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A Chinese student arrested in South Korea for illegally taking drone footage of a United States aircraft carrier is a model Communist Party member, local media reported. The incident happened on June 25 when USS Theodore Roosevelt, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, docked at the Naval Operations Command of South Korea in Busan, a port city located on the country's southeastern coast, where U.S. aircraft carriers frequently visit.

Three U.S. troops are currently being evaluated for brain injuries following a rocket attack in Syria, the Pentagon has said. Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder stated that U.S. Central Command is continuing to assess responsibility for the attack near Mission Support Site Euphrates, which led to American counterstrikes on Tuesday. The Pentagon reported that rockets and mortars struck near the base during the incident.

The Navy's amphibious fleet transports Marines and their equipment, including vehicles and aircraft, for critical missions. The Navy must maintain a fleet of 31 operational ships to meet these needs. But half of the fleet is in poor condition and some ships have been unavailable for years at a time.

After nearly eight decades of official denial and obfuscation of the UFO phenomenon, the new head of the Pentagon’s UFO analysis office made a remarkable admission last month. During a briefing with reporters, Jon Kosloski, director of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, admitted that the U.S. government is stumped by several “true anomalies.” According to Kosloski, “There are interesting [UFO] cases that I, with my physics and engineering background and time in the [intelligence community], I do not understand. And I don’t know anybody else who understands them either.”

Tulsi Gabbard, whom Donald Trump plans to nominate as his director of national intelligence, was a faithful consumer of Kremlin-controlled propaganda network RT, three of her former aides told ABC News.

CFL/ACFLs, FAQ sheet has been updated. NAVADMIN 242/24 announces new policies and procedures for the Body Composition Assessment (BCA) that will take effect in CY2025. Effective for the CY2025 PFA Cycle: Sailors who are not within Navy BCA standards and pass the Physical Readiness Test (PRT) with an overall score of Excellent-Low or above, will receive an overall passing score on the Physical Fitness Assessment and will not be enrolled in Fitness Enhancement Program (FEP). Sailors who are not within Age Adjusted Standards for BCA and pass the PRT with an overall score of Excellent-Low or above, will not be enrolled in FEP.

On weekends, Staff Sgt. Todd VanCantfort, an armed forces police officer in San Antonio, Texas, targeted gay bars in search of anyone in the military. One time, at the direction of his supervisor, he ditched his light blue and navy uniform to “dress gay.” He chose tight jeans, cowboy boots, and an open button-down shirt, advertising a burst of chest hair. It was 1985. San Antonio was dotted with several military installations and even more bars, many of them rowdy dance clubs where VanCantfort would break up fights or drive slurring servicemembers back to base.

Physical Readiness Program Update for PFA BCA Exemption Fact (PDF)

The Navy will not require some sailors to undergo the Fitness Enhancement Program if they do not pass the Navy’s Body Composition Assessment portion of the Physical Fitness Assessment. Starting next year, sailors who do not meet the BCA standards but do score an Excellent-Low or above on the Physical Readiness Test — completing the pushup, forearm plank and cardio portions of the test — will be exempt from undergoing the Fitness Enhancement Program, according to a new naval administrative message.

Trump's pick to take over the Pentagon appears to be struggling to convince Republican senators he's fit for the job. Pete Hegseth’s quest to take over the Pentagon has been fraught — to say the least. The former Fox News host has been struggling to weather a firestorm of scrutiny stemming from a series of damning revelations about his past since Donald Trump tapped him as his Secretary of Defense nominee last month.

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Sailors assigned to the USS George Washington will be hard-pressed to slake their thirst following new liberty restrictions imposed on the aircraft carrier’s crew of 3,000. Sailors are, for the time being, prohibited from consuming any alcoholic beverages on or off base, ship spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Mark Langford said by phone Tuesday. Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-12-03/navy-carrier-alcohol-ban-japan-16042477.html Source - Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON —Today, VA is launching a new outreach campaign to encourage all eligible Veterans to enroll in VA health care – including approximately 1 million unenrolled Veterans who served in Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This campaign will include text messages and emails directly to Veterans, public service announcements, paid advertising, and events. VA is launching this campaign after reports of concerns from Veterans about health issues – including mental health challenges and thoughts of suicide – potentially related to repeated blasts and head trauma (low-level artillery blasts, IEDs, missile launches, heavy fire, and more). Since the first reporting about these concerns, VA researchers have been urgently studying this matter to learn more about the potential health impacts of blast exposure on Veterans.

