Top 5     Multiple USS Abraham Lincoln sailors have tried to go overboard amid extended deployment, families say (Military Times) Annabelle Loma has spoken with her husband only a few times since he attempted to jump overboard from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during his current deployment.       Asbestos, mold and crumbling walls: The US military’s Pacific bases are falling apart (Military Times) Mold, asbestos and crumbling walls are only some of the issues plaguing the U.S. military’s Pacific bases, according to a Pentagon watchdog.       Russia frees former US Marine from detention (Reuters) Moscow on Tuesday freed a former U.S. Marine jailed in Russia since 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a pardon for the ailing American based on humanitarian reasons, U.S. officials said.       Majority of VA mental health visits are timely, but referrals lag: Watchdog (Military Times) Roughly 80% of mental health appointments made in the Veterans Affairs’ Community Care Program are scheduled within the department’s 30-day wait-time standard, but VA schedulers still struggle to meet the seven-day requirement for making these appointments, the VA Office of Inspector General has found.       Pentagon gives industry 21 days to submit plans for ‘significantly faster’ weapons production (Military Times) Recent combat with Iran has put pressure on U.S. munitions stockpiles as the Pentagon pushes defense companies to accelerate production and delivery of critical weapons.   Operation Timeline     The human impact of policy changes at the DOD and VA (The War Horse) An ongoing timeline of the Trump administration’s actions focusing on the military and veterans.   Pentagon     Pentagon report reveals steep civilian toll of Trump’s Yemen campaign (Washington Post) The military operation was the first following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismantling of an office focused on mitigating unintended casualties.       Colby pushes back on dwindling stockpile reports amid Southeast Asia tour (Defense News) A senior Pentagon official pushed back against reports that the U.S. military’s stockpiles and capabilities are strained following Operation Epic Fury, while reaffirming Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific amid China’s increasingly assertive military activity in the South China Sea.   Congress & Politics     Transportation secretary working on telecom issues after close call involving Marine One (Reuters) Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said on Tuesday he is working to fix telecom issues flagged after a military helicopter carrying President Donald Trump last week came too close to a passenger jet departing Reagan Washington National Airport.       ‘There is no Golden Dome’ unless Congress prioritizes funding, general warns (Defense One) The sprawling Golden Dome missile-defense program is in peril because the White House decided to seek the vast majority of its 2027 funding via a controversial budget maneuver, the program’s leader said Tuesday.   Your Military     Army downed more than 1,400 Iranian missiles and drones during Epic Fury and 12-Day War (The War Zone) During the two most recent major Middle East conflicts it has been involved in, the U.S. Army swatted down more than 1,400 Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officer in charge of the Army’s air and missile defense.   Army     500 soldiers in Hawaii don’t have a dining hall. The Army got them a food truck. (Task & Purpose) Soldiers at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, are getting new food options and meal plans since dining options around the base amount to what officials have dubbed a “food desert.”   Navy     Navy bringing free concerts to 50 installations (Military Times) The Navy announced that it is delivering live entertainment to 50 installations as part of a program to help service members and their families relax and build community.   Marine Corps     Marines must update religious affiliation as service slashes list to 30 options (Military Times) Marines have less than two months to select a religious affiliation from a newly condensed list of 30 options the service announced Tuesday, as part of a Pentagon-wide overhaul to reduce the number of faith designations.   AIr Force     Air Force promotes over 12,500 senior airmen to staff sergeant (Military Times) The U.S. Air Force selected over 12,500 senior airmen to be promoted to staff sergeant in the 2026 cycle, a decrease from last year’s promotion cycle.   Cyber, Space & Unmanned     US turns to Ukraine’s ‘battle lab’ for drone lessons (Stars and Stripes) The idea that a drone could be used to shoot down another drone seemed fanciful — even “mad” — when Ukrainian engineers began trying to turn it into reality two years ago.   Defense Industry     Lockheed Martin launches modular missile tech with dedicated ‘storefront’ (Military Times) Lockheed Martin on Monday announced the launch of Strigo, a new line of modular missile and sensor hardware, along with a dedicated product center designed to get weapons into the field faster. The line covers radio-frequency sensors, missile datalinks and missile seeker technologies, all built on a common baseline architecture.       Boeing unveils cheap radar seeker built from off-the-shelf parts (Military Times) Boeing revealed an ultra-low-cost radar seeker Tuesday as this year’s Space and Missile Defense Symposium kicked off in Huntsville, Alabama, pitching it as a way to get missile guidance on more weapons for less money.   International     North Korea fires missile ahead of major US-South Korea drills (Reuters) North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Wednesday toward the sea off the ?Korean Peninsula's east coast, South Korean and Japanese authorities said, days ahead of major joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington long denounced by Pyongyang.   