Global Pulse

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  • US test fires mobile rocket system near Mount Fuji in rapid ‘shoot and scoot’ drill

    US test fires mobile rocket system near Mount Fuji in rapid ‘shoot and scoot’ drill

    GOTEMBA, Japan — In a high-stakes military demonstration focused on bolstering operational readiness in the Indo-Pacific, U.S. Marines carried out a test firing of 12 rockets from a mobile HIMARS launcher Wednesday at a training range tucked into the foothills of Mount Fuji, Japan’s most recognizable natural landmark. The exercise was designed to maintain proficiency with a weapons system that has rapidly grown in strategic importance for the United States military.

    The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, better known as HIMARS, is a wheeled launcher mounted onto a heavy-duty military truck, engineered for rapid deployment and stealth operations. Its core tactical advantage lies in its ability to be pulled out of hidden cover, unleash its payload, and reposition to an alternative site in minutes to evade enemy counter-battery fire. This “shoot and scoot” strategy has grown even more critical in modern warfare, as the widespread use of reconnaissance drones on battlefields has left stationary artillery positions far more vulnerable to detection and attack.

    U.S. armed forces have already deployed HIMARS in combat operations across Iraq and Afghanistan. Most recently, U.S. Central Command confirmed the system was used in an opening strike against Iranian targets, where it utilized a new precision-guided long-range missile capable of hitting targets hundreds of miles away from its launch position.

    This live-fire exercise carries outsized strategic significance for the U.S. in the Pacific region, where Washington’s top defense priority is deterring a potential Chinese military operation to seize control of Taiwan. China claims the self-governing democratic island as an inalienable part of its territory and has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force to achieve unification. If HIMARS systems equipped with the latest long-range missiles are deployed on Japanese territory or other nearby allied islands, the system would easily be able to strike targets across the entire Taiwan Strait, according to defense analysts.

    Despite this strategic context, the Camp Fuji exercise only utilized dummy projectiles, as the system is most commonly configured to field shorter-range rockets for standard training operations. Located roughly a two-hour drive from Tokyo, Camp Fuji is a permanent U.S. military training facility in Japan. This test marked only the second time U.S. forces have conducted HIMARS trials at the base, and the drill was planned and executed in close coordination with Japan’s Self-Defense Forces. As a safety precaution, local authorities closed a public roadway that ran between the launch site and the target impact zone for the duration of the exercise.

  • Arsenal players in dawn celebrations after winning Premier League

    Arsenal players in dawn celebrations after winning Premier League

    For 22 long years, Arsenal football club and its global fanbase waited in the wings, enduring near-misses, criticism, and the weight of a title drought that stretched across generations. On Tuesday night, that wait finally ended, sending thousands of jubilant supporters flooding to the gates of Emirates Stadium before dawn to celebrate a historic Premier League crown that has eluded the club since the legendary Invincibles side of 2004.

    The title was secured in dramatic fashion, as Manchester City — the four-time defending champions who needed a victory at Bournemouth to keep their title hopes alive — dropped crucial points. While City fought back from an early Bournemouth lead to equalize in stoppage time, the final 1-1 draw left them one point short of Arsenal, handing the North London side the league trophy. Even as the match played out, fans began gathering outside Emirates Stadium, with crowds swelling as Bournemouth held on to their lead, and exploding in celebration when the final whistle confirmed Arsenal’s victory.

    By 5 a.m. Wednesday, Arsenal’s first-team players joined the throng of supporters to mark the occasion, after holding an initial private celebration with manager Mikel Arteta at the club’s London Colney training ground. Teammate Eberechi Eze shared early-hours images of star players Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber celebrating with the crowd, while another video posted by Saka showed 19-year-old academy graduate Myles Lewis-Skelly brandishing a champagne bottle, poking fun at years of criticism that labelled Arsenal as “bottlers” for choking late in title races. “They called us bottlers,” Lewis-Skelly said in the clip. “And now we’re holding the bottle.”

    For Saka, the title win marks a full-circle moment for a side that finished as Premier League runners-up in each of the past three seasons, capping years of incremental progress under Arteta. Addressing critics who had mocked the club’s long drought, the England international stated, “Twenty-two years, 22 years. There was laughing, there was joking, they’re not laughing anymore.”

