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    Harvey Milk’s Name Is Not Going Anywhere in San Francisco

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    Mr. Milk’s name adorns numerous sites in the city, where he became a trailblazer for gay rights before he was killed in 1978. The Pentagon is considering stripping his name from a Navy vessel.In San Francisco, children attend elementary school at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. Travelers pass through the Harvey Milk Terminal at the airport. At Harvey Milk Plaza at Castro and Market streets, a giant rainbow flag dedicated to him can be seen for miles.Mr. Milk is the gay rights figure who won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, becoming California’s first openly gay elected official. Just 11 months after taking office, he was assassinated in his City Hall office. Sean Penn played him in the 2008 movie “Milk,” and California celebrates Harvey Milk Day every year on May 22, his birthday.Thousands of miles from San Francisco, in the body of water President Trump calls the Gulf of America, sits another tribute to Mr. Milk.For now, anyway.The United States Naval Ship Harvey Milk, a tanker currently moored in Mobile, Ala., may soon lose its name to, as the Pentagon put it, better reflect the country’s “warrior ethos.”One of the lesser-known chapters in Mr. Milk’s biography was his four-year stint in the U.S. Navy. He served during the Korean War on a submarine rescue ship and later as a diving instructor. He was issued an “other than honorable discharge” in 1955 after his superiors learned he was gay.In 2021, the Navy christened a tanker in the name of Mr. Milk, the first Navy ship to be named for an openly gay man. At the ceremony, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said he felt compelled to be there to make amends for the wrongful treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. people in the military “and to tell them that we’re committed to them in the future.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Navy Jet Sinks Into Red Sea After Falling Off Aircraft Carrier

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      One sailor sustained minor injuries, according to the Navy, which is investigating the incident.A United States Navy fighter jet and a tow tractor fell off an aircraft carrier and sank in the Red Sea on Monday after the crew lost control of the plane, the Navy said.One sailor sustained minor injuries, the Navy said, adding that it would investigate the incident on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman, which is operating in the Red Sea and helping to launch attacks against Houthi militias in Yemen. The F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet, which cost about $67 million, according to the Navy, was being towed in the hangar bay when crew members lost control.The aircraft carrier was turning hard to better position itself against the threat of Houthi missiles and drones when the jet fell into the water, according to three Defense Department officials with knowledge of the incident. The maneuver was believed to be a contributing factor to the loss of the plane, but not necessarily the only reason it went overboard, the officials said.A Houthi spokesman, Yahya Saree, said in a statement on Monday that the group had launched missiles and drones at the Truman.“Sailors towing the aircraft took immediate action to move clear of the aircraft before it fell overboard,” the Navy said.The Houthis have been attacking commercial and military ships in the Red Sea as a show of solidarity with the residents of Gaza and Hamas, the militant group that controls the enclave. President Trump ordered the U.S. military to begin an air campaign, called Operation Rough Rider, against the Houthis on March 15, following some strikes under the Biden administration.American forces have hit more than 800 targets in Yemen during the campaign, according to the U.S. military.The targets of those strikes included “multiple command-and-control facilities, air defense systems, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities and advanced weapons storage locations,” the military said.The Truman and the rest of the vessels in its strike group remained “fully mission capable” after the loss of the plane, the Navy said.It is not the first mishap for the Truman during its deployment in the Middle East. In February, the carrier collided with a merchant ship near Port Said, Egypt, damaging the carrier and the commercial ship. The Navy fired the carrier strike group commander afterward.In December, an F/A-18 Super Hornet flying from the aircraft carrier was shot down by the guided-missile cruiser Gettysburg, which was accompanying the Truman. The two pilots were safely recovered. More

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      Naval Academy Censors Ryan Holiday’s Lecture on Censorship

