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The controversial head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's vaccines and biologics unit,Dr. Vinay Prasad, will leave the agency at the end of April.

FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makary posted about the departure on social media platform X, saying Prasad would return to the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, where he is a professor, and that he had accomplished much during his one-year sabbatical.

The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Makary said a successor will be named before Prasad's departure.

Prasad, an oncologist, was an outspoken critic of U.S. drug and vaccine policies, particularly around COVID-19 mandates, before joining the agency. His tenure included a series of high‑profile disputes overproduct reviews for vaccines, including Moderna's MRNA.O COVID shot, gene therapies and other rare disease drugs.

He was appointed as the director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in May last year. Shortly after, he stepped down over questions of his handling of a muscular dystrophy treatment before returning to the role just weeks later.

Most recently, Prasad's division at the FDA engaged in aback-and-forth tusslewith Dutch drugmaker UniQure over disagreements about the path forward for the company's gene therapy for Huntington's disease.

The U.S. drug regulator called for a new study to support the approval of the company's gene therapy for the rare brain disorder, but the company and patient advocates argued that what the FDA was asking for was too lengthy and onerous on patients.

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Drugmaker's shares rise

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, has accused the company of misleading the public about what regulators were asking for.

U.S.-listed shares of UniQure jumped 57% in extended trading, following the news of Prasad's departure.

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on February 24 said the FDA had torpedoed several rare disease drugs under Prasad, contradicting Makary's stated goal of flexible reviews for such treatments and raising questions about the management of the health regulator.

The piece cited the latest rejection of Disc Medicine's IRON.O treatment, which had received the Commissioner's National Priority Voucher, a program launched by Makary to help fast-track breakthrough treatments.

Disc had said that the agencyconcludedthat the trials did not show a clear link between biological improvement and clinical benefit.

Shares of Disc rose about 10% in after-market trading.

Prasad's departure is the latest reshuffle at the health department, which recently put National Institutes of Health headJay Bhattacharyain charge of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following the departure of Jim O'Neill.

(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Kamal Choudhury in Bengaluru; Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Shinjini Ganguli, and Caroline Humer)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:FDA vaccines chief Dr. Vinay Prasad to leave regulator in April

JAKARTA/WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto said he will withdraw from U.S. President Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" if it does not benefit Palestinians, according to a government statement ‌on Friday, after the Iran war deepened doubts over his country's involvement.

Prabowo, who leads the ‌world's largest Muslim-majority nation, had come under criticism from domestic Muslim groups for agreeing to join the board and provide troops to ​a Gaza stabilization force, under a Trump-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the two-year Israel-Hamas war.

A U.S. official on Friday confirmed that the security situation in the Middle East could affect the timing of deployments to the international stabilization force, which was authorized by the U.N. Security Council with Indonesia as a leading contributor.

"While some ISF ‌deployment timelines may shift due to ⁠the situation on the ground, discussions with our Indonesian partners continue," a Trump administration official told Reuters when asked about doubts over Indonesia's role.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono said ⁠on Tuesday that all discussions about the Board of Peace, which will oversee the creation of the stabilization force, had been halted due to the Iran war.

Prabowo gathered leaders of local Islamic groups for a meeting on Thursday ​evening where ​he reiterated his reasoning behind joining the board, according ​to a statement put out by the ‌government communication office.

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Prabowo will withdraw from the board if it does not benefit Palestinian and Indonesian interests, the statement quoted Hanif Alatas of the Islamic Brotherhood Front as saying.

"The president said that if he sees that there is no longer any benefit for Palestine ... and that it is not in line with Indonesia's national interests, he will withdraw," Hanif said in the statement.

The U.S. commander of the stabilization force, which is meant ‌to help rebuild the Palestinian territory, said last month that ​his deputy would be Indonesian.

The Indonesian Ulema Council, a leading clerical ​body, had previously called for Indonesia to ​exit the board due to the U.S. role in the Iran war. Critics have ‌said Indonesia's participation also compromises its long-standing ​support for the Palestinian cause.

Nahdlatul ​Ulama, the country's largest Muslim group, said Indonesia's government could use its role on the board to encourage de-escalation in the Middle East.

