The Supreme Court has sided with a decorated veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in a protracted fight with the government over 12 months of G.I. Bill educational benefits. The court ruled Tuesday the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly calculated the educational benefits for James Rudisill, a retired Army captain from Virginia. Rudisill is in a category of veterans who earned credit under two versions of the G.I. Bill, before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. Each program gives veterans 36 months of benefits, with a 48-month cap. Rudisill thought he had 10 months of benefits remaining under the old program, plus another year in the new system. The VA denied the additional year.

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Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken with China’s national defense minister in the latest in a series of U.S. steps to improve communications with the Chinese military and reduce unsafe and aggressive incidents in the Indo-Pacific. It is the first time Austin has talked to Adm. Dong Jun. And it's the first time he has spoken at length with any Chinese counterpart since November 2022. Tuesday morning's call comes as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to travel to China this month for talks. Washington and Beijing have been working to expand communications and ease escalating tensions.

A movie weapons armorer has received the maximum sentence of 18 months in jail for involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film “Rust.” After a judge sentenced armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed on Monday, attention again turns to Baldwin's trial. Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has pleaded not guilty and says he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — when the gun fired.