In March 2025, the U.S. government conducted a wargame on how to defend military bases in the United States from drone attacks.

Just three months later, what had seemed a theoretical possibility became frighteningly close to reality. In June 2025 came Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb. Ukrainian agents had spent months smuggling hundreds of drones deep inside Russia. In a coordinated strike, more than 100 small drones destroyed 20 to 40 Russian warplanes on five airbases scattered from Moscow to Siberia.

The damage extended to more than Russian airpower or the Kremlin’s pride. The drone’s-eye videos of burning bombers sent a chilling signal to nations around the world. If this could happen to Russia, then it could happen to any country — including the United States.

Allvin calls Ukraine drone strikes a wake-up call for US air defense

Since 2022, the U.S. Army’s Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office, or JCO, and the RAND Corp. think tank have held six wargames on how to mitigate the drone threat.

“We are trying to understand the policies and authorities we have in place to prevent us from contending with a scenario like Operation Spiderweb,” said Paul Lushenko, an assistant professor at the U.S. Army War College who helped run the drone wargame.

Many of the details of these wargames are classified, but one key finding is that protecting domestic U.S. bases can’t be just the military’s job.

“The tabletop exercise emphasized the need for a framework to integrate, enable, and synchronize state, local, tribal, and territorial authorities into counter-drone operations at or near military bases,” noted an essay by the game’s designers. But this, in turn, raises a slew of jurisdictional and communication issues.

By itself, Operation Spiderweb would have been an unpleasant reminder that the advent of small, easily transportable drones means that even installations thousands of miles from the battlefield aren’t safe. This is especially true for the U.S., which has been protected for centuries by two oceans and the absence of any significant adversary on its borders. Until recently, military bases had more to fear from terrorists or a crazed gunman crashing the gate, rather than a gaggle of small attack drones executing a miniature airstrike.

But, in fact, there have also been omens for years that drones were becoming a threat to U.S. installations. In 2016, the use of small weaponized drones by the Islamic State in Iraq made some American commanders uneasy. Then, in 2023, came a wave of mysterious drones that overflew Langley Air Force Base, causing no damage but generating much buzz about potentially hostile unmanned aerial vehicles in U.S. airspace. The U.S. government estimates that there were 350 drone incursions over military installations in 2024. While most came from careless or curious drone enthusiasts, the potential for hostile reconnaissance or attack is there.

Initially, the JCO/RAND wargames focused on the technical challenges of counter-drone defense. But the March 2025 exercise tackled a much more complex question: Who exactly has the responsibility — and the authority — for defending bases from drones?

“Let’s say you’ve got a drone flying down the Potomac,” said Christopher Pernin, a RAND researcher who helped run the drone wargames. “Maybe the FAA has signed off that the drone is approved to fly. Well, how can the people at the Pentagon know? They have to interrogate the system and look it up. Well, guess what? You’ve got 67 seconds to figure this out.”

In particular, the March wargame explored the conditions under which U.S. Northern Command — which is already responsible for securing North American airspace — would coordinate counter-drone defense of military bases. The exercise also explored how the joint military services and government agencies can maximize data sharing and situational awareness, as well as how to foster the use of counter-drone technologies such as jamming GPS signals.

Using Fort Bliss, Texas, and Joint Base Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as the targets, the tabletop game included scenarios where the defender faced attacks by drones launched at various altitudes, bearings and distances. This served as a backdrop to stimulate discussions by over 100 participants from more than 30 federal and state agencies in what Lushenko described as “the largest interagency tabletop exercise in five years.”

The wargame identified three conditions under which NORTHCOM could support anti-drone defense of homeland bases.

“These include drone incursions that overwhelm the organic defensive capabilities of the services; are simultaneously conducted at different military bases, especially those performing essential missions; and, undermine public trust in the military and government,” the RAND essay said.

The exercise also endorsed the idea of NORTHCOM’s “flyaway kits,” which consist of mobile counter-drone systems and trained personnel that can be deployed via commercial aircraft as needed. However, these kits can do more than supplement what ideally would be a multilayered defense at military installations, including jamming, microwave and laser weapons and kinetic weapons such as machine guns.

Interestingly, the wargames suggested that the National Guard could play a crucial role in defending homeland military installations. Especially valuable would be the National Guard’s Civil Support Teams, which are available 24/7, can be deployed with 90 minutes and “have large budgets that can offset the equipping and training costs for counter-drone operations,” the RAND essay noted.

“There are some imaginative things we can do to further optimize our state-based military, through the National Guard, to respond to these drone incursions,” Lushenko added.

The defense of military bases is as much a matter of law as it is a matter of technology. For example, per Section 130i under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the commanders of some bases are authorized to use force against drone intrusions, while others could face prosecution.

Compounding the problem is that with around 500 military installations around the U.S, there are a hodgepodge of different rules of engagement. At some sites, the instructions from commanders are “‘no drones on my installation, you have carte blanche to do whatever you need,’” said Pernin.

“They know exactly what they’re doing and they know what their goals are. I suspect there are a lot of places that don’t have that kind of goal setting. They see a UAV flying on the other side of the installation, and they think, ‘I’m not sure if I should take it out or just let it go.’”

Ultimately, the drone wargames were valuable simply by bringing together people from different agencies.

“We had a lot of crosstalk that I don’t think had happened before,” Pernin recalled. “We had a lot of occasions where people said, ‘I think this is so-and-so’s role.’ But that person was in the room, and they would say, ‘no, it’s not ours.’”

BATON ROUGE, La. — A woman detained at a citizenship appointment in May will not be deported following a judge’s ruling this week barring her removal, but her Marine Corps veteran husband said she remains in custody at immigration detention center in Louisiana.

For two months, Paola Clouatre, 25, has been held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement complex in Monroe, waiting to learn whether she will be allowed to remain in the country. Once a week she is allowed to see her husband, who makes the eight-hour roundtrip trek from Baton Rouge so the mother can breastfeed their 4-month-old baby and see their 2-year-old son.

Clouatre, a Mexican national, entered the U.S. seeking asylum with her mother more than a decade ago. After marrying her husband in 2024 and applying for her green card to legally live and work in the U.S., she learned that ICE had issued an order for her deportation in 2018 after her mother failed to appear at an immigration hearing.

In May, during a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointment in New Orleans, a staffer asked about the deportation order. Clouatre explained that she was trying to reopen her case, with her husband telling The Associated Press that he and his wife were trying “to do the right thing.” Soon after, officers arrived and handcuffed Clouatre.

Adrian Clouatre has spent nearly eight weeks fighting for his wife’s release, remaining optimistic that their family would soon be reunited outside the detention facility located nearly 180 miles (290 kilometers) from their south Louisiana home.

ICE detains Marine Corps veteran’s wife at green card meeting

On Wednesday, they got word that a judge in California — the original jurisdiction for Paola Clouatre’s case — had stayed the order for her removal.

Adrian Clouatre welcomed the decision. He said their lawyer is preparing paperwork seeking his wife’s release, though it’s not guaranteed and could take weeks even in the best of scenarios.

“I just keep telling our son, “‘Mom’s coming home soon,’” Adrian Clouatre said.

Meanwhile, the couple’s lawyer is working to get the Baton Rouge mother’s green card process back on track, The New Orleans Advocate/The Times-Picayune reported. While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has already ruled that the couple has a valid marriage, the process has been held up amid the legal battle.

The Baton Rouge mother is one of tens of thousands of people in custody as part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to remove millions of people who are in the country without legal permission.

Clouatre said GOP U.S. Sen. John Kennedy has also requested that the Department of Homeland Security release his wife from custody. Kennedy’s office did not return AP’s emailed request for comment.

Kennedy is not the first Louisiana Republican to get involved in an immigration case in the reliably red state. Earlier this month, An Iranian mother, who was detained by ICE after living in the U.S. for nearly five decades, was released following advocacy from Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

NOGALES, Ariz. — Inside an armored vehicle, an Army scout uses a joystick to direct a long-range optical scope toward a man perched atop the U.S.-Mexico border wall cutting across the hills of this Arizona frontier community.

The man lowers himself toward U.S. soil between coils of concertina wire. Shouts ring out, an alert is sounded and a U.S. Border Patrol SUV races toward the wall — warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico.

The sighting Tuesday was one of only two for the Army infantry unit patrolling this sector of the southern border, where an emergency declaration by President Donald Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring migrant crossings between U.S. ports of entry.

“Deterrence is actually boring,” said 24-year-old Army Sgt. Ana Harker-Molina, voicing the tedium felt by some fellow soldiers over the sporadic sightings.

Still, she said she takes pride in the work, knowing that troops discourage crossings by their mere presence.

“Just if we’re sitting here watching the border, it’s helping our country,” said Harker-Molina, an immigrant herself who came from Panama at age 12 and became a U.S. citizen two years ago while serving in the Army.

U.S. troop deployments at the border have tripled to 7,600 and include every branch of the military — even as the number of attempted illegal crossings plummet and Trump has authorized funding for an additional 3,000 Border Patrol agents, offering $10,000 signing and retention bonuses.

The military mission is guided from a new command center at a remote Army intelligence training base alongside southern Arizona’s Huachuca Mountains. There, a community hall has been transformed into a bustling war room of battalion commanders and staff with digital maps pinpointing military camps and movements along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

Until now border enforcement had been the domain of civilian law enforcement, with the military only intermittently stepping in. But in April, large swaths of border were designated militarized zones, empowering U.S. troops to apprehend immigrants and others accused of trespassing on Army, Air Force or Navy bases, and authorizing additional criminal charges that can mean prison time.

