According to the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, U.S. Navy Secretary John C. Phalen is departing his post, effective immediately. Undersecretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, will assume the duties as Acting Secretary.

According to a release from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), 31 vessels have been directed to return to Iranian ports or turn around since the beginning of the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has announced that the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), along with her Carrier Strike Group which all made the decision to sail around Africa from the Eastern Atlantic to avoid the Red Sea, has arrived in the Indian Ocean and is now operating within U.S. 5th Fleet Area-of-Responsibility.

According to a release this morning from the U.S. Department of Defense, American naval forces carried out a maritime interdiction and right-of-visit boarding of a sanctioned vessel, the M/T Majestic X, that was transporting oil from Iran in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Area-of-Responsibility (AOR). The action is in line with last week’s announcement that the tracking and interdiction of ships traveling to and from Iranian ports would be expanded to all command AORs.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has posted today to his TruthSocial account stating that he has ordered the U.S. Navy to "shoot and kill any boat" laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz without hesitation. He goes on to say that minesweepers are actively clearing the Strait right now and that he's ordered that activity to triple, with this following yesterday’s removal of John C. Phalen as Secretary of the Navy.

According to the New York Times, citing Iranian officials familiar with the matter, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, remains gravely wounded from a strike earlier in the war but is still mentally sharp. Per the report, Iran’s principal decision-maker has had surgery on one leg three times, is currently awaiting a prosthetic, suffered burns to his face and lips, and is slowly regaining function of his injured areas, caused by a strike from Israel.

U.S. President Donald J. Trump has said that during today’s meeting with Israeli and Lebanese officials it was decided that the ceasefire (not to be confused with the U.S.-Iran ceasefire) will be extended for 3 weeks. President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, and Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa met with Israeli and Lebanese officials during today’s meeting, the last day before the ceasefire in Lebanon was set to expire.

Additionally, the president said that he looks to host both Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House in the near future. A meeting that would be the first in decades.

However, it should be noted that mere minutes before the meeting’s start, both Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel exchanged strikes.

A U.S. Special Forces Soldier involved in Operation Absolute Resolve, the capture in January of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has been arrested by federal agents and charged for allegedly betting on the operation via the prediction market platform Polymarket, netting him $400,000 in profits, according to CNN.

The Soldier, identified as Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, an active-duty senior enlisted servicemember stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, opened an account in late December on Polymarket. Betting a total of approximately $33,034 in 13 bets from December 27, 2025, through the evening of January 2, some only hours before the overnight operation to capture Maduro.

Federal authorities state that Van Dyke “participated in the planning and execution of the U.S. military operation to capture Nicolás Maduro,” being charged with “unlawful use of confidential government information for personal gain, theft of nonpublic government information, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction.”

On Tuesday, a day before John C. Phalen was removed from his position as U.S. Secretary of the Navy by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after months of infighting with senior leaders and disagreements over how to revive the Navy’s struggling shipbuilding program, he said during a roundtable at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space 2026 that the Navy is looking to wrap up a review of the Ford-class and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers by the end of May.

Pointing to a possibly major shift in the carrier acquisition strategy currently held by the U.S. Navy, including the potential cancellation of planned orders for additional Ford-class carriers and even a transition to a new design, as suggested last year by President Donald J. Trump, who has consistently criticized the Ford-class, and its electromagnetic catapults, known as the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS).

According to an internal email within the U.S. Department of Defense detailed to Reuters, several options are being considered to punish members of NATO who the Trump Administration believes failed to support it during the Iran War. Almost all “options” mentioned would require support from other nations within the alliance, but include:

- Suspending Spain from NATO.
- Reassessing U.S. diplomatic support for European “imperial possessions,” to include Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands near Argentina.
- Suspending “difficult” countries from important or prestigious positions at NATO.

Authorities at Vance Air Force Base in Enid, OK, are responding to a tornado that has struck the base directly before continuing eastward in what the National Weather Service has deemed a "particularly dangerous situation." This video was posted to the Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page, purportedly from Vance AFB.

The United States has burned through so many munitions during the Iran War, to include well over 1,000 BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) as well as 1,500 to 2,000 critical air-defense missiles utilized by both the Army and Navy, that some administration officials increasingly assess that America couldn’t fully execute contingency plans to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion if it occurred in the near term, U.S. officials tell the Wall Street Journal.

According to a release from the Kuwaiti Army, this morning, two fiber-optic wire-guided explosive drones targeted two sites in Northern Kuwait. Per the release, the drones originated from Iraq and caused material damage but no injuries, likely being launched proxy groups supported by Iran.

Three Carrier Strike Groups are in the Middle East for the first time since the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), and USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) are now all operating in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Area-of-Responsibility, as tensions between the U.S. and Iran move closer to the threshold of a resumption of open conflict. Per a CENTCOM release, the combined deployment consists of 15,000 Marines and Sailors.

According to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, the U.S. Navy has now directed 34 vessels to turn back that are traveling to and from ports in Iran.

Speaking during today’s Pentagon press conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated that President Trump has authorized the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill” any Iranian fast-attack boats that attempt to place mines and/or attack American commercial shipping or forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth once again used today’s press conference to attack allies in Asia and Europe for their refusal to join the Iran War and assist in clearing the Strait of Hormuz, stating that the “time for free-riding is over” and that the United States deserves allies that are “capable, loyal, and who understand being an ally is not a one-way street.”

Top Kremlin aid Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that Russian President Vladimir Putin may or may not attend the G20 summit in Miami, Florida this December, but added that regardless of whether he attends or not, Russia will still be represented following the invite by U.S. President Donald J. Trump.