The deals cover avionics and ejector assemblies Boeing supplies to prime contractor Raytheon, an RTX business, for both the SM-3 Block IB and the newer Block IIA. Both variants operate with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System to destroy incoming missiles outside the atmosphere.

“These agreements ensure our Warfighters get the munitions they need to win,” Michael P. Duffey, under secretary of war for acquisition and sustainment, said in the Pentagon release. “We are stabilizing our supply chains, expanding munitions production and putting our entire defense industrial base on a wartime footing.”

The frameworks run for seven years and allow Boeing to start building components before a contract is in place, while the three sides negotiate a multiyear deal. The long-term commitment is intended to give suppliers enough certainty to invest in added capacity. Neither the Pentagon nor Boeing released dollar figures or quantities.

“This gives us a clear demand signal to build and deliver SM-3 interceptors at the levels needed to counter threats,” Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems, said in a company statement. “The SM-3 is an essential part of the layered air and missile defense architecture that protects the U.S. and its allies worldwide.”

The approach mirrors a seven-year deal Boeing struck in April to triple production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement seekers, part of a broader Pentagon effort to lock in supply from key subcontractors alongside the prime contractors.

Earlier this month, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Raytheon a $745 million contract to produce fully assembled SM-3 Block IIA interceptors for the United States and Japan.

Demand for the interceptor traces back to April 2024, when Navy destroyers first fired SM-3s in combat, helping to thwart an Iranian ballistic missile attack on Israel. Far more interceptors have been launched since, including those fired in Operation Epic Fury.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated the SM-3 inventory at 414 as of December 2025. A May analysis from the center put wartime expenditures between 130 and 250 missiles and warned that replenishment will take years.

Congress has stepped in to keep the Block IB line open, the cheaper of the two variants covered by Friday’s agreements, after the Missile Defense Agency proposed ending new purchases in the fiscal 2025 budget request.

National security officials in Washington widely view Baker, who also served as a national security adviser to Vice President JD Vance, as a low-key but influential figure inside the White House.

A former State Department official, academic and Vance adviser when the vice president was in the Senate, Baker had historically advocated for a more restrained American foreign policy that questioned the wisdom of long-term foreign conflicts.

He was also among the figures who helped craft Vance’s speech to the Munich Security Conference last year, during which the vice president warned European leaders that alleged censorship and democratic backsliding posed risks as severe to the continent as external threats, like those posed by China and Russia.

“I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved and, of course, am incredibly grateful to the President, Vice President and Secretary Rubio,” Baker wrote in a statement provided to Reuters. “I’ll never be far away.”

In separate statements, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the outgoing deputy national security adviser, whose departure was first reported by Axios.

Staff Changes

Baker, who has a young family, stayed on at the White House months longer than originally planned to help with some key staff transitions, according to a person close to him.

Mike Needham, a high-ranking State Department official close to Rubio, joined the White House in late May as another deputy national security adviser alongside Baker, the person noted. Cliff Sims, a White House and intelligence official during Trump’s first term, succeeded Baker as national security adviser to Vance at around the same time.

There have been additional staff departures at lower levels of the White House’s national security team in recent months. The top officials on the National Security Council overseeing Europe and Latin America both departed in June.

The broader significance of the turnover is unclear. While Baker was present at some high-level talks and was considered far more influential than some of his peers, the Trump administration has often dealt with its biggest foreign policy challenges at the principal level, delegating relatively little responsibility even to its highest-level staff.

Outside the national security space, the White House has in recent days announced the impending departure of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and White House counsel David Warrington.

Melissa Farris was charged with depredation against property of the United States and destruction of veterans’ memorials, Pirro said on social media, adding that the charges carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.

The World War II Memorial on the National Mall was vandalized with bubbly soap and graffiti on Thursday, prompting vows from the U.S. government to find the perpetrator. The fountain bubbled over with suds and the words “Clean hands Dirty $” were painted on one surface, splattering the area with red and green paint.

Along with her statement on X, Pirro posted photos of a woman who appears to be holding a can close to the red paint on the memorial.

Pirro did not provide more details of the woman in custody or provide the source of the images, which Reuters was not immediately able to verify.

Pirro has recently drawn President Donald Trump’s anger for dropping charges against four people for allegedly vandalizing the Reflecting Pool after Trump oversaw renovations of the pool.

The pool’s condition soon deteriorated, with a peeling liner and algae blooms. Pirro blamed that deterioration on faulty installation in dropping the vandalism charges.

Trump said in response that Pirro had “folded like an umbrella.”

Trump appeared to link the Reflecting Pool damage to the World War Two memorial in a post on social media on Friday, calling it an insult to Americans who had died in the conflict.

