The program provides education benefits to spouses and children of military service members killed, missing in action, taken prisoner, or who have been rated permanently disabled as a result of military service. Old Dominion University, with 369 students, has the most students in the program.

The oyster population in the James River’s Wreck Shoals sanctuary off Newport News has declined so sharply that it's leading to worries about illegal harvests.

“The Navy, America ... we got through this together,” said Rear Adm. Charles “Chip” Rock, who is turning over Navy Region Mid-Atlantic to Rear Adm. Scott Gray. The region includes 14 Navy installations in 20 states, from Wisconsin east to Maine and south to North Carolina

Heavy rainfall can carry more pollutants to the Bay, while hot summer temperatures and weak winds help the dead zone grow.

"It’s work to earn; if you work, you can reach your goals in the Air Force.”

The exercise brought German chaplain Cmdr. Katje Bruns by U.S. helicopter from German frigate Sachsen to the destroyer USS Porter and from that Rota-based ship to the Kearsarge — a test of coordination for U.S. Navy air crew and German flight deck sailors. “We want to be sure that all the navies here will have spiritual support."

“We’re struggling to provide for thousands of our citizens, and we’re about to get hundreds more from other states."

It was an ordinary, if long, flight from Naples, but some 45 minutes out from Hampton Roads, it turned into something else for Petty Officer 1st Class Gerardo Alvarez, on his way to join the crew of USS John C. Stennis at Newport News Shipbuilding.

“It got a bit tough about three months out,” Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitri Rivera said — that’s when Omari would have been about a month old. “When we got extended, that’s when it really hit home."