Militarized zones now make up 1/3 of southern border, stirring debates

The two-star general leading the mission says troops are being untethered from maintenance and warehouse tasks to work closely with U.S. Border Patrol agents in high-traffic areas for illegal crossings — and to deploy rapidly to remote, unguarded terrain.

“We don’t have a (labor) union, there’s no limit on how many hours we can work in a day, how many shifts we can man,” said Army Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann.

“I can put soldiers out whenever we need to in order to get after the problem and we can put them out for days at a time, we can fly people into incredibly remote areas now that we see the cartels shifting” course.

Patrols aimed at stopping ‘got-aways’

At Nogales, Army scouts patrolled the border in full battle gear — helmet, M5 service rifle, bullet-resistant vest — with the right to use deadly force if attacked under standing military rules integrated into the border mission. Underfoot, smugglers for decades routinely attempted to tunnel into stormwater drains to ferry contraband into the U.S.

Naumann’s command post oversees an armada of 117 armored Stryker vehicles, more than 35 helicopters and a half-dozen long-distance drones that can survey the border day and night with sensors to pinpoint people wandering the desert. Marine Corps engineers are adding concertina wire to slow crossings, as the Trump administration reboots border wall construction.

Naumann said the focus is on stopping “got-aways” who evade authorities to disappear into the U.S. in a race against the clock that can last seconds in urban areas as people vanish into smuggling vehicles, or several days in the dense wetland thickets of the Rio Grande or the vast desert and mountainous wilderness of Arizona.

Meanwhile, the rate of apprehensions at the border has fallen to a 60-year low.

Naumann says the fall-off in illegal entries is the “elephant in the room” as the military increases pressure and resources aimed at starving smuggling cartels — including Latin American gangs recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

He says it would be wrong to let up, though, and that crossings may rebound with the end of scorching summer weather.

“We’ve got to keep going after it, we’re having some successes, we are trending positively,” he said of the mission with no fixed end-date.

Militarized zones are ‘a gray area’

The Trump administration is using the military broadly to boost its immigration operations, from guarding federal buildings in Los Angeles against protests over ICE detentions, to assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Florida to plans to hold detained immigrants on military bases in New Jersey, Indiana and Texas.

“It’s all part of the same strategy that is a very muscular, robust, intimidating, aggressive response to this — to show his base that he was serious about a campaign promise to fix immigration,” said Dan Maurer, a law professor at Ohio Northern University and a retired U.S. Army judge advocate officer.

“It’s both norm-breaking and unusual. It puts the military in a very awkward position.”

The militarized zones at the border sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.

“It’s in that gray area, it may be a violation — it may not be. The military’s always had the authority to arrest people and detain them on military bases,” said Joshua Kastenberg, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and a former Air Force judge.

Michael Fisher, a security consultant and former chief of the Border Patrol from 2010-2016, calls the military expansion at the border a “force multiplier” as Border Patrol agents increasingly turn up far from the border.

“The military allows Border Patrol to be able to flex into other areas where they typically would not be able to do so,” he said.

The strategy carries inherent moral challenges and political risks.

In 1997, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen was shot to death while herding goats by a Marine Corps unit on a border anti-drug patrol in the remote Big Bend Region of western Texas. Authorities say Esequiel Hernandez had no connection to the drug trade and was an honor student.

The shooting stoked anger along the border and prompted an end to then-President Bill Clinton’s military deployment to the border.

In New Mexico, the latest restrictions barring access to militarized zones have made popular areas for hunting, hiking and offroad motorsports off-limits for recreation, leading to an outcry from some residents.

Naumann said adults can apply for access online, and by agreeing to undergo a criminal background check that he calls a standard requirement for access to military bases.

“We’re not out to stop Americans from recreating in America. That’s not what this is about,” he said.

Military-grade equipment

At daybreak Wednesday, Border Patrol vehicles climbed the largely unfenced slopes of Mt. Cristo Rey, an iconic peak topped by a crucifix that juts into the sky above the urban outskirts of El Paso and Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez — without another soul in sight.

The peak is at the conflux of two new militarized zones designated as extensions of Army stations at Fort Bliss in Texas and Fort Huachuca in Arizona. The Defense Department has added an additional 250-mile (400-kilometer) zone in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley linked to an Air Force base.

The Navy will oversee the border near Yuma, Arizona, where the Department of Interior on Wednesday ceded a 32-mile (50-kilometer) portion of the border to the military.

At Mt. Cristo Rey, the Homeland Security Department has issued plans to close a 1.3-mile (2-kilometer) gap in the border wall over the objections of a Roman Catholic diocese that owns much of the land and says a wall would obstruct a sacred refuge for religious pilgrimages.

From a nearby mesa top, Army Spc. Luisangel Nito scanned the valley below Mt. Cristo Rey with an infrared scope that highlights body heat, spotting three people as they crossed illegally into the U.S. for the Border Patrol to apprehend. Nito’s unit also has equipment that can ground small drones used by smugglers to plot entry routes.

Nito is the U.S.-born son of Mexican immigrants who entered the country in the 1990s through the same valleys he now patrols.

“They crossed right here,” he said. “They told me to just be careful because back when they crossed they said it was dangerous.”

Nito’s parents returned to Mexico in 2008 amid the financial crisis, but the soldier saw brighter opportunities in the U.S., returned and enlisted. He expressed no reservations about his role in detaining illegal immigrants.

“Obviously it’s a job, right, and then I signed up for it and I’m going to do it,” he said.

At Mt. Cristo Rey and elsewhere, troops utilize marked Border Patrol vehicles as Naumann champions the “integration” of civilian law enforcement and military forces.

“If there’s a kind of a secret sauce, if you will, it’s integrating at every echelon,” Neumann said.

A U.S. Navy warship had a “safe and professional interaction” with Iranian naval forces on Wednesday, disputing claims in an Iranian state media report, according to a U.S. defense official.

“At 10:50 a.m. [Wednesday], USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) had a safe and professional interaction with an Iranian SH-3 ‘Sea King’ helicopter while operating in international waters,” the defense official said in an emailed statement.

Iranian state TV reported Wednesday that an Iranian navy helicopter confronted a U.S. warship attempting to approach Iranian territorial waters in the Gulf of Oman, according to The Associated Press.

Iran hit dome on US air base in Qatar in June attack: Report

The Iranian report said the helicopter flew over the Fitzgerald and warned it to keep its distance. It said the destroyer threatened to target the aircraft if it did not leave the area.

In response, the report said, Iranian air forces communicated that they were backed by Iran’s integrated air defense system and that the Fitzgerald “retreated southward,” according to AP.

“This interaction had no impact to USS Fitzgerald’s mission and any reports claiming otherwise are falsehoods and attempts by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to spread misinformation,” the defense official said. “U.S. Central Command will continue to operate safely and professionally in accordance with internationally recognized norms and customs.”

The event marks the first reported interaction between Iranian and U.S. forces since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, during which U.S. B-2 Spirit bombers dropped 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The State Department said Wednesday that it has approved $322 million in proposed weapons sales to Ukraine to enhance its air defense capabilities and provide armored combat vehicles, coming as the country works to fend off escalating Russian attacks.

The potential sales, which the department said were notified to Congress, include $150 million for the supply, maintenance, repair and overhaul of U.S. armored vehicles, and $172 million for surface-to-air missile systems.

The approvals come weeks after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed a pause on other weapons shipments to Ukraine to allow the Pentagon to assess its weapons stockpiles, in a move that caught the White House by surprise. President Donald Trump then made an abrupt change in posture, pledging publicly earlier this month to continue to send weapons to Ukraine.

“We have to,” Trump said. “They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now. We’re going to send some more weapons — defensive weapons primarily.”

US resumes sending some weapons to Ukraine after Pentagon pause

Trump recently endorsed a plan to have European allies buy U.S. military equipment that can then be transferred to Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how the latest proposed sales related to that arrangement.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $67 billion in weapons and security assistance to Kyiv.

Since Trump came back into office, his administration has gone back and forth about providing more military aid to Ukraine, with political pressure to stop U.S. funding of foreign wars coming from the isolationists inside the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill.

Over the course of the war, the U.S. has routinely pressed for allies to provide air defense systems to Ukraine. But many are reluctant to give up the high-tech systems, particularly countries in Eastern Europe that also feel threatened by Russia.

For the first time, two letters written by Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto — the architect behind the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor — have been made public.

Donated by the naval officer’s descendants, the two letters are now on display at the Fukushima Museum in Japan to mark the 80th anniversary of V-J Day this year.

While once decried as a villain, postwar investigations of Yamamoto have considerably changed the picture of the Japanese admiral.

This week, letters written by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in early 1942 while aboard the battleships Nagato and Yamato will be made public for the first time. In the letters to his wife's parents, Yamamoto expressed concern over Japan's euphoria following the attack on Pearl Harbor,… pic.twitter.com/BDnkyu6iA0

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) July 17, 2025

“It was a peculiar tragedy of Japan’s ultranationalist psychodrama,” writes Ian Toll in his trilogy on the Pacific War, “that the men best qualified to deal with the West were shunted to the margins of power.”

Toshikazu Kase, a chief secretary to the foreign minister throughout the war years, put it more bluntly when he wrote, “Events sometimes overwhelm you, surge around you, and carry you along. You can’t always move them. One man’s will is not enough to do anything. War has a life of its own.”

Yamamoto was among those officers left adrift among the growing tides of war. While not shunted to the margins of power, the admiral was torn between a sense of patriotic duty and the reality on the ground.

On Oct. 14, 1940, Yamamoto wrote to Kumao Harada, secretary to Prince Saionji: “To fight the United States is like fighting the whole world. But it has been decided. So I will fight the best I can. Doubtless I shall die on board Nagato. Meanwhile Tokyo will be burnt to the ground three times.”