    Long-time supporters described the moment as surreal, decades in the making. “It doesn’t feel real. It feels like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be like, yeah, it was a dream, but we did it. We actually did it. Wow. It’s going to be the best summer ever,” said 32-year-old fan George Owusu-Afriyie. Twenty-year-old supporter Julia Szumilas recalled the chaotic rush to the stadium after the final result was confirmed: “Everyone was running from all the pubs. We started running down to here. (Taking) bikes, running, driving their cars down… It was insane.”

    The celebration drew congratulations from Arsenal icons of the past. Arsene Wenger, the French manager who led the club to its last title in 2004’s undefeated Invincibles season, shared a heartfelt video message to the current squad posted on the club’s social media channels. “You did it! Champions go on when others stop. This is your time. Now, go on and enjoy every moment,” Wenger said. Club legend Ian Wright, who scored 185 goals during his time with the Gunners and was part of the 1998 domestic double-winning side, was mobbed by fans as he joined the celebrations outside the stadium.

    The side will formally receive the Premier League trophy on Sunday following their final regular season match against Crystal Palace. Beyond domestic glory, Arteta’s squad will now turn their full attention to a historic opportunity: the chance to claim the club’s first-ever UEFA Champions League title, when they face Paris Saint-Germain in the competition’s final in Budapest on May 30.

  • Whale of a time: Humpbacks set new distance record

    Whale of a time: Humpbacks set new distance record

    Marine biologists have announced an extraordinary discovery that rewrites our understanding of humpback whale migration: two individual humpbacks have completed unprecedented transoceanic journeys between Brazil and Australia, setting new world records for the longest recorded travel distance in the species. The international research team, whose findings are published in *Royal Society Open Science*, pieced together the whales’ multi-decade odysseys using unique identifying markings on their tail flukes, with contributions from both professional scientists and recreational amateur photographers who snapped photos decades apart. The study’s lead author, Cristina Castro, a marine biologist with the Pacific Whale Foundation based in Ecuador, shared that these open-ocean crossings are entirely unlike any movement previously documented for the species. While individual whales have occasionally been spotted straying slightly outside their established migratory paths, the scale of these journeys far exceeds any previously recorded deviation, Castro explained.

    What makes this tracking possible is the fact that every humpback whale bears a one-of-a-kind pigment pattern on the underside of its tail fluke, a natural marker as distinct as a human fingerprint that allows researchers to identify individual animals across decades and vast distances. To trace the two whales’ paths, the team analyzed more than 19,000 photos collected between 1984 and 2005 from locations across eastern Australia and Latin America, running the images through a custom image recognition algorithm to find potential matches, then manually verifying each candidate to confirm the identities of the wandering whales. The first of the two record-breaking whales was first photographed and documented in 2007 in Hervey Bay, a well-known humpback habitat on Queensland’s east coast, and spotted again at the same location in 2013. Six years after that second sighting, the same whale was photographed off the coast of São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous coastal state. The straight-line distance between the Australian and Brazilian sighting points measures approximately 14,200 kilometers, or 8,800 miles; researchers note that the whale’s actual total travel distance is likely even longer, as its exact route between the two points remains unknown. The second whale took the reverse route across the South Pacific: it was first photographed swimming alongside eight other adult humpbacks off the coast of Bahia, Brazil in 2003. Nearly 25 years later, in 2025, the same whale was spotted and confirmed in Hervey Bay, Australia, with a straight-line distance of 15,100 kilometers between the two sightings. This journey surpasses the previous record for the longest recorded humpback migration, which was set by a whale that traveled more than 13,000 kilometers from Colombia’s Pacific coast to Zanzibar off the eastern coast of Africa.

    For Southern Hemisphere humpback whales, migratory routes are deeply entrenched cultural behaviors. Most populations live in distinct, well-separated pods and follow the same fixed route year after year, moving between cold, nutrient-rich feeding grounds in polar waters and warm tropical breeding grounds where they give birth and mate. Castro notes that these routes are passed down socially: mother humpbacks teach the traditional migratory paths to their calves when they are young, cementing the patterns across generations. That makes these extraordinary deviations all the more surprising, and researchers are now exploring multiple potential explanations for why the two whales strayed so far from their expected paths. One leading hypothesis ties the unusual movement to human-driven climate change, which is altering ocean conditions, food availability, and traditional migration corridors in ways that are still not fully understood. Castro explains that increasing environmental pressure or disturbance to the whales’ original feeding and breeding habitats could push more individual animals to venture far beyond their traditional ranges in search of more suitable conditions, while changes in the distribution of their prey could also encourage long-distance exploration.

