The report asserts that the agency failed to appropriately assess whether claimants met the requirements for receiving compensation before issuing the payments. Investigators estimate that the Veterans Benefits Administration “prematurely” approved around a quarter of the 13,800 Gulf War Syndrome claims filed between Oct. 1, 2021, and Mar. 31, 2022. The report’s authors note, however, that the under-examined applicants may have been eligible for the benefits they received, even if their claims were mistakenly approved.

The errors could complicate treatment for an illness already clouded in ambiguity. Gulf War Syndrome encompasses a medley of unexplained chronic afflictions found in tens of thousands of veterans who served in the Persian Gulf during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Common symptoms include diarrhea, fatigue, rashes, joint pain and cognitive issues, though experts have struggled to pinpoint an exact cause for any of them. The VA announced in April that it would conduct a five-year study into the illness’ origins and impacts.

The VA first authorized disability checks for victims of Gulf War Syndrome in 1995. Gradual regulatory tweaks over the ensuing decades attempted to refine definitions for “unexplained illnesses” and the pathways to receive benefits for them. A 2003 rule change established the working definition of a “medically unexplained illness” as a diagnosed ailment lacking a clear cause and “characterized by overlapping symptoms and signs,” including fatigue, pain, and other disabilities.

The Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, signed into law in 2022, expanded welfare provisions for maladies connected to toxin exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam, and nuclear testing sites.

Investigators say the questionnaires used by agency adjudicators to evaluate claims for Gulf War Syndrome and other mysterious ailments don’t collect enough information to reliably determine who deserves benefits.

“(Veterans Benefits Administration) lacked evidence needed to decide the claims because its examination requests and disability benefits questionnaires do not elicit the information needed by claims processors to determine whether a veteran is eligible for benefits under the regulation,” they wrote.

The inspector general report also faulted “confusing and inconsistent” guidelines on how and when claims processors should seek out more information to fill those gaps. These oversights, it warned, could result in around $25.6 million in undue payments between fiscal year 2022 and September 2024.

Simple fixes, such as updating questionnaires and instructions for examiners with the full, latest definitions for medically unexplained illnesses, could save millions, investigators stressed.

The VA accepted the inspector general’s recommendations and is expected to implement the suggested reforms by the end of September.

Lawmakers and veterans groups plan a major push on the issue this fall, but prospects for meaningful progress on the issue remain dim.

“We have to get something done, because our allies in Afghanistan, our partners there are relying on us,” said Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo. and an Army veteran who has been leading the issue for the last few years. “It hasn’t panned out so far, but we’re gonna keep pushing.”

In the days before the last U.S. troops departed Afghanistan on Aug. 30, 2021, more than 80,000 Afghan refugees were rushed out of the country aboard American aircraft in an effort to protect them from advancing Taliban forces.

But some advocacy groups estimate as many as 150,000 Afghans that assisted the U.S. mission were left behind, including individuals who worked closely with U.S. military forces as interpreters and combat assistants. Thousands have State Department visa applications that have been pending for years.

And individuals who managed to escape still live with chronic uncertainty about their legal status and looming fears of deportation, because procedures for resolving their lingering immigration applications still have not been finalized.

Most Afghans airlifted to the U.S. during the late summer and early fall of 2021 were granted “humanitarian parole,” a tenuous, temporary authorization to reside in the country.

Parolee status, which enables Afghans to apply for employment authorization and other government benefits, expires after two years for most evacuees. Those attempting to reauthorize their parole or secure lawful permanent residence through the SIV or asylum process must navigate a labyrinth of paperwork and bureaucratic backlogs.

Without clarity on their future, advocates worry, some individuals could lose their jobs or, at worst, face deportation to foreign countries in coming months.

“There’s a constant fear that they’ll have to face the Taliban again,” said Safi Rauf, an Afghan citizen and U.S. Navy reservist who founded the Human First Coalition, which works to evacuate refugees from Afghanistan. “There’s not a day that goes by that these [refugees] don’t think about it.”

In a letter to congressional leaders last week, 24 veterans groups — including With Honor Action, No One Left Behind and Operation Pineapple Express Relief — urged lawmakers to find solutions before the end of the year.

“For two years, thousands of Afghans have been ruthlessly pursued by the Taliban and left in American bureaucratic limbo,” the groups wrote. “The moral imperative is clear and the time to act is now.

“We served and shed blood alongside many of these brave Afghans, whose only sin was to pursue a better democratic future for their country. Please do not allow them to be ignored and unprotected for another legislative calendar year. Their lives could well depend on whether America keeps her promise.”

