FACES MILITARY MILITARY ‘Kung Fu’ star excited US shuts down Navy officer under scrutiny for about opportunities Guantanamo unit, letter disparaging enlisted sailors for Asian Americans moves prisoners as ‘deviants’ and ‘perverts’ Page 18 Page 5 Page 3 Stanford women hold off Arizona, win NCAA title ›› Page 24 stripes.com Volume 79 Edition 250 ©SS 2021 TUESDAY,APRIL 6, 2021 50¢/Free to Deployed Areas CAMERON PINSKE/U.S. Navy The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower transits the Suez Canal on Friday. The canal was blocked for six days when a commercial ship ran aground last month. Carrier group transits Suez after container ship is freed BY CHAD GARLAND Stars and Stripes The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group has sailed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean Sea, making them the first U.S. warships to pass through the maritime chokepoint since a nearly weeklong blockage of the waterway. The aircraft carrier, the cruiser Ellen Comfort and U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ken Ates, USS Monterey and the destroyers Special Operations Command Para-Commando, USS Mitscher and USS Thomas skydive March 13 in Zephyrhills, Fla. Comfort is Hudner entered the Red Sea on the Gold Star mother of Capt. Kyle Comfort, an Friday, the Navy’s 5th Fleet said in Army Ranger who died during combat a statement over the weekend. operations in Afghanistan in 2010. “We appreciate the government BARRY STEELE/U.S. Army of Egypt and Suez Canal Author- ity’s efforts to ensure the safety of navigation in this critical water- way for all ships, and in allowing the IKE CSG to transit so quickly,” 5th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Samuel Paparo said. The canal had been blocked to ‘I feel like I’m with him’ all traffic for six days starting March 23, when the container ship Ever Given ran aground in the middle of the waterway. During the blockage, more than 400 ships Gold Star mothers skydive in memory of their sons were stranded at the canal, which links the Mediterranean to the Page 4 Red Sea. SEE CARRIER ON PAGE 5 PAGE 2 • STARS AND STRIPES • Tuesday, April 6, 2021 BUSINESS/WEATHER Facebook account data found online EXCHANGE RATES Military rates South Korea (Won) 1126.13 Associated Press tion, it has information from 106 knowledge or consent. Switzerland (Franc) .9386 Euro costs (April 6) $1.15 Thailand (Baht) 31.33 NEW YORK — Details from countries including phone num- In December 2019, a Ukrainian Dollar buys (April 6) 0.8292 Turkey (NewLira) 8.1215 British pound (April 6) $1.34 more than 500 million Facebook bers, Facebook IDs, full names, lo- security researcher reported find- Japanese yen (April 6) 108.00 (Military exchange rates are those available users have been found available cations, birthdates, and email ad- ing a database with the names, South Korean won (April 6) 1099.00 to customers at military banking facilities in the Commercial rates country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Ger­ on a website for hackers. dresses. phone numbers and unique user many, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Bahrain(Dinar) .3770 For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., pur­ The information appears to be Facebook has been grappling IDs of more than 267 million Face- Britain (Pound) 1.3869 chasing British pounds in Germany), check with Canada (Dollar) 1.2523 your local military banking facility. Commercial several years old, but it is another with data security issues for years. book users — nearly all U.S.- China(Yuan) 6.5669 rates are interbank rates provided for reference Denmark (Krone) 6.3042 example of the vast amount of in- In 2018, the social media giant dis- based — on the open internet. It is Egypt (Pound) 15.7060 when buying currency. All figures are foreign formation collected by Facebook abled a feature that allowed users unclear if the current data dump is Euro .8476 currencies to one dollar, except for the British Hong Kong (Dollar) 7.7763 pound, which is represented in dollars­to­ and other social media sites, and to search for one another via related to this database. Hungary (Forint) 305.72 pound, and the euro, which is dollars­to­euro.) Israel (Shekel) 3.3136 the limits to how secure that infor- phone number following revela- “This is old data that was previ- Japan (Yen) 110.27 INTEREST RATES mation is. tions that the political firm Cam- ously reported on in 2019,” the Kuwait(Dinar) .3023 Norway (Krone) 8.5078 Prime rate 3.25 The availability of the data set bridge Analytica had accessed in- Menlo Park, Calif.,-based compa- Philippines (Peso) 48.41 Interest Rates Discount rate 0.75 Poland (Zloty) 3.89 Federal funds market rate 0.07 was first reported by Business In- formation on up to 87 million ny. “We found and