ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 23, 2026--
Leonardo DRS, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRS) today announced the official opening of its new, state-of-the-art naval power and propulsion manufacturing and testing facility in the Charleston, South Carolina region. The more than 140,000-square-foot facility is a major investment to expand domestic production capacity in support of U.S. Navy submarine and shipbuilding programs, including systems for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program.
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The purpose-built facility provides advanced manufacturing, final assembly, integration, and testing space dedicated to large components for Leonardo DRS’s naval electric power and propulsion systems. In addition to electric propulsion and power generation systems, the site supports naval steam turbine system design, manufacturing, and testing.
“This strategic investment is a national asset and represents our commitment to supporting the U.S. Navy’s efforts to increase production capacity across the submarine and shipbuilding industrial base,” said Jon Miller, senior vice president and general manager of the Leonardo DRS Naval Power Systems business unit. “This advanced multi-purpose facility enables us to increase production capacity, streamline our production processes, and rapidly respond to evolving fleet requirements.”
John Baylouny, president and CEO of Leonardo DRS, added: “The Department of War has been clear about the need to strengthen and expand the defense industrial base, and this investment answers that call. By increasing capacity and modernizing our manufacturing infrastructure, we are ensuring the U.S. military has reliable access to the critical capabilities it needs, when and where they are needed.”
As the Navy fields more power-intensive weapons, sensors, and computing systems, scalable integrated power architectures are essential to mission success. The Charleston facility positions Leonardo DRS to deliver those architectures at scale and with the schedule reliability required for next-generation surface combatants and submarines.
Leonardo DRS designs and delivers advanced power and propulsion solutions engineered for the world’s most demanding maritime and battlefield environments. Our technologies enable the U.S. Navy and allied forces to support advanced sensors, directed-energy systems, high-performance computing, and propulsion across surface ships, submarines, and ground platforms. From Columbia-class submarine power and propulsion systems to hybrid electric drive and onboard power solutions, Leonardo DRS is designing and delivering proven, reliable, and cost-effective capabilities backed by decades of operational performance.
About Leonardo DRS
Leonardo DRS Inc. (Nasdaq: DRS) is at the forefront of developing transformative defense technologies using its proven agility and delivering innovative solutions for U.S. national security customers and allies worldwide. We specialize in rapidly providing high-performance, multi-domain capabilities across next-generation advanced sensing, network computing, force protection, and electric power and propulsion. Our reputation as a trusted provider is built on a continuous focus on practical innovation, delivering quality, and meeting our customers’ most demanding mission requirements. For further information on our complete range of capabilities, visit www.LeonardoDRS.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This communication contains statements that constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements reflect current expectations, assumptions and estimates of future performance and economic conditions. The company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements which include contract values, contract performance and our development and production of products are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results and future trends to differ materially from those matters expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Leonardo DRS Naval Power and Propulsion facility, Charleston, South Carolina.
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing, with Channing Tatum, Olivia Wilde and Charli xcx movies premiering back-to-back at the storied Eccles Theatre on Friday evening in Park City.
First up was “Josephine,” writer-director Beth De Araújo’s raw drama about an 8-year-old girl (Mason Reeves) whose life and sense of safety is upended after she witnesses a sexual assault in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Tatum and Gemma Chan play the parents who are unsure how to help her navigate these new emotions and fears. The film, which is part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition, is based on De Araújo’s own experience of seeing something scarring at that age.
There wasn’t a seat to spare, and over 400 people on the waitlist were unable to get in. Afterward the crowd gave a long standing ovation as the filmmaker and actors came onstage for a Q&A.
Araújo discovered Reeves at a San Francisco farmer's market, where she told her mother she was casting for someone to play Tatum and Chan's daughter.
Reeves said one of her favorite parts of the film was a scene in which she and Tatum eat a jelly doughnut.
“I only ate the outside and fed the jelly part to him,” Reeves said.
Tatum chimed in: “That is true.”
He also praised his young co-star, saying “how good is she?” He watched the film for the first time with the Sundance audience and said he cried “five, six, seven times.”
The next film, Gregg Araki’s “I Want Your Sex,” will bring a distinct change in tone to the Eccles. It’s the story of a college graduate in his early 20s (played by Cooper Hoffman ) who gets his first job as a kind of intern/assistant to a renowned art world provocateur named Erika Tracy (Wilde), who Arkai described as “bold, daring and very controversial,” a cross between Robert Mapplethorpe and Madonna.
“It’s the story of their affairs and the impact it has on this kid’s life and how it kind of turns his whole world upside down,” Araki told The Associated Press. “It’s fun, it’s colorful, it’s sexy. And it’s a ride.”
It’s a film that Araki has been working on for over 10 years, as it evolved from a comic “Fifty Shades of Grey” with a female intern to what it is now.
“After #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein, all the stuff that was going on, it was literally like, I don’t really want to see a woman getting dragged around by the hair,” Araki said. “I don’t want to seed that kind of patriarchal dynamic, even if it’s consensual.”
Flipping the gender roles and making the young intern a man made the movie more interesting for Araki, “as a filmmaker who has always been heavily influenced by feminist film theory and feminism in general,” he said.
At the same time, he was absorbing news stories about Gen Z and how they don’t have sex or relationships anymore and a new dynamic emerged.
“What I knew as an old person, as an old-timer, in terms of socialization, dating, sex, all of this stuff that seemed to be kind of falling away,” Araki said. “And so that kind of became a major theme of the movie.”
Things Wilde’s character says are things he has also said in interviews about sex and sexuality. Her character gets into generational debates about it. And ultimately it's sex positive.
“It was very important to me to make something sex positive,” Araki said. “’I Want Your Sex’ is like the opposite of ‘Babygirl,’ which I found to be very sex negative.”
The film also features a supporting turn from Charli xcx, who was a fan of Araki and whose “Brat” album cover was partially inspired by the title credits to his film “Smiley Face.” When she heard about this new movie, he said, she asked if she could be in it. He was interested, but told her agent that she needed to do a self-tape “like everyone else” to play the part of Hoffman’s girlfriend.
“The character is not her. That’s what’s so fun,” he said. “She’s American, she’s super uptight and kind of pill.”
She filmed her scenes in one day, on a two-day break in the middle of her Brat tour.
“I don’t want to give it away, but she’s in one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie where her and Cooper’s character are having kind of bad sex,” he said.
Those who stick around at the Eccles after “I Want Your Sex” will get a Charli xcx double feature, with the world premiere of her self-referential mockumentary “The Moment,” about a rising pop star, before it hits theaters on Jan. 30.
Earlier Friday the world premiere of William David Caballero's mixed-media film “TheyDream” immersed viewers in the intimate story of a Puerto Rican family learning to process grief through art. Caballero and cowriter Elaine Del Valle have screened short films at Sundance in the past but were honored to bring a full-length feature to the festival.
“Sundance has always been about possibility for me — about artists being given space to take creative risks and tell personal stories,” Del Valle, who is also a producer on the film, told AP. “Bringing our first feature, especially in Sundance's final year in Utah, carries a different weight.”
Associated Press writer Hannah Schoenbaum contributed.
For more coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival
Pedestrians pass down Main Street before the start of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Channing Tatum, from left, Mason Reeves, and Gemma Chan attend the premiere of "Josephine" during the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at Eccles Center in Park City, Utah. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