“First the Reflecting Pool, now this,” he wrote. “We are on their trail! Where do these animals come from???”

Pirro’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Farris could not be immediately reached for comment.

Task Force Falcon Strike will utilize one-way attack drones composed of unmanned systems from above, on and below the sea, managed by U.S. military support staff and regional partners, according to a Thursday release.

The move to launch this unit follows CENTCOM’s establishment of Task Force Scorpion Strike in December 2025, a Middle East-based task force equipped with one-way attack drones as the military strived to integrate drone technology across the services.

“Task Force Falcon Strike will expand on Scorpion Strike’s success given the tremendous innovation happening among our regional allies and partners,” Adm. Brad Cooper, CENTCOM commander, said in the release. “Integrating and deploying our new capabilities together will help us rapidly realize the new possibilities that are on the horizon.”

Scorpion Strike was the first to launch an aerial attack drone from a U.S. Navy warship last December, the month of its announcement. The unit also deployed one-way unmanned aerial systems during Operation Epic Fury and during strikes on Iranian port facilities in July with unmanned attack vessels at sea, the statement highlights.

CENTCOM began consulting with and officially inviting regional partners to join Falcon Strike, aiming to expand attack-drone capabilities across the Middle East into a “unified multi-domain, multinational deterrent.”

“The United States military has a lot of strong partnerships and friends in the region,” Cooper said. “We are collectively stronger when we integrate and deploy new capabilities together.”

The release did not specify which regional partners CENTCOM is working with on the unit.

Personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command Central, located at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, will lead Falcon Strike’s staff of U.S. and regional representatives after it launched Scorpion Strike, the release states.

The announcement comes as the U.S. continues its war with Iran, which has depleted the U.S. munitions stockpile and caused military leaders to weigh the possibility of developing cheaper anti-drone technology at a faster pace.

In an announcement, Sheehy said the Special Operations Forces Concealed Carry Act would align the status of special operators with active and retired law enforcement officers, who are permitted under federal law to carry concealed weapons across state lines.

“Our elite warfighters never stop serving, and this bill ensures the law reflects the trust they’ve earned through a lifetime of sacrifice,” Sheehy said, adding that “Special Operations Forces spend their careers protecting the American people with unmatched discipline, judgment, and professionalism.”

According to Sheehy’s office, when Congress passed the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, or LEOSA, in 2004, lawmakers recognized that active and retired officers may need to respond to violent crime or terrorists while off duty. They also recognized that officers face ongoing threats from individuals they previously encountered while on duty.

Sheehy’s office explained that his bill would build on the framework created by LEOSA because individuals in special operations “have completed rigorous selection and possess firearms training that meets or exceeds professional law enforcement standards.”

Congressman Pat Harrigan, a Republican from North Carolina, filed a companion bill in April. In a statement, he said that “it makes no sense that an active or retired SEAL or Green Beret, someone who spent a career mastering firearms under the most demanding conditions in the world, has no equivalent recognition under federal law.”

While the bill would extend concealed carry privileges, it would also require participants to complete annual active-duty-level firearms qualification tests, as well as a Justice Department concealed carry class.

During Sheehy’s bid for a Senate seat in 2024, The Washington Post published an article about an incident in which Sheehy was cited at Glacier National Park for illegally discharging a firearm. According to the report, the park ranger investigating the incident interviewed Sheehy at an emergency room in Kalispell shortly after the shooting in October 2015.

“(Sheehy) stated he was arranging gear in the back of his vehicle, and that the gun (Colt Revolver, .45 long) had slipped down the pile of gear, hit the ground and fired. The round hit him in the right forearm and did not pass through,” the ranger wrote in a narrative with the citation.

The ranger also told The Washington Post that the revolver that Sheehy said had accidentally discharged was loaded except for a single missing bullet.

When confronted with the details, Sheehy told reporters that he lied about accidentally discharging his firearm and that the shooting injury actually occurred during a deployment in Afghanistan. He said he didn’t report it because a teammate’s negligent discharge caused the injury, and he didn’t want to get his teammate in trouble.

“I guess the only thing I’m guilty of is admitting to doing something I never did,” Sheehy told the newspaper. He added: “It was a small price to pay to make sure that a whole team of really great Americans didn’t get dragged through the mud over this.”

I have never deployed for the United States Navy.

As an active-duty sailor, saying that feels disingenuous. My time in the Navy has only been on shore duty. My understanding of deployment comes mostly from hearing other sailors’ stories: months away from family, long watches, missed holidays, repetitive days, port calls and the odd feeling of watching life go on from afar.

But those of us who have not deployed are paying attention.

