Service members arrived over the weekend at Guantanamo Bay, where they’ll work to prepare the Navy base in southeast Cuba for an influx of deported migrants.

Marines with the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division boarded a KC-130J at Cherry Point Air Station in North Carolina on Sunday and departed for Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. There, they joined personnel from U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Army South, bringing the total number of service members deployed to the base for the migrant holding operation to 150.

The Marines and soldiers will provide support for a White House plan to deport immigrants lacking permanent legal status from the United States and detain them at the base. This comes as part of a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump, announced Jan. 29, to use Guantanamo as a holding ground for “high-priority criminal aliens.”

Trump said he was directing an expansion of a detention center on the naval base to hold up to 30,000 migrants.

Trump says he’ll send ‘worst’ criminal migrants to Guantanamo base

“This memorandum is issued in order to halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels, and restore national sovereignty,” reads the White House memorandum that directed the expansion of such a facility.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a Jan. 31 interview on Fox News that the U.S. military would “be a key element of expulsions and mass deportations.”

If immigrants lacking legal status are unable to be sent back to their home country or an interim destination, Hegseth explained, they will be held at Guantanamo. He referred to the Navy base a “transit hub.”

The holding operations at Guantanamo are being led by the Department of Homeland Security.

“It’s a good solution for us and can be stood up quite quickly,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said of the expanded detention center during an interview with Fox News on Sunday.

In the interview, Noem urged Congress to approve more funding for DHS that would allow the department to build more detention centers, prosecute criminal migrants and “fix our legal immigration system.”

The same day Trump announced Guantanamo Bay’s newest iteration, he signed into law the Laken Riley Act, a measure requiring DHS to detain undocumented immigrants who are arrested for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.

The dulcet sounds of Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” could be heard around the city, but it wasn’t to mark the approaching holiday season, it was the American code signaling the start of Operation Frequent Wind — the evacuation of Saigon.

Beginning on April 29, 1975, Armed Forces Radio jarringly blasted the Christmas song throughout the bombarded city as increasingly panicked American and South Vietnamese clamored to reach the safety of the U.S. Embassy and its evacuating helicopters.

For two days helicopters landed on the embassy’s roof every 10 minutes, moving more than 7,000 people out of Saigon, with the American UH-1 “Huey” helicopter becoming the iconic symbol of the American evacuation of Vietnam.

Now, as the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon approaches, Apple TV+ has delivered a six-part series that offers up a personal, unparalleled look into the decades-long conflict.

Narrated by actor Ethan Hawke, “Vietnam: The War That Changed America,” pulls over 1,100 hours of archival footage that places the interviewees — journalists and soldiers alike — back into some of the war’s most consequential events.

Military Times spoke to Caroline Marsden, one of the producers of the series, who spoke candidly about the difficulties of taking on such an expansive project and the “moments where people, in the face of the awfulness of war, do these extraordinary things.”

Vietnam represents a fracture in American society and politics, giving way to something new entirely. How much of a challenge was it to piece together such a splintered narrative?

It was difficult in the sense that you have 10 years, right? So, at that point, it was America’s longest war, longest running war, and you have, for the first time — and last time, really — documentary crews and news crews given unparalleled access to go and film. It meant that for us we had an incredible amount of material to go through. So, in that sense it was difficult, but also what an amazing problem to have.

All that filming that went on also added to the feeling of, ‘Well, what do we want to focus on, really?’ But that became much clearer as soon as we started speaking with people. Most people were out there for a year for their tour of duty, so you could kind of, over the 10 years, just track this change in the war and the people who went through it.

You pulled over 1,100 hours of archival footage for this project. What was that like in juxtaposition to interviewing the men and women today?

That was amazing. How we approached it is that we’d look at footage and see if we could find people in the archive, which is very difficult. But it was also very surreal because you have these scenes with people fighting, they’re shooting over walls, someone shooting at them, and then they have microphones put in their face and they would say their name and that sort of thing. We could track them down sometimes.

I remember in Episode Six, we have one of the Marines who was the last one at the embassy during the fall of Saigon, and we had footage, tons of footage, of the embassy. We were just showing him that, and he was like, ‘Look, there’s me!’ We actually found him a few times, and he was very moved by it.

These are major things that happened to them, that they took part in. Seeing this footage was very moving for them. It was nice to be able to show that because you don’t always know how people are going to react. We always said to them, ‘We’re going to show you something only if you want.’ They always had the option not to look at it, because it can be triggering. But most of them, all of them, wanted to see it.

In Episode Four, we interviewed a man called Bill Boyles, and he talked about how he was at university, right? And he’s watching all the footage from Huế, and he sees exactly that — he says he sees this [American soldier] behind a wall shooting at the enemy and then someone puts a mic in his face, and he says something like ‘I just want to go home and go to school.’

Boyles talks about watching that on his TV, and then deciding in that moment, ‘Why should I be out of it? Why should I be allowed to be free of this when guys like him have to go and fight?’ So, he decides that he too will go out and he will fight.

We were able to find in the archives that exact TV clip. It was exciting to have found exactly what he had watched on TV.

You anchor many of the episodes around iconic moments many Americans will know. Are there specific stories that have stuck with you personally?

People are sort of more familiar with certain battles like Hamburger Hill, for example. But people won’t necessarily know what it meant. Our approach to that was to make it personal. In Episode Four we have a nurse who was at Hamburger Hill.

Her father fought in World War II, and she couldn’t stand the protests happening on college campuses. She really felt that they were looking down on the boys that she grew up with who were being drafted and sent out to Vietnam, and that these college students were sort of shirking their duty. And she’s so angry about it, she signs up.

She talks about going down to the draft board and saying, ‘I’m a nurse, and I want to go.’ They couldn’t sign her up fast enough. Initially she’s thrilled to be out there but then she gets there and she’s seeing injuries like she’s never seen before. She talks about this slow change in her view of the war and how Hamburger Hill is happening around that time. You have all these hill battles and men are coming in with unbelievable life-changing injuries. They’re sort of patching them up, sending them back out.

And then she’s sort of going, ‘Well, what did you do? We took a hill, right?’ Then a week later, a bunch of guys coming back in saying, ‘Oh, we’re fighting at this hill.’ And she’s going, ‘But you already took that hill.’

And they’re going, ‘Well, we lost it.’ And she’s thinking, ‘What is the point?’ Young men are being injured. They will never be the same. Lots of them are dying. So, we tell the story from that time in the war through her personal perspective.

From the beginning in the documentary you can see the shift between the men who are serving in 1965-66 to the end of the war. It’s a very different perspective.

Exactly. In the first episode, we’ve got [Col. (Ret.) Ramon] “Tony” Nadal and he’s fighting the North Vietnamese Army in what is almost a traditional battle, right? And then at the same time, we meet the Tunnel Rats, the guys who are discovering that there’s a whole other guerrilla force in the South sympathetic to the communists in the North.

This is a whole new, different type of warfare, different battle strategies. You’re hearing a first-person account of someone who’s a bit like, ‘Holy shit, I have to go in there.’

There have been connections made between the fall of Saigon and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. After interviewing and viewing extensive archival film, would you consider that accurate?

I have yet to do a documentary about [Afghanistan], so I’ll have to get back to you on that! But on its face, it does seem to have the same sort of similarly wild scenes.

In the series, journalist Hilary Brown talks about how all the journalists are taking bets on how quickly this [fall] will happen. And, wow, it happened very quickly.

There are these sorts of wild escapes at the last minute, but also the sort of extraordinary decisions that were made at that time. I think those are one of the things we focus on in the series, these small shards of light — moments where people, in the face of the awfulness of war, do these extraordinary things.

I do think it’s worth clinging on to those moments as examples of what we can do as human beings.

“Vietnam: The War That Changed America” is available to stream on Apple TV+.

Texas National Guard soldiers now have the authority to make immigration arrests and help detain and deport undocumented people under an agreement between the state and the Trump administration that requires those duties be done under the supervision and direction of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official.

Guard members exercising the authority must be in contact at all times with a CBP official, but that can be through cellphone, radio or other technology, according to a copy of the agreement released by Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.

Texas sends more than 400 Guardsmen to US-Mexico border

“This boosts manpower for border security,” Abbott said in a Sunday social media post about the agreement — the details of which were first reported by Breitbart Texas.

The Texas Military Department referred questions to Abbott’s office. CBP did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

The partnership is Texas’ latest move to help President Donald Trump accomplish his promise to carry out mass deportations and seal the U.S.-Mexico border, which has seen illegal crossings plummet for months since hitting record highs in December 2023.

Last week Abbott deployed more than 400 state National Guard soldiers to the border to collaborate with U.S. Border Patrol agents and ordered state police to help find and arrest undocumented immigrants who have arrest warrants.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Sunday that his office had also signed an agreement with the Trump administration “to formally assist with and facilitate” mass deportations, but it was not clear what the agreement entailed. Paxton’s office did not respond Monday to a request for more information.

In the past, National Guard troops and active-duty military have filled “logistical, back-office, air support and observation” roles to help Border Patrol, said Gil Kerlikowske, former CBP commissioner during the Obama administration. If troops encountered undocumented immigrants, they would typically notify CBP — who would handle apprehensions and processing of migrants.

Now soldiers are being deputized and given arrest powers.

Kerlikowske added that it’s not clear that the move is necessary given the fact that border crossings have been dropping for months.

“Given the numbers right now and the numbers that have gone on for these last couple of months, it really seems that CBP is not overwhelmed or overburdened by what’s going on,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like there is any operational need for them.”

