Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is holding up Frank Kendall from a nomination vote for Air Force Secretary over the Pentagon’s decision to award the F-35 international training center to Arkansas's Ebbing Air National Guard Base. Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base possessed “superior qualifications” in the bid, a Peters spokesperson told Air Force Magazine on July 1. Peters, along with Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren and Utah Republican Mike Lee, have put holds on the nomination vote. “Senator Peters wants—and Michigan deserves—additional information and data from the Air Force and the Department of Defense regarding its process surrounding the recent F-35 international training center decision,” a Peters spokesperson said.

Some 60 space-related units and mission sets remain outside the purview of the Space Force, but that will begin to change this year, Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno told Air Force Magazine on July 1 on the sidelines of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies’s first in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began. In a wide-ranging discussion that covered the progress made in the service’s first 18 months, Armagno zeroed in on threats posed by China and Russia, providing descriptions of adversary capabilities that challenge vulnerable American space architecture. She also acknowledged that new strategies will have to be employed to recruit and retain talent and compete with the high-paying private space industry.

The Air Force has awarded a $2 billion contract to Raytheon Missiles and Defense to engineer and develop the Long Range Standoff weapon system, the service’s next-generation air-launched nuclear missile. The deal, announced July 1, is for the engineering and manufacturing development phase and is set to last through February 2027 as Raytheon will continue to develop the cruise missiles, with an end goal of demonstrating full production readiness.

As the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan reaches its final stages, the Islamic State’s Khorasan branch in the country remains a “serious threat,” warned John T. Godfrey, the acting U.S. Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Speaking with reporters on a call July 1, Godfrey echoed other recent warnings from American officials and generals that the Islamic State’s presence in Afghanistan, thought to be severely diminished just a few years ago, is far from eradicated.

An Air Force pilot’s mistake in raising landing gear too quickly during a touch-and-go landing was the main cause of a February crash of a T-38 trainer jet, according to an accident investigation report published June 29. Investigators faulted the pilot for relying on a “seat of the pants feel” to decide the aircraft was airborne instead of verifying it through available instruments in the cockpit and visual cues.