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General Dynamics promotes EVP to global operations

Among a slew of promotions General Dynamics announced Wednesday is Danny Deep’s promotion from executive vice president of the Fortune 100 and company’s Combat Systems division to executive vice president of global operations.

Deep became executive vice president of the Combat Systems segment in April 2024, previously having served as president of General Dynamics Land Systems. He has been with the -based Fortune 100 aerospace and defense company for 24 years, according to a news release.

“Danny will focus on improving operating performance across each of the company’s business units during this period of growth and change,” General Dynamics Chairman and CEO Phebe Novakovic said in a statement. “Danny is a proven leader and has spent the last 24 years with the company in various operating roles and has deep experience and demonstrated results.”

Jason Aiken, currently executive vice president of the company’s Technologies segment, will succeed Deep and will continue to oversee Mission Systems.

Also announced Wednesday, Amy Gilliland, president of -based subsidiary , has been promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president.

Mark Burns has been promoted from vice president to executive vice president and will remain president of Gulfstream Aerospace.

“I am pleased to welcome Amy and Mark to the select group of operating officers upon whom we confer broader corporate responsibilities,” Novakovic said in a statement.

General Dynamics has more than 110,000 employees worldwide and reported $47.7 billion in 2024 revenue. It ranked No. 96 on the 2025 Fortune 1000.

Owens & Minor ends $1.36B deal to buy home-based care business


SUMMARY:

Glen Allen-based Fortune 500 and supply company Owens & Minor has backed out of a $1.36 billion deal to buy Rotech Healthcare Holdings, a Florida home-based care business.

Owens & Minor and Rotech Healthcare Holdings mutually agreed to terminate the deal June 3, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that also noted the Henrico County-based company paid a termination fee of $80 million in cash.

“For many months, our teammates, along with the Rotech team, have worked tirelessly in cooperation with the Federal Commission to close this transaction, and while we believe there would have been ample benefits to patients, payors and providers by adding Rotech to our Patient Direct business, the path to obtain regulatory clearance for this merger proved unviable in terms of time, expense and opportunity,” Edward A. Pesicka, Owens & Minor’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

The company’s patient direct sector delivers to patients and home health agencies.

News of the failed deal follows a February announcement that Owens & Minor was “actively engaged in robust discussions” about the sale of its products and health care services segment.

In 2023, Rotech, which provides home medical equipment like sleep apnea therapy devices, generated about $750 million in revenue, according to Owens & Minor.

When announcing the deal last summer, Pesicka stated that the company fits well with its existing patient direct sector and that the acquisition would align with a strategy announced in 2023 to expand in the home-based care space.

With Thursday’s announcement, Pesicka noted that Owens & Minor continues to work with interested parties on the sale of the products and health care services segment, but that “in the meantime, we will continue to actively work to strengthen that business and tap into its significant upside.”

“We are confident in our strategy and will continue to focus our efforts on growing our Patient Direct business while remaining committed to strengthening our balance sheet through the use of improved cash flow generation for deleveraging,” Pesicka added. “The home-based care market is a dynamic, growing market, and we are extremely well positioned to help those with chronic conditions get the care and service they need and deserve.”

In September 2024, Jonathan Leon succeeded Alexander Bruni as chief financial officer, following Owens & Minor’s June 2024 report in a securities filing that Bruni resigned at the company’s request.

Owens & Minor reported revenue of about $2.6 billion in the first quarter of 2025, roughly flat over the same quarter in the previous year. The company had $1.95 billion in debt that quarter.

In February, Owens & Minor announced it had repaid $647 million in debt over two years.

Last year, the Virginia Department of Transportation purchased the Mechanicsville headquarters of Owens & Minor for $33.5 million. Owens & Minor moved to Henrico’s Innsbrook Corporate Center.

Wall Street drifts closer to its record ahead of Friday’s jobs report

SUMMARY:

  • S&P 500 rose 0.4%; Dow added 130 points; up 0.7%
  • Market gains followed Trump’s announcement on China talks
  • Hopes rise for a cooling of U.S.-China tensions
  • Investors await Friday’s for tariff impact insight

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting closer to their records after raised hopes for a cooldown in his global on Thursday.

The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in midday trading. The Industrial Average was up 130 points, or 0.3%, as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.

Stocks had been flip-flopping in the morning but turned modestly higher after Trump said he had “a very good phone call” with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, about trade and that “their respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined.”