fixed this issue Saudi Arabia (Riyal) 3.7487 3­month bill 0.02 sider. According to that publica- Facebook users without their in August 2019.” Singapore (Dollar) 1.3421 30­year bond 2.34 WEATHER OUTLOOK TUESDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST TUESDAY IN EUROPE WEDNESDAY IN THE PACIFIC Misawa 47/38 Kabul Seoul 53/44 63/40 Baghdad 85/55 Drawsko Osan Tokyo Kandahar 62/40 58/41 Mildenhall/ Pomorskie Busan 76/53 Lakenheath 41/30 42/30 63/49 Iwakuni Kuwait City 59/49 Bahrain Brussels Zagan Sasebo Guam 85/63 73/70 Ramstein 39/28 62/51 40/32 39/28 82/79 Riyadh Lajes, Stuttgart 83/58 Doha Azores Pápa 59/56 39/27 85/64 Aviano/ 44/34 Vicenza 49/43 Naples 58/48 Okinawa Morón 70/67 78/51 Sigonella Rota 66/48 The weather is provided by the Djibouti 68/53 Souda Bay American Forces Network Weather Center, 89/86 65/62 2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. TODAY IN STRIPES American Roundup ...... 11 Comics .........................16 Crossword ................... 16 Faces .......................... 18 Opinion ........................ 14 Sports .................... 19-24 Tuesday, April 6, 2021 • STARS AND STRIPES • PAGE 3 MILITARY Officer criticized for letter calling sailors ‘perverts’ BY ERICA EARL Sunday by the hospital’s Facebook Stars and Stripes page. TOKYO — An officer at Yokosu- “I am aware of the recent allega- ka Naval Base, Japan, is under in- tion that a member of our staff sent vestigation for purportedly writ- a letter to the housing office with ing a complaint to the base housing comments disparaging to enlisted office about the “deviant nature” service members,” she wrote. of enlisted sailors who pose a dan- “We are conducting an internal in- ger to his family. vestigation into the matter and if The letter, allegedly authored any allegations are found to be by Lt. Nathanael Allison of Naval true, we will take appropriate ac- Hospital Yokosuka, states that liv- tions.” ing in the Ikego Housing Detach- Allison’s command is working ment in an apartment building for with the housing office to confirm enlisted families is “unaccept- the letter’s authorship, hospital able.” The message, filled with spokeswoman Erika Figueroa told spelling and grammatical errors, Stars and Stripes in a phone call on condemns enlisted sailors as “per- Monday. verts” and accuses them of egre- “It is under investigation, as is gious behavior such as rape, invol- any case when someone allegedly ALEXANDER KUBITZA/U.S. Navy vement in drug cartels and attack- acts in a way that is counter to our An officer checks sailors on the USS Boxer amphibious assault ship in the Arabian Sea on Sept. 20, 2019. ing each other with hatchets. standards of behavior,” she said. “There are often drunk and of- The letter states that officers are ten hostile sailors hanging around “more respectable” than enlisted enlisted housing,” the letter states. members and that Allison’s chil- For Navy grooming standards, “Housing with enlisted greatly in- dren should “only be friends with creases the risk to my family. I officers’ children” and his wife have a good-looking family, a wife “only friends with officer wives.” ‘faddish,’ ‘outrageous’ are out and two daughters, ages 3 and 4. He also expressed concern that his BY THERON GODBOLD pearance.” officer looked at the interpretation They are prime targets to be vic- officer colleagues would not want Stars and Stripes The message comes after a Na- and carrying out what those regu- tims for these enlisted deviant ac- to visit him in enlisted housing. Sailor feedback has prompted vy review of its hair and grooming lations were.” tivities.” The letter struck a nerve in the Navy to change grooming standards in the summer and fall The message states that the up- According to screenshots, the some service members, who said standards terms that are consid- of 2020. The service assembled fo- date is “forthcoming” and that un- letter was sent Feb. 8 via a Google in Facebook comments they were ered vague and sometimes arbi- cus groups of sailors, male and fe- til the Navy’s uniform regulations email account to housing. It began disappointed that people in lead- trarily applied, according to a re- male, officer and enlisted, and are updated, the naval administra- circulating last week on military ership positions may have such cent Navy administrative mess- asked them whether the existing tive message should serve as a ref- community Facebook pages, and a low opinions of them. age. standards are racially biased, the erence to those upcoming chang- YouTube video about the letter “Understandably, emotions are A series of changes are coming message states. es. has garnered over 300,000 views high because some extremely of- to hair standards, especially, that The Navy found no bias, but “I think the changes were very as of Monday.