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Venezuela's vice president said Monday that energy agreements with Trinidad and Tobago should be canceled over what she described as hostile actions by the island nation. Trinidad is now hosting one of the US warships involved in a controversial campaign to destroy Venezuelan speedboats allegedly carrying drugs to the United States. On Sunday, the USS Gravely, a destroyer fitted with guided missiles, arrived in Trinidad to conduct joint exercises with Trinidad's navy. Venezuelan authorities described Trinidad's decision to host the ship as a provocation, while Trinidad's government has said that joint exercises with the US happen regularly. The prime minister of Trinidad has decided to join the war mongering agenda of the United States, Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said on national television Monday. Rodriguez, who is also Venezuela's minister of hydrocarbons, said she would ask President Nicolas Maduro to withdraw from a 2015 agreement that enables neighboring count
History will never forget that it were the US Navy Seals that stormed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's compound and put a bullet in his head, US President Donald Trump said. Trump also repeated his claim that a year before Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Centre twin towers in September 2001, he had warned about bin Laden. History will never forget that it was the SEALs who stormed the compound (of) Osama bin Laden and put a bullet in his head. Remember that, Trump said in a speech at Norfolk, Virginia Sunday during a special celebration to mark the US Navy's 250th birthday. Trump said that he had asked authorities to keep track of bin Laden a year before the 9/11 attack, and went on to add that the "fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true". "Please remember I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year before he blew up the World Trade Center. And I said, You got to watch Osama bin Laden'," he said. "But I said one year before tha
President Donald Trump did not let the government shutdown interfere with a stop in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday to salute the Navy as it celebrates its 250th anniversary using his speech to praise both the Navy and himself. Trump delivered remarks that by his own recognition bordered on making it more like a campaign event, generating some applause from the crowd before closing out with a recording of his theme song, YMCA by Village People. Let's face it, this is a rally, Trump told the crowd that the Navy estimated to be 10,000 people. The president criticised his political opponents and attacked Democratic lawmakers as the shutdown entered its fifth day, causing military personnel to work without pay until the government reopens. I want you to know that despite the current Democrat induced shutdown, we will get our service members every last penny. Don't worry about it," Trump said to cheers from the crowd. The government shutdown that began Wednesday has sparked partisan blam
The United States Naval Academy in Maryland was put on lockdown Thursday and a building was cleared in response to reports of threats made to the military school, and one person was injured, officials said. The person injured was airlifted to a hospital and was in stable condition, Lt. Naweed Lemar, the spokesperson for the base that hosts the academy, said in a statement. Naval Support Activity Annapolis security and local law enforcement had responded to the reports of suspicious activity, Lemar said. Additional details about the threat and how the person was injured were not immediately available. Lemar had said earlier that the academy in Annapolis was on lockdown out of an abundance of caution. Police were seen near Bancroft Hall, which houses midshipmen in its more than 1,600 dorm rooms. It is considered the biggest single college dormitory in the world, according to the school's website.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a rare move, is beefing up the Navy warship presence in the Middle East, ordering two aircraft carriers to be there next month as the US increases strikes on the Yemen-based Houthi rebels, according to a US official. It will be the second time in six months that the US has kept two carrier strike groups in that region, with generally only one there. Prior to that it had been years since the US had committed that much warship power to the Middle East. According to the official, Hegseth signed orders on Thursday to keep the USS Harry S Truman in the Middle East for at least an additional month. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing military operations. The ship has been conducting operations in the Red Sea against the Houthis and was scheduled to begin heading home to Norfolk, Virginia, at the end of March. And Hegseth has ordered the USS Carl Vinson, which has been operating in the Pacific, to begin steaming toward the
At a particularly inopportune time for legacy media and CNN, the news outlet is on trial in Florida this week, accused of defaming a Navy veteran involved in rescuing endangered Afghans from that country when the US ended its involvement there in 2021. The veteran, Zachary Young, blames CNN for destroying his business when it displayed his face onscreen during a story that discussed a black market in smuggling out Afghans for high fees at the time of the Taliban takeover. In a broader sense, the case puts the news media on the stand in journalism critic Donald Trump's home state weeks before he's due to begin his second term as president, and on the same day Facebook's parent introduced a Trump-friendly policy of backing off fact checks. Young's attorney, Kyle Roche, leaned into the press' unpopularity in his opening arguments on Tuesday. You're going to have an opportunity to do something significant in this trial, Roche told jurors in Florida's 14th Judicial Circuit Courts in Pan
Two US Navy pilots were shot down Sunday over the Red Sea in an apparent friendly fire incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of America targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one suffering minor injuries. But the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become, with ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen's Houthi rebels at the time of the friendly fire incident, though the US military's Central Command did not elaborate on what the pilots' mission was and did not respond to questions from The Associated Press. The F/A-18 shot down had just flown off the deck of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, Central Command said. On December 15, Central Command acknowledged the Truman had .
The US Navy is transforming a costly flub into a potent weapon with the first shipborne hypersonic weapon, which is being retrofitted aboard the first of its three stealthy destroyers. The USS Zumwalt is at a Mississippi shipyard where workers have installed missile tubes that replace twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated because it was too expensive. Once the system is complete, the Zumwalt will provide a platform for conducting fast, precision strikes from greater distances, adding to the usefulness of the warship. It was a costly blunder but the Navy could take victory from the jaws of defeat here, and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform, said Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute. The US has had several types of hypersonic weapons in development for the past two decades, but recent tests by both Russia and China have added pressure to the US military to hasten their production. Hypersonic weapons travel beyon
Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted two US Navy warships with multiple drones and missiles as they were travelling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful, the Defense Department said Tuesday. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, said the Iranian-backed Houthis launched at least eight drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and three anti-ship cruise missiles at the USS Stockdale and the USS Spruance, both Navy destroyers, on Monday. He said there was no damage and no one was injured. The strait is a narrow waterway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which typically sees USD 1 trillion in goods pass through it a year. The rebels have been targeting shipping through the strait for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel's ground offensive in Lebanon. The Houthis have insisted that the attacks will continue as long as the wars go on, and the assaults already have halved shipping through the region. Meanwhile, a UN panel of expert
The US Navy searched Wednesday through mountainous terrain for two crew members who were aboard a fighter jet that crashed in Washington state during a routine training flight. The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier at about 3:23 pm Tuesday, according to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Search teams, including a US Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from NAS Whidbey Island to try to find the crew and examine the crash site. Navy searchers were joined by Yakima County tribal and local authorities as they pored over an area about 30 miles (48 km) west of Yakima in cloudy weather with low visibility, the Navy said. As of late Wednesday morning, they hadn't found the wreckage or crew, officials said in a news release. Navy officials said they didn't know if the two crew members managed to eject before the crash, which remains under investigation. The EA-18G Growler is similar to the F/A-18F Super Hornet and includes sophisticated electro
The US Navy was searching Wednesday for two aviators who went missing after their plane crashed during a routine training flight, according to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. The EA-18G Growler jet from the Electronic Attack Squadron crashed east of Mount Rainier at about 3:23 pm Tuesday. Search teams, including a US Navy MH-60S helicopter, launched from NAS Whidbey Island to locate the crew and examine the crash site. The two crew members remained missing Wednesday morning. The cause of the crash remains under investigation.