Source: United States Navy
The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its Plasma Physics Division, marking six decades of scientific discovery that has advanced the understanding of plasma, and supported technologies critical to national defense, space science, and advanced materials.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
A federal jury in the Northern District of Georgia convicted a Georgia man Friday of sexually and physically abusing two minors.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Adam Schlueter, 37, of Atlanta, was stationed in Grafenwöhr, Germany while a member of the Army from 2009 until 2013. While there, he physically, emotionally, and sexually abused two minor victims. During trial testimony, both minors described being choked and beaten by Schlueter, among others form of egregious physical abuse. One minor described, at age eight, being pushed through a second-story window and dangled above the ground. Schlueter sexually assaulted both minors when they were under the age of 10. Schlueter also employed threats to prevent his victims and other witnesses from disclosing the abuse to authorities, going so far as to threaten to kill one witness.
The jury convicted Schlueter of two counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 12 and two counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 9 and faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 30 years in prison and a maximum penalty of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg for the Northern District of Georgia; and Special Agent in Charge Marlo Graham of the FBI’s Atlanta Field Office made the announcement.
The FBI Atlanta Field Office investigated the case.
Trial Attorney McKenzie Hightower of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Leanne Marek for the Northern District of Georgia are prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – On April 9, 2026, JELISSA LACOUR (“LACOUR”), age 37, a resident of Jefferson Parish, was sentenced by United States District Judge Carl J. Barbier for two counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft, announced U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Earlier today in federal court in Brooklyn, Animashaun Adebo, also known as “Kazeem” and “Kazeem Animashaun,” pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy for his role in a series of fraudulent business email compromise (BEC) and related romance schemes that resulted in more than $50 million in losses by individuals and small businesses located within the Eastern District of New York and throughout the United States. The defendant and his co-conspirators misappropriated victim funds and laundered them through shell company accounts in the United States and abroad, sometimes using unsuspecting middlemen to further obscure the fraudulent source of the funds.
Source: United States Army
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AGADIR, Morocco — More than 400 multinational service members are gathering to participate in the academic portion of African Lion 26 at Southern Zone Headquarters, Agadir, Morocco, April 20 to May 1.
The academic phase of the exercise features 22 intensive courses. These classes prepare multinational service members to use unmanned aerial systems, cyberspace defenses and satellite operations before they head into simulated combat.
“The academics portion of the exercise serves as a critical foundation for follow-on training and operations,” said U.S. Marine Maj. Keefe Murtaugh, AL26 academics coordinator and team two operations officer with Marine Corps Advisor Company Alpha. “The academic program is designed to enhance technical expertise, accelerate decision-making and improve operational effectiveness across all domains, three elements critical to shortening the decision cycle in modern conflict.”
Courses range from entry-level instruction to advanced operational planning, ensuring leaders at every echelon are equipped to contribute to mission success. Training on unmanned aerial systems spans both tactical execution and operational integration.
“The operator course is meant to instruct service members on how to conduct UAS operations, basic flight instruction,” Murtaugh said. “The planner course is really intended for noncommissioned officers, senior NCOs and officers to think about how to employ UAS from a day-to-day perspective.”
Advanced courses are expanding into emerging domains, including space, electromagnetic warfare and cyberspace, areas critical to maintaining an advantage in increasingly contested environments.
“This year features an advanced [electronic warfare] and space course,” Murtaugh said. “The students that went through the basic course here last year are determining how to integrate with satellite operations in a bigger way, which is something that we haven’t done before.”
The 10-day cyberspace operations course further underscores the exercise’s focus on innovation and investment in modern capabilities.
U.S. Army 1st Lt. Mason Elizondo, an AL26 cyberspace operations instructor assigned to the 183rd Cyber Protection Team, Army Reserve Cyber Protection Brigade, is directly contributing to that effort by training partner forces to defend critical cyber infrastructure.
“Today we are instructing the Moroccan partner force on the introduction to cybersecurity… how to posture themselves effectively for threat hunting and cyber and best cybersecurity practices,” Elizondo said.
The training is designed to empower partner forces with the tools and knowledge needed to operate independently and defend their own networks, an essential component of burden-sharing and long-term regional stability.