"Indonesia could declare that the (board's) agenda is on hold until ​there are talks on de-escalation and ‌peace from the American-Israeli war against Iran," the group's chief, Yahya Cholil Staquf, said in ​a statement issued by Prabowo's office late on Thursday.

(Reporting by Stanley Widianto, Stefanno Sulaiman and ​Simon Lewis; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Edmund Klamann)

TEHRAN — Nearly a week afterairstrikes hit an elementary schoolin southernIran, killing more than 170 people and leaving witnesses to find the severed limbs of children in the rubble, there have been increased international demands to know who was responsible and how the tragedy could happen.

The strikes, in the town of Minab, came in at the very start of the U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign on Saturday. The United States was targeting that area, where the boys and girls school, Shajareh Tayyebeh, was struck, Trump administration officials told members of Congress in a closed-door meeting this week, according to two U.S. officials. The administration officials also said their military partner, Israel, was not responsible for the school's bombing.

The U.S. has not claimed responsibility for the strikes, but the Trump administration's preliminary findings show it is increasingly likely that a U.S. munition was used in the strikes, according to a U.S. official and a person familiar with the investigation. The U.S. is still looking into whether the strikes were the result of bad intelligence or poor targeting, the sources said.

The administration did not offer an alternative theory to Congress members on who was responsible for the death and destruction, the two U.S. officials said. An American military investigation is ongoing.

"We need this to happen very quickly and we need to also make sure that there is accountability as well as redress for the victims," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said Friday in Geneva.

New satellite imagery shows the school and several nearby buildings before and after the strikes. Witnesses and an education ministry official said that the school was located on a compound that was a base for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps until about 15 years ago.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a news conference on Wednesday that U.S. forces had been carrying out strikes along southern Iran, sharing a map appearing to show the area of Minab being targeted. He noted that Israeli forces had mainly been operating further north in Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the U.S. was still "investigating" the incident, adding: "We, of course, never target civilian targets, but we're taking a look and investigating that."

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that U.S. forces "would not deliberately target a school."

Speaking in an exclusive interview on Thursday with NBC News' Tom Llamas, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said it was "clear that the missiles were — the school was hit by Americans," though he did not share any evidence.

Asked to address whether there was any chance a "wayward Iranian missile" could have played any role, Araghchi said "no."

Operation Epic Fury

The U.S. military and Israel launched its attack on Iran, called Operation Epic Fury, around 9:45 a.m. local time on Saturday, deploying B-2 stealth bombers, fighter jets, missiles, rockets and other weapon systems. The strikes targeted Iran's navy, missile sites, command and control headquarters and air defense systems.

Three witnesses — Ahmad Kalami Pour, who said he served as the school's first principal from 2015 to 2017; Jafar Qasemi, a first responder who saw the aftermath; and Zahra Monazah, the mother of a 7-year-old who was killed in the strikes— told NBC News that the strikes on Shajareh Tayyebeh occurred mid to late morning on Saturday. They said a second wave happened hours later.

Planet Labs images captured at 10:53 a.m. local time on Saturday appears to show that the area had not yet been impacted by strikes.

The company next captured images on March 4 showing impact sites on the school and adjoining former IRGC base, with a total of seven buildings damaged or destroyed.

Among the buildings hit appeared to be a clinic, which was opened by the IRGC Navy in January 2025, according to the semiofficial Iranian news agency ISNA.

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The clinic's signage can be seen in video geolocated by NBC News. Pour also told NBC News on Wednesday that at least one of the strikes had hit the clinic and that people were injured.

Pour, Monazah, and an official with the education ministry in Minab who spoke to NBC News said the school was located on a former IRGC base. All three said the base was closed around 15 years ago, and that all military personnel had been moved out. Pour, the former principal, said the school opened in 2015.

It is not uncommon for the IRGC to develop community infrastructure, such as schools, sport centers and clinics, particularly in underprivileged areas. Recently, Pour said, on the grounds "there was a clinic, the school, a supermarket, a cultural hall, and a car wash. Those kinds of facilities were operating there."

Satellite imagery captured in 2016 showed that the school appeared to have been sectioned off from the rest of the compound and given its own entrance. Watch towers that had been present until that point appeared to have been removed from the exterior wall around the school.

