An image shows a column of fire and billows of deep black smoke in the aftermath of a bomb blast in downtown Kiev. A news story purporting to be from CNN raises alarm about a rash of drone sightings causing community panic in Syracuse, New York.

Aside from their plausibility in changing and uncertain times, what these media reports have in common is that they’re totally fake: computer-generated products of the Synthetic Media Lab at Syracuse University.

The school doesn’t use these deepfakes to deceive the American public, as many hostile foreign actors seek to do; they use them to build tools that will help organizations including the U.S. military to distinguish truth from hoax. And they’re doing it with the help of some of the school’s Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets.

For the school, the work dates back to 2020, when the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications got an $830,958 subcontract agreement from DARPA to develop tools to combat the spread of fake news. Since then, the work has expanded and continued, though faculty members said they couldn’t provide many specifics on the scope of their work or the DoD entity they were supporting.

The AI technological revolution has increased the challenge and the need for solutions, said Jason Davis, a research professor at the school and co-principal investigator on the deepfakes effort.

“The AI moment happened, and we said, oh, okay, so we’re not just humans creating this kind of information,” he said. “There’s an automation and a scale that comes with AI and large language models and image generators that are just changing the entire landscape of how this can happen.

“So we skilled up, we rode that wild wave of, you know, large language model generation and synthetic AI generated content. How do we create content in an automated fashion? How do we interface as humans with those tools, and how do we sort of model that new threat as well as the traditional, conventional threat? And then we continued to grow our our capabilities from there.”

Now, according to co-principal investigator Regina Luttrell, a senior associate dean at Newhouse, the lab has more than 20 tools that aid deepfake detection and creation, to further study and identify the differences between synthetic and authentic media.

ROTC students joined the work around 2021, Davis said, after he reached out to the ROTC program and explained the work to them. The ROTC cohorts have always been small — the current one is just three students, faculty members said — but the work is not only meaningful, it’s useful in future careers. Two of the four students in the first cohort went on to get first-choice assignments in military cyber roles, Davis said.

“We were giving them the skills to go and be immediately useful and helpful for the DoD space that they were interested in, so there was a lot of benefit in it for them and for the DoD,” he said. “So we’re now on our second cohort of students, and we hope to continue to keep this going and grow it if we can.”

One of the current cadets, 20-year-old Glenn Miller, is spearheading a specific program focused on deepfake video detection, with the goal of developing tools to identify if someone is using a face swap or other identity masking mechanism on a video call.

Miller, who wants to enter the Army as an engineering officer, said he’s currently feeding his computer model a series of videos of himself in hopes of creating an effective “me detector” that can’t be fooled by digital fakes. It’s exacting work, and has to be done in concert with other priorities including ROTC commitments and classwork, but he can also already see how the work will have bearing on his future military career.

“I think [AI is] really just going to be crucial to our understanding and the military’s understanding of information,” Miller, a junior with a 2027 graduation date, said. “I think that’s where it’s going to be most crucial, how can it decipher, or how can people decipher information to be what it actually is, and determining the quality of that information is where AI is going to be very crucial going forward.”

Current agreements have the lab collaborating with the DoD for at least the next two years, faculty members said. The work now being prioritized focuses on building human confidence in the AI agents and tools they engage with — for example, developing checks and safeguards to make sure the chatbot assisting in online shopping needs isn’t a malicious agent trying to steal their data and scam them.

Having taskers from the military also helps keep the researchers from getting sidetracked “chasing butterflies” amid broad and competing demand signals, Davis said.

“This is sort of a sensory overload space for me some days, but with that critical mission in mind, and those high-priority targets coming from the DoD … it really gives us a fine point to put our focus on,” he said. “And that, actually, we’ll continue to use as a guidepost on what we should work on next.”

President Donald Trump has presided over a rapid surge of U.S. military activity abroad since returning to the Oval Office.

In the first year of his second term, he has authorized a series of strikes ranging from the unprecedented use of bunker-buster bombs against Iran’s most fortified nuclear sites to a sustained counternarcotics campaign off the Venezuelan coast.

Trump, who has labeled himself a “peace president,” frames the expansion of force as a strategy of “peace through strength.”

At his inaugural ball in January, he declared, “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”

Trump added that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”

Here is where the U.S. military operated overseas in 2025.

Somalia – Feb. 1 and ongoing

The first major strike in the second Trump administration targeted the Islamic State in Somalia.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the strikes aimed to degrade ISIS’ ability to “plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians.”

The campaign has continued in the region, representing a sustained U.S. military presence against ISIS affiliates in East Africa.

Iraq – March 13

A U.S.-led coalition strike in Iraq’s Anbar Province killed ISIS’ second-highest ranking leader, Abdallah Makki Muslih al-Rifai, and one other insurgent.

Iraq’s prime minister described al-Rifai as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world.”

Yemen – March 15 to May 6

In mid-March, the Trump administration began an air campaign against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The strikes targeted command-and-control hubs, air defense systems and facilities used for manufacturing and storing advanced weapons, according to the Pentagon.

The offensive — which used JASSM long-range cruise missiles, JSOWs and Tomahawk missiles — surpassed $1 billion in costs within its first month.

The operation concluded on May 6 following an Oman-brokered ceasefire with the Houthis.

Iran – June 22

Operation Midnight Hammer deployed seven B-2 stealth bombers from Missouri’s Whiteman Air Force Base to strike Iran’s deeply buried nuclear facilities.

The bombers dropped 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordinance Penetrators on Fordo and Natanz, while a U.S. Navy submarine in the region launched more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at Isfahan.

Trump, in a primetime address, declared the mission achieved “total obliteration” of Iran’s enrichment capabilities, though Tehran disputed that assessment.

The Pentagon estimates the military strikes likely set back Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years.

Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean – Sept. 2 and ongoing

Since September, the U.S. military has waged a sustained campaign of lethal maritime strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, part of what the Trump administration says is an attempt to dismantle powerful drug cartels and stop the flow of Venezuelan narcotics into the United States.

Trump boasts that the deployment involves the “largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” and pledged it will “only get bigger.”

At least 106 people have been killed in strikes on alleged drug-carrying vessels.

Syria – Dec. 19

Operation Hawkeye Strike was launched by Trump to avenge the deaths of two U.S. soldiers, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, and a civilian U.S. interpreter, Ayad Mansoor Sakat, killed in a terrorist attack in Syria.

American fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery struck more than 70 suspected ISIS targets across central Syria, according to CENTCOM.

The operation was named in honor of the fallen soldiers from Iowa, the “Hawkeye State.”

Nigeria – Dec. 25

On Christmas Day, Trump announced the U.S. carried out airstrikes against ISIS in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

The president said he acted to protect Christians who he asserts are being “mass slaughtered” by “radical Islamists,” and chose the date for symbolic reasons.

“They were going to do it earlier,” Trump said in an interview. “And I said, ‘nope, let’s give a Christmas present.’”

The operation involved more than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a Navy ship in the Gulf of Guinea and was coordinated with the Nigerian military.

Venezuela – December and ongoing

The C.I.A. reportedly carried out a drone strike on a facility in Venezuela – the first known U.S. attack inside the country since the Trump administration intensified its pressure campaign against the government of Nicolás Maduro.

The strike targeted a dock along Venezuela’s coast that officials said was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren De Aragua to store narcotics and potentially prepare them for shipment, according to CNN.

“The French like to maintain that the outbreak of war is always marked by a poor vintage, and victory by a gloriously celebratory one. Thus 1945 was a great vintage, 1939 mediocre, 1918 good, 1914 dismal,” writes Julian Barnes. It was as if the ground itself knew of the invasion and then, six long years later, of victory.

Alcohol and war have always been intrinsically tied, with a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealing that “service members consume alcohol on more days of the year than any other profession.”

Soldiers drink. It’s been an enduring love affair for well over 9,000 years. Hominids learned to walk. Our Homo erectus descendants discovered fire. Man discovered alcohol. So it goes.

But during World War II, the French Resistance used the Germans’ penchant to reach for a bottle before battle to gain valuable intelligence.

By late 1940, the Resistance caught on that the Germans would demand large quantities of alcohol in the lead up to major campaigns.

The shipment directives themselves could be telling. Prior to the Nazi campaign in North Africa in February of 1941, the Germans ordered that French wine and champagne be specially corked and packaged for extreme heat. This information was passed on to British intelligence just prior to the invasion.

Unlike field marshal Hermann Göring or propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler was not a big drinker. However, he sought to drain French wine and champagne reserves to not only lubricate his troops, but to wreak havoc on the nation’s export of wine, and damage the psyche of the nation.

To implement this, the Nazis appointed weinführers in various regions around France. In the Champagne province, Otto Klaebisch — a French-born German — was put in charge.

Klaebisch set a nearly impossible demand of 400,000 bottles per week to be sent back to Germany. Count Robert-Jean de Vogüé, the head of Moët & Chandon, led other Champagne makers and pushed back against the order, forming the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne to help mitigate and protect the interests of the region.

De Vogüé, himself a member of the Resistance in Epernay, was eventually arrested by the Gestapo in November 1943 on the charge of obstructing trade demands. He was sentenced to death, a charge never commuted by the Germans, and sent to the Ziegenhain concentration camp.

De Vogüé survived the war, barely, after contracting gangrene in his right pinky finger. Denied medical attention, de Vogüé, without anesthetic, cut off his own finger with a shard of glass to stop the infection. British paratroopers eventually liberated the camp in May 1945.

During the five years of occupation, the French hid what wine they could and mislabeled others — with some of nation’s most illustrious winegrowing regions plastering the label “poison” on their best vintage bottles.

In one incident, retold in "Wine & War: The French, The Nazis & The Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure," a troop of German soldiers seized what they believed to be a cache of eau-de-Santenay gin. It was, in fact, a laxative.

