mediterranean

Italy and Malta turned away the migrant rescue ship Aquarius, leaving it stranded in the Mediterranean for days. Now that Spain is accepting the ship, Italian and Maltese navies are assisting.

An estimated 246 migrants have died in January crossing the Mediterranean, part of what advocates call "an undeniable trend of tragedy in the Mediterranean."

A land reclamation project that uses vast amounts of garbage extends hundreds of feet into the sea. "We are fishing plastic," says a fisherman. The country has long struggled to manage its waste.

Police say the women may have been thrown off a rubber dinghy into the sea. Authorities are trying to determine whether their deaths are linked to sex trafficking.

A Sicily court has convicted the ship's captain and another man over the wreck involving hundreds of migrants in April 2015. It was one of the deadliest migrant disasters in the Mediterranean.

That's despite far fewer people making the treacherous passage. The U.N. says smugglers set people off on mass embarkations on "flimsy inflatable rafts that often do not make the journey."

Part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is seaborne. The Navy's USS Truman has been in the Persian Gulf but now is in the Mediterranean, on its way home to Virginia.

Cases are spiking in the Middle East and in East Africa. Blame it on the refugee situation — and the weather.