In a release dated Feb. 2, Veterans Affairs announced that a Birmingham, Ala., VA Medical Center employee alerted supervisors Jan. 22 that an external hard drive was missing and possibly stolen. The drive served as a backup for the employee’s computer and may have contained personal information on some veterans. The employee stated that some of the data was protected. The VA’s Inspector General was notified Jan. 23, and has begun an investigation, after seizing the employee’s computer for data analysis. So far there is no word how many vets might be affected. Vowed Jim Nicholson, VA secretary, “We intend to get to the bottom of this, and we will take aggressive steps to protect and assist anyone whose information may have been involved.”
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.