According to NHK World Japan, the letters on display were sent to the naval officer’s wife’s parents in Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture.

Museum officials note that the content of the letters relay that Yamamoto was calmly assessing the early stages of the war.

One of the letters, dated Jan. 13, 1942, was written while aboard his flagship Nagato (one month later the Yamato would become the admiral’s flagship). He wrote that he engaged in a mission of heavy responsibility and that while it managed to achieve a minor victory, this was due to the United States’ inattention and negligence. A full-scale battle, he continued, would start later.

The other letter on display, dated April 1942, was written while he was aboard the Yamato in which he discussed his desire to visit the graves of his ancestors after the war.

Yamamoto would be killed one year later, on April 19, 1943, over the skies above Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The hatred among the Americans for the mastermind of Pearl Harbor was palpable.

One of the American flyboys, Maj. John W. Mitchell, commanding officer of the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 339th Fighter Squadron, reportedly asked upon receiving the mission to kill the admiral, “Who’s Yamamoto?”

Capt. Thomas Lanphier Jr. simply said, “Pearl Harbor.”

“We’re going to get this bird,” the Navy planners told Rear Adm. Marc A. Mitscher and Lanphier. “We mean for you to nail him if you have to ram him in the air.”

The Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, Gerald R. Ford, transited the Strait of Gibraltar on Saturday as it made its way to the Mediterranean for a regularly scheduled deployment to the area, according to the Navy.

The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group left its homeport at Naval Station Norfolk and Naval Weapons Station Yorktown in Virginia on June 24 for the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations.

“Gerald R. Ford’s mission remains clear: maintain freedom of navigation in international waters for all nations,” Capt. David Skarosi, commanding officer of the Ford, said in a release. “Our Sailors are excited to execute this mission and operate side-by-side with our Allies and partners throughout the region.”

The strike group, which contains 4,500 sailors, includes the flagship aircraft carrier Ford, nine squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 8, Arleigh Burke-class destroyer Winston S. Churchill and Destroyer Squadron 2’s guided-missile destroyers Mitscher, Mahan, Bainbridge and Forrest Sherman.

Navy vessels transited the Strait of Gibraltar alongside the Spanish Navy’s Santa Maria-class frigate Canarias and the U.S. fast combat support ship Supply, according to the Navy.

The Ford embarked for the Mediterranean several days after American stealth bombers dropped 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s nuclear sites.

A defense official told Military Times at the time that the move was not a response to rising tensions in the Middle East and was part of a regularly scheduled deployment.

More than 20 million people in the military community, including many Tricare beneficiaries, will be moving to a new online authentication system over the next 18 months.

The new myAuth system is replacing the legacy DS Logon system, which authenticates users onto more than 200 Defense Department and Veterans Affairs websites, defense officials announced July 17. Those who use the DS Logon system currently include military personnel, DOD civilians, military and civilian retirees, family member beneficiaries, contractors and vendors.

Among other things, myAuth offers enhanced security protections, such as multi-factor authentication, which requires two or more verification methods.

When the system is completely phased in, users will be able to access all of their regular DOD applications with the one sign-in through myAuth. DOD officials say the new system will simplify the login process.

Many users can already log in to MyAuth and set up an account using their DS Logon credentials.

Officials are launching the system in phases, starting with milConnect and ID Card Office Online in May. As of July 14, more than 740,000 DOD-affiliated personnel had created myAuth accounts, officials said. The success rate for people creating their accounts is more than 99%, they said, minimizing the need for people to contact the call center.

Those who wait until after the DS Logon is gone must reverify their identity if they don’t have a Common Access Card. Many Tricare secure online patient services, such as the MHS Genesis patient portal, require a DS Logon account.

Those who don’t have a CAC or a DS Logon must create a one-time DS Logon account over the next 18 months to establish their identity and benefits before creating a myAuth account, the DOD told Military Times.

Active-duty service members and DOD civilians with a CAC will likely have no problem making the transition to the new system, officials said in their announcement, because their daily use of programs that currently offer both DS Logon and myAuth for authentication will be a reminder for them to sign up for myAuth.

Officials are focusing on getting the word out to a large number of users who don’t use the DOD systems daily, such as retirees, family members and contractors.

For example, the Defense Manpower Data Center is working with the Defense Health Agency to let users who access Tricare-related systems know about the change, said Zachary R. Gill, the branch chief of DMDC’s identity credential access management and partner services, in the announcement.

The myAuth provides secure access for retirees and other beneficiaries who may not have a Common Access Card.

It also provides access options for people who do have a CAC but might not be able to use it in certain circumstances — for example, a soldier traveling on orders booked through the Defense Travel System who encounters problems with a flight at the airport.

Without access to a CAC-enabled computer, it’s a challenge to access the Defense Travel System to make changes in travel. But with myAuth, a soldier in that circumstance could use a different credential to access the Defense Travel System with a personal cell phone. The CAC will no longer be the only way to access these government systems.

The myAuth uses Okta Verify, which can be installed on a personal or government-issued cell phone. There are biometric capabilities for both face and fingerprint recognition; the DOD organization using the system sets the methods for access.

Some of the applications individuals need to access may not require the highest levels of authentication, and not everyone has a CAC or a smartphone, or access to technology. So the myAuth system will “flex” to meet different needs, Gill said.

As the new system is rolled out, individuals using applications such as milConnect are seeing a login screen for myAuth, which allows them to create a myAuth account.

Gill noted that legacy DS Logon system isn’t the only system being replaced by myAuth, but it is the largest.

“There are multiple authentication systems across the department that each department is paying for individually, which means each department is paying for sustainment costs or licensing costs,” Gill said in the announcement, noting that DOD will shutter those systems and replace them with myAuth.

More information about the change is available at myAuth Help.

People with congestive heart failure, undergoing treatment for schizophrenia or who have a history of paraphilic disorders will no longer be eligible for a medical waiver to serve in the military, according to new rules issued by the Pentagon on Tuesday.

The guidance signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth updates a list of conditions that disqualify potential recruits from serving in the armed forces. The decision comes after the Pentagon announced earlier this year that it would ban transgender troops and review other medical conditions that are currently eligible for a waiver.

“America’s warfighters must be physically and mentally capable of performing their duties in the harshest of conditions,” Hegseth wrote in the memo announcing the changes. “Severe underlying medical conditions introduce significant risks on the battlefield and threaten not only mission priorities, but also the health and safety of the affected individual and their fellow service members.”

Air Force expands waivers for recruits with asthma, food allergies

Waivers have long been used to enlist young people who might otherwise be unqualified for military service due to a wide array of medical, conduct or other reasons.

Most waivers are issued for medical conditions ranging from asthma, eyesight problems or skin disorders to more complex health conditions, such as past psychological illness or previous sports injuries that may have healed but still must be evaluated.

Prior to the new rules, heart failure, current treatment for schizophrenia and a history of paraphilic disorders — defined as a persistent sexual interest in atypical objects or activities — were among a long list of physical and mental health conditions in which waivers were allowed.

Multiple sclerosis, a history of cystic fibrosis, past organ transplants or a suicide attempt within the past 12 months also will be considered disqualifying conditions that make a person ineligible for service.

The new rules list several conditions in which a waiver may only be granted by the secretary of a military branch. Those conditions include a missing eye, hand or foot, past corneal transplants, liver failure, kidney disease, past psychotic disorders or the presence of an implanted pacemaker or defibrillator.

The detailed rules governing which medical conditions qualify for a waiver have come under greater scrutiny amid the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops.

New rules required active duty troops as well as National Guard and Reserve troops to identify themselves as transgender and voluntarily leave the service or face involuntary separations.

LOS ANGELES — The Pentagon ordered the U.S. Marines to leave Los Angeles on Monday, more than a month after President Donald Trump deployed them to the city against the objections of local leaders.

The 700 Marines were deployed June 9 on the fourth day of protests in downtown LA over the administration’s crackdown on immigration. Four thousand National Guard soldiers were also deployed.

Their presence in the city had been limited to two locations with federal buildings in Los Angeles, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office and detention facility downtown. During their deployment outside a federal complex in west LA, the Marines temporarily detained a man who said he was rushing to get to a Veterans Affairs appointment.

The decision to pull back the Marines comes after half of the National Guard troops were ordered to leave the city last week. The rest remain.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the military presence “sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated.”

Mayor Karen Bass held a press conference Monday morning ahead of the announcement with several leaders of veteran groups who raised concerns about the deployment of military troops on domestic soil. They called for the remainder of troops to be withdrawn from Los Angeles.

“This is another win for Los Angeles but this is also a win for those serving this country in uniform,” Bass said in a statement. “Los Angeles stands with our troops, which is why we are glad they are leaving.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the federal government in June over the deployment of the National Guard, arguing that Trump violated the law when he activated the troops without notifying him. Newsom also asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids.

While a lower court ordered Trump to return control of the Guard to California, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month temporarily blocked the judge’s order.

Newsom originally included the Marines in the lawsuit, but the case has primarily focused on the Guard since.

In response to the Pentagon’s announcement pulling back the Marines, Newsom reiterated his call for the remaining Guard troops to be decommissioned as well.

“The women and men of the California National Guard deserve more than to continue serving as puppets in Trump and Stephen Miller’s performative political theater,” Newsom said in a statement. “There was never a need for the military to deploy against civilians in Los Angeles.”

They say your body is a temple. In the military, that temple is often covered in eagles, unit insignia and enough skulls to make a biker gang blush.

For generations, tattoos have served as both a rite of passage and a record of service for members of the military. From the crisp anchors and hula girls of the World War II era, to the modern proliferation of Punisher skulls, sleeve tattoos and kinetic imagery, military ink tells a story — sometimes literal, sometimes regrettable, but always worth telling.

