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U.S. Army soldiers install their missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea,  The  second North Korean test launch  of an ICBM within four weeks should convince South Korea to allow deployment of a full THAAD anti-missile battery, the Pentagon said Monday. South Korea has permitted the U.S.  Army  to install two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense launchers on a former golf course south of Seoul, but South Korean President Moon Jae-in has delayed placement  of a full battery of six launchers pending an environmental study that has no timeline. The Pentagon maintained that North Korea’s test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile last Friday, following on a similar test launch July 4, had altered the security calculus on the peninsula and made the case for immediate deployment of the full THAAD battery. “A lot of people question the need for THAAD; they question the requ...

 A U.S. congressional panel this week asked 22 government agencies to share documents on Moscow-based cyber firm Kaspersky Lab, saying its products could be used to carry out "nefarious activities against the United States," according to letters seen by Reuters. The requests made on Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology are the latest blow to the antivirus company, which has been countering accusations by U.S. officials that it may be vulnerable to Russian government influence. The committee asked the agencies for all documents and communications about Kaspersky Lab products dating back to Jan. 1, 2013, including any internal risk assessments. It also requested lists of any systems that use Kaspersky products and the names of any U.S. government contractors or subcontractors that do so. Kaspersky has repeatedly denied that it has ties to any government and said it would not help any government with cyber espionage. It...

PLATO is a European Space Agency telescope set to launch in 2024. The name is an acronym for "PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars." The overall goal of the mission is to figure out under what conditions planets form and whether those conditions are favorable for life.  To do this, PLATO will seek out and investigate Earth-size exoplanets, especially planets that orbit in the habitable zone around sun-like stars. (The habitable zone is usually defined as the area around a star where there is enough energy for liquid water on a planet's surface, although habitability also depends on other factors such as star variability.) It will determine how big their radii are; verify the mass of the planets from ground-based observatories; use astroseismology or "starquakes" to learn about a star's mass, radius and age; and identify bright targets for atmospheric spectroscopy along with other telescopes. If all goes to plan, the mission should be able to provid...

A Secret Service agent stands watch as President Barack Obama arrives aboard the Marine One helicopter at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York on Sept. 13, 2016.Carlos Barria/Reuters Protecting the president isn't easy or cheap, and according to estimates  from The Washington Post , President Donald Trump and his family are on track to supersede what it cost to protect former President Barack Obama and his family by hundreds of millions of dollars, the newspaper reported on Thursday night. Judicial Watch, a conservative group that tracked the cost of travel expenses for Obama, estimated that $97 million was spent during his eight years in office. However, based on the first four weeks of Trump's presidency, which included three trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump is well on his way to jump past that figure. The Post rounded up a handful of estimates of the costs of protecting the Trump family incurred by the US departments of Defense and Hom...

The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release February 16, 2017 East Room 12:55 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Labor will be Mr. Alex Acosta. He has a law degree from Harvard Law School, was a great student. Former clerk for Justice Samuel Alito. And he has had a tremendous career. He's a member, and has been a member, of the National Labor Relations Board, and has been through Senate confirmation three times, confirmed -- did very, very well. And so Alex, I've wished him the best. We just spoke. And he's going to be -- I think he'll be a tremendous Secretary of Labor. And also, as you probably heard just a little while ago, Mick Mulvaney, former congressman, has just been approved -- weeks late, I have to say that. Weeks, weeks late. Office of Management and Budget. And he will be, I think, a fantastic addition. Paul Singer has just left. ...