Trump and his advisers have previously said they want to use the military to help carry out deportations to help overcome logistical challenges of arresting, jailing and then deporting people en masse.

In the administration’s first two weeks, Trump began his immigration crackdown with a flurry of executive actions.

He ended the use of an app that asylum-seeking migrants used to secure an appointment with federal immigration officials. He gave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials a daily arrest quota. He expanded the use of a fast-track deportation process in which people can be removed without a hearing before an immigration judge; it can now be used across the country. He tossed policies that limited arrests at sensitive locations like churches and schools.

Texas will not be reimbursed for the costs associated with the agreement it made with CBP, according to the agreement. While CBP won’t be required to cover expenses, the agreement says that Texas will keep records of expenditures should CBP choose to reimburse certain costs.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune under the headline “Texas National Guard to make immigration arrests under agreement with Trump administration, Abbott says.” Military Times has modified the headline.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

About 1,000 military families have experienced missed pickup or delivery dates, communications issues or other problems with the new contractor tasked with overhauling the system for moving service members’ household goods.

That’s about 20% of the 5,195 relocation orders for shipments sent to the contractor, HomeSafe Alliance, since last April, when U.S. Transportation Command began slowly phasing in the new system. Of those shipment orders, 1,737 have been picked up, and 922 have been delivered, said Andy Dawson, director of the Defense Personal Property Management Office at TRANSCOM, during a call with reporters.

“There have been issues. HomeSafe has acknowledged them, and we have acknowledged them. In a program this size, and transformational, it’s to be expected,” Dawson said.

TRANSCOM is committed to the new system, called the Global Household Goods Contract, or GHC, Dawson said, and they are working with HomeSafe to address the problems. He urged service members and families to contact the local shipping offices at their installations about problems with HomeSafe or with movers under the legacy system.

The new system is designed to fix long-standing problems with missed pickup and delivery dates, broken and lost items and issues with claims. Those problems culminated in the summer of 2018, when moving companies didn’t have enough packers, truckers and other workers to handle the number of moves. That lack of capacity has been a problem for years.

Under GHC, one entity – HomeSafe Alliance – is now held accountable for the entire process, although TRANSCOM maintains oversight.

“GHC is here. GHC is the department’s future household goods relocation program,” Dawson said. “And despite some of the early challenges we’ve seen, we see many positive aspects of GHC, and we truly believe this will improve the service member relocation experience.”

This move was a ‘living nightmare’ — and it’s just one example from a brutal PCS season for troops, families

In January, TRANSCOM was putting 17% of shipment orders into the new system, with the remainder staying in the legacy system. The goal is to move all domestic shipments under GHC by this year’s busier moving season, which hits around April and May.

A decision is expected soon about when to crank up the volume to the next level. HomeSafe is already conducting – or scheduled to conduct – shipments in 43 states, including the majority of the high-volume locations and lanes in the military, Dawson said.

When asked about military families’ problems with missed pick-up or delivery dates, HomeSafe officials told Military Times that less than half of TRANSCOM’s reported 1,000 issues are related to missed pick-up or delivery dates. In some cases, HomeSafe adjusted pickup and delivery dates at the request of service members. According to the contractor, those adjustments are counted as delays.

“We have provided timely service in the vast majority of moves we have facilitated,” HomeSafe officials said.

The percentage of shipments under the new system is still small, as TRANSCOM has used a phased, “crawl-walk-run” approach to avoid risk to a system that moves about 300,000 shipments a year.

HomeSafe is prepared to start making all domestic moves before this year’s peak moving season, the contractor told Military Times. Officials said their network of movers grows every day as the volume of moves increases. These movers, many of whom participate in the legacy system, do the packing, loading, trucking, unpacking and other functions of a household goods move.

One key issue is moving capacity — the number of moving companies, large and small, that are willing to do business with HomeSafe. Some movers have told Military Times they can’t afford to do business at the rates paid under GHC. The reduction varies, but TRANSCOM officials acknowledged moving companies are getting about 20% less than what they are paid in the legacy system.

The government accepted HomeSafe’s rates under the contract, and HomeSafe wasn’t the lowest bidder in the contract, Dawson said.

Will most troops move under new household goods program in 2025?

About 900 companies traditionally have participated in the legacy system, under individual arrangements with TRANSCOM regarding rates. Under GHC, there’s one rate for individual locations and hauling lanes, also dependent on the shipment weight and other factors.

TRANSCOM officials didn’t say how many movers had signed up with HomeSafe. “We do have an expectation that HomeSafe will build that capacity. They have shared with us they have signed master service agreements [with movers] to be able to cover the requirements,” Dawson said.

“What we’re hearing and seeing is that despite the master service agreement, there may be companies that are not taking the business because they are experiencing the [difference] in cost that they would make under the [legacy system],” he added.

HomeSafe officials said they can’t speak to why moving companies are now refusing shipments after they had already signed up with HomeSafe, knowing the rates.

“We are facing headwinds from those in the moving industry who oppose this transformation that military families have repeatedly asked for and deserve,” they said. “These opponents are pressuring moving companies not to work with HomeSafe.”

Under HomeSafe’s model and based on their “bottom-up, market-based” research, “HomeSafe’s moving partners earn reasonable profits working with us,” those officials insisted.

Meanwhile, TRANSCOM’s Dawson said there’s not enough moving capacity in the legacy program. And in 2024, service members’ overall satisfaction rate with their move under the legacy program was 77%. “Tens of thousands of service members” are being affected by the legacy program, he said.

While officials are committed to the Global Household Goods program, they are watching the performance of HomeSafe, Dawson and other officials said. “Show cause” letters have been issued to HomeSafe, primarily related to missed pickups, said Kenneth Brennan, director of acquisition at TRANSCOM. When TRANSCOM officials identify a problem, they send these formal requests for information about the cause and what corrective action is being taken.

In addition, if HomeSafe meets the key performance metrics of the contract, they are awarded the option to continue. If not, the contract will be competed again. TRANSCOM awarded the $6.2 billion contract — with options worth up to a potential $17.9 billion over nine years — to HomeSafe Alliance, a consortium of companies. Work began in early 2023 after contract protests ended.

Roadblocks cleared for $6.2 billion reform of household goods moves

Under the new system, HomeSafe is fully responsible for shipments, from the time a moving company is assigned to packing, hauling and unloading. The alliance also handles any claims for loss or damage.

The International Association of Movers has cited concerns that the “one-size-fits-all approach endorsed by TRANSCOM ignores the nuanced realities of military moves, where local expertise and established relationships are critical.”

“What will happen when TRANSCOM decides to push all the moves into the new system after it has demonstrated it cannot handle this small volume?” the association asked in an editorial posted on its website.

In addition, the association cautioned that “the sheer scale of the transition, combined with tight and ever-changing timelines, creates a high risk of operational failure during the initial phases.

“Such disruptions risk diminishing moving capacity for the U.S. military and degrading service quality for military families,” the editorial reads.

The U.S. Marine Corps released a revised aviation strategy Monday that focuses on using autonomous systems, drones and artificial intelligence-driven software to ensure its aircraft fleet can survive in a fierce war zone.

And the Corps is also shifting its procurement plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to buy more carrier-based F-35Cs and fewer of the B variants that can hover and vertically land.

The Corps billed its 2025 Marine Corps Aviation Plan, the service’s first in three years, as a “roadmap to enhancing operational readiness and ensuring Marine aviation remains a lethal force.” A centerpiece of the plan, signed by deputy commandant for aviation Lt. Gen. Bradford Gering, is a modernization strategy the Corps calls “Project Eagle.”

“We are committed to shaping a future aviation force that is ready, resilient and capable of rapidly responding to emerging threats, wherever they may arise,” Col. Derek Brannon of Headquarters Marine Corps Aviation said. “Project Eagle builds on the progress we’ve made, and it prepares us to embrace technological innovation while ensuring we can deliver combat power across all domains.”

Project Eagle focuses on using advanced technology like AI alongside new concepts for generating Marine airpower, such as distributed aviation operations and decision-centric aviation operations, to ensure its aircraft can fight and operate in highly contested environments.

Distributed aviation operations focus on coordinating how the Marine Corps uses its aviation squadrons, command-and-control agencies, aviation logistics and ground support units, spread out across battlefields in a way that makes it harder for enemies to target them. This can include pushing command-and-control authorities to lower levels and keeping forces moving.

The decision-centric aviation operations concept aims to rapidly accelerate how quickly aviation elements make choices using cutting-edge technologies such as AI.

To become a “data centric and data enabled organization,” the plan said, Marine aviation needs to invest in infrastructure, personnel and training and make “transformative” leaps to use cutting-edge technologies.

“Linear incremental change will not be sufficient,” the plan said.

The plan also calls for Marine aviation to dedicate resources and funding to develop advanced capabilities such as future drones supporting logistics, advancements in aircraft survivability and “manned-unmanned teaming,” or pairing crewed aircraft with autonomous drone wingmen.

The Marine Corps is also shifting its F-35 plans to buy more carrier-based F-35Cs and fewer short takeoff and vertical landing F-35Bs as part of the plan, although the total number of Joint Strike Fighters the service plans to buy will remain unchanged at 420.

The Corps now plans to buy 280 F-35Bs and 140 F-35Cs, more than doubling the number of F-35Cs included in the 2022 plan, which called for 353 F-35Bs and 67 F-35Cs.

The Marines intend to transition four Marine Fighter Attack Squadrons — VMFA-232, VMFA-323, VMFA-112 and VMFA-134 — to F-35C squadrons, leaving the Corps with 12 F-35B squadrons and 8 F-35C squadrons.

