ash carter

As the Defense Department grapples with how to handle some 10,000 California National Guardsmen who received improper bonus payments, a spokesman for the Maryland Guard said just three service members received improper bonuses and have already paid the money back. The overpayments totaled $32,000 Col. Charles S. Kohler said Wednesday. Another guardsman was underpaid $600, the same audit found.

The Morning Report is a quick roundup of links to stories that Carroll County residents are talking about for July 1, 2016.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter on Friday urged the newly commissioned officers of the Naval Academy's class of 2016 to prepare to tackle five challenges facing the nation: Russian aggression, the rise of China in East Asia, a nuclear-armed North Korea, Iranian meddling in the Middle East and the battle against the self-declared Islamic State.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter says former Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds can defer military service to play in the NFL.

After a decade of classified commando raids and drone strikes, the official reluctance to talk about the cyber campaign against the self-declared Islamic State means the country is again heading into a new field of warfare with only limited public debate.

The Defense Department plans to invite hackers to break into its computer systems so it can find and fix weaknesses before they're exploited for real, joining a growing number of organizations that are getting security help from the public.

The Defense Department has called on military hackers at Fort Meade to disrupt the operations of the self-declared Islamic State, adding cyber weapons to the bombs and missiles the United States has been using to batter the terror group.

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter has signed off on a plan to fly giant radar balloons over Aberdeen Proving Ground after one broke free of its moorings in the fall, military officials said Thursday.

Reactivating the draft, this time for men and women, could help break up inner city gangs and get troublemakers off the streets.

The Pentagon's decision allowing women to serve on an equal basis with men will make the nation stronger

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert A. McDonald asked American Legion members in Baltimore Tuesday to help him push Congress for more money and greater flexibility in how he runs his sprawling and troubled federal agency.

Riders from the American Legion rode through Maryland in their annual Legacy Run, raising money for the Legacy Scholarship Fund.

If, as seems likely, President Barack Obama retains enough support to complete the nuclear deal with Iran, it will be largely because enough members of the House and Senate are persuaded by his argument that the only other real option is war. This was the rhetorical gauntlet the president threw down at his press conference last week. Equally significant, Mr. Obama omitted the until-now obligatory warning that "all options, including the military one, remain on the table."

Gov. Larry Hogan's office said an online threat claiming the Islamic State has a terror cell based in Maryland preparing to launch an attack is not credible. Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Hogan, said officials are aware of the reports and that Maryland's director of homeland security has been in touch with federal authorities.

Russian hackers infiltrated the Department of Defense's unclassified network earlier this year, Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in a speech at Stanford University Thursday.

It will be the first major update to the Defense Department's strategy for cyber operations in four years, in which time computer security has become a more visible issue after major attacks on American businesses including Sony Picture Entertainment late last year.

With the personal approval of the Defense Secretary, Ukrainian Col. Ihor Hordiychuk is the beneficiary of a little-known program that the Defense Department uses to take care of allied soldiers on American soil.

The military could in future create a separate service to fight battles over computer networks, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told troops at Ft. Meade Friday.

On Out There with Thomas Roberts, Kristin Beck said she thinks "we need a lot more voices just of the people" in Congress, saying professional politicians like Hoyer "lose touch" when they've been in office for decades.

The Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies are at it again: waging their friendly summer battle to see which can raise the most food for the annual Feds Feed Families charitable drive.