Joe Gould

The Republican-controlled Senate has rejected a bipartisan measure to block the military from giving offensive surplus equipment to state and local U.S. police departments.

No funding would be available for live nuclear weapons testing under an amendment the House adopted to its version of the annual defense policy bill.

Eighty defense industry executives have written to top congressional leaders to ask for emergency appropriations to reimburse defense contractors’ coronavirus-related costs.

The chairmen of the House foreign affairs and intelligence committees are pushing a measure meant to extend the last remaining U.S.-Russia arms control agreement amid fears President Donald Trump will let it lapse.

Pentagon leaders need “around $10 billion” in the next pandemic aid package to cover defense contractors’ coronavirus-related costs. But it’s unclear how the hefty funding handout will square with Republican skepticism of new deficit spending.

Fired-up House appropriators are expected to vote to reject the Pentagon’s requests for added budget flexibility over the president’s diversion of military funds to build his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The aid falls short of the “lower double-digit billions” Pentagon officials say defense firms will claim.

House appropriators have approved a spending bill that would block plans from defense hawks to give the Pentagon a stronger hand in crafting nuclear weapons budgets.