Tag: usn

Navy Scraps Biden-Era ‘Climate Action’ Plan, Returns Focus To Warfighting

The U.S. Navy officially scrapped a Biden-era “climate action” plan for the force on Tuesday, signifying the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to refocus the military towards warfighting.

“Today, I’m focusing on the warfighters first, and I’m rescinding the Biden administration’s climate action program. Our focus needs to be on lethality and our warfighters,” Navy Secretary John Phelan announced in a video message.

Released in May 2022, the Climate Action 2030 program contained a series of actions and goals the Department of the Navy (DON) has taken or planned to undertake to tackle what Biden Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro characterized as the “urgency of the climate crisis.” In the document’s opening foreword, Del Toro claimed the Navy and Marine Corps “are in the crosshairs of the climate crisis,” and that “[c]limate change is one of the most destabilizing forces of our time, exacerbating other national security concerns and posing serious readiness challenges.”

The action plan identified two “performance goals,” one of which included the DON’s stated aim of reducing “greenhouse gas emissions and draw[ing] greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere to stabilize ecosystems, and achieve, as an enterprise, [President Biden’s] commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050, as well as other targets.”

In order to achieve these objectives and comply with a 2021 climate-related executive order by Biden, the DON laid out a series of targets for the branch to work towards in the years ahead. This included commitments to “[a]cquiring 100 percent zero-emission vehicles by 2035, including 100 percent zero-emission light-duty vehicle acquisitions by 2027” and “[a]chieving a 50 percent reduction in emissions from buildings by 2032.”

Keep reading

New footage shows the mystery Tic Tac UFOs that rise from the Pacific Ocean and photographed by the Navy

When a UFO expert released a new video showing the infamous Tic Tac aircraft, it revealed bombshell theories about the phenomena.

Jeremy Corbell, an investigative journalist and filmmaker, has once again ignited public debate over UFOs since footage captured aboard the USS Jackson in 2023.

The video released on April 8, after a multi-year verification process, shows what Corbell and military witnesses describe as a ‘self-luminous, wingless, tailless’ craft rising from the Pacific Ocean.

But Corbell insists the new footage is far from an isolated event and says it fits a broader and increasingly alarming pattern: repeated sightings of intelligently controlled craft that defy known aerodynamics, appear regularly in the same offshore military training zone, and may originate from below the ocean’s surface.

According to the expert , the 2023 incident echoes two other major military encounters: the 2004 Nimitz sighting and a lesser-known but well-documented 2019 event in which a swarm of UAPs surrounded ten Navy warships over multiple nights.

The new footage, Corbell argues, is not a standalone revelation but part of a growing body of evidence pointing to intelligently controlled craft – capable of transmedian travel (moving seamlessly through space, air, and water) – that have repeatedly appeared over decades in the same region, warning Area 291, off the coast of Southern California. 

The 2023 release was supported by a new military witness: an active-duty U.S. Navy combat information center operator who claims to have seen the object rise from the ocean with his own eyes. 

Corbell and paranormal journalist George Knapp, known for handling sensitive testimonies, vetted the witness and aligned his account with radar data and forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imagery.

The Navy vet tracked the object using the ship’s high-powered Sapphire FLIR thermal-targeting system. Radar detected four unknown targets in the area, though two were captured on video. 

According to the witness, all four UAPs performed an instantaneous, synchronized maneuver – shooting off simultaneously without visible propulsion, suggesting intelligent coordination.

Keep reading

Trump Considering Buying Foreign Ships To Make Up Gap With China

Upset by the pace of domestic shipbuilding, President Donald Trump said he may look to foreign companies to produce vessels for the U.S. His comments came after his sweeping executive order seeking to revamp the American shipbuilding industry that pales in comparison to China’s, which has been assessed to have a whopping 200-times larger capacity than the United States. Trump didn’t spell out whether he was talking about commercial ships, naval vessels or both. However, this makes particular sense for expanding the U.S. Navy and is an option we have repeatedly highlighted in the past, given the litany of issues the service is facing.

“We may order, would have to go to Congress for this, but we may buy some ships from other countries that we’re close to and do great jobs with ships,” Trump told reporters on Thursday.  “But we’re going to start the process of rebuilding. We don’t really essentially build ships anymore, which is ridiculous. It’s going to be very big business for us in the not-too-distant future. But in the meantime, we have countries that do very well at building ships, and we’ll be dealing with those countries. So we may be ordering top-of-the-line ships from those countries. And within a fairly short period of time, we’ll be building our own ships. So we’ll probably have to go to Congress for that, but we’re not going to have a problem.”