The roots of military ink

The connection between the military and tattoos stretches back hundreds of years. British and American sailors of the 18th and 19th centuries often got tattoos as souvenirs from far-flung ports or as superstitious protection at sea. However, it wasn’t until WWII that tattoos became closely associated with military identity in the U.S.

Norman Collins — better known as “Sailor Jerry” — tattooed thousands of service members in his Honolulu shop during WWII. His flash art, characterized by bold lines and themes like pin-up girls, eagles, snakes and banners reading “Death Before Dishonor,” became emblematic of the era’s American military tattoo culture. Collins’ work still influences artists today and is commercially preserved through Sailor Jerry’s rum brand and licensed tattoo designs.

As Inked Magazine notes in its history of Sailor Jerry, “His clients were young servicemen, mostly Navy, on their way to or from battle, often getting tattoos to commemorate their experience or as symbols of bravery, loyalty, and patriotism.”

Vietnam: grim symbols for grim times

While WWII tattoos often reflected optimism or pride, the Vietnam War era saw the tone of military tattoos grow darker, just like the national sentiment around the war itself.

Grim reapers, skulls, snakes and phrases like “Kill or Be Killed” or “Born to Kill” began appearing more frequently on the biceps of American troops.

Many of these tattoos weren’t done in shops, either. The term “barracks tattoo” became a euphemism for the shaky, stick-and-poke style tattoos performed by a buddy with a needle, some thread and a questionable understanding of hygiene.

By the 1970s and 1980s, tattooing in the military was both a mark of pride and a symbol of rebellion. Despite tightening regulations in the 1980s and ’90s, including bans on certain visible tattoos, troops still found ways to commemorate their service — or at least that one wild night in Thailand.

The Global War on Terror and the age of the Punisher skull

After 9/11, the military saw a dramatic spike in tattoo culture. For many post-9/11 veterans, ink became both a cathartic outlet and a way to memorialize fallen comrades. Dog tags, battlefield crosses, KIA dates and American flags — often inked across the chest, ribs, or forearms — became some of the most common images.

One symbol rose to near mythic prominence during this period: the Punisher skull.

Originally a comic book antihero created by Marvel in 1974, the Punisher’s white skull logo was adopted by many military units during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Special operations units were particularly fond of it, using it as a symbol of aggression and dominance.

The skull’s popularity eventually spread to conventional forces and law enforcement — and not without controversy. Even the character’s co-creator, Gerry Conway, has criticized its use. In a 2019 interview with SYFY Wire, Conway said: “The Punisher is a vigilante who shouldn’t be held up as a role model. Using his symbol as a military emblem or a police symbol is completely antithetical to the character’s purpose.”

The military never officially sanctioned its use, but that didn’t stop it from being emblazoned on patches, rifle magazines, vehicles and, of course, bodies.

Unit pride, identity and grief

Modern military tattoos often reflect a sense of camaraderie and a tight-knit group identity. From regimental crests to MOS-specific logos like crossed rifles, parachute wings or EOD badges, ink has become a permanent way to showcase pride in one’s role.

The popularity of full sleeves and intricate designs has also grown, especially after the Army relaxed tattoo regulations in 2022, allowing for more visible ink on hands, necks and behind the ears.

Another common trend: tribute tattoos. After-action memorials often appear in ink, honoring fallen teammates with boot prints, call signs or symbolic imagery. These tattoos act as living memorials, carried forever on the body.

As retired Marine Joey Jones — a double amputee and Fox News contributor — once said about his own tattoos, “It’s about identity. It’s a personal history I wear on my skin.”

From taboo to tradition

It wasn’t long ago that tattoos could disqualify someone from joining the military. But now, they’re so ubiquitous that even generals sport them, albeit carefully hidden. The Navy, which once banned visible tattoos above the collar, now permits neck tattoos and full sleeves, as long as they don’t contain offensive content.

Tattoo parlors have popped up near every major base, and entire deployments have been marked with group tattoos — a modern-day version of a class ring or a battle streamer.

While tastes have evolved (we’ve moved past barbed wire and tribal suns, mostly), the desire remains the same: to mark a moment, remember a comrade or show the world you were there.

Because in the military, you earn your scars. Sometimes on the battlefield. Sometimes in the tattoo chair.

There was no such thing as a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War... or in Vietnam. Instead, every Marine unit that ventured out on patrol was accompanied by a U.S. Navy corpsman universally known as “Doc.”

Although unarmed, the willingness with which these field medics risked their lives to save the riflemen beside them made them widely respected as “honorary Marines.” Their sacrifice on the battlefield often took the form of throwing their bodies over enemy hand grenades, for which many received posthumous Medals of Honor. One such corpsman, Donald “Doc” Ballard, typified that sacrifice... with a rare twist.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri on Dec. 5, 1945, Ballard attended North Kansas City High School and then set his ambitions on dentistry and surgery. Unable to afford the higher education in the civilian world, he enlisted in the Navy on Dec. 27, 1965.

After serving as a hospital corpsman in Memphis, Tennessee, he trained with the Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, before shipping out to Vietnam in December of 1967 as a member of Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment 3rd Marine Division.

By May 1968, it had been several months since the communist Tet Offensive, with the attack slowly petering out.

The Viet Cong in the area had suffered devastating casualties, but had been replaced by fresh regular troops of the North Vietnamese People’s Army (PAVN or NVA). Fighting, therefore, had flared up anew in what the Americans called “Mini Tet,” the last major battle of which was fought at Dai Do between April 30 and May 3.

May 16 saw Company M on a sweep and moving to join up with other elements of the 3rd Battalion when two Marines collapsed from the heat.

Ballard quickly treated them, evacuated them from the nearest landing zone and was just rejoining the company when it came under ambush by a large NVA force armed with small arms and mortars.

Marine casualties swiftly mounted and Ballard was in the middle of it, rushing back and forth across the fire-swept terrain to administer medical assistance and move each casualty to whatever cover he could spot.

One Marine’s wounds were particularly severe and after doing what he could for him, Ballard called for four Marines to help carry their comrade in arms off to a place of relative safety.

It was at that point that an NVA soldier emerged from his concealed position, threw his grenade at the small conclave of Marines and fired on them. Seeing the grenade fall nearby, Ballard had about two seconds in which to react, but for him there was no question as to what it would be. Shouting a warning to the others, he threw himself on the explosive.

Incredibly, the grenade failed to detonate.

Ballard then picked it up and threw it as far as he could — at which point it went off, too far to harm its intended targets.

Ballard calmly resumed his task on other wounded over the next few days’ continuing fighting until the NVA disengaged to lick their own wounds.

In July 1968 Doc’s remarkable run of luck ran out as he was wounded and evacuated to hospital on Okinawa. In September he returned to work at the Memphis Naval Hospital. Meanwhile, he had been recommended for the Navy Cross for the act of selfless sacrifice that he’d survived, but it was subsequently upgraded.

On May 14, 1970, Ballard’s appeared in the White House, where President Richard M. Nixon awarded him the Medal of Honor.

Later that year, Ballard switched services, accepting a commission in the Medical Service Corps of the Kansas Army National Guard. In 1998 he rose to colonel and retired from military service in 2000. In 2001 he was inducted into the Kansas National Guard Hall of Fame. In 2015 one of his sons, Adam, enlisted in the Marines.

Looking back on the two seconds that had made the difference between life and death to him and the Marines with him, “Doc” Ballard dismissively remarked: “I don’t feel like I did anything spectacular. I was wanting to do the right thing, but in all honesty, I was scared... I paid attention to my surroundings and to survival skills as best I could. I just did my job.”

When researcher James Sladden traveled to Ukraine in August 2022 to document the Battle of Irpin River — a Ukrainian victory early in the war with Russia that had taken place just months before — he was shocked, first of all, by the scale of the destruction inflicted by heavy artillery.

A former RAND Corporation researcher and veteran of the British military, he remarked at how different this conventional conflict looked from the insurgent wars of recent decades that had long shaped perspectives on how to fight.

“Big war, conventional war, was, for at least my generation, seen as sort of consigned to the history books,” Sladden said. “Tanks, trenches, artillery, were, you know, stuff the Cold War lot talked about, but it wasn’t really relevant to what we were doing operationally.”

He was also impressed by a paradox: Though Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is perhaps history’s most globally documented war, with the world following along in near-real time on the internet, the records and firsthand accounting of the battles were rapidly disappearing. Data and imagery captured on phones and laptops risked being destroyed; WhatsApp and Signal messages containing battle orders and communications disappeared into the ether.

“There’s very little on paper,” Sladden said. “In 30, 40, 50 years, when historians really start to do the first big histories of this war, I don’t know what they’re going to have available to them. Because so much is already lost, even within three years.”

Capturing these lessons across battles and wars in a single repository is the purpose behind the Battle Research Group, a nonprofit launched earlier this year by Ben Connable, a retired Marine Corps major and veteran of numerous defense think tanks, including RAND and the Atlantic Council.

Through studies like the independent report on the Battle of Irpin River, led by Sladden, who is the organization’s field research director, the Battle Research Group aims to capture insights from contemporary and past battles and make them available to scholars and warfighters. To this end, group leaders have also created the Ground Combat Database, a searchable repository of combined arms battles that has 600 entries and counting.

Connable said the impetus for creating the Battle Research Group came from his time at RAND, when he and colleagues realized the practice of documenting war that had persisted through the 20th century seemed to be a fading art.