We see ships like the USS Gerald R. Ford come back after 326 days at sea. We remember the USS Nimitz and its strike group finishing a 321-day deployment during the pandemic.

We hear about deployments getting longer, and sailors having to adjust to timelines that go far beyond what was expected when they left.

Nearly a year at sea is difficult to comprehend for anyone. Eventually, many of us will be the next ones walking across the brow. This means extended deployments are not just a concern for those going through them now. The whole Navy needs to get its people ready for them.

The Navy exists to go to sea. Deployments are not an aberration from naval service; they are fundamental to it. Ships must be where the country needs them, and sometimes circumstances will require sailors to remain there longer than anyone originally planned.

Knowing this, we should take preparation even more seriously.

Preparation should start before a sailor ever deploys. Commands can be honest about what months at sea are really like. Not only about the Navy’s mission, but also about the daily routines and pressures. Experienced sailors know things you can’t learn from a PowerPoint. We should draw more on their experience when getting sailors ready.

We should also recognize that the quality of life aboard ship is part of readiness.

On a short trip at sea, small problems might be easy to ignore. But over eight, nine, 10, or 11 months, those problems become part of daily life.

Things like working water, clean bathrooms, soap, other basic hygiene supplies, chances to sleep and clean living spaces are not extras. They are the foundation. They are the basics that help sailors keep doing tough jobs.

It belongs partly to leadership, but it also belongs to the sailors themselves. Caring for the ship should always be part of our culture. Cleaning up after ourselves, keeping spaces in good shape, reporting problems instead of ignoring them, respecting shared sleeping and work areas and treating equipment properly are all small ways to be professional. Over many days at sea, these small actions add up. So does neglect, unfortunately.

Taking care of sailors and taking care of ships are closely linked. When a crew lives on a ship for most of a year, these things can’t be separated. The ship is their workplace, their way to travel, their defense, their dining hall and their home for a while.

If we expect the ship to endure, we have to maintain it. If we expect the crew to endure, we have to sustain them.

I can’t tell a sailor who’s done a 10-month deployment what it’s like. I haven’t had that experience. But I can listen to those who have and think about what their stories mean for sailors like me who might go to sea in the future.

The lesson I take from them is not that the Navy should stop deploying. It is that endurance cannot be the only plan. If the mission sometimes entails long deployments, the Navy should prepare sailors for that, both mentally and professionally. This means ensuring basic living standards are met, maintaining the ship, and fostering a culture where sailors know that caring for their ship and for each other go hand in hand. That ensures sailors will have some enthusiasm for the next deployment.

A 300-day deployment will never be easy. We should not pretend that it is. But when sailors are asked to stay at sea that long, we can make sure they leave the pier prepared for more than just their job. We can make sure they are ready to endure, and that the ship is ready to endure with them.

Editor’s Note: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

The Connecticut Democrat, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter on Wednesday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao seeking information about the carrier’s long deployment and reports of problems involving basic supplies, water, plumbing, mental health, deck safety and mail.

The letter comes one day after a Military Times report that detailed concerns of family members who said multiple sailors aboard the Lincoln had attempted to go overboard during the deployment, which has been indefinitely extended as the carrier supports U.S. military operations in the Middle East against Iran.

The report also outlined various concerns raised by sailors and their families about conditions aboard the ship and the strain of the prolonged deployment.

The Lincoln departed Naval Base San Diego on Nov. 21, 2025, for a deployment expected to last seven months, according to Blumenthal’s letter. The carrier is now sailing towards its ninth month of deployment and, according to the senator, has gone more than 200 days without a port call.

Blumenthal asked the Navy to provide the dates of each extension to the Lincoln’s deployment, identify who authorized the extensions and explain the operational requirements behind each decision.

He also asked for a list of significant quality-of-life problems identified aboard the carrier, including mold, broken toilets or laundry facilities, inadequate water supplies and shortages of hygiene products.

Blumenthal requested information on when those problems were first identified and what corrective actions were taken.

The senator also asked what measures the Navy is taking to assess fatigue, morale, mental health and crew readiness aboard the Lincoln. Additionally, the letter asks whether commanders have identified increases in safety incidents, medical issues, disciplinary incidents or other readiness indicators associated with the extended deployment or the number of consecutive days at sea.

The Navy, meanwhile, has not provided a precise number of sailors who have attempted to go overboard or engaged in self-harm during the current deployment.

The service did not respond to inquiries by Military Times, but in a statement provided to Task & Purpose, denied the report.

“Based on information available to the command, we have not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship,” officials told Task & Purpose.