Precision strike analysis

Some weapons and conflict experts told NBC News that the satellite imagery appeared to reflect a targeted attack, while others noted that without knowing the intended target of the strikes, it was difficult to say whether the damage reflected "precise" hits.

It is unclear if the responsible party knew the building housed a school.

Jeffrey Lewis, an expert in arms control and open-source intelligence who specializes in satellite imagery, said he believed each building in the compound had been "individually targeted," most likely with bombs dropped by aircraft.

"The targeting of this site is incredibly accurate," Lewis said. "The explosion damage is incredibly precise, and it doesn't look like really anything missed, so that would tend to argue for precision munitions delivered by aircraft."

And Rich Weir, senior adviser of the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement to NBC News on Friday that "the number of individual strikes across the compound and the apparent accuracy with which they appear to have struck individual structures across the compound, shown in part through the relatively small circular holes that were points of entry for the munitions on multiple rooftops, indicate that the attack struck multiple structures on the compound base with highly accurate, guided munitions."

Corey Scher, a postdoctoral researcher in Conflict Ecology at Oregon State University, said the fact that "most of the bombs dropped on this compound directly hit a building" appears to imply "something about targeting."

However, in a video interview on Friday, he cautioned that without knowing the intended target of the strikes, it was difficult to say whether the strikes could be considered a "precise hit."

His colleague, Oregon State associate professor Jamon Van Den Hoek, who heads Conflict Ecology at the university, noted the number of impact sites on the compound, saying the lack of "evidence" of a similar pattern of strikes surrounding the site indicated "there tends to be something within this compound that seemed to be aimed at."

'Torn apart'

Witnesses speaking to NBC News described the horrific scenes in the aftermath of the strikes.

Monazah, whose son, Soheil, was killed in the attack just two days before his eighth birthday, said the school had "collapsed on top of the children" by the time she made it to the area.

"People were pulling out children's arms and legs. People were pulling out severed heads," she told NBC News on Monday.

Qasemi, the first responder, shared a similar account, telling NBC News "there were severed heads, severed hands, and bodies torn apart" as he described "extensive" rubble, with children "trapped underneath it."

Amin Khodadadi reported from Tehran, Courtney Kube and Julie Tsirkin reported from Washington and Chantal Da Silva, Molly Hunter and Matthew Mulligan reported from London.

DETROIT (AP) — Detroit Lions offensive tackle Taylor Decker asked the team to release him after saying late last month he plans to return for an 11th season rather than retire.

Decker posted Friday on Instagramthat he is "opting for a clean and amicable close" to a "beautiful 10 years" with the Lions.

"In the weeks since notifying the team of my return, there have been numerous discussions," Decker said. "Many of which were a surprise to me, and we could not find common ground. Therefore I decided to request my release."

The 32-year-old Decker has started 140 games for the Lions and made the Pro Bowl in 2024. He endured a shoulder injury for much of last year and acknowledged after the season that he was considering retirement. Detroit finished 9-8 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2022.

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Decker signed a$60 million, three-year extension that put him under contract through the 2027 season as a key player inthe franchise's turnaround.

Detroit drafted Decker out of Ohio State with the No. 16 overall pick in 2016.

With the offensive line as a strength, the Lions won two playoff games in a season for the first time since 1957 when they reached the NFC championship after the 2023 season. The following year, they had a franchise-record 15 wins when they won a second straight division title before losing in the divisional round.

AP NFL:https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Winthrop was facing a significant upset as the No. 2 seed of the Big South tournament. Then it locked in for the final minute.

Down 81-74 against No. 7 seed Charleston Southern, the Eagles scored eight points in the span of 13 seconds on their way toan 86-81 win in the quarterfinals.

The fun began with a 3-pointer from Josh Meo, which itself was scored only after an offensive rebound off a missed shot from deep. Charleston then went full-court press, got the trap, got the steal and scored an and-1 via Kody Clouet.

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Charleston Southern then again failed to get the ball across the halfcourt line, with Meo getting another steal and Logan Duncomb scoring the go-ahead lay-up.

The game went from an 81-74 Charleston Southern lead with 30 seconds left to an 82-81 Winthrop lead with 16 seconds left. The Buccaneers still got a couple chances to save the game, but nothing went their way before the clock hit zero.

