Mayor Jessie M. Rattley presented the ship with a commemorative plaque containing the poem "Newport News," written by Newport News native Ronald W. Bell, whose poem "Admiral Rickover" also appears upon a plaque aboard the Los Angeles-class submarine Hyman G. Rickover.

On 8 January 2007, Newport News was operating submerged in the Arabian Sea south of the Straits of Hormuz when the submarine hit Japanese tanker Mogamigawa.

The Carrier Strike Group was redeploying to the Indian Ocean to support a maritime cordon during the war in Somalia when the incident happened.

An official of the Kawasaki Kisen Company (or K Line), which owns the tanker, announced that Mogamigawa's hull and propellers were damaged.

[12] On 2 October 2007 the US Navy agreed to pay Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd, the company that owns Mogamigawa an undisclosed amount in compensation for the collision.