In less than a week, the Iran war has revealed a remarkable string of combat firsts that showcase an American military boosted by AI and stocked with upgraded weapons, Axios Future of Defense author Colin Demarest writes.

• Why it matters: America's defense-tech advancements have been on full display during Operation Epic Fury. The Trump administration has been happy to confirm — and flex — the results.

🪖 Here's what's catching our eyes:

1. The U.S. military used Anthropic's AI tools for "intelligence assessments, target identification and simulating battle scenarios," The Wall Street Journal reports — despite President Trump's insistence on blackballing the company.

• Claude is embedded in the military's Maven Smart System, which is built by Palantir and "generating insights from an astonishing amount of classified data from satellites, surveillance and other intelligence, helping provide real-time targeting and target prioritization," the WashPost adds.

2. U.S. troops for the first time used two highly anticipated weapons: Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) and Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System drones (LUCAS).

• PrSM is a Lockheed Martin-made ballistic missile, compatible with the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
• LUCAS is a low-cost drone — $35,000 a pop — that's based on Iran's own Shahed drone. Central Command chief Adm. Brad Cooper said in a video: "We took [Shahed drones] back to America, made them better, and fired them right back at Iran."

3. The F-35, long dogged by cost overruns and delays, is having a breakthrough moment in combat.

• An Israeli Air Force F-35I took out an Iranian Air Force Yak-130. The Israel Defense Forces described it as the "first shootdown in history of a manned fighter aircraft by an F-35 'Adir.'"
• Royal Air Force F-35Bs downed drones over Jordan, according to the defense ministry.

4. A U.S. Navy submarine sank an Iranian warship with a single Mk 48 torpedo in the Indian Ocean — the first American torpedo attack to sink an enemy ship since World War II.

• "To hunt, find and kill an out-of-area deployer is something that only the United States can do at this type of scale," Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said at a Pentagon briefing.

🥊 Reality check: The Defense Department's public narrative indicates these new weapons are performing as advertised. But malfunctions aren't the kind of thing the Pentagon rushes to disclose.

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In a YouTube conversation, Barak Ravid, Axios global affairs correspondent, gives Mike this bottom line on the war:

• "Victory for Iran will be if they're still standing after Israel and the U.S. finish their operation. If the regime still stands, Iran won. That's it. They don't need to do anything else other than stay alive — that's their advantage because it's an asymmetric war."
• "In reality, if the regime stays, then Israel and the U.S. lost. So for the U.S. and Israel to win, it needs to be clear that the regime either collapsed or that whoever is in charge is a sort of U.S. puppet."

Watch the video … Executive Producer: Jimmy Shelton.

Maj. Jeffrey O'Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, Calif., were among six U.S. Army soldiers killed in a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait.

• The Army Reserve members, who worked in logistics and kept troops supplied with food and equipment, died Sunday, one day into operations against Iran. The other four were identified earlier. Six American lives.

"Turn Texas blue" has been more of a punch line than a battle cry in the Lone Star State. But Democrats' enthusiastic turnout in Tuesday's Senate primary has given them hope for November, Axios managing editor for politics David Lindsey writes.

• Why it matters: In counties across Texas, Democratic voters made up a dramatically larger percentage of the electorate than in 2024 — with big increases in hot battlegrounds such as mostly Hispanic South Texas and the well-off suburbs of North Texas.

🔭 Zoom in: James Talarico's win over U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett came with the usual caveats for Texas Democrats — namely, whether a party that hasn't won a statewide election since 1994 can really win in November.

But there were sparks of encouragement for Democrats nearly everywhere they looked:

• 71% of primary voters in mostly Hispanic Cameron County in South Texas cast Democratic ballots. Trump won the county by nearly 6 points in 2024.
• That scenario was repeated throughout South Texas, where Talarico dominated in majority-Hispanic counties.

In red-leaning, fast-growing Collin County just north of Dallas — where no Democrat has won the presidential race since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 — 57% of the votes cast Tuesday were in the Democratic primary.

• Keep reading ... More data from Axios Local in Texas.

Women were the big gainers in the job market last year, Axios' Emily Peck writes.

• That's because the strongest areas for job growth were in health care and education — two areas where women dominate.
• On the flip side, male-dominated sectors, like construction, saw little to no growth.

Zoom in: Last year, the number of jobs added by women was nearly three times that of men, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, highlighted in a new report from Bank of America Institute.

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Venezuela's state-owned mining company inked a multimillion-dollar deal to sell as many as 1,000 kilograms of gold destined for U.S. markets, two sources familiar with the deal tell Axios' Marc Caputo.

• Why it matters: The arrangement shows the tightening commercial bonds between Venezuela and the U.S. after President Trump ousted that nation's indicted socialist dictator and exerted de facto control over its oil-rich petroleum company.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who arrived in Venezuela yesterday to discuss oil and mineral opportunities, helped shepherd the gold contract.

• This is the third extraction deal made under the Trump administration's supervision after the U.S. took control of Venezuela's most crucial and abundant resource, oil.

Keep reading.

JD Vance headlined a fundraising dinner Tuesday night in the D.C. suburb of McLean, Va., that raked in a massive $6 million — making it his most lucrative event since becoming vice president, Axios' Alex Isenstadt writes.

• Donald Trump Jr. was the event's special guest.

Why it matters: Vance, the Republican National Committee's finance chair, is raising big bucks ahead of the midterm election and a likely 2028 presidential bid.

The fundraiser was hosted by Republican operative and Vance adviser Arthur Schwartz, with three co-hosts — Meta president and vice chair Dina Powell McCormick, lobbyist Jeff Miller, and Tony Sayegh, a Treasury Department official during President Trump's first term.

• The dinner was at Schwartz's home. The 50 donors paid $100,000 per person to attend or $250,000 per couple to join the host committee.

Guests included: GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, lobbyist Wayne Berman, IonQ CEO Niccolo de Masi, Sen. David McCormick (R-Pa.), Lockheed Martin VP of Government Affairs Robert Head, ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance and Joby Aviation's Michael Thompson.

• Keep reading.

Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw owes his defeat in this week's Republican primary to a billionaire megadonor who was hellbent on ending Crenshaw's career, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.

• Why it matters: Texas banker Robert Marling's role in funding an anti-Crenshaw advertising blitz starkly illustrates how a lone billionaire can banish a member of Congress.

In this case, Marling's clout meant Crenshaw was the first House incumbent to be ousted in 2026. Crenshaw lost to Texas state Rep. Steve Toth, a hard-line conservative who doesn't have Crenshaw's independent streak.

• Marling donated $675,000 in the GOP primary, accounting for roughly two-thirds of spending by a super PAC opposed to Crenshaw.

Marling — a prolific donor to President Trump and conservative causes — played a "massive" role in the race, one person involved in the primary told Axios.

• "Short of Robert's involvement, Dan would be reelected," said another.

Go deeper: Feud backstory.

Legendary college football coach Lou Holtz — a one-of-a-kind iconoclast in a profession brimming with originals — died yesterday at 89.

• Holtz's career spanned 33 seasons and included stops at Minnesota, Arkansas, South Carolina and, most notably, Notre Dame, where he won his lone national championship in 1988, AP's Eric Olson and Tom Coyne write.

💬 Armed with a homespun brand of folksiness that could trickle into corny but always contained a kernel of truth, Holtz lit up bulletin boards and motivational posters with dozens of memorable quotes:

• "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it."
• "When all is said and done, more is said than done."
• "You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose."

Full obit.