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News.

Delayed and skipped amphibious warship maintenance has prevented Marine Corps units from training and deploying on schedule, reads a new Government Accountability Office report released on Tuesday. Sixteen out of the 32 ships in the amphibious fleet are considered to be in “poor material condition” by the Navy’s own standards. Those ships include almost all of the Whidbey Island and Harpers Ferry landing ship docks and the majority of the Wasp-class big-deck amphibious assault ships, according to the GAO study ordered as part of the Fiscal Year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act.

The Navy relieved the commanding officer of Navy Reserve Center Cheyenne, Wyoming, on Tuesday, the service announced. Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Bourque was relieved as the head of NRC Cheyenne by Capt. Christopher Peppel, commander of Navy Reserve Region Readiness and Mobilization Command Everett, “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command,” the Navy said in a brief release.

Stephen Feinberg, who had a role on Trump’s intelligence advisory board during his first term, is a major donor to the president-elect, but his selection could present some significant conflicts of interest.

FALLS CHURCH, Va. – Jan. 1, 2025, marks the start of health care delivery under TRICARE’s new regional contracts. There will be changes to the TRICARE regions in the U.S. as part of the new contracts. While there will still be two TRICARE regions, six states currently in the East Region (Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin) will move to the West Region. There are also some zip codes in four of these states that will be exceptions to the region changes. “Knowing which region you’re in is crucial to understanding if you need to take any steps by Jan. 1,” said Zelly Zim, health systems specialist, TRICARE Health Plan Policy & Programs Branch, at the Defense Health Agency.

WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it will fund a study on Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-assisted, or MDMA-assisted, therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol use disorder among Veterans. This is the first VA-funded study for psychedelic-assisted therapy since the 1960s. VA researchers affiliated with Brown University and Yale University will evaluate the potential of MDMA-assisted therapy as a treatment option for Veterans with both PTSD and AUD. Participants will receive psychotherapy sessions enhanced by MDMA, a psychedelic compound believed to increase emotional openness, reduce fear, and promote introspection during therapy. Some participants will be randomly chosen to receive an active placebo, which will be a lower dose of MDMA.

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Two sailors assigned to the USS George Washington died within days of the aircraft carrier’s arrival at its new homeport in Japan, a ship spokesman confirmed Monday. The deaths of Petty Officer 2nd Class Cuyler Burnett Condon and Seaman Dimitri Isacc Morales are currently under investigation, USS George Washington spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Mark Langford said by email Monday. Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-12-02/sailor-deaths-uss-george-washington-16031179.html Source - Stars and Stripes

Two U.S. Navy destroyers shot down incoming Houthi missiles and drones that were targeting three U.S.-flagged commercial ships that the destroyers were escorting in the Gulf of Aden, the U.S. military said. There was no damage to the ships involved, the U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said in a statement. There were no injuries, the statement said. The destroyers, the USS Stockade and the USS O'Kane, shot down "a range" of Houthi-launched weapons while traveling through the gulf on Saturday and Sunday, CENTCOM said.

After the recent revelation that Pete Hegseth had secretly paid a financial settlement to a woman who had accused him of raping her in 2017, President-elect Donald Trump stood by his choice of Hegseth to become the next Secretary of Defense. Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, issued a statement noting that Hegseth, who has denied wrongdoing, has not been charged with any crime. “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration,” Cheung maintained. But Hegseth’s record before becoming a full-time Fox News TV host, in 2017, raises additional questions about his suitability to run the world’s largest and most lethal military force. A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

The mother of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, accused her son of mistreating and abusing women in an email released by the New York Times. Penelope Hegseth sent the email, which recounts his treatment of women, on April 30, 2018 while he was in the midst of a divorce from his second wife, Samantha Hegseth. “You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego,” Penelope wrote. “You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth… your abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out.”

President-elect Donald Trump has selected businessman John Phelan as his nominee to lead the Navy, according to a statement released on Tuesday night. “It is my great honor to announce John Phelan as our next United States Secretary of the Navy! John will be a tremendous force for our Naval Servicemembers, and a steadfast leader in advancing my America First vision,” Trump wrote. “He will put the business of the U.S. Navy above all else.”

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