The fight to preserve one of France’s greatest treasures in World War II was met with creativity and courageousness on the part of vintners. In “Wine & War,” Claude Terrail, owner of the Restaurant La Tour d’Argent relates that “To be a Frenchman means to fight for your country and its wine.”

On May 7, 1945, almost fittingly, the German High Command surrendered in Reims, the capital of the Champagne region.

After the American victory over the British on Jan. 3, 1777, Gen. George Washington managed to hang on to his army — but just barely.

As both British and American armies settled into their winter quarters both were back to almost the same positions held in mid-November.

Except for a small garrison at Paulus Hook across the Hudson from lower Manhattan, all of New Jersey had been abandoned by the British, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian Rick Atkinson.

The withdrawal left thousands of New Jersey loyalists to fend for themselves against the agitated rebels, with one loyalist writing of “mortification and resentment” at being left by the British.

The retreat had “made our brave fellows almost gnaw their own flesh out of rage,” the loyalist added.

The forfeiture of the New Jersey granary, according to Atkinson, further stressed British logistics. All supplies, seemingly, would have to come via 3,000 miles of open ocean.

“The Treasury Board calculated that feeding 40,000 soldiers for the next year would take 7,300 tons of flour and 4,500 tons of salt meat, among other foodstuffs,” writes Atkinson. “Also, 4,000 army horses would consume 20,000 tons of hay and oats annually; Howe was told that 15,000 tons could be purchased in Rhode Island, but to date he had received barely a hundred.”

So began the frantic search for forage, devolving into a little-known partisan campaign between the Patriots and British as both sides competed for scarce resources.

These skirmishes and small engagements continued throughout the winter of 1776-1777, with Washington issuing orders that his men were to be “constantly harassing the enemy.”

One such clash occurred in Spanktown, New Jersey, (present-day Rahway). Named thusly after an early settler publicly took his spouse across his knee and chastised her in the town center, Spanktown was to play an important role in the later dubbed Forage Wars.

On Feb. 23, 1777, British Lt. Col. Charles Mawhood sent out a battalion each of light infantry and grenadiers, plus the 3rd Brigade. Near Spanktown, Mawhood and his men found a group of militia herding some livestock and, thinking he had flanked a party of the New Jersey militia, attacked.

It was a trap.

Soon, Mawhood found his advance force flanked by Continental Army Brig. Gen. William Maxwell and his men who were lying in wait.

Superior knowledge of the geography had allowed Maxwell to set his trap and his larger force soon enveloped Mawhood and his grenadier company.

The initial ambush resulted in the loss of 26 British soldiers, but the Americans kept coming. For nearly 12 hours the British and Americans clashed until Mawhood ordered his men to fall back.

Mauled by the Patriots in their retreat, Mawhood later counted 69 killed and wounded and 6 missing in action. For their part, the Americans had lost five killed and nine wounded.

Just a few weeks later according to the Crossroads of the American Revolution, the badly spanked British decided to abandon New Brunswick and the surrounding areas, and would never again exert their control over the New Jersey countryside.

The U.S. military said Tuesday that it had carried out a series of recent operations against the Islamic State in Syria, resulting in the death or detention of “nearly 25 ISIS operatives,” according to a U.S. Central Command release.

Over a nine-day period, U.S. and allied forces conducted 11 operations that killed at least seven ISIS fighters and destroyed four of the group’s weapons caches, the release stated.

“We will not relent,” CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper said in a statement. “We are steadfast in [our] commitment to working with regional partners to root out the ISIS threat posed to U.S. and regional security.”

The operations followed Operation Hawkeye Strike, a retaliatory campaign launched after the deaths of three Americans on Dec. 13 in Palmyra, Syria.

A lone gunman carrying out the Dec. 13 ambush killed two members of the Iowa National Guard, Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, and an American civilian interpreter, Ayad Mansoor Sakat. The assailant was subsequently killed by partner forces.

Both soldiers were assigned to 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which is currently deployed to the region in support of ongoing counter-terror operations. Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the attack.

Named for the two soldiers from Iowa — the “Hawkeye State” — the campaign involved U.S. and Jordanian forces striking more than 70 targets with over 100 precision-guided munitions, the military said.

Officials noted that the operation included A-10 attack jets, F-15 Eagle fighter jets, Apache attack helicopters and the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.

“This is not the beginning of the war — it is a declaration of vengeance,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said at the time, adding that anyone targeting Americans “will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

Central Command said ISIS had inspired at least 11 plots or attacks against targets in the United States over the past year.

In response, CENTCOM said its partner operations in Syria, which number more than 80 over the past six months, have resulted in more than 300 insurgents being detained and over 20 killed.

The Dec. 13 ambush, meanwhile, marked the first combat deaths during Trump’s second term and the first such attack since the government of former Syrian President Bashar Assad was overthrown in December 2024.

The gunman had reportedly joined Syria’s security forces as a base guard two months prior to the attack, but had been reassigned after concerns were raised about potential IS-affiliation, according to Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba.

In the wake of the attack, President Donald Trump vowed “very serious retaliation,” and noted that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was “devastated” and “extremely angry” about the incident.

Al-Sharaa, a one-time al-Qaida-linked target who made a historic visit to the White House last month, led the forces that toppled the Assad regime.

The U.S. currently has hundreds of troops deployed to the Middle East as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

A July 2025 assessment of the Islamic State by the United Nations Security Council reported that “terrorist fighters at large in the Syrian Arab Republic are estimated at more than 5,000.”

In 1978, the Defense Department conducted an exercise to simulate what would happen if it needed to mobilize all U.S. forces globally in the face of an existential conflict.

It didn’t go well.

The 21-day exercise, dubbed “Nifty Nugget,” brought two dozen military commands to bear to support a notional conflict in Europe. Due to major holes in planning, communication and logistics, up to half a million troops were late to the fight, and the conflict resulted in 400,000 U.S. casualties. While the exercise did result in useful insights, such as helping to prompt the creation of U.S. Transportation Command in 1987, the concept of a mass mobilization exercise was summarily shelved.

Until now.

In the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Donald Trump in early December, a provision calls for a study modeled on Nifty Nugget and focused on Reserve force mobilization “to assess the capability of the Armed Forces to respond to a high-intensity contingency in the Indo-Pacific region.”

The law requires the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs to collaborate with the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to assess the military’s ability to “rapidly mobilize, deploy, and sustain active and reserve component forces in response to a conflict scenario involving the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, or similar Indo-Pacific flashpoint.”

The requirement comes as China’s threats to invade Taiwan intensify. While the U.S. has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily, the prospect of a Taiwan invasion has long been considered a potential trigger for major war.

The mandated study also needs to include an evaluation of strategic lift, sustainment and logistics capabilities; analysis of interagency coordination procedures; an evaluation of joint and allied interoperability “with particular attention to coordination mechanisms with Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and Taiwan”; and the creation of an inventory of the civilian job and education skills within the military’s Reserve component.

These skills include foreign language and cultural proficiency; advanced degrees and academic credentials; skills in high-demand fields such as cybersecurity and data science; and private-sector leadership experience.

A report from the study, due two years from now, must include findings and recommendations, including best practices, and a data analysis that shows how many reservists are likely to be available to reinforce active units in combat in the first 30, 60 and 90 days of a major war in the Pacific, as well as the number of reservists likely needed to shore up sustainment operations at home.

This requirement comes on the heels of a 2024 report from the Center for a New America Security that assessed the ability of the U.S. to mobilize and deploy conscripts if a major war required the country to activate the draft for the first time since the Vietnam war.

That study found, in a best-case scenario, that it would take about seven months to mobilize 100,000 conscripts. Without perfect conditions, such as all conscripts responding to their draft notices, it might take as long as three-and-a-half years to reach that target, the study found.

While renewing a draft would entail more robust challenges than a mass activation of reservists who already have military training and have in the past met standards, the groups share common obstacles — like getting a huge surge of personnel up-to-date on medical and dental deployment prerequisites.

The report called for the National Security Council to begin holding full-scale mobilization exercises across the government every two years to ensure readiness for war.

Katherine Kuzminski, the primary author of that report, told Military Times that although she wasn’t sure of the impetus behind the new NDAA provision, she had briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2024 about the findings of her report and emphasized the value of bringing back mobilization trials.

“When Nifty Nugget was run back in 1978, the headline from it was, it was a total failure,” she said. “But as an exercise, it was not a failure. The point of the exercise is to expose where all the gaps and problems would be if you were in a crisis situation, and we wanted to find those. That was the point.”

The addition of the study requirement in the defense policy bill, Kuzminski said, tells her that lawmakers are taking the prospect of a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific seriously. It also, she added, surfaced a critical component of warfighting that can sometimes be downplayed: the human cost of war.

“When I was digging into what existed about manpower mobilization, is that every open source war game, at least, was looking at, you know, what are the impacts on ships and tanks and equipment? But there was nothing along the lines of, what are the manpower requirements for an actual no-kidding conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” she said. “And that leads to another really unsavory thing you have to think about, which is, what would the casualty rates be.”

Another element addressed in the CNAS report that may feature in the Defense Department analysis is the role of technology and a changing world, and how factors like social media might affect the likelihood of conscripts and members of the Individual Ready Reserve to comply with a mobilization mandate when their country calls on them.

“I think there are a lot of gaps, and seams that will be uncovered in a 2025 scenario, just like we had in 1978,” she said. “And I think that coverage of the gaps and seams being identified can’t be framed as like the military is failing. No — that’s why we’re running this exercise: to identify where those gaps and seams might be.”

As far as the origins of the bizarre Nifty Nugget name, Kuzminski’s research remains inconclusive.

Keeping in step with the Pentagon’s push for legions of new drones, the Marine Corps is instituting new training to ensure the service has the right personnel to operate them.