Legislative fight

Over the last 24 months, advocates have held recurring rallies outside the Capitol begging for action and chastising lawmakers who have blocked potential fixes.

Most of the debate has focused on two bills: the Afghan Allies Protection Act (AAPA) and the Afghan Adjustment Act (AAA). The former, introduced in early June by Crow and a bipartisan group of House lawmakers, would authorize 20,000 new special immigrant visas (above the 38,500 already approved since 2014) for Afghans that worked for the American government and extend the visa program by five years, until December 2029.

Crow acknowledged the plan isn’t a full fix to the Afghan refugee problem but said it would provide ways to more quickly bring some individuals safely to American soil.

The Afghan Adjustment Act has stalled in Congress for more than two years now. The more comprehensive measure would clear up pathways to legal residency for evacuees and enhance vetting of those who seek it.

It would also extend special immigrant visa eligibility to Afghans that fought alongside U.S. armed forces but never formally signed contracts with U.S. government entities, including Afghan special operations troops and female members of the Afghan National Security Forces.

The measure was reintroduced earlier this summer by another bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa, also an Army veteran. She said the changes are needed to speed up the current immigration processes, which have left too many allies floundering in confusing government protocols.

“The State Department is trying to follow its codes and regulations, and we understand that,” she said. “But we don’t see the urgency that has been needed over the last two years. And these people are in peril.”

But the Afghan Adjustment Act has been blocked multiple times by a group of Senate Republicans who have objected to what they see as insufficient background checks for would-be immigrants from Afghanistan.

Last fall, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, publicly blasted White House officials for too-lax vetting policies for incoming Afghan allies and said he could not support the pending measures. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., earlier this year blocked attempts to add the Afghan Adjustment Act to the annual defense authorization bill.

Miller-Meeks said given the opposition thus far, “a more narrow bill focused on just our Afghan interpreters and allies may be more realistic this year.” She and Crow are both hopeful that they can convince more colleagues to drop their objections in coming months.

“We need to do more to help individuals who are already here,” she said. “Where are they going to return to? Afghanistan?”

Uncertain futures

Despite promises from congressional leadership to address the issue, advocates aren’t optimistic about the prospects for any legislative success this year.

“Passing any bill related to immigration is incredibly hard,” Rauf said. “We’re not even seeing a chance to bring the bills to the floor.”

Rauf has led dozens and rallies across America to rally support for the Afghan Adjustment Act and related bills over the last two years, and has been disappointed by both Republican opposition and a lack of Democratic emphasis on the issue. Support for helping Afghan allies crosses party lines, he insisted, so leaders from both sides should be pushing the issue.

Advocacy groups estimate that about 152,000 applicants for the special immigrant visas are currently stuck in Afghanistan awaiting State Department approval.

Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of refugees already in the U.S. are safe for now but unable to settle without clarity on their long-term immigration status.

Around 20,000 evacuees have applied for asylum since arriving in the U.S.; only 5,000 have received approval, according to Safiullah Delawar, the legal director of REACT DC, a Virginia-based resettlement organization created in the wake of the evacuation. Thousands more Afghans have yet to receive updates on their re-parole applications.

Delawar said he is “hoping that [lawmakers] will forget their politics for a while and not sacrifice this humanitarian act” amid short-term partisan fights.

Meanwhile, the families caught in the debate are left with an uncertain future.

“It’s difficult to continue living your life when you don’t know what the next year is going to look like,” said Peter Lucier, a resettlement advocate and Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan. “There are just a whole host of bad things that start happening when parole starts to expire.”

Lucier said companies are less likely to invest in training and certifications for workers who may be forced to leave the country in the next few years. That limits opportunities, which in turn leads to more stress, contributing to a growing number of mental health issues among the refugee community.

“They’re running out of time, and it feels like there’s not a lot of hope for the future,” Rauf said. “The goal is not just to have a job here. It’s to have a life, to have a home here.”

A White House directive published this week seeks to make it easier for the public to vent their frustrations about the inefficiencies, costs and adverse consequences of the federal government’s rule-making.

The guidance is the latest step in the Biden administration’s efforts to overhaul the country’s regulatory review system. The president directed the Office of Management and Budget to “improve and modernize” how the federal government gathered and responded to critiques of policies on his first day in office. An executive order released in early April reaffirmed the pledge, calling on agencies to deepen dialogues with the citizens most impacted by their regulations.

“A critical part of designing regulations that work is hearing from those who would be affected by them—the American people,” Sam Berger, associate administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement. “Hearing from those who are directly affected by a regulation or care about a specific issue helps ensure that we’re addressing the most pressing concerns of communities throughout the country.”