Duncomb led the Eagles with 20 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists off the bench, while, Charleston Southern's A'lahn Sumler led all scorers with 26 points.

Winthrop will face the winner of No. 3 Radford and No. 6 Presbyterian in the semifinals on Saturday.

LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — The Chicago Bears released linebacker Tremaine Edmunds on Friday aftergranting him permission last week to seek a trade.

The 27-year-old Edmunds was entering the final season of a four-year, $72 million contract he signed in 2023. The Bears saved $15 million in cap space by letting him go before the start of the league year next week.

Edmunds helped the Bears go from worst to first in the NFC North. He led the team with 112 tackles and had four interceptions despite missing four games with a groin injury.

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Chicago went 11-6 and won its first division title since 2018. The Bears advanced in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years, rallying to beat Green Bay in a wild-card thriller before losing to the Los Angeles Rams in overtime in the divisional round.

AP NFL:https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

LONDON (AP) — An American anti-drone system proven to work againstRussian drones in Ukrainewill soon be sent to the Middle East to bolster U.S. defenses against Iranian drones, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

While the U.S. has used Patriot and THAAD missile systems totake down Iranian missilessuccessfully, there are limited effective anti-drone defenses now in the Middle East, according to a U.S. defense official, one of two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

The U.S. response to countering Iran's Shahed drones has been "disappointing," the other U.S. official said, particularly because the drones fired by Iran are a much more basic version of the same drone that Russia is continuously refining and updating in its war in Ukraine.

The effort to bolster U.S. anti-drone capabilities in the Middle East underscores concerns about the planning for anIranian retaliatory responseacross the region to the American and Israeli strikes. Persian Gulf countries have complained they werenot given adequate timeto prepare for the torrent of Iranian drones and missiles bombarding their territory.

Thesystem that is being sent, known as Merops, flies drones against drones. It is small enough to fit in the back of a midsize pickup truck, can identify drones and close in on them, usingartificial intelligenceto navigate when satellite and electronic communications are jammed.

Drones are hard to pinpoint on radar systems calibrated for spotting high-speed missiles and can be mistaken for birds or planes. The Merops system is designed to spot them and take them down. Crucially, the system also is cheaper than firing a missile that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars at a drone that costs less than $50,000.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, said this week that "we're pretty good at taking missiles down. What is much more problematic for us is the huge inventory of Iranian drones, which are hard to detect and hard to take down."

Himes said the drone attacks present a "math problem" in that the U.S. cannot keep relying on expensive military interceptors, like Patriot systems, to down the quickly and cheaply made Iranian drones.

"It's really, really expensive to take down a cheap drone," he said. "A giant missile going after a tiny little crappy drone."

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Merops was deployed in NATO nationsPoland and Romania in NovemberafterRussian attack dronesrepeatedly entered NATO airspace. The U.S. defense official says America has learned lessons from the deployment of the system and others like it in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that the U.S. asked forhis country's helpin combating Iran's Shahed drones, which Russia has used in huge numbers in Ukraine. Zelenskyy did not specify the type of assistance Ukraine would provide, but the U.S. defense official said the Merops system is a part of it.

When asked about Zelenskyy's comments, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: "Certainly, I'll take, you know, any assistance from any country."

In the Middle East, Merops will be deployed to various locations, including where U.S. forces are not present, the defense official said. Most of the systems will be sent directly by Perennial Autonomy — the manufacturer backed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt — and will not affect defenses in Europe, the official said.

Perennial Autonomy did not immediately respond to questions about the use of Merops in the Middle East.

Pentagon officials conceded this week in closed-door briefings with lawmakers they are struggling to stop waves of drones launched by Iran, leaving some U.S. targets in the Gulf region vulnerable.

"This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters this week.

Michael Robbins, president and CEO of AUVSI, a drone industry group, said lessons from the Middle East and Ukraine show that the U.S. must accelerate deployment of sophisticated counter-drone technologies, so "our forces can defend bases and populations without spending a million dollars to stop a $50,000 threat."

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Didi Tang, David Klepper, Michelle L. Price, Ben Finley and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report from Washington.