Europe’s two nuclear-armed powers France and the United Kingdom agreed to coordinate their nuclear arsenals, both countries’ leaders announced in a press release Thursday.
The decision comes as French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K.’s prime minister Keir Starmer signed a series of defense agreements.
“From war in Europe, to new nuclear risks and daily cyber-attacks – the threats we face are multiplying,” Starmer said in the release. “As close partners and NATO allies, the UK and France have a deep history of defence collaboration and today’s agreements take our partnership to the next level.”
The United States and Thailand “entered into force” a bilateral peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement, colloquially known as a “1-2-3 agreement” for section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, on July 9, according to a press release by the State Department.
The two countries signed the bilateral agreement on Jan. 14, and the agreement “entered into force” in “support” of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order on deploying advanced nuclear reactor technologies for national security, the release said.
A 123 agreement is a legal framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and another country, requiring a commitment to nuclear nonproliferation between both parties in order for the United States to export nuclear material, according to the State Department.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee’s Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation Subcommittee, confirmed on June 30 he will not seek reelection in 2026.
Bacon, 61, was first elected to represent Nebraska’s 2nd district in 2016, which followed 29 years of service in the Air Force where he retired in 2014 as a brigadier general. “After three decades in the Air Force and now going on one decade in Congress, I look forward to coming home in the evenings and being with my wife and seeing more of our adult children and eight grandchildren, who all live near my home,” Bacon said in a statement.
Bacon, a moderate, has recently voiced opposition to several Trump administration efforts, including the White House’s tariffs policy. His state also includes silos for the intercontinental ballistic missile, the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad.
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is to buy 12 new Lockheed Martin F-35A fighters capable of carrying conventional munitions and the B61-12–the latter allowing the RAF to join NATO’s nuclear mission.
This comes after Pantex said in May that it built the first production B61-13 nuclear gravity bomb almost a year early on the heels of the last B61-12 coming off the line. The office of the United Kingdom (U.K.) Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the new F-35A buy supports 20,000 jobs “with 15 percent of the global supply chain for the jets based in Britain” and that the F-35As will fly from RAF Markham. They are part of a U.K. planned buy of 138 F-35s.
“The purchase represents the biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation,” Starmer’s office said. “It also reintroduces a nuclear role for the Royal Air Force for the first time since the U.K. retired its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons following the end of the Cold War.”
The Senate voted 54-to-43 Wednesday to confirm President Donald Trump’s nomination of Preston Griffith to be undersecretary of energy.
Griffth’s nomination was passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on April 30 after President Donald Trump had nominated him for he post on Jan. 20.
A lawyer and consultant, Griffith served in management roles at the Department of Energy and the National Security Council during the first Trump administration. In recent Senate testimony, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright implored senators to act on the nominations of DOE nominees who are awaiting confirmation votes.
HII announced on July 2 it recently launched the future USS Arkansas (SSN-800) Virginia-class submarine into the James River at its Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), Va., facility.
The shipbuilders did this to transfer the boat from construction to a floating dry dock facility to move on to final outfitting, testing and crew certification.
SSN-800 will be the 27th Virginia-class submarine and 13th delivered by NNS.
The way to surge production of the B-21 stealth bomber and other aircraft comes down to having the “factories, it’s the floor space, it’s tooling,” Tom Jones, president of Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems segment, said in late June.
“Once you get that running and in your supply chain, I think you have a lot of ability to look at how you can scale, ramp production, surge, if you will,” he said during a panel discussion on the industrial base hosted by the Center for a New American Security. A key inhibitor for the defense industry is that acquiring “spare factory space” is not an allowable cost, and for a company to do so “ties up a bunch of cash,” he said. Adopting advanced manufacturing techniques is also beneficial and would somewhat reduce tooling needs, he added.
Northrop Grumman is producing B-21s, designed to have the dual capability of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons, for the Air Force. As of October, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2025 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan said that the B61-12 life extension program, which completed its last production unit in December, is continuing to certify the B-21 to carry the gravity bomb.
Jay Malave, who abruptly left Lockheed Martin in April as their chief financial officer (CFO), will join Boeing in the same role in August.
Malave on Aug. 15 will assume the CFO role from Brian West, who has led Boeing’s financial operations since August 2021. West will remain as a senior adviser to Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg, and assist in the transition.
Boeing designed the Minuteman III missiles, which the current silo-based, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile fleet consists of.
