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Word quickly spread around the world this week that a sailor gave birth aboard an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, and for good reason. Births aboard U.S. warships are rare. Births aboard a ship on a combat deployment are rarer still. But they’re not unheard of. The Navy does not keep statistics on the number of children born aboard its ships, but archived media reports show this is not the first time a sailor has had a baby at sea or aboard a ship in a combat zone. In one instance, a child died a day after being born...

School officials’ decision to ban students from displaying the American Flag at a recent football game is creating controversy in a South Carolina school district. On Friday, Travelers Rest High School principal Lou Lavely banned students from carrying American flags into a football game against Berega High School, because a lot of students at Berega are Hispanic. Lavely contends the American flag could have been used to taunt those students, WNCN reports. “Some events at last evening’s football game have resulted in concerns being raised in our community. I am writing to assure that any decisions made regarding American flags...

A magnitude 6.2 earthquake has struck central Italy, leaving at least six people dead and others trapped under rubble, Italian officials said. The quake hit at 03:36 (01:36 GMT), 76 km (47 miles) southeast of the city of Perugia, at the very shallow depth of 10km (six miles), the USGS said. The mayor of one town told Italian radio that "half the town is gone". In Rome, some buildings shook for 20 seconds, according to La Repubblica newspaper. A family of four had been found under rubble in the town of Accumoli, the town's mayor Stefano Petrucci told RAI TV.

It was a long wait. Today’s blockbuster report from the Associated Press about Hillary Clinton’s meetings with Clinton Foundation donors during her time as Secretary of State contained the following nugget: “The AP sought Clinton’s calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records.”

Donald Trump may or may not fix his campaign, and Hillary Clinton may or may not become the first female president. But something else happening before our eyes is almost as important: the complete collapse of American journalism as we know it. The frenzy to bury Trump is not limited to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House. They are working hand-in-hand with what was considered the cream of the nation’s news organizations.

aising the minimum wage is one of those wonderful-sounding ideas that, whenever tried, unfortunately never quite works the way it was promised. To its credit, the Washington Post has noticed. The Post recently highlighted a new study from a group of economists who were commissioned by the city of Seattle to look at that city's minimum wage hike from $9.96 an hour to $11.14 an hour. What they found was enlightening. To begin with, the economists said, some of the workers weren't helped at all, since their pay would have likely gone up anyway with experience and tenure on the...

A chief petty officer has become the first woman to earn the Navy's "silver dolphins," signaling an enlisted sailor qualified to serve aboard a submarine. Chief culinary specialist Dominique Saavedra will deploy aboard the nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine Michigan in coming months, the first sub to deploy with a crew including enlisted female sailors. According to an announcement from Submarine Group 9, out of Puget Sound, Washington, Saavedra received her pin at a ceremony Tuesday, marking a major milestone for female sailors.

You can have McGriddles with that! McDonald's plans to offer the sandwiches around the clock after testing the addition of the sandwich to its all-day breakfast menu in select markets. When McDonald's launched a limited all-day breakfast menu in the fall, stores offered sandwiches made with either English muffins or biscuits depending on local preferences.

A faculty committee has proposed adding a three credit hours requirement in diversity to the general education curriculum at Wayne State University. It also recommended that WSU drop its university-wide requirement in mathematics, an idea that was carried out on June 13.

A United States Marine didn’t take too kindly to First Lady Michelle Obama stoking the fires of racial tensions while giving a speech at Tuskegee University. During the speech, Mrs. Obama used the platform to praise the Tuskegee airmen of World War II, something all Americans can agree with. Then the speech took a very different direction, with the First Lady telling the student they should prepare to an onslaught of racism that will come their way, regardless of their success.

A Navy sailor entered a guilty plea Friday in a classified information mishandling case that critics charge illustrates a double standard between the treatment of low-ranking government employees and top officials like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus. Prosecutors allege that Petty Officer First Class Kristian Saucier used a cellphone camera to take photos in the classified engine room of the nuclear submarine where he worked as a mechanic, the USS Alexandria, then destroyed a laptop, camera and memory card after learning he was under investigation.

As the Navy and Marine Corps enter the final stage of a review mandated by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus aimed at removing the word "man" from job titles in favor of gender-neutral alternatives, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday he has been thinking about ways to apply the practice to the entire Defense Department. Navy and Marine Corps officials have said that all titles, including frequently used ones such as seaman and rifleman, are under a review that began in January at Mabus' request. The move comes as all previously closed job titles across the Defense Department opened to women.

The head of the Transportation Security Administration's security division was fired Monday for "mismanagement," according to the House Oversight Committee.

A US Senate committee has approved legislation that would require American women to register for the military draft, setting the stage for a fight in Congress over the historic shift in policy later this year. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the requirement late on Thursday, as an amendment to the $602 billion National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee approved a similar amendment late last month.

The commanding officer of a West Coast-based Navy riverine squadron has been fired in the fallout from an investigation into an incident in which ten sailors were briefly captured by Iranian forces earlier this year. Cmdr. Eric Rasch, commanding officer of Coastal Riverine Squadron 3, was relieved today by Capt. Gary Leigh the commander of Coastal Riverine Group 1 due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a Navy release. Leigh made the decision to remove Rasch after reviewing a preliminary investigation into the incident that unfolded over Jan. 12-13. Two riverine boats carrying ten...

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved by a narrow margin an amendment to a defense bill to require women to register for the draft. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, proposed the amendment to lift the restriction on women registering for the selective service at a committee-wide mark-up session of the proposed fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. "Here is why I think this is important; it doesn't matter in this debate whether you think women should be in the infantry or be in special operations," Hunter said during the session on Wednesday night. "I personally don't....

Being Hillary Clinton, one of the most celebrated women in the world, holder of some of the highest offices in American politics, and possibly the next president of the United States, has had more than its share of agony. Widely regarded a year ago as a shoo-in for the Democratic Party’s nomination, she has faced a far more difficult slog than anyone, including her, ever contemplated. Yet most of the problems Clinton is encountering were predictable and foreshadowed in 2008, when she ran against Barack Obama. Others she has brought on herself.

Rep. Duncan Hunter has had enough of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus' strong support for opening all Marine combat posts to women, declaring him "a greater threat to the Marine Corps than ISIS.” The Republican congressman and Marine veteran from California, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is furious with Mabus for pushing through an end to the ban on women serving in all combat positions over the Marine Corps' objections. Particularly, he's taking exception to memo Mabus sent to the Marines Corps this week, instructing it integrate Marine boot camp, which has been separate for men and women, and change...

U.S. cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues. The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount to smoking-gun proof. But Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — all on the leading edge of the push for big minimum wage hikes — all show worrisome job trends.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has given Marine Corps brass two weeks to submit a plan to train male and female recruits together at boot camp and fully integrate officer candidate school. He's also calling for the Marines to make all job titles gender-neutral as the service opens currently closed ground combat jobs to women. In a Jan. 1 memo obtained by Military.com and first reported by Marine Corps Times, Mabus ordered the Corps to send him a detailed plan by Jan. 15 for making boot camp and officer training coed. He also requested that the Marines provide him with a...