Russian aircraft dropped 8,766 glide bombs on Ukrainian front-line positions in August 2026, the highest monthly total recorded since the invasion began, according to Ukrainian General Staff figures compiled by the OSINT monitoring group Oko Gora. The total works out to an average of 283 bombs a day over the 31-day month. Oko Gora put [β¦]
The U.S. Air Force has awarded four manufacturers a combined $149 million to build metal cases for large bunker-busting bombs, splitting the work across small forging and machining shops rather than a single prime contractor. Superior Forge and Steel of Lima, Ohio; Ellwood National Forge of Irvine, Pennsylvania; Faxon Machining LLC of Cincinnati, Ohio; and [β¦]
The U.S. State Department has approved a possible $5 billion sale of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits to Saudi Arabia, notifying Congress on September 4 of a deal covering more than 10,000 guidance kits and bombs. It is one of the largest single munitions packages Washington has cleared for a foreign buyer in years, and [β¦]
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a stopgap measure that would continue funding the US government through early December. While the measure still requires the signature of President Trump, it's widely expected that he will act to avoid a government shutdown immediately before the midterm elections.
This is a normal part of how the US government has operated in recent years, as it's often difficult to build the political support needed to pass a full year's budget in advance. In fact, dissent within the House's Republican caucus prevented them from agreeing on their own measure to keep the government open; instead, the House simply adopted a version of the spending bill that had previously passed the Senate.
From the perspective of scientists and their supporters, that adoption turned out to be a very good thing, because the Senate's budget bill, passed in early August, contains a provision that blocks the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from implementing new rules that would give political appointees full control over what science is funded and allow them to cancel any grant at any time. The proposed rule has been widely decried as catastrophic for science, and it faced widespread opposition from scientific and health-focused organizations.