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in these years, we’ve morphed into the planet’s invading aliens.

Think about it. Over the last half-century, whenever and wherever the U.S. military “deploys,” often to underdeveloped towns and villages in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, it arrives very much in the spirit of those sci-fi aliens. After all, it brings with it dazzlingly destructive futuristic weaponry and high-tech gadgetry of all sorts (known in the military as “force-multipliers”). It then proceeds to build mothership-style bases that are often like American small towns plopped down in a new environment. Nowadays in such lands, American drones patrol the skies (think: the “Terminator” films), blast walls accented with razor wire and klieg lights provide “force protection” on the ground, and the usual attack helicopters, combat jets and gunships hover overhead like so many alien craft. To designate targets to wipe out, U.S. forces even use lasers.

In the field, American military officers emerge from high-tech vehicles to bark out commands in a harsh “alien” tongue. (You know: English.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino has approved the purchase of 44 billion pesos (US$932 million) worth of military equipment to help boost maritime security capability as tensions simmer in the South China Sea.

Defence Undersecretary Fernando Manalo made the announcement Saturday after the government received the first two of a dozen new South Korean-made light fighter jets to enhance the country’s air defence capabilities.

Aquino authorised the multi-year contract to purchase two frigates, eight amphibious assault vehicles, three anti-submarine helicopters, two long-range patrol aircraft, three aerial radars, munitions for the fighters and close support planes, Manalo said.

significant damage" had been done to a munitions depot, a factory manufacturing mortar rounds and oil facilities. Two major targets in Raqqa, the defacto capital of Isis, had been hit, said Mr Shoigu.

With regard to strikes from a submarine. We certainly need to analyse everything that is happening on the battlefield, how the weapons work. Both the [Kalibr] missiles and the Kh-101 rockets are generally showing very good results. We now see that these are new, modern and highly effective high-precision weapons that can be equipped either with conventional or special nuclear warheads."

"Naturally, we do not need that in fighting terrorists, and I hope we will never need it. But overall, this speaks to our significant progress in terms of improving weaponry and equipment being supplied to the Russian army and navy."

Volkswagen said on Thursday that it was investigating whether substantially more vehicles than previously disclosed were equipped with software intended to deceive emissions tests, raising the possibility of even greater damage to the company’s reputation and finances.

The automaker admitted last month that 11 million cars and light commercial vehicles equipped with a diesel motor line known as the EA 189 had the illegal software.

The need for driverless farming equipment is intensifying, Mr. Cafiero said, because of a crushing labor shortage, which drives up wages and worker mobility.

Instead

, it adapts the sensors and actuators needed for driverless plowing to existing tractors produced by major manufacturers.That step is not as sci-fi as it might seem. From equipment automation to data collection and analysis, the digital evolution of agriculture is already a fact of life on farms across the United States.

A deal with General Motors and Ventec Life Systems to produce tens of thousands of the critical lifesaving devices seemed imminent. Then the announcement was pulled back.

The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off.

The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology.

(CNN)A draft of the Senate's stimulus bill reveals just how far the government is going to ensure the country is prepared for future pandemics and how it is making sure the US supply chain for food, medical supplies and medicine remains intact over the next several months.

The bill expands funding for the Agriculture Department by $9.5 billion to support agriculture producers affected by coronavirus and includes money to support food inspection services, whether it be for "temporary and intermittent workers" or "relocation of inspectors."

The measure provides $1 billion for the Pentagon under the Defense Production Act, which is intended to invest in "manufacturing capabilities that are key to increasing the production rate of personal protective equipment and medical equipment," according to a summary from Senate Appropriations Democrats.

When the definitive history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the date 20 January 2020 is certain to feature prominently. It was on that day that a 35-year-old man in Washington state, recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan in China, became the first person in the US to be diagnosed with the virus.

In the two months since that fateful day, the responses to coronavirus displayed by the US and South Korea have been polar opposites.

One country acted swiftly and aggressively to detect and isolate the virus, and by doing so has largely contained the crisis. The other country dithered and procrastinated, became mired in chaos and confusion, was distracted by the individual whims of its leader, and is now confronted by a health emergency of daunting proportions.

Donald Trump has bowed to overwhelming pressure and invoked a national security law compelling General Motors to mass produce breathing equipment as the US becomes the first country to top 100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.But at yet another turbulent press conference, the president continued to give conflicting signals, claiming that more than 100,000 ventilators would be produced quickly but then casually suggesting some could be donated to the UK and other countries.

For weeks the president seemed reluctant to enforce the Defense Production Act (DPA), which grants him power to require companies to expand industrial production of key materials or products.

But officials say he did use it on 18 March, when he signed an order prioritising contracts and allocating resources to the US health secretary, Alex Azar, and again on 23 March, when he signed an order to prevent people from hoarding health and medical resources.

Doctors and nurses responding to the Covid-19 pandemic are the superheroes of our age, putting themselves at risk to save the lives of others.

