Enlisted Australian sailors trained to use US nuclear attack subs
In a major milestone of the trilateral AUKUS agreement, eight enlisted sailors and five officers of the Royal Australian Navy graduated last week from the U.S. Navy's Nuclear Power Training Unit.
'I remain impressed with the quality of Australian submariners who come through the naval nuclear propulsion training pipeline,' Capt. Robert Rose, commander of NPTU Charleston, said in a release. 'Six officers previously completed prototype training, each performing exceptionally well. I fully expect these recent graduates, especially our first enlisted personnel, will excel in the fleet.'
The NPTU is provided by the U.S. Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, which has operated 273 nuclear reactors in a 76-year period, oversees all matters related to naval nuclear propulsion and manages all civilians and military personnel tasked with building, operating and maintaining nuclear-powered ships.
The Australian sailors spent six months undergoing rigorous NPTU training to learn how to crew nuclear-attack submarines that the U.S. agreed to deliver to Australia as part of AUKUS. The AUKUS agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia rests on two pillars, the first of which is support for the Royal Australian Navy in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. The second is to collaborate in key areas of naval technology: undersea capabilities, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare.
According to AUKUS commitments, the U.S. is set to deliver three Virginia-class fast-attack submarines to Australia in the 2030s, followed by a new class of five nuclear-attack submarines in the 2040s.
The NPTU provided Australian sailors with courses in nuclear physics, nuclear reactor technology, mathematics and other related studies to prepare them to master various nuclear submarine systems and handle their reactors.
Currently, the Royal Australian Navy uses Collins-class diesel-electric submarines. The Collins-class vessels are designed and built by the Swedish Navy and are renowned for their silence and stealth capabilities. However, despite their familiarity with fast-attack submarine weapons and combat systems, the enlisted Australian sailors previously had no experience handling nuclear reactors.
'This graduation marks a significant step forward for our Navy. Having naval nuclear power-qualified officers, and now sailors, is critical in meeting our goal of operating conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines,' Royal Australian Navy Commodore Daniel Sutherland said in a release.
As the Defense Department prioritizes deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, there has been a noticeable uptick in U.S.-Australia naval collaboration within the framework of AUKUS.
On April 7, an Australian delegation visited Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, during which they met shipyard leaders and learned about infrastructure related to nuclear-powered submarine capabilities. They also toured the Virginia-class fast-attack submarine North Dakota. Earlier, on April 3, American and Australian naval leadership conducted a joint voyage on another Virginia-class vessel, the Montana.
'The exceptionally rigorous training our submariners are receiving at the U.S. Navy's Submarine School supercharges their skills and edges us even closer to operating our own nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s,' Chief of the Royal Australian Navy Vice Adm. Mark Hammond, who took part on the voyage, said in a release.
'Furthermore, the opportunity for our sailors and officers to gain hands-on experience working in U.S. Navy Nuclear submarines and learn from the extensive experience of their crews is invaluable to the achievement of our shared security objectives, and we are grateful to our U.S. partners for sharing their wisdom and experience operating these platforms.'
