Richard Garwin, who died on May 13, 2025, at the age of 97, was sometimes called “the most influential scientist you’ve never heard of^[1].” He got his Ph.D. in physics at 21 under Enrico Fermi – a Nobel Prize winner and friend of Einstein’s –

Half a century after the Apollo astronauts left the last bootprints in lunar dust^[1], the Moon has once again become a destination of fierce ambition and delicate engineering.

This time, it’s not just superpowers racing to plant flags^[2], but also private

Whether diving off docks, cannonballing into lakes or leaping off the high board, there’s nothing quite like the joy of jumping into water.

Olympic divers turned this natural act into a sophisticated science, with the goal of making a splash as small as

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security has asked for 20,000 National Guard troops to assist with immigration roundups^[1] across the country, and the Pentagon is reviewing the unusual request, a U.S. official confirmed to The Associated Press.

DHS asked for the troops to help carry out President Donald Trump's “mandate from the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens,” department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said. She said DHS will ”use every tool and resource available" to do so because the “safety of American citizens comes first.”

Unlike the troops deployed at the southern border^[2], these National Guard units would come from the states and be used to assist in deportation operations in the interior of the country.

How the troops would be used may depend on whether they remain under state governors’ control^[3]. Under the Posse Comitatus Act, troops under federal orders cannot be used for domestic law enforcement, but units under state control can.

The addition of 20,000 National Guard troops would provide a huge boost to immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the DHS agency responsible for immigration enforcement in the interior of the country, has a total staff of about 20,000 people spread across three divisions.

Enforcement and Removals Operations, which is the division directly responsible for arresting and removing people who do not have the right to stay in the country, has a total staff of roughly 7,700 people, including a little over 6,000 law enforcement officers.

It was unclear why the request was made to the Defense Department and not to the states. The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public.

Trump has been carrying out a wide-ranging crackdown^[4] on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders^[5] designed to stop what he has called the “invasion” of the United States.

The U.S. already has as many as 10,000 troops under state and federal orders along the U.S.-Mexico border, including some who are now empowered to detain migrants they encounter along a newly militarized narrow strip of land^[6] adjacent to the border.

So far, these troops have largely been limited to providing airlift, bolstering the wall, surveillance and administrative support to free up border agents for arrests or detentions.

Along the newly militarized zone, troops have put up warning signs and accompanied border agents but left the detention of migrants crossing the border to other agencies.

In New Mexico, where the new militarized zone was first created, federal magistrate judges have started dismissing^[7] national security charges against migrants accused of crossing the southern U.S. border through the newly designated military zone, finding little evidence that they were aware of the zone.

The request for 20,000 troops was first reported by The New York Times.

WASHINGTON — Nearly seven months after a published report said billionaire Elon Musk had repeatedly held phone conversations with Vladimir Putin and other high-level Russians, there is no sign the Defense Department is reassessing Musk’s role as a major defense contractor with a top-secret security clearance.

Senior Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee called last November for the Biden administration to review Musk’s clearance and consider whether he should continue to be involved in SpaceX contracts. They reiterated those calls in interviews this week.

If any other U.S. defense contractor with a top-secret clearance — or any Defense Department employee — had repeatedly spoken by phone with leaders of arguably America’s principal foreign adversary, it would raise serious questions, at a minimum, several senators said.

“Typically our defense contractors, and that’s what Musk wants to be, do not deal with Russia in any way, shape or form — and the same rule should apply to him,” said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, in a May 14 interview. “The primary responsibility of the president is to protect the people of the United States. A large part of that is ensuring that adversaries don’t get information they should not have. So if you’re willing to ignore that to take care of a major donor, that’s absolutely wrong and unethical.”

‘Serious questions’

After The Wall Street Journal reported last October that Musk had spoken repeatedly with Putin and senior Russians between 2021 and last year, Reed and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the second-most senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, called in November for the Biden administration to investigate Musk’s reported contacts and to review his clearance and whether suspension or debarment were warranted.

Reed and Shaheen requested the probe in a publicly released letter addressed to both then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Jan. 24 as part of a larger purge of inspectors general at multiple departments.

“These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” Reed and Shaheen wrote at the time.

Reed and Shaheen also wrote then Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall last November about the reported calls between Musk and Putin.

Kendall, in a previously unreported December response to the senators obtained by CQ Roll Call, said: “The Department of the Air Force takes security matters very seriously, and I share your concerns.”

No signs of probe

It is unclear, however, whether any investigation has ensued.

Storch, in a previously unreported January letter to Reed and Shaheen obtained by CQ Roll Call, said his Office of the Inspector General investigators would not be looking into Musk’s contacts with Putin.