They “became kind of increasingly frustrated that we were not putting a lot of time and effort into understanding the wars that were happening, and that was in Syria, in Iraq, and then, the early days in Ukraine,” Connable said. “There just were not people out on the battlefield examining things the way that we used to do … and we were losing real opportunities to learn from modern warfare, and we were just kind of drawing a lot of assumptions based on second- and third-order information, not primary sources.”

The Irpin River battle study, published in 2024 in the British Army Review after two visits to Ukraine, proved wildly popular. Its first printing was entirely distributed, Connable said, and another print run is underway. It’s been taught as professional military education by at least one U.S. Army corps, he said, and the material is now informing a tabletop exercise that will be employed by multiple military colleges.

“It just highlighted this gap in the way in particular that Americans approach modern military history,” Connable said. “We’re in more of a receive mode than a gather mode. We’re just kind of inundated with this gigantic fire hose wave of information every day. And I think we’ve all convinced ourselves that ... that constitutes knowledge, and it very much does not.”

Going deep on firsthand accounts and battlefield lessons learned and comparing case studies has convinced Connable that U.S. policy has seized on elements of findings from Ukraine without considering complete context and proportion. He believes, for example, that efforts by all the services to make drones a forefront component of warfighting are based on a “kaleidoscopic exaggeration” of their success on the battlefield in Ukraine.

“All the traditional functions and elements of warfighting can still be relevant: infantry, armor, artillery, manned aircraft, all the things that we’ve come to know. And drones can be useful and important simultaneously. So it’s not about one or the other,” Connable said. “It’s about moderating change and not into a complete transformation of our military based on a very narrow and ahistorical perspective.”

As the Battle Research Group continues to conduct independent battle studies, its leaders will continue to add to and improve the ground combat database, Connable said. It’s currently accessible via an online spreadsheet and available in an unlocked version on request. He said he’d like to move backward in history, adding battle studies from as far back as World War II and building in more insights from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Future field studies may take members of the group to places like the Philippines, Mozambique, and Sri Lanka — and “anywhere else we can reasonably get access to,” Connable said.

“One of the main objectives here is to ensure that we give people the information they need to understand war in global context,” he said, “not just in a narrow context, near narrow geographic and time-bound concepts.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says bases in Indiana and New Jersey can house detained immigrants without affecting military readiness — a step toward potentially detaining thousands of people on bases on U.S. soil.

Hegseth notified members of Congress from both states this week of the proposal to temporarily house detained immigrants at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

President Donald Trump has moved to aggressively detain and deport people in the country illegally, a push that has swept up large numbers of immigrants, including many with no prior criminal records, and forced federal authorities to find places to house them.

200 Marines deploy to Florida as Pentagon approves more support to ICE

Hegseth said the presence of the detainees would not negatively affect the bases’ operations or training. Officials have not said when detainees could begin arriving at the facilities or if other military bases are under consideration.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said there are about 60,000 beds currently available for detained immigrants and the goal is to expand to 100,000.

“We’re looking for any available bed space we can get that meets the detention standards we’re accustomed to,” Homan said Friday. “The faster we get the beds, the more people we can take off the street.”

Democratic lawmakers from both states and civil rights advocates condemned the idea of housing immigrants at the bases, questioning the impact on military resources and the justification for so many detentions.

“Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids in every New Jersey community,” New Jersey’s Democratic delegation said in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana said his questions about detainee conditions have gone unanswered by the Trump administration.

He cited concerns raised about conditions at other facilities and said, “The fact that ICE has detained so many individuals that they now need to expand detention space in Indiana is disturbing.”

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said in a statement that housing immigrants in military facilities sets a dangerous precedent “and is contrary to the values embedded in our Constitution.”

Both of the bases identified by Hegseth have housed Afghan or Ukrainian refugees in recent years.

During Trump’s first administration, he authorized the use of military bases to detain immigrant children — including Army installations at Fort Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas.

In 2014, President Barack Obama temporarily relied on military bases to detain immigrant children while ramping up privately operated family detention centers to hold many of the tens of thousands of Central American families who crossed the border.

Associated Press writers Christine Fernando and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

Somewhere between the dugout and the forward operating base, a truth begins to emerge that no one wants to admit out loud: Little League teams and combat units are basically the same thing.

Not in terms of stakes, of course. One involves life-or-death decisions under fire. The other involves juice boxes, questionable umpiring and a dad named Scott yelling at a teenager in blue. But peel back the layers, and you’ll find more in common than you think — especially when it comes to the parents.

Let’s start with the command structure. Every youth sports team has a “coach,” but we all know who’s really running the show: Kim, the team mom. She’s got a clipboard, a phone tree and a tactical command over snack duty that would impress most battalion S4s. She’s the one coordinating fundraisers, managing uniform crises and giving side-eye to any parent who forgets it’s their turn to bring oranges. She’s not officially in charge, but cross her and you’ll be peeling labels off Capri Suns for weeks.

Then there’s the gear. A freshly issued plate carrier and a brand-new catcher’s mitt have more in common than they should. Both are ill-fitting, smell weird and were handed out by someone who provided no instructions. Ask a new private how to adjust his IOTV, and he’ll stare at it like it’s alien tech. Ask a 9-year-old how to break in a mitt, and you’ll get the same blank look. In both cases, the solution is to beat it against a wall until it sort of works.

Every combat unit has “That One Guy,” the walking safety violation who somehow keeps getting promoted because nobody wants to deal with him. In Little League, that’s Tyler’s dad. He shows up late, complains about the batting order and insists his kid would be better “if the coaches just let him play shortstop like God intended.” You can’t fire him because he brings the pop-up tent, and no one else knows how to fold it.

And let’s not forget the pep talks. In the military, you get those five-minute speeches from your squad leader before stepping off on patrol. They’re usually a mix of motivation, vague threats and bad metaphors.

“Let’s keep our heads on swivels out there. Don’t be that guy. You know the guy.”

On the Little League field, it’s the same speech but with more mentions of hustle and less profanity.

“Let’s stay focused, boys. Heads in the game. And for the love of God, stop picking dandelions in left field.”

Parents hovering behind the dugout are essentially the Family Readiness Group, but with less organization and a lot more passive aggression. They form factions. They whisper about playing time. They launch covert psychological operations involving group texts and emoji reactions. Some even bring folding chairs with built-in cup holders, establishing forward operating positions around the diamond. You know who’s been there the longest by the size of their umbrella.

Then there’s the deployment vibe. Every away game more than 20 minutes from home becomes a logistical operation that rivals D-Day. The convoy leaves from the local high school parking lot. Someone forgot the snacks. Someone else brought the wrong child. Tensions flare. Gas station stops are rationed. By the time they arrive, half the parents are ready to defect to the opposing team if it means getting home before dinner.

Meanwhile, the players? They’re just trying to survive. Whether it’s a hot day at Fort Nowhere or the third inning in a 12-run game, they’re out there giving it their all while adults make things worse. The only difference is that in one scenario, they have an M4. In the other, they have sunflower seeds and a glove that’s still too stiff to catch anything smaller than a beach ball.

And don’t underestimate the role of morale. In both worlds, morale is fragile, entirely dependent on snacks, and easily destroyed by poor leadership. A forgotten post-game pizza party can cause more lasting resentment than a missed promotion. A canceled tournament due to weather will lead to parental mutiny. And if the team doesn’t win, just know that “it builds character” is Little League’s version of “embrace the suck.”

Ultimately, both combat units and Little League teams are bound by this: a group of people forced together by circumstance, held together by ritual, fueled by questionable decisions and constantly evaluated by people who think they could do it better. One wears cleats, the other combat boots. Both have to deal with someone’s dad trying to give unsolicited tactical advice.

So next time you’re at a game, watching a bunch of kids chase a grounder while their parents wage a silent war in the bleachers, just remember: It’s not that different from the motor pool. The only real distinction is that in youth sports, the war stories come with orange slices and Capri Suns.

And honestly? That might be the better deal.

During his third Pacific voyage beginning in 1776, Capt. James Cook recorded in his journal: “The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation….”

Today, however, getting inked as a member of the U.S. military is a borderline rite of passage, so much so, writes J.D. Simkins, that the “military culture to tattooing is so prevalent that finding an ink-free service member is infinitely more rare than the alternative.”

But that is a relatively new phenomenon.

The U.S. military — and society’s — embracing and liberalization surrounding the stigma and regulations governing tattoos is thanks, in large part, to the Second World War.

The vast expansion of Naval personnel at the onset of WWII ushered in a new era of the tatted tradition, helped by figures like artist Norman Keith Collins — also known as Sailor Jerry.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, soldiers, sailors and new recruits alike lined tattoo parlors to receive their permanent symbols of pride, patriotism — and pinups.

The emergence of tattoos

While Capt. Cook’s Pacific voyages exposed Royal Navy sailors to Polynesian body art, such traditions were practiced in early societies in Europe and Asia, and by indigenous cultures worldwide for thousands of years, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.

Cook’s exploration of the Pacific, however, did popularize the tradition among his fellow seamen in both Europe and the Americas. So much so that by the 18th century, a third of British and a fifth of American sailors sported at least one tattoo.

During the American Civil War, men in both the Union and Confederate navies often were tatted with military insignia motifs and names of their sweethearts back home. After the March 1862 Battle of the Ironclad — the historic clash between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia — requests for tattoos to commemorate the historic engagement were seen on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.

By the 1898 Spanish-American War, “Remember the Maine” was a popular choice to be emblazoned on the chests of sailors who were going off to war.

“By this time,” writes Naval Heritage and History Command, “these tattoos had already acquired features recognized today as essential elements of military and patriotic tattoos: the curved scroll with a slogan, name, or date; the stars and stripes; or a giant eagle backdrop — many of them proliferated thanks to the newly invented electric tattoo machine.”