The Corps expects to have 183 F-35Bs and 52 F-35Cs delivered by the end of 2025, according to the plan. The service aims to accelerate research and development on drone wingmen, known as collaborative combat aircraft, and get them flying alongside F-35s.

The plan also focuses on improving how the Marine Corps sustains its aircraft and said traditional methods that were previously effective “are no longer sufficient to meet the challenges operating in current and future contested environments.”

Sustainment changes being planned by the Corps include redesigning support equipment to make them more efficient, safe and effective; modernizing training systems; making greater use of additive manufacturing, digital modeling and other technologies to improve the supply chain; and encouraging aviation sustainment Marines to innovate and experiment to find better ways to keep aircraft flying.

Two soldiers with the 3rd Infantry Division died last week after sustaining injuries during a vehicle training exercise near Fort Stewart, Georgia, the Army said.

Staff Sgt. Shelbe Butner, 28, and Spc. Jacob Mullen, 25, were conducting a combat training exercise Thursday under blackout conditions when the tactical vehicle they were driving rolled off the road and into standing water. Soldiers from their unit arrived on the scene to perform first aid until the fire department and emergency services responded. Attempts to save their lives were unsuccessful.

“Our hearts are broken at this devastating loss,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commanding general, said in a statement. “Shelbe and Jacob were honored and highly respected Soldiers of the Marne Division, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and fellow Soldiers at this incredibly difficult time.”

Butner and Mullen were motor transport operators assigned to the 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.

Marine dies in Humvee rollover at California combat training center

Butner served in the Army for nine years, receiving the Meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Air Assault Badge and Drill Sergeant Badge. Mullen, who served for seven years, previously deployed to Poland and received the Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon.

The U.S. Army’s Combat Readiness Center, the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division and the 18th Airborne Corps are investigating the incident.

Vehicle rollovers and ensuing injuries or fatalities have been a problem for the Army, as well as other services, in the past.

In 2021, the Government Accountability Office published a report recommending additional safety measures to prevent vehicle training accidents, which they attributed to a lack of training, among other causes.

Between 2010 and 2019, there were 3,091 Army tactical vehicle accidents, 726 of which involved rollovers, according to the report.

In that same time span, vehicle accidents involving Army and Marine Corps personnel resulted in 123 deaths, the report said.

In July 2024, a Marine died in a Humvee rollover at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California.

The Army on Saturday released the name of the third soldier who died Wednesday when an Army helicopter collided with an American Airlines jet as it approached Ronald Reagan National Airport near D.C.

Cpt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, N.C., served as an Army aviation officer since July 2019. Her awards include an Army commendation medal and an achievement medal.

In a statement released by the Army, her family said she was a distinguished military graduate in ROTC at the University of North Carolina, and was in the top 20% of cadets nationwide. They said she had more than 450 hours of flight time, and earned “certification as a pilot-in-command after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion.”

The family also noted that she served as a certified sexual harassment/assault response and prevention victim advocate and hoped to become a physician when she got out of the Army.

“We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. She was a bright star in all our lives. She was kind, generous, brilliant, funny, ambitious and strong. No one dreamed bigger or worked harder to achieve her goals,” the statement said, adding, “we request that you please respect our privacy as we grieve this devastating loss.”

The names of the two other soldiers were released on Friday, but Lobach’s name was withheld at the time at the request of her family. The others were: Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O’Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, who was the crew chief, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, who was a pilot.

“Our deepest condolences go out to all the families and friends impacted during this tragedy, and we will support them through this difficult time. Our top priority is to assist in the recovery efforts, while fully cooperating with the @NTSB, @FAA, and other investigative… pic.twitter.com/wyQ0WBaMKv

— U.S. Army (@USArmy) January 31, 2025

There has been no specific explanation from the Army for the one-day delay in releasing her name. But while the investigation into the crash has only just begun, President Donald Trump has publicly blamed the helicopter for flying at too high an altitude.

He also issued a lengthy critique about an FAA diversity hiring initiative — particularly regarding air traffic controllers — saying they eroded flight safety.

No evidence has emerged that rules seeking to diversify the FAA played any role in the collision.

A third-party Navy SEAL instructor who led a strenuous training session that led to the hospitalization of lacrosse players at Tufts University appeared to lack credentials to supervise group exercise, and the university should enact stricter procedures for workouts, according to an independent review released Friday.

The Tufts men’s lacrosse team and two other students participated in the workout led by a recent graduate of the Boston-area university who was a former lacrosse team equipment manager and current Navy SEAL, the review noted. The September 2024 workout was “unusually intense,” and resulted in 24 of the 61 participants developing rhabdomyolysis, a serious and uncommon muscle injury, it stated.

Nine of the students had to be hospitalized, according to the review, which was prepared by sports medicine consultant Rod Walters and attorney Randy Aliment. The review states that the Navy SEAL’s lack of proper credentials and Tuft’s lack of a plan for transportation of students to hospitals led to a dangerous scenario that could have been avoided.

“The Navy SEAL Workout did not follow principles of acclimatization that are necessary to avoid injury during training,” the report states. “The Navy SEAL Workout was not exercise-science based, physiologically sport-specific, or tailored to the individual sport of lacrosse.”

The review stated that the Navy SEAL who led the workout declined to be interviewed, though others in the investigation were cooperative. The review does not name the Navy SEAL, and the university declined to do so.

Navy officials “are aware of the release of the report and that a member of the Naval Special Warfare community led a workout with Tufts University student athletes in September 2024,” a Naval Special Warfare spokesperson told The Associated Press. The member was on a personal leave status at the time, according to the spokesperson, who declined to discuss the matter further.

Students who participated in the workout were not informed of the exercises or amounts of repetitions they would be required to perform, the review states. Some accounts of the workout said students “performed about 250 burpees and other exercises over the approximately 75-minute workout,” and students who struggled with it were taken out to lower their heart rates with slower exercises, it states.

While 40% of participants completed the workout without modification, students began complaining of soreness afterward, the review states. In the coming days, cases of exertional rhabdomyolysis — a potentially life-threatening condition in which muscles break down — were identified, according to the review.

The review concludes that Tufts personnel need a better understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the future to prevent a similar scenario from happening again. That means “vetting of team workout plans that deviate from those usually employed,” it states.

The Tuft’s men’s lacrosse team is one of the most successful at the Division III level in the nation, and won the NCAA championship in 2024.

All students have recovered and returned to normal activity, Tufts president Sunil Kumar and athletics director John Morris said in a statement.

However, “it is critical that we understand what led to this situation and to take steps to develop better and safer training practices for our student-athletes,” the statement said.

The U.S. military has conducted coordinated airstrikes against Islamic State operatives in Somalia, the first attacks in the African nation during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Saturday that the strikes by U.S. Africa Command were directed by Trump and coordinated with Somalia’s government.

An initial assessment by the Pentagon indicated that “multiple” operatives were killed. The Pentagon said is assesses no civilians were harmed in the strikes.

Trump, in a post on social media, said a senior IS planner and recruits were targeted in the operation.

“The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians. Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!” Trump said. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!’”

Trump did not identify the IS planner or say whether that person was killed in the strike. White House officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. military officials have warned that IS cells have received increasing direction from the group’s leadership that relocated to northern Somalia. That has included how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones and how to building their own small quadcopters.

A U.S. military airstrike in Somalia last May targeted IS militants and killed three, according to U.S. Africa Command.

The number of IS militants in the country are estimated to be in the hundreds, mostly scattered in the Cal Miskaat mountains in Puntland’s Bari region, according to the International Crisis Group.

In 1997, after being denied the award for more than 50 years due to discrimination, 1st Lt. Vernon Baker finally received a Medal of Honor for his heroism during World War II, making him one of the seven Black American troops awarded the medal for their service in the war.

Baker was born in 1919 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. When he was 4 years old, his parents were killed in a car accident, leaving him and his two sisters to be raised by their grandparents in Clarinda, Iowa. His grandfather taught him how to shoot game to help feed the family and Baker considered him the most influential figure in his life.

Baker graduated from Clarinda High School. In 1939, after Baker’s grandfather died of cancer, Baker supported the family as a railroad porter, a job he detested.

Family of Black WWII medic finally receives medal for his heroism

Seeking a more satisfactory profession, Baker tried enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1941, but the recruiter turned him away, saying, “We don’t have any quotas for you people.” Baker waited a few weeks and tried again with a different recruiter — and was accepted on June 26, 1941. He hoped to get into the Quartermaster Corps, but had to settle for the infantry.

“I didn’t say anything,” Baker later said, “because I was going to get in.”

Baker took basic training at Fort Wolters, Texas, which from the start subjected him to a level of Jim Crow prejudice he’d not experienced in the Midwest, but he quietly endured it in accordance with what his grandfather had told him: “If you want to live, boy, learn how to conform.”

Baker was then assigned to the 25th Infantry Regiment at Geiger Field near Spokane, Washington, and later at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. At that point, Baker had achieved his goal of becoming a supply sergeant, but in October 1942, he was offered an opening in Officer Candidate School.

Baker was hesitant — he liked his job as a supply sergeant, but an officer’s commission meant issuing orders and shouldering much more responsibility. Still, he decided to give it a try, and after 13 weeks of training at then-Fort Benning, Georgia, he emerged as a second lieutenant in charge of a weapons platoon in C Company, 370th Regiment, 92nd Infantry Division, a segregated division that had not seen action since its bloody baptism of fire in the 1918 Meuse-Argonne campaign during World War I.

On June 15, 1944, Baker’s regiment departed Hampton Roads, Virginia, for Naples, Italy. They marched north to join the Fifth Army, which was slowly, steadily fighting its way through mountainous terrain and well-prepared German defenses along the Gothic Line.

