Prompted by Congressional concerns over the growing number of homeless veterans in recent years, the Government Accountability Office took a look at low-income veteran housing. And, GAO notes in a new report that the return of more veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan—“some with significant physical and psychological challenges”—could exacerbate the situation. GAO found that in 2005, some 2.3 million veteran renter households, which is about 53 percent of all veteran renter households, were in the low income bracket, and more than half of those “had problems affording their rent.” Now, for the good news. GAO also determined that veteran renters were generally “less likely to be low income, have affordability problems, or live in overcrowded or inadequate housing, than were other (nonveteran) households.”
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.