Navy U S

SAN DIEGO -- On the football field, Navy is known for its triple-option offense, giving the quarterback a variety of alternatives to run, pass or give the ball to his backs. But when Navy coach Paul Johnson announced two weeks ago that he was leaving for Georgia Tech after one of the most successful tenures in academy history, Athletic Director Chet Gladchuk didn't need any options.

A retired Navy rear admiral has been named interim superintendent of the San Diego school system as the board of trustees seeks a permanent replacement for Carl Cohn, who is set to retire next week. The board announced Wednesday that William Kowba, now the district's chief administrative officer and chief financial officer, will take the interim post.

A Navy chaplain was sentenced to two years of confinement Thursday for exposing a fellow officer to HIV, forcing a midshipman to have oral sex and urging lower-ranking officers who sought his guidance to photograph him while he was naked. Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee, who had been stationed at the U.S. Naval Academy and Marine Corps Base Quantico, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, forcible sodomy, conduct unbecoming of an officer and misuse of government computers.

A former Navy chaplain plans to plead guilty to allegations that include forcible sodomy and failing to tell a sex partner he was HIV-positive, his lawyer said Wednesday. Lt. Cmdr. John Thomas Matthew Lee was to enter the plea today at his court-martial at Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia, said his attorney, David Sheldon. Lee, 42, plans to plead guilty to forcible sodomy, aggravated assault and other charges, Sheldon said.

When Marines came to his door a year ago to tell him that his eldest son had been killed in Iraq, Bill Krissoff reacted like any father: with confusion, devastation, then numbness. Nathan Krissoff was so young, a lover of poetry, a champion athlete, a leader whose maturity and selflessness had impressed fellow Marines. The father in Krissoff found no resolution to his grief. The physician in him did.

A former U.S. Navy sailor, already charged with divulging classified ship movements to British extremists linked to Al Qaeda, also discussed details of a previously undisclosed plan to attack a San Diego military base in late 2006 with at least two other men, authorities said Wednesday. Testifying in a federal court hearing in New Haven, Conn.

A federal appeals court Tuesday restored a ban on the U.S. Navy's use of submarine-hunting sonar in upcoming training missions off Southern California until it adopts better safeguards for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals. The order allows the Navy to continue its current exercises, but will force the Pentagon to devise ways to ensure that marine mammals are not harassed or injured by powerful sonic blasts during a series of training missions slated to begin in January.

SAN DIEGO -- An explosion in the hull of a dry-docked Navy vessel Saturday left six people injured, one of them critically, a fire official said. The Lake Champlain was undergoing routine maintenance in a shipyard at about noon when the explosion in its fuel tank occurred, according to San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Maurice Luque. One worker suffered life-threatening burns and was taken to UC San Diego Medical Center, Luque said.

An attorney for the U.S. Navy urged federal appeals judges Thursday to allow the Navy to continue to use high-powered sonar during training exercises in Southern California waters, saying it would cause only "temporary and minor problems" for whales and dolphins. The arguments came in a high-stakes case pitting the U.S.

Spitfire flames jumped from the top of one brittle tree to the next. The mission, maybe impossible, was to save a neighborhood of leafy, curving streets just 300 yards up a small hill. "This was the first big experience I've had fighting fires," said Lt. Cmdr. Jen Hannon, copilot of a Navy helicopter who usually shuttles supplies but was dispatched with her craft and crew to fly daylight missions, dumping 420-gallon buckets of water on the Harris fire as it approached Bonita in San Diego County.