Instead, Storch wrote, it would be up to the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to assess the relevance of the reports to Musk’s security clearance.

And Storch said the military services and Defense Logistics Agency are in charge of weighing suspension or debarment of contractors.

“After carefully reviewing the concerns in your letter and how they relate to the oversight responsibilities of the DoD OIG, we determined that other organizations in the DoD are better suited to address your concerns,” Storch wrote.

The Space Force, part of the Air Force, is SpaceX’s main U.S. government customer for billions of dollars worth of launch services, satellites and more.

The Air Force said this week it is not reviewing SpaceX for suspension or debarment.

“The Department of the Air Force has received no evidence that would warrant a debarment action against SpaceX,” an Air Force spokesperson said via email.

A spokesman for the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency said it would not comment on whether or not it is conducting a review of Musk’s clearance.

“Consistent with the Privacy Act of 1974, we do not comment on any individual’s security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual’s actions,” the official said in a statement.

Current and former Defense officials, requesting anonymity, suggested that a probe of a presidential confidante who owns a leading defense firm — even if it might be warranted — may be too touchy for any executive branch investigative body to pursue.

Musk’s tilt toward Moscow

The Wall Street Journal reported in October of last year that Musk had repeatedly talked with Putin, with the first known call happening in 2021, a conversation that Musk publicly acknowledged.

But there were others with Putin and senior Russians, the paper said.

Musk has also spoken with Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, the story said.

Kiriyenko has been an architect of Russia’s global disinformation campaign, creating some 30 internet domains to promote Kremlin views, including on Musk’s social media platform, X, the Justice Department said in an affidavit last fall.

On one occasion, the newspaper reported, Putin asked Musk if he would consider not activating Starlink over Taiwan, a request that Putin characterized as a favor to his allies in Beijing, The Wall Street Journal article indicated. Starlink does not currently operate in Taiwan.

During the years of his reported contacts with Putin, Musk increasingly took actions that were widely seen as favoring Moscow.

After making supportive statements about Kyiv in the early months of the war, Musk increasingly has echoed Russian talking points about Ukraine on X.

And after providing his Starlink satellite internet service to Ukraine from the early days of the conflict, Musk switched his approach to Ukraine’s military use of Starlink in late 2022. He prohibited the use of Starlink by Ukrainian forces in or near Crimea, a former territory of Ukraine that Russia annexed in 2014.

Then, in 2024, reports emerged that Russia was using Starlink terminals in its invasion of Ukraine, though Musk and other SpaceX officials said the company did not enable this.

Partisan perspectives

Several senators in both parties, asked about Musk’s ties to Putin, were not familiar with or did not recall The Wall Street Journal report.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R- Okla., a member of the Armed Services Committee, suggested that if Musk had done anything wrong, he would have already lost his security clearance.

“He had the highest clearance within the DOD and within the U.S. than any defense contractor we have,” Mullin said. “I can assure you we were paying attention to what he was talking about. It’s obviously not a concern, because he didn’t lose this clearance.”

But Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D- Mass., also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said there is “a serious question about whether or not Elon Musk could even get a security clearance” if he were to apply afresh today.

“And here he is playing the role of co-president, advancing his own personal interests and whatever conspiracy theory he has latched onto this week,” Warren said. “That’s corruption, and it presents a danger to the American people.”

Shaheen said that “Americans with security clearances ought to understand the importance of classified information, and there shouldn’t be a conflict of interest to get those clearances.”

Reporting foreign contacts

Kendall, in his response to Reed and Shaheen, also noted that the Space Force has given Musk a “Top Secret Facility Clearance.”

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Kendall said, works closely with the counterintelligence agency and other federal agencies “to conduct appropriate reviews of vendors that work with the Air Force and Space Force to properly protect national security information and maintain the DoD’s high security standard for the Defense Industrial Base.”

Kendall added that the counterintelligence agency “requires cleared persons, including contractors, to report unofficial foreign travel and foreign contacts.”

But Kendall did not say whether or not Musk had cleared his calls with high-level Russians with authorities.

Reed, meanwhile, suggested this week that Musk was probably talking to Putin in an effort to serve the billionaire’s corporate interests. Reed said any Russian access to protected SpaceX information could have serious security implications.

“If the Russians have access to his satellite Starklink [system], they’re pretty clever and they might be able to exploit the connection to get information and monitor communications,” Reed said. “All that has to be considered.”

___

©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com.^[1] Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Defense Department said Thursday it will lean on commanders and existing medical screenings to find any service members whom it wants to discharge over the Trump administration's ban on transgender people serving in the military.