Over the next several months, Baker developed a good working rapport with his troops. In October, the squad he was leading came under enemy fire, killing three men and wounding Baker.

After recovering in the 64th General Hospital at Pisa, Baker returned to his unit in December to discover himself the senior officer of his regiment until March 1945, when Capt. John Runyon and two other white officers arrived to take charge of C Company.

On April 5, the 1st Battalion of the 370th was assigned the task of taking Aghinolfi Castle, a hilltop stronghold near Viareggio with an artillery directing post that had already repulsed three assaults. At the fore were 15 members of C Company, led by Baker. More than 70% of the unit was filled with new, inexperienced replacements.

Two hours after setting out, they were 250 yards from the objective. Baker surveyed the area and — bringing his childhood hunting talents into play — shot two German soldiers in an observation post and two more he spotted near a camouflaged machine gun nest. Runyon had come up to confer with Baker when a grenade landed nearby — fortunately for them, it proved a dud.

Runyon then retired to a hill summit behind them while Baker resumed his crawling advance, picking off four German soldiers along the way. By now aware of C Company’s presence, the Germans loosed a mortar barrage, killing six troops. American artillery silenced them for a while, but German forces soon counterattacked.

Runyon told Baker he was going back to bring up reinforcements to cover C Company’s withdrawal, but Baker knew better — between the heavy enemy fire and the grenade incident, his nerves had cracked and he would not be coming back.

After holding out against more mortars and a weapons platoon whose crew was dressed as medics, Baker’s platoon was down to eight men, all low on ammunition, and he made a painful decision: “My men wanted to stay, but I wanted to ensure some of them stayed alive.”

Baker covered the retreat in two increments, but in the process, a soldier was wounded and their medic killed by an enemy sniper.

Crawling back, Baker used grenades to destroy two enemy machine gun positions before finally reaching the forward aid station. His 25-man platoon had fought for 12 hours and lost 19 dead or wounded. After accounting for his survivors and turning in every identification tag he’d been able to collect while fighting, Baker fell to the ground and vomited.

Baker and Runyon barely recovered from the past two days’ ordeal before they were temporarily assigned to 2nd Battalion, 473rd Infantry, to apply their experience toward another assault. They overran the objective without loss, no doubt because of the casualties Baker and his platoon had previously inflicted on them.

A few days later, Runyon recommended Baker for the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest American military decoration and the highest the Army gave to Black soldiers at the time. On July 4, 1945, Baker received the medal near Viareggio. Baker also received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

One of 1st Black Marines to serve in combat honored for 100th birthday

After the German surrender, Baker did occupation duty in Italy until February 1947, followed by six months’ leave.

During the Korean War in 1951, Baker was among the first Black officers to lead an all-white company in a newly integrated Army.

As the armed forces were reduced, however, Baker was decommissioned, resuming his duties as a master sergeant. During 13 years at then-Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he trained as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and spent time in the 11th Airborne Division but did not get his lieutenant’s commission back.

Baker retired from the Army on Aug. 31, 1968, and spent the next 20 years working for the Red Cross.

In 1996, he learned that his wartime record was being reevaluated, and on Jan. 13, 1997, he was among seven Black Americans to have their WWII Distinguished Service Cross upgraded to the Medal of Honor. He was the only one of them still alive to receive the award from President Bill Clinton.

In 2008, Baker received the American Spirit Award from the National WWII Museum.

Spending his final years in Benewah Valley, Idaho, Baker married three times and had three children. After a long struggle with cancer, Baker died July 13, 2010, at 90 years old in St. Maries, Idaho. He is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

A U.S. Air Force plane with migrants bound at their wrists and ankles departed Texas for Guatemala on Thursday, carrying 80 deportees in another deportation flight that reflects a growing role for the armed forces in helping enforce immigration laws.

The flight from Fort Bliss, an Army base in El Paso, was scheduled to take about seven hours, nearly twice as long as a direct route, because the military plane could not fly over Mexico, said U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Orlando Marrero. Eight children were aboard.

“The message that we have for those people is that if you cross the border illegally, we are going to deport you to your country of origin in a matter of hours,” Marrero said.

Texas sends more than 400 Guardsmen to US-Mexico border

The Trump administration has used military aircraft to deport people to Guatemala, Ecuador and Colombia, a departure from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s previous practice to employ charter and commercial planes.

“There are some countries that don’t like military planes coming into their territory,” said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who represents a Texas border district. “It’s something that logistically has to be worked out with the country before, because you don’t want to have a plane turned around in midair.”

On Sunday, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro refused two U.S. military planes with migrants, prompting Trump to announce 25% tariffs on Colombian exports. Colombia backed off and said it would accept the migrants but fly them on Colombian military flights that Petro said would guarantee them dignity.

The Pentagon began deploying active-duty troops to the border last week, but it was unclear to what extent they will break from supporting roles they have played under presidents since George W. Bush, including ground and aerial surveillance, building barriers and repairing vehicles.

An 1878 law prohibits military involvement in civilian law enforcement, but Trump and his aides have signaled the president may invoke wartime powers. Trump said in his Inauguration Day order declaring a border emergency that the Defense Department may assist with detention and transportation, two enormous cost-drivers.

Trump on Thursday ordered that a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be used to detain migrants, saying it could hold up to 30,000 people. That would nearly double ICE’s current detention capacity.

Yael Schacher, director for the Americas and Europe at Refugees International, said using military aircraft for deportations was uncommon but “largely symbolic.”

The U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that collided midair with an American Airlines passenger jet above Reagan National Airport in Washington on Wednesday night was piloted by experienced aviators that typically fly VIP missions in busy air space, according to a retired Army chief warrant officer with over 30 years of flying experience, who serves in the Headquarters Department of the Army Aviation Directorate at the Pentagon.

The two aircraft crashed in a clear night sky right as the American Airlines flight from Wichita, Kansas, with 64 people aboard, was approaching the runway flying over the Potomac River. The Black Hawk was on a training flight from Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, carrying three service members.

The fuselage of the aircraft broke apart in three places and was discovered inverted in waist-deep water. The helicopter wreckage was found nearby. There were no survivors found. The recovery effort is ongoing.

Until the “black box” aboard both aircraft are recovered from the icy waters of the Potomac, the biggest questions about what happened remain unanswered.

“We really need to wait and allow the accident investigation to complete,” Jonathan Koziol told reporters Thursday over the phone from a hangar at Reagan Airport where he was helping to provide expertise as investigators begin their work. “Both aircraft will have recorders on board that will give us all of that information once we recover it, to give us the real truth on what those aircraft were doing. Up until now would just be speculation adding to the confusion.”

Koziol described the crew members, whose identities have yet to be released, as “very experienced.”

“The instructor pilot was flying the aircraft with a fellow pilot in command, so both of those crew members can manage that aircraft by themselves. It was an annual evaluation that is conducted by every Army aviator that they fly day and night,” he said, “Even the crew chief in the back has been in the unit for a very long time, very familiar with the area, very familiar with the routing structure. So we don’t see that at all as being any impact on what happened.”

Koziol confirmed that the instructor pilot in command of the aircraft had logged 1,000 flight hours and the other pilot had 500 hours under their belt.

“That’s normal,” he said.

During a press briefing Thursday, President Donald Trump, without evidence, blamed air traffic controllers, as well as the helicopter pilot and Democratic policies at federal agencies for Wednesday night’s collision.

The investigation into the crash is ongoing, and the cause of the collision is unknown.

The UH-60 flight from Belvoir appeared uneventful until what seemed like the last moment.

While Koziol had not seen the Army’s standard mission risk assessment for the specific flight, he said all factors would point to a low-risk classification for the trip.

The Black Hawk’s crew from the 12th Aviation Battalion stationed at Belvoir was conducting a routine aviator evaluation to ensure a pilot’s ability to maneuver throughout the airspace around the National Capital Region, or NCR, is sufficient to command the aircraft without an instructor for any other mission sets, Koziol explained.

With such a catastrophic event, conversations in the aftermath have led to questions about why the Army needs to conduct training events in congested airspace like the one around Reagan.

The battalion has a special mission in the NCR. One part of that is its VIP flight operations for senior U.S. leaders. Another is to support the Defense Department “if something really bad happens in this area,” Koziol said.

“We need to move our senior leaders so they need to be able to understand the environment, the air traffic, the route, to ensure the safe travel of our senior leaders throughout our government. That’s part of their training here and they’re really good at it.”

Additionally, the flight along the Potomac is “a relatively easy corridor to fly because you’re flying downcenter of the river and it’s very easily identifiable, especially at night,” Koziol said. Pilots fly the specific route on which the Black Hawk was flying on an almost daily basis.

The aircraft was also equipped with moving maps “so they would know exactly on the map and visually understand where they are with relation to the route,” he added.

There are also strict parameters on altitude the pilots would have been very familiar with and accustomed to adhering, Koziol shared. Aviators know not to climb higher than 200 feet above the ground on that route.

Koziol said it was not clear at what elevation the aircraft was flying; that’s something the black box will confirm.

While it has been reported the pilots had night vision goggles, it has not been determined if the pilot or crew were using them. According to Koziol, on a night flight down the Potomac, a pilot could comfortably fly unaided by goggles.

The Black Hawk also could not have operated in the NCR without a flight plan and contact with Air Traffic Control. ATC provides each aircraft with a specific, four-digit “squawk code” assigned to it, so ATC can control individual positions in and around the airspace and ensure aircraft also don’t fly in sensitive areas where they are not allowed, Koziol explained.