The service is kicking off a series of new pilot programs aimed at meeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s $1 billion industry push to get more than 300,000 one-way attack drones into the hands of troops by 2028, according to a release.

Part of that pursuit includes practicing on new off-the-shelf platforms that, in turn, warrant standardized training prior to unit integration, the release stated.

“We are fielding these courses as pilot programs to move quickly,” Lt. Gen. Benjamin T. Watson, commanding general of Marine Corps Training and Education Command, said in a release. “This allows us to validate all aspects of the training, from prerequisites and instructional methods to resourcing needs and certification standards, ensuring that we refine and perfect the curriculum before it becomes part of our long-term training framework.”

Six pilot training programs and eight certifications are being established, each of which, while expected to evolve over time, will be aimed at providing fundamental skills in using both armed and unarmed systems while informing the best training approach, officials said in a Dec. 29 memo.

The names and descriptions of the six courses, which are open to any military occupational specialty, according to the memo, include:

• Basic Drone Operator (BD-O) Course: “Provide the foundational skills required to assemble, maintain and operate both full-acro and stabilized non-lethal drones in an operational environment.”
• Attack Drone Operator (AD-O) Course: “Provide the foundational skills required to tactically employ lethal attack drones.”
• Attack Drone Leader (AD-L) Course: “Provide the instructional understanding of Fire Support Plan integration, threat assessment, system capabilities and coordination with maneuver and fires.”
• Payload Specialist (PS) Course: “Provide the foundational skills and basic knowledge for safe explosive handling and preparation of pre-fabricated warheads used to arm lethal drones in an operational environment.”
• Attack Drone Instructor (AD-I) Course: “Provide the instructional skills required to administer and certify Marines in the BD-O, AD-O, and AD-L courses.”
• Payload Specialist Instructor (PS-I) Course: “Provide the instructional skills required to administer and certify Marines in the PS course.”

Marines seeking to attend any of the above courses must contact unit leadership, who must then coordinate with regional training hubs to confirm course dates and availability, the release said.

Regional hubs include the 1st Marine Division Schools; the 2nd Marine Division Unmanned Systems Center of Excellence; III MEF Expeditionary Operations Training Group; School of Infantry East; School of Infantry West; the Tactical Training and Exercise Control Group; and Marine Forces Special Operations Command.

The Corps’ Weapons Training Battalion in Quantico, Virginia, will serve as an interim central training hub until a long-term location is established, the memo added.

The Marine Corps has continued to find itself at the forefront of new drone technology adaptation, standing up the military’s first drone attack team this past March and, in June, publishing a 90-page guidebook on integrating small unmanned aerial systems, or sUAS, into formations.

Additional information about unmanned training programs and certifications can be found here.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has reinstated a near-total ban on abortion services for veterans and their dependents after new guidance from the Justice Department concluded that the agency lacks legal authority to provide the procedure — including in cases of rape or incest.

A VA spokesperson confirmed to Military Times the restrictions took effect immediately.

“The Department of Justice’s opinion states that VA is not legally authorized to provide abortions, and VA is complying with it immediately,” VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement.

“The DOJ’s opinion is consistent with VA’s proposed rule, which continues to work its way through the regulatory process,” he added.

The guidance, issued in a Dec. 18 memo, restores “the full exclusion on abortions and abortion counseling from the medical benefits package,” reversing a Biden-era policy adopted in 2022.

That policy had, for the first time, allowed the VA to provide abortion counseling and, in limited circumstances, the procedure itself “when the life or health of the pregnant veteran would be endangered if the pregnancy were carried to term, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.”

The revised policy has a single exception: it will allow abortion-related care in life-threatening circumstances.

A proposed rule filed in August, when the Trump administration first moved to implement the ban, emphasized that the VA “has never understood this policy to prohibit providing care to pregnant women in life-threatening circumstances, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages,” and said the exception would be formally codified.

The VA operates approximately 1,380 health care facilities nationwide and serves nearly 10 million veterans each year.

Democrats criticized the decision, saying it is depriving access to health care for women veterans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a Dec. 24 post on X, called the policy “a betrayal of our brave American veterans.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have previously praised the rollback, arguing that federal funds should not be used to pay for abortion services.

“It’s simple — taxpayers do not want their hard-earned money spent on paying for abortions,“ the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs said in a statement. ”And VA’s sole focus should always be providing service-connected health care and benefits to the veterans they serve.”

President Donald Trump has indicated that the U.S. has “hit” a dock facility along a shore as he wages a pressure campaign on Venezuela, but the U.S. offered few details.

Trump initially seemed to confirm a strike in what appeared to be an impromptu radio interview Friday, and when questioned Monday by reporters about “an explosion in Venezuela,” he said the U.S. struck a facility where boats accused of carrying drugs “load up.”

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said as he met in Florida with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. There’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

It is part of an escalating effort to target what the Trump administration says are boats smuggling drugs bound for the United States. It moves closer to shore strikes that so far have been carried out by the military in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Trump declined to say if the U.S. military or the CIA carried out the latest strike or where it occurred. He did not confirm it happened in Venezuela.

“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But you know it was along the shore,” Trump said.

Trump first referenced the strike on Friday, when he called radio host John Catsimatidis during a program on WABC radio and discussed the U.S. strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats. The attacks have killed at least 105 people in 29 known strikes since early September.

“I don’t know if you read or saw, they have a big plant or a big facility where they send the, you know, where the ships come from,” Trump said. ”Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So, we hit them very hard.”

Trump did not offer any additional details in the interview.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or one of the U.S. military’s social media accounts has in the past typically announced every boat strike in a post on X, but there has been no post of any strike on a facility.

The Pentagon on Monday referred questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a message seeking more details. The press office of Venezuela’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s statement.

Trump for months has suggested he may conduct land strikes in South America, in Venezuela or possibly another country, and in recent weeks has been saying the U.S. would move beyond striking boats and would strike on land “soon.”

In October, Trump confirmed he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela. The agency did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

Along with the strikes, the U.S. has sent warships, built up military forces in the region, seized two oil tankers and pursued a third.

The Trump administration has said it is in “armed conflict” with drug cartels and seeking to stop the flow of narcotics into the United States.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from power.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair published this month that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro ‘cries uncle.’”

Neurova Labs began the way many veteran-founded health technologies do, with frustration, loss and a growing belief that the systems designed to help were not addressing the full scope of the problem.

Founder and CEO Brenden Borrowman is a retired Army veteran who was medically evacuated after being wounded in Afghanistan in 2011. During his recovery and time in a Warrior Transition Battalion, he was surrounded by service members dealing with post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, addiction and suicidal ideation.

After leaving the military, Borrowman lost friend after friend to suicide and became convinced that existing treatment models were missing something fundamental.

“What I saw was that these guys could function at an incredibly high level overseas,” Borrowman, who earned a PhD in Philosophy and is currently working on a PhD in Neurology, told Military Times. “But when they got home and were alone with their thoughts, everything fell apart. That told me there was a physical injury component we were not addressing.”

Borrowman spent years researching the process by which blood flow and oxygen delivery support brain function. His work led to the founding of Neurova Labs, a software company focused on treating what he describes as a physiological injury underlying conditions like PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

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Instead of relying on traditional talk therapy or exposure-based models, Neurova Labs uses immersive virtual reality gameplay to influence how the brain regulates blood flow under stress.

The system runs on a commercially available virtual reality headset paired with Neurova’s proprietary software. Users enter a fast-paced, first-person environment designed to alternate between heightened stimulation and controlled calming states. According to Borrowman, the goal is not entertainment for its own sake, but to force the brain to rebalance how it allocates resources while the body is under pressure.

“We are not therapists,” Borrowman said. “We are not here to give closure on trauma. We are here to heal the injury so the brain can function properly again. Everything else works better when the foundation is solid.”

That foundation has resonated with veterans who have spent years cycling through medications, therapy appointments and coping strategies without lasting relief.

Ladd Sheppard, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who served more than two decades with deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and the Middle East, first encountered Neurova Labs through professional work before becoming a user himself. Sheppard lives with PTSD and traumatic brain injury and relies on a service dog to navigate daily life.

During an early demonstration, Sheppard noticed something unusual before anyone explained the science.

“My service dog was losing her mind at first,” Sheppard said. “She was circling me, trying to interrupt, trying to calm me down. About fifteen minutes in, she laid down in the middle of a room full of strangers and fell asleep. That was my first clue that something real was happening.”

Sheppard went on to complete a four-day protocol after years of therapy, medication and adaptive strategies. The change, he said, was immediate and tangible.

“Before, when my kids pushed my buttons, my response was rage,” Sheppard said. “Four days later, I actually stopped and thought, should I yell or should I teach. That pause did not exist before. I had done years of work and never got that pause.”

He deliberately waited weeks before repeating the experience to see if the effect would fade. It did not. When stress builds now, Sheppard uses the system as needed rather than as a constant intervention.

“It reset my brain,” he said. “That is not marketing language. That is what it felt like.”

Similar experiences have emerged outside the veteran community, particularly among first responders who face repeated trauma over long careers.

Scott Stemmer, a Marine Corps veteran who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and now works as a firefighter paramedic with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue, joined a Neurova Labs study earlier this year. Stemmer has dealt with PTSD for nearly two decades and previously sought help through the Department of Veterans Affairs, where he said treatment often meant heavy medication and little follow-up.

“I basically gave up hope that anything would actually work,” Stemmer said. “Sleep was terrible. Nightmares were constant. Irritability was through the roof.”

After four consecutive days using the VR system, Stemmer noticed changes he had not experienced since before military service.

“For the first time, when my head hit the pillow, I went to sleep,” he said. “My wife noticed before I did. No twitching. No yelling. And when I got called out at work in the middle of the night, I could come back and actually fall asleep again.”

When life interrupted his routine and he stopped using the headset for several weeks, the symptoms returned. Restarting the sessions brought relief again, reinforcing for him that the change was not a coincidence.

