TOKYO (AP) — Two boats carrying 21 people capsized Monday off Henoko, a controversial relocation site for a U.S. military base off Japan's southern island of Okinawa, throwing all into the water and leaving two of them dead, officials said.
The Japan Coast Guard said 18 of them were students from a Kyoto high school on two boats, 10 on Heiwa Maru and eight on the smaller Fukutsu, to observe the Henoko area as part of their peace education program.
Coast guard rescuers pulled all 21 people out of the water, but a 17-year-old female student and the captain of Fukutsu were later pronounced dead, officials said. Two people were injured but their conditions are not life threatening.
Coast guard officials said the cause of the accident is under investigation.
The boats were about a kilometer (half a mile) east of Henoko when they capsized. A wave advisory was in place during the accident, but the water was not very rough and there was no sign the boats collided, officials said.
Persistent protests and lawsuits between Okinawa and Tokyo have held up the relocation plan of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood on the island for nearly 30 years.
Henoko is a popular destination for activists opposing the relocation, but the students were not protesting, officials said.
Okinawa is home to about half of the 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under the bilateral security pact. Many Okinawans complain about risks of accident, noise, pollution and crime associated with U.S. bases.
Japanese Coast Guard officers prepare to search for capsized boats, at a port in Henoko, Nago city, Okinawa prefecture, Monday, March 16, 2026. (Kyodo News via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he’s nominating Fox News Channel contributor Nicole Saphier for surgeon general after Casey Means’ path forward stalled in the Senate over questions about her experience and her stance on vaccines.
In a social media post Thursday, the Republican president said Saphier is “a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment.”
Senators of both major political parties grilled Means on her vaccine stance and other health topics during a tense confirmation hearing, deepening doubts about her ability to secure the votes she needs for the role.
Earlier Thursday, Trump on social media commended Means as “a strong MAHA Warrior,” also criticizing the “intransigence and political games” from GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who interrogated Means about vaccines during the hearing.
The withdrawal of Means' nomination to be the next U.S. surgeon general is a blow to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his movement, which championed Means for the role as the country’s top doctor despite her nontraditional path in medicine and some controversial past remarks on vaccines and other health topics.
The withdrawal comes after tense exchanges between Means and lawmakers of both parties threw into question whether she could secure enough votes to advance out of the Senate health committee. Her nomination had languished since her confirmation hearing in late February, even as activists from Kennedy’s Make America Great Again movement orchestrated a push to support her bid by surging phone calls to Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who had both indicated reservations with the pick.
In nominating Means last May, Trump sought to hire a close ally of Kennedy as the nation’s doctor. Means, a Stanford-education physician whose disillusionment with the healthcare system led to her career as an author and entrepreneur, promotes ideas popular with the MAHA movement, including that Americans are overmedicalized and that diet and lifestyle changes should be at the center of efforts to end widespread chronic disease.
FILE - Dr. Casey Means takes her seat at the start of a Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee confirmation hearing for U.S. Surgeon General on Capitol Hill, Feb. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner, File)
FILE - Dr. Casey Means testifies during a Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension Committee confirmation hearing for U.S. Surgeon General on Capitol Hill, Feb. 25, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner, File)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he meets with NASA's Artemis II astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman and Jeremy Hansen in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, April 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