Keep reading

Navy crew reports dramatic encounter eerily similar to iconic ‘Tic Tac’ incident

Sailors aboard a U.S. Navy warship off the coast of Southern California reported having a dramatic encounter with four unknown objects that seemingly flew away in a synchronized formation.

That formation seemed eerily similar to the now-famous “Tic Tac” object seen in those same waters in 2004 and investigated by a secret government program based in Las Vegas.

It appears the “Tic Tac” is back, or maybe never left, as the crew members aboard the USS Jackson said that they saw four of the oddly shaped craft, one of which emerged from the ocean.

The sailors were able to record video of two of the “Tic Tacs” as they appeared on a thermal sensor in the ship’s command center. That video was made public Tuesday in a podcast that 8 News Now Investigator George Knapp co-hosts and is likely to rekindle questions about who is piloting these objects.

When Navy aviators first encountered a “Tic Tac” shaped object off the coast of Southern California in 2004, it was largely ignored until 2008 when a new UFO program based in Las Vegas learned about the incident.

The program, dubbed AAWSAP, was launched by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), with support from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Bigelow Aerospace as the contractor.

As it turns out, the 2004 “Tic Tac” is pretty much identical to the 2023 model. In February 2023, crew members aboard the Navy’s USS Jackson saw an illuminated object emerge from the ocean off the coast of Southern California — in the same general area where the original “Tic Tac” was seen.

Inside the ship’s command center, the sailors saw a familiar shape on the thermal sensor. The thermal system, known as Safire, is a heat sensor, not a camera. A closer look showed that there were two of the objects, not just one. The witness said they saw four “Tic Tacs” in formation.

Keep reading

Why US shipbuilding is the worst and more money won’t save it

“We are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” President Trump said during his March 6 joint address to Congress.

The president did not break new ground with the announcement. Virtually every year, Navy and industry leaders complain that the United States does not invest enough in the nation’s shipbuilding facilities. Yet according to the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers have appropriated more shipbuilding funds than the president requested for at least 17 of the past 20 years. Even with the extra funds, the Navy’s major shipbuilding programs have consistently fallen behind schedule and over budget.

Over the next three years, the Navy plans on retiring 13 more ships than it will commission, shrinking the fleet to 283 ships by 2027. According to the Navy’s current plan, the fleet will grow to 515 crewed and uncrewed vessels by 2054. To reach that goal, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Navy will spend more than $1 trillion, nearly $36 billion each year for the next three decades on shipbuilding alone.

It remains unclear if the Navy can realize its plan, even if Congress provides the funds. Ramping up naval construction is not simply a matter of resources. The Navy spent $2.3 billion between 2018 and 2023 to increase the capacity of the submarine shipyards. Despite this investment, the production rate for Virginia-class attack submarines decreased from around two boats per year to 1.2.

In just 10 years after the end of the Cold War, the number of skilled shipyard workers shrank from 62,000 to 21,000. The number of workers has increased since 2001, but shortages remain. During a 2024 symposium, the director of the Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base Program said the United States needs to hire 140,000 workers just to meet the needs of the current submarine building program.

Keep reading

US Naval Academy Will No Longer Use Affirmative Action for Admission Decisions

The U.S. Naval Academy has announced it will no longer use affirmative action in its admissions process — ceasing to consider race, ethnicity, or sex as factors for entry.

This decision was explained in a federal court filing made public on Friday.

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the elimination of federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and ending affirmative action in hiring and admissions.

The Associated Press reports:

The change in policy was made in February by Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the academy’s superintendent, in response to an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in January, according to a court filing by the U.S. Justice Department in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The president’s order on Jan. 27 said that “every element of the Armed Forces should operate free from any preference based on race or sex.” It also directed the secretary of defense to conduct an internal review with respect to all “activities designed to promote a race- or sex-based preferences system,” including reviews at the service academies.

“Under revised internal guidance issued by the Superintendent on Feb. 14, 2025, neither race, ethnicity, nor sex can be considered as a factor for admission at any point during the admissions process, including qualification and acceptance,” according to the court filing made public Friday.

The policy change comes amid an ongoing legal challenge from Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), a conservative group that successfully overturned affirmative action at civilian universities in a 2023 Supreme Court ruling against Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Although that decision included a footnote exempting military academies due to their “potentially distinct interests,” SFFA sought to extend the ban to the Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

In October 2023, SFFA sued the Naval Academy, arguing that its admissions process unfairly discriminated against white and Asian applicants by prioritizing racial diversity.

Keep reading

US Navy Announces Voluntary Separation For Transgender Sailors

The Department of the Navy on March 13 announced voluntary separation for sailors with a current diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria, as it will only recognize the male and female sexes, “with gender being immutable.”