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Opinion - Trump's war against DEI isn't going so well in Virginia
Apparently when President Trump says 'illegal DEI,' he means lawful and common-sense efforts to integrate public schools. At least, that's the takeaway from the Department of Education's new investigation against Fairfax County Public Schools. Trump officials claim Fairfax County violated federal law when it adopted an admissions policy designed to 'change the demographic make up' of its most competitive high school. This theory, which equates integration with segregation, dates back to Barry Goldwater, who remarked in 1964 that 'the Constitution is color-blind … and so it is just as wrong to compel children to attend certain schools for the sake of so-called integration as for the sake of segregation.' It seems Trump agrees. Unfortunately for him, the Supreme Court does not. Just last year, the court declined to overturn a ruling for Fairfax County. As I explained at the time, that decision made sense. Even as the Supreme Court has shifted hard right, decades of conservative case law — including from Chief Justice John Roberts — condone racial goals such as diversity, equality and inclusion. The new investigation tracks Trump's disregard for courts and his tendency toward bluster over substance. But in important respects, it also exposes that Trump's war on DEI lacks any moral and legal basis. Some context is helpful. For decades, Black advocates sought to desegregate Thomas Jefferson High School, one of the nation's top-ranked public schools. As recently as 2012, the NAACP filed a civil rights complaint alleging that the school's admissions policies discriminated against African American and Hispanic students and students with disabilities. Things shifted in 2020. As racial justice protests erupted across the globe, local leaders grappled with the fact that in a county with roughly 100,000 Black residents, Thomas Jefferson High School admitted so few Black students that the number was too small to report. The state convened a task force to examine the causes of this ongoing exclusion at Thomas Jefferson and other Virginia schools. Following a series of hearings, the board revised the school's admissions process, eliminating a $100 application fee and a standardized testing requirement. Contrary to ongoing claims that the new policy compromised 'merit,' the board raised the minimum GPA for admission from 3.0 to 3.5 and added an honors course requirement. The new policy also implemented a holistic evaluation that included new 'experience factors,' such as whether the applicant qualified for reduced meals or is an English language learner. The updated process also ensured that each middle school receive a number of seats equal to 1.5 percent of its eighth-grade class. The school board resolved that '[t]he admission process must use only race-neutral methods that do not seek to achieve any specific racial or ethnic mix, balance or targets.' This means that admissions officials are not told the race, ethnicity, sex or name of any applicant. In Supreme Court parlance, the entire admissions process was 'colorblind.' The new process produced promising results. In its inaugural year, Thomas Jefferson High School received 1,000 more applicants than the prior cycle. This larger applicant pool also 'included markedly more low-income students, English-language learners, and girls than had prior classes at TJ.' Consistent with the heightened GPA requirement, the admitted class's mean GPA was higher than in the five preceding years. The new process also yielded greater racial diversity. Black students comprised 10 percent of the applicant pool and received nearly 8 percent of offers and Hispanic students comprised 11 percent of the applicant pool and received over 11 percent of offers. The overall percentage of Asian American students decreased from the preceding year, but Asian Americans continued to enjoy the highest percentage yield of all racial groups. And as the Fourth Circuit detailed, Asian American students from historically underrepresented middle schools 'saw a sixfold increase in offers, and the number of low-income Asian American admittees to TJ increased to 51 — from a mere one in 2020.' In short, Thomas Jefferson High School adopted a 'race-neutral' process to pursue a set of goals that included increasing Black and Hispanic representation. This is the precise type of practice the Trump administration denigrates as 'illegal DEI.' Efforts to promote racial diversity do constitute DEI. But they are far from illegal. 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Putin raises the stakes on ‘ghost fleet' security, as NATO launches war games in the Baltic Sea
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With DEI under attack, here's how Virginia's diverse slate of candidates talk about identity
It's the most diverse Republican ticket in Virginia history. In her bid for the commonwealth's top seat, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears could become the country's first Black woman governor. John Reid, as the nominee for lieutenant governor, is the first openly gay person on the state's ticket. And Jason Miyares, running for a second term as attorney general, was the first Hispanic man elected to statewide office in 2021. But while Earle-Sears and Reid have spoken openly about their identities, they, alongside the Republican party, have distanced themselves from diversity efforts more broadly. 'Here's my 'pride' flag,' Reid wrote on the social media platform X earlier this month alongside a photo of the U.S. flag. 'My goal as a modern Republican leader in Virginia is to find common values and goals amongst diverse people and help deliver a prosperous, peaceful, upstanding, and free society.' 