Former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter dead at 68

Former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter has died at the age of 68 after suffering a “sudden cardiac event,” his family said in a statement Tuesday.

“It is with deep and profound sadness that the family of former Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter shares that Secretary Carter passed away Monday evening in Boston,” the family wrote.

Carter, known as “Ash,” served under former President Barack Obama as the nation’s 25th defense secretary from 2015 to 2017, during which he launched the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria...