Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin defended his efforts to expand diversity in the military during a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday. Austin affirmed to NBC News his belief that having women and increased diversity in the U.S. military “makes us stronger.”  “I have spent 41 years in uniform, three long tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, and everywhere I went on a battlefield, there were women in our formation,” Austin...

California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the state’s minimum wage to $18 per hour; the first failure of such an initiative nationwide in almost 30 years. The tabulation came two weeks after Election Day due to the narrowing margin, as 49.2% of Californians ultimately supported the wage hike, falling just short. The vote was geographically disparate, with every Bay Area and coastal county except...