    Beyond rewriting what we know about humpback migration capacity, these long-distance crossings also carry ecological benefits for the species. After being hunted to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling in the 20th century, humpback whale populations have made a remarkable rebound across much of their global range over the past 50 years. When whales travel between previously isolated breeding populations, they introduce new genetic material that boosts overall genetic diversity, strengthening the long-term resilience of the species. The wandering whales may also drive cultural exchange among humpback populations: male humpback whales are famous for their long, complex songs, which spread rapidly through populations as individuals copy new melodies. If a male from one isolated breeding population travels to a new region and sings his native song, he can introduce entirely new musical themes that spread through the local population, creating a lasting cultural shift. Researchers say the discovery highlights the value of long-term photo identification projects that combine scientific data with contributions from citizen scientists, to reveal unexpected behaviors in one of the ocean’s most iconic inhabitants.

  • More die of suspected Ebola as WHO warns that numbers will rise further

    More die of suspected Ebola as WHO warns that numbers will rise further

    The World Health Organization has formally categorized the ongoing Ebola outbreak centered in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), though it stopped short of classifying the event as a pandemic, the organization’s director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced Wednesday.

    As of the latest update, global health officials have confirmed 51 Ebola cases across DR Congo, with an additional two confirmed infections recorded in neighboring Uganda – both of which are linked to travelers who entered the country from the outbreak zone in DR Congo. In total, the WHO is tracking more than 600 suspected cases and 139 suspected deaths across the region, with Dr. Ghebreyesus confirming that official case counts are projected to climb in the coming weeks, due to inherent lags in laboratory testing and viral detection.

    Genetic sequencing has identified the outbreak as caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a variant that has not circulated widely for more than 10 years. Speaking to reporters at the WHO’s Geneva headquarters, Dr. Ghebreyesus noted that epidemiological tracing suggests the outbreak likely began circulating undetected for roughly two months before it was officially detected. The first documented case was a nurse who developed Ebola symptoms and died in late April in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province – the current epicenter of the outbreak. The nurse’s remains were later transported to Mongwalu, one of two hard-hit gold-mining communities where the majority of confirmed cases have been documented.

    Confirmed cases in DR Congo are concentrated in two eastern provinces: Ituri, where four local administrative areas (Mongwalu, Bunia, Rwampara and Nyakunde) have reported transmissions, and North Kivu, where cases have been recorded in Butembo and Goma, eastern DR Congo’s largest urban center that is partially controlled by armed rebel groups. The two Ugandan confirmed cases, both detected in the capital Kampala, have direct travel history to the outbreak zone in DR Congo.

    “We know the actual scale of the epidemic in DRC is much larger than the current confirmed case count,” Dr. Ghebreyesus told reporters. Following a Tuesday meeting of the WHO’s independent emergency committee, the global body reaffirmed its assessment that the outbreak carries high risk at national and regional levels, but remains low risk at the global stage, and does not qualify as a pandemic emergency.

    This marks the 17th Ebola outbreak that DR Congo has responded to since the virus was first identified, but the Bundibugyo variant presents unique public health challenges. The strain has only caused two previous recorded outbreaks globally, with a historical mortality rate of roughly 33 percent among confirmed infected patients. Unlike the more common Zaire Ebola strain that DR Congo has repeatedly responded to, there is no widely approved vaccine or targeted antiviral treatment for Bundibugyo Ebola. Health officials note that experimental vaccines for the variant are still in development, though existing vaccines approved for the Zaire strain may offer some cross-protection for exposed individuals.

    Compounding response efforts, the eastern region of DR Congo has been plagued by decades of armed conflict and political instability, which limits access for international response teams and makes contact tracing and patient care far more difficult to implement effectively.