“Our goal is to instruct partner forces and get them into a good position so that they can conduct their missions effectively and protect their cyber key terrain,” Elizondo said. “We need to teach them and choreograph with them to make sure that they have their own priorities set straight so they can do their own threat hunts.”
Elizondo added that the instruction focuses on detecting and countering adversary activity across multiple platforms.
“I will be teaching the students how to hunt and detect persistence on a network from figuring out how attackers get into the network and how they stay on the network to anything from a Windows system to a Linux system or a cloud environment,” he said.
The multinational environment also enables a two-way exchange of knowledge, reinforcing innovation and adaptability across the force.
“They are incredibly proficient and incredibly knowledgeable,” Elizondo said. “We’re not just imparting knowledge on them, we’re also getting knowledge from them. We get to interact with all different types of partner forces.”
For Murtaugh, this collaborative approach is central to building interoperable forces capable of responding to shared challenges.
“We partner with foreign forces and help validate their doctrine, work through the planning process and make sure we can maximize interoperability,” he said.
The academic phase plays a vital role in preparing participants for subsequent exercise events, ensuring forces can effectively apply their training during planning and execution phases.
“The academics portion is critical because it’s helping a lot of these students refresh, or be introduced to some of the material that they’re going to apply during either the planning or execution for command field exercises,” Murtaugh said.
U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Travis Herman, Intelligence and Sustainment Company first sergeant, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF), said the experience reinforces shared goals among partner nations.
“This is my first time teaching in Africa,” Herman said. “I’m most excited about getting to know the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces, their culture and getting to see how they run things.”
Herman, who teaches the noncommissioned officer development course, said the training enhances readiness for both U.S. and partner forces.
“It is helping increase readiness with both them and us because it refreshes me on some foundations that I haven’t touched on in a couple years,” he said.
Through engagement with partner forces, Herman emphasized the common ground that underpins multinational cooperation.
“From training alongside our partners and our allies, I just continue to learn that we are more similar than we are different,” he said. “They want the same things that we want for our Soldiers, readiness.”
By combining academic instruction with multinational collaboration, AL26 strengthens deterrence, validates innovative approaches and empowers partner nations to build sustainable, independent capabilities, ensuring a more ready, capable and interoperable force for the future.
About African Lion
African Lion 2026 is U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual joint exercise, designed to strengthen collective security capabilities of the U.S., African nations and global allies. Co-led by U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) from April 20 to May 8, 2026, and hosted in Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia, AL26 involves over 5,600 personnel from more than 40 nations, using innovation to drive partner-led regional security.
African Lion content can be found on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS).
About SETAF-AF
U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) prepares Army forces, executes crisis response, enables strategic competition and strengthens partners to achieve U.S. Army Europe and Africa and U.S. Africa Command campaign objectives.
Follow SETAF-AF on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & DVIDS
Source: United States Army
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ROME — Senior enlisted leaders from Africa, Europe and the United States attended the Senior Enlisted Leader Forum, held in conjunction with the African Land Forces Summit in Rome, Italy, March 24.
Hosted by U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) and sponsored by the Office of the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, ALFS annually brings land force leaders together to strengthen partnerships and address shared security challenges. The SELF, introduced seven years ago, reinforces that mission by focusing on the critical role of noncommissioned officers in shaping future forces and driving mission success.
“Forums like this allow us to synchronize efforts of leader development from across the African continent while building relationships that matter,” said U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Chad Harness, senior enlisted advisor for SETAF-AF. “As we execute our eighth iteration of SELF, this is the largest forum we’ve done, which only codifies its importance as we build upon the NCO corps.”
This year’s forum marked the first time the SELF took place in Europe. Harness welcomed participants and emphasized the importance of senior enlisted leadership in building capable, adaptive formations prepared for modern warfare.
“The theme of this year’s ALFS conference was innovation,” Harness said. “For innovation to become positive change it must meet the demands of the operational environment and practical application by the end user. For that to happen across our partner forces, we need strong NCO leadership like I see at this event.”
Reinforcing the importance of enlisted leadership in executing strategy, Italian army Command Sgt. Maj. Michele Romano underscored the role of NCOs in mission success.
“The most expertly thought-out plan is only as good as the NCO corps that is interpreting and executing it,” Romano said. “Our strength as armies comes from the professionalism, discipline and adaptability of our NCOs.”