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      For the past four years, I have been delivering a series of lectures on the virtues of Stoicism to midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and I was supposed to continue this on April 14 to the entire sophomore class on the theme of wisdom.Roughly an hour before my talk was to begin, I received a call: Would I refrain from any mention in my remarks of the recent removal of 381 supposedly controversial books from the Nimitz library on campus? My slides had been sent up the chain of command at the school, which was now, as it was explained to me, extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout Executive Order 14151 (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government D.E.I. Programs and Preferencing.”)When I declined, my lecture — as well as a planned speech before the Navy football team, with whom my books on Stoicism are popular was canceled. (The academy “made a schedule change that aligns with its mission of preparing midshipmen for careers of service,” a Navy spokesperson told Times Opinion. “The Naval Academy is an apolitical institution.”)Had I been allowed to go ahead, this is the story I was going to tell the class:In the fall of 1961, a young naval officer named James Stockdale, a graduate of the Naval Academy and future Medal of Honor recipient who went on to be a vice admiral, began a course at Stanford he had eagerly anticipated on Marxist theory. “We read no criticisms of Marxism,” he recounted later, “only primary sources. All year we read the works of Marx and Lenin.”It might seem unusual that the Navy would send Stockdale, then a 36-year-old fighter pilot, to get a master’s degree in the social sciences, but he knew why he was there. Writing home to his parents that year, he reminded them of a lesson they had instilled in him, “You really can’t do well competing against something you don’t understand as well as something you can.”At the time, Marxism was not just an abstract academic subject, but the ideological foundation of America’s greatest geopolitical enemy. The stakes were high. The Soviets were pushing a vision of global Communism and the conflict in Vietnam was flashing hot, the North Vietnamese fueled by a ruthless mix of dogma and revolutionary zeal. “Marxism” was, like today, also a culture war boogeyman used by politicians and demagogues.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      These Are the 381 Books Removed From the Naval Academy Library

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      The Navy released the titles of 381 books on Friday evening that were removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s Nimitz Library on the Annapolis, Md., campus this week because their subject matter was seen as being related to so-called diversity, equity and inclusion topics.President Trump issued an executive order in January that banned D.E.I. materials in kindergarten through 12th grade education, but the office of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed the Naval Academy on March 28 that he intended the order to apply to the school as well, even though it is a college.Read the Navy’s list of removed booksRead Document 19 pagesFirst on the list is “How to Be Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi. Also listed are “The Making of Black Lives Matter,” by Christopher J. Lebron; “How Racism Takes Place,” by George Lipsitz; “The Fire This Time,” edited by Jesmyn Ward; “The Myth of Equality,” by Ken Wytsma; studies of the Ku Klux Klan, and the history of lynching in America.The list also includes books about gender and sexuality, like “Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex” by Elizabeth Reis, and “Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes” by Gerald N. Callahan. President Trump issued a separate executive order in January proclaiming that there are only two sexes.The academy began pulling books from the shelves at Nimitz Library on Monday evening and largely completed the task before Mr. Hegseth visited midshipmen on campus Tuesday afternoon. More

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      The Secret History of America’s Involvement in the Ukraine War

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      <!–> [–><!–> [–><!–>On a spring morning two months after Vladimir Putin’s invading armies marched into Ukraine, a convoy of unmarked cars slid up to a Kyiv street corner and collected two middle-aged men in civilian clothes.–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> –> <!–> [–> <!–> ]–> <!–> –><!–> –><!–> […] More

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      Hegseth Fires Military’s Top JAG Lawyers in Pursuit of ‘Warrior Ethos’

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      The defense secretary has repeatedly derided the military lawyers for war crime prosecutions and battlefield rules of engagement.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict.Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.His decision to replace the military’s judge advocate generals — typically three-star military officers — offers a sense of how he defines the ethos that he has vowed to instill.The dismissals came as part of a broader push by Mr. Hegseth and President Trump, who late Friday also fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the country’s top military officer, as well as the first woman to lead the Navy and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force.By comparison, the three fired judge advocate generals, also known as “JAGs,” are far less prominent. Inside the Pentagon and on battlefields around the world, military lawyers aren’t decision makers. Their job is to provide independent legal advice to senior military officers so that they do not run afoul of U.S. law or the laws of armed conflict.Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three — Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds — were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      House Committee to Examine Secret Navy Effort on Pilot Brain Injuries