The collision — the worst U.S. aviation disaster since 2001 — follows a spate of Army aviation mishaps over the last several years that have resulted in Army leadership’s stand-down effort in 2023 to address the problem and a standup effort in 2024 to put a renewed emphasis on the culture of rigorous training and safety.

Last year was the most mishap-heavy year in Army aviation history since 2007, and 2023 was one the deadliest years for Army aviators since the Army withdrew from Iraq in 2011. For instance, in 2023, two Black Hawks collided midair in Kentucky, killing nine crew on board.

The Army, following its stand-down and review, determined its pilots and aviation warrant officers are significantly less experienced than they were during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

As a result, inexperienced crews were “out-driving their headlights, out-training the experience that was in their force at whatever level,” then-commander of the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, Maj. Gen. Mac McCurry, told Defense News on a 2024 trip to Fort Novosel, Alabama, home of Army aviation training.

How last night’s collision might fit into the greater mishap trends of Army aviation remains to be determined.

The Air Force is tightening its standards on uniform and shaving waivers as part of an effort to simplify its rules and present a more unified force.

Under the new standards the Air Force shared over past last week, long-term shaving waivers will be granted only to airmen or guardians who have severe cases of pseudofolliculitus barbae. PFB is a painful condition, primarily affecting Black men, which causes deep scar-like bumps on the face or neck after shaving.

Moderate or mild cases of PFB could be addressed with temporary shaving profiles, follow-up appointments and more frequent management of the condition, Air Force Surgeon General Lt. Gen. John DeGoes said in a memo the service posted online. Long-term shaving waivers must be approved by a senior profiling officer, he wrote.

DeGoes said in a video posted Monday that the department’s 2020 policy allowing five-year shaving waivers, which is now expired, did not give medical providers enough clarity on diagnosing PFB. It didn’t differentiate between that painful condition and more common shaving irritation.

“They are two different things,” DeGoes said. “Ensuring a standardized approach to managing PFB is essential. And it is crucial that we provide consistent and effective care to our service members, enabling them to meet grooming standards while managing their condition.”

Without standardized department-wide guidance, the Air Force has issued and managed shaving waivers inconsistently. Before the five-year waivers were an option, airmen could get only one-year waivers.

The Air Force plans to issue new guidance March 1 that will govern which airmen can get shaving waivers that allow them to grow beards, DeGoes said. This revised guidance will require anyone getting a shaving waiver to be evaluated by a health care provider, he said.

Current shaving profiles will expire 90 days after the airmen receive their periodic health assessment, beginning in March, he said.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin has pushed the service to tighten its standards, both to make them easier to understand and to underscore the importance of following them. In a Dec. 20 video, Allvin said the Air Force has updated its rules multiple times in recent years, but the combined effect of those changes has made them more complicated and led to lax compliance.

“This selective enforcement can lead to situations where airmen believe they have the opportunity to do selective compliance,” Allvin said. “This is where the danger lies. As airmen decide for themselves whether they should comply with the tech order, or safety regulations or other instructions, they may make the wrong choice that’s uninformed. And the damage is to property, it’s to our equipment, but most importantly, we get airmen injured or killed.”

Allvin posted another video Monday on the proliferation of duty identifier tabs, which are patches airmen wear to signify their job or specialty. The number of approved tabs has swollen to more than 134 over the years, he said.

“This is a lot of tabs,” Allvin said in the video, gesturing to an image showing a plethora of tabs ranging from navigators and engineers to munitions and security forces airmen. “Under the principle we have of easy to understand, easy to comply with, and easy to enforce: This fails that test.”

Having such a wide array of duty tabs on airmen’s uniforms undermines the service’s desire to have all airmen contribute to “a winning, warfighting team,” Allvin said.

“We want to emphasize that we value the team over the individual,” Allvin said. “We value the mission over the function. And we do this to ensure that we are lethal and ready to fly, fight and win, airpower anytime anywhere.”

President Donald Trump blamed diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the Federal Aviation Administration for a deadly midair collision between an Army helicopter and a passenger jet outside Washington, as authorities continue to investigate the worst U.S. aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.

Speaking in the White House press briefing room Thursday, the president, without evidence, blamed air traffic controllers, as well as the helicopter pilot and Democratic policies at federal agencies for Wednesday night’s collision, which occurred between an American Airlines jet and a Blackhawk helicopter at Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Trump stated the helicopter pilot made an incorrect turn prior to the collision, though he did not provide evidence to support his claim.

“I have helicopters. You can stop a helicopter very quickly,” Trump said. “It had the ability to go up or down. It had the ability to turn, and the turn it made was not the correct turn, obviously.”

Trump asserted this opinion even though the crash has yet to be fully investigated and there has been no determination as to whether the FAA or the helicopter pilots did anything wrong.

Passenger jet collides with Army helicopter at Reagan Airport

Dozens of people — including more than a dozen figure skaters — were killed in the collision after the helicopter apparently flew into the path of the jet as it was landing at the airport, officials said.

There are reportedly no survivors.

The plane was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members at the time.

Three soldiers, whose identities have not yet been released, were aboard the helicopter during a training flight, an Army official previously said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth identified the three soldiers as a captain, staff sergeant and chief warrant officer 2 at Thursday’s briefing.

“While performing a training mission, a United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, Davison Army Airfield, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, collided in midair with an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet Flight 5342 last night at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport,” said Ron McLendon II, public affairs deputy director of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and the U.S. Army Military District of Washington.

“The FAA, NTSB and the United States Army will investigate,” he added. “The NTSB will lead the investigation. We are working with local officials and will provide any additional information once it becomes available.”

Hegseth released a statement on social media Thursday morning, noting that the helicopter crew members were conducting an annual proficiency night training flight at the time of the collision and were using night-vision goggles.

The 12th Aviation Battalion announced a 48-hour operational pause in the wake of the crash, Hegseth added.

The body of the plane was found upside down in three sections in waist-deep water. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found. At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River. There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas.

Trump suggested Thursday he might make sweeping changes at federal aviation agencies. There could be firings “if we find that people aren’t mentally competent,” he said.

“For some jobs,” Trump said, singling out air traffic controllers, “they have to be at the highest level of genius.”

Trump blamed previous administrations’ efforts to promote diversity at federal agencies for contributing to the crash. Asked why he thought that was an issue with Wednesday’s collision, he responded, “Because I have common sense.”

During Thursday’s briefing, Hegseth echoed Trump’s remarks on DEI policies, stating, “The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department.”

“As you said in your inaugural, it is colorblind and merit-based. The best leaders possible, whether it’s flying Black Hawks and flying airplanes, leading platoons or in government,” Hegseth told reporters. “We need the best and brightest, whether it’s in our air traffic control, whether it’s in our generals, or whether it’s throughout government.”

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Trump spewing conspiracy theories about the crash “turns your stomach.”

“It’s one thing for internet pundits to spew off conspiracy theories, it’s another for the president of the United States,” Schumer said at the Capitol.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard boats were helping to scour the chilly waters of the Potomac River.

Every “available U.S. Coast Guard resource for search and rescue” has been deployed to join other agencies, said Secretary Kristi Noem of the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are actively monitoring the situation & stand ready to support local responders,” Noem said on the social media platform X.

In a statement, the Coast Guard says its pollution crews have been mobilized and are ready to respond if necessary.

The Coast Guard is working with the Army Corps of Engineers and Navy’s Supervisor of Salvage and Diving to coordinate removing the wreckage and keeping river traffic out of the area until it becomes safe.

Wednesday’s crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 people aboard.

The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, along with one person on the ground, bringing the total death toll to 50.

Military Times editor Beth Sullivan contributed to this report.

There are reportedly no survivors following the mid-air collision of an Army helicopter and an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew, officials said Thursday, in what was likely to be the worst U.S. aviation disaster in almost a quarter century.

At least 28 bodies were pulled from the icy waters of the Potomac River after the midair collision Wednesday night when the helicopter apparently flew in the path of the jet as it was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., officials said.

Crews were still searching for other casualties but did not believe there were any survivors, which would make it the deadliest U.S. air crash in nearly 24 years.

“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” said John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”

The body of the plane was found upside down in three sections in waist-deep water. The wreckage of the helicopter was also found. Donnelly said first responders on Thursday were searching an area of the Potomac River as far south as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) south of the airport.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but officials said flight conditions were clear as the jet coming from Wichita, Kansas, with U.S. and Russian figure skaters and others aboard, was making a routine landing when the helicopter flew into its path.

“On final approach into Reagan National it collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said. “At this time we don’t know why the military aircraft came into the path of the ... aircraft.”

Three soldiers were onboard the helicopter during a training flight, an Army official previously said.

“While performing a training mission a United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, Davison Army Airfield, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, collided in midair with an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet Flight 5342 last night at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport,” said Ron McLendon II, public affairs deputy director of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and The U.S. Army Military District of Washington.

“The FAA, NTSB and the United States Army will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation. We are working with local officials and will provide any additional information once it becomes available.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released a statement on social media Thursday morning, noting that the helicopter crew was conducting an annual proficiency night training flight at the time of the collision and were using night vision goggles.

The 12th Aviation Battalion announced a 48-hour operational pause in the wake of the accident, Hegseth added.

Update on Guantanamo Bay Operations and @SecDef Hegseth Addresses Tragic Mishap Involving US Army Helicopter pic.twitter.com/80J5djB4oP

— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) January 30, 2025

Images from the river showed boats around the partly submerged wing and the mangled wreckage of the plane’s fuselage.

Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts’ final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.