At least 61 doctors and nurses have died from the coronavirus in Italy so far. Already, in New York City alone, two nurses have died and more than 200 health workers are reported sick at a single major hospital.

Tension arises not only because of shortages of P.P.E. but also because of uncertainty about how much protection is optimal. No one knows. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have given conflicting advice, and other countries have varying standards

Eighty years ago, as Americans came together to defeat the fascism that threatened civilization, American factories poured out the weapons needed to crush Germany and the other Axis Powers.

Today America can do it again and create the arsenal that defeats this latest threat to civilization: the coronavirus. From ventilators and N95 masks, to anti-viral drugs and ICU equipment and hospital beds, American companies are being mobilized in the face of the most serious public health crisis in more than a century. But these companies will only be successful if we learn the right lessons from the industrial mobilization that won the world's biggest war.

Have a clear objective and a realistic timeline When war mobilization began in 1940-41, no one said the goal was to defeat fascism — and no one was able to mass produce tanks or bombers from a standing start. From the beginning, Washington set a more purposeful goal of building a modern, well-equipped military in case war came.

There’s no question the United States missed the opportunity to get ahead of the novel coronavirus.

But the window for making important decisions hasn’t closed. The choices we and our leaders make now will have an enormous impact

we must take three steps.

In mid March, we heard that doctors from a nearby hospital didn’t have enough valves for their lifesaving ventilator machines. And the company that produced the valves couldn’t meet the growing demand.

Our company is five years old. We make earthquake sensors, silicone bandages, bicycles — practical stuff. We had never made valves before, but we wanted to help.

We visited the hospital to see the valve, which connects the patient to the breathing machine, mixing pure oxygen with air that enters through a rectangular window. It looks like a chess piece waving one arm and it needs to be replaced for each patient.

President Donald Trump has told people around him that he's under pressure to utilize the authorities given to him under the Defense Production Act, after he spent the weekend fielding criticism over why he hasn't mandated that private companies mass produce needed medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump told aides he wanted to be at the microphone during optimal viewing hours -- and his appearance came after he spent the day paying close attention to appeals from New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who called on him to use the Defense Production Act instead of having states get into "a mad bidding war" over supplies.

Trump signed the act that grants him authority to direct private companies to ramp up production of needed supplies last week, but has refused to wield his powers for now.

A national plan to fight the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and return Americans to jobs and classrooms is emerging — but not from the White House.

a collection of governors, former government officials, disease specialists and nonprofits are pursuing a strategy that relies on the three pillars of disease control:

Ramp up testing to identify people who are infected.

They call them corona taxis: Medics outfitted in protective gear, driving around the empty streets of Heidelberg to check on patients who are at home, five or six days into being sick with the coronavirus.They take a blood test, looking for signs that a patient is about to go into a steep decline. They might suggest hospitalization, even to a patient who has only mild symptoms; the chances of surviving that decline are vastly improved by being in a hospital when it begins.

Heidelberg’s corona taxis are only one initiative in one city. But they illustrate a level of engagement and a commitment of public resources in fighting the epidemic that help explain one of the most intriguing puzzles of the pandemic: Why is Germany’s death rate so low?

According to Johns Hopkins University, the country had more than 92,000 laboratory-confirmed infections as of midday Saturday, more than any other country except the United States, Italy and Spain.

Spain’s crisis has demonstrated that one symptom of the virus, by now as persistent as the fevers, aches and labored breathing it brings, has been the tendency of one government after another to ignore the experiences of countries where the virus has struck before it.

as in most nations, the Spanish authorities initially treated the virus as an external threat, rather than considering that their country could be the next domino to fall.

The epidemic has now forced Spaniards to confront the kind of struggle that could be recalled only by those old enough to have lived through the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s.

Trump delivered an indignant screed about claims that he was slow in responding to the coronavirus outbreak, repeatedly citing the travel restrictions on China he announced in late January and began in early February.

Trump also falsely claimed he has "total" authority over states' coronavirus restrictions

"He has since apologized and he said I did the right thing," Trump said

Trump pushed for Japan to buy “massive” amounts of military equipment from the U.S., saying that it would help the country shoot down missiles like the pair that nearby North Korea has fired overhead in recent months.

“It’s a lot of jobs for us, and a lot of safety for Japan,” Mr. Trump said

Mr. Abe said. “We will be buying more from the United States. That’s what I’m thinking.”

In the clearest sign of his pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Tuesday that Turkey had signed a deal to purchase a Russian surface-to-air missile system.

The deal comes as relations between Russia and the West are at a particularly low point. Tensions escalated in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and then began fomenting armed revolt in eastern Ukraine. They have grown still worse as evidence has mounted that Moscow was behind the hacking of the 2016 election in the United States and also tried to interfere in other nations’ elections.

The purchase of the missile system flies in the face of cooperation within the NATO alliance, which Turkey has belonged to since the early 1950s. NATO does not ban purchases of military hardware from manufacturers outside the American-led alliance, but it does discourage members from buying equipment not compatible with that used by other members.