During World War I servicemen were getting their military ID numbers, and later social security numbers, tattooed on their bodies as a means of identification in case they were injured or killed in service. This practice was outright banned during WWII on the grounds that it might give “aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Despite this, body art remained firmly on the fringes of society well into the 20th century.

Tattoos in World War II

After the American declaration of war on Dec. 8, 1941, Honolulu and the port of San Diego became major hubs for men, and occasionally some women, to get inked.

During the war, Honolulu alone boasted eight parlors and 33 operators gaining “the dubious title of the world’s tattoo center,” according to a June 16, 1944, Highland Recorder article.

In particular, 25-year-old Hawaiian native Eugene Miller of “Miller’s Tattooing Emporium” saw his business boom, tattooing over 300 people a day with prices ranging from 25 cents for small pieces to $30 for larger, more intricate art. A large sign above his modest parlor declared him the “world’s greatest and youngest tattoo artist.”

Bert Grimm, known as the “godfather of modern tattoos,” spent over two decades perfecting his craft in St. Louis, Missouri. During the war, the famed tattoo artist — who is rumored to have worked on the infamous Bonnie and Clyde — painstakingly etched symbols of love and belief of God and country onto countless sailors and soldiers waiting to go to battle. But, Grimm noted, the two often sought differing inked motifs.

In 1942, Grimm told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

“The main difference between the soldiers and sailors is that when a sailor comes in to get tattooed, it’s always something with an anchor or a battleship, and the soldiers go more for flags and eagles. I’ve been watching their tastes and drawing new designs to suit them. Oh yes, sweetheart and love designs are going good now, too. [...] And here’s a Red Cross Nurse; they lost out in popularity but they are back now.

“The war,” the article continued, “has also been responsible for shortages of tattoo equipment. All the tattoo needles are made in England... Also, although tattoo artists usually don’t mention it to servicemen patrons, most of the darkest and richest tattoo dyes came from Germany.”

For servicemen willing and perhaps expecting to lose their lives, tattoos were worn as a badge of honor — giving a sense of comradery and, as Danielle Boiardi, the curator of the Lyle Tuttle Tattoo Art Collection, notes in an interview with the Smithsonian, “a permanent mark that they could take with them.”

Since then, the acceptance and proliferation of tattoos has spiked both in America and abroad, with U.S. Navy remaining the least restrictive among U.S. branches of service in terms of body art.

Naval tattoo meanings, per the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Anchor: Originally indicated a mariner who had crossed the Atlantic. In the present day, an anchor in one form or another may be the first nautical tattoo a young sailor acquires (often during his or her first liberty from boot camp) and is essentially an initiation rite into the naval service.

Braided rope/line: Usually placed around left wrist; indicates a deck division seaman.

Chinese/Asian dragon: Symbolizes luck and strength — originated in the pre–World War II Asiatic Fleet and usually indicated service in China. Much later, dragons came to symbolize WESTPAC service in general (also worn embroidered or as patches inside jumper cuffs and on cruise jackets).

Compass rose or nautical star: Worn so that a sailor will always find his/her way back to port.

Crossed anchors: Often placed on the web between left thumb and forefinger; indicate a boatswain’s mate or boatswain (U.S. Navy rating badge).

Crossed ship’s cannon or guns: Signify naval vice merchant service; sometimes in combination with a U.S. Navy–specific or patriotic motif.

Crosses: In many variations — worn as a sign of faith or talisman. When placed on the soles of the feet, crosses were thought to repel sharks.

Dagger piercing a heart: Often combined with the motto “Death Before Dishonor” — symbolizes the end of a relationship due to unfaithfulness.

Full-rigged ship: In commemoration of rounding Cape Horn (antiquated).

Golden Dragon: Indicated crossing the international dateline into the “realm of the golden dragon” (Asia).

“Hold Fast” or “Shipmate”: Tattooed across knuckles of both hands so that the phrases can be read from left to right by someone standing opposite. Originally thought to give a seaman a firm grip on a ship’s rigging.

Hula girl and/or palm tree: On occasion, hula girls would be rendered in a risqué fashion; both tattoos indicated service in Hawaii.

Pig and rooster: This combination — pig on top of the left foot, rooster on top of the right — was thought to prevent drowning. The superstition likely hearkens back to the age of sail, when livestock was carried onboard ships. If a ship was lost, pigs and roosters — in or on their crates — floated free.

Shellback turtle: Indicates that a Sailor has crossed the equator. “Crossing the line” is also indicated by a variety of other themes, such as fancifully rendered geo-coordinates, King Neptune, mermaids, etc.

Ships’ propellers (screws): A more extreme form of Sailors’ body art: One large propeller is tattooed on each buttock (“twin screws”) to keep the bearer afloat and propel him or her back to home and loved ones.

Sombrero: Often shown worn by a girl. May have indicated service on ships home-ported in San Pedro (Terminal Island, Los Angeles) or San Diego prior to World War II, a liberty taken in Tijuana, or participation in interwar Central and South American cruises.

Swallow: Each rendition originally symbolized 5,000 nautical miles underway; swallows were and still are displayed in various poses, often in combination with a U.S. Navy —specific motif or sweetheart’s/spouse’s name.

The U.S. Navy will construct new housing at a Guam Air Force base, the Navy announced Wednesday, several months after an independent government watchdog reported on subpar living conditions in the base’s barracks.

The Navy awarded a $297 million contract to Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Pacific to design and build replacement housing units at Andersen Air Force Base by December 2028, according to a Navy release.

“This is another significant step forward in enhancing the infrastructure and resiliency of the base, following Super Typhoon Mawar,” said Col. Dan Cooley, 36 Wing commander, in the release. “The new houses will provide better living conditions for our Airmen and their families, immediately increasing quality of life and allowing our service members to focus on carrying out the mission.”

The project includes the design and construction of three- and four-bedroom housing units, according to the release.

A May 2 report published by the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, detailed mold-infested walls and exposed electrical wiring at barracks on base, which led the Navy to conduct its own Navy-wide review of unaccompanied housing.

The state of housing at Andersen was so dire that Navy Secretary Phelan ordered sailors and Marines to be moved out within 10 days of his visit to Andersen’s Palau Hall barracks.

“I actually thought the buildings were condemned,” Phelan told POGO. “When we pulled up to them and saw what shape they’re in, I was shocked.”

There are currently five permanent party dormitory facilities at the Guam base, according to the Air Force. Conditions for other barracks were not markedly different than those at Palau, an Air Force spokesperson told POGO.

Barracks 2030 isn’t a ‘fix it and forget it’ effort, USMC leaders say

By May 22, 25 Marines and 48 sailors had left the barracks.

Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, sent a May 5 email to Navy leaders after Phelan’s visit, condemning the “clearly unacceptable living conditions” and ordering inspections to be conducted by May 27.

Gray ordered service members to be moved into better living conditions if their housing was poorly maintained.

Damage from Typhoon Mawar in May 2023 was partly to blame for the barracks’ deteriorating conditions, an Air Force spokesperson told Navy Times previously. After the storm, the Air Force estimated that it would need nearly $10 billion to properly rebuild facilities, according to reports.

But a naval officer who spoke to POGO under the condition of anonymity said that any service member who’s lived on the Guam base can agree they’re “crappy quarters.”

René Kladzyk, the author of the POGO report, spoke to Navy Times over the phone and said she still had concerns despite the new contract and attempted fix.

“I know that sounds like a big number, but is that enough considering the level of need?” Kladzyk said. “Guam is in the midst of a pretty significant military build-up.”

Joint Region Marianas spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Katie Koenig told the Pacific Daily News in 2024 that the military population is expected to grow to 34,500 by 2028.

About 21,000 people affiliated with the U.S. military live on Guam currently, a U.S. territory that houses Andersen Air Force Base, Naval Base Guam and Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that the housing covered by the project includes three- to four-bedroom housing units.

The U.S. Marine Corps will field smart scopes to help shoot down moving targets, such as drones, in the coming months.

“Multiple units across all elements of the [Marine Air-Ground Task Force] will receive this technology with priority going to those units that are deployed or deploying soon,” Lt. Col. Eric Flanagan, spokesman for Combat Development and Integration, told Marine Corps Times via email.

Flanagan declined to share quantities due to security concerns but said the fielding would begin in fiscal 2026, which starts Oct. 1, as part of a program to counter small, unmanned aircraft systems.

“The SMASH 2000L will give the rifleman the ability to quickly obtain a positive firing solution and increase their probability of kill when engaging Unmanned Aircraft Systems,” Flanagan wrote, describing the SMASH 2000L advanced fire control system.

“The SMASH 2000L provides easily attachable components that will enable a standard M4 to be utilized for targeting and defeating sUAS with conventional small arms fire while still enabling the Marine user to utilize that same weapon system to engage other/ground targets.”

In April, Marine leaders noted a new emphasis on counter drone equipment, both for dismounted troops and for fixed sites such as bases.

“One of the things that is apparent to all of us is that unmanned aerial systems are a threat not just to infantry Marines, but to all Marines,” Lt. Gen. Eric Austin, head of Combat Development Command said at the Navy League’s annual Sea, Air and Space Exposition in April.

The Corps also has a larger ground-based air defense program known as GBAD, which works against larger threats, such as missiles and mortars.

“Current Ground Based Air Defense (GBAD) capabilities that are being fielded today predominantly focus on mounted platforms organic to the Low Altitude Air Defense Battalions (LAAD Bn) and the Littoral Anti-Air Battalions (LAAB), which encompass the entire air defense continuum up to and including defeating manned aircraft and cruise missile threats,” according to a Marine release.