“This is the first PTSD related treatment I have ever done that felt tangible,” Stemmer said. “You can see it in how you feel, how you act, and even in clinical markers. That matters to people like us who have been burned before.”

Borrowman emphasizes that Neurova Labs is not positioned as a cure or replacement for therapy. Instead, he views it as a way to make other forms of care more effective by restoring basic neurological function.

“If the brain is stuck in survival mode, you cannot think your way out of it,” he said. “You would never send someone with a broken leg straight to physical therapy and expect them to run. You fix the injury first.”

The company has tested its technology with veterans, first responders, athletes, international partners and even with soldiers on the front line in Ukraine. Neurova Labs is also expanding into non-combat applications through partnerships with organizations like the YMCA and professional sports groups, including the UFC.

Privacy concerns, particularly among veterans wary of data misuse, are addressed by a deliberate design choice. According to Borrowman, the system does not collect personally identifiable information during normal use and can operate entirely offline, reducing the risk of data exposure.

For users like Sheppard and Stemmer, the appeal is not the technology itself but what it gives back.

“I can finally think,” Sheppard said. “Not just react.”

Stemmer echoed that sentiment, especially when talking about younger service members and firefighters he mentors.

“This gives people a chance to slow down before they hit the breaking point,” he said. “That matters.”

For veterans and first responders who have grown skeptical of new treatments after years of false starts, Neurova Labs does not promise miracles. What it offers, according to those who have used it, is something far rarer. A moment of quiet in a brain that has been stuck on high alert for years, and a chance to rebuild from there.

Neurova Labs is preparing for broader commercial availability while continuing research and pilot programs. More information about the company and its approach is available at https://neurovalabs.com.

He landed on the beaches of Normandy and battled through the bitter European winter in the Hürtgen forest and yet, on Aug. 23, 1945, when President Harry S. Truman placed the Medal of Honor around the neck of U.S. Army, Staff Sgt. Marcario García, he was not yet a U.S. citizen.

Born on Jan. 2, 1920 in Villa de Castaño, Mexico, Marcario was one of 10 children born to Luciano and Josefa García. The family earned a living picking crops in Texas and in 1923 it moved to Sugar Land, mostly working at the Paul Schumann Ranch. On Nov. 11, 1942, however, Marcario walked to a recruiting station in his adopted hometown and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Although not a citizen, he already felt a personal obligation toward his adopted home.

After training, García was sent to Britain with Company B, 1st Battalion, 22nd Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. In June 1944, just a few days after landing at Utah Beach, he was seriously wounded and spent four months in hospital.

Returning to his unit that fall, García, although still a private, was serving as an acting squad leader. On Nov. 27, his unit was advancing on Grosshau, a town in the Hürtgen Forest, where the German forces were literally fighting with their backs to the wall.

As B Company advanced, it came under machine gun, artillery and mortar fire. Taking the initiative, García crawled forward through meager cover to reach an enemy machine gun emplacement, threw grenades into it and, when the crew tried to flee, killed three with his rifle.

Although wounded in the shoulder and the foot, García eschewed retiring to a medical facility, instead crawling on along until he located another machine gun position. Again, he threw some grenades into the emplacement and shot three more crewmen dead, also taking four prisoners. He then held his position until his squad had advanced and secured the ground he’d taken.

García’s performance didn’t go unnoticed in the 4th Division. By the end of the war, he was a staff sergeant and received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Infantryman’s Badge.

On Aug. 27, he was one of 27 servicemen called to the White House to receive the Medal of Honor from President Truman. Still being a Mexican citizen, he was subsequently summoned to Mexico City to receive the Condecoración al Mérito Militar — Mexico’s award for exceptional military merit — on Jan. 8, 1946.

García’s fight, however, was far from over.

After his honorable discharge, in September 1945 García entered a restaurant in Richmond, south of Houston, and was denied service by the proprietor, who like a good many in the area, made a policy of: “We Serve White’s Only—No Spanish or Mexicans.”

At another time and place, García might have resigned himself to that commonly practiced degradation, but his wartime experience and the cause for which he’d fought had given him a new perspective on the matter. The ensuing argument came to blows, the police intervened and they promptly arrested García.

His case soon became a local cause celebre. The League of United Latin American Citizens and the Comitié Patriótico Mexicano financed his legal needs and he was represented in court by John J. Herrera and later, James V. Allred — the future governor of Texas. The trial was constantly postponed, however, and in 1946 the charges against García were dropped.

On June 25, 1947, García achieved American citizenship, the only Medal of Honor recipient to have received it as a Mexican citizen. Making the most of the opportunities now open to him, in 1951 he earned his high school diploma. After some difficulty finding a steady job — a common problem among returning World War II veterans in general — he found one as a counselor in the Veterans Administration, which he held for 25 years. In 1970, he and the family moved to Alief in southwest Houston, Texas.

On Christmas Eve in 1972, however, he was caught up in a car crash and died of his injuries. He was buried in the National Cemetery in Houston.

García’s struggles and achievements in war and peace earned him a posthumous places in Texan history. His burial was attended by an honor guard from Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. In 1981, the Houston City Council changed 69th Street to Macario García Drive. In 1983, Vice President George H.W. Bush dedicated the Macario García Army Reserve Center and in 1994 a Sugar Land middle school was named in his honor.

A U.S. soldier participating in a clinical trial at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is testing a neural-enabled prosthetic arm designed to restore the sense of touch through nerve stimulation, the Maryland hospital recently announced.

The concept for the device originated with Drs. Ranu Jung and James Abbas of the University of Arkansas, who are conducting a study and contacted Walter Reed to participate as a second site.

“We created this prosthetic system to allow someone who uses a motorized prosthesis to feel what they are touching,” Abbas said in a release last month. “When someone has a standard motorized prosthesis, when the hand closes and touches something, they don’t feel it.”

The participant, described in the release as a soldier with an amputation below the elbow, typically uses a standard prosthetic with no sensation. After volunteering to test the sensory hand, the soldier described what changes when touch is returned.

“The new [prosthetic] gives me a ‘feeling sensation’ when I grab an object,” the soldier said. “I don’t need to look at an object when I pick it up, because I know it’s there. If I reach over to grab a pillow, the electrodes in the fingertips of the hand make it so that I have the sensation of holding something.”

Dr. Paul Pasquina, chief of the Department of Rehabilitation at Walter Reed, said troops’ experience with limb loss during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan helped sharpen the need for better upper-limb prosthetics.

Combat trauma produces a higher percentage of upper-limb loss and multiple limb loss compared with disease-based amputations, which more often affect the lower limbs, Pasquina said in an interview with Military Times.

That gap, Pasquina said, also helped drive the Defense Department’s investment. He described early engagement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, including visits with wounded service members to better understand the limits of existing prosthetics.

Those conversations helped spur what became a multidisciplinary effort that brought together engineers, neuroscientists and clinicians to push both robotics and the human-machine interface forward, Pasquina said.

One of the biggest remaining limitations, he said, is sensory feedback, as there’s no prostheses available that provides such feedback.

Without sensation, users must rely on constant visual attention.

“If you have to look at everything that you’re picking up, your concentration needs to be on that thing you’re picking up,” Pasquina said. “It distracts you from other activities.”

“We cannot underestimate the importance of touch,” he added, citing the example of holding a child’s hand and knowing it is secure — moments that become far more complicated without sensation.

The trial aims to address that gap through an implanted interface paired with an advanced prosthetic hand. To enable sensation, the participant underwent surgery in which electrodes were implanted in their upper-arm nerves.

On the prosthetic itself, sensors in the fingertips connect to a box embedded in the forearm, described as an implant-hand interface that communicates with an implanted neurostimulator. When the soldier grasps an object, the system sends neural signals intended to re-create the feeling of touch, the release said.

The participant has tested the arm for more than a year and said it feels closer to a natural limb than any prosthetic used before.

The work presents challenges on both the surgical and engineering sides, according to Pasquina.

“These are tiny, tiny, fine wires that need to be implanted,” he said, describing the difficulty of placing electrodes near nerves while keeping the interface stable over time.

After implantation, the system must be calibrated, a process that relies heavily on participant feedback as engineers adjust stimulation frequency, intensity and duration to produce usable sensation.

Michelle Nordstrom, a research occupational therapist in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, said sensation restored through stimulation is not identical to natural touch, but it provides critical information users otherwise lack.

The added feedback can significantly reduce the mental effort required to use a myoelectric prosthesis, Nordstrom told Military Times. She described clinical testing in which participants struggled with certain tasks when stimulation was turned off. Examples include picking up a penny or maintaining a grip on a zipper pull.

“Once we turn the stimulation on,” she said, “they’re able to pick up that penny. They’re able to grab a hold of that zipper and maintain it.”

Restored sensation can increase confidence in everyday situations, from holding a drink in public to walking a dog using a prosthetic hand, Abbas, one of the device’s developers, told Military Times. He also noted the potential benefit for people with bilateral limb loss, particularly those injured by blasts, who lack an intact limb to compensate for sensory gaps.

Three of the seven participants in the study are connected to the military community, according to Nordstrom. She said the Walter Reed participant remains active in the Army, and two additional participants are veterans.

Trial participants commit to major surgery and years of testing without guarantees of success. That sense of service often resonates strongly with service members, even after injury, Abbas said.

“There are uncertainties, and we are asking a lot of the participants,” he said.

The study remains ongoing and is expected to move into a larger clinical trial. The device is not commercially available.

One of the biggest hurdles for widespread access is the economics of commercialization for relatively small patient populations, Pasquina said.

Further, insurance limitations in civilian settings can further restrict access to advanced prosthetics, a contrast to military care systems, Nordstrom noted.

Even after those limitations, prosthetic use remains a personal choice, Nordstrom said.

“There’s nothing wrong with someone choosing not to use a prosthetic device.”

