Navy

In an annual rite known as Upfront Week, NBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, and the CW just presented their lineups for the 2012-13 TV season to advertisers in New York. The ceremonies took place in some of the city's most august concert Halls (Carnegie, Avery Fisher, Radio City Music) over four days. The broadcast companies introduced only 20 new series for the fall (down from 27 last season). NBC led the pack with six new shows. Fox and the CW had half that many. Like it or not, an awful lot of familiar faces will be returning in the fall.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Steve Addazio called the three proposals on divisional alignment presented to the Big East football coaches and athletic directors at the conference's spring meetings a win-win-win situation for Temple. One proposal would split the league into East and West divisions beginning in 2013. Another called for North and South divisions. And the third would have a non-geographic alignment, splitting the West Coast schools, the Texas schools, and the Florida schools.

The Navy spent nearly $17 million on defective and unsafe, inflatable rubber lifeboats, and now wants its money back. In a suit filed late Thursday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the Navy also is seeking an additional $4 million for the costs of removing the "dangerous" rafts from surface ships in its worldwide fleet. Sued were the rafts' manufacturer, Rubber Crafters Inc., and its president, Peter J. Zannoni, both of Grantsville, W.Va. Rubber Crafters pleaded guilty last year and was placed on five years probation by a federal judge in West Virginia for conspiring to defraud the government and for conspiracy to obstruct a grand jury investigation.

SAN FRANCISCO - In 2005, the USS America aircraft carrier was towed out to sea on its final voyage. Hundreds of miles off the Atlantic coast, U.S. Navy personnel then blasted the 40-year-old warship with missiles and bombs until it sank. The Kitty Hawk-class carrier - more than three football fields long - came to rest in the briny depths about 300 nautical miles southeast of Norfolk, Va. Target practice is now the way the Navy gets rid of most of its old ships, an Associated Press review of Navy records for the last dozen years has found.

The May 23 Op-ed article by Maxwell Glen and Cody Shearer, "The Navy goes into show biz," seems to be saying four things: first, that it is wrong for the Navy to profit from the film industry; second, that it is wrong for the film industry to profit from the Navy; third, the Navy should not use privately funded movies for recruiting purposes; fourth, the Navy should not be spending so many taxpayers dollars on recruiting. Consider each in turn. First, it would be wrong for the Navy to refuse private funding to offset the cost of pilot proficiency training (and that is what the hours flown during the filming of Top Gun represent, since they would have been flown even without the presence of a film crew)

Citing unexpected circumstances, a Montgomery County judge yesterday revoked an earlier ruling ordering a Lansdale man to serve a four-year stint in the Navy. Common Pleas Court Judge S. Gerald Corso sentenced Nathan I. Rubinkam, 20, to five years' probation and 150 hours of community service. The ruling overrides an Aug. 24 order to send Rubinkam into the Navy and have him serve five years of nonreporting probation for his part in a series of thefts from autos in the North Penn area in 1988 and 1989.

The University of Pennsylvania dominated the U.S. Naval Academy in three out of four races in a women's rowing regatta yesterday on a windswept Schuylkill. Penn outrowed the Middies by almost 1 1/2 lengths in the varsity race, covering the 2,000-meter course in 6 minutes, 44.6 seconds. Navy's time was 6:50.0. The Quakers also won the second varsity and the first novice varsity races, while Navy prevailed in the second novice varsity race.

The Navy is fighting to keep the USS Olympia, Adm. George Dewey's flagship in the Spanish American War battle of Manila, from being taken over by a man who successfully sued the ship's owners after his son fell overboard and drowned. The Olympia, moored at Penn's Landing, was about to be padlocked by U.S. marshals Friday so that its contents could be attached to the estate of Robert Matthews, a 20-year-old deckhand who drowned in 1983. They were prevented from finishing the job when U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz gave the U.S. attorney's office, representing the Navy, time to prepare legal papers for presentation today.

Fresh off their most meaningful victory in recent seasons, the Drexel Dragons didn't allow Navy to catch them still savoring it last night. The Dragons (14-5) put the Midshipmen away early on their way to a 73-57 nonleague victory at Halsey Fieldhouse. It was Drexel's seventh straight victory. And it marked the first time the Dragons had put together that many wins since the 1985-86 season, when Drexel went to the NCAA tournament. Playing a Navy team (7-12) that had not distinguished itself this season, Drexel was a prime candidate for a letdown.

The Penn basketball team faced a unique challenge last night against Navy. The Midshipmen's high-powered offense came into the contest averaging nearly 25 three-point attempts per game and a 40 percent shooting average from beyond the arc. Off the floor, a raucous crowd of 2,185 at Alumni Hall was inspired by a national television broadcast and ceremonies marking Pearl Harbor Day. But the Quakers managed to take care of both those problems with...