The Navy also told T&P it recognizes that extended deployments place significant strain on service members and their families, and that the Lincoln has medical professionals, counselors, chaplains, fleet and family support services available to sailors.

Navy officials also said current reports from the ship confirm continuous access to clean water and functional air conditioning. The service also acknowledged disruptions to mail and changes to resupply and replenishment during the deployment.

In his letter, Blumenthal asked the Navy to explain how it plans to maintain a carrier presence in the Middle East over the next 12 to 24 months if current operational requirements continue, including how anticipated carrier rotations could affect planned deployments, maintenance periods and carrier presence in the Indo-Pacific and other theaters.

The senator inquired as to whether the Navy believes current demand for carrier presence exceeds what can be sustainably generated under its existing force structure and deployment model.

Concerns surrounding the Lincoln come on the heels of the USS Gerald R. Ford returning to Norfolk, Virginia, on May 16 after a 326-day deployment, a record for the longest post-Vietnam deployment.

In a notice expected in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Defense Department will launch a three-year pilot in September that will reimburse eligible troops to preserve their gametes before deployment.

The benefit, required under the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, will pay service members up to $500 per year for sperm retrieval and cryopreservation and $10,000 per year for egg preservation services.

Those eligible include active-duty DoD personnel who receive orders qualifying for hazardous duty pay, those who expect to get such orders within 120 days and those geographically separated from a “spouse, domestic partner or dating partner” for 180 days or more.

Military families and family planning advocates have lobbied for more than a decade to increase access to fertility services, to include cryopreservation of sperm and egg cells before combat deployments, in vitro fertilization and other advanced reproduction treatments.

In 2014, the Bob Woodruff Foundation sponsored a one-of-a-kind, two-day conference on intimacy and family issues among the combat injured that highlighted the need among wounded personnel to have broader access to family planning counseling, gamete banking and fertility treatments.

Nearly 2,000 troops received debilitating injuries to their groins or genital regions between 2000 and 2013, and 307,000 service members experienced some type of head injury during the same time frame — injuries that sometimes can affect fertility and sex drive.

In 2016, then Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon would begin covering sperm and egg freezing for service members, but the planned pilot never came to fruition following the election later that year of President Donald Trump.

Military families have often spent their own money on cryopreservation as a safeguard, and in extreme cases, have paid to extract sperm from dying loved ones to ensure the possibility of advanced reproductive services.

In 2019, the parents of West Point Cadet Peter Zhu extracted their son’s sperm after he was fatally injured in a skiing accident. They argued in court that Zhu had expressed wanting to have a family someday, and they wanted to preserve his sperm to provide future options.

In Israel, since the start of the Gaza conflict, the military has started offering the option to retrieve the sperm of deceased service members when delivering casualty notifications, according to The New York Times.

Since at least 2022, organizations such as the Military Family Building Coalition, Resolve: The National Infertility Association and others have provided free cryopreservation services to some service members, but until now, no government assistance has been available for deploying troops.

How the program works

Under the pilot, service members can elect to obtain preservation services at a military treatment facility that offers reproductive programs or through a civilian clinic of their choice.

Commanders must validate eligibility, as the Defense Health Agency does not have access to orders. To receive reimbursement, eligible troops must have written affirmation from their commands.

Reimbursement must be requested within 120 days after covered services began — usually the date of retrieval, prescription or lab procedure. Troops must submit itemized invoices and DHA Form 459.

Service members could be eligible for the program more than once within the three-year pilot. Any decisions regarding continued storage, disposition or later use following participation “are solely the responsibility of the covered member and outside the scope of the program,” according to the announcement.

Throughout the pilot, the DoD plans to study the program’s popularity, its cost, continued feasibility and impact on readiness, according to the announcement.

More information on the benefit will be available in the Aug. 13 edition of the Federal Register.

The grant, which covers four years, was awarded to Rosalind Franklin University in Illinois and Old Dominion University in Virginia. According to a release from Rosalind Franklin, bone-stress injuries affect up to 8% of military recruits across the services and cost the Department of Defense about $100 million per year in medical expenses alone.

“Because suspected stress fractures often require serial clinical visits, radiographs, MRI and bone scans, there is a strong operational and economic incentive to improve early diagnosis and risk stratification,” school staff said in the release.

The objective of the grant is to develop a “clinically actionable” test that flags biomarkers in urine, creating a non-invasive way to detect bone-stress injuries in the legs before they lead to fractures and other more severe, sidelining conditions.

“[Bone stress injuries] are a major challenge to military readiness,” Shawn Flanagan, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Rosalind Franklin’s Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR), said in a statement. “By combining cutting-edge proteomic methods with access to large, well-characterized military cohorts, we aim to create a biomarker panel that safeguards recruits and enhances operational performance.”

