During a visit to Little Rock AFB, Ark., First Lady Michelle Obama announced that the Defense Department is updating its nutritional standards for the first time in 20 years. The revised standards will “include more fresh fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, lean meats, [and] low-fat dairy products with every single meal,” she told airmen gathered in the Hercules dining facility. They will affect nearly 1.5 million troops and their families and more than 1,000 dining facilities, she said. Improvements also will come to “school cafeterias, vending machines, snack bars, and any other places where military families purchase food,” noted the First Lady during her Feb. 9 speech. The Arkansas air base is one of the pilot locations for the Air Force’s Food Transformation Initiative, launched in October 2010, to provide airmen and their families with enhanced food quality, variety, and availability. Obama said the standards update “means more DOD installations will offer the kind of fresh, healthy food” that FTI brought to Little Rock. (Little Rick report by SSgt. Jacob Barreiro)
Anduril and General Atomics will develop their Collaborative Combat Aircraft for the Air Force, beating out Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, the service announced on April 24. But any of the non-selected companies can compete to actually manufacture the eventual design, the Air Force said.