“I would just say that everyone who flies in American skies expects that we fly safely,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “That when you depart an airport, you get to your destination. That didn’t happen last night and I know that President Trump, his administration, the FAA, the DOT, we will not rest until we have answers for the families and for the flying public. You should be assured that when you fly, you’re safe.”

Reagan Airport will reopen at 11 a.m. Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration announced. The FAA previously said it would be closed until 5 a.m. Friday.

Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, was asked if he could reassure Americans that the United States still has the safest airspace in the world.

“Can I guarantee the American flying public that the United States has the most safe and secure airspace in the world? And the answer to that is, absolutely yes, we do,” he said.

Authorities have ‘early indicators’ of what went wrong

The night was clear, the plane and helicopter were both in standard flight patterns and there was standard communication between the aircraft and the tower, Duffy said.

“We have early indicators of what happened here,” Duffy said, though he declined to elaborate further pending an investigation.

It was not unusual to have a military aircraft flying the river and an aircraft landing at the airport, he said. Asked if the plane was aware that there was a helicopter in the area, Duffy said he would say that the helicopter was aware that there was a plane in the area.

Asked about President Donald Trump suggesting in an overnight social media post that the collision could have been prevented, Duffy said, “From what I’ve seen so far, do I think this was preventable? Absolutely.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not appear at the Thursday morning press conference.

Likely the deadliest plane crash since November 2001

If everyone aboard the plane was killed, it will make it the deadliest U.S. airline crash since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines flight just after takeoff crashed into a residential area of Belle Harbor, New York, killing all 260 people aboard.

The last major fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.

Passengers on Wednesday’s flight included a group of figure skaters, their coaches and family members who were returning from a development camp that followed the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita.

“We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims’ families closely in our hearts,” U.S. Figure Skating said in a statement.

Two of those coaches were identified by the Kremlin as Russian figure skaters Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, who won the pairs title at the 1994 world championships and competed twice in the Olympics. The Skating Club of Boston lists them as coaches and their son, Maxim Naumov, is a competitive figure skater for the U.S.

What happened

The FAA said the midair crash occurred before 9 p.m. EST in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over 3 miles south of the White House and the Capitol.

American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet (122 meters) and a speed of about 140 mph (225 kph) when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.

The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet (732 meters) short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.

Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.

The U.S. Army described the helicopter as a UH-60 Blackhawk based at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The helicopter was on a training flight. Military aircraft frequently conduct training flights in and around the congested and heavily-restricted airspace around the nation’s capital for familiarization and continuity of government planning.

Editor’s note: This report was updated Jan. 30 at 10:40 a.m. EST to include additional details of the collision. See here for the latest reporting on the incident.

A jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided Wednesday with an Army helicopter while landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, prompting a large search-and-rescue operation in the nearby Potomac River. There are reportedly no survivors, according to local officials

“We are now at the point where we are switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation,” John Donnelly, the fire chief in the nation’s capital, told reporters Thursday morning. “We don’t believe there are any survivors.”

An Army official confirmed three service members were aboard the helicopter. The status of those service members is unknown. No VIPs were aboard.

“While performing a training mission a United States Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from Bravo Company, 12th Aviation Battalion, Davison Army Airfield, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, collided in midair with an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet Flight 5342 last night at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport,” said Ron McLendon II, public affairs deputy director of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and The U.S. Army Military District of Washington.

“The FAA, NTSB and the United States Army will investigate. The NTSB will lead the investigation. We are working with local officials and will provide any additional information once it becomes available.”

The helicopter was on a training flight. Military aircraft frequently conduct training flights in and around the congested and heavily restricted airspace around the nation’s capital for familiarization and continuity of government planning.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the collision, but all takeoffs and landings from the airport were halted while helicopters from law enforcement agencies across the region flew over the scene. Inflatable rescue boats were launched into the Potomac River from a point along the George Washington Parkway, just north of the airport, and first responders set up light towers from the shore to illuminate the area near the collision site. At least a half-dozen boats are scanning the water using searchlights.

President Donald Trump said he had been “fully briefed on this terrible accident” and, referring to the passengers, added, “May God Bless their souls.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said the midair crash occurred around 9 p.m. EST when a regional jet that had departed from Wichita, Kansas, collided with a military helicopter on a training flight while on approach to an airport runway. It occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just over three miles south of the White House and the Capitol.

Investigators will try to piece together the aircrafts’ final moments before their collision, including contact with air traffic controllers as well as a loss of altitude by the passenger jet.

American Airlines Flight 5342 was inbound to Reagan National at an altitude of about 400 feet and a speed of about 140 miles per hour when it suffered a rapid loss of altitude over the Potomac River, according to data from its radio transponder. The Canadian-made Bombardier CRJ-701 twin-engine jet, manufactured in 2004, can be configured to carry up to 70 passengers.

A few minutes before landing, air traffic controllers asked the arriving commercial jet if it could land on the shorter Runway 33 at Reagan National and the pilots said they were able. Controllers then cleared the plane to land on Runway 33. Flight tracking sites showed the plane adjust its approach to the new runway.

Less than 30 seconds before the crash, an air traffic controller asked the helicopter if it had the arriving plane in sight. The controller made another radio call to the helicopter moments later: “PAT 25 pass behind the CRJ.” Seconds after that, the two aircraft collided.

The plane’s radio transponder stopped transmitting about 2,400 feet short of the runway, roughly over the middle of the river.

Video from an observation camera at the nearby Kennedy Center showed two sets of lights consistent with aircraft appearing to join in a fireball.

The collision occurred on a warm winter evening in Washington, with temperatures registering as high as 60 degrees Fahrenheit, following a stretch days earlier of intense cold and ice. On Wednesday, the Potomac River was 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The National Weather Service reported that wind gusts of up to 25 mph were possible in the area throughout the evening.

The crash is serving as a major test for two of the Trump administration’s newest agency leaders. Pete Hegseth, sworn in days ago as defense secretary, posted on social media that an investigation has been “launched immediately” by the Army and the Defense Department. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, just sworn in earlier this week, said in a social media post that he was “at the FAA HQ and closely monitoring the situation.”

The airport was to remain closed until 5 a.m. Friday.

Located along the Potomac River, just southwest of the city, Reagan National is a popular choice because it’s much closer than the larger Dulles International Airport, which is deeper in Virginia.

Depending on the runway being used, flights into Reagan can offer passengers spectacular views of landmarks like the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall and the U.S. Capitol. It’s a postcard-worthy welcome for tourists visiting the city.

The incident recalled the crash of an Air Florida flight that plummeted into the Potomac on Jan. 13, 1982, that killed 78 people. That crash was attributed to bad weather.

The last fatal crash involving a U.S. commercial airline occurred in 2009 near Buffalo, New York. Everyone aboard the Bombardier DHC-8 propeller plane was killed, including 45 passengers, two pilots and two flight attendants. Another person on the ground also died, bringing the total death toll to 50. An investigation determined that the captain accidentally caused the plane to stall as it approached the airport in Buffalo.

Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Meg Kinnard, Chris Megerian and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

The Navy’s new five-part plan to prepare new ships for deployment will require more maintenance time for the current fleet.

However, the Naval Systems Command, or NAVSEA, strategy states the Navy must stay on schedule with maintenance to keep the service’s vessels seaworthy and combat-ready.

The new strategy, released Jan. 13, is key to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti’s ambitious goal of having 80% of the fleet ready to deploy at any given time by 2027.

Marines hindered by Navy's amphibious warfare ship maintenance delays

On average, Navy ships remain in dry dock for up to one year, said Vice Adm. Jim Downey, NAVSEA commander, in a Jan. 16 panel at the Surface Navy Association’s symposium near Washington, Defense One reported.

If the new strategy is effective, that yearlong wait could be cut by two-thirds or more, meaning a 100- to 150-day wait for ship repairs, according to Downey, who guided the plan’s development.

That’ll mean extensive planning for work scope, what materials are available and ready for use and building a ready workforce at the same time, said George Whittier, CEO of ship engine company Fairbanks Morse, said on the panel, according to Defense One.

The NAVSEA “Enterprise Strategy” will address five core “lines of effort,” according to the service’s release:

• Accelerate force generation to deliver ships and combat systems.
• Generate readiness to maintain, modernize and sustain platforms.
• Generate, capture and use data to drive innovation.
• Strengthen the Navy team by attracting, retaining and growing the NAVSEA workforce.
• Strengthen the foundation, enhancing NAVSEA critical infrastructure.

“CNO depends on the NAVSEA enterprise to get the Navy’s ships, and their warfighting systems designed, delivered, maintained, and sustained to meet global national security requirements,” Downey said in the release. “So, NAVSEA is accelerating efforts to put more players on the field — that is, platforms, ready with the right capabilities, weapons, and sustainment support.”

The Navy has faced years of maintenance backlogs and ship shortages. In December, the Government Accountability Office found that a shortage of amphibious warfare ships has hindered various Marine deployment and training plans, Marine Corps Times previously reported. From 2011 to 2020, only 46% of the Navy’s amphibious class of ships were available at any given time, according to the government watchdog.

GAO recommended the Navy refine ship availability, build a joint-service plan, update the service’s ship maintenance policies and establish performance goals for implementing the amphibious readiness review recommendations GAO provided.

“Nothing was off the table when we started this process last May,” Downey said of the Navy’s five-part plan.

Downey, who took command of NAVSEA in January 2024, formed a Commander’s Action Group and a Force Improvement Office to have closer management of command priorities and enhance personnel skills and capabilities. The command also restructured its operational centers, according to the release.