Founded in 2004, CLEAR is a leading center for research to make “measurable improvements in the health and function of the lower extremities,” according to its website, with specialties in diabetic complications and biomechanics.

The team of researchers, which, according to releases, will include military professionals and experts in proteins, musculoskeletal physiology, bone imaging and military health, will study cohorts of military recruits over time to validate testing panels, and include gender-specific analyses to evaluate any differences between male and female recruits.

The release does not say where the research will be conducted or what services will be involved.

The new research grant comes on the heels of military research that expands what’s known about military stress fractures and who’s most at risk. A Uniformed Services University study published in the Journal of Military Medicine in June assessed 446 patients at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center who sustained a total of 537 stress fractures over three years.

It found that recruits were more likely than longer-serving service members to sustain leg and pelvis fractures, but less likely to sustain foot fractures. New recruits were also significantly more likely than other groups to sustain multiple stress fractures.

“Providers may consider having a lower threshold for imaging new recruits with hip pain as this could identify a stress reaction before it becomes a stress fracture,” the study concluded.

The prospect of a non-invasive test that flags biomarkers for stress fractures is all the more appealing because they can be difficult to confirm with conventional approaches.

“[Bone stress injuries], particularly hips, can be tricky to diagnose as the pain level doesn’t always equal the severity level, and X-ray imaging doesn’t always show early BSI,” Army Maj. Gary Helton, assistant chief of the Fort Jackson Department of Sports Medicine, said in a 2025 release. “Tibial BSIs, and hip BSIs, particularly the femoral neck, can lead to a complete fracture needing surgery if not addressed in a timely manner.”

An ongoing Army study aims to identify trends and risk factors for BSIs, giving providers more opportunities to prevent severe injuries through better evaluation techniques.

At Camp Courtney and Kadena and Yokota Air Bases in Japan, investigators with the Defense Department Office of Inspector General found “visible corrosion, visible mold, visible fire damage, visible cracks on the building exterior and interior, visible concrete spalling and exposed rebar, water intrusion, lead‑based paint, asbestos‑containing material and inoperable communication connections.”

The findings came during an audit of Pacific Command infrastructure, during which IG investigators visited 11 PACOM bases in May 2025. They examined operations and communications infrastructure, as well as base housing.

Though the report is heavily redacted, the descriptions — and the photographs — show some structures on the verge of collapse, including two photos of homes at Kadena with crumbling ceilings and living room furniture strewn with debris.

“DoD officials told us that in some areas, falling debris — ranging from small fragments to large slabs — poses an ongoing risk to personnel safety,” the report states.

The audit was originally aimed at assessing the state of “mission-critical systems,” such as operations and communications infrastructure. Investigators determined that housing and water infrastructure are “critical to support the Service members in the USPACOM AOR as they complete their mission.” Their examination of those facilities revealed numerous problems.

Photos of a 50-year-old pier at Camp Courtney show corroded steel fenders and damaged concrete beams.

One Kadena building had eight inches of standing water on the roof, asbestos and cracked pillars and walls.

A Kadena aircraft hangar had holes in the walls.

A 50-year-old water pipe at Kadena had a 12-foot crack. Broken pipes at Kadena and Yokota have caused flooding and collapsed sidewalks.

At Kinser Tower base housing at Kadena, concrete damage has affected 544 homes, according to the IG.

Sebille Manor Housing at Kadena received 100 reports of mold, and dozens of Kadena residents were forced to move due to mold and concrete concerns.

DoD officials told IG investigators that “aging infrastructure, construction choices, or environmental conditions caused accelerated degradation.” In addition, facilities in Japan experience the effects of typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis.

DoD officials also blamed the problems on a lack of funds and the high cost of services in places like Japan.

They said that while the Japanese government provides host-nation funding, often it can’t be used to fix infrastructure. Instead, these funds tend to be allocated to new construction, or to “broader strategic objectives, such as reducing the impact of U.S. forces on the people of Okinawa.”

The IG recommended that various base commanders in mainland Japan and Okinawa submit a list of priority repairs. But this raises some interservice issues. For example, Army officials said that while Fort Buckner is used only by Army units, the Marine Corps is the real property owner.

The IG also recommended that the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force — as well as the commanders of PACOM and U.S. Forces Japan — conduct a root-cause analysis of infrastructure problems and find funding to fix them. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Infrastructure Modernization and Resilience concurred with the IG’s recommendations.

Dilapidated military facilities are not confined to the Pacific. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report estimated an infrastructure maintenance backlog of $137 million as of 2020. Housing on military bases in the United States has long been afflicted by issues like toxic mold.