After the Supreme Court lifted its hold last week over the military's plan to separate transgender troops, the department said that about 1,000 service members had already voluntarily come forward to be separated in the first phase of the policy. Meanwhile, a legal fight over the ban is still winding its way through the lower courts^[1].

Despite the unresolved legal challenge, defense officials now say that they plan to utilize the military's regular health screenings and order commanders to identify potential trans people in their units to begin the removal process for anyone who does not volunteer.

Read Next: Navy Officer Charged with Murdering Wife Last Year in Japan Hotel^[2]

"The primary means of identification for the involuntary process will be through medical readiness programs," a senior defense official told reporters Thursday, specifically referring to the Periodic Health Assessment, or PHA.

The PHA is essentially an annual health screening that all service members have to undergo to assess their readiness for deployment^[3] and service.

The official said that, going forward, part of the self-assessment questionnaire for the PHA "will require the attestation whether or not a service member has a current diagnosis or history of or exhibits symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria."

The official spoke to reporters anonymously as a condition of the interview.

Gender dysphoria is a specific medical diagnosis of a psychological condition in which a person feels that their birth sex doesn't line up with their gender. The Pentagon has been using the diagnosis as a way to identify someone as being transgender even though officials acknowledge that not all transgender people receive the diagnosis.

This distinction, however, has not stopped leaders like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from making statements like "No More Trans [at] DoD" on social media^[4].

A new memo released Thursday^[5] also said that "commanders who are aware of service members in their units with gender dysphoria, a history of gender dysphoria, or symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria will direct individualized medical record reviews of such service members."

Defense officials have not been able to offer many other details on how the policy will work or whether they are placing any safeguards to prevent it from being abused either by commanders or troops.

Since even involuntary separations over the policy currently come with a payout, it is not clear what would prevent troops from using it simply as a way to leave service early. According to officials, an E-5 with 10 years of service would receive more than $100,000 of separation pay if they volunteer. Yet that same person would get around $50,000 if they were involuntarily kicked out.

Online, service members have argued and cited anecdotal evidence that many troops used the COVID-19 vaccine mandate in that manner. As of April, just over 100 of more than 8,000 service members discharged over the pandemic-era policy have returned to service, despite having the option since 2023.

When asked what safeguards were in place to prevent commanders from abusing the power to direct medical screenings of troops for gender dysphoria, the senior defense official simply said that they trusted commanders to do the right thing.

"This policy, like many others, will rely on their qualifications, discernment and judgment in how to interpret and apply the guidance," the official said, adding that Pentagon leaders were "confident and comfortable with commanders implementing the policy."

The hope among officials at the Pentagon is that most troops who are affected by the policy will simply volunteer to separate, driven largely by the promise of a much larger payout. That would spare the Pentagon from having to consider some of the broader and longer-reaching implications of the policy.

"They will be afforded a very significant, voluntary separation pay," the senior defense official said. "They receive a covered permanent change of station^[6] move to their home of record, and they'll be given an honorable characterization of discharge, provided that there's no other misconduct in the file that's prompting the separation, so that they will be treated well through the process."

Yet, ultimately, since PHAs are conducted annually, the senior defense official acknowledged that it could take time to screen every single service member.

"It's not practical to move everyone in a unit through at one time," they said.

The official stressed several times that "this policy will treat anyone impacted by it with dignity and respect," but other officials at the Pentagon weren't able to square that promise with how trangender troops were discussed by their commander in chief.

President Donald Trump's executive order announcing the ban^[7] declared that "adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual's sex conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one's personal life" and "a man's assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member."

"For the sake of our nation and the patriotic Americans who volunteer to serve it, military service must be reserved for those mentally and physically fit for duty," the order added.

Related: Pentagon Moves Out on Transgender Ban After Supreme Court Ruling^[8]

Reports that prominent American national security officials used^[1] a freely available encrypted messaging app, coupled with the rise of authoritarian policies around the world, have led to a surge in interest in encrypted apps^[2] like Signal and WhatsApp. These apps prevent anyone, including the government and the app companies themselves, from...

Wet and shivering, I rose from the outrigger of a Polynesian voyaging canoe. We’d been at sea all afternoon and most of the night. I’d hoped to get a little rest, but rain, wind and an absence of flat space made sleep impossible. My companions didn’t even try.

It was May 1972, and I was three months into doctoral research on one...

High-performance computing, or HPC for short, might sound like something only scientists use in secret labs, but it’s actually one of the most important technologies in the world today. From predicting the weather^[1] to finding new medicines^[2] and even training artificial intelligence^[3], high-performance computing systems help solve problems...