  • Families of Beirut strike victims vow to fight for justice

    Families of Beirut strike victims vow to fight for justice

    In the shadow of a shattered nine-story residential building in central Beirut’s upscale Tallet al-Khayat district, two childhood neighbors bound by shared grief have made a solemn promise: they will not rest until those responsible for the death of their families are held accountable. The April 8 Israeli airstrike that reduced their family home to rubble came just hours after a U.S.-Iran ceasefire was announced, part of a broad wave of air attacks across Lebanon that killed over 350 people on a day now etched into Lebanese collective memory as Black Wednesday.

    Wael Sabbagh, a 52-year-old businessman based in Mexico, lost his mother Afaf and brother Hassan in the attack. Ghida Krisht, a 41-year-old aid worker based in another Beirut neighborhood that was also hit that day, saw her parents – 70-year-old renowned poet Khatoun Salma and 72-year-old Mohammed – and a relative who had fled earlier bombardment in southern Lebanon’s Tyre killed alongside them. For decades, their families had lived in the quiet building, believing they were far enough from conflict zones to be safe.

    Sabbagh first learned of the strike through social media, scrolling through footage of destroyed buildings until he made the devastating confirmation that his childhood home had been targeted. “I lost my mother, my brother, my home, my childhood,” he told reporters, smoking one cigarette after another as he stood amid concrete rubble and splintered wood. “Nine people were killed in this building. They get talked about as if they were just statistics, but each of them was a loved one, a whole life cut short.”

    Among the ruins, the two grieving relatives have recovered small, devastating mementos of the lives lost. Sabbagh found a dented metal bracelet that belonged to his brother Hassan, who wore it the day he died; it took rescuers three full days to identify his brother’s remains, and Sabbagh now wears the bracelet on his own wrist. He also pulled a crumpled scrap of his mother’s bedspread, chunks of the family dining table, and a intact red sofa cushion from the debris, and later used a crane to reach a half-damaged upper floor and retrieve his mother’s photo album. Krisht, meanwhile, found her mother’s purse, holding the last poem Salma ever wrote by hand.

    Krisht recounted the agonizing hours after she learned of the strike: she called her parents repeatedly, only to get no answer. When she finally reached the site, rescuers would not let her see her parents’ disfigured remains – she identified them only by her mother’s signature red nail polish on her hand.

    Now, Sabbagh and Krisht are building a comprehensive legal case to pursue accountability through international justice channels, a path only one other person has taken so far this year: French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, who launched legal action in France after his parents were killed in an earlier 2024 Israeli strike on a Beirut residential building. The pair acknowledge the road ahead will be long and fraught with barriers, noting that hundreds of other victim families lack the financial resources, connections, or emotional capacity to pursue legal action.

    “We do have a voice, we are connected, and we are emotionally strong enough, despite everything we have lost, to demand accountability,” Sabbagh said. Krisht added: “We want to gather all the testimonies and evidence we can to document this and build a complete case. We cannot be silent about what happened. We want to pursue international justice and be an example for other families who have lost loved ones.”

    Israeli military officials stated shortly after the strike that they had targeted a Hezbollah commander in Beirut, later identifying the target as Ali Yusuf Harshi, who they claimed was the personal secretary and nephew of Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem. Hezbollah has never confirmed Harshi’s death. Sabbagh insists the building held no weapons, no military assets, and no political activity, giving no justification for the attack that killed nine civilians.

    The full casualty list from the Tallet al-Khayat strike tells the story of unintended civilian harm that has marked the months-long conflict: on the third floor, an elderly man, his son, and their Ethiopian housekeeper were killed. The pair shared a surname with Harshi, the target Israel claimed to have killed. The building’s owner, who lived on the eighth floor, was also killed. Krisht’s family and Sabbagh’s died on the sixth and seventh floors respectively, far from any alleged target location.

    Since cross-border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah reignited on March 2, Lebanese official data puts the total death toll from Israeli attacks at more than 3,000 people. For Sabbagh and Krisht, every step they take through the ruins of their family home, every memento they recover, and every piece of evidence they collect for their legal case is a step toward honoring the people they lost – and demanding that the world does not forget what happened here.

  • Lithuania’s leaders take shelter during drone air alert

    Lithuania’s leaders take shelter during drone air alert

    A sudden air drone warning brought the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to a complete standstill on Tuesday, forcing top government officials including the president and prime minister to evacuate to emergency shelters, marking the latest in a growing string of unplanned drone incursions across the Baltic NATO member states that has escalated regional security tensions.

