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New video footage obtained by CNN offers the world a look at the extent of the fire that broke out aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier earlier this year. The shocking footage could provide insight into how long it may be before the Navy’s newest and most advanced carrier is fully ready to deploy again.

When the fire was first reported in March, the Ford was operating in the Red Sea. The ship was fully operational at the time, but the fire damage was so extensive that it was eventually forced out of action and sent for repairs.

The Army developed an app meant to help mortar crews calculate and launch rounds, the service said, replacing software for decades-old platforms with a fire control system that can fit in their pockets.
Originally introduced in 2023, the “Mortars App” is intended to give soldiers a more intuitive fire control system that can be used for different platforms. Mortar crews are responsible for delivering immediate indirect fire for maneuvering forces, and are required to coordinate ranges, ballistics, round types and a host of other fire data to do so.

The U.S. military’s nuclear and mobility forces are using AI to generate higher-quality options for logistics and sustainment maneuvers and operations, according to two combatant commanders who lead them.
“We are constantly discovering new areas and new ways to apply these tools, and in each case we are finding that we can get to solutions and get to meaningful conversations sooner — with better information — and, actually, it’s making us stronger and much, much faster,” said Gen. Randall Reed, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command.

BALTIMORE — The Defense Information Systems Agency will start transferring combatant commands to a standardized and secure IT network — now known as CommandNet — in fiscal 2028.
Developed under the Mission Network-as-a-Service program, CommandNet aims to break down silos between disparate, geographically-isolated networks used by COCOMS and replace them with a single IT architecture.

A British aircraft carrier is sitting in a Norwegian fjord because its propeller shaft failed. Again. HMS Prince of Wales, the 65,000-tonne flagship of the Royal Navy, was left marooned off the coast of Norway and forced to limp into Stavanger for repairs after a technical fault surfaced during a NATO exercise in the High North. The suspected culprit is the propeller shaft, the same component that has crippled this ship and her sister before. She had been steaming toward celebrations marking 250 years since the American Declaration of Independence.

On June 3, Germany lost its bid to become a non-permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. In the race, three candidates competed for the two seats reserved for members from the European group.

Germany was edged out by Portugal and Austria. The outcome was not at all a close call. Portugal earned 134 votes and Austria 131, both comfortably surpassing the required threshold of 127 votes, while Germany trailed far behind with only 104.

German Leopard 2 Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is not completely empty, but it has been drawn down to critically low levels not seen since the 1980s.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the world’s largest emergency crude oil supply and was established primarily to mitigate disruptions in petroleum product supplies and to fulfill the United States’ obligations under the international energy program.

Oil Tanker. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

The SPR has a total authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels across four underground salt cavern sites in Texas and Louisiana.

A mission to reach a sick man on a remote island in the southern Atlantic Ocean last month prompted a team of British soldiers to pull off one of the rarest, most high-risk parachute jumps that special operations troops have in their bag of tricks.
Flying 7,000 miles from a base in England, a team of six British commandos, known as Pathfinders, jumped from a cargo plane over the island of Tristan da Cunha to reach a local man showing signs of Hauntavirus. Two of the Pathfinders carried a pair of medical specialists as passengers on the jump, one a doctor, the other a critical care nurse.

Ukraine Is Confident – But Will It Change the Outcome of the War?: During the early days of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spent an enormous amount of time pleading with Western governments for permission to strike targets deep inside Russia. At the time, U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders were concerned that using long-range weapons that they had supplied to strike targets deep inside Russia could trigger a dangerous escalation and widen the conflict beyond Ukraine’s borders.

As Ukraine has been ramping up its drone operations against Moscow, more and more Ukrainian drones are ending up where they don’t belong. Most recently, a drone was shot down over Latvian airspace by NATO air forces. These reports have emerged following several other instances of drones showing up in other NATO countries. The recent incidents have sparked fears among some Baltic nations that the war may spread beyond Ukraine’s borders and lead to a broader escalation.

Ukrainian Drones in NATO Airspace

Eurofighter Typhoon Test Flight in 2013. Image Credit: Creative Commons.