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump said Thursday that the U.S. launched a “powerful and deadly” strike against Islamic State forces in Nigeria, after spending weeks accusing the West African country’s government of failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.

In a Christmas evening post on his social media site, Trump did not provide details or mention the extent of the damage caused by the strikes. But U.S. Africa Command said on X that strikes had been conducted “at the request of Nigerian authorities in Soboto State” and had killed “multiple ISIS terrorists.”

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump wrote.

US advances discussions on troops, sanctions in Nigeria

A Defense Department official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss details not made public, said the U.S. worked with Nigeria to carry out the strikes, and that they’d been approved by that country’s government.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the cooperation included exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination in ways “consistent with international law, mutual respect for sovereignty and shared commitments to regional and global security.”

“Terrorist violence in any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims or other communities, remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security,” the ministry said in a statement.

Nigeria’s government has previously said in response to Trump’s criticisms that people of many faiths, not just Christians, have suffered attacks at the hands of extremists groups.

Trump ordered the Pentagon last month to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria to try and curb Christian persecution. The State Department recently announced it would restrict visas for Nigerians and their family members involved in mass killings and violence against Christians there.

And the U.S. recently designated Nigeria a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act.

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” Trump wrote Thursday night. He said that U.S. defense officials had “executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing” and added that “our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper.”

In its X post, the U.S. Africa Command wrote that “lethal strikes against ISIS demonstrate the strength of our military and our commitment to eliminating terrorist threats against Americans at home and abroad.”

Nigeria’s population of 220 million is split almost equally between Christians and Muslims. The country has long faced insecurity from various fronts including the Boko Haram extremist group, which seeks to establish its radical interpretation of Islamic law and has also targeted Muslims it deems not Muslim enough.

But attacks in Nigeria often have varying motives. There are religiously motivated ones targeting both Christians and Muslims, clashes between farmers and herders over dwindling resources, communal rivalries, secessionist groups and ethnic clashes.

The U.S. security footprint has diminished in Africa, where military partnerships have either been scaled down or canceled. U.S. forces likely would have to be drawn from other parts of the world for any larger-scale military intervention in Nigeria.

Trump has nonetheless kept up the pressure as Nigeria faced a series of attacks on schools and churches in violence that experts and residents say targets both Christians and Muslims.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted Thursday night on X: “The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end.”

Hegseth said that U.S. military forces are “always ready, so ISIS found out tonight — on Christmas” and added, “More to come…Grateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation” before signing off, “Merry Christmas!”

Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed from Washington.

An independent government watchdog found major issues in the way the U.S. Navy conducts fire safety prevention and contractor oversight for ships during maintenance periods.

Staffing shortages and ineffective tools for ensuring contractors comply with fire safety standards are the biggest hurdles for future fire risk aboard Navy ships, the Government Accountability Office warned in a Dec. 17 report.

Without addressing these issues, the service “risks creating an environment where unaccounted-for risks can accumulate in a manner that creates hazardous situations,” the report stated.

Between May 2008 and July 2020, there were 15 major fire incidents aboard Navy ships, thirteen of which occurred on those undergoing maintenance.

One of the worst fires occurred July 12, 2020, aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, when 11 of the amphibious assault ship’s 14 decks caught fire. As a result of the damage, the vessel was retired 17 years earlier than planned and the Defense Department incurred billions of dollars in damage.

After the Bonhomme Richard fire, the Navy implemented changes that helped protect the service from future fires aboard vessels during maintenance, according to the report.

The Navy rewrote its 8010 Manual that addresses fire prevention during ship maintenance. The manual, which includes training requirements for fire safety officers and information on fire protection systems, was updated to include reformed fire safety requirements.

The service also revised NAVSEA Standard Items, a set of requirements inserted into ship maintenance contracts that outline safety standards.

The Navy began establishing 11 Commander, Naval Surface Groups to lead emergency management efforts during safety incidents, an effort that was previously fractured across multiple Navy organizations. The groups will develop emergency response plans and help ship crews understand fire regulations, among other jobs.

Further, the service published a new Fire Safety Assessment Program policy that allows Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Naval Surface Force Atlantic officials to inspect ships undergoing maintenance without providing notice beforehand.

Despite the evident strides in remediation, however, the Navy failed to address some glaring problems, GAO found.

USS Bonhomme Richard failed on fire safety, documents show

As part of its audit, GAO met with officials at Navy maintenance centers around the U.S. and observed staffing at Navy offices tasked with enforcing fire safety standards during ship maintenance periods. It also analyzed documents the Navy had given contractors that outlined fire safety compliance.

The watchdog found that staffing shortages among organizations specifically tasked with enforcing fire safety meant that there were fewer individuals to assist with prevention and emergency management during fire incidents.

A lack of staff at key organizations, including regional maintenance centers, meant there weren’t as many people to work outside normal business hours.

This was problematic since 11 of the 15 fire events that occurred since 2008 happened outside normal business hours, GAO said.

But filling the vacant roles isn’t so simple.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a civilian workforce hiring freeze Feb. 28 and, as a result, DOD organizations tasked with fire prevention have experienced difficulty in hiring the number of staff they need, according to GAO.

The Navy requires fire safety officers for ship maintenance in fiscal 2026 and 2027, according to the report, but budget requests for those years don’t allot enough money to address the number of fire safety staff hires needed to ensure adequate safety during maintenance.

The Navy’s July 2021 Major Fires Review, which was conducted after the Bonhomme Richard fire, said that 11 of the 15 fire events it reviewed happened when there was reduced personnel during ship maintenance.

Because of a lack of civilian staff, the Navy has had to rely on Navy crews to address fire safety.

In addition to their full-time service duties, these crews have had to help ensure fire safety compliance.

The intervention of service members, however, doesn’t necessarily mean contractors will adequately comply.

A ship commanding officer told GAO that Navy crew members will inform contractors that they are not following fire safety standards, but that doesn’t mean contractors will listen.

Making sure they fix their mistakes requires fire safety officers from the regional maintenance centers, the GAO said, which there aren’t enough of because of staffing shortages.

The watchdog also found that the Navy’s enforcement tools for correcting contractors for their mistakes or noncompliance don’t yield the solutions needed.

The service can issue a corrective action request to a contractor, asking that they better comply with contractual requirements. And if enough requests are sent, the Navy can issue a letter of concern that points out specific instances of malfeasance and asks the contractor to respond with a plan of action to fix the issues.

But there are no monetary penalties for not complying with the request, which makes it difficult for the Navy to ensure contractors will correct their mistakes.

The Navy can also wield quality assurance surveillance plans, which set the ground rules for what specific aspects of the maintenance work can be assessed by the Navy to ensure everything is following contractual obligations.

But GAO found that the Navy doesn’t utilize these surveillance plans to assess fire safety compliance, a missed opportunity to shore up the service’s defense against fire incidents.

The Navy also currently pays contractors 99% of their owed payment during the maintenance period, and only withholds 1% of the payment until the work is completed.

This reduces the amount of recourse if a contractor doesn’t comply with standards outlined in the contract.

Lastly, ship contractors don’t face as much financial liability in the event of a fire as they potentially should, according to the report, because of a DOD clause that stipulates the government will cover the majority of the cost if damage occurs to Navy vessels during ship maintenance. This creates an environment of unequal risk sharing, GAO found.

To address the myriad issues, GAO recommended that Navy Secretary John Phelan create a mechanism to maximize resources for fire safety oversight. It also tasked the Navy’s Learning to Action Board, which helps implement corrective actions from reviews and investigations, with focusing more on contractor fire safety compliance.

The watchdog also directed the service to improve the corrective action request process, update the service’s quality assurance surveillance plan to include fire safety performance standards, examine changing the payment process for contractors and reassess the limitation of liability clause for contractors.

An Afghan national accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard troops near the White House was charged this week in U.S. District Court with federal counts in connection with the Nov. 26 ambush.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was issued new charges of transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit an offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, as well as transporting a stolen firearm in interstate commerce, according to a Justice Department release issued Tuesday.

Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in the shooting, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically wounded.

“The transfer of this case from Superior Court to District Court ensures that we can undertake the serious, deliberate and weighty analysis required to determine if the death penalty is appropriate here,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in the release.

“Sarah Beckstrom was just 20 years old when she was killed and her parents are now forced to endure the holiday season without their daughter,” Pirro added. “Andrew Wolfe, by the grace of God, survived but has a long road ahead in his recovery.”

Wolfe, who suffered a gunshot wound to his head, has made “extraordinary progress,” neurosurgeon Dr. Jeffrey Mai said earlier this month. He has since been transferred from acute care to inpatient rehabilitation.

In addition to the new charges, Lakanwal remains charged with first-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed and two counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, charges in violation of D.C. Code. There is no death penalty in D.C. Superior Court.

Lakanwal, who was also shot during the attack, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lakanwal is accused of driving cross-country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, to Washington, D.C., to carry out the ambush.

He arrived in Bellingham in 2021 with his wife and five children as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a program that evacuated and resettled thousands of Afghans following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Prior to his arrival, Lakanwal worked with a CIA-backed Afghan Army unit known as a Zero Unit.

John Ratcliffe, the spy agency’s director, said following the shooting that the CIA’s relationship with Lakanwal “ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation” from Afghanistan.

The rumor began as an ember.

But such scuttlebutt, spread among the dense fog blanketing smoke pits and fanned by whispers of the E-4 Mafia and Lance Corporal Underground, is prone to sparking.

In mere moments, the falsehood became a conflagration of indisputable fact: Beloved pop icon Jennifer Lopez had passed away.

Marines deployed to far-flung theaters during the early years of the global war on terror were crushed.

Forget the anxiety of imminent combat, the heat, the intestinal issues stemming from MREs and the ammo crate toilets bearing the brunt of the fallout. To hell with the micromanagement of horseshoe haircut-adorned first sergeants or the indecisiveness of milquetoast officers who inexplicably outranked good brass.