The update affects military service eligibility, and sailors “impacted by these changes may request voluntary separation,” the department said in a statement. The department said it will not make active efforts to identify individuals with gender dysphoria.

“Waivers for retention or accession may be considered on a case-by-case basis. Sailors eligible for voluntary separation pay will receive twice the amount of involuntary separation pay, though this is not available to those with fewer than six or more than 20 years of service,” the statement reads.

Those who opt for voluntary separation will be placed in an administrative absence status, with full pay and benefits, until their separation is complete. The Navy has committed to the “privacy and dignity” of those impacted by the policy change.

Furthermore, the Navy said that those who separate voluntarily do not need to repay education benefits or bonuses previously received.

According to an official Navy document released by Terence G. Emmert, acting secretary of the Navy, sailors have until March 28 to request voluntary separation.

The Navy’s decision was made according to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”

The Navy document further says that a history of cross-sex hormone therapy, sex reassignment, or genital reconstruction surgery as part of gender-related treatments will be deemed disqualifying for military service applicants.

Waivers may be considered on a case-by-case basis by the secretary of the Navy.

To be eligible for the waiver, military personnel or applicants must demonstrate 36 consecutive months of stability in the individual’s sex and other important areas of functioning while meeting applicable standards associated with their sex.

Keep reading

Destroyer Has Become First U.S. Navy Ship To Deploy Artificial Intelligence System

The Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) became the first warship to deploy with a program-of-record artificial intelligence (AI) platform. Its creators say the system will help the fleet predict and tackle maintenance needs in a far less disruptive fashion. The system aims to reduce surprise equipment casualties while ensuring that more of the fleet is available should an all-out war break out, requiring a surge of forces. 

Known as Enterprise Remote Monitoring Version 4 (ERM v4), the system is the shipboard aspect of a Pentagon program called Condition Based Maintenance Plus, which in part aims to leverage machine learning to help ship crews, ashore commands, logistical nodes, and other units keep more assets ready to fight, Zac Staples, a retired Navy officer whose Austin-based company, Fathom5, created the system, told TWZ Wednesday. Staples spoke at the annual WEST conference in San Diego this week, which TWZ attended, about his company’s innovation before chatting with TWZ. 

Keep reading

Cost Of Navy’s Newest Arleigh Burke Destroyers Is Ballooning

The U.S. Navy’s Flight III Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) class destroyers are facing cost increases and delays, jumping from an average of $2.1 billion per ship to $2.5 billion per hull, with even steeper cost increases coming in the future, according to a new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report. The report analyzes the Navy’s 2025 shipbuilding plan, which calls for a 390-battle force ship fleet by 2054, and includes nine more vessels than in last year’s plan. 

Beyond destroyers, the versatile workhorses of the Navy’s combat fleet, the CBO’s assessment notes cost hikes among other platforms, as well as systemic American shipbuilding industry shortfalls that could impede the service’s fleet size goal. All this long-term planning comes as the sea service races to prepare for a near-term war with China if Beijing invades Taiwan in the coming years. These destroyers and their anti-air, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capabilities would be crucial to such a future fight.

The Navy currently has 74 destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class, in Flight I, Flight II, Flight IIA and Flight III variants. Two Flight IIAs and 18 Flight IIIs are already either under construction or their purchase has already been authorized by Congress. CBO’s assessment also found that, overall, the 23 Flight IIIs laid out in the 30-year shipbuilding plan will end up costing $2.7 billion on average. 

“The Navy stated in a briefing to CBO and [the Congressional Research Service] that the increase in its estimates of the cost of the DDG-51 Flight IIIs was attributable to shipbuilding inflation’s outpacing economywide inflation as well as declining shipyard performance,” the CBO report states. 

The report added that the destroyers currently under construction “have experienced substantial delays.” To date, just one Flight III destroyer, the USS Jack Lucas (DDG-125) has been commissioned, and the keel was laid for the second Flight III, the future USS Louis H. Wilson Jr. (DDG-126) in 2023. Inside Defense reported in June that other Flight III vessels could see six-to-25-month delivery delays. 

Keep reading

You Can’t Make This Up: U.S. Navy Shoots Down Its Own F/A-18 Super Hornet Fighter Jet in Apparent ‘Friendly Fire’ Incident in Red Sea

A U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser mistakenly shot down an American F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident.

The two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornet, assigned to the “Red Rippers” of Strike Fighter Squadron 11 from Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, had just launched from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.

The USS Gettysburg, part of the same carrier strike group, erroneously identified the aircraft as a hostile target and engaged it, leading to its destruction.

“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18,” Central Command said in a statement.

The Navy’s Central Command confirmed that both pilots ejected safely, with one sustaining minor injuries.

Keep reading