Fidel Castro reign of power over
Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: News
Bush announced that the U.S. will provide $100 million more to train peacekeepers for service in Darfur.
Air Force says budgets are billions of dollars short of what's needed
3 WASHINGTON (AP) - Air Force officials are warning that unless their budget is increased dramatically, and soon, the military's high-flying branch won't dominate the skies as it has for decades.
After more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force's aging jet fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and gunships are at the breaking point, they say, and expensive, ultramodern replacements are needed fast.
"What we've done is put the requirement on the table that says, 'If we're going to do the missions you're going to ask us to do, it will require this kind of investment,'" Maj. Gen. Paul Selva, the Air Force's director of strategic planning, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"Failing that, we take what is already a geriatric Air Force," Selva said, "and we drive it for another 20 years into an area of uncertainty."
An extra $20 billion each year over the next five - beginning with an Air Force budget of about $137 billion in 2009 instead of the $117 billion proposed by the Bush administration - would solve that problem, according to Selva and other senior Air Force officers.
Wisconsin, Hawaii voters to choose between Obama and Clinton in Democratic primary
4 CHICAGO (AP) -- Democrats in Wisconsin and Hawaii were heading to the polls Tuesday in a presidential campaign that has grown increasingly negative with charges of broken promises, plagiarism and petty partisanship.
Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York criticized each other as they looked to break out of a tight race, fearing the prospect that neither one will secure the nomination before the convention this summer.
They entered Tuesday's contests closely divided in the hunt for the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination: 1,281 for Obama and 1,218 for Clinton.
Air Force says budgets are billions of dollars short of what's needed
3 WASHINGTON (AP) - Air Force officials are warning that unless their budget is increased dramatically, and soon, the military's high-flying branch won't dominate the skies as it has for decades.
After more than six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Air Force's aging jet fighters, bombers, cargo aircraft and gunships are at the breaking point, they say, and expensive, ultramodern replacements are needed fast.
"What we've done is put the requirement on the table that says, 'If we're going to do the missions you're going to ask us to do, it will require this kind of investment,'" Maj. Gen. Paul Selva, the Air Force's director of strategic planning, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"Failing that, we take what is already a geriatric Air Force," Selva said, "and we drive it for another 20 years into an area of uncertainty."
An extra $20 billion each year over the next five - beginning with an Air Force budget of about $137 billion in 2009 instead of the $117 billion proposed by the Bush administration - would solve that problem, according to Selva and other senior Air Force officers.
Wisconsin, Hawaii voters to choose between Obama and Clinton in Democratic primary
4 CHICAGO (AP) -- Democrats in Wisconsin and Hawaii were heading to the polls Tuesday in a presidential campaign that has grown increasingly negative with charges of broken promises, plagiarism and petty partisanship.
Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York criticized each other as they looked to break out of a tight race, fearing the prospect that neither one will secure the nomination before the convention this summer.
They entered Tuesday's contests closely divided in the hunt for the 2,025 delegates needed for the nomination: 1,281 for Obama and 1,218 for Clinton.
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