Iran says US military operation 'impossible' as Trump mulls peace proposal

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday he would not give up on working with US President Donald Trump, despite a spat between the leaders over the war in Iran.

"I am not giving up on working on the transatlantic relationship," Merz told public broadcaster ARD in an interview set to air Sunday night. "Nor am I giving up on working with Donald Trump."

Merz sought to downplay any tensions with Trump, arguing for instance that an abrupt public announcement that the US would pull 5,000 troops from bases in Germany was not surprising and should not be seen as retaliation.

"It may be being exaggerated a bit, but it's not new," Merz told talk show host Caren Miosga.

Criticism of the US-Israeli war against Iran from Merz and other European leaders has clearly aggravated Trump. The latest rift came after Merz on April 27 said that Iran was "humiliating" Washington at the negotiating table.

That provoked a series of angry responses from Washington, including Trump's comments that Merz was doing a "terrible" job as chancellor.

Merz on Sunday said the US decision on troops had "no connection" with the recent disagreements.

- 'Important partners' -

The chancellor also appeared to confirm that a planned deployment of US long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Germany -- announced by former US president Joe Biden -- was being called off, at least for the time being.

He cited depleted arsenals because of the wars in Iran and Ukraine as the reason.

"The Americans themselves don't have enough at the moment," he said.

"Objectively speaking, there is hardly any possibility from the US of relinquishing weapons systems of this kind."

But he insisted the "train has not departed" for possible cooperation in the future, and that European NATO powers could continue deterring Russia without those particular missiles or US forces.

Trump's criticism of European leaders has not been confined to Merz. 

He previously ridiculed British Prime Minister Kier Starmer, and on Thursday told reporters that "Italy has not been of any help to us and Spain has been horrible, absolutely horrible".

But Merz insisted that he still shared Trump's goal of ensuring Iran never obtains an atomic weapon, even if he has criticised the US handling of the conflict.

"We have a different view of this war. That's no secret," Merz said in the interview. "I'm not the only one who feels that way."

Merz insisted that Trump respects his right to hold differing views -- though perhaps "a little less for the moment".

"But that does not alter the fact that I remain convinced that the Americans are important partners for us -– our most important partners in the North Atlantic alliance," Merz said.

bst/jj

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli won the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday, fending off a dogged challenge by reigning world champion Lando Norris, whose McLaren finished second.

The 19-year-old Italian's third straight win extends his lead at the top of this year's Formula One world championship, while Norris' McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri rounded off the podium in Florida.

Mercedes' George Russell came fourth, followed by Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.

Antonelli began the race in pole position, but was immediately overtaken by Leclerc.

A chaotic start also saw Verstappen's car spin 360 degrees in the middle of the track, and Pierre Gasly's Alpine flipped upside-down while overtaking Liam Lawson.

But after several laps with a safety car, the leaders pitted and Antonelli regained the lead, which he successfully defended for the remainder of the race.

The race's start time was brought forward by three hours due to the threat of heavy rainstorms, but it took place in largely hot and humid, overcast conditions.

It was the first Formula One race after an enforced five-week hiatus, due to the conflict in the Middle East, which several teams exploited with upgrade packages on their cars.

amz/js

"The Devil Wears Prada 2" debuted atop the North American box office this weekend, industry estimates showed Sunday, 20 years after the hit original took audiences inside the cutthroat world of haute couture.

The sequel sees Anne Hathaway's character return to work under tyrannical editor Miranda Priestly, portrayed again by Meryl Streep, as their fashion magazine faces an existential crisis.

Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt also return as leads, while a host of A-list additions and celebrity cameos round out the star-studded cast.

Released by 20th Century Fox and with returning director David Frankel, the film took in $77 million in the US and Canadian market, according to Exhibitor Relations.

"This is a sensational opening for a comedy drama," said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research, noting "very good" reviews and themes of power, image and success that "are more recognizable and relevant today than ever."

Streep won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in her first turn as Miranda Priestly -- who is not-so-subtly based on longtime "Vogue" chief Anna Wintour.

Last week's box office winner "Michael," the biopic about late superstar Michael Jackson, fell to second place but still took in $54 million, according to Exhibitor Relations.

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and distributed by Lionsgate, the film chronicles the legendary artist's rise from a child star to one of the world's most famous pop icons.

In the starring role is Jaafar Jackson, the popstar's nephew.