In a 20-page memorandum addressed to the heads of the executive branch’s 434 agencies, Richard Revesz, administrator of OIRA, urged the government’s top bureaucrats to make good on their boss’ instructions.

“It is crucial for Federal agencies to craft regulatory proposals with input from affected members of the public,” Revesz explained. “Public involvement in the development of regulations can lead to more effective and equitable regulations; greater trust in government and democratic accountability; and increased public understanding of the regulatory process.”

The guidance pinpointed several obstacles hobbling effective communication between regulators and the regulated. Skeptical that Washington bigwigs will listen to what they have to say, many Americans don’t think it worth their while to share their concerns, Revesz noted. Those that do (and can pin down the appropriate agency) may not know how to offer feedback.

“Even if individuals identify an agency or regulation with which they would like to engage, they might not be aware of the most effective way of participating or may lack the resources or incentives to participate through traditional regulatory processes,” Revesz wrote.

Civilians can comment on pending rules and notices on a government-run message board called “Regulations.gov.” However, Revesz added, underserved communities inhibited by limited internet access or language barriers struggle to take advantage of these channels.

To overcome these difficulties, OIRA encouraged agencies to prioritize “early engagement” with the communities most affected by their proposals. It also urged them to diversify and better advertise the different methods available to the public to voice their anxieties or suggestions. Collaborating with community organizations, circulating feedback forms on social media, and organizing town halls could all be helpful steps forward, the report said.

“This was really groundbreaking for an administration to say we’re going to make the rule-making process work more in the public interest, because for so long, it had worked for corporate special interests,” Elizabeth ‘Bitsy’ Skerry, a regulatory policy associate for Public Citizen, a progressive think tank, told Federal Times. “This isn’t just all talk.”

“Of course, the guidance can only work as best as its implementation by agencies,” she said. “It is critical to monitor implementation to ensure the administration is meeting its goals of increasing participation from the public.”

The amendment, slipped into the House version of the defense authorization bill by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, would forbid service members from contacting the Military Religious Freedom Foundation or its leadership. The legislation would also bar commanders from taking “any action or mak[ing] any decision as a result of any claim, objection or protest” made by the group “without the authority of the Secretary of Defense.”

MRFF’s founder, Mikey Weinstein, described the provision’s progression to the Senate as the “Pearl Harbor” in a far-right campaign to erode the rights of military personnel.

“Members of the military have the right under the First Amendment to free speech, as curtailed appropriately by the Supreme Court; they also have the right to petition their government for grievances,” Weinstein told Military Times. “Both of those have been viciously violated today by the actions of the far-right Christian nationalists in Congress.”

Weinstein, a U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and veteran, founded the organization in 2005 with the stated goal of “ensuring that all members of the United States Armed Forces fully receive the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.” The nonprofit claims to have served around 84,000 service members over the course of its 18-year history, defending its clients from unwanted proselytizing and scrubbing DoD installations clean of religious symbolism.

The MRFF’s activism has provoked the ire of conservative organizations and lawmakers. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was one of several GOP legislators to slam leaders of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy for removing a 190-square-foot painting titled “Christ on the Water,” which depicts an image of Jesus appearing before merchant mariners adrift in a lifeboat, from a public space in the academy’s main administration building at the behest of MRFF in February.

Turner’s office did not elaborate on why the congressman introduced the amendment. A senior House Armed Services Committee staffer previously told Military Times that the stipulation aimed to ensure that military personnel don’t “overreact” to the foundation’s work. Weinstein suspects more personal grudges — the MRFF pressured Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, located in Turner’s district, to remove a Bible display from its dining facilities in 2016.

Weinstein says his group has assembled a “litigation SWAT team” to challenge the provision in federal court should it become law. In the meantime, Weinstein and his team are lobbying senators to strike the clause from the bill. Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of the legislators with whom Weinstein claims to be “coordinating,” did not respond to a request for comment.

“We’ve been told by Senate staff and even senators that they’re not sure that all of the toxic cancer put in by the fundamentalist Christian nationalists in the House will be able to be found in conference,” Weinstein said of the difficulties involved with weeding out certain sections of the NDAA. But, he stressed: “This is hardly over.”

The new deals, totaling billions, span a number of key industries — including semiconductors, aerospace, and artificial intelligence.

Modi touted the partnership in his Thursday address to a joint meeting of Congress.

“The United States has become one of our most important defense partners,” Modi said, triggering a standing ovation. “When defense and aerospace in India grow, industries in the states of Washington, Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Pennsylvania thrive.”

But government officials and activists raised concerns about the Modi administration. Approximately 70 Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash), signed a letter Monday urging the Biden administration to make human rights a centerpiece of the week’s negotiations. The cohort criticized the “rise of religious intolerance, the targeting of civil society organizations and journalists and growing restrictions on press freedoms and internet access” across the subcontinent.