    Following the activation of the air alert, which instructed all Vilnius residents to immediately seek safe cover, President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were escorted to designated emergency shelters. Local media reports confirmed that the evacuation order was also extended to Lithuania’s national parliament, the Seimas, where lawmakers and parliamentary staff were led to reinforced basement shelter facilities.

    All commercial air traffic into and out of Vilnius was suspended immediately, while surface travel via roads and national rail networks was also temporarily halted across the affected region. The alert was eventually lifted after several hours of emergency response operations, but uncertainty remains over the origin and responsible party for the unauthorized air incursion.

    Lithuania’s national crisis management center clarified early in the alert process that the warning was triggered after a drone was spotted flying toward Lithuanian territory from neighboring Belarus, though officials emphasized that the drone’s origin had not been definitively confirmed at that time. After deploying NATO fighter jets to intercept and neutralize the incoming drone, Lithuanian military officials later confirmed that the aircraft were unable to locate the target.

    Tuesday’s incident follows closely on the heels of a similar event in Estonia, where NATO air defense forces shot down an unidentified drone over Estonian territory just one day prior. Estonian authorities suspect the drone was originally a Ukrainian projectile that was knocked off its intended course by Russian electronic warfare interference. Ukraine has since issued an apology to Estonia and the broader Baltic community for the unintended incursion, accusing Russia of deliberately jamming and redirecting drones that were targeting legitimate military objectives inside Russian territory.

    This series of incidents has deepened security instability across the Baltic region, which is home to three NATO member states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Just last week, the prime minister of Latvia resigned amid a major political crisis sparked by the straying of two Ukraine-bound drones into Latvian territory, where they hit an unoccupied oil storage facility earlier this month. Similar accidental incursions were recorded in both Estonia and Latvia back in March, following a consistent pattern of disruptions tied to the ongoing Ukraine war.

    Russia has repeatedly accused the three Baltic states of allowing Ukraine to use their national air corridors to launch strikes on targets inside Russian territory, a claim that has been flatly rejected by all three governments in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. In recent weeks, Ukraine has stepped up the frequency of its drone and missile attacks against Russian infrastructure, with a focus on oil and gas facilities located close to the Baltic border, raising the risk of additional cross-border incidents.

    On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s state-run news agency TASS that the Russian military is maintaining close surveillance of all drone incursions into Baltic airspace and is currently developing a formal, appropriate response to the ongoing series of events. As regional tensions continue to climb in the wake of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s eastern flank faces growing uncertainty over how to mitigate the risk of unintended spillover from the ongoing conflict.

  • EU overcomes fierce internal debate to agree on tariff deal with the US

    EU overcomes fierce internal debate to agree on tariff deal with the US

    BRUSSELS – After marathon late-night negotiations to resolve bitter internal divisions, the European Union has formally signed off on a landmark tariff agreement with the United States that caps duties on most EU exports at 15%, narrowly averting a full-scale transatlantic trade war that was set to trigger ahead of President Donald Trump’s July 4 deadline.

    The path to final approval was far from smooth, with heated clashes between lawmakers and bloc leaders threatening to derail the hard-won agreement that governs more than $1 trillion in annual transatlantic goods and services trade between two of the world’s largest economic powers, both currently grappling with economic spillover from the ongoing conflict in Iran.

    The framework for the deal was first laid out 12 months prior, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met Trump at his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland to strike an initial handshake agreement, capping months of tense bargaining that followed the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariff offensive. That initial agreement sparked months of further technical negotiations between Washington and Brussels, even as European criticism of the deal surged after Trump made an unexpected public threat to seize control of Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory. Trump has since walked back that threat, at least temporarily.

    Following intense trilogue negotiations between the European Parliament, European Council, and European Commission that stretched into an “intensive night” of five hours of talks, the deal secured final EU approval. European trade chief Maroš Šefčovič announced the breakthrough after negotiations concluded, noting that once formally adopted by the full parliament in the coming weeks, the agreement “will reinforce stability in EU-U.S. trade and open the door even wider to constructive cooperation on many issues of strategic importance.”

    In a social media statement confirming the outcome, the EU executive branch reaffirmed its commitment to the deal, writing “A deal is a deal, and the EU honours its commitments.”