Following a whopping $97 million debut last weekend in North America, the movie has taken in over $423 million at the global box office.

"The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" came in third with $12.1 million, taking its cumulative domestic haul over $400 million.

The animated sequel from Universal and Illumination Studios has earned nearly $900 million at the global box office, Exhibitor Relations reported.

Fourth place went to Amazon MGM's hit sci-fi adventure comedy "Project Hail Mary," with another $8.6 million.

The film, starring Ryan Gosling as a teacher-turned-astronaut who must save Earth from a dimming sun, has earned over $625 million worldwide, in an extended theatrical run.

In fifth place with $6.4 million was indie horror film "Hokum," a low-budget Irish production which Gross said had earned "excellent" reviews from critics and audiences.

Directed by Damian McCarthy and starring Adam Scott ("Severance"), the film follows an author who travels to a mysterious hotel in rural Ireland.

Rounding out the top 10:

"Animal Farm" ($3.4 million)

"Lee Cronin's The Mummy" ($2.23 million)

"Deep Water" ($2.15 million)

"That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" ($1 million)

"The Drama ($900,000)

des/pnb

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Pope Leo on a trip to Rome this week, in the wake of the pontiff's clash with President Donald Trump, a Vatican source said Sunday.

The source confirmed Italian media reports about the meeting, which newspapers said would take place on Thursday in an attempt to "thaw" relations.

It comes just weeks after Trump's extraordinary criticism of Pope Leo XIV over the Catholic leader's anti-war rhetoric.

An Italian government source earlier told AFP that Rubio would also meet Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

Rubio had asked for a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Trump's closest European allies, whom he turned on after she defended the pope, the source added.

Media reports said he was also due to meet Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, amid a deepening rift in transatlantic ties over the Middle East war.

- One year in office -

Leo, 70, will on Friday mark one year as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, after being elected by cardinals on May 8, 2025, following the death of Pope Francis.

As the first ever pope from the United States, his words have arguably carried more weight in Washington than previous pontiffs -- and he has used them, criticising notably the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.

But it was the pontiff's increasing anti-war rhetoric, particularly following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, that triggered Trump's ire.

Leo declared Trump's threat to destroy Iran "unacceptable" and urged Americans to demand that US lawmakers "work for peace".

The US president slammed the pontiff in a social media post as "WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy".

Trump also said he was "not a big fan of Pope Leo" and that he does not "want a pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

The pontiff responded by saying he had a "moral duty to speak out" against war -- and then sparked more headlines with a speech in Cameroon lambasting "tyrants" ransacking the world.

However, he insisted afterwards that the remarks were written long before the row, and said he had not intended to start a new debate with the US president. 

Christians across the world expressed their solidarity with the pope, and Meloni condemned Trump's remarks as "unacceptable" -- prompting the president to turn his fire on her.

"I'm shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong," the US president said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

He accused Meloni -- a far-right leader who has sought to act as a bridge between diverging US and European views -- of failing to help the United States with NATO.

Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Italy, saying Rome "has not been of any help to us" in the Iran war.

He has made a similar threat towards Spain, while the Pentagon has announced it will withdraw 5,000 US troops from Germany.

As of December 31, 2025, there were 12,662 active-duty US troops in Italy and 3,814 in Spain. In Germany, there were 36,436.

ar/pdw

Ukraine said Sunday it had hit several Russian ships -- a cruise missile carrier and three shadow fleet tankers -- as both sides fired hundreds of drones in a spree that killed at least eight people.

The two neighbours have been firing waves of explosive-packed drones at each other daily throughout the four-year war, as talks to end the conflict have gone nowhere.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday vowed to step up retaliatory strikes on Russian energy sites if Moscow did not halt its invasion.

"Russia can end its war at any moment. Prolonging the war will only expand the scale of our defensive operations," he said on social media.

The Ukrainian leader said his troops had struck a vessel equipped with cruise missiles at the port of Primorsk, in Russia's northwestern Leningrad region.

The region's oil export terminals have been hit several times in recent weeks, triggering massive fires that billow plumes of toxic black smoke into the atmosphere. 

Kyiv says the strikes have knocked out billions of dollars' worth of Russia's vital export earnings.

Zelensky said Sunday three of Russia's so-called shadow tankers -- ageing vessels that ferry its sanctioned oil around the world -- were struck, one at Primorsk and two off the southern Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

He posted night-vision footage of a naval drone approaching one tanker at Novorossiysk.