Among a knuckle-dragging herd of testosterone-rich 20-somethings, J-Lo commanded attention. So indelible was the mark of her alleged demise that it made its way into “Generation Kill,” a seven-part HBO miniseries based on a book of the same name by Evan Wright, who accompanied the Marine Corps’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

At the center of that 2008 on-screen adaptation, crafted by “The Wire” creators David Simon and Ed Burns, was actor James Ransone, who managed, among a versatile two-decade career, to take a seven-episode run and churn out a character so relatable that most Marines would bat nary an eye if informed he had previously been one.

The Baltimore native, who also starred as Ziggy Sobotka in season two of “The Wire,” among numerous other roles, died by suicide Dec. 19. He was 46 years old.

Years had elapsed since the last time I’d watched Ransone’s masterful orchestration of Marine Cpl. Josh Ray Person, who had as much a penchant for combat — because “peace sucks a hairy asshole” — as he did for quoting the great warrior poet Ice Cube or belting Wheatus’ “Teenage Dirtbag” during a convoy.

Starting the series once more this past weekend elicited renewed appreciation for his character — beginning with his concerns for J-Lo’s well-being — and its familial impression.

“Lieutenant, have you gotten any word?” Person asks Lt. Nathaniel Fick (Stark Sands) early in the series.

“I only get what’s passed on to me from Godfather, and the only word he gets is from the BBC,” Fick replies. “If we’re lucky, Saddam will back down, let the inspectors in and we can go home. The important thing is we are doing our jobs by being here. All of you should be proud.”

“Sir, that’s not the word I was asking about. I was — we wanted to know if you knew anything about J-Lo being killed.”

“Ray, the battalion commander offered no sitrep as to J-Lo’s status.”

The exchange was brief, but set a recognizable tone. Most Marines who deployed to combat will say they’ve known dozens of iterations of Ransone’s on-screen persona.

“We all sort of regressed into 11-year-old boys,” Ranson said about the filming process. “It’s very ‘Lord of the Flies’ at this point.”

Immense stressors are accordingly processed — and rationalized — through a lens of uniquely juvenile vulgarity that would result in instant termination in any civilian profession.

Every bystander within a 15-meter radius is subjected to scathing dismantling — about appearance, intelligence and, of course, the promiscuity of mothers.

Incessant comments about the dearth of first-world comforts — “the suck” — are articulated with such hateful eloquence as to warrant its own art category.

“If Marines could get what they needed — when they needed it — we would be happy and wouldn’t be ready to kill people all of the time,” Person says in one episode. “The Marine Corps is like America’s pitbull. They beat us, mistreat us and every once in awhile, they let us out to attack someone.”

Despite the absence of luxuries, few would trade experiences in the suck for anything. Combat aside, bonds are forged in the mundane. And few demographics enjoy more of a love-hate relationship with it than Marines.

Discussing his portrayal in an interview with HBO, the real Josh Ray Person commented, “I know I probably come off a little cynical about even the Marine Corps itself.

“Even though I may seem cynical to a lot of the other guys, I loved them like [brothers],” he added. “I could say things and make fun of them, but the very second that somebody else does it that’s not in our group, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

It’s far too easy, amid today’s deluge of divisive online vitriol and corresponding doom scrolling, to lose sight of those bonds that once enraptured us — when primary concerns among a gaggle of acne-riddled young men were relegated to porno mags, Jody and subsisting on a diet of Copenhagen and Rip Its.

Thanks to Ransone, this past weekend allowed for a return to that period of my life, now 20 years on.

I’m not sure Ransone was aware of how much his performance resonated with Marines. If he was, it’s unfortunate more of us will never be able to tell him how easily his character still tethers us to simpler times.

Fair winds and following seas.

By 1942, as the United States plunged headlong into a world war, many men found themselves in far-flung places with names soon to enter the American lexicon: Guadalcanal, Anzio, Bastogne.

The logistics for transporting troops and war materiel was a dizzying hurdle to overcome for Allied leaders. So too was the ability bring the tastes and smells of home to millions of servicemen shivering in foxholes in Europe and sweating in the sands of the Pacific.

Today, the National WWII Museum is home to a myriad of ephemera showcasing the logistical feat of Christmas abroad, with special hand-printed and illustrated menus created by American POWs in Europe and the Pacific and those across the services.

The menus showcase traditional fares — such as turkey and potatoes (dubbed Snowflake Potatoes, which was a mixture of potatoes, cheese, sour cream, butter and chives) — and less traditional fares such as cigarettes and cigars.

Where one was stationed would also impact Christmas meals, where local elements were often included, according to Kim Guise, senior curator and director for curatorial affairs for the National World War II Museum.

“I was looking at a menu from Christmas 1941 in Hawaii, you know, just weeks after the attack [on Pearl Harbor]. Now, sometimes these menus were printed in advance… but one of the courses is pineapple, cheese and cold pineapple juice. So that’s not something that you would see in England.”

The power of a hot meal — and presents — could galvanize morale, something understood by Allied leaders from the top down.

“It’s interesting,” said Guise, “the power of certain things to transform and experience. People wrote about how receiving Christmas packages and mail, in particular, how that could make you feel.”

Many men brought back trophies of the war: flags, guns, different ephemera. But they also brought back playbills and menus.

“I think that in itself tells us something about that time,” said Guise. “Those were important moments, important meals that were treasured and thus the menus themselves were saved.

“The richest source of information about that time is correspondence, personal correspondence,” Guise continued. “Almost nearly every letter talks about food in some kind of way. They talk about receiving food from home, so that was one way in which people went off script, I guess, or supplemented what they were receiving [from the military].”

The menus and letters now in the museum’s collection showcase how people, even in the disoriented circumstances of war, hold on to fragments of normality.

And despite the omnipresent threat of death gnawing at soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, the societal pressure to uphold Christmas traditions — namely not opening presents until Dec. 25th — was still present, most of the time.

One soldier, Guise relayed, had received a package from home early, and was doing his best to hold out until Christmas morning.

The man was unable to hold off, writing to his family “the temptation was too great. I was in the mood for a midnight snack, so I opened one of the Christmas packages.”

Inside he found three cans of Vienna sausages.

“My face dropped to the floor,” he cheekily wrote to his family. “If there’s anything we hate over here besides SPAM, it’s Vienna sausage.”

During the war, families of service members were instructed to mail Christmas packages to their loved ones between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, but, just like logistical struggles today, even that was no guarantee for delivery.

“Even now everyone’s familiar with the holiday rush and the mail, how that impacts transportation,” Guise relayed. “Think about that in wartime, in a global war. … Sometimes they would receive it in October and sometimes they would receive it in February.”

Yet despite the erratic timing of hot meals and goods from home, they played a crucial role in soldier morale.

The museum, according to Guise, has thousands of these festive moments recorded and remembered for posterity.

One airman, from the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, who had been shot down in Aug. 1943, and held in Stalag Luft 17, near Krems, Austria, wrote to his sister on Dec. 26, 1943:

“Another Christmas come and gone. Not much news today. Feeling fine, spirits high. No mail is yet from home. … I suppose you have your tree this year, with the kids having a picnic. I sure miss little Cookie. Tell everyone I said hello.”

Then, on Dec. 25, 1944, the same airman writes to his sister, alluding to delays in communication:

“Christmas number two has come again. I hope number three will be in CL [Center Line, Michigan]. I am still in good health. Hope everyone is likewise there. Please extend my Christmas greetings to all. Write with news when you can. Merry Christmas. Happy Easter.”

Another soldier wrote home that “considering the circumstances” he had had the best “Christmas possible,” gleefully proclaiming that he had received two “delicious” Pabst Blue Ribbon beers.

While the holiday season amplified the extreme deprivation, fear and loneliness for many, the brief respite shows, according to Guise, “how people in very difficult circumstances hold on to these little moments.”

About 450 U.S. Marines were deployed to the Joint Task Force-Southern Border in Yuma, Arizona, this month to boost security along the southern border, a task force spokesperson told Military Times Monday.

The move follows the Interior Department’s July announcement that it had transferred jurisdiction of around 285 acres of public land in Yuma County along the U.S.-Mexico border to the Navy Department for three years to establish a national defense area in support of border security operations.

The newly transferred Marines, from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion garrisoned in Camp Pendleton, California, were assigned to the task force in support of the U.S. Border Patrol, the spokesperson said.

They will largely work on projects such as construction, barrier reinforcement, signage placement and road improvements, the spokesperson said.

The battalion is expected to be deployed for around six months, working along the entirety of the southern border.

JTF-SB assumed control of the southern border mission from Joint Task Force-North in March, overseeing the nearly 2,000-mile stretch along the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego to McAllen, Texas.

The task force is headquartered at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, about 300 miles from Yuma, where this battalion of Marines is deployed.

“The transfer of authority and surge in deployed capabilities demonstrate the Department of Defense’s continued commitment to supporting DHS and achieving full operational control of the southern border,” the U.S. Northern Command said in March, announcing the move.

The transfer allows the Navy to help U.S. Customs and Border Protection in securing the border and reducing “unlawful border traffic and its adverse effects on natural and cultural resources,” the Interior Department said in July.

Deployment of Marines for southern border security is not new under President Donald Trump’s second administration.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January, The Defense Department made southern border security a priority following Trump’s late January “Protecting the American people against invasion” executive order.

There are currently approximately 8,500 total service members assigned to JTF-SB working along the stretch, the spokesperson said.

Before Trump’s order, about 2,500 service members were assigned to the southern border.

According to an August Customs and Border Protection press release, the zone’s designation as a national defense area allows military personnel to temporarily detain people who allegedly enter the restricted area unlawfully.

