An active-duty service member who was convicted for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol is now pleading for home confinement, rather than probation, so that he’s allowed to remain in the Navy. Leading Petty Officer David Elizalde urged the judge to sentence him to two weeks of home detention, as well as community service and restitution. The rules of home detention would allow Elizalde to continue working during the week. In a sentencing memorandum filed Wednesday, Elizalde’s attorney, Stephen Brennwald, said he was told by a Navy officer that sailors on probation ..read more

A review by the Department of Veterans Affairs could lead to automatic disability benefits for troops who served in the nuclear missile community, including at Air Force bases where the service is studying if airmen stationed there have been disproportionately diagnosed with cancer. The VA said in an April 12 letter to the Torchlight Initiative, a volunteer organization formed to advocate on behalf of airmen as the missile community’s cancer concerns began emerging early last year, that it is considering whether to establish a presumption that those troops were exposed to carcinogens as part o ..read more

A new agreement between the Pentagon and State Department will ease some restrictions for federally employed military spouses who want to take their careers with them when moving overseas. The memo, signed during a White House ceremony Wednesday by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Verma, strengthens the Domestic Employees Teleworking Overseas (DETO) program for military spouses. “We are enabling federally employed military spouses to work remotely from where their service member is stationed overseas and continue their professions with as little ..read more

A senior airman assigned to the 38th Rescue Squadron died during a deployment to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, on Wednesday. The Air Force said Senior Airman Marcus Jordan, 28, was found unresponsive at Andersen and pronounced dead after receiving medical care around 2:30 p.m. local time. Air Force: Airman drowned after ‘cardiac event’ on Jet Ski The Air Force is investigating Jordan’s death. He had traveled to Guam from Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. “Senior Airman Jordan exemplified the very best of what it means to live by our values: courage, dedication, and selflessness. His commitment t ..read more

Testing on dogs, cats and nonhuman primates by the Department of Veterans Affairs is set to be largely eliminated by 2026, an issue praised this week both in Congress and by advocates, but which others have previously asserted could impair the discovery of future medical advancements. The move, included in the VA’s fiscal year 2024 spending bill that was signed into law in March, restricts the department from conducting certain research on the animals in the future. “VA is on the cutting edge of research, and I am proud to say that it will be eliminating the use of research on animals within t ..read more

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden suggested not once, but twice that the remains of his uncle, Second Lt. Ambrose Finnegan, were unable to be recovered “because there used to be a lot of cannibals” in the southwestern Pacific. Serving in the U.S. Army Air Force during the Second World War, Finnegan was a passenger of an A-20 Havoc, when, for “unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea,” according to an account published by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting agency. “Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard ..read more

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the base lockdown has been lifted. A lockdown at a North Dakota Air Force base has been lifted several hours after a report of a gunshot shut down operations. The Grand Forks Air Force Base said in a social media post Wednesday that security at the base received a report of a single gunshot near the medical clinic and base exchange around 1 p.m. The lockdown was ordered “out of an abundance of caution,” the statement said. No injuries were reported. Security officers did not locate a source of the sound after a door-to-door sweep. Gran ..read more

Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling on veterans education benefits could provide an extra year of federal tuition payments to millions of student veterans, but when officials might start doling out the payouts — if at all — remains unclear. In the 7-2 ruling, justices said that veterans can use both the Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits and Montgomery GI Bill benefits to pay for college classes if they meet eligibility for both programs. Veterans Affairs officials had required veterans attending school to choose one and forfeit the other. But in the opinion for the majority of the court, Justice Ketanji B ..read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Kristin Paniptchuk’s water broke on Christmas Eve at her home in the western Alaska Inupiat village of Shaktoolik, and then she began to bleed profusely. The local clinic in the tiny village of 200 people on the Bering Sea couldn’t stop the bleeding or the contractions brought on by a baby that wasn’t due for another two months. With harsh winds grounding an air ambulance from nearby Nome, medical staff called on their only other option: the Alaska Air National Guard. Five days after a military helicopter and then a cargo plane whisked Paniptchuk to an Anchorage hospital, s ..read more

Ukraine and Israel both desperately need the military weapons that are being held up by Congress’ failure to pass a funding package for the two countries at war, Pentagon leaders told House appropriators Wednesday, calling the situation in Ukraine dire. “Whether it’s munitions, whether it’s vehicles, whether it’s platforms,” Ukraine is being outmatched by the Russians, Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. “I’ll just tell you that Ukraine right now is facing some dire battlefield conditions.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, se ..read more