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Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf told CNBC the company grew strongly under the Biden administration and said its contract wins are based on merit, not political ties. The comments follow scrutiny of co-founder Palmer Luckey's appointment to the Pentagon's Project Meridian group days before Anduril secured a shipyard contract worth up to $2.9 billion, on top of a $20 billion DOD deal won in March.
The Department of Defense has launched Project Meridian, an initiative described by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as a study of future battlefields meant to identify weapons and technologies the military will need and propose ways to develop and field them. The effort will be led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich, none of whom have served in the US military.
A months-long hack of the Defense Manpower Data Center compromised unencrypted personal data for about 2.8 million living current and former U.S. military personnel and nearly 300,000 deceased individuals. Attackers reportedly exploited a file-sharing vulnerability between October 2025 and July 2026, gaining access to Social Security numbers, birth dates, demographic details, and service records. The Department of Defense says it has no indication the data was misused but has not explained how it reached that conclusion.
The Defense Manpower Data Center notified millions of current and former U.S. service members that hackers exploited a file-sharing vulnerability to access unencrypted personnel records over several months between October 2025 and July 2026. Exposed data included Social Security numbers, birth dates, sex, race, and military service details, affecting about 2.8 million living people and nearly 300,000 deceased individuals, according to a Pentagon official cited by CNN and Federal News Network.
CNN reports a Pentagon analyst used an AI chatbot to assess a Chinese vessel's cargo, and the tool falsely concluded it carried nuclear weapons components by blending open-source data with classified signals intelligence. The false finding nearly led US forces to seize the ship before officials realized the assessment was fabricated by the AI.
The NIH and Department of Defense have quietly confirmed a signed agreement, disclosed the Friday before a US holiday, that redirects part of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases budget toward Pentagon research on pandemic flu, CBRN threats and emerging infectious diseases. The deal runs a decade, and while the exact dollar amount is unspecified, reports indicate the Pentagon sought roughly a third of relevant funding but was steered toward about 10 percent instead.
A Microbiology Spectrum study found that lit Bunsen burners did not lower airborne bacterial contamination compared with unlit ones, and in some trials contamination near lit burners was even higher. Researchers seeded lab air with Gordonia rubripertincta bacteria and compared Petri dishes placed near lit versus unlit burners across several burner sizes, consistently finding no protective benefit from the flame.
The Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Special Operations Command have all turned off advertising tracking on government-issued phones and computers, according to a letter Senator Ron Wyden shared. The change, rolled out earlier this year with the Air Force following in July, blocks the advertising identifiers apps use to generate location data that gets sold to data brokers.
US District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Defense Department's labeling of Anthropic as a supply chain risk was illegal and unconstitutional, blocking certain federal agencies from enforcing Trump's directive to stop using the company's Claude AI tools. The conflict began after Anthropic refused Pentagon pressure to remove safeguards preventing Claude from being used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons, leading Trump to order a government-wide phase-out of Anthropic products. Anthropic had sued in two federal courts over separate bans, and this ruling resolves one of those cases in its favor.
A San Francisco federal judge ruled that the Department of Defense acted unconstitutionally when it labeled Anthropic a supply chain risk in March, a designation that barred defense contractors from using its Claude AI models. Judge Rita Lin found the move stemmed from the Pentagon's frustration with Anthropic's public criticism rather than any legitimate security concern, violating the company's First Amendment rights. The dispute arose after talks collapsed over how the military could deploy Claude, with Anthropic refusing to allow its technology to be used for autonomous weapons or domestic surveillance.