    Under the terms of the agreement, most European exports to the U.S. will be subject to a maximum 15% tariff, while U.S. industrial goods entering the EU will see tariffs eliminated entirely. While the arrangement raises the average tariff rate on covered goods from the previous 4.8%, creating added costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic, analysts credit the new framework with delivering long-term policy certainty that helped Europe avoid a projected recession in 2023.

    Amid skyrocketing energy and commodity prices driven by the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid Middle East tensions, and persistent high inflation and interest rates on both sides of the Atlantic, supporters of the deal argue that resolving long-running transatlantic trade tensions is a critical step toward shoring up global economic stability. The American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels shared that view in a post-approval statement, saying it was “relieved” to see the EU reach internal consensus. “The trilogue agreement is a sign that the EU is honouring its commitments under the deal,” the group said, adding that the approval will let both sides “move beyond tariffs” to address pressing shared challenges such as critical supply chain resilience.

    European lawmakers successfully pushed to add binding safeguard provisions to the final text that will allow the bloc to take swift retaliatory action if the U.S. backtracks on its commitments under the deal, according to Bernard Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee. “If there is something going wrong, of course, we are self-confident to act on that,” Lange said.

    Even with the deal now cleared through all EU internal processes, significant uncertainty remains about its future, amid growing concerns in Europe that the White House lacks clear legal authority to uphold the agreement. A series of recent U.S. court rulings have undermined the legal basis Trump used to impose the original tariffs in question. This year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the legal authority Trump relied on to enact the tariffs, forcing the administration to find alternative legal justifications for existing duties and move forward with new levies to replace lost tariff revenue. Just months ago, a U.S. federal court ruled that Trump had exceeded the tariff authority granted to the presidency by Congress, ruling that the administration’s new replacement tariffs were “invalid” and “unauthorized by law.”

    That legal cloud also hangs over long-threatened new tariffs on EU passenger and commercial vehicles that Trump has teased on social media, where he has also accused the EU of failing to uphold its end of the deal without providing specific evidence of non-compliance.

    With the EU having completed its domestic approval process, the ball is now in Washington’s court to respond, Lange said. “That’s, of course, a big question mark. I have not my crystal ball here with me,” he added.

  • US groups urge investigation into child safety and spending on Roblox

    US groups urge investigation into child safety and spending on Roblox

    Two leading U.S. child safety advocacy groups have lodged a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), calling for a full investigation into popular gaming platform Roblox over what they describe as unfair and deceptive business practices that put children as young as five at risk. The filing, submitted Wednesday by Fairplay and the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, outlines three core areas of concern: predatory in-game monetization, manipulative engagement-focused design, and insufficient safeguards that leave minors vulnerable to unwanted contact from strangers.

    At the heart of the complaint is Roblox’s complex in-game economy built around its virtual currency, Robux. Users purchase Robux with real-world money to unlock in-game access, avatar customizations, upgrades and other digital items. The advocacy groups argue that the layered system of virtual currency makes it nearly impossible for young children to grasp the actual real-world cost of the items they are buying, a vulnerability that has led to extreme cases of overspending. One parent included in the filing reported that their 10-year-old daughter racked up more than $7,000 in charges over just two months, even after the family put purchase limits in place.

    The complaint also calls out what advocates label “engagement-maximising” design choices intentionally built to keep children playing for extended periods. These include daily login reward streaks that incentivize consistent use, and social comparison systems that publicly display other players’ rare and expensive virtual possessions, pushing children to spend to keep up with peers. The groups additionally highlight chance-based reward systems such as loot boxes, which they argue function like gambling mechanics that minors lack the developmental maturity to understand. All of these features, the complaint argues, intentionally exploit children’s known developmental vulnerabilities around impulse control and peer pressure.

    Communication features on the platform represent another major point of concern. Even after Roblox implemented new safety controls, the complaint alleges that text and voice chat functions still expose underage users to inappropriate content and unsolicited contact from adult strangers. Researchers testing the platform using under-13 accounts reported encountering sexual references and abusive language within minutes of joining certain public games, and the filing references documented cases of child grooming and exploitation occurring on the platform.

