The Associated Press
The Air National Guard has delayed its plan to downgrade the status of about 80 members of its Alaska unit, a move that would have threatened national security and civilian rescues in the nation’s most remote state.
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Stars and Stripes
An Air Force student pilot was killed last week when he was struck by a train in Del Rio, Texas, near Laughlin Air Force Base, where he was stationed, military and law enforcement officials said April 22. Second Lt. James Chitika was found dead off base April 16 near railroad tracks in Del Rio, officials at Laughlin said in a news release.
Military.com
An Air Force officer whose promotion to brigadier general has been stalled by a Republican senator fighting against diversity initiatives in the military has been granted another year to try to win Senate confirmation. Col. Ben Jonsson's nomination to become a one-star general was set to expire May 1.
Breaking Defense
Whatever may come of China’s new long-range stealth bomber known as the Xi’an H-20, U.S. officials are confident it won’t measure up to American designs, according to a DOD intelligence official. “It’s probably nowhere near as good as U.S. LO [low observable] platforms, particularly more advanced ones that we have coming down,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon.
Reuters
Injury rates at SpaceX facilities continued to exceed an industry average in 2023, according to a Reuters review of safety data reported to U.S. regulators by the space venture controlled by billionaire Elon Musk. The 2023 records, newly disclosed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, also show that injury rates at some SpaceX facilities grew worse than those the company had reported in 2022.
SpaceNews
The Pentagon has partially declassified some space electronic warfare technologies and exercises, a move seen as critical for enhancing U.S. Space Force training and fostering closer collaboration with allied forces. Col. Christopher Fernengel, director of the Commander’s Action Group at the Space Force’s Space Operations Command, credited the Defense Department’s space policy office for leading the declassification efforts.
USNI News
The Joint Simulation Environment at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division at Naval Station Patuxent River, Md. started with F-35 simulators, but the program expanded to add four Air Force F-22 Raptor cockpits in January, NAWCAD said. That allows for the program to serve both the Navy and Air Force.
Task & Purpose
Days after the U.S. accepted demands to withdraw American troops from Niger, the U.S. is also facing calls from its African neighbor, Chad, to remove its small contingent of troops. While the U.S. has long had a much smaller presence in Chad, Niger’s neighbor in the region of central Africa known as the Sahel, those troops may soon be under pressure to leave as well.
POLITICO
U.S. officials are starting to accept that their strategy of pressing Niger and other war-battered African countries to break off ties with Moscow and embrace democratic norms is no longer working. The recent breakdown in relations with Niger, where American troops are set to withdraw as Russian fighters arrive, has forced a reckoning inside the Biden administration over its approach to maintaining its allies in volatile parts of Africa.
Breaking Defense
In his latest missive to Guardians, Space Force chief Gen. Chance Saltzman urges service leaders to urgently implement the service’s new readiness model—a rotating training-to-operations process he says represents the “most drastic change accompanying the establishment of the Space Force.” The April 19 CSO Notice to Guardians (C-Note), obtained by Breaking Defense, stresses that the new Space Force Generation (SPAFORGEN) model to build readiness “fundamentally alters how we prepare for operations.”
The Associated Press
American and Filipino forces launched their largest combat exercises in years April 22 in a show of allied firepower near the disputed South China Sea that has alarmed Beijing. The annual exercises by the longtime treaty allies will run until May 10 and involve more than 16,000 of their military personnel, along with more than 250 French and Australian forces.
The Wall Street Journal
The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency must do more to ensure its employees are politically neutral and aren’t teaching biased content in its schools in Gaza and the West Bank, a U.N.-ordered investigation found April 22.
One More Thing
WPBF 25 News
Airmen at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. had an unexpected scaly visitor: an alligator nestled against the wheel of an Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tanker on the runway.