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      The Navy quietly started screening elite fighter pilots for signs of brain injuries caused by flying, a risk it officially denies exists.The Navy’s elite TOPGUN pilot school quietly undertook an effort called Project Odin’s Eye in the fall of 2024 to try to detect and treat brain injuries in fighter crew members, and leaders kept it so confidential that not even the broader Navy knew about it.Now, the powerful House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is demanding to learn about the project, and what the Navy knows about the risk that high-performance jets pose to the brains of the crew members who fly in them.“It is imperative to ensure the warfighter has full and accurate information about health risks and the tools, both mental and physical, to safeguard their health,” the chairman of the committee, Representative James Comer of Kentucky, said in a letter sent on Thursday to the acting secretary of the Navy.The letter cited a report by The New York Times published in December that detailed how a number of F/A-18 Super Hornet crew members, after years of catapult takeoffs from aircraft carriers and dogfighting training under crushing G-forces, experienced sudden and unexplained mental health problems. The problems included insomnia, anxiety, depression and PTSD-like symptoms — all of which can be caused by repeated sub-concussive brain injuries.Many of the problems started when the aviators were in their 40s, near the end of their careers, but those affected often kept their struggles hidden, even after leaving the Navy, so that they could continue to fly.The Navy tells its pilots that it has no evidence that flying poses a risk of brain injury. That remained the official line even after three pilots with symptoms consistent with brain injuries died by suicide in a span of 12 months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Bob Fernandez, Who Survived Pearl Harbor as a Teenager, Dies at 100

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      Mr. Fernandez was a 17-year-old sailor aboard the U.S.S. Curtiss when Japanese forces attacked. He had recently canceled a trip to Hawaii for the 83rd anniversary of the bombing.Robert Louie Fernandez, one of the last known American survivors of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, died on Wednesday, just days after the 83rd anniversary of the attack, in Lodi, Calif. He was 100.Mr. Fernandez, known as Uncle Bob to friends, family and even some strangers, died at the home of his nephew Joe Guthrie, who confirmed the death. “I promised him 10 years ago that he could die in my home, and that’s what he did,” said Mr. Guthrie, who became his uncle’s caretaker in 2022, after his dementia diagnosis. “He died loved and happy.” Born in San Jose, Calif., in 1924, Mr. Fernandez enlisted in the U.S. Navy in August 1941, when he was 17 years old. He was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Curtiss at the Pearl Harbor naval base on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where he served as a mess cook and ammunition loader, according to military records. In a video biography filmed in 2016, Mr. Fernandez said he had joined the Navy to see the world. “I just thought I was going to go dancing all the time, have a good time,” he said, adding: “What did I do? I got caught in a war.”Mr. Fernandez had planned a trip to Hawaii for an event last Saturday commemorating the 83rd anniversary of the bombing, but his health started to deteriorate a few weeks ago, according to his family.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Brings Hegseth to Watch Army-Navy Game

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump made a public show of support for his choice to lead the Defense Department.President-elect Donald J. Trump attended the annual Army-Navy football game in Maryland on Saturday with Pete Hegseth, his embattled choice for defense secretary, sending a message of support ahead of Senate confirmation hearings that are likely to take place next month.Allies and aides of Mr. Trump’s posted video of the president-elect and Mr. Hegseth on the social media site X. In one video, the two men, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, can be seen standing for the national anthem.In another video, Mr. Trump can be seen arriving in a suite at the stadium, pumping his fist into the air as fans cheer and applaud his presence at the game.The Army-Navy game pits the football teams of the two military services against each other in one of the highlights of the college football season. Saturday’s game was the 125th meeting of the rivals — the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen. They played at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., the home of the Washington Commanders football team.National politicians rarely take sides in the rivalry. The service academy team with the best record at the end of the season wins the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.But the game is often a good place for a president to be seen looking patriotic. President Barack Obama attended the 112th game between the two teams in 2011, and performed the coin toss at the beginning of the game to determine who had the first possession of the ball. The next year, in 2012, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. attended the game.Mr. Trump has spent most of his time since Election Day out of the spotlight as he assembles the personnel he wants to fill his new government and plans actions he will take when he assumes office next month.Mr. Trump was also accompanied at the game by Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car. Other allies of Mr. Trump’s, including Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson, were also at the game.Mr. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and military veteran, faces numerous questions about his qualifications to head the Defense Department, allegations of personal misconduct toward women and reports that he has abused alcohol while on the job. He has called the accusations baseless and has vowed not to withdraw from consideration.Mr. Trump initially appeared willing to consider an alternative choice for defense secretary if Mr. Hegseth proved too controversial. But even as several senators voiced concern about Mr. Hegseth, the president-elect issued a statement forcefully backing Mr. Hegseth for the job.The appearance of the two men at the football game appeared calculated to put to rest any questions about whether Mr. Trump still supports Mr. Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. More