The Pentagon has moved beyond merely talking about placing women into combat and is actively mapping how, when and where servicewomen eventually will be assigned to far more dangerous duties — including, perhaps, special forces operations, senior U.S. defense officials tell NBC News. While the blueprint for dual-gender U.S. combat units continues to be sketched — and remains subject to change  — m...

A shark attacked a teenage boy on Monday as he was standing in shallow water off the coast of Texas, police said.The 15-year-old was at Surfside Beach on the Gulf of Mexico with friends when he felt the shark bite his left leg and tried to fight it off by reaching into the water and hitting it. The shark then went for his left hand and he suffered lacerations to limbs, according to Assistant Chief...

Southern California fire officials warned Monday that the state should take caution during a brutal fire season that projections suggest could be the worst to hit the region in a century.“We’re going to have a very volatile fire season,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby said at a Monday afternoon news conference, who noted it could be the worst in 100 years.The warning comes nearly a week ...

By Clara MoskowitzSpace.comNASA has picked eight Americans, a mix of scientists and military pilots, to begin training for future space missions that may one day launch them all the way to Mars. The new class includes four men and four women who will join the 49 active astronauts at the agency's astronaut corps at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.The new U.S. space travelers, which NASA unveile...

Three Naval Academy midshipmen will face charges for allegedly sexually assaulting a female midshipman last year, a U.S. military official told NBC News Monday.The female midshipman told investigators that she was sexually assaulted by the three men — all Academy football players at the time — at an off-campus party in April 2012. The Naval Academy Superintendent, Vice Admiral Michael Miller, is t...