Leon T. Mingo was not exactly a poker shark. He and some old pals would get together every other weekend. They weren't poker sharks, either. "He would come home, saying, ‘I won!' and pull out his $1.25 take," said his wife, Della Mingo. "They played for quarters, so the time together was the big thing. " Family and friends were what shaped Leon's life and gave it meaning. Loyalty and devotion were his major characteristics. Some family members and friends who were down on their luck or just trying to find themselves would be welcomed to stay in his home — sometimes for years — until they were able to strike out on their own. Leon Mingo, a Navy veteran who suffered a disabling injury while serving aboard an aircraft carrier in 1967, a man of wide knowledge respected by many friends who sought him out for an education that came with their friendship, died of pancreatic cancer on May 12. He was 72 and lived in East Norriton, but had lived many years in East Oak Lane.

Computer technology has trumped all the mental pictures I have of what a "control room" should look like. On Monday, I visited the Navy Yard's new Network Operations Center (NOC) to see what's expected to be a showcase for how "smart grid" technologies will perform at the growing urban office and industrial park. But instead of a wall-size map of the Navy Yard or a long control board with switches and blinking lights, the room on the first floor of Building 101 looked like the classroom it was, albeit with some funky strings of LED lighting.

Roosevelt's Navy The Education of a Warrior President, 1882-1920 By James Tertius de Kay Pegasus Books, 312pp., $27.95 Reviewed by Paul Jablow In her classic Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how Abraham Lincoln deftly molded his competitors for the Republican presidential nomination into an able cabinet that helped the country get through the Civil War. De Kay's book does not approach Kearns' work for scope, detail...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A civilian engineer from Virginia who worked for the Naval Sea Systems Command and his 80-year-old father were indicted on Thursday in Rhode Island in an alleged bribery and fraud plot that prosecutors say cost the U.S. Navy about $10 million over 15 years. The indictment of Ralph M. Mariano, 54, of South Arlington, Va., and his father, Ralph Mariano Jr., of North Providence, R.I., came after three others accused in the plot pleaded guilty to charges and agreed to cooperate with federal authorities.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Emergency crews searched the charred remains of a Virginia Beach apartment complex Friday after a fighter jet crashed into it just after takeoff in what Navy officials called a "catastrophic mechanical malfunction. " Two Navy pilots - a student and an instructor from nearby Naval Air Station Oceana - ejected just before the jet careened into the complex, demolishing sections of some buildings and engulfing others in flames. About 40 apartment units were damaged or destroyed in the crash, but hours later no fatalities had been reported.

SAN FRANCISCO - In 2005, the USS America aircraft carrier was towed out to sea on its final voyage. Hundreds of miles off the Atlantic coast, U.S. Navy personnel then blasted the 40-year-old warship with missiles and bombs until it sank. The Kitty Hawk-class carrier - more than three football fields long - came to rest in the briny depths about 300 nautical miles southeast of Norfolk, Va. Target practice is now the way the Navy gets rid of most of its old ships, an Associated Press review of Navy records for the last dozen years has found.

Benjamin L. Fish, 78, of Mickleton, a retired Navy captain, died of heart failure on Friday, March 9, at Underwood-Memorial Hospital in Woodbury. Mr. Fish graduated from Paulsboro High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University. In 1956, he was commissioned in the Navy. During his 27-year military career, he was a flight officer aboard aircraft carriers Oriskany, Forrestal, and John F. Kennedy, and was assigned to Navy facilities in Virginia, Tennessee, Nevada, New York, and Turkey.

George S. Hundt Sr., 81, of Braeburn Farm in Malvern, a retired stockbroker and Master of Foxhounds at the Radnor Hunt for 22 years, died of Alzheimer's disease Tuesday, March 6, at Neighborhood Hospice in West Chester. From September to March, three days a week, Mr. Hundt led horsemen through fields following a pack of hounds on the trail of a fox. The goal is for riders not to catch the fox but to catch sight of it, and be able to shout "tallyho!" said Mr. Hundt's son, George Hundt Jr. "It's for people who love horses," he said, "and being outdoors.

THE NAVAL Yard a/k/a Urban Outfitter campus is where the young cosmopolitan designers, graphic artists and marketers come to work in the world of style. Here at the creative edge of the city, gals dress for show even if they are just meeting at the company cafeteria for lunch. You'll see an eclectic mix of patterns, heel heights, and outerwear. And the guys aren't slacking, either, going from American heritage style to vintage Levis and Allen Edmonds shoes. Who knew such style could be found on the banks of the Delaware River?

Demolition has begun to remove debris and 94 vacant naval housing buildings at the eastern end of the Navy Yard to make way for Southport, the city's first new marine terminal in 50 years. Philadelphia port officials this week received state and federal approval to continue the demolition but must keep outside a 1,000-foot radius of an unoccupied bald eagles' nest at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. Eagles have not visited the nest in three years. A bird monitor is on site, and if no eagles touch down soon, the tree that holds the nest will be cut down.