Building on that perspective, keynote speakers such as U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Paul Fedorisin, senior enlisted advisor for 7th Army Training Command, and U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Joshua Peterson, senior enlisted advisor assigned to the 173rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, highlighted how disciplined, well-trained NCO corps across multinational formations enable operational effectiveness.
“A strong NCO corps is the backbone of any effective force, especially in multinational environments where trust and standards must be shared,” Peterson said. “When we invest in our enlisted leaders, we are investing directly in readiness and mission success.”
The forum gathered experienced sergeants major and senior enlisted leaders who shared insights drawn from decades of service. Expanding on the keynote remarks, discussions focused on leadership, readiness and innovation, with participants exchanging best practices for training and managing forces in an increasingly complex operational environment.
Echoing these themes, senior enlisted leaders from African partner nations contributed to the dialogue by sharing how they maintain discipline while fostering innovation and adapting to evolving threats.
“We face many of the same challenges, but forums like this give us new ideas and approaches we can take back to our formations,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Andrew Johnston, Security Cooperation Directorate sergeant major for SETAF-AF. “There is nothing to say that a corporal in Zambia isn’t the one who develops a solution to a tactical problem threatening all of us. I have worked with dozens of militaries over the years, and the best partners all have the same thing in common: a strong and empowered NCO corps.”
Adding to the collaborative environment, U.S. Army National Guard participants engaged with counterparts through the State Partnership Program, strengthening long-term partnerships and supporting the advancement of enlisted development initiatives aligned with U.S. Africa Command’s African Enlisted Development Program.
“The State Partnership Program allows us to build lasting relationships that go beyond a single exercise or event,” Johnston said. “Through the SPP program, partner and U.S. NCOs can engage and grow with each other over decades as opposed to years, building real partnerships and showing the U.S. commitment to security cooperation.”
The SELF supports this broader effort by enhancing partner force capability to address regional threats independently or alongside U.S. forces.
Concluding the forum, leaders emphasized that open dialogue and shared experiences remain essential to building trust and interoperability among participating nations.
“The relationships we build here are just as important as the lessons we share,” Harness said. “They are what enable us to operate together effectively in the future.”
The relationships formed and ideas exchanged in Rome will continue to shape how senior enlisted leaders develop their formations, contributing to a more secure and stable future across Africa and the rest of the world.
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About SETAF-AF
U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa (SETAF-AF) prepares Army forces, executes crisis response, enables strategic competition and strengthens partners to achieve U.S. Army Europe and Africa and U.S. Africa Command campaign objectives.
Follow SETAF-AF on: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & DVIDS
Source: United States Army
WASHINGTON– In the span of a single year, the men and women of the National Guard conducted precision airstrikes to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, rescued dozens of children from rising Texas floodwaters, repelled cyber intrusions targeting critical infrastructure and surged thousands of troops to restore order and safety in American cities.
Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense alongside reserve component chiefs today, the chief of the National Guard Bureau underscored the Guard’s indispensable dual role as a warfighting and response force.
“Our dual mission as the primary combat reserve of the Army and the Air Force, while also serving as the military first responders in domestic crises, is a challenge we accept,” Air Force Gen. Steve Nordhaus said. “2025 was a remarkable year for the National Guard, defined by the scale and simultaneity of our operations.”
When President Donald J. Trump called for action against Iran’s nuclear program last June, National Guard aircrews contributed to the War Department’s Operation Midnight Hammer, the largest operational B-2 strike in U.S. history. This mission began not at a forward operating base, but in Missouri, where the Air National Guard’s 131st Bomb Wing has spent years working side by side with the U.S. Air Force’s 509th Bomb Wing.
This year, National Guardsmen have participated in Operation Epic Fury, flying strike missions against Iranian targets alongside Joint Force partners. U.S. forces, including Guardsmen, remain postured as U.S. combat power continues to build, while Iranian combat power declines.
In January’s Operation Absolute Resolve, Guard forces were employed to counter narco-terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, back home, Guardsmen logged more than 2.4 million hours of direct support to American citizens in response to domestic crises, from natural disasters to civil emergencies.
Congressman Ken Calvert, the HAC-D chairman, praised the Guard’s counterdrug efforts in the homeland, which Nordhaus said were responsible for removing $15 billion in illicit narcotics from American communities in 2025.
