Emily Compagno: Why should this be considered controversial?
The Five' co-hosts discuss Vice President JD Vance announcing an estimated cost savings of $2.2 billion from recovered Obamacare fraud.
7:27
https://youtu.be/4X0qwEAai1I
Desolate Arctic outpost likely to host US troops under new Greenland deal
Sep 25, 2026 at 09:20 AM
At a windswept gravel airstrip in eastern Greenland, a small Danish military detachment has quietly kept watch for decades.
Now, under a new U.S. defense agreement signed this week,the outpost at Mestersvig could soon become a key American military foothold in the Arctic.
Mestersvig sits 149 miles from the nearest settlement (population 330), at the edge of an uninhabited national park larger than Germany and France combined. The place is covered in darkness during winter, with average temperatures of around 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
“This is as remote, as cold, and as extreme as you can find in the world. You have to go to Antarctica to find similar conditions,” said Anders Ibsen, a former officer with Denmark’s Sirius dog sled patrol, an elite unit that uses Mestersvig to resupply.
STRATEGIC CHOKEPOINT
It oversees the stretch of ocean between Greenland, Iceland and Britain — known as the GIUK gap — that Russia’s Northern Fleet must cross to reach the Atlantic.For NATO, controlling this chokepoint is critical to containing Russian naval power.
Local member of parliament Justus Hansen welcomed the expansion, saying, “In east Greenland, we really need that new money.”
Under the defense agreement, Washington will be allowed to establish a new base at Mestersvig and Narsarsuaq in southern Greenland, potentially marking the first U.S. military expansion on the vast, semi-autonomous Arctic island in decades.
Currently,only three soldiers maintain the facility, which was built in the 1960s and includes barracks to house 150 soldiers.
The U.S. has made no public announcement about its plans for the base.
A HISTORY OF OUTSIDE INTEREST
During World War II, this stretch of the Arctic island’s coast became a front line in the “weather war,” a race between Germany and the Allies to read Greenland’s weather, which shaped conditions over the North Atlantic and Europe days later.
Germany secretly built manned stations here, but Danish dog sled patrols tracked them down, and Allied forces drove them out.
Nearby,an EU-backed project aims to mine molybdenum — a critical metal for aerospace and defence — some 12 miles away. A Texas oil company plans to drill for oil this winter at an untested basin just south of Mestersvig, although it still lacks a permit to do so.
The previous owner, ARCO, spent heavily on seismic work in the 1970s but never drilled.
“Any infrastructural improvements in Greenland would be very welcome,” said Robert Price, CEO of Greenland Energy, the oil company.
The 1.1-mile airstrip — long enough for military transport planes to land — can collect up to 5 meters of snow a year.
“When it’s snowing, you’re basically removing snow 24/7,” said Ibsen, the former dog sled patrol officer who spent a year at Mestersvig.
“You have plenty to do just staying alive.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/09/25/desolate-arctic-outpost-likely-to-host-us-troops-under-new-greenland-deal/
Military personnel data exposed in breach, agency warns
Natalie OliverioSep 24, 2026 at 01:28 PM
A vulnerability in a Defense Manpower Data Center system allowed unauthorized users to access files containing unencrypted personal information, including Social Security numbers and military personnel data, according to a breach notification letter reviewed by Military Times.
The Defense Manpower Data Center, or DMDC, discovered the vulnerability on July 16 in a file-sharing system, according to a notification sent Sept. 18 to an individual whose information was contained in the affected files.
An analysis conducted after the discovery found that unauthorized users had accessed files on a server containing unencrypted personally identifiable information, or PII, between October 2025 and July 16, 2026, according to the letter, the authenticity of which was confirmed by two defense officials.
The unauthorized users gained access to the Social Security number of the letter’s recipient, as well as at least one additional piece of identifying information, such as a name, date of birth, contact information, sex, race or military personnel information, including occupational specialty, according to the notification.
The notice states that the department had no indication that the individual’s information had been misused.
The potential scope of the breach remains unclear. Two people familiar with the incident told Military Times that approximately four million Defense Department personnel may be affected.
The department is offering the affected individuals one year of credit monitoring and identity-restoration services through IDX, a private company contracted by the DoD, according to the notice.
DMDC describes itself as the Defense Department’s central source for identifying, authenticating, authorizing and providing information on personnel during and after their affiliation with the department. The agency’s website says it maintains more than 60 million DoD records involving military and civilian personnel, contractors, family members, retirees and veterans.
The notification letter said a “security vulnerability” in a file-sharing system allowed unauthorized users to gain access. The Defense Department and DMDC did not immediately respond to questions about the number of people affected or who accessed the files.
The notification letter says DMDC updated the file-sharing system to patch the vulnerability after discovering the problem and restored the system.
Natalie Oliverio is an independent journalist and Navy veteran who covers military and veterans’ issues. Drawing on her experience as a talent executive and mentor, she writes about the policies, people and programs shaping the military community.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/09/24/military-personnel-data-exposed-in-breach-agency-warns/
US appeals court upholds Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic
Sep 25, 2026 at 03:19 PM
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic from military contracts, handing a victory to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in their battle with the AI startup over safety guardrails on its technology.
The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington came in a lawsuit by Anthropic challenging its March designation by the Pentagon as a national security supply chain risk, which the startup says has cost it billions of dollars in lost business and damaged its reputation ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering.
The court’s majority said it was reasonable for the Pentagon to designate Anthropic after it refused to allow its products to be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance. It rejected Anthropic’s claim that the Pentagon had retaliated against it for its views on AI safety and ethics.
Siding with Hegseth’s argument that Anthropic’s safety restrictions could compromise military operations, the majority said, “The Secretary raises the deeply sobering prospect of overly constrained AI models shutting down unexpectedly and thus causing important military operations to fail,” in an opinion by Judge Gregory Katsas.
San Francisco-based Anthropic said in a statement Friday that it respectfully disagrees with the decision but remains confident in its position and is considering its options, including review of the three-judge panel’s decision by the full appeals court.
The White House and the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
A federal judge in San Francisco last month struck down a parallel designation under a different law, finding the administration had unlawfully retaliated against Anthropic for its views on AI safety. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin in San Francisco also blocked Trump’s government-wide ban on Anthropic and Hegseth’s order barring military contractors from doing any business with the startup.
Hegseth designated Anthropic as a risk under two different laws after Anthropic refused to remove guardrails against its technology being used for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
The unprecedented move came after months of negotiations ended in failure and public recriminations by Hegseth and Trump, who accused Anthropic of endangering American lives with ideological posturing.
Anthropic denied that characterization and said AI is not yet reliable enough to be safely used in autonomous weapons. The company also said it opposes domestic surveillance as a violation of fundamental rights.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/09/25/us-appeals-court-upholds-pentagons-blacklisting-of-anthropic/