'I'm running to work for you — not for headlines, and not for identity politics,' Earle-Sears posted on X in April. 'Yes, I'd be Virginia's first Black female governor. But that's not why I'm in this race. I'm running to lead and lift up every Virginian.' Republicans have simultaneously taken a hard line stance against initiatives such as DEI. Miyares was among the state attorneys general who signed onto a letter calling on Costco to remove its DEI practices. Earle-Sears's campaign did not respond to repeated requests for an interview for this story. But some analysts see her messaging as an intentional distancing of her identity from her politics. For example, she often highlights her experience as an immigrant from Jamaica over her experience specifically as a Black woman, said Jatia Wrighten, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who researches state legislatures, Black women and leadership. In one campaign ad, Earle-Sears says: 'A buck-seventy-five. When Dad came to America, that's all he had. But for a little girl in Jamaica, that little bit of change changed everything.' 'That is very different than how (other) Black women candidates talk about themselves and talk about their identity,' Wrighten said. 'Oftentimes, their identity is seen as a strength, and I think with (Sears), because she is a Republican Black woman, it's strategically beneficial to her if she underplays the fact that she is a Black woman.' Democrats also are running a diverse slate of candidates. A Black man and white woman are running for attorney general, and the crowded lieutenant governor field includes two Black men, an Indian-American woman, a Pakistani-American man, a Latino man and a white man. But that pool of diversity is less of a talking point than it might have been a few years ago, experts say. ___ In the last decade, Democrats at the national level have held onto their multiracial coalition, but Republicans have gained ground among non-white voters. In the 2024 presidential election, about 20% of Republican voters were people of color, compared with 10% in 2012. There's little evidence to suggest that in 2025, most voters feel compelled to vote for candidates who match their own identity, said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a political analysis newsletter from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Virginia's gubernatorial race already is historic — with the state guaranteed its first female governor. Earle-Sears' opponent is Abigail Spanberger, a former U.S. House member and intelligence officer who is white. 'There's not really any evidence to think that Winsome Earle-Sears should get some sort of bonus among Black voters for being a Black Republican,' Kondik said. 'There's been a bit of erosion for Democrats and Black voters, but you still expect Black voters to vote pretty overwhelmingly for Spanberger.' A recent poll commissioned by Virginia FREE, a pro-business advocacy organization, put Spanberger ahead in the governor's race by 4 points. When support was broken down by race, the poll found 32% of likely voters who are Black supported Earle-Sears over Spanberger. That's actually a little less than the percentage — 36 — of likely Black voters who said they approved of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's performance. Youngkin, a Republican, is white. In January, there were rumblings that Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott was considering a run for governor, apparently out of concern that Spanberger would be unable to drive Black voters to the polls. But Scott, who is Black and Filipino, never entered the race, and Spanberger became the Democratic nominee without a primary. 'I will say that Democrats are probably not getting quite as good of Black turnout as they would like, particularly in Southside Virginia and in Hampton Roads,' Kondik said. 'I think she's an underdog in this election, but if (Earle-Sears) were to win, it probably would be one of the factors that would go into her winning — not that she would be winning a substantially higher share of the Black vote than Republicans typically get, rather it would probably be that Black turnout is poor, and that Spanberger maybe isn't getting the kind of turnout she needs.' ___ Shortly after Reid became the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, Youngkin called him and requested he step down from the race, pointing to a social media account that included reposts of images of men in states of undress and matched the username Reid uses for other social media platforms. At the time, Reid said the attacks were a direct result of him being openly gay. Youngkin's request was embraced by evangelical Christian groups but proved to be a miscalculation of where the bulk of the Republican party is — Reid refused to drop out. He said issues of identity were no longer preeminent among Republican voters. That's a change from the past decade he attributed in part to President Donald Trump. 'The social issues were at one point very polarizing, and Donald Trump, shockingly, is the one who opened up the tent of the Republican party and said, as long as you are solid and you're conservative and you're smart and you're willing to work hard, then you have a place at the table and you may even have a job in the administration and in the party,' Reid said in an interview. Earle-Sears has not appeared publicly alongside Reid since he became the nominee. Separately, recent reporting found that in 2024, she included a hand-written note stating her moral objection to a bill that prevents denying marriage licenses on the basis of sex, gender and race. Trump has appointed some LGBTQ people to his current administration, including Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, and Kennedy Center Executive Director Ric Grenell. At the same time, Trump has dramatically rolled back protections for LGBTQ people. Some candidates of color say Trump's rhetoric has toxified the political landscape. Democrat Levar Stoney, a Black candidate for lieutenant governor, said Virginia politics today feels more charged than when he first ran for Richmond mayor in 2016. 