We apologize for being so late to this story. It's funny -- it's been out there in the national press, but except for one brief mention in the Chronicle, and an even briefer mention in the Examiner, please excuse us if we hadn't heard about it.

The third ship in the American Navy to carry the name San Francisco, a Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, ran aground and breached it's hull on January 8th, 350 nautical miles from port in Guam, on the way to Australia. Reports have placed the number of injured crew anywhere from sixty to twenty-three, and one submariner -- Joseph Allen Ashley of Akron, Ohio -- was killed. The USS San Francisco (SSN711) was commissioned in 1981, and was built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. The ship is currently in drydock in Guam being repaired, and the investigation into the incident continutes.

AP Photo by US Navy Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Mark A. Leonesio, from the Daily Irrelevant.