renamed

Welsh netball’s leading women’s team will lose ‘Cardiff’ from their title for the 2026 Netball Super League (NSL) season and host games in Liverpool as well as the Welsh capital.

Previously known as LexisNexis Cardiff Dragons, the city name has been removed and they are now LexisNexis Dragons and will play home games at Cardiff’s House of Sport and Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena.

Dragons named their squad in early September despite financial uncertainty.

The Welsh side finished bottom of the revamped NSL last season – winning only two of their 14 matches – and there have been question marks about the franchise’s finances.

BBC Sport Wales had been told that players were informed in the off-season that they may not have had a team to play for this coming campaign if Dragons did not secure the required funding.

June 27 (UPI) — The USNS Harvey Milk is being renamed after Oscar V. Peterson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Friday.

“I am pleased to announce that the United States Navy is renaming the USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson,” Hegseth said on X, in a post accompanied by a video.

“We are taking the politics out of ship naming. We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists, unlike the previous administration,” Hegseth said in the video Friday.

Peterson received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, after the Navy chief petty officer was wounded in battle.

“During the Battle of the Coral Sea in May of 1942, Chief Watertender Peterson led a repair party on the USS Neosho. The ship was severely damaged by Japanese dive bombers, and the entire repair party was either killed or severely wounded,” Hegseth said Friday.

“Peterson himself was gravely wounded, yet he managed to single-handedly close the bulkhead stop valves, thereby helping to keep the ship operational.”

Hegseth previously confirmed he had ordered the U.S. Navy to rename the replenishment oiler, which bears the name of Milk, a gay rights activist assassinated in 1978. The Defense Secretary at the time said the move was being made to align “with president and SECDEF objectives and SECNAV priorities of re-establishing the warrior culture.”

A Defense Department official said at the time the renaming was intentionally done during Pride month.

Milk won a San Francisco supervisor seat in 1977. The U.S. Navy veteran served in the Korean War and became the first openly gay person in the country to be elected to public office. His name has remained synonymous with the LGBTQ movement.

Milk was assassinated the year after taking office and was in 2009 posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

The decision to remove his name from one of the six John Lewis Class ships was met with protest from Democrats. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at the time called the decision “shameful.” Pelosi’s Congressional District includes San Francisco.

The ship was first named after Milk in 2016, becoming the first naval vessel named after an openly-gay person. It was launched in 2021.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that the USNS Harvey Milk will be renamed after a World War II sailor who received the Medal of Honor, stripping the ship of the name of a slain gay rights activist who served during the Korean War.

In a video posted to social media, Hegseth said he was “taking the politics out of ship naming.”

The ship’s new name will honor Navy Chief Petty Officer Oscar V. Peterson, who was awarded the highest military decoration posthumously for his actions during the 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea in the Pacific.

The decision is the latest move by Hegseth to wipe away names of ships and military bases that were given by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which in many cases chose to honor service members who were women, minorities, from the LBGTQ community and more.

It follows earlier actions by Hegseth and President Donald Trump, a Republican, to purge all programs, policies, books and social media mentions of references to diversity, equity and inclusion in the military and elsewhere.

Hegseth’s announcement comes during Pride Month — the same timing as the Pentagon’s campaign to force transgender troops out of the U.S. military.

“We’re not renaming the ship to anything political. This is not about political activists,” said Hegseth, who earlier this month ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to put together a small team to rename the USNS Harvey Milk replenishment oiler.

He said Peterson’s “spirit of self-sacrifice and concern for his crewmates was in keeping with the finest traditions of the Navy.”

When Hegseth announced the decision to rename the ship, officials defended it as an effort to align with Trump and Hegseth’s objectives to “re-establish the warrior culture.”

Peterson served on the USS Neosho, which also was an oiler. The ship was damaged during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and even though Peterson was injured, he managed to close the bulkhead stop valves to keep the ship operational. He died of his wounds.

The Navy in 1943 named an escort ship after Peterson. The USS Peterson served for more than two decades and was decommissioned in June 1965.

The USNS Harvey Milk was named in 2016 by then-Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who said at the time that the John Lewis-class of oilers would be named after leaders who fought for civil and human rights.

Harvey Milk, who was portrayed by Sean Penn in an Oscar-winning 2008 movie, served for four years in the Navy before he was forced out for being gay. He later became one of the first openly gay candidates elected to public office, in San Francisco. He was assassinated in 1978 by a disgruntled former city supervisor.

Baldor writes for the Associated Press.