In another organizational move, the command “decoupled” positions for its Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair, or SUPSHIP, and its Industrial Operations, or SEA 04, according to the release. That allows the individual heads of the two areas for a more focused approach to their core duties.

“With more than 90 ships under contract, SUPSHIP has an expansive level of responsibility,” said Downey. “This new realignment puts SUPSHIP in a better position to oversee and administer the Navy’s new construction programs across the directorate.”

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Laken Riley Act into law, giving federal authorities broader power to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have been accused of crimes. He also announced at the ceremony that his administration planned to send the “worst criminal aliens” to a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The bipartisan act, the first piece of legislation approved during Trump’s second term, was named for Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was slain last year by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally.

“She was a light of warmth and kindness,” Trump said during a ceremony that included Riley’s parents and sister. “It’s a tremendous tribute to your daughter what’s taking place today, that’s all I can say. It’s so sad we have to be doing it.”

Trump has promised to drastically increase deportations, but he also said at the signing that some of the people being sent back to their home countries couldn’t be counted on to stay there.

“Some of them are so bad that we don’t even trust the countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back, so we’re gonna send ’em out to Guantanamo,” Trump said. He said that he would soon sign an executive order directing federal officials to get facilities in Cuba ready to receive migrant criminals.

“We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal aliens threatening the American people,” the president said.

The move would immediately “double” U.S. detention lockup capacities, he said. Guantanamo, he added, is “a tough place to get out of.”

In subsequent comments to reporters outside the White House, new Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said of expanded detention facilities that “we’re building it out” and that the administration would seek funding via spending bills Congress is set to consider. The administration’s border czar, Tom Homan, said U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement would run the facility in Cuba and that the “the worst of the worst" could go to Guantanamo.

Still, the details of Trump’s plan were not immediately clear. The U.S. military base has been used to house detainees from the U.S. war on terrorism for years.

But authorities have also detained migrants at sea at a facility known as the Migrant Operations Center on Guantanamo, a site the U.S. has long leased from the Cuban government. Many of those housed there have been migrants from Haiti and Cuba.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that enemy combatants in the war on terror held without charge at the military prison at Guantanamo had the right to challenge their detention in federal court. But the justices did not decide whether the president had the authority to detain people at all.

Before Trump took office, the Democratic administrations of Barack Obama and Joe Biden worked to reduce the number of terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo.

Riley was out for a run in February 2024 when she was killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra, a Venezuelan national who was in the country illegally. Ibarra was found guilty in November and sentenced to life without parole.

Ibarra had been arrested for illegal entry in September 2022 near El Paso, Texas, and released to pursue his case in immigration court. Federal officials say he was arrested by New York police in August 2023 for child endangerment and released. Police say he was also issued a citation for shoplifting in Georgia in October 2023.

The act quickly passed the newly Republican-controlled Congress with some Democratic support even though immigrant rights advocates said it possibly could lead to large roundups of people for offenses as minor as shoplifting.

The swift passage, and Trump’s signing nine days after taking office adds to the potent symbolism for conservatives. To critics, the measure has taken advantage of a tragedy and could lead to chaos and cruelty while doing little to fight crime or overhaul the immigration system.

Riley’s mother thanked Trump while holding back tears.

“He said he would secure our borders and he would never forget about Laken and he hasn’t,” she said.

Several top Republican lawmakers and Noem attended the signing ceremony, as did Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a co-sponsor.

Under the new law, federal officials would have to detain any immigrant arrested or charged with crimes such as theft or assaulting a police officer, or offenses that injure or kill someone.

State attorneys general could sue the U.S. government for harm caused by federal immigration decisions — potentially allowing the leaders of conservative states to help dictate immigration policy set by Washington.

Some Democrats have questioned whether it is constitutional. Immigrant advocates are bracing for mass detentions that they say will mean costly construction of immigration lockup facilities to house the people arrested.

“They don’t just get to celebrate. They get to use this for their mass deportation agenda,” Naureen Shah, deputy director of government affairs in the equality division of the American Civil Liberties Union, said of the act’s supporters.

The ALCU says the act can allow people to be “mandatorily locked up — potentially for years — because at some point in their lives, perhaps decades ago, they were accused of nonviolent offenses.”

Hannah Flamm, interim senior director of policy at the International Refugee Assistance Project, said the measure violates immigrants’ basic rights by allowing for detaining people who have not been charged with wrongdoing, much less convicted.

“The latent fear from the election cycle of looking soft on crime snowballed into aiding and abetting Trump’s total conflation of immigration with crime,” Flamm said. She also noted, “I think it is pivotal to understand: This bill, framed as connected to a tragic death, is pretext to fortify a mass deportation system,” Flamm said.

A now-retired Air Force major general was stripped of a star after an inspector general investigation found he engaged in multiple inappropriate sexting relationships – including with an enlisted airman and congressional staffers – and had an affair with a married woman.

Maj. Gen. Christopher Finerty left his position as the Air Force’s legislative liaison director in March 2023, the Air Force said. That was roughly two months after an IG complaint was filed that alleged he engaged in “unprofessional and inappropriate relationships with multiple women.”

Finerty retired in November 2024 after the conclusion of an officer grade determination that demoted him to brigadier general, the Air Force said.

The IG concluded in a September 2023 report that Finerty violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s rules against “conduct unbecoming an officer” by engaging in inappropriate relationships with five women. The report, first reported about by Politico, was only recently posted online.

Finerty fraternized with an enlisted airman by exchanging suggestive texts and having cybersex with her at least seven times, the report said. He also had a three-month extramarital sexual relationship with a married Defense Department civilian employee, both of which are behaviors also prohibited by the UCMJ.

“The preponderance of the evidence supports Maj. Gen. Finerty’s conduct fell well below the expectations of an Air Force general officer, disgraced him professionally, and compromised his standing as both an officer and a gentleman,” the report concluded.

Finerty previously supervised the enlisted airman before they began exchanging suggestive texts, but there was no evidence of an inappropriate relationship at that time, the IG said. Years later, they became reacquainted and “began to have a more personal relationship,” the report said.

Their texts included Finerty calling her “You sexy b[----]” and exchanging sexually explicit memes. Finerty sent her a shirtless picture, and she sent a collage of “sexually intimate” photographs of her, the report said.

Finerty acknowledged to investigators that his behavior came “close to a line,” but he maintained that he never crossed it, saying the relationship never became physical. The “intimate exchanges” in the messages amounted to “fantasy banter,” he argued.

Finerty did not think his behavior amounted to fraternization. Because the messages were private, they did not damage good order and discipline, he claimed.

The IG said the “extreme rank disparity” between Finerty and the enlisted airman and the “sexually charged” communications was conduct that lowered the public’s view of the officer corps and damaged the respect enlisted airmen have for officers. His fraternization with the airman “was of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces,” the report said.

The IG also blasted Finerty for his romantic affair with a DOD civilian, who was married to another military officer. Finerty told investigators he thought she was separated or divorced, in part because she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.

But the IG concluded he had no good reason to think the civilian employee was separated or divorced. The employee told Finerty she was married, and she never gave Finerty reason to think her husband was not living with her. Finerty even acknowledged in one text, “You are married.” However, the employee told the IG they rarely discussed her marriage during the time they were having an affair, as she described it.

The other three women Finerty sexted — one of whom he had an intimate relationship with — worked in Congress and had jobs affecting the Air Force, the report said. This “mix[ed] his professional and personal roles” and created the perception of a conflict of interest, the report said. Witnesses felt his conduct was “highly inappropriate,” “counterproductive” and “totally unprofessional.”

“Maj. Gen. Finerty was the head of the [Department of the Air Force] organization with the primary role of bridging congressional staffers and leaders with the Air Force,” the report said. “Behavior that breaches the level of trust and professionalism expected of legislative liaisons is a serious matter.”

He texted one woman — including exchanging sexts and pornographic images — on a “nearly daily basis,” the IG said.

In one instance, Finerty’s texts with a woman segued directly from a discussion of protecting funding for top Air Force priorities such as the F-35 and Next Generation Air Dominance to her sending multiple pornographic photos.

Finerty’s inappropriate relationships were well-known in his office, and one witness described them as “the worst kept secret in SAF/LL,” the acronym for the legislative liaison branch. That witness said his staff believed the relationship was unethical, and it likely created a morale problem.

While no witnesses could testify to seeing Finerty giving or receiving preferential treatment or favoritism as a result of his relationships, multiple witnesses said even a perception could be damaging to the department.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday announced plans for a new department task force focused on promoting “merit-based, color-blind policies” throughout the department, including potential changes to military promotions and job assignments.

The move is the latest in a series aimed at rooting out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies. Administration officials have blamed those outreach efforts for hurting military readiness and recruiting, although defense leaders in the past have disputed those assertions.

In a memo announcing the new “restoring America’s fighting force task force,” Hegseth wrote that the Defense Department’s core mission is to “win the nation’s wars,” a goal that requires “a lethal fighting force that rewards individual initiative, excellence and hard work based on merit.”

The new group, to be housed under the Pentagon’s personnel and readiness office, is charged with presenting a final report on how to strengthen those goals by June 1.

Hegseth strips Milley of security detail, orders investigation

That work will include changes to the promotion and job selection process, with a mandate that “the department will not consider sex, race or ethnicity when considering individuals for promotion, command or special duty.” Exceptions can be made for assignments with specific operational requirements.

Hegseth also said officials will ban quotas and goals for career fields, and prohibit instruction of gender ideology and DEI initiatives. And all defense academic institutions, including service academies, will be ordered to “teach that America and its founding documents remain the most powerful force for good in human history.”

