US Marine Corps fires another commander over the assault amphibious vehicle accident that killed 9 troops

The Marine Corps has fired the commanding officer of the the expeditionary unit that saw nine service members die in an assault amphibious vehicle (AAV) accident last summer, the service said in a statement Tuesday. He is the second senior leader to be fired in response.

Following the completion of a command investigation into the deadly mishap, Lt. Gen. Steven Rudder, the head of Marine Corps Forces Pacific relieved Col. Christopher Bronzi, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit commander, on Tuesday due to "a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to command."

Col. Fridrik Fridriksson, who previously commanded the 11th MEU, has taken over Bronzi's command of the 15th MEU, a California-based unit that is currently deployed to the Central Command area of responsibility with the Makin Island Amphibious Readiness Group.

On July 30, 2020, an AAV, a 26-ton tracked amphibious vehicle built to move Marines between ship and shore, sank off the coast of California during a training exercise. Less than half of the 16 service members in the vehicle at the time of the accident survived.

Eight Marines and a Navy sailor assigned to Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines died, making the training incident the deadliest in the nearly five-decade history of the Corps' AAVs.

The service members killed in the accident were Lance Cpl. Guillermo S. Perez, Pfc. Bryan J. Baltierra, Lance Cpl. Marco A. Barranco, Pfc. Evan A. Bath, Pfc. Jack Ryan Ostrovsky, Cpl. Wesley A. Rodd, Lance Cpl. Chase D. Sweetwood, Cpl. Cesar A. Villanueva, and Navy Hospitalman Christopher Gnem.

In the wake of the accident, the Marine Corps suspended all waterborne operations for its aging fleet of roughly 800 AAVs, all of which were inspected.

Though the command investigation into the accident has been completed, it has not been publicly released. The findings will first be presented to the families of the deceased.

Last October, Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, who commands I Marine Expeditionary Force, relieved Lt. Col. Michael Regner, commanding officer of Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, of his command.

A Marine Corps statement said that Regner was relieved "due to a loss in trust and confidence in his ability to command as a result of the assault amphibious vehicle mishap that took place off the coast of Southern California."

Regner took command of Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines in June 2019, and Bronzi, who previously commanded the 1/4, assumed command of the 15th MEU in November that same year.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-marine-corps-fires-another-131554568.html

It's ok, "trust me…" said the snake

Back and forth over Astrazeneca's COVID-19 statement an 'unforced error' - Fauci

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine is likely very good, but an independent review board was concerned about how the drugmaker presented data in a press release this week, top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday.

"This is likely a very good vaccine," Fauci, U.S. President Joe Biden's COVID-19 medical adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, told ABC News' "Good Morning America" program. "If you look at it, the data really are quite good but when they put it into the press release it wasn't completely accurate."

A data and safety monitoring board "got concerned" that the data in AstraZeneca's public statement "were somewhat outdated and might in fact be misleading a bit," he added.

The board, a group of independent medical experts at the National Institutes of Health, which includes NIAID, contacted the company with their concerns about how the company laid out its data in its press release issued on Monday, Fauci said.

He added that the back and forth was "unfortunate," calling it "an unforced error" that only adds to public doubts about vaccines and could possibly lead to more hesitancy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which will review the company's data when it seeks approval for its COVID-19 vaccine in the United States, "will independently go over every bit of data themselves" and not rely on any one interpretation, including the company's, he added.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-fauci-says-astrazenecas-covid-115243666.html

Sesame Workshop Is Talking More Explicitly About Race—and Welcoming Two Black Muppets

Elijah Walker, 35, a new Black Muppet who, along with his son Wesley, 5, will be introduced on March 23 by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street Credit - Zach Hyman—Sesame Workshop

Bradley Freeman Jr. was doing some Christmas shopping at Target when he got the email. Glancing down at his phone, all he could see was a preview: “Hey Brad, thanks for taking the time to audition for us …” He immediately assumed he had been rejected.

Then he read the rest.

“I had to read it over, like, seven different times to make sure that I actually got the part,” he says. “I say yes, and then I realized I didn’t actually type anything so I had to send a second email and say yes and then texted—I was like, ‘Just making sure you know that I accepted this part.'”

The part—the one that had him “hyperventilating in the middle of Target”—is the puppeteer for Wesley Walker, a new Black Muppet who, along with his father Elijah, will be introduced on March 23 by Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street. “To actually, fully believe that I have my own original, brand-new character on the show is not something that I can really accept,” Freeman says.

Since Sesame Street debuted more than five decades ago, in 1969, the show and the nonprofit’s related programming have dealt with tough topics in an age-appropriate way. When actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, died in 1982, producers decided not to simply tell viewers he had gone away—instead they built an episode around death and grief. “We were advised to take the direct approach,” Valeria Lovelace, the show’s former director of research, told the Associated Press at the time. “Children don’t understand words like passing away.” In 2002, Takalani Sesame, the South African version of Sesame Street, introduced Kami, a 5-year-old HIV-positive Muppet, who was an orphan. More recently, the organization has created Muppets who can help broach other difficult subjects through its Sesame Street in Communities initiative, which provides materials and media for kids in a wide range of situations. Lily, who made her debut in 2011, struggled with food and housing insecurity. Karli, who was introduced in 2019, was in foster care and had a mother who struggled with addiction. Julia, a Muppet with autism, first appeared in a digital storybook in 2015 before becoming a regular on the show in 2017.

more

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/sesame-workshop-talking-more-explicitly-123420844.html