“Those dedicated air defense assets are not always practical or available at scale to support individual unit operations.”

A former U.S. Marine Corps reservist has been arrested and charged with attempted murder in connection with an attack at a Texas immigration detention center in which a police officer was shot in the neck, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Benjamin Hanil Song, 32, is the latest person charged in the Fourth of July assault in which attackers dressed in black military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.

Song, from Dallas, was arrested after a weeklong search and has been charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents and three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, the office said in a statement. He is accused of purchasing four of the guns linked to the attack, it said.

Veteran gets life sentence for plotting FBI attack after Jan. 6 arrest

U.S. District Court records do not list names of attorneys representing Song or scheduled court appearances. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas did not immediately respond to an email asking whether Song has an attorney.

The officer wounded in the attack has since been released from the hospital.

Ten people, most of them from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, have previously been charged with attempted murder of a federal officer and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Another person has been charged with obstruction of justice for concealing evidence, while two others were charged with accessory after the fact for allegedly helping Song get away.

If convicted, most of the defendants could face up to life imprisonment, while those charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact would face lesser penalties if convicted, according to federal prosecutors.

The shooting took place as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up deportations.

The attackers initially set off fireworks and spray-painted vehicles and a guard structure, including the words “Ice Pig,” according to a criminal complaint. This was “designed to lure correctional officers outside the facility,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Correctional officers called 911 and an Alvarado police officer responded and someone in the woods opened fire.

Another person across the street fired 20 to 30 rounds at correctional officers who were unarmed after they walked out of the facility, according to the office’s statement.

After the group fled, sheriff’s deputies stopped seven people about 300 yards from where the officer was shot, according to a criminal complaint.

“They were dressed in black, military-style clothing, some had on body armor, some were covered in mud, some were armed, and some had radios,” the complaint said.

A sheriff’s office detective also stopped a van leaving the area and found two AR-style rifles and a pistol, along with ballistic-style vests and a helmet, the complaint said.

The driver, the only person in the van, said he had been at the detention center. He said he had met some people online and drove some of them to the detention center from Dallas to “make some noise,” according to the complaint.

Song’s cellphone’s location data shows it was near the detention center from about 11:30 p.m. on July 4 and throughout the day on July 5, according to a criminal complaint.

“Though Song escaped by hiding overnight after the attack, we were confident he would not remain hidden for long,” Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy E. Larson said in a statement. “The fourteen individuals who planned and participated in these heinous acts will be prosecuted, and we expect justice will be swift.”

LOS ANGELES — The Pentagon said Tuesday it is ending the deployment of 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, accounting for nearly half of the soldiers sent to the city to deal with protests over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Roughly 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines have been in the city since early June. It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted the 60-day deployment to end suddenly, nor was it immediately clear how long the rest of the troops would stay in the region.

In late June, the top military commander in charge of troops deployed to LA had asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for 200 of them to be returned to wildfire fighting duty amid warnings from California Gov. Gavin Newsom that the Guard was understaffed as California entered peak wildfire season.

LA deployments to cost $134 million and last 60 days, Pentagon says

The end of the deployment comes a week after federal authorities and National Guard troops arrived at MacArthur Park with guns and horses in an operation that ended abruptly. Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wouldn’t explain the purpose of the operation or whether anyone had been arrested, local officials said it seemed designed to sow fear.

“Thanks to our troops who stepped up to answer the call, the lawlessness in Los Angeles is subsiding,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement in announcing the decision.

On June 8, thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to President Donald Trump’s deployment of the Guard, blocking off a major freeway as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire.

A day later, police officers used flash bangs and shot projectiles as they pushed protesters through Little Tokyo, where bystanders and restaurant workers rushed to get out of their way.

Mayor Karen Bass set a curfew in place for about a week that she said had successfully protected businesses and helped restore order. Demonstrations in the city and the region in recent weeks have been largely small impromptu protests around arrests.

Bass applauded the troops’ departure.

“This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong. We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court — all of this led to today’s retreat," she said in a statement, adding that “We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.”

On Tuesday afternoon, there was no visible military presence outside the federal complex downtown that had been the center of early protests and where National Guard troops first stood guard before the Marines were assigned to protect federal buildings. Hundreds of the soldiers have been accompanying agents on immigration operations.

Trump ordered the deployment against the wishes of Newsom, who sued to stop it.

The history of presidents activating US troops on American soil

Newsom argued that Trump violated the law when he deployed the California National Guard troops despite his opposition. He also argued that the National Guard troops were likely violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits troops from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.

Newsom won an early victory in the case after a federal judge ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and exceeded Trump’s authority. But an appeals court tossed that order, and control of the troops remained with the federal government. The federal court is set to hear arguments next month on whether the troops are violating the Posse Comitatus Act.

The deployment of National Guard troops was for 60 days, though Hegseth had the discretion to shorten or extend it “to flexibly respond to the evolving situation on the ground,” the Trump administration’s lawyers wrote in a June 23 filing in the legal case.

Following the Pentagon’s decision Tuesday, Newsom said in a statement that the National Guard’s deployment to Los Angeles County has pulled troops away from their families and civilian work “to serve as political pawns for the President.”

He added that the remaining troops “continue without a mission, without direction and without any hopes of returning to help their communities.”

“We call on Trump and the Department of Defense to end this theater and send everyone home now,” he said.

Klepper reported from Washington and Watson from San Diego. Sophie Austin in Sacramento, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

As much of world celebrated the 80th anniversary of V-E Day on May 8, white smoke emanated from the Sistine Chapel, marking another momentous occasion: The Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the 267th pope — becoming the first American to fill the role.

It was not the first time a member of the Prevost family was part of history in the making.

Among those men who gave us entrance into Europe in 1944 was Louis M. Prevost, Pope Leo XIV’s father. At 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 140 pounds, the diminutive 23-year-old was serving aboard LST-286, tasked with landing the 5th Special Engineer Brigade and the 16th Infantry of the 1st Infantry Division at Omaha Beach.

“Men and equipment were flowing from England in such a gigantic stream that it made the waste on the beachhead seem like nothing at all, really nothing at all,” famed war correspondent Ernie Pyle would later write about the Omaha beachhead in “Brave Men," his account of soldiers who fought in World War II.

“But there was another and more human litter,” he continued. “It extended in a thin little line, just like a high-water mark, for miles along the beach. This was the strewn personal gear, gear that would never be needed again by those who fought and died to give us our entrance into Europe.”

LST-286 was among the hundreds of Landing Ship, Tanks that helped to deliver such men and matériel to the shores of Omaha Beach. LST-286 would make several hazardous journeys through the Channel waters throughout the morning and afternoon of June 6, 1944, and helped transport over 850 wounded back to England by day’s end.

According to Prevost’s commanding officer, the sailor handled his duties “very satisfactorily” on the day of the landings.

Born on July 28, 1920, the Chicago-native attended Central YMCA College, where he studied political science before applying in 1942 to join the U.S. Navy’s V-7 accelerated training program.

The program would allow Louis Prevost to enter the Navy as an officer upon his graduation the following year. One of his letters of recommendation for the program from his pastor at St. Thomas Apostle Church in Chicago called Prevost “a good Catholic and a young man of good character and steady habits.”

The father of the future pope received his commission as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve on Nov. 24, 1943, and was ordered to report for duty aboard LST-286.

A little over a month later, Prevost left the port of New Orleans, bound for Europe.

After the hard-earned success of D-Day, LST-286 pivoted to take part in the landing in the south of France in August 1944. Operation Dragoon (or Anvil) put ashore two allied armies — the 7th U.S. and “French Army B” (later redesignated as the 1st French Army). The two armies eventually comprised the 6th U.S. Army Group under General Jacob L. Devers.

During Dragoon, the Allies managed to seize the port of Toulon and the critical port of Marseille.

According to military historian Rob Citino, Dragoon “resulted in far more pressure being put on the Germans than could have been applied by the Overlord landing alone … fewer people want to read about a battle that was more about logistics than heroism. But an absence of blood doesn’t mean it was any less important.“

“The port of Marseille account[ed] for 25% of all Allied tonnage shipped into the European theater … it is also a number that represents a logistical triumph of the first magnitude, in a war where supply was the principal limiting factor on Allied operations.”

A May 13, 1945, Chicago Herald article reported that Prevost had been promoted to command LCI(L)-188, a Landing Craft Infantry (Large) vessel operating in the Mediterranean Theater that had previously saw action during the June 1944 invasion of Elba.

Postwar, Prevost remained an officer in the Naval Reserve until 1956. He continued to serve his community as an educator, working as a longtime public-school administrator. Prevost died on Nov. 8, 1997.

A Coast Guard rescue crew received distinguished awards for helping save the lives of those trapped in Kerrville, Texas, after historic flooding in the Central Texas region, according to the Coast Guard.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem presented first responders from Coast Guard Rescue 6553 crew with medals Friday for helping evacuate campers and staff from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County, Texas, on July 4 after the Guadalupe River swelled to a record-setting 37 feet and inundated the area with water.

“This is what the men and women of the Coast Guard do,” Noem said in a Coast Guard release. “The selfless courage of this crew embodies the spirit and mission of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Rescue swimmer Petty Officer 3rd Class Scott Ruskan, who’s been profiled extensively for his efforts, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his “actions, skill and heroism.” Pilot Lt. Ian Hopper received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his “exceptional aeronautical skill and heroism.” And co-pilot Lt. Blair Ogujiofor and flight mechanic Petty Officer 3rd Class Seth Reeves were awarded the Air Medal in honor of their “actions and aeronautical skill.”

In the early morning hours of July 4, Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, received a call that Kerrville was in dire need of assistance after torrential rainfall caused flash flooding along the Guadalupe River, according to the Coast Guard.

