The House has approved a bill to repeal the military's seventeen-year policy banning gays from openly serving in the military. The move comes less than a week after the Senate voted down a larger defense bill that included a provision to repeal the policy.

The Senate has voted down a repeal of the 17-year ban, in a vote of 57 to 40.

Hot Air, our month-long celebration of woodwind and brass sections on WQXR, might as well be called a fanfare for these instruments. Here are five notable fanfares, from Mouret to Verdi and Adams.

Gay rights groups are celebrating a California judge's ruling against the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. As The Associated Press Reports, U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, who has already ruled the ban unconstitutional, has now issued a worldwide injunction against enforcing it.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled a series of cost-saving measures meant to trim the Pentagon budget by $100 billion over the next five years.

A repeal of the U.S. military policy banning homosexuals from serving openly is moving ahead in Congress.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is visiting troops in southern Afghanistan today. One stop he made was a remote outpost near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Top Pentagon officials told a Senate panel today that they will study ways to allow gays to serve openly in the military.