China’s preparations for a military attack against Taiwan are escalating, according to Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. “You know the metaphor of boiling the frog. Well, it’s a rapid boil. We notice quick change,” he said in remarks at a conference hosted by the McCain Institute last week.

In 2021, the People’s Liberation Army held a single brigade exercise near Taiwan. That was followed by a six-brigade drill in 2022 and 42-brigade exercises in 2024 that involved two-thirds of the PLA navy’s amphibious fleet with hundreds of assault combat vehicles that practiced breaching barriers and obstacles and moving military forces on land in simulated attacks on urban terrain.

The Chinese military also is conducting frequent “pressure operations” around Taiwan that simulate the closing of a military zone, said Adm. Paparo, who characterized the operations as “rehearsals for selective blockade quarantine.” He emphasized that China’s growing ties and partnerships with Russia and North Korea also are worrisome.

The Pentagon’s Test Resource Management Center says the second successful flight of a fully recoverable uncrewed hypersonic test vehicle — featuring Ursa Major’s Hadley liquid rocket engine — took place in March. A Defense Department statement indicates that the Stratolaunch Talon-A2 hypersonic vehicle took off from the ROC carrier aircraft, flew over the Pacific Ocean and reached speeds of more than Mach 5 before finally landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The test was conducted in partnership with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division and marked the first time the U.S. has flown fully recoverable hypersonic vehicles since the X-15 program was shuttered in 1968. Recent tests underscore the increasing advances in hypersonic technology in the U.S. as China and Russia deploy their own systems.

The first successful test flight was in December 2024. Ursa Major, which built the hypersonic engine for the vehicle, said in a press release that the successful tests are a good sign for future hypersonic development in the United States. National security analysts have warned that the U.S. is being challenged, and perhaps even outpaced, by China and Russia in the hypersonics race.

The Army is canceling the M-10 Booker, a tank-like armored vehicle that was supposed to be the first new major front-line combat weapon in decades to provide firepower for lightly armed infantry troops such as paratroopers. Officials say the vehicle — even at a relatively svelte 42 tons — has been deemed too heavy to be air-dropped or even cross some bridges.

Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll announced the termination last week, as part of a Trump administration push to cut spending on unwanted or underperforming systems. The Booker program, with a price tag of more than $1 billion, was cut along with the AH-64D Apache and the Gray Eagle drone.

Although it had the features of a main battle tank — a tracked armored vehicle with a large main gun — Army officials insisted during the M-10 Booker’s development that the vehicle wasn’t a tank like the M-1 Abrams because it wasn’t designed to take on other tanks in battle. It’s lighter than the leviathan Abrams, America’s main battle tank for decades, which weighs about 74 tons.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who also leads President Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, is pushing for the construction of new data centers to fuel the nation’s artificial intelligence ambitions in competition against China.

The Trump administration is moving to address the need for more energy because the U.S. is in a “huge, precarious position relative to China,” Mr. Burgum told the Hill & Valley Forum last week. He said America must stockpile critical minerals, consider partnering with financiers to invest in certain companies, and consider creating sovereign risk insurance.

“We can win the AI arms race with China,” Mr. Burgum said. “We can have enough power to power our cities, we can build grid security, we can support all of you, and we can get back in the game where we’re not relying on imports for all of the things because we’ve shut down American development across all of our public lands.”

The “travel assistance” initiative announced on Monday is the latest in a full-scale push for illegal immigrants to leave independently rather than wait for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to catch up with them. The Department of Homeland Security said the money is an incentive to the migrants and is a good deal for taxpayers, given that the average cost to detain and deport an illegal immigrant is more than $17,000.

The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan takes a deeper look, reporting that the system relies on the CBP Home app, developed by the Trump administration to encourage self-deportation. It replaced the CBP One app, which the Biden administration used to bring in hundreds of thousands of unauthorized migrants. Migrants looking to collect the $1,000 reward will register their upcoming departures through the app.

Rosemary Jenks, policy director at the Immigration Accountability Project, panned the idea. “I think it’s a better idea to give Americans $1,000 each and just boot the illegals,” she said. “They’ve had enough free stuff paid for by us.” Don Rosenberg, president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime, understood the reluctance but said ushering out illegal immigrants is worth the cost, particularly given the long-term savings.

• May 6-8 — SOF Week 2025: The Asymmetric Strategic Option for a Volatile World, U.S. Special Operations Command & Global SOF Foundation

• May 7 — What’s Happening in Minsk? A Conversation with Belarusian Democratic Leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Hudson Institute

• May 7 — Revitalizing the Defense Industrial Base for the 21st Century, The Heritage Foundation

• May 8 — Antarctic Global Diplomacy — Preview of the Annual Antarctic Treaty Meeting, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• May 13 — Golden Dome for America: From Inception to Implementation, Threat Status

• May 14 — The Spy and the State with Jeffrey P. Rogg, International Spy Museum