AT SEA: Some members of Congress say they are increasingly concerned about the crew of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln as it approaches nine months on deployment following a report that a member of the crew jumped overboard. The crewman was rescued after about an hour.

  There’s growing concern about the mental health of the crew and reports of multiple crew members attempting to jump. The ship has had no port calls, no opportunities for the crew of 5,000 to get off. Sailors have said food is in low supply and terrible.

  In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote that, “There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months.”

  Democratic Rep. Mike Levin of California posted on social media that the Lincoln had “[m]oldy showers, broken toilets, no hot water for weeks, meals that came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas,” and that the ship’s store is “out of soap, deodorant, and toothpaste.”

  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the situation “completely misrepresented.” Speaking on the right wing Newsmax he said, “Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” the Defense secretary said. “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas and those austere conditions with less port calls, it’s incredible.”

THE WAR ROOM: The US military has lost 45 of its Reaper Drones in the war against Iran, about a quarter of the fleet.  The surveillance and attack drones cost between $30 and $50 million apiece.

  The drones fly slow and low, making them relatively easy targets for anti-aircraft fire and missiles. The Washington Post reports according to sources that all the lost Reapers were shot down. Replacing them would cost about $1.3 billion.

  The Trump administration is asking Congress for a $67 billion supplemental budget to pay for the Iran war and restocking of the Pentagon’s arsenal.

INFINITE SCROLL:

— The board of Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to put Donald Trump’s name back on the building with a credit for refurbishing it. Despite a court order forcing Trump’s name to be removed from the title of the center, the board voted to inscribe “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump” on the building.

  The board’s move appears to be an attempt to dodge around the court order and the provision in federal law governing the Kennedy Center that says, “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas.”

— A federal judge in Massachusetts dismissed a lawsuit by the Trump administration that accused Harvard of not taking sufficient steps to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment. US District Judge Richard Stearns ruled that incidents cited in the suit were “too isolated and episodic” to support the claim that Harvard is not complying with federal law.

IT’S POLITICAL: Nigel Farage, the architect of Britain’s anti-immigrant movement and withdrawal from the European Union known as “Brexit,” soundly defeated his opponent “Count Binface” in a special election in the Victorian Beach town of Clacton-on-Sea.

  Count Binface campaigned as a space alien with a trash can on his head and still managed to win roughly half the number of votes as Farage.   

THE SPIN RACK: The Spotify streaming service says it will begin to identify artificial intelligence performances posing as human artists. — Nearly 30 dead dogfish sharks floated onto the sands of the Jersey Shore this week. The reason they died is unknown. Dogfish sharks usually weigh between 8 and 22 pounds. — A brand new 98-foot, $9.1 million Italian yacht that had just been delivered to its new owner took on water, rolled, and sank in the Mediterranean off Sardinia. No one was injured. People on board said the trouble started with an engine fire that destroyed water seals.

BELOW THE FOLD: Astronomers looking deep into space with the James Webb telescope have seen evidence of the development of the universe with the discovery of three black holes in an ancient galaxy, two of which look like they are on the verge of merging.

  Black holes are a kind of galactic collapse that consume stars and space gases compacting matter and shaping galaxies. Some scientists believe that in hundreds of millions of years our own planetary system may fall into a black hole having nothing to do with the presidency of Donald Trump.

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