The detainees are to then be turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents to possibly face criminal charges for defense property regulations, military property trespassing and other charges, per the August release.

This area in Yuma is similar to those already established in Texas and Mexico, the August statement says.

Since the national defense area designation, service members in different task forces have joined ongoing operations in the Yuma sector.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service, under the headline “Q&A: How Did the U.S. Patrol the Caribbean for Drug Smuggling Before It Started Blowing Up Boats?” Subscribe to their newsletter.

For decades before the Pentagon started blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, the Coast Guard tracked, intercepted and boarded the little skiffs that carried cocaine and marijuana across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to the U.S.

The dramatic escalation this fall, which has killed at least 99 people as of Wednesday, including 12 this week, raises questions about the legality of the strikes — and also overshadows the strange reality that the Coast Guard is continuing its long-standing counterdrug patrols, making record cocaine seizures while often simply returning the crews of drug boats to their home countries.

The Coast Guard’s counternarcotics operations have always been seen as primarily law enforcement work, built on careful legal protocols and international cooperation. It’s a stark difference from the Defense Department’s new approach, which considers drug runners in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean to be “enemy combatants” and targets boats with weapons of war.

To understand what’s at stake — and just how much of a shift these airstrikes are — The War Horse spoke with several experts: Brian McNamara, a professor at Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement and a retired Coast Guard JAG officer; Mark Nevitt, a professor at Emory University’s School of Law and a retired Navy JAG officer; and Kendra McSweeney and Mat Coleman, Ohio State University geographers who have studied at-sea drug interdictions.

“The understanding was always that the Department of Defense would assist,” McSweeney says, “but never directly participate.”

Q. How has the US typically dealt with drug smuggling boats on the high seas?

A. Countering illegal drugs on the ocean has long been the Coast Guard’s job. The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, but it’s also a law enforcement agency — meaning it has the authority to board certain vessels and detain suspected drug runners.

Coast Guard teams receive permission through standing legal agreements to board certain boats, seize any contraband and transport suspected smugglers back to the U.S. for prosecution. It’s a well-oiled operation governed by longstanding legal conventions and international agreements — and honed by years of experience battling smugglers on the high seas.

“The Coast Guard was intercepting rumrunners out of Cuba during Prohibition,” McSweeney says. “[They’ve] been the at-sea police for a long time.”

Q. So the other military branches aren’t involved?

A. Until this fall, the rest of the military only played a supporting role in counterdrug work. The military, along with other agencies and partner countries, share illicit drug intelligence, and the Coast Guard uses that intelligence in its interception work.

Navy ships — both our Navy and other countries’ — have also traditionally supported the Coast Guard’s work. Because it’s not a law enforcement agency, Navy sailors cannot board another vessel at sea. But Coast Guard teams deploy aboard Navy ships and board suspected drug boats from there, using the Navy’s bigger footprint on the ocean to supplement the Coast Guard’s older, smaller fleet.

“The Navy [has] capabilities and frigates, destroyers and a whole slew of vessels that can sort of supplement and supercharge this mission,” Nevitt, the retired Navy JAG officer, says. “But the Coast Guard is taking the lead.”

Q. So can the Coast Guard just board any boat?

A. No. The ocean is a very big place, governed by a complex web of laws. The primary maritime agreement at play is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which outlines what countries can and can’t do on the ocean, both in international waters — about two-thirds of the Earth’s oceans — as well as in territorial seas, which are closer to land and controlled by coastal countries. The U.S. isn’t a signatory of the convention, but it tends to follow the rules the convention lays out, considering it customary maritime law. The U.S. also has its own federal laws governing the Coast Guard’s authorities.

Those rules govern which boats the Coast Guard can and cannot board. It’s complicated, but basically the Coast Guard can board any boat in international waters that doesn’t claim a nationality — in effect, a “stateless” boat. The Coast Guard also has other international agreements and protocols that help it obtain permission to board boats in many other countries’ waters or certain boats flying other countries’ flags.

Q. How does a Coast Guard drug boat interdiction work?

A. Coast Guard ships, called cutters, patrol areas where drug smugglers tend to operate — like the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. They receive military intelligence, both domestic and foreign, to clue them in to the path of suspected drug boats.

“All nations will sort of work together to halt the trafficking of drugs,” Nevitt says. “It’s not just a U.S. problem, it’s a global problem.”

Once a Coast Guard cutter has identified a potential target, it turns to an escalating “use of force” protocol, using verbal warnings and warning shots before shooting out the boat’s engines and approaching with a boarding team. The intent is to stop the boat — but to avoid injuring the people onboard.

“There was a lot of training and competency development amongst all of the Coast Guard members who were involved in that kind of dance,” says McNamara. “[The smugglers] were more valuable alive than they were dead.”

Q. So who are those smugglers the Coast Guard picks up?

A. McSweeney, along with her collaborator Coleman, has built a comprehensive database of legal cases stemming from Coast Guard drug interdictions. They found that the drug smugglers the Coast Guard detains in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean are typically running cocaine or sometimes marijuana — almost nobody is smuggling fentanyl.

“Fentanyl is a terrestrial product,” Coleman says. “It’s made on land and transported on land.”

Most drug boats are crewed by just three or four people, who tend to be pretty economically desperate, McSweeney and Coleman say. They’re often coerced into doing this work, running open-air pangas, laden down with multiple outboard motors, through heaving waves on the open ocean. Those who volunteer get only small paydays. And they’re not typically cartel members.

“They’re basically the Amazon driver delivering the package,” McSweeney says. “They’ve just been hired to drive the drugs.”

Q. Does the Coast Guard find drugs on every boat it boards?

A. No. Not every suspected drug boat the Coast Guard intercepts turns out to be smuggling contraband. In a memo from this past October, the Coast Guard commandant wrote that nearly one in five of the boats it boarded over the last year did not have drugs onboard. That number holds steady for boats intercepted off the coast of Venezuela — where several of the airstrikes have been focused.

Q. What happens after the Coast Guard detains a smuggling crew?

A. Until this year, the Coast Guard would often bring alleged smugglers back to the U.S. for criminal charges and prosecution. But the real value, McNamara says, was in the information these low-level operatives could provide.

“It helped the U.S. gather intelligence on who these drug smugglers were and helped build from the ground up a picture of what the cartels were doing,” he says.

But that changed this past winter. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo outlining the Department of Justice’s priorities in investigating and prosecuting cartel operations, writing that the department would “rarely” prosecute low-level offenders — including those intercepted at sea — to free up resources for bigger investigations. The Coast Guard now typically returns them to their home countries.

Q. So has the Coast Guard stopped intercepting drug smugglers?

A. No. In fact, the Coast Guard has been surging its ships and aircraft to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, leading to record-breaking drug busts.

“In cutting off the flow of these deadly drugs, the Coast Guard is saving countless American lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after the Coast Guard announced it had seized more than 100,000 pounds of cocaine in the eastern Pacific between August and October this year.

Q. How are the smugglers the Coast Guard intercepts different from the alleged smugglers the Defense Department is bombing?

A. As far as experts know, they’re not. During the exact same time frame that the Coast Guard seized those 100,000 pounds of cocaine, the Department of Defense, through its Special Operations Command, began its airstrike campaign. After the first strike, State Secretary Marco Rubio said that Trump could have ordered the alleged drug boat be intercepted — but instead chose to bomb it.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up,” Rubio told reporters.

Q. So what does this mean for the Coast Guard’s work?

A. In spite of Noem’s praise, President Donald Trump bluntly told reporters last month that the Coast Guard’s approach has been “totally ineffective.” A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report from earlier this year found that the Coast Guard hadn’t met its own drug seizure goals in the past, in part because cutters were unavailable for patrols and seizure information wasn’t always accurately recorded.

This year, however, the Coast Guard announced it had seized more than 500,000 pounds of cocaine, well over three times the amount it usually intercepts in a year. But the experts we spoke with said that in the long run, the airstrikes will likely make the Coast Guard’s work more difficult. Countries that previously shared intelligence with the U.S., like Britain and Colombia, have said they will no longer cooperate on counternarcotics work over fears that the U.S. is violating international law.

The Coast Guard’s counterdrug approach was built on international collaboration, governed by legal agreements and mutual trust built up over decades, McSweeney says.

“That is literally being blown up with every strike.”

This War Horse news story was edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.

The signs appear positive for military recruiting in fiscal 2026, following the services’ success last year in meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals, defense officials said Monday.

Since the beginning of fiscal 2026 in October, recruiting efforts are “already off to a strong and promising start,” officials said, with the Defense Department meeting nearly 40% of its delayed entry program accession goals.

“This is a historic figure and a testament to our support from the president and the secretary, as well as the great work being done by each of the services,” said Anthony J. Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in the announcement. “The department is on track to once again meet our recruiting mission.”

Since November 2024, the military has seen the highest percentage in meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals in more than a decade, officials also claimed in the announcement. According to DOD, the five service branches achieved an average of 103% of their recruiting goals for fiscal 2025, following recruiting challenges in recent years.

In early summer, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force announced they had already met their year-end recruiting targets.

All active-duty forces met their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals, according to DOD. Most of the reserve components also met their goals, with the exception of the Army Reserve, which met 75% of its goals.

According to DOD, the branches met the following recruiting goals:

• The Army achieved 101.72% of its goal of 61,000 recruits, recruiting 62,050.
• The Navy achieved 108.61% of its goal of 40,600 recruits, recruiting 44,096.
• The Air Force achieved 100.22% of its goal of 30,100 recruits, recruiting 30,166.
• The Space Force achieved 102.89% of its goal of 796 recruits, recruiting 819.
• The Marine Corps achieved 100% of its goal of 26,600 recruits, recruiting 26,600.

In the announcement, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and other leaders attributed the success to several factors, including enhanced medical screening processes for recruits.

