The Air Force will soon release its final request for proposed bids in the long saga of replacing it's mid-air refueling tankers. Boeing and Northrop Grumman/EADS are facing off again for a massive deal that will start at $35 billion, but could end up over $100 billion.

After stumbling in his transition from backstage player to out-front crisis manager, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has since quieted critics inside and outside the administration. But with the economy still hovering between recession and recovery, multiple tests of his judgment and political dexterity lie ahead.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he is returning the authority to choose the next Air Force refueling tanker back to the Air Force.

Somali pirates holding a hijacked ship off the coast of Somalia fired at a U.S. Navy helicopter as it made a surveillance flight over the vessel, the first such attack by pirates on an American military aircraft, the Navy said Thursday.

The cyberwar games at West Point are just one example of a heightened awareness across the military that it must treat the threat of a computer attack as seriously as it does an attack carried out by a bomber or combat brigade.