    Roblox has forcefully rejected all of the claims laid out in the complaint. In a statement, a company representative said the platform was “built for fun and connection, not short-term engagement,” noting that the company already maintains clear policies banning both actual and simulated gambling, as well as strict rules governing paid random items. The company emphasized that the vast majority of games on Roblox are free to play, and users are under no obligation to purchase Robux. According to company data, only 1.4% of Roblox’s 132 million daily active users made any purchases on the platform during the first quarter of 2026.

    In response to previous criticism over child safety protections, Roblox has already introduced new measures: it now blocks chat between children and adult users who are not connected through parent-approved friend links, and uses automated age-estimation technology to assign minors to age-appropriate accounts with restricted features. But these changes have failed to ease the concerns of campaigners and many parents, who still worry about excessive screen time and unregulated spending by minors on the platform.

    Industry observers echoed the skepticism around Roblox’s incremental changes. Drew Benvie, CEO of social media consultancy Battenhall and founder of youth safety nonprofit Raise, noted that young digital-native users are often able to bypass basic age-based safety controls with little effort. “What’s needed is greater user and parental awareness of the impact social features in games can have on children, as well as wide scale legislative changes to address addictive or problematic features, not just the digital sticking plaster of age limits,” Benvie said.

    The complaint comes as Roblox continues to see explosive revenue growth: company figures show it generated $4.9 billion in revenue in 2025, a 36% jump from the previous year. The FTC has not yet publicly confirmed whether it will launch a formal investigation into the claims. This action comes amid a broader wave of regulatory scrutiny into how large social media and gaming platforms protect minor users and generate revenue from young audiences. Following a successful California lawsuit that held Meta and YouTube liable for knowingly designing addictive platform features, legal and regulatory experts expect more platforms to face increased scrutiny over manipulative engagement design tactics such as infinite scroll and auto-play.

  • ‘Flaming flog’: Wild moment barefoot Aussie catches alleged fuel thief in the act, chases them off barefoot

    ‘Flaming flog’: Wild moment barefoot Aussie catches alleged fuel thief in the act, chases them off barefoot

    In a dramatic late-night incident captured on home surveillance cameras, a vigilant Gold Coast resident chased off an alleged fuel thief from his business property while responding barefoot to the crime, with the viral footage now being used to help police identify the suspect.

    James Longstaff, a 23-year-old who works out of Molendinar, was up working on an overnight video editing project around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday when he happened to check his live CCTV feed. What he spotted at first looked like a suspicious figure loitering near his work truck parked outside the building, but a closer look confirmed his worst fears: the stranger was actively siphoning diesel from the vehicle’s tank.

    Instead of waiting for police or backing away from the confrontation, Longstaff acted on instinct. Grabbing only his phone, he rushed straight out of his business and onto the street to confront the would-be thief—never stopping to put on shoes. The viral footage he later posted to his Instagram account shows him approaching the truck as the suspect scrambled into their waiting ute and attempted to make a quick escape.

    As the ute pulled away, Longstaff can be heard shouting in disbelief at the thief, who left the siphon pump hanging on the side of the road, leaking spilled diesel onto the pavement. In a moment of dry, dark humor after the suspect fled, Longstaff joked that he had ended up with a free new pump, before calling the alleged culprit a “flog”.

    In a surprising twist, the suspect apparently circled back to the area just minutes after the first confrontation, only to flee a second time when Longstaff ran back outside to confront them again.

    Speaking to 7News after the incident, Longstaff said his response was purely impulsive. “It was just a one-second response really. I was like ‘screw this guy’,” he explained. He also noted that the rising cost of fuel, which has created widespread financial strain for motorists and businesses across Australia, makes targeted fuel theft even more unfair to hardworking owners. Longstaff uploaded the footage to social media with one clear goal: to help local police track down and identify the alleged thief, who remains at large. As of Thursday, the video has been viewed thousands of times, drawing widespread attention to the late-night encounter.

  • Risk of Ebola spread is high locally but low globally, WHO says

    Risk of Ebola spread is high locally but low globally, WHO says

    BUNIA, Democratic Republic of the Congo — A growing Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring Uganda carries high transmission risks at national and regional levels, while the global threat remains low, the World Health Organization confirmed Wednesday.

    The updated risk assessment comes as response teams race to contain an outbreak that has already claimed 134 suspected lives, and WHO’s DRC mission lead warned the epidemic could persist for at least two more months even as aid operations scale up.