'People feel like they can do things, say things, that 10 years ago we would consider certainly disrespectful and in bad taste,' Stoney said. 'Go look at social media, and you will see it … It looks like misogyny, it's racism, xenophobia, you see it all throughout those social media platforms, and there's no accountability for it.' But several candidates this year said it's an encouraging sign both parties have changed to grow more accepting of candidates from different backgrounds. Ghazala Hashmi, the first Muslim state senator in Virginia, said she was initially inspired to run in 2019 in direct response to anti-Muslim statements from Trump. Now, she's one of six Democrats in the lieutenant governor's primary. 'We have probably the most diverse slate of candidates running statewide that Virginia has ever had before,' Hashmi said. 'And yet, it hasn't been a real topic of conversation, and in some ways, that's great news. That means we are accepting that diversity is really part of Virginia, and we are running candidates that look like Virginia.' Other Democratic candidates in the lieutenant governor's race also made clear they were not running solely, if at all, on identity politics. 'My immutable characteristic as a Latino does not define my policy imperatives,' said former prosecutor Victor Salgado. Salgado also rejected the idea that Republicans are more tolerant of a multiracial coalition than they were historically. 'I would question the premise that Republicans are running a diverse slate, because I don't think that they meant to,' he said, adding he thought establishment Republicans favored Pat Herrity, who dropped out of the election citing health concerns. Former Gov. Doug Wilder, the first Black governor in the country post-Reconstruction, thinks it's a good thing identity appears to be less of a focal point in the 2025 election. 'I never mentioned color, I never mentioned race,' he said, reflecting on the campaign before his 1989 election. 'It doesn't matter if it's a woman or a man. What have you done, what are you going to do, and how do I know that you can do it?' ___ While Virginia's Republican slate includes more diverse backgrounds, the candidates themselves have called for the dismantling of programming designed to promote diversity, equity and inclusion. 'I just think DEI is in the rearview mirror for most people,' Reid said. About 52% of Americans say DEI efforts in the workplace are a good thing, down from 56% last year, a Pew Research survey found. 'Democrats think minorities can't succeed without DEI — that we need their help, their labels, their permission,' Earle-Sears said in one post. 'But I'm the Lt. Gov. of Virginia — the former capital of the Confederacy. I didn't get here through victimhood — but through faith, education, and grit.' In interviews, Democratic candidates said they supported DEI policies — several criticized the weaponization of the phrase DEI in a way they said demonized people of color. Babur Lateef, chairman of the Prince William County School Board, said he would challenge Trump in court before he would let the president's administration dismantle DEI programming in the county schools. 'We didn't cut any program or rename any programs, and we are continuing to proceed as usual on the work we're doing with these communities and our schools,' Lateef said. 'We've completely just told the administration that we are not breaking any laws.' On social media, Earle-Sears has labeled Spanberger 'the DEI or die candidate.' The lieutenant governor praised University of Virginia's decision to shutter its DEI office in March and on social media repeatedly has shared a clip of Spanberger saying 'When we win here, we will be doing right by the people who have devoted themselves to the prospect of and the promise of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.' Meanwhile, Spanberger has not referenced DEI on her social media at all since June 2020, when she co-wrote an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch highlighting structural racism. When asked about her stance on DEI programming, she said in a statement, 'As a former intelligence officer, I can tell you that what has kept our nation safe — and made our human intelligence operations the best in the world — over the past few decades has been our understanding of the strength and benefit that comes from differing experiences, perspectives, skill sets, and backgrounds. Initiatives, employers, and communities that seek to leverage that diversity do so to their — and our shared — benefit.' Wrighten said Spanberger was likely trying to appeal to a more centrist audience by not explicitly endorsing DEI programming on the campaign. 'She's being strategic as well,' Wrighten said. 'She's not going to say negative things about DEI, but she's also not going to be a proponent of it because she knows that's going to isolate some of her base.' The fact that candidates are highlighting diversity less on the trail is a sign something has shifted, Wrighten said. 'We find ourselves in a political climate where the pendulum has shifted back to a time where we no longer celebrate these differences,' she said. 'We see these differences as threats to the American way of life. 'I think the lack of focus on these identities is a clear signal that something has shifted in the political climate, and that is absolutely reflected in the way we see these really diverse candidates running and what they are focusing on.' Kate Seltzer, 757-713-7881,
