and the Trump administration over how the company's AI technology could be used in war. Anthropic sued earlier this month to stop the Trump administration from enforcing what the company calls an "unlawful campaign of retaliation" over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology. The company is asking US District Judge Rita Lin for an emergency order that would temporarily reverse the Pentagon's decision to designate the AI company a "supply chain risk". Anthropic also seeks to undo President Donald Trump's order directing all federal employees, not just those in the military, to stop using its AI chatbot Claude. Lin is presiding over the case in federal
The Pentagon is seeking USD 200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says. The department sent the request to the White House, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information. It's an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defence Department already received last year in President Donald Trump's big tax cuts bill. Congress is bracing for a new spending request but it is not clear the White House has transmitted the request for consideration. It is unclear the spending request would have support. The new funding request was first reported by The Washington Post. Asked about the figure at a press conference Thursday, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth did not directly confirm the figure, saying it could change. But he said "we're going back to Congress and our folks there to to ensure that we're properly funded". "It takes money to kill bad guys," Hegseth said.