Several Democratic lawmakers — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — boycotted the speech, citing Modi’s human rights record. Modi was welcomed by those who did attend; call-and-response cries of “Jai Hind”—”Long Live India”— rang from the Senate chamber’s upper deck as Modi left the room and some members of Congress sought Modi’s autograph after his speech.

In mid-May, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation jailed Defense News contributor Vivek Raghuvanshi on unspecified espionage charges. White House and Pentagon officials skirted questions about Raghuvanshi’s detention this week, while the National Press Club issued a statement stating it was “deeply concerned about [his] arrest and detention.”

Modi did not acknowledge the crackdown when asked about it by a reporter at the White House, instead hailing India’s democratic credentials. Biden also avoided a similar question, noting “an overwhelming respect for each other because we’re both democracies.”

Raghuvanshi would likely have covered a number of high-profile deals unveiled this week. India agreed to procure $3 billion worth of MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones. GE Aerospace said it would partner with Indian flight tech company Hindustan Aeronautics to produce fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force.

Micron Technology, an American semiconductor firm, pledged to spend upwards of $2.75 billion on construction of an assembly and test facility in India. Meanwhile, the two powers kickstarted negotiations for a reciprocal defense procurement arrangement to coordinate the exchange and development of military technology.

The day before Modi’s address, Indian and American bureaucrats along with executives from startups and defense contractors congregated for a daylong conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to network and showcase new tech in the hopes of facilitating “joint innovation on defense technologies and accelerate the integration of India’s budding private sector defense industry with the U.S. defense sector,” according to the White House.

Overlapping strategic concerns and growing economic incentives are drawing the once distant powers together. Both are wary of Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific (though the Biden administration has shied away from mentioning Beijing explicitly during Modi’s visit). The U.S. is also keen to distance India from Russia, the country’s leading arms supplier. New Delhi, meanwhile, is eager to develop an organic defense industry of its own.

The recent slate of agreements builds on decades of summits and signings. Bush administration officials and their Indian counterparts penned a “U.S.-India Defense Relationship” framework in 2005, setting out mutual priorities and areas of cooperation. A series of subsequent economic agreements culminated in the pair’s first strategic dialogue in 2010, as then-President Barack Obama ushered in the American “Pivot to Asia.”

Obama consecrated India as a “major defense partner” during the prime minister’s last full-fledged state visit to Washington in 2016. The U.S. began sharing advanced military communications technology with New Delhi two years later.

The QUAD, an informal security collective including India, Japan, Australia and the U.S., held its first meeting in 2021. Earlier this year, India and the U.S. launched the “Initiative on Critical and Emerging and Technology” to streamline the exchange of military technology and expertise.

The company unveiled its new three-letter moniker, RTX, in a LinkedIn post on Monday. The rebranding comes three years after Raytheon merged with aerospace manufacturer United Technologies Corp. to form Raytheon Technologies. Since then, the company’s stock has traded under the RTX ticker symbol.

RTX “is a nod to the past and a nod to the future,” Greg Hayes, the company’s chief executive, said at an investor meeting Monday. He noted United Technologies’ ticker symbol was UTX; Raytheon’s was RTN.

Last summer, the conglomerate announced it would move its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia. Earlier this year, it announced plans to reorganize into three brands: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon.

In a call with analysts in April, Christopher Calio, RTX’s chief operating officer, said the restructuring is meant to better align the company’s businesses with customer priorities, improve performance, and to better use company resources to optimize investments and cost structure.

James Russell Davis served in the Marine Corps between October 1994 and June 1996, according to court documents. The 47-year-old Virginia native is the latest defendant with military ties to plead guilty to charges connected to the Capitol assault. Two active duty Marines also pleaded guilty to riot-related offenses on Monday.

The steady rise in current and former service members pleading guilty to Jan. 6 violence lends weight to a growing body of research showing that small but dangerous elements within military circles are prone to extremism. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have decried the Biden administration’s attempts to root out extremism in the military as insulting and pointless.

Prosecutors claim Davis engaged in physical altercations with police on U.S. Capitol Grounds. A montage of social media posts and police body cam footage compiled in Davis’s affidavit depict him leading a throng of rioters as it confronted law enforcement on the Capitol’s lower west terrace. Sporting tactical gloves, sunglasses, and a Marine Corps cap, Davis brandished a large wooden staff as he shoved and cussed at outnumbered officers.

“I fought for this country, I fought for this country, what the fuck are you doing,” Davis is recorded screaming.