It signals an easing of tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Both sides had earlier accused the other of violating the agreement that had paused the stiff each had put on the other, which threatened to drag the into a recession.

Hopes that Trump would lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with China and other countries have been among the main reasons the S&P 500 has rallied back so furiously since dropping roughly 20% below its record two months ago. It’s now back within 2.4% of its all-time high.

To be sure, nothing is assured amid Trump’s on-and-off rollout of tariffs, and markets took the latest detente with China relatively coolly.

Trading activity in options markets suggests investors believe the next big move for the S&P 500 could come on Friday, when the U.S. Department will say how many more jobs U.S. employers created than destroyed during May. The expectation on Wall Street is for a slowdown in hiring from April.

A resilient job market has been one of the linchpins that’s propped up the U.S. economy, and the worry is that all the uncertainty created by tariffs could cause businesses to freeze their hiring.

A report on Thursday said more U.S. workers applied for benefits last week than economists expected. The number remains relatively low compared with history, but it still hit its highest level in eight months.

The data came as Procter & Gamble, the giant behind such brands as Pampers diapers and Cascade dish detergent, said it will cut up to 7,000 jobs over the next two years. Its stock fell 1.3%.

On Wall Street, Five Below rallied 6.9% after the retailer, which sells products priced between $1 and $5, reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Winnie Park credited broad-based strength across most of its merchandise.

MongoDB jumped 15.4% after the database company likewise delivered a stronger profit than analysts expected.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve. Its stock fell 18.5% and was potentially heading for its worst day since it began trading in 1972.

Brown-Forman’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, and the company said it expects its upcoming fiscal year to be challenging because of “consumer uncertainty, the potential impact from currently unknown tariffs” and other things.

The CEO of PVH, which runs the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, likewise cited challenges from “an increasingly uncertain consumer and macroeconomic backdrop.”

Its stock fell 18.4% even though it reported stronger revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company cut its profit forecast for its full fiscal year, saying it will likely be able to offset only some of the potential hit it will take because of tariffs.

Expectations are building in financial markets that the Federal Reserve will need to cut interest rates later this year in order to prop up an economy potentially weakened by tariffs. Yields took a sharp turn lower on Wednesday after a pair of worse-than-expected reports on the U.S. economy bolstered traders’ bets for a cut.

The Fed has been keeping interest rates on hold this year after slashing them through the end of 2024. Part of the reason for the pause is that the Fed wants to see how much Trump’s tariffs will hurt the economy and raise inflation. While lower interest rates could boost the economy, they also tend to give inflation more fuel.

Treasury yields held steadier on Thursday ahead of Friday’s jobs report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.38% from 4.37% late Wednesday after tumbling from 4.46% the day before. It had been lower before Trump’s encouraging description of his call with Xi.

In stock markets abroad, indexes in Europe were mixed amid modest moves after the European Central Bank cut its main interest rate again, as was widely expected.

The moves were larger in Asia, where South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.5% after the country’s new president and leading liberal politician Lee Jae-myung began his term, vowing to restart talks with North Korea and beef up a partnership with the U.S. and Japan.

___

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits last week rises to highest level in eight months

SUMMARY:

  • Weekly jobless claims rose to 247,000, the highest since October.
  • market shows signs of cooling, with fewer job quits and rising .
  • Major companies, including P&G, plan job cuts amid restructuring efforts.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Filings for U.S. benefits rose to their highest level in eight months last week but remain historically low despite growing uncertainty about how tariffs could impact the broader .

New applications for jobless benefits rose by 8,000 to 247,000 for the week ending May 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the most since early October. Analysts had forecast 237,000 new applications.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and have mostly bounced around a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy five years ago, wiping out millions of .

In reporting their latest earnings, many companies have either lowered their sales and profit expectations for 2025 or not issued guidance at all, often citing ‘s dizzying rollout of tariff announcements.

Though has paused or dialed down many of his tariff threats, concerns remain that a tariff-induced global economic slowdown could upend what’s been a robust U.S. .

In early May, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight meeting after cutting it three times at the end of last year.

Fed chair Jerome Powell said the potential for both higher unemployment and inflation are elevated, an unusual combination that complicates the central bank’s dual mandate of controlling prices and keeping unemployment low. Powell said that tariffs have dampened consumer and business sentiment.

