Author: Braxton Taylor

The value of Thrift Savings Plan funds has been volatile over the past year, reaching new highs and producing some big dips. These market fluctuations can make investors nervous. This is doubly true if this is your first experience with sharp swings in the value of your investments.Here’s how some of the recent turbulence played out in the TSP’s individual funds most susceptible to market fluctuations — the C, S and I Funds, also known as the Stock Funds:While recording some of the steepest monthly losses in recent years in December 2024 and February and March 2025, two of the…

Last week, President Donald Trump issued “a little breaking news” during his visit to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday. “We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,” he said. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts. It’s no time to change. And I’m superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going, right.”The seven Army installations Trump mentioned are part of an overall group of nine that originally honored Confederate military leaders…

Tony Peterson travels to North Dakota to hunt whitetail deer on public land with his bow. It’s mid October and Tony returns to one of his favorite public land areas. Tony’s hunt is filled with action, from glassing up deer and elk in broken canyon bottoms to alluring a mature buck into bow range with a snort wheeze. Presented by Moultrie Read the full article here

Summer is the perfect time to kick back, relax and — if you’re like me — fall asleep in a lawn chair with a book or your phone on your chest. But instead of the latest beach read, why not pick up a book that could improve your family’s financial future? Whether you’re lounging by the pool, hiding from the heat in the air conditioning or waiting on yet another delayed summer flight, a good personal finance book can entertain, educate and maybe even put a little more cash in your pocket down the road.Here are four personal finance books…

How far is too far to take an ethical shot on an animal? However you answer that question, some in Wyoming are calling on lawmakers to step in and decide.Long-distance hunting has become more and more popular over the past several years, and MeatEater has lots of coverage about squeezing the most out of your bullet velocities, scope magnifications, reloading presses, ballistics calculators, and all the other dozens of variables and tools that separate a hit and a miss.However, lawmakers in Wyoming say that pushback is growing as the shots on animals get farther and farther away. In 2018, a…

Despite increasingly heated rhetoric on Iran coming from President Donald Trump on Tuesday, U.S. officials said the Pentagon had not made any new, major force posture changes in the Middle East in the past 24 hours and the mission for troops remained protecting U.S. assets — not conducting strikes.Israel for days had conducted missile strikes on Iran, including hitting its state media broadcaster in Tehran, and appeared set on destroying its nuclear program, potentially with the help of the U.S. Trump, who initially appeared open to dialogue with the Iranians, turned to more aggressive rhetoric threatening the Iranian supreme leader,…

Every year in the United States, taxes on sporting goods sales generate around $1.5 billion for conservation initiatives via the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson acts. Together, these bills levy a 10% tax on most fishing equipment and an 11% tax on firearms, ammunition, and archery gear (see the exact breakdown here). In recent years, however, an increasingly large loophole has been growing—one that allows direct-to-consumer sales from foreign manufacturers to fly under the radar.To understand the issue, MeatEater spoke with Mike Leonard, Vice President of Government Affairs at the American Sportfishing Association—an organization that has been lobbying for a bill in…

The Air Force had to reduce its target recruiting goal by several thousand airmen due to ongoing congressional budget delays, but is still on pace to hit its newly revised benchmark by the end of this month, according to the service.Chief Master Sgt. Frank Rawls, the top recruiter for the Air Force, told Military.com in an interview Tuesday that the service is “96%” of the way to its active-duty goal of 29,950 airmen with expectations it will hit that number by the end of this month — roughly three months ahead of scheduleLast year, the Air Force announced a much…

PRAGUE—China describes its space activity—including the deployment of highly maneuverable satellites, satellites equipped with robotic arms, and moon missions—as nonmilitary. But officials from the United States and Taiwan, as well as independent space experts, worry that China is “rehearsing” how to use satellites as space weapons in the opening days of a full-scale invasion. They also fear China is positioning itself to pressure other nations into accepting whatever space activities Beijing defines as “normal.”Speaking at the 8th annual Space Security Conference here this week, Holmes Liao, a senior adviser to the Taiwan Space Agency, said China’s recent space activities are “not just logical…

PARIS—Companies building a next-generation combat fighter for France, Germany, and Spain are publicly sparring over development of the program. Germany’s Airbus and France’s Dassault Aviation are working alongside Spain’s Indra Sistemas to build a sixth-gen fighter jet called Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, but Airbus and Dassault have run into problems over how to share the work, creating a tough environment, Jean-Brice Dumont, head of air power at Airbus, told reporters Tuesday at the Paris Air Show. While Dassault, which builds the Rafale jet, is the prime contractor of the New Generation Fighter, or NGF (the main aspect of FCAS), Airbus…