The Russian governor of the Leningrad region had earlier confirmed a fire at the port after Ukrainian attacks.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear and Russian officials gave no details.

- 600 drones -

On the Russian side of the front line, two people were killed in the Belgorod border region, one near Moscow and a teenager in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine in separate attacks overnight and throughout Sunday.

In Ukraine, two were killed in the coastal Odesa region, one in the frontline Kherson region and another in an attack on the industrial city of Dnipro.

Photos from Dnipro showed the roof of a five-storey apartment block destroyed, wooden beams exposed and debris scattered into partially collapsed top-floor apartments.

Russia fired 268 drones and one ballistic missile in the overnight barrage, Kyiv's air force said.

Ukraine's army launched 334 drones at Russia, Moscow's defence ministry said.

Kyiv calls its attacks on Russia fair retaliation for Russia's nightly barrages of its cities.

Both sides deny targeting civilians.

Tens of thousands have been killed -- the vast majority in Ukraine -- since Russia invaded in February 2022.

In April, Russia fired a record number of long-range attack drones at Ukraine -- an average of more than 200 a day -- according to AFP analysis of data from Kyiv's air force.

bur-jc/giv

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday said the United States faced a choice between an "impossible" military operation or a "bad deal" with Tehran, after President Donald Trump disparaged Iran's latest peace proposal.

Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far.

Iran's Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it.

"I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but can't imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years," Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

US news website Axios reported, citing two sources briefed on the proposal, that it set "a one-month deadline for negotiations on a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, end the US naval blockade and permanently end the war in Iran and in Lebanon".

In a statement on Sunday, the Revolutionary Guards sought to put the onus back on Trump, saying he must choose between "an impossible operation or a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran". 

"The room for US decision-making has narrowed," they said.

The day before, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told diplomats in Tehran that "the ball is in the United States' court to choose the path of diplomacy or the continuation of a confrontational approach".

Iran, he said, was "prepared for both paths".

- 'If they misbehave' -

In a brief interview with reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday the US president declined to specify what could trigger new American military action.

"If they misbehave, if they do something bad, but right now, we'll see," he said. "But it's a possibility that could happen, certainly."

In yet more bellicose rhetoric, Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said Iranian forces would sink US ships. 

"The US is the only pirate in the world that possesses aircraft carriers. Our ability to confront pirates is no less than our ability to sink warships. Prepare to face a graveyard of your carriers and forces," he posted on X.

There is no evidence that Iran has sunk any US military vessels during the war.

Axios reported earlier in the week that Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff had asked for Tehran's nuclear programme to be put back on the negotiating table.

But Iran's mission to the UN pointed to the massive US nuclear arsenal, accusing Washington on Saturday of "hypocritical behaviour" towards Iran's own atomic ambitions.

- 'Trying to endure' -

Iran has maintained a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz since the war began, choking off major flows of oil, gas and fertiliser to the world economy, while the United States has imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian ports.

Oil prices are about 50 percent above pre-war levels.

The deputy speaker of Iran's parliament, Ali Nikzad, said that under draft legislation being considered for managing the strait, 30 percent of tolls collected would go towards military infrastructure, with the rest earmarked for "economic development".

"Managing the Strait of Hormuz is more important than acquiring nuclear weapons," he said.

In Iran, the war's economic toll is deepening, with oil exports curtailed and inflation surging past 50 percent.

"Everyone is trying to endure it, but... they are falling apart," 40-year-old Amir, a Tehran resident, told an AFP reporter based outside the country.

"We still have not seen much of the economic effects because everyone had a bit of savings. They had some gold and dollars for a rainy day. When they run out, things will change."

burs-dcp/axn

Manchester United secured Champions League football next season as Kobbie Mainoo's strike earned a thrilling 3-2 victory over old rivals Liverpool on Sunday.

United were 2-0 up inside 15 minutes through Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko, but imploded after the break to allow Arne Slot's men to level with goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo before Mainoo secured the win.

A return to Europe's elite competition after a two-year absence and another big game win furthers Michael Carrick's case to continue as United boss next season.

Mainoo has embodied the upturn in United's fortunes since Carrick took charge in January.

Overlooked by Ruben Amorim, the England midfielder earned a new five-year contract this week and celebrated in style with a cool finish from the edge of the box to edge a wild encounter.