Earlier this week, the government reported that U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, but other data suggested that Americans are less optimistic about the labor market.

Tuesday’s report showed that the number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — fell, while layoffs ticked higher. And in another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring boom of 2021-2023, the Labor Department reported one job every unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two vacancies for every jobless American.

The Labor Department’s more comprehensive monthly report comes out Friday, with analysts expecting that U.S. employers added a slim 130,000 jobs in May, down from 177,000 in April.

The government has estimated that the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.2% annual pace in the first quarter of 2025, a slight upgrade from its first estimate. Growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the U.S. tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump’s massive tariffs went into effect.

Trump is attempting to reshape the global economy by dramatically increasing import taxes to rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing sector. The president has also tried to drastically downsize the federal government workforce, but many of those cuts are being challenged in the courts and .

In a regulatory filing early Thursday, the packaged consumer goods company Procter & Gamble said it expected to cut 7,000 jobs — about 15% of its nonmanufacturing workforce — as part of a two-year restructuring plan.

Other companies that have announced job cuts this year include Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta.

The four-week average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week gyrations during more volatile stretches, rose by 4,500 to 235,000, the most since late October.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of May 24 inched down by 3,000 to 1.9 million.

Amazon planning $10B investment for North Carolina data center and AI campus

SUMMARY:

  • will invest $10 billion in Richmond County, N.C.
  • The AI and cloud campus will create at least 500 high-skilled .
  • Project includes major infrastructure upgrades at no local cost.
  • Incentives package offers Amazon 20 years of tax-based grants.

HAMLET, N.C. (AP) — Amazon plans to invest $10 billion toward building a campus in to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure, bringing a massive shot in the arm to a region where many textile and apparel jobs dried up a generation ago.

Amazon said Wednesday that its investment in rural Richmond County should create at least 500 jobs and support thousands more through construction and data center supply chain providers, according to statements from the company and Gov. Josh Stein’s office. Stein called the investment one of the largest in state history.

are already familiar to North Carolina’s landscape, including those operated by Apple. This project could transform Richmond County, which is on the South Carolina border and has a population of about 42,000.

The Richmond County site is expected to employ engineers, network and security specialists and other technical roles, the company said. Amazon said it would provide support for universities, community colleges and other workforce training programs to help people enter data center and broadband expansion fields.

“This investment will position North Carolina as a hub for cutting-edge technology, create hundreds of high-skilled jobs, and drive significant economic growth,” Amazon chief global affairs and legal officer David Zapolsky said. “We look forward to partnering with state and local leaders, local suppliers, and educational institutions to nurture the next generation of talent.”

Richmond County commissioners approved an incentives package for Amazon on Tuesday. The company could receive annual cash grants for 20 years equal to portions of the real estate property tax and the property tax for vehicles and equipment at each data center contingent on job creation and monetary investment thresholds, The Richmond Observer reported.

“This project will truly transform our community in ways that we cannot imagine,” Richmond County Manager Bryan Land said at Tuesday’s commissioners meeting. “With the announcement comes large-scale upgrades to our water system, Rockingham’s wastewater system and our fiber optic infrastructure throughout our county — all of which will come at a cost to our Richmond County taxpayers of zero.”

Stein’s office, which called the project an “innovation campus,” said the data centers will contain servers, storage drives, networking equipment and other technology.

“Artificial intelligence is changing the way we work and innovate, and I am pleased that North Carolina will stay at the forefront of all that’s ahead as we continue to attract top technology companies like Amazon,” Stein said. The governor attended a public announcement about the investment on Wednesday at an event in Hamlet.

The company said it has invested $12 billon in North Carolina since 2010 and supports 24,000 full- and part-time jobs.

Trump speaks with Xi amid stalled talks between the US and China over tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke on Thursday at a time when stalled tariff negotiations between their two countries have roiled global .

The conversation was reported by Xinhua, a Chinese state media outlet. The White House did not immediately comment.

had declared one day earlier that it was difficult to reach a deal with Xi.

“I like President XI of , always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!,” Trump posted Wednesday on his social media site.

Trade negotiations between the United States and China stalled shortly after a May 12 agreement between the two countries to reduce their tariff rates while talks played out. Behind the gridlock has been the continued competition for an economic edge.

RTX subsidiary wins $1.1B Navy contract modification

Raytheon, a subsidiary of -based Fortune 500 and contractor , has received a $1.1 billion contract modification from the to manufacture AIM-9X Block II missiles.

