Half a world away from two deadly U.S. Navy accidents, sailors on America’s massive USS Nimitz aircraft carrier reflect on the shipmates they knew who are gone. Their commanders want to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again. The wrenching deaths of sailors, drowned this week while trapped in their bunks on the USS John S. McCain, have reverberated around the American fleet. The Navy has found the remains of two of 10 who were declared missing after the ship crashed into an oil tanker, and the search goes on for others in coastal waters off Singapore. Just in June, seven sailors died when another destroyer, the USS Fitzgerald, hit a container ship off Japan. Out in the blazing Persian Gulf heat on the Nimitz’s flight deck, fighter jets line up to launch for surveillance, intelligence and bombing missions in Iraq and Syria. Up to 10 times a day, …

Tropical storm Harvey killed a second person Saturday as flooding and tornadoes presented continuing danger for the residents of southeastern Texas.  The second fatality was a woman who died after apparently getting out of her car in flooded streets on Houston’s west side, authorities said. Friday night, an unidentified victim died in a house fire in the town of Rockport, 48 km north of Corpus Christi. The National Weather Service has confirmed that at least seven tornadoes have touched down in the Houston area since Friday evening.  The Port of Texas City said it expects to reopen within 24 to 48 hours after assessing for damages. The port closed on Friday as the storm was approaching. Vessels are still not allowed to move in and out of the navigation channel.  Casualties  In addition to the two fatalities, Harvey injured at least 14 people. In the area between Corpus Christi and …

A planned right-wing rally in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge that was downgraded to a news conference at a small park fizzled further on Saturday, after San Francisco police swarmed the park and city workers erected a fence around it. An organizer for the group Patriot Prayer later spoke in suburban Pacifica with a handful of supporters, after civic leaders and police in San Francisco repeatedly voiced concerns that they would draw angry counter-protesters and spark violence in the area known as the cradle of the free speech movement. Organizer Joey Gibson denied his group was looking for trouble. He said members had received anonymous threats on social media and feared civic leaders and law enforcement would fail to protect them. “My hope is to be able to talk to normal citizens without all the extremists,” Gibson, who identifies as Japanese American, said at the news conference. Other …

President Donald Trump spared former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio the prospect of serving jail time in granting the first pardon of his turbulent tenure, wiping away the lawman’s recent federal conviction stemming from his immigration patrols that focused on Latinos. The White House said 85-year-old Arpaio was a “worthy candidate” for the pardon, citing his “life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration.” Trump granted the pardon less than a month after a judge found Arpaio guilty of a misdemeanor contempt-of-court charge in a trial that was prosecuted by the president’s own Justice Department. “I appreciate what the president did,” Arpaio told The Associated Press as he celebrated the news over an Italian restaurant meal and someone in his party ordered champagne. “I have to put it out there: Pardon, no pardon — I’ll be with him as long as he’s president.” The pardon …

Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas late Friday, lashing a wide swath of the Gulf Coast with strong winds and torrential rain from the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade. The National Hurricane Center said the eye of the Category 4 hurricane made landfall about 10 p.m. about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi, bringing with it 130 mph (209 kph) sustained winds and flooding rains. ‘A very major disaster’ Harvey’s approach sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing the Gulf Coast, hoping to escape the wrath of a menacing storm that threatened an area of Texas including oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had warned that the monster system would be “a very major disaster,” and the predictions drew fearful comparisons to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest ever to strike the U.S. …

A Rockport, Texas, official said Saturday that at least one person had died since Hurricane Harvey, now a tropical storm, passed through the town overnight. Mayor C.J. Wax said at a news conference that the body was found after the storm had passed inland. He did not provide identification of the victim but said the death was connected to a house fire. Texas officials said they expected to find further victims, however, as the storm moved inland, even after its downgrade. WATCH: Harvey Downgraded to Tropical Storm, ‘Dramatic Flooding’ a Concern Texas Governor Greg Abbott said during a news conference that “dramatic flooding” was still a major concern for authorities as areas along the coast were continuing to be drenched with rain. “Our biggest concern is the possibility of 20 to 30 more inches of rain” in areas around Corpus Christi, he said. The storm has already dumped about 20 …

A U.S. Black Hawk helicopter crashed off the coast of Yemen on Friday during a training mission and a search was under way for one U.S. service member, the U.S. military said. U.S. Central Command said in a statement that five other service members aboard the aircraft had been rescued after the crash, which took place about 20 miles (32 km) off the southern coast of Yemen at 7 p.m. (16000 GMT). A U.S. official told Reuters that the cause of the crash was under investigation. “When the incident took place the helicopter was not very high above the water,” CENTCOM spokesman Colonel John Thomas said. The United States has been carrying out air strikes against al Qaeda in Yemen, with at least 80 launched since the end of February. A small number of ground raids using U.S. Special Operations forces have also taken place, including one in January which …

