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The unusual spate of collisions, two of them fatal, has called into question the US Navy’s level of preparedness, analysts say, and point to potential problems with training, maintenance, or sailors’ workload. WASHINGTON—A recent spate of collisions involving US Navy ships from the Seventh Fleet, two of them fatal, has led the Navy to relieve that fleet’s commander, Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, reportedly after his superiors lost confidence in his leadership. The latest collision, Monday off the coast of Singapore, was between the guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain and a Liberian-flagged tanker. Ten sailors were reported missing, and the...

WASILLA, Alaska- Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so. According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and...

Les AuCoin: Democratic Party remains on the right track    WEST OF BISMARK - I'm heading westward toward Bozeman, Mont., where we'll visit our little granddaughters for 24 hours before making for Ashland. So ends our political journey to Wisconsin, one of the election's battleground states. The beige and purple vastness outside the window is a serene counterpoint to clamoring talking heads who, like CNN's normally lucid Jeff Greenfield, declared - within minutes after the presidential election was determined - that he was quite sure the Democratic Party has something fatally wrong at its core. I beg to differ. (Incidentally,...