This is the largest contract awarded for the program, according to RTX, and will increase production to 2,500 missiles per year. The company describes the AIM-9X as “the most advanced infrared-tracking, short-range, air-to-air and surface-to-air missile.”

“This award represents a historic milestone for the AIM-9X program, further emphasizing its importance to the U.S. and partnered nations,” Barbara Borgonovi, president of Naval Power at , said in a statement. “Through our partnership with the U.S. Navy, we are well-positioned to support this increased demand.”

According to the , other components of the contract modification include support equipment, maintenance and sectionalization kits, spare parts and containers.

Work will be performed at numerous sites throughout the country and is expected to be completed by October 2028. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

RTX has more than 185,000 employees globally and reported more than $80.73 billion in 2024 sales. The contractor is Virginia’s second-highest ranked company on the 2025 Fortune 500.

BAE Systems lands $1.2B contract for missile-tracking satellite cluster

BAE Systems Inc.’s Space and Mission Systems business has won a $1.2 billion U.S. contract to provide a constellation of missile-tracking , Space Systems Command announced Monday.

Based in , Systems Inc. is the U.S. arm of British giant BAE Systems. Its Space and Mission Systems business is based in Broomfield, Colorado.

Under the contract awarded on May 29, BAE Systems will provide 10 Epoch 2 space vehicles for the Space Force’s Resilient Missile Warning Tracking architecture in Medium Earth Orbit.

Space Force’s Resilient MWT MEO program is focused on acquiring infrared sensing technology and integrating it into a new satellite constellation in medium Earth orbit. The satellites are designed to detect and track a range of threats, from intercontinental ballistic missile launches to maneuvering hypersonic missiles, according to a news release.

Epoch 2’s primary purpose is delivering resilient global hypersonic missile tracking access. BAE Systems is scheduled to deliver satellites every two years, and the first delivery of Epoch 2 is planned for fiscal 2029.

The Space Force’s MWT program could support President Donald ‘s $175 billion missile defense system formalized in an executive order on Jan. 27. In May, Trump announced he had chosen the concept for the program from three options the developed, according to Associated Press reporting.

Trump also tapped Gen. Michael Guetlein, Space Force’s vice chief of space operations, to oversee the system’s development.

Lt. Col. Brandon Castillo, materiel leader in the Epoch 2 program office, said in a statement: “Epoch 2 is in alignment with the chief of space operation’s top priority to provide accurate real-time information to decision-makers. This allows for additional resiliency in the missile warning and tracking satellite architecture.”

Boeing subsidiary Millennium Space Systems and -based RTX won contracts for Epoch 1 space vehicles in 2021. RTX, which was contracted to build three satellites, was later removed, and instead Millennium received a contract in October 2024 to build six more satellites for a total of 12.

BAE Systems Inc. has about 41,000 employees worldwide and reported $16.85 billion in 2024 sales.

Virginia Congress members press for details on Fort Eustis layoffs

SUMMARY:

  • A bipartisan group of Virginia congressional lawmakers is demanding transparency on the Army’s plan to move () headquarters from Fort Eustis, , to Texas.
  • Officials are concerned about potential mass at Newport News base.
  • Merger follows a directive from the Secretary of Pete Hegseth to consolidate commands and cut redundant operations.

A bipartisan group of Virginia congressional officials sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George Tuesday seeking more transparency regarding plans to move the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) headquarters from Fort Eustis in Newport News to Austin, Texas.

Last month, George told the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that TRADOC would be merged with the Army Futures Command (AFC) in Austin to form a new command — the Army Transformation and Training Command.

However, the announcement raised questions about how many military and civilian staff would be impacted and which TRADOC functions would relocate to Austin. Maj. Chris Robinson, a TRADOC spokesperson, said last week that more updates were expected to be revealed in mid-June.

The lack of details prompted Tuesday’s letter from the bipartisan delegation, which includes several representatives, seeking more information on the merger.

The letter stated that, based on discussions with Army senior leaders over the past several weeks, the delegation learned that AFC will retain a four-star general in Austin, but that TRADOC will not retain a four-star general in Fort Eustis. It also said it is unclear how many service members and their families will relocate, what facility impacts will be and whether there would be cost savings from eliminating redundant roles and responsibilities between the two commands.