“Every dollar you give the National Guard, you’re getting huge bang for your buck,” Nordhaus said. “Because our Guardsmen are professional, they’re experienced, and they use their civilian skill sets to come into those programs and make us stronger.”
Today, about 42,000 Guardsmen are currently engaged in the homeland and worldwide, supporting every combatant commander across the globe. Nordhaus said sustaining this operational tempo requires continued investment in facilities, equipment, medical readiness and people.
The CNGB emphasized that the Guard will remain a credible warfighting partner if it modernizes alongside the active component.
“To sustain strategic dominance, we must modernize concurrently with our services to aggressively outpace and overmatch tomorrow’s threats,” he said, calling for robust investments in flying hours, weapons systems sustainment, facilities maintenance, base operations support and the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Account, or NGREA.
Nordhaus also asked Congress to address a funding gap created when Guard forces are called into state active-duty status to respond to domestic emergencies. Under current policy, reimbursement funds for those activations are returned to the Treasury rather than restored to the units that spent them on training and equipment.
“When we use these resources to serve our citizens in a state active-duty status, current policy sends reimbursement funds back to the Treasury,” he said. “We ask for your support in restoring that readiness directly back to our formations.”
One of the most persistent challenges facing the Guard is a personnel system that has not kept pace with the demands placed on the force.
Guard leaders have called on Congress to advance duty-status reform, a long-sought effort to simplify the patchwork of legal authorities under which Guardsmen are ordered to active duty, and to ensure that equal work is compensated with equal pay and benefits regardless of duty status.
Last month, during a roundtable review of crime reduction in Memphis, Tennessee, President Trump announced that some National Guardsmen currently activated around the U.S. will soon receive deployment pay and benefits equal to those of active-duty troops.
Perhaps the most cost-effective security cooperation tool in the War Department’s portfolio is the National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program, which pairs individual National Guard elements from every state, territory and the District of Columbia with partner nations for training, exercises and military-to-military engagement.
The program now connects the Department with nearly 60% of the world’s countries at just 1% of the theater security cooperation budget. Nordhaus told lawmakers, “Your help with flexible, multi-year budget authority will allow us to sustain the pace of these highly effective engagements.”
The CNGB closed by thanking the committee for its support and calling on Congress to continue investing in the Guard’s warfighters and capabilities.
“We are powered by our core advantage: the Citizen-Soldier and -Airman,” Nordhaus said. “They combine the warrior ethos with civilian-acquired skills, creating an organization that is as innovative as it is lethal, a force that is community-based and globally engaged.
“We will always keep our promise to the Nation and to our citizens: Always Ready, Always There.”
Related Links
The Official Website of the National Guard | NationalGuard.mil
State Partnership Program | NationalGuard.mil
The National Guard on Facebook | Facebook.com/TheNationalGuard
The National Guard on Flickr | Flickr.com/TheNationalGuard
The National Guard on Instagram | Instagram.com/us.nationalguard
The National Guard on X | X.com/USNationalGuard
The National Guard on YouTube | YouTube.com/TheNationalGuard
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Tallahassee, Florida – Christy Cody Holgate, 49, and Kim Demetrius Benson, 52, have been indicted in federal court. Both were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail theft. Also, Holgate was charged with four counts of theft of mail and Benson was charged with one count of theft of mail.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands – Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Adam Sleeper announced today that U.S. law enforcement arrested three members of an alleged conspiracy running a prostitution ring and harboring illegal aliens in St. Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. A federal judge in the District of the Virgin Islands issued a criminal complaint and authorized arrest warrants charging Hussein Jamil, a.k.a. Hussian Jamil Suarez, a.k.a. “Tony,” 56, of St. Thomas, USVI; Magda Castro Santos a.k.a. “Tatiana,” 39, of St. Thomas, USVI; and Julio Hidaldo De Pena 65, of St. Thomas, USVI, for their alleged respective roles in a variety of criminal activities centered around an establishment known as Tootsys Gentlemen’s Club (“Tootsys”).
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
ST. GEORGE, Utah – A federal jury in St. George returned a guilty verdict Friday, April 17, 2026, against a San Juan County, Utah, man after he received and possessed child sexual abuse material (CSAM) while already on supervised release for a 2015 conviction of possession of child pornography.