Stars and Stripes Daily Headlines

July 3, 2017     Nicholson: Afghan police actions saved lives amid deadly attack The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Sunday thanked families of Afghan police officers killed or wounded in one of the deadliest terrorist bombings of the country’s 15-year-old war.   Hodges: Rotational forces best way to counter assertive Russia A rotational brigade in Eastern Europe deters Russian aggression better than a permanently based armored unit in Germany, the Army’s top commander in Europe said following a study that questioned the cost of sending U.S.-based units on deployments to the Continent.   US targets al-Shabab in second use of new combat authorities in Somalia The United States conducted an airstrike in Somalia over the weekend targeting militants linked to al-Qaida in its second use of authorities granted by President Donald Trump to attack al-Shabab’s terrorist network in the East African nation, the Pentagon said Monday.   Independence Day celebrations return to US bases across Japan Independence Day celebrations, including plenty of colorful fireworks, are making a triumphant return to U.S. bases in Japan, a year after such events were scaled back in the wake of a brutal slaying on Okinawa.   Five North Korean defectors sail to safety in the South, officials say Four men and one woman were found Saturday evening after South Korea’s coast guard responded to a military request to check an unidentified boat off the peninsula’s east coast.   With fight for Mosul in final stage, militants strike back With the fight for Mosul in its final stage Monday, Islamic State militants sent female suicide bombers hidden among fleeing civilians, while Iraqi forces and the U.S.-led coalition unleashed punishing airstrikes and artillery fire that set dozens of buildings ablaze.   China vows to step up patrols after US warship sails near disputed island China's military vowed Monday to step up air and sea patrols after an American warship sailed near a disputed island in the South China Sea in what Beijing called a "serious political and military provocation."   New Air Force secretary presses for a culture change in her service New Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson stood in front of a room of airmen in the Pentagon recently and presented an unconventional proposal. What, she asked, if she eliminated every single one of the Air Force's regulations and required service members to ask for the ones they need back?   Security of US nukes now an official secret The Pentagon has thrown a cloak of secrecy over assessments of the safety and security of its nuclear weapons operations, a part of the military with a history of periodic inspection failures and lapses in morale.   Little Chief, other Native American children buried at Carlisle, Pa. are finally going home Next month, if all goes as planned, Little Chief will finally be going home from a cemetery on the grounds of what was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, now the Army War College, where he lies among nearly 200 native children who died in a misbegotten experiment in forced assimilation.   Meet the Air Force veteran who’s visited Disneyland 2,000 days in a row It started as something to do in 2012 — visit Disneyland every day. Now, more than five years later, Jeff Reitz, 44, has passed through the Magic Kingdom’s turnstiles every day since for more than 2,000 days in a row.   A photographer's journey into the dying center of the Islamic State It took Ahmed Brazu and his family 20 terrifying hours to escape this ravaged city, the capital of the Islamic State's imagined caliphate that has become an increasingly perilous battlefield.