The Republican National Committee on Friday denounced white supremacist groups but made no mention of President Donald Trump’s statements about the Charlottesville, Virginia, violence earlier this month. Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, the RNC approved a host of resolutions, including one that says, “Nazis, the KKK, white supremacists and others are repulsive, evil and have no fruitful place in the United States.” No mention of Trump The resolution made no mention about Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville, in which a white supremacist allegedly ran his car into a group of counterprotesters leaving a rally, leaving one person dead. “This has nothing to do with the president,” said the resolution’s sponsor, Bill Palatucci, an RNC committeeman from New Jersey. “This is the RNC saying that racism and bigotry have no place in America.” Trump was criticized by both Republicans and Democrats because he didn’t immediately denounce the white nationalist groups …

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that he believes Congress will raise the government’s debt ceiling in September, ahead of a deadline for default. Mnuchin told reporters at the White House that he’d had talks with House and Senate congressional leaders from both parties and said everyone was “on the same page.” “The government intends to pay its debts and the debt ceiling will be raised,” he said. Mnuchin said his preference was for a bill that does not include  unrelated items, a tactic sometimes used by lawmakers to help their agendas. “My strong preference is that we have a clean debt ceiling [increase], but the most important issue is the debt ceiling will be raised in September,” Mnuchin said. His comments came a day after President Donald Trump lashed out at Republican lawmakers for creating a “mess” of the debt ceiling legislation process. In a series of tweets …

The leader of a right-wing group scheduled to hold a “free speech” rally in San Francisco on Saturday now says he has canceled the rally and will hold a news conference instead.  Joey Gibson, founder of the group Patriot Prayer, announced Friday that the speakers initially scheduled to speak at Crissy Field in the city’s Presidio national park area will now be featured at the news conference.  The announced location of the news conference, Alamo Square, is in the center of town — far from the bayside park where the rally was planned. Fears of violence Gibson made the announcement on the group’s Facebook feed. He said group leaders had changed their plans because of fears that violent protesters would disrupt the rally. He also said speakers and musicians expected to appear at the rally had undergone harassment. Will Johnson, another event organizer, called on city officials to denounce the …

U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to rescind an Obama-era policy that protects nearly 600,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children and are known as “Dreamers,” according to media reports Friday. Trump’s decision on whether to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy could be announced as early as next week, reported ABC News, citing multiple sources. Attorney General Jeff Sessions discussed the program with senior White House officials on Thursday, according to an administration official. Department of Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan denied reports that the department had made any recommendations on DACA to the White House. “There have been continuing discussions about DACA, but nothing has been determined,” Lapan told Reuters. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Friday that the program continued to be under review. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that only Congress can legislate a permanent …

President Donald Trump on Friday granted a pardon to former Arizona lawman and political ally Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America,” less than a month after he was convicted of criminal contempt in a case involving his department’s racial profiling policy. Trump had signaled this week that the first presidential pardon of his administration would go to Arpaio, 85, whom he has frequently praised for his hard-line immigration stance. “Throughout his time as sheriff, Arpaio continued his life’s work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration,” said the White House statement announcing Arpaio’s pardon. Arpaio, who lost a bid for re-election in Arizona’s Maricopa County in November after 24 years in office, was known for his crackdown on undocumented immigrants and investigating unfounded Trump-supported claims questioning former President Barack Obama’s citizenship. Before Trump granted the pardon, the American Civil Liberties Union, which sought …

President Donald Trump on Friday directed the Pentagon to declare an indefinite ban on transgender individuals joining the military, but he appeared to leave open the possibility of allowing some already in uniform to remain in the military. The Obama administration in June 2016 had changed longstanding policy, declaring that troops could serve openly as transgender individuals. And it set a July 2017 deadline for determining whether transgender people could be allowed to enter the military. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis delayed that to Jan. 1, 2018, and Trump has now instructed Mattis to extend it indefinitely. But on the question of what will happen to those transgender individuals who already are serving openly — estimated to number in the low hundreds — Trump seemed to leave some wiggle room for exceptions. A White House official who briefed reporters on the presidential order would not say whether Trump would permit any …

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 25, 2017   MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE                 THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY   SUBJECT:        Military Service by Transgender Individuals      Section 1.  Policy.  (a)  Until June 2016, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (collectively, the Departments) generally prohibited openly transgender individuals from accession into the United States military and authorized the discharge of such individuals.  Shortly before President Obama left office, however, his Administration dismantled the Departments’ established framework by permitting transgender individuals to serve openly in the military, authorizing the use of the Departments’ resources to fund sex-reassignment surgical procedures, and permitting accession of such individuals after July 1, 2017.  The Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security have since extended the deadline to alter the currently effective accession policy to January 1, 2018, while the …

If President Donald Trump wants to pass key items on his legislative agenda, he will need the support of his fellow Republicans. But as Congress prepares to return to Washington next month for a crucial fall legislative session, Trump has shown no signs of letting up his attacks on Republican lawmakers. The latest Republican to draw Trump’s ire was Senator Bob Corker, who last week questioned whether Trump possessed the “stability” and “competence” to succeed as president. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday declined to comment on Corker’s remark, saying it was “outrageous” and “doesn’t dignify a response.” Trump, however, was more than willing to hit back at the Tennessee senator, who had been one of his early supporters. “Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in ’18. Tennessee not happy!” Trump said in a …