The task force is an extension of President Donald Trump’s previous orders to eliminate diversity and inclusion programs across a range of federal departments. In his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Hegseth said Trump charged him with ensuring the military is “laser focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness.”

But those comments have drawn questions and criticism from advocates who say diversity is critical to military readiness. Advocates have already sued to stop Trump’s executive order mandating changes in the ability of transgender individuals to serve in the ranks, something which Trump has argued hurts morale and readiness.

In past books and media appearances, Hegseth has criticized decisions to allow women to serve in combat roles and overturning the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. During his confirmation hearing, he suggested that standards for many military jobs have been lowered to meet diversity quotas, another allegation that past defense officials have denied.

Hegseth’s new task force order also includes instructions to monitor work to eliminate all diversity and inclusion programs from the department by March 1.

Trump has yet to announce his pick to lead the Pentagon’s personnel office. His pick to lead the Army, Daniel Driscoll, is set to have his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday and is likely to face questions from lawmakers about the new task force.

Federally employed military spouses who work remotely for their agencies “should” be allowed to continue to do so, according to a joint memo from the federal agencies in charge of budget and personnel.

Despite the guidance, some spouses with federal jobs continue to feel uncertainty and angst following President Donald Trump’s new policy requiring in-person work.

In a Jan. 27 memo about the return-to-office requirement for federal workers, the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget included a footnote that stated agencies “should also exclude military spouses working remotely based on the Military Spouse Employment Act.” That law includes a provision that authorizes military spouses to telework from remote locations.

But some advocates are concerned that the guidance does not explicitly require federal agencies to exempt military spouses from the return-to-office requirement, meaning policies could differ from agency to agency.

For spouses who work remotely – whether in the continental United States or overseas under a Domestic Employee Teleworking Overseas (DETO) agreement – there is uncertainty about whether they will be able to continue their careers. Any roadblocks to working for the federal government would add to the many difficulties military spouses face in their battle for employment.

Exceptions to the return-to-office policy will likely apply to military spouses working both remotely in the continental U.S. and overseas, said John Hatton, staff vice president for policy and programs at the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, or NARFE. However, Hatton said the specifics won’t be clear until guidance flows down to the agencies, and from the agencies to their employees.

As a result, the policy is sowing angst among military spouses who work for the federal government, said Emmalee Gruesen, a Navy wife and Navy civilian employee who volunteers as an advocate for federally employed military spouses. Gruesen lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she works remotely for a Navy office in Norfolk. She and Army wife Maria Donnelly administer a Facebook page for other federally employed spouses.

“A lot of spouses want to proactively submit requests” for exemptions, Gruesen said. “We’re telling them to wait for the agency.”

She told Military Times the departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services have issued clear instructions that do exempt military spouses from the return-to-office requirement.

“We’re trying to calm a whole community,” Gruesen said, noting that the time lag between the return-to-office order and any clarification about the policy has exacerbated the worry.

“The unfortunate thing is, people are making geo-bach decisions now,” she said. In those cases, some military families are deciding that the service member will move ahead to the next duty station while the spouse stays behind to be near work in case remote work isn’t allowed.

All federal employees are prohibited from teleworking overseas without approval from their agency and the State Department. An agreement signed in April 2024 between the departments of State and Defense was designed to make it easier for military spouses to work overseas under these DETO agreements.

Gruesen has heard from some spouses that their approvals for DETO have been put on hold, she said.

“People are fearful. There are a wide range of these executive orders,” NARFE’s Hatton said. “It’s disappointing to see the range and breadth and scope of these orders. The concern is that it’s not clearly tied to some productivity measure that had been going down because people were working from home versus in the office.”

Taken together, Hatton said, these executive orders “show a lack of appreciation for the work that federal employees are doing day in and day out ... [seeing] them more as expendable and part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to what we need to help discover and operate and work on behalf of the American people.”

Defense Department officials received a “blanket exemption” from the civilian hiring freeze ordered by President Donald Trump, according to memorandums from the Army and Air Force.

“Normal hiring actions and onboarding may continue,” stated an Army memo obtained by Military Times and signed by Mark R. Lewis, acting assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs.

While Trump’s memo about the hiring freeze said it didn’t apply to military personnel, it was initially unclear whether the exemption applied to all DOD positions — including jobs in areas such child care, commissaries, schools and other quality-of-life programs on military installations.

The Army memo states that the Office of Personnel Management had notified DOD of the blanket exemption. A similar memo, dated Jan. 24, was issued by the Air Force and signed by Gwendolyn R. DeFilippi, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs.

Defense Department officials had no comment when asked to confirm that the exemption was in place. However, one agency within DOD confirmed to Military Times on background that they were exempt from the hiring freeze.

Trump’s order, issued soon after his inauguration Jan. 20, froze hiring for federal positions that were vacant as of noon that day. It also prevents the creation of new federal positions.

The order remains in effect for at least 90 days, when the Office of Management and Budget will submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. When that OMB plan is issued, the hiring freeze will end.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A U.S. Air Force pilot was reported to be safe after a single-seat F-35 fighter jet crashed Tuesday during a training exercise at a base in Alaska.

The pilot experienced an “inflight malfunction” but was able to eject from the aircraft, Col. Paul Townsend, commander of the 354th Fighter Wing, told a news conference. The plane crashed during the landing phase of the flight at Eielson Air Force Base, he said.

The pilot had declared an inflight emergency prior to the crash and was in stable condition and being evaluated at a medical facility, he said.

The crash, which occurred early Tuesday afternoon, caused significant damage to the aircraft, the Air Force said in a statement.

Longer Footage of the F-35A Crash earlier today at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. pic.twitter.com/9OPksbTYWj

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 29, 2025

Eielson Air Force Base is about 25 miles south of Fairbanks.

Townsend said in the statement said the Air Force would conduct "a thorough investigation in hopes to minimize the chances of such occurrences from happening again.”

Eielson was selected in 2016 to host 54 F-35s, spawning an expansion that cost more than a half-billion dollars that was to include 36 new buildings and dozens of housing units. The expansion included about 3,500 new active-duty airmen and their dependents.

With the capability to fly more than 12 hours at a time, the F-35 can reach almost anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere in one mission.

In May, an F-35 fighter jet on its way from Texas to Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles crashed after the pilot stopped to refuel in New Mexico. The pilot was taken to a hospital with serious injuries.

In October, a Marine investigation blamed the pilot of an F-35 for ejecting from the aircraft when he didn’t need to, causing the fighter to fly unmanned for 11 minutes before it crashed in rural South Carolina in 2023.

Associated Press reporter Becky Bohrer contributed from Juneau, Alaska.

Six transgender active-duty service members and two former service members who seek reenlistment on Tuesday filed the first lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order that calls for revising policy on transgender troops and probably sets the stage for banning them in the armed forces.

Trump’s order, signed Monday, claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle” and is harmful to military readiness. It requires Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to issue a revised policy.

Army Capt. Gordon Herrero, one of the six active-duty plaintiffs, said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit: “There’s nothing about being transgender that makes me better or worse than any other soldier I serve alongside. We are all here because we are committed to our country, and we are passionate, willing, and able to serve effectively.”

The six plaintiffs include a Sailor of the Year honoree, a Bronze Star recipient and several who were awarded meritorious service medals.

“I’ve spent more than half my life in the Army, including combat in Afghanistan,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Kate Cole. “Removing qualified transgender soldiers like me means an exodus of experienced personnel."

The lawsuit is being filed by the same legal team that spent years during Trump’s first administration fighting the Republican’s ban on transgender troops, which the Supreme Court allowed to take effect even as the legal fight against it continued in the courts. Joe Biden scrapped the ban when he took office.

The lawsuit challenges the executive order on the basis of equal protection and argues that it reveals animus against a specific group.

“The law is very clear that the government can’t base policies on disapproval of particular groups of people,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “That’s animus. And animus-based laws are presumed to be invalid and unconstitutional.”

NCLR and GLAD Law filed the challenge to the executive order in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia.

Sasha Buchert, counsel for Lambda Legal, said her group, along with the Human Rights Campaign, also plans to file a legal challenge.

The Pentagon said it does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation but “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives.”

There is no official data on the number of transgender personnel in the military, but the number is probably in the thousands, Minter said. Unlike Trump’s initial ban in 2017, the new executive order not only bans all transgender people from serving in the future but also would target those currently serving, Minter said.

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed from Washington.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said he’s sending more than 400 soldiers from Houston and Fort Worth to the U.S.-Mexico border to collaborate with Border Patrol agents “to stop illegal immigrants from entering our country and to enforce immigration laws.”

Abbott said he will also send C-130s, an aircraft that can take off and land on rough terrain, and Chinook helicopters. The troops, part of a unit called the Texas Tactical Border Force, will join those already deployed to the border through the state’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, that Abbott started in 2021 in response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

Pentagon to send 1,500 troops to border to start Trump-ordered surge

Through Operation Lone Star, the state has deployed thousands of state National Guard troops to the border, though it is not clear how many are actively deployed. The Trump administration last week also sent 1,500 active-duty U.S. soldiers to the border.

“Texas has a partner in the White House we can work with to secure the Texas-Mexico border,” Abbott said in a statement. “I thank President Donald Trump for his decisive leadership on the southern border and look forward to working with him and his Administration to secure the border and make America safe again.”

The move is the state’s latest effort to help the Trump administration with its immigration crackdown. Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham has offered the administration a Starr County ranch to be used as a staging area for mass deportations — which an administration official previously accepted.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune under the headline “Abbott sends state troops to U.S.-Mexico border to work with Border Patrol.” Military Times has modified the headline.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.