Third-placed United open up a six-point lead over Liverpool and are guaranteed to finish in the top five.

Despite an 11th league defeat of the season, Liverpool likely need only three points from their three remaining games to also secure a place in the Champions League.

Slot's side arrived at Old Trafford depleted without the forward trio of Mohamed Salah, Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak through injury.

United sensed blood and were well worthy of their early two-goal lead.

Cunha was afforded two chances to find his range from the edge of the box to open the scoring.

The Brazilian's strike flicked off Alexis MacAllister to give Liverpool's third-choice goalkeeper Freddie Woodman no chance.

The waves of United attack kept coming and Sesko appealed for a penalty after failing to beat Woodman from Bruno Fernandes' precise pass.

Seconds later the Slovenian bundled the ball over the line from Fernandes' header back across goal.

Fernandes was inches away from a third when he blasted Bryan Mbeumo's cross wide.

But the warning signs of what was to come in the second half for United were also there before the break.

Gakpo curled wide on one of the many occasions Liverpool were able to pierce the heart of the Red Devils' midfield.

Sesko was replaced by Amad Diallo at half-time and the Ivorian almost immediately gifted Liverpool a route back into the game.

Szoboszlai pounced on Amad's loose pass and ran from inside his own half unopposed before slotting into the bottom corner.

United were architects of their own downfall again for the equaliser.

This time goalkeeper Senne Lammens' pass was picked off by Mac Allister, who fed Szoboszlai and the Hungarian coolly teed up Gakpo for a tap in.

The unusually low stakes for a game between these clubs showed as both threw caution to the wind in search of a winner.

The home side got it when a poor clearance from MacAllister broke kindly for the charging Mainoo to steer into the bottom corner.

United's first league double over Liverpool since the 2015-16 season completes a remarkable turnaround in the two sides' fortunes from a year ago.

Liverpool finished 14 places and 42 points ahead of their rivals on their way to equalling United's record of 20 English top-flight titles last season.

Carrick has also beaten Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea in his short reign and now delivered his primary goal with the riches of the Champions League to make his case hard to ignore.

kca/gj

An outbreak of "severe acute respiratory illness" on board a cruise ship in the Atlantic has left at least two people dead, with a third in intensive care in Johannesburg, South Africa's health ministry told AFP on Sunday.

The outbreak occurred on the MV Hondius, travelling from Ushuaia in Argentina to Cape Verde. 

The patient being treated in Johannesburg tested positive for a hantavirus, a family of viruses that can cause hemorrhagic fever, South African spokesperson Foster Mohale said.

Hanaviruses are spread by rodents, in particular contact with their urine, droppings and saliva, according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

“WHO is aware of the cases of severe acute respiratory illness on a cruise ship sailing in the Atlantic," the World Health Organization (WHO) told AFP in Geneva.

"Investigations and a coordinated international public health response is underway. We will share more information as it becomes available.”

A source close to the case speaking on condition of anonymity said the provisional toll was three dead, including a Dutch couple.

- Husband and wife -

The first person to develop symptoms was a 70-year-old passenger. He died on board the ship and his body was currently on the island of Saint Helena, a British territory in the South Atlantic, Mohale the South African spokesman said. 

His 69-year-old wife also fell ill on board and was evacuated to South Africa, where she died in a Johannesburg hospital, he said, adding that they were not yet able to confirm the victims’ nationalities. 

The third case, a 69-year-old Briton, was also evacuated to Johannesburg, where he was being treated in intensive care.

Discussions were under way to decide whether two other sick passengers should be placed in isolation in hospital in Cape Verde, after which the ship would continue to Spain's Canary Islands, the anonymous source said.

The MV Hondius is listed as a polar cruise ship on the websites of several travel agencies. It is operated by a Dutch-based tour company, Oceanwide Expeditions.

One of the cruises offers an itinerary departing from Ushuaia for Cape Verde, with stops in the islands of South Georgia and Saint Helena. 

According to several online ship-tracking sites, the MV Hondius was just off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde, on Sunday.

The vessel can accommodate around 170 passengers and has some 70 crew members. 

Humans can catch hantaviruses from contact with infected mice or rats or their droppings, or being bitten or inhaling contaminated dust.

There are multiple types of hantaviruses in different parts of the world, with different symptoms.