Davis is a self-proclaimed member of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group that propagates anti-government and white supremacist ideologies. Proud Boy members played pivotal roles in stoking and executing the Capitol assault. A federal jury convicted four Proud Boys, including its leader, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, of seditious conspiracy and other felonies early May.

Prosecutors have charged at least 1,043 individuals in connection to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol as of Jun. 6. More than half have pleaded guilty. Researchers at Harvard University estimate that almost 20% of Jan. 6 rioters were veterans; a smaller sliver were active members of the military.

Davis faced four charges at the time of his arrest in July 2021. He is set to be sentenced on Sept. 12, 2023.

Caregivers from the Jennifer Moreno VA Medical Center in San Diego and the Atlanta VA Medical Center joined peers from 16 other hospitals across the country to protest conditions they claim overburden medical personnel and compromise patient care. National Nurses United, the country’s largest union of registered nurses, organized the rally.

Understaffing has plagued VA medical facilities since the early 2010s, and the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the crisis. A VA Office of Inspector General investigation published last year found that 91% of Veterans Health Administration facilities reported a severe shortage of nursing staff during fiscal 2022. All 139 VHA facilities surveyed for the study reported acute vacancies in at least one occupation.

Erin McLeod, an NNU local director with 15 years of nursing experience at the VA’s San Diego campus, estimates that the hospital’s nursing team has operated at 80% of total capacity for several years. Bureaucratic hurdles and uncompetitive salaries are hampering agency efforts to remedy the issue, she said.

“If we’re paid less, and we have less support staff, and we’re not following a nurse-to-patient ratio like other hospitals, it makes it hard to hire and keep good nurses here,” McLeod told Military Times. “We want to serve those who have served and give them the best care we can, but it’s hard when our hands are constantly being tied.”

VA leaders are conscious of the problem.

“One of VA’s top priorities right now is recruiting, hiring, and retaining our great nurses,” a spokesperson told Military Times. “To do that, VA advocated strongly for the PACT Act and RAISE Act — which raised pay for more than 10,000 VA nurses across the country. We have also maximized bonuses and retention incentives to reward VA nurses for their excellent work and keep them at VA, where they belong.”

Officials also point to thousands of new nursing hires and comparatively low staff turnover rates as signs of progress.

From October 2022 through May 2023, “VA has hired 6,819 Registered Nurses, 1,413 Licensed Practical Nurses /Licensed Vocational Nurse, and 2,058 Nursing Assistants — more hires in these three critical occupations than at any time in the past 20 years,” the spokesperson added.

Still, many VA nurses and facilities continue to struggle. Teshara Felder-Livingston, an NNU shop steward, began working as a nurse at the Atlanta complex in 2017. She can recall few days when she and her team were not straining to juggle caregiving responsibilities.

“We do not have the correct staff mix to safely care for patients; it’s just not there,” she told Military Times. “We would need at least 20 to 30 more nurses to be able to do the things we’re being asked to do. Not having staff readily available for the patients is the biggest safety risk you can have at a hospital.”

She doubts that better compensation would ease the stress.

“Our wages in [the Atlanta area] are competitive,” Felder-Livingston said. “However, when people do come here to work, we’ve seen nurses leave within days when they see what’s required of them.”

Capping the number of patients assigned to an individual nurse and decluttering shift schedules could, she says, be more productive solutions.

Nursing industry

The VA’s staffing woes are symptomatic of broader troubles in the nursing industry. More than 100,000 registered nurses hung up their clogs between 2020 and 2021, according to a report published in the medical journal Health Affairs. A 2023 survey found that almost a third of the country’s remaining caregivers expect to follow suit because of the pandemic, when long hours, patient overloads, and inadequate equipment stretched many overworked hospital staffs thin.

Some experts attribute the nursing deficit to demographic and educational pressures—older nurses are retiring en masse, and there aren’t enough qualified caregivers to replenish their ranks. Meanwhile, the country’s elderly population—and, in turn, the demand for nursing care—is climbing.

NNU advocates reject this narrative. Shorthanded wards, they argue, are the product of hospital mismanagement and exploitative employment policies, not a lack of capable nurses.

“The hospital industry created the current staffing crisis through its own bad practices of routinely short-staffing units and driving away nurses who refuse to tolerate the moral distress and moral injury suffered from working in untenable, unconscionable, and unsafe work environments,” NNU wrote in a press release.

More than 14,000 of the NNU’s 225,000 members work in VA facilities. The union finalized a contract with the VA in May; the agreement outlines department pledges to improve staffing levels but falls short of affording VA healthcare personnel full collective bargaining rights. VA nurses staged protests at four hospitals last year to push negotiations forward.