    The WHO previously designated the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), a status that demands a coordinated, global collective response to curb spread. On Tuesday, the agency already raised alarm over the outbreak’s alarming growth trajectory and rapid transmission pace.

    Health experts and frontline aid workers note the outbreak has been marked by critical early setbacks: the rare Bundibugyo strain spread undetected for weeks after the first recorded fatality, as authorities initially tested for more common Ebola variants and returned negative results. Currently, no officially approved treatments or licensed vaccines exist specifically for the Bundibugyo strain, leaving response teams with limited targeted tools. Local residents already grappling with long-running instability report sharp price hikes for basic protective supplies, including face masks and disinfectants, as demand surges.

    As of Wednesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed 51 confirmed cases across DRC’s conflict-affected Ituri and North Kivu provinces, plus two additional confirmed cases in Uganda. There are also nearly 600 additional suspected cases and deaths, and Tedros warned case counts will continue to climb in the coming weeks. “We know that the scale of the epidemic is much larger,” he stated, adding that upward revisions to case numbers are expected as surveillance expands.

    Multiple structural challenges continue to hamper containment efforts. The first recorded death from the current outbreak was recorded in Bunia on April 24, but official confirmation of the strain took weeks. The victim’s body was repatriated to Mongbwalu, a populous gold-mining region that has since become the outbreak’s epicenter, a delay that DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba confirmed directly fueled the epidemic’s escalation. To date, response teams have not yet identified the index case (patient zero) of the outbreak, WHO’s DRC lead Dr. Anne Ancia confirmed.

    Beyond detection delays, large cross-border population movements in the region and a long-running pre-existing humanitarian crisis have complicated response work. Large swathes of eastern DRC remain controlled by armed rebel groups, blocking aid teams from accessing high-risk areas. Dr. Ancia added that recent funding cuts have also severely undermined the work of frontline humanitarian organizations, stretching already thin resources even thinner.

    To address the lack of targeted vaccines, DRC’s national biomedical research institute expects imminent shipments of an experimental broad-spectrum Ebola vaccine developed by Oxford University researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom. “We will administer the vaccine and see who develops the disease,” explained Jean-Jacques Muyembe, leading virus expert at the institute, outlining the trial protocol for the unapproved product.

    The United States has also committed additional support: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Tuesday that the Trump administration will prioritize funding for 50 new emergency clinics in affected regions, building on the $13 million Washington has already allocated to the response, with more funding to come.

    On the ground in Bunia, where the first fatality was recorded, daily life has partially continued: schools and churches remained open Wednesday, though many residents now wear face masks in public. Still, supply shortages have sent prices skyrocketing: local residents report that a bottle of disinfectant that previously cost 2,500 Congolese francs now retails for as much as 10,000 francs ($4.4), and masks have become nearly impossible to source at any price. “It’s truly sad and painful because we’ve already been through a security crisis, and now Ebola is here too,” said Bunia resident Justin Ndasi. “We have to protect ourselves to avoid this epidemic.”

    Frontline medical groups say local health infrastructure is already overwhelmed. Trish Newport, emergency program manager for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), said her team identified multiple suspected cases over the weekend at Bunia’s Salama Hospital, which lacks any dedicated Ebola isolation ward. When they tried to transfer patients to other facilities, every available bed was already occupied. “Every health facility they called said, ‘We’re full of suspects cases. We don’t have any space.’ This gives you a vision of how crazy it is right now,” Newport said.

    In Mongbwalu, the outbreak’s epicenter, the border with Uganda remains open and commercial gold mining operations continue, according to local civil society leader Chérubin Kuku Ndilawa. While widespread panic has not taken hold, with residents continuing daily routines, community awareness efforts are just starting to scale up. Ndilawa added that a lack of basic public health infrastructure, including handwashing stations in high-traffic public areas, continues to hinder containment work. At Mongbwalu General Hospital, former director Dr. Didier Pay reported the facility is currently caring for around 30 confirmed Ebola patients, and a local medical technology student died from the virus Wednesday morning.

    AP writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Wilson McMakin in Dakar contributed reporting to this article. AP’s global health and development coverage in Africa is supported by funding from the Gates Foundation; the AP maintains full editorial control over all content.