The Air Force is canceling all nonessential travel, conferences and research, and is cutting in half its budget for base maintenance to deal with the threat of drastic, automatic spending cuts due to begin March 1, Air Force officials say.
It's not always easy to tell who's coming or going as the Obama administration starts its second term, but multiple agencies have quietly commissioned artists to paint official portraits of Cabinet secretaries and other top appointees — an expenditure often seen when officials are on the way out the door or already gone.
A certain melancholia can descend upon conservatives who just can't get to the annual CPAC gathering.
"The gift of being underestimated is a great gift."
America's aging tactical Air Force — the jets that protect ground troops and strike hard-to-reach targets — is shrinking just as the Pentagon is cutting even more planes to achieve nearly a half-trillion dollars in spending cuts.
Federal investigators have concluded that Air Force officials at the military mortuary in Dover, Del., illegally punished four civilian workers for blowing the whistle on the mishandling of war remains.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Thursday ordered new reviews into mismanagement at the military's national mortuary. He said he wants the Air Force to determine if there were reprisals against whistle-blowers and if those who oversaw remains of fallen heroes were disciplined adequately.
The Pentagon is launching a drive to reassure members of the military and their families that flaws in the handling of human remains at the Dover military mortuary — including two instances of lost body parts — have been fixed.
The Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps is coming back to Yale University under an agreement signed Monday, joining the Naval ROTC in returning to the Ivy League campus after a decades-long absence.