Military Culture & History     From the draft to Dungeons and Dragons (Military Times) Before Larry Elmore became one of the artists behind Dungeons & Dragons’ popular imagery, he was drawing tanks and rifles for the U.S. Army.   Video     The cost of new battleships in a Golden Fleet | Defense News Weekly Full Episode 8.11.26 (Defense News) New estimates reveal an increased cost for a potential new class of ships for the Navy. Plus, military spouses head up quality of life improvement efforts.       What does a modern battleship cost? A lot. | Headlines (Defense News) President Trump’s signature class of potential warships gets an updated cost estimate, and the projected price tag balloons. Plus, more military headlines.       Big moves in missile production amid stockpile reports | Defense Dollars (Defense News) The Pentagon inks deals to manufacture more interceptors, while Saildrone claims a win in a collaboration with the Navy. That and more on Defense Dollars.       Cost rises to $275 billion for projected Trump-class battleship program, CBO says (Defense News) Revised estimates predict the proposed 35,000-ton nuclear battle ships will cost from $18 to $23.4 billion each.       Could you make it through Denmark’s bootcamp for civilian conscripts? (Defense News) Head inside a NATO ally’s program for turning draftees into troops in an intense training regimen intended to create citizen soldiers.   Commentary & Analysis     Who pays for America’s research and development? (War on the Rocks) When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. government was the unrivaled patron of American science. It funded nearly two-thirds of the nation’s research and development — much of it for defense — defining the early Cold War. In a phenomenon that’s been widely explored in our Arsenal of Innovation series, for several decades federal dollars pushed the technological frontier, and the private sector followed.Today, that arrangement has been inverted. Industry now funds roughly three-quarters of U.S. research and development, while Washington’s share is less than a fifth. Because the cutting edge increasingly emerges from commercial labs, the       How Iran adapted its attacks as US war munitions dwindled (The New York Times) The Iranian strikes that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan show how quickly Iran’s war-fighting skills have evolved, as the Pentagon runs low on interceptors.       How Ukraine is changing the way the US Army fights (The Cipher Brief) “To me, the biggest way that we're doing this is introducing technology into the [U.S. Army] formations that is not fully baked. And so all of us who were in the Army in the 90s, the 2000s, even the 2010s, you were issued a piece of equipment and that was it -- maybe a TM (technical manual) and you didn't have any say in how it was made or how it should be altered. And today in a number of different [Army] organizations, we're putting the tech in an immature state in front of the soldiers -- and industry is with them -- to be able to iterate and make things so much better, so much faster. So that to me is compelling to them and they can give very real feedback and everybody that's dealt with soldiers knows they're not going to pull any punches, right?”       Military commanders have access to so much information, making sense of it is the challenge (Federal News Network) "With the pace of industry moving so fast, there's a natural amount of distrust for what AI can deliver," said Ian Kalin.       The White House is right on AI. Now let defenders use it. (War on the Rocks) The White House has the right instinct on AI. Its June 5 National Security Presidential Memorandum commits the government to putting the most capable models in the hands of national security professionals “without delay.” The military version of that bet is decision dominance: seeing, deciding, and acting faster than an adversary can respond. Recently, we saw a live test of how far the commitment reaches.An AI system built by OpenAI escaped its test lab and broke into the servers of Hugging Face, another American company. When Hugging Face’s security team went to investigate, safety controls on the commercial AI services       How Congress is reshaping the administration's FY27 defense budget (GovExec) The start of the 2027 fiscal year is less than two months away, and in typical fashion, the annual defense budget is in limbo. Three out of Congress' four defense committees have released markups that adhere to the Trump administration’s $1.1 trillion topline request. None has addressed the White House's proposal to spend another $350 billion through the unusual use of reconciliation funding, though discussions are underway for a smaller reconciliation package that could include money sought in a supplemental request  for operations in Iran and other priorities.       Putting Armageddon on autopilot: How artificial intelligence could make nuclear threats more effective (War on the Rocks) Nine countries now possess nuclear weapons. Arms control agreements painstakingly built over decades have collapsed. Geopolitical competition is intensifying rivalries between nuclear-armed powers. North Korea continues expanding its arsenal and delivery systems. China is on a trajectory to go from roughly 600 warheads today to around 1,500 by 2035. Meanwhile, Russia bears most of the responsibility for the expiration of New START and is developing an array of exotic new nuclear delivery systems designed to circumvent missile defenses. This includes nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed cruise missiles and underwater drones, hypersonic glide vehicles, and a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon. Although most recent focus