It wasn’t immediately clear why the the alert for Italy was raised. A bump to level 2 also occurred last fall. Italy is expecting a sizable increase in tourists this year.

The Navy wants to mothball the only ship in the fleet that allows a U.S. commander to simultaneously lead U.S. and NATO forces in Europe and Africa, a move critics say would weaken combat flexibility and American influence abroad.

A retired four-star admiral who once was the Navy’s second-highest ranking officer was convicted of federal bribery and conspiracy charges in a scheme to direct lucrative contracts to a training company in exchange for a $500,000-a-year job.

The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has left the Middle East after a deployment marked by the loss of three fighter jets and weeks of nearly constant flight operations in a U.S. bid to cripple Houthi militants.

China’s efforts to buy influence in Africa through infrastructure and investment may not yield the returns Beijing hopes for, said Vice Adm. Jeffrey Anderson, commander of U.S. 6th Fleet and Striking and Support Forces NATO. The U.S. is viewed as the “preferred partner,” he said. 

West African countries are adapting their interdiction strategies as drug traffickers and other criminals turn to sophisticated technology to evade detection, U.S. officials said this week.

A hard turn by an aircraft carrier isn’t enough on its own to cause a $67 million Navy fighter jet to slide off a ship, a Defense Department official said as investigators determine how a plane fell into the Red Sea.

The 27-year-old Navy SEAL died trying to save a fellow sailor during a dangerous nighttime mission off the Somali coast last year. An investigation released in October concluded that the deaths of both sailors were preventable. 

The parents of a 19-year-old soldier who died by suicide in 2021 say in a recently filed lawsuit that he faced months of threats, retaliation and bullying after objecting to getting the COVID-19 vaccine, court records show.

The presence of the 6th Fleet flagship and the service’s second-highest-ranking officer in Europe and Africa is a notable message to competitors that the U.S. remains interested and involved in North Africa, an analyst said.