But the location was 150 miles inland in an area the crew didn’t typically travel to.

The four members of Rescue 6553 suited up and flew through harrowing weather conditions in an HC-65E Dolphin helicopter for seven hours to reach the area.

The weather conditions were so dire during the flight that the team was forced to rely solely on navigation instruments on three separate occasions due to decreased visibility.

The crew had to abort the voyage several times before finally reaching Kerrville and Camp Mystic.

After touching down in the area, Ruskan remained on the scene for three hours, triaging survivors while the Rescue 6553 crew airlifted those in need to safety.

“In the face of devastating floods in Texas, this Coast Guard aircrew’s courageous actions saved lives and reaffirmed our vital role in protecting American communities,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, in the release.

Coast Guard crews, in partnership with state and local authorities, have assisted and rescued 230 people affected by the floods, according to the service.

The catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe has claimed the lives of at least 132 people in Central Texas, according to The Associated Press, including at least 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic.

There were 557 campers and more than 100 staffers at Camp Mystic at the time of the floods, according to NPR.

Mike Waltz told lawmakers Tuesday at his confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations that he plans to make the world body “great again,” echoing President Donald Trump’s message for revamping America.

“We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk — where China, Russia, Europe and the developing world can come together and resolve conflicts,” Waltz said. “But after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking.”

Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it is the first time Waltz is facing lawmakers since he was ousted as national security adviser for mistakenly adding a journalist to a private Signal chat used to discuss sensitive military plans. More than an hour into the hearing, no lawmakers had mentioned the episode.

The U.N. post is the last one to be filled in Trump’s Cabinet following months of delay, including the withdrawal of the previous nominee. Waltz, a former Florida congressman, was introduced by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida as “a seasoned policy mind and skilled negotiator.”

“With Waltz at the helm, the U.N. will have what I regard as what should be its last chance to demonstrate its actual value to the United States,” Lee said. “Instead of progressive political virtue signaling, the Security Council has the chance to prove its value, and settling disputes and brokering deals.”

First opportunity to ask about the Signal chat

The hearing is providing senators with the first opportunity to grill Waltz over revelations in March that he added The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg to a private text chain on an unclassified messaging app that was used to discuss planning for strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen.

Waltz took responsibility even as criticism mounted against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who shared the sensitive plans in the chat that included several other high-level national security officials. Hegseth shared the same information in another Signal chat that included family, but Trump has made clear Hegseth has his support.

‘Obviously classified’: Experts say Hegseth chat leaks invited danger

Waltz was removed as national security adviser in May — replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — and nominated for the U.N. role.

Trump praised Waltz in the announcement, saying he has “worked hard to put our Nation’s Interests first.”

United Nations is facing major changes

If confirmed, Waltz would arrive at the U.N. at a moment of great change. The world body is reeling from Trump’s decision to slash foreign assistance — affecting its humanitarian aid agencies — and it anticipates U.S. funding cuts to the U.N. annual budget.

Under an “America First” foreign policy realignment, the White House has asserted that “some of the U.N.’s agencies and bodies have drifted” from their founding mission and “act contrary to the interests of the United States while attacking our allies and propagating anti-Semitism.”

With America being the largest United Nations donor, cutting U.S. funding to the U.N. budget would greatly impair operations.

Facing financial instability, the U.N. has spent months shedding jobs and consolidating projects while beginning to tackle long-delayed reforms. The U.N. is also facing growing frustration over what critics describe as a lack of efficiency and power in delivering on its mandate to end conflict and prevent wars.

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who was also national security adviser during Trump’s first term, was critical of the current state of the U.N.

“It’s probably in the worst shape it’s been in since it was founded,” Bolton, now an outspoken Trump critic, recently told The Associated Press.

Waltz accuses UN of antisemitism

Waltz painted a similar strategy to tackling the U.N. job as the previous nominee for the post, with a focus on combating China’s influence around the globe, review U.S. funding to U.N. agencies and initiatives as well as rooting out what he called deep antisemitism within the international body.

His priorities echo Trump and Secretary of State Rubio’s larger foreign policy platform, which has sought to reshape American diplomacy and worked aggressively to shrink the size of the federal government, including recent mass dismissals at the State Department.

Trump’s first nominee, Rep. Elise Stefanik, had a confirmation hearing in January and was expected to be confirmed, but Trump abruptly withdrew her nomination in March, citing risks to the GOP’s historically slim House majority.

At the time, the loss of a mere handful of seats could have swung the House majority to Democrats and derailed their recently successful efforts to enact Trump’s sweeping agenda.

Waltz is still on the White House payroll

Waltz, whose Florida House seat was filled during a special election earlier this year, has spent the last few months on the White House payroll despite being removed as national security adviser. The latest list of White House salaries, current as of July 1, includes Waltz earning an annual salary of $195,200.

A White House official, granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said Waltz stayed on to “ensure a smooth and successful transition given the extreme importance of the role of NSA.”

Waltz was the first Green Beret elected to the House and easily won reelection for a fourth term in November before Trump asked him to join the administration.

Amiri reported from the United Nations. Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

The Pentagon announced Monday it has chosen Google, xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI to help the U.S. military expand its use of advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.

Each company received a contract worth up to $200 million, according to a notice from the Chief Digital and AI Office. The firms will help the Defense Department develop agentic AI workflows for key national security missions.

“Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Doug Matty said in a statement.

The military services have adopted generative AI tools to varying degrees and for a range of tasks — from tech support to finding files. Agentic AI uses more advanced reasoning to address and act on more complex challenges.

The Pentagon didn’t specify what missions the program would support, but the department has said it wants to use AI in areas like intelligence analysis, campaigning, logistics and data collection.

Following the announcement, Elon Musk-owned xAI — whose conversational AI chatbot goes by the name Grok — unveiled a U.S. government-specific production line called Grok for Government.

Announcing Grok for Government - a suite of products that make our frontier models available to United States Government customers

We are especially excited about two new partnerships for our US Government partners

1) a new contract from the US Department of Defense
2) our…

— xAI (@xai) July 14, 2025

Grok has come under scrutiny after an update generated a slew of racists and antisemitic comments. In one instance, the chatbot referred to itself as “MechaHitler.”

The award follows Musk’s months-long push from within the White House to slash federal spending. Amid a public falling out earlier this summer, President Donald Trump has threatened to cancel government contracts awarded to Musk’s companies. Under this new deal, however, the billionaire’s federal work would expand.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainians welcomed President Donald Trump’s pledge of more U.S.-made weapons in their fight against Russia’s invasion, even though it is unclear what exactly they will get and how quickly.

The time frame for further arms deliveries that European countries have agreed to pay for is crucial.

Russia is making a summer push to break through along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, and its drones and missiles are hammering Ukrainian cities more than at any time in the past three years.

Ukrainian officials have made no direct comment about Trump’s decision to allow Russia 50 days to reach a deal to end the war, or face what he said would be “very severe” economic sanctions. While some believe strict tariffs on Moscow could be a game changer, the postponement until September struck others as being too long.

For Russia, Trump’s delay of new sanctions is a reprieve. Senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev commented: “Oh, how much can change both on the battlefield and with the mood of those leading the U.S. and NATO in 50 days.”

Russian state television pointed out that Trump’s decision would bring a bigger financial burden for Europe.

Russia currently holds about 20% of Ukraine. Ukraine’s depleted army has recently been losing more territory, but there is no sign of a looming collapse on the front line, analysts say.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke to Trump after the Republican leader’s Oval Office announcement Monday, expressing gratitude for the decision to send more Patriot air defense missiles that are vital to defend Ukrainian cities.

Trump threatens Russia with tariffs and boosts US weapons for Ukraine

“We discussed … the necessary measures and decisions to provide greater protection for people from Russian attacks and strengthen our positions,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram. “We agreed to talk more often and coordinate our steps in the future.”

Trump and Zelenskyy have had a notoriously fraught relationship, and Washington’s consent to providing more weaponry has eased Kyiv’s worries.

Even so, some Ukrainians felt the U.S. decision won’t alter the course of the war.

“If we take the situation as a whole, it hardly looks like this will fundamentally change anything,” Kyiv resident Oles Oliinyk, 33, told The Associated Press.

Nina Tokar, 70, was also skeptical. “I have very little faith in (Trump). He says one thing today, and tomorrow he may say something else.”

A Ukrainian army officer fighting in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region said the 50-day delay on sanctions “is a very long time.”

“They (the Russians) will say, ‘Give us two more weeks,’ and then in two weeks, ‘Give us another week.’ It will drag on until October or November,” he told AP, using only the call sign “Cat” in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military.

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp agreed. “I do believe that the 50 days that Mr Trump has announced is rather long. It’s up to September 2. I think that’s rather long.”

Much remains to be worked out about how the weapons, especially the Patriot systems, will be provided, Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in Brussels on Tuesday.

But, in an indication that Europe is relieved that the U.S. hasn’t walked away from the conflict, he added: “The most important thing is that we now have an American readiness to deliver these most needed weapons.”

Some European countries, such as Hungary and Slovakia, still rely heavily on Russia for energy supplies and could be hit hard by Trump’s threatened secondary sanctions on countries that buy its oil and gas — an effort to isolate Moscow in the global economy.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said Trump’s 50-day delay was a “signal for Europe to prepare ourselves, because we still have some member states that are exposed to imports of oil and oil products from Russia.”

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said it remains to be seen whether Trump’s announcement will be a turnaround but “what is decisive is that the tone has changed.” The president’s threat to impose sanctions after 50 days is “significant progress,” Pistorius told ARD television.

Cook reported from Brussels.