Austal USA hosted a keel laying and authentication ceremony for the U.S. Navy’s future USNS Newport expeditionary fast transport vessel at the firm’s Mobile, Ala. shipyard, the Navy said Wednesday.

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The service branch’s 12th EPF is a non-combatant ship intended for missions such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, overseas contingency operations, joint activities and special operations support. EPF 12 is designed to load vehicles such as Abrams main battle tanks and maneuver through waterways and shallow draft ports. The vessel is also fitted with a flight deck and can carry 600 short tons through 1,200 nautical miles at a speed of 35 knots.

Austal USA is constructing future USNS Puerto Rico (EPF 11), and is under contract with the Navy to produce long-lead-time materials for EPFs 13 and 14.

The Department of Defense began working to fix the cybersecurity vulnerabilities discovered in its new electronic health records system, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. DoD formed a working group to fix the Military Healthcare System Genesis that was found last fall as “not survivable” when hit with staged attacks by military hackers and information technology specialists. 

Robert Behler, director for operational test and evaluation at DoD, said MHS Genesis is not operationally effective due to poor system performance as well as a lack of staff training and documentation. The new health records system is designed to provide healthcare services to more than 9M users at military hospitals and clinics. 

The Pentagon plans to provide $5.4B in funding to overhaul MHS Genesis. Behler said DoD hopes to solve the issues with the system and conduct more tests in 2019.

At a recent Air Force Association event, Maj. Gen. Michael Fantini, director of the U.S. Air Force Warfighting Integration Capability, predicts warfighting will be the evolutionary, revolutionary and disruptive baseline, National Defense reported Tuesday. Fantini said the baseline concept involves increasing the service’s 312 squadrons to 386, while the evolutionary option focuses on integrating emerging technologies into current aircraft and spacecraft.

He added that the revolutionary concept revolves around operating aircraft from remote locations. The last disruptive option covers more futuristic ideas such as drone swarming, low-cost expendable drones and robotic wingmen.

AFWIC is working to establish cross-functional teams to focus on developing capabilities for USAF missions such as command, control, communications and computers; precision navigation and timing; and other efforts such as hypersonics and directed energy.

Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of National Security Agency, updated lawmakers on the federal government’s efforts to deter foreign interference in past midterm elections, Fifth Domain reported Tuesday. At the meeting with Senate Intelligence Committee, he said the government’s initiative to monitor cyber events and impose consequences on adversaries was effective.

“We have been able to show effectiveness against, primarily, in this case the Russians, as we take a look at our midterm elections,” Nakasone said. However, he noted they have yet to determine if the success might lead to long term change in the adversaries’ behavior.  

USCYBERCOM adopted the new “persistent engagement” and “defending forward” approach to boost protection during past elections. Persistent engagement allows the command to have constant contact with adversaries in cyberspace, while defending forward involves getting access to adversary networks or infrastructures to get insights.

Other officials at the Senate meeting said the changes in how the command addresses threats and new authorities from the White House and Congress provide agencies the flexibility to act against cyber attacks.

U.S. citizen satisfaction of federal government services has dropped by 1.1 percent to 68.9 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, according to the 2018 ACSI Federal Government Report released Tuesday. The report noted that ACSI conducted interviews for the analysis before the government shutdown, nullifying the shutdown’s impact on the decline in satisfaction until the 2019 report.

According to the ACSI report, factors such as quality of information; customer service; timeliness and ease of procedures; and usefulness of government websites faced a decline in scores for 2018. The report also states that while Democrat satisfaction with the government declined, Republicans and Independents were more satisfied with the current administration and gave a higher score.

The Department of Defense and Department of the Interior both achieved a score of 78, exceeding the economy-wide ACSI national average of 77. The Commerce Department, Justice Department and State Department also achieved scores above the federal government’s overall score. Other government units that got top rankings are Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and Bureau of Consular Affairs which both got a score of 89. The Department of Housing and Urban Development received the lowest score of 57 among federal departments.

ACSI based the scores on interviews with 2,779 respondents that were chosen randomly and contacted via e-mail.