AFP contacted the cruise operator Oceanwide Expeditions but has not yet had a reply.

fal-apo/pdw/rmb

A second unexploded shell has been found at a French military site where thousands of revellers have spent the past three days partying at an illegal rave, the country's interior minister said Sunday

The unauthorised rave known as a "free party" kicked off on Friday at a firing range near the central town of Bourges, some 200 km (120 miles) south of Paris.

Organisers said that up to 40,000 people from France and neighbouring countries attended, defying warnings about the danger of unexploded munitions, while Interior Minister Laurent Nunez put the turnout at 17,000.

Philippe Le Moing Surzur, the top local official, has warned that dancing at the site was "extremely dangerous due to the unexploded ordnance" dating back to World War II.

On Saturday evening, bomb disposal experts had to intervene after a shell was discovered near a road passing through the party site.

"A second one is currently being dealt with," Nunez told reporters after flying over the party site in a helicopter. "When the prefect warned that this was dangerous land, it was not a joke."

But organisers said they had chosen the firing range near Bourges — Nunez's hometown — on purpose, to protest against proposed legislation aimed at toughening penalties against organisers of free parties and their participants. 

Organisers insisted that no major incidents had taken place, but Nunez disputed that account.

Twelve people were taken to hospitals, including "due to drug consumption", he said, adding five people were taken into custody.

- Tougher sanctions -

Officials hastily put security measures in place after thousands of revellers converged on the 10,000‑hectare site, spread across several villages, having arranged to meet via encrypted messaging services.

The organisers have urged attendees to refrain from lighting fires, digging or picking up any objects.

"I didn't know the land was mined," one reveller told AFP.

"Obviously, it does take away a bit of peace of mind, but we're careful," said the 36‑year‑old school teacher from Brittany who came with four friends. 

By early Sunday afternoon, several stages were empty and many were leaving, an AFP journalist saw.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with local residents, Nunez said the defiance of the organisers only strengthened his determination to ban such events. 

He said the government would seek to "crack down more effectively" on illegal gatherings that "our fellow citizens do not understand."

"To ensure this doesn't happen again, sanctions must be toughened," he said, adding that 600 fines had already been issued.

Nunez also said those who attended the party would be fined for entering a military site and for taking part in an illegal gathering.

"Unfortunately, at present, these offences are only punishable as minor violations," the minister said.

In April, the French parliament's lower house approved a bill introducing penalties of up to six months in jail for anyone who plays a direct or indirect role in organising or facilitating an unauthorised or banned rave party.

Participation in organising such an event is defined broadly, extending as far as the "dissemination of practical information."

The minister said authorities logged 337 illegal music events in 2025, typically drawing around 300 attendees, with four percent attracting crowds of more than 1,000 people.

ave-ban-as/pdw

(The Center Square) – The Pentagon is asking Congress for more than $21 billion for military barracks in its fiscal year 2027 budget request, the largest such investment in recent years, but the government's top watchdog says the deferred maintenance backlog has more than doubled since 2020 and important recommendations from its last barracks review remain unfinished.

The $1.5 trillion military budget request includes $8.8 billion for repairs such as HVAC fixes, mold remediation and electrical and plumbing updates; $10.2 billion for new barracks construction; and $2.5 billion for preventive maintenance. It is part of a broader $57.2 billion request for facility sustainment, restoration and modernization across the Department of War.

"The investments in this budget will fix all substandard barracks and eliminate barracks that have been deemed poor or failing," Lt. Gen. Steven Whitney said at a Pentagon budget briefing.

The request comes after a scathing September 2023 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office detailed sewage backups, rodent infestations, mold, inoperable fire systems and broken heating and air conditioning systems at barracks where troops are required to live. The report found those conditions undermined military readiness and quality of life. It also found the Department of Defense had not fully funded its facilities program for years, resulting in a backlog of at least $137 billion in deferred maintenance costs as of fiscal year 2020.

That backlog has since grown to an estimated $280 billion for all Defense Department facilities as of fiscal year 2025, Rashmi Agarwal, a director with GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management team, told The Center Square. The GAO plans to issue a report this summer on infrastructure maintenance across all military bases.

Conditions were so bad in some places that service members sometimes took "drastic action, such as getting married, just to leave the barracks," according to the GAO report.

Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller Jules "Jay" Hurst III said that condition scores were used to determine how much money was needed to fix those barracks.