A medical records accession pilot program has cut down on waiting times between the time a recruit’s initial paperwork is submitted and when they are allowed to be taken in by their local Military Entrance Processing Station, officials stated. Reducing that wait time helps avoid potential recruits from losing interest in serving, officials said.

Other initiatives of the services that were cited in the announcement were preparatory courses to help recruits who are close to meeting enlistment standards improve their academic test scores and physical fitness.

A recent Defense Department Inspector General report found the Army and Navy had underreported the scores of recruits who went through those courses, failing to accurately calculate the number of recruits who scored low on their military aptitude tests. The services counted scores earned after completion of those preparatory courses, instead of scores the recruits earned when they first signed up.

Boosts in troop end strength

Meanwhile, the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act just signed into law by President Donald Trump boosts DOD’s troop end strength by about 26,100:

• 454,000 active-duty soldiers, an increase of 11,700 from fiscal 2025
• 334,600 sailors, an increase of 12,300 from fiscal 2025
• 321,500 airmen, an increase of 1,500 from fiscal 2025
• 10,400 Space Force guardians, an increase of 600 from fiscal 2025

The Marine Corps won’t see an increase over their 172,300 end strength for 2025.

As the U.S. military continues to build up forces to deter China in the increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region, a recent Government Accountability Office report claims that clear guidance on how it funds those deterrence efforts has yet to be provided.

Each year, the Defense Department selects programs, equipment, research and support initiatives to include in the annual Pacific Deterrence Initiative budget.

The PDI originated as a way for the government to gain insight into how DOD is distributing funds to counter evolving threats posed by the People’s Republic of China.

The GAO report analyzed the Defense Department’s annual PDI budget from fiscal years 2023 through 2025 and determined that there were inconsistencies within the program that do not “reflect department-wide priorities or requirements and present an inconsistent mix of programs and funding.”

One example, according to the report, was that the Air Force and Marine Corps sought funding for facilities sustainment programs, which identify and assess risks, while the Army and Navy did not.

The GAO report also identified that some DOD organizations included development programs that are unlikely to be effective within five years, despite the guidance’s near-term focus.

Additionally, there were select efforts that were highlighted as being geographically located east of the International Date Line, while the PDI guidance focuses primarily on efforts to its west.

“Inconsistent program selection has limited visibility and weakened the initiative’s value,” the report’s authors wrote. “These issues stem, in part, from DOD’s unclear internal guidance on how to select programs for inclusion in the PDI budget exhibit.”

The GAO went on to note that the programs and funding presented in the annual budget exhibit were different from those included in the Indo-Pacific Command’s independent assessment, which “is based on its strategy and assumes unlimited resources,” the authors wrote.

“While some of the differences can be attributed to that assumption, there are also differences in the types of funded programs prioritized,” the report states. “This raises questions about the extent of DOD’s resourcing needs for the Indo-Pacific region.”

Together, the inconsistencies make assessing alignment between DOD resources and strategic goals more difficult, the report states.

“Unless DOD improves its internal processes and clarifies what the PDI exhibit is intended to convey, Congress will continue to face challenges in using it to assess progress toward deterrence and posture objectives in the Indo-Pacific region,” the report’s authors conclude.

“Addressing these issues would help ensure the PDI budget exhibit provides clear, consistent and credible information on how the department is aligning resources to increase capability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific.”

President Donald Trump has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Francis L. Donovan to head the U.S. Southern Command after the previous commander, Adm. Alvin Holsey, retired after 13 months, the Defense Department said Friday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Donovan — currently the vice commander of U.S. Special Operations Command — is in line to be the next SOUTHCOM commander, taking over from Holsey, who relinquished his post overseeing military operations in South America Dec. 12.

Hegseth publicized Holsey’s departure in an Oct. 16 X post, saying Holsey would retire at the end of this year after 37 years of service, without further context.

A list of US military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels

The New York Times reported that Holsey had voiced concerns over lethal U.S. military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in support of what the Pentagon has labeled counternarcotics efforts.

Other news sources have published reports that Holsey and Hegseth clashed over these concerns and that Hegseth grew frustrated with what he perceived as Holsey’s lack of aggression in combating the alleged narcoterrorists.

On the day that Hegseth announced Holsey’s retirement, the U.S. had killed 27 individuals after launching six military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels.

A Sept. 2 strike left two survivors clinging to the wreckage of their boat after an initial strike. SEAL Team 6, operating under the Joint Special Operations Command, killed them in a subsequent double-tap strike.

The Washington Post first reported on that strike, raising questions over whether the survivors’ killing violated international and U.S. law, which dictate that combatants who are out of the fight, defenseless, or shipwrecked are not to be targeted or killed.

The legality of the second strike, as well as the strikes in general, has repeatedly come into question by members of Congress, as well as former and current military judge advocates general.

Hegseth told reporters on Dec. 16 that the Defense Department would not release a full video of the Sept. 2 strike. The Trump administration had released a snippet of the first strike on X the day it occurred.

A day later, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who was JSOC commander during the Sept. 2 strike and ordered the killing of the two survivors, reportedly told lawmakers that it was possible to release portions of Pentagon footage of the strike without jeopardizing classified information.

If confirmed, Donovan would be at the helm of the controversial military strikes against the alleged drug-carrying vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of operations.

A Silver Star recipient, Donovan has served as commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division, assistant commanding general of JSOC and commanding general of Naval Amphibious Forces, Task Force 51/5thMarine Expeditionary Brigade, according to his Marine biography.

He has also held command positions with Force Recon, a battalion landing team and Marine expeditionary unit, among other assignments.

Jordan confirmed Saturday that its air force took part in strikes launched by the United States on Islamic State group targets in Syria in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. citizens earlier this month.

The U.S. launched military strikes Friday on multiple sites in in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons in retaliation for an attack by a Syrian gunman that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week earlier.

The Jordanian military said in a statement that its air force “participated in precise airstrikes ... targeting several ISIS positions in southern Syria,” using a different abbreviation for the Islamic State group. Jordan is one of 90 countries making up the global coalition against IS, which Syria recently joined.

The U.S. military did not say how many had been killed in Friday’s strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, reported that at least five people were killed, including the leader and members of an IS cell.

The Jordanian statement said the operation aimed “to prevent extremist groups from exploiting these areas as launching pads to threaten the security of Syria’s neighbors and the wider region, especially after ISIS regrouped and rebuilt its capabilities in southern Syria.”

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a statement that its forces “struck more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria with fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery,” with the Jordanian air force supporting with fighter aircraft.

It said that since the Dec. 13 attack in Syria, “U.S. and partner forces conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq resulting in the deaths or detention of 23 terrorist operatives,” adding that the U.S. and partners have conducted more than 80 counterterrorism operation in Syria in the past six months.

President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group. On Friday Trump reiterated his backing for Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. strikes against IS.

IS has not taken responsibility for the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.

As well as killing three U.S. citizens, the shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed.

The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned while he was under investigation on suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Syrian officials have said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the start of an operation to “eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three U.S. citizens.

“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said Friday on social media.

Two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter were killed Dec. 13 in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Islamic State group. The slain National Guard members were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

Soon after word of the deaths, President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump has said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack” and the shooting attack by a gunman came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

Syrian state television reported that strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.

White House officials noted that Trump had made clear that retaliation was coming.

“President Trump told the world that the United States would retaliate for the killing of our heroes by ISIS in Syria, and he is delivering on that promise,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.

The U.S. military will stop its practice of shooting pigs and goats to help prepare medics for treating wounded troops in a combat zone, ending an exercise made obsolete by simulators that mimic battlefield injuries.

The prohibition on “live fire” training that includes animals is part of this year’s annual defense bill, although other uses of animals for wartime training will continue The ban was championed by Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican who often focuses on animal rights issues.

Buchanan called the change “a major step forward in reducing unnecessary suffering in military practices.”

“With today’s advanced simulation technology, we can prepare our medics for the battlefield while reducing harm to animals,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “As Co-Chair of the Animal Protection Caucus, I’m proud to continue leading efforts to end outdated and inhumane practices.”

Buchanan’s office said the Defense Department will continue to allow training that involves stabbing, burning and using blunt instruments on animals, while also allowing “weapon wounding,” which is when the military tests weapons on animals. Animal rights groups say the animals are supposed to be anesthetized during such training and testing.

The Defense Health Agency, which oversees the training, said in a statement Friday that the Defense Department, “remains committed to replacement of animal models without compromising the quality of medical training.”

The agency cited the establishment of its Defense Medical Modeling and Simulation Office as a testament to those efforts, which include “realistic training scenarios to ensure medical providers are well-prepared to care for the combat-wounded.”

Groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals declared victory, saying the change will spare the lives of thousands of animals each year and “marks a historic shift toward state-of-the-art, human-relevant simulation technology.”

It’s unclear how often the military uses animals for training. Previous defense bills and other pieces of legislation have sought to reduce their use for trauma training, according to a 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that serves Congress.

The 2013 defense bill required the Pentagon to submit a report that outlined a strategy for transitioning to human-based training methods, the GAO said. A 2018 statute required the secretary of defense to ensure the military used simulation technology “to the maximum extent practicable” or unless use of animals was deemed necessary by the medical chain of command.

The GAO report stated the animals are placed under anesthesia and then euthanized.

“Live animals such as pigs and goats are used in trauma training because their organs and tissues are similar to humans, they have biological variation that can complicate treatment and provide opportunities to control medical conditions,” the report stated.

But groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine say anesthetized pigs and goats do little to prepare medics or corpsmen for treating wounded servicemembers. They said the advent of “cut suits” that are worn by people are much better at mimicking an injured human who is moaning and writhing.

“The big argument is this is a living, breathing thing that they have to take care of and there’s this level of realism,” said Erin Griffith, a retired Navy doctor and member of the physicians committee. “But replicating what it’s like when their buddy is shot and bleeding and awake is very different.”