Military

As a private first class in the Marines, Thompson participated in five assault landings in the Pacific Theater during World War II, said his son, Jim Thompson. Like many of his generation, he didn't talk about the war with his children, but drips and drabs of information - and spontaneous bursts of emotion - would bubble out over the years. 

Russia pounded the front line in Ukraine’s south and east with artillery strikes, Ukrainian military authorities said Sunday, as Moscow bombarded the Kherson region and pushed to break through Ukraine’s last remaining defenses around the city of Bakhmut.

It was envisioned as the centerpiece of a $200 billion program revolutionizing how the U.S. Army would fight. Now it’s languishing in storage in Virginia, a 25-ton symbol of the malaise that lies at the nexus of the Pentagon and the defense industry.

“Some of the guys, this is all they have, and this hurts really deep."

Robert L. "Bob" Bartlett's research has resulted in a short-form documentary film, called "Jumping into the Fire," that won an award at the 2022 Spokane International Film Festival, a collaboration with director Chase Ogden. In partnership with other researchers on "smokejumping," the practice of fighting wildfires using trained parachutists in remote areas of the West, Bartlett has been able to piece together a flight log and map of all of the jumps - totaling more than 30 - made between July 18, 1945, and Oct. 30, 1945. 

The Air Force Material Command on Tuesday issued what's known as a time compliance technical order that grounded KC-135 aircraft until inspections for "a non-conforming part in the vertical tail assembly." Base officials at Fairchild, which houses 68 of the aircraft according to its website, confirmed Friday that they are inspecting their jets. 

WASHINGTON – After the U.S. military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon and three other flying objects in just over a week, an Idaho senator who has been briefed on the incidents said Wednesday that President Joe Biden should tell the nation everything he can about the unprecedented series of events.

The Pentagon used an F-16 fighter jet that shot the object with a Sidewinder air-to-air missile. This object was unidentified, as was an object shot down over the Yukon Territory in Canada on Saturday and another shot down over the Arctic Ocean near Alaska on Friday.

Ukrainian forces are coming under increasing pressure in the heavily contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the site of some of the bloodiest battles to date, as the Russian invasion is 12 days away from its first anniversary. 

WASHINGTON – The company behind a new Department of Veterans Affairs computer system that has harmed Inland Northwest patients since Spokane became its testing ground in 2020 is pushing back after House Republicans introduced two bills that would either freeze the system’s further rollout or scrap it altogether.

For the 2023 Super Bowl pregame national anthem, a Navy flyover formation will feature four Navy aircraft, including two F/A-18F Super Hornets that can claim a little Spokane support. Petty Officer 1st Class Ashley Clifford, Spokane-raised, is among crew maintaining that aircraft. The F/A-18F Super Hornets are aircraft depicted in the recent "Top Gun: Maverick" movie.

A U.S. fighter jet shot down a "high-altitude object" in Alaskan airspace Friday, officials said, marking the second such action by the Pentagon in a week.

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress from Montana and the Inland Northwest expressed concern and outrage Friday after a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was spotted over Montana and toward the southeastern United States.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Last year, a bipartisan group of senators blocked a controversial process that would have downsized VA hospitals in Spokane and Walla Walla as part of an effort to reshape the Department of Veterans Affairs’ nationwide system of nearly 1,300 clinics and hospitals.

A 54-year-old woman was arrested Thursday on suspicion of attempted murder after reportedly trying to smother a patient at the Idaho State Veterans home.

Influential lawmakers from both parties urged the Defense secretary in a letter Tuesday to curtail the department’s submission to Congress of “unfunded priorities lists” — annual requests for billions of dollars in military spending above White House budget proposals.