"We have a list of barracks that are in poor or failing condition and we created a building condition index," he said at the April 21 budget briefing. "And I think if you're below 80 on that index, you're considered poor or failing. So, we went through and calculated how much money we'd have to invest to remediate every single barracks that's in that condition. We're going to remediate all the barracks that are poor or substandard."

However, in a statement to The Center Square, a senior defense official said the Barracks Task Force wall-to-wall assessments were not traditional condition assessments – they were an urgent triage operation to identify and correct acute health and safety issues – and did not produce a total count of poor or failing buildings. It was not immediately clear whether Hurst was referring to a separate, pre-existing list or the BTF assessments.

That distinction matters because one of the central problems identified in the 2023 GAO report was that condition scores for buildings were inaccurate. The report noted that military services calculate a condition score from 0 to 100, but those scores didn't always match actual conditions. One barracks had been closed as uninhabitable due to long-standing plumbing and electrical issues while carrying a condition score above 90.

The Pentagon said it has since overhauled its approach. In April 2025, the department published Unaccompanied Housing Habitability Standards, which established pass-fail criteria for living spaces – including zero visible mold and functional HVAC systems – designed to flag uninhabitable rooms regardless of a building's overall condition score. The department also said it is replacing collateral-duty service members with permanent civilian barracks managers at each installation to ensure more consistent oversight, and mandating in-person inspections of all permanent party barracks every two years.

"The Department does not need to choose between 'find and fix' and systemic changes; it is aggressively doing both," the senior defense official told The Center Square. "We actively carried out the Secretary's directive to immediately find and fix acute issues. The BTF has impacted thousands of warriors, with over $800 million obligated to rapidly improve living conditions across the force."

Agarwal said important recommendations from the 2023 report remain open.

"While DOD has taken steps to address many recommendations, important recommendations remain open and we will continue to track the actions the department is taking," she said.

A separate GAO report issued in February 2026 on the Pentagon's 12 joint bases found the department still needs to assess the risks to missions posed by not meeting its funding goals for infrastructure maintenance.

The problems were not new. The GAO raised nearly identical concerns in a June 2002 report on recruit training barracks, documenting inadequate heating and air conditioning, mold and plumbing failures across all 10 basic training locations. That report found the same root cause: Army officials told investigators that maintenance funding shortfalls were driven by "the migration of funding from maintenance accounts to support other priorities." The condition scoring problem was present then too – GAO inspectors found that Parris Island barracks rated near the top of the condition scale were actually among the worst they observed.

During a 2023 Congressional hearing on the more recent report, Elizabeth Field, then-director of Defense Capabilities and Management for the GAO, told lawmakers the pattern had persisted across decades. Ten years before that hearing, she said, the Pentagon had praised its progress modernizing barracks with increased funding and promised to maintain them.

"Obviously, that didn't happen," Field testified. "It will take years to reverse the chronic neglect and underfunding we uncovered."

She said the problem was not a lack of Congressional funding, but how the Pentagon chose to spend it.

"The department tends to only fund about 80% of sustainment needs and the facilities that most often lose out are things like barracks," she said.

U.S> Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a retired Air Force brigadier general who chaired the House Armed Services Committee's Military Quality-of-Life Panel in the 118th Congress, said the pattern of neglect has a clear cause.

"The barracks budget has been looted for many years for other priorities," he told The Center Square.

Since the 2023 report, the Pentagon has made a series of pledges to improve conditions. The fiscal year 2025 budget included $1.1 billion for barracks construction. The fiscal year 2026 budget requested $7.2 billion for barracks, including $1.2 billion for new construction and $6 billion for facility sustainment. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced a $1.2 billion barracks task force investment in December 2025, with $400 million for immediate repairs and $800 million for critical renovations. The Pentagon said Wednesday that more than $800 million of that has been obligated so far.

"The Department is actioning a comprehensive, data-driven plan to permanently address barracks quality, with the FY27 budget providing the resources required to restore existing barracks and construct new buildings where necessary," the defense official said. "Ultimately, this combination of rapid remediation and systematic oversight ensures our Warriors can focus entirely on their mission, not real estate management."

The GAO said Congress has continued to place significant focus on improving barracks conditions through legislation and hearings, and that it will continue to support that oversight work. A new GAO report on infrastructure maintenance across all military bases is expected this summer.