This year’s African Lion became real-world action for members of the 86th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, who airlifted a U.S. soldier with a gastrointestinal infection from Tunisia to Ramstein Air Base in Germany three weeks into the major exercise.

U.S. military families stationed in Vicenza, Italy, who want to make a day trip to Venice can spend their money on things other than the city’s 5-euro experimental tourism fee, according to garrison officials. 

Actor Chris Pratt was the cat’s meow this week for American service members and their families in dozens of locations worldwide, taking part in a USO video call to promote “The Garfield Movie,” which opened Friday.

U.S. Special Operations Command Africa’s largest annual exercise is underway, as Washington grapples with rising extremist violence in West Africa, tension with former counterterrorism partner Niger and a growing Russian presence on the continent.

A South Carolina man already in state prison was handed a federal sentence for laundering money from an extortion scheme targeting service members, one of whom died by suicide at his urging, according to authorities.

The military installation that hosts the U.S. Army’s 207th Military Intelligence Brigade in Longare, Italy, is nameless no longer. It is now called Caserma Matteo Miotto in honor of a soldier from nearby Thiene who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.