Pentagon redoing space defenses, but will Trump demand more?
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants a Space Force, a new military service he says is needed to ensure American dominance in space. But the idea is gaining little traction at the Pentagon, where the president’s defense chief, Jim Mattis, says it would add burdensome bureaucracy and unwanted costs.
The Pentagon acknowledges a need to revamp its much-criticized approach to defending U.S. economic and security interests in space, and it is moving in that direction. But it’s unclear whether this will satisfy Trump, who wants to go even further by creating a separate military space service.
The administration intends to announce next week the results of a Pentagon study that is expected to call for creating a new military command — U.S. Space Command — to consolidate space warfighting forces and making other organizational changes short of establishing a separate service, which only Congress can do. Any legislative proposal to create a separate service would likely not be put on the table until next year.
Mattis, who said prior to Trump’s “Space Force” announcement in June that he opposes creating a new branch of the military for space, said afterward that this would require “a lot of detailed planning.”
Mattis is allied on this with key Republicans on Capitol Hill including Sen. James Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who opposes a separate Space Force but is open to creating a Space Command. The command would coordinate the use of space forces of existing services, such as those that operate military satellites, but would not be a separate service.
A last showdown looms over Syrian opposition stronghold
BEIRUT — For nearly three years, green buses have filed into Syria’s Idlib province, bringing those evacuated from other opposition enclaves that fell to government forces — thousands of defeated rebel fighters, wanted activists and civilians who refused to go back under President Bashar Assad’s rule.
They now face what is likely to be the last showdown between Assad’s forces and the opposition. Assad has vowed to retake the province, and pro-government media promise the “mother of all battles.”
If it comes to an all-out assault, it could bring a humanitarian crisis. Filled with displaced from elsewhere, the province in Syria’s northwest corner is packed with some 3 million people, the most deeply irreconcilable with Assad’s government and including some of the world’s most radical militants. They have little option but to make a stand, with few good places to escape.
“Currently, all (opposition) from around Syria came to Idlib. The only solution is to fight. There is no alternative,” said Firas Barakat, an Idlib resident. The 28-year old said that for years he has dedicated himself to civilian opposition activities, but now he must take up arms.
The opposition capture of Idlib in 2015 signaled the low point for Assad’s government during the course of war that is now nearly 8 years old — a time when rebels controlled large parts of two main Syrian cities, major highways, border crossings, dams and oil resources.
In waiting for answers, automakers stick to Obama-era rules
DETROIT — For all the drama surrounding the Trump administration’s attempt to undo Obama-era fuel economy requirements, automakers are likely to stick to them until they get some answers.
The administration on Thursday unveiled plans to freeze the requirements at 2020 levels through 2026, after which they will be revisited. That means the fleet of new vehicles would have to average about 30 miles per gallon in real-world driving from 2020 through the next six years. The previous fuel standards under President Barack Obama required about 37 mpg by 2025.
But much remains in flux. The Trump administration likely will challenge California’s ability to set its own stricter standards that now match the ones under Obama, and depending on who wins, the U.S. could wind up with two gas mileage standards. It could take years for courts to settle the dispute, or both sides could negotiate one standard. There’s also the looming 2020 presidential election, which could upend the requirements again if a Democrat takes over.
In the meantime, automakers aren’t sure what requirements they will have to meet in 2021, so most are proceeding as if the Obama-era requirements won’t change. They’re continuing to develop more efficient vehicles including electrics and hybrids.
“We’d like to get clarity as soon as we can,” General Motors President Dan Ammann said Friday on the sidelines of a cybersecurity conference in Detroit. “We’d be very much behind one national standard that we can work to plan, to deploy capital against.”
Is JFK’s luster fading? Key memorabilia doesn’t sell
BOSTON — Is JFK losing his star power?
It’s probably too early to tell, but 55 years after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, an auction of some of the most iconic items associated with the Kennedy White House fell well short of the pre-sale hype.
A rocking chair JFK used to meet with world leaders in the Oval Office sold for $50,000, and a collection of pens he used to establish the Peace Corps and sign a landmark nuclear treaty sold for $60,000 at Friday’s auction on Cape Cod, not far from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts.
But a number of other intriguing items didn’t sell, including Kennedy’s last pencil doodles before his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, and a tie clip in the shape of the PT-109 torpedo boat Kennedy commanded during World War II.
Other items that didn’t get the minimum bid included a charcoal drawing done as a study for the slain president’s official White House portrait; handwritten notes he jotted about Vietnam around 1953; his letter opener and crystal ashtray; and his personal stereo and Jackie Gleason records.