“We have received a number of troubling updates from other community stakeholders that lead us to believe the impacts on Virginia will be more substantial than the Army has shared with Congress thus far,” the letter states. “We appreciate that analysis is ongoing, but we urgently require clarification.”

The delegation heard that TRADOC’s G-2 section at Fort Eustis, consisting of approximately 250 positions, may be eliminated as part of the consolidation. Delegation members were also told that the Center for Initial Military Training at Fort Eustis may be folded under a staff directorate and that the headquarters staff of the three-star general at Fort Eustis may be reduced to 20 to 25 soldiers, with ongoing general staff reductions projected to be between 20 and 80 personnel.

“We agree that ruthless prioritization is necessary to ‘deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure, and eliminate waste and obsolete programs,’” the letter states. “At the same time, we believe these changes must be made with precision, underpinned by clear analysis, and executed effectively.”

The letter was signed by Republican U.S. Reps. Rob Wittman, Ben Cline, , Jennifer Kiggans and Morgan Griffith; Democratic U.S. Reps. , , Eugene Vindman, Don Beyer and Suhas Subramanyam, as well as Democratic U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner. The group stated that they wish to receive the complete analysis that led to the proposed merger of TRADOC and AFC.

The delegation also requested an anticipated timeline for the proposed merger, a discussion of any associated risks identified by the Army in completing the analysis and budget and funding information about the merger. They requested the information be received by June 10.

TRADOC, created on July 1, 1973, trains more than 750,000 soldiers and service members annually. Its headquarters have been based at Fort Eustis since 2011. Robinson said the command has more than 35,000 military and civilians worldwide. Of this, approximately 2,000 are based at Fort Eustis, and of those, about 800 personnel are tied to the headquarters component of TRADOC.

The planned merger follows a directive from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to transform and streamline the military and eliminate “wasteful spending.” In an April 30 memo from Hegseth to senior Pentagon leadership, he directed the Secretary of the Army to merge the AFC with TRADOC as a way to “downsize, consolidate, or close redundant headquarters.”

The delegation’s letter says a successful merger of TRADOC and AFC requires “a detailed and viable plan.”

“I am committed to working with Secretary Driscoll and General George to ensure that our Army is lethal, ready and prepared for the next fight,” Wittman said in a statement. “In order to work effectively with Army leaders, we must make sure that we fully understand the analysis effort that supports the changes proposed by the Army Transformation Initiative–in sending this letter, I hope to open a productive dialogue with the Army about how to best achieve the vision set forth in ATI and preserve the critical mission of Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).”

Robinson said TRADOC had no further updates to provide since last week.

Old Dominion Job Corps to lay off 130 in Amherst

Amherst County-based Old Dominion Center will lay off 130 workers by June 30, due to President Donald ‘s administration ordering the closures of contractor-run Job Corps centers across the nation.

Old Dominion, in compliance with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, notified the state Tuesday of plans to lay off the employees due to the of the Job Corps site.

The U.S. Department of announced on May 29 it would begin a phased pause in operations at contractor-operated Job Corps centers nationwide, with all operations closed by June 30. The Job Corps program provides students ages 16-24 with education, vocational training and job placement assistance. Blue Ridge Job Corps Center in Smyth County is also slated for closure.

The Labor Department said the decision followed an internal review of the program’s outcomes and structure and that the closures aligned with Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal. Tens of thousands of federal this year have been cut in an effort by the to slash federal spending.

According to the Labor Department, the Job Corps program faced significant financial challenges and operated at a $140 million deficit for the 2024 program year, with the deficit projected to reach $213 million for 2025.

The Labor Department’s and Training Administration on April 25 released the first-ever Job Corps Transparency Report, which the department says analyzed the financial performance and operational costs of the most recently available metrics of program year 2023. The Labor Department said in a summary of findings from the report that the average graduation rate was 38.6%, the average cost per student per year was about $80,285, the average total cost per graduate was roughly $155,600 and that, post separation, participants earn $16,695 annually on average.

The summary also reported 14,913 serious incident reports for program year 2023, including instances of inappropriate sexual behavior and sexual assaults, acts of violence, breaches of safety or security, reported drug uses and total hospital visits.

Democratic U.S. Sens. Mark. Warner and Tim Kaine last week released a joint statement condemning the closures, saying the move would “abruptly eliminate crucial job training for thousands of young Americans and cut nearly 13,000 jobs across the program’s 99 centers.”

did not immediately return requests for comment.