The Marine Corps’ new training regime, meant to emphasize gender-neutral standards for combat jobs, has weeded out 40 male recruits and all but one female recruit since the standards were put in place at the beginning of the year, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. – Washington Post’s Checkpoint
Lead staff for the Senate and House armed services committees are readying for what is likely a summer-long conference process to reconcile differing defense policy bills, where the toughest issues are said to be funding, military healthcare reform and acquisition reforms. – Defense News
Staff directors for the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Tuesday shed some insight on the upcoming conference between the two panels to hash out their different versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, before sending it back to both chambers for final passage. – The Hill
Seven Democratic lawmakers are pushing to allow the military to close excess bases with a bill introduced in the House on Tuesday. – The Hill
The classified costs of the B-21 bomber should remain secret because revealing the figure would be “too insightful for the adversaries to get a sense of what they can do (and) what the U.S. can do in building that next generation bomber,” the official in charge of the program said Tuesday. – Breaking Defense
Software glitches have plagued the F-35 in recent months, but operators said they noticed a marked improvement during a June deployment where the aircraft did not experience any shutdowns. – Defense News
The Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Allyn said the service plans to budget for an 11th Combat Aviation Brigade in South Korea and four Apache battalions for the Army National Guard in the next budget plan, but stressed that funding those formations would come at a price elsewhere. – Defense News
A Pentagon policy allowing transgender troops to serve openly is in the final stages of approval and is expected to be released within weeks, according to Defense Department sources. – USA Today
Marine Corps pilots are getting a chance to see how the ground-pounders live in a new immersive program designed to bring the air and ground elements of the Corps' fighting machine closer for better collaboration. – Military.com