WASHINGTON — The general in charge of the F-35 told a U.S. House panel Wednesday he sees more delays ahead — four to six months — for the often-troubled fighter jet program.

The House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee’s portion of an oversight hearing dedicated solely to the F-35 lasted only about an hour. It would have ended 20 minutes sooner if Chairman Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, had had his way, but Ranking Member Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., had additional questions.

And when other members arrived to further prolong the proceedings, Turner jokingly told Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, F-35 program chief, he nearly “escaped.”

Sanchez pressed Bogdan about hundreds of millions in program dollars she believes might be owed to Congress, which technically has the constitutional power of the purse.

Bogdan tried to explain that the funds were used for purposes other than initially planned; Sanchez told him pointedly she would check out his story.

Otherwise, the hearing featured the usual news from an F-35 program manager: Software development is, as Bogdan put it, “really hard stuff,” and will force new delays.

This time, it will be four to six months, Bogdan told the subcommittee.

“Block 3F [software] is dependent upon the timely release of Block 2B and 3I, and at present, 3F is tracking approximately four to six months late without taking steps to mitigate that delay,” Bogdan said.

Michael Sullivan of the General Accountability Office warned the subcommittee that any new software delays will trigger delays and cost overruns across the entire program, which Pentagon officials and analysts say is the most expensive and complex in US history.

WASHINGTON — Seeking stiffer penalties against Moscow, a group of U.S. senators called on President Barack Obama Thursday to respond more forcefully to the incursion into the Crimean Peninsula by terminating the remainder of a $1 billion contract to buy helicopters from Russia.

Dozens of members of Congress have long pushed for the end of the Pentagon's contract with Russia's arms export agency, Rosoboronexport. Russia's "illegal invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea" provides an even broader reason to kill the deal, 10 senators wrote in a letter to Obama.

The eight Republicans and two Democrats also want Obama to impose sanctions banning any future U.S. business with Rosoboronexport. They describe the export agency as "unsavory" because it has supplied Syrian President Bashar Assad's military forces with arms and ammunition that have been used against Syrian civilians.

"Rosoboronexport is an arm of the Russian government and a powerful instrument of (Russian President) Vladimir Putin's increasingly belligerent foreign policy, and it handles more than 80 percent of Russia's weapons exports," the senators wrote.

By obstructing Rosoboronexport's business, "we would increase the costs of Putin's aggression," the letter said. The senators said ending the contract would limit the income corrupt Russian officials earn by skimming the profits of arms deals.

The Pentagon is buying the Mi-17 transport helicopters for Afghanistan's national security forces. About two dozen remain to be delivered of 63 helicopters ordered, according to the senators' letter.

WASHINGTON — Spc. Santiago J. Erevia had orders to tend the wounded while the rest of the platoon pressed on attacking. But when he and the men under his care came under fire from four nearby Viet Cong bunkers on May 21, 1969, Erevia didn’t dive for cover.

Instead, he gathered up spare weapons and ran into a storm of bullets.

He knocked out one bunker after another with hand grenades as gunners in the others fired on him. Out of grenades and with one bunker still active, he took an M-16 in each hand and charged, shooting down the last defender at point blank range.

“Having single-handedly destroyed four enemy bunkers and their occupants, Specialist Fourth Class Erevia then returned to the soldiers charged to his care and resumed treating their injuries,” reads Erevia’s citation for the Distinguished Service Cross he was later awarded.

In a White House ceremony Tuesday, the United States will officially acknowledge that the selfless combat heroics of 24 soldiers, including Erevia, always merited more than the nation’s second-highest medal for valor.

Obama will present the Medal of Honor to Erevia and two other living recipients — former NCOs Melvin Morris and Jose Rodela. And he’ll present it posthumously to another 21 soldiers killed in battle or who died before they could receive the distinction they had earned.

Because of the politics and prejudices of earlier decades, doubt has long lingered over whether Hispanic-Americans or Jewish-Americans had been given equal consideration with Anglo-Americans for the Medal of Honor.

So in the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress ordered the Army review the cases of all Jewish and Hispanic soldiers who had received the Distinguished Service Cross from World War 2 onward to see if their heroism actually merited the nation’s highest award.

Army researchers combed through some 6,500 Distinguished Services Cross awards and zeroed in on 600 that went to soldiers who might be of either background. In the end, the Army singled out 19 Jewish and Hispanic soldiers who deserved Medal of Honor, along with five soldiers of other backgrounds.