Global Pulse

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  • No $100m, $50m draws cut $350m from Lotto Corp revenue

    No $100m, $50m draws cut $350m from Lotto Corp revenue

    An unprecedented statistical anomaly, a outcome not seen in nearly half a century, has delivered a significant financial hit to Australia’s The Lottery Corporation, eroding millions in top-line revenue and driving a more than one-fifth drop in annual after-tax profits.

    The firm released its full-year financial results on Wednesday, revealing that the past 12 months marked the first time in five years that no $100 million Powerball jackpot was awarded, and the first stretch of nine years without a $50 million Powerball draw. This unusual gap in mega-jackpot draws drained $350 million from the company’s annual revenue, executives confirmed.

    Wayne Pickup, chief executive officer of The Lottery Corporation, described the absence of these high-value jackpots as a one-in-45-year statistical event. Despite the sharp hit to the bottom line, Pickup emphasized that the company’s core operations delivered solid performance across metrics the business can directly control.

    “Where we control the levers, we performed well, with healthy retention of price increases in our two largest games – Powerball and Saturday lotto – and continued growth in base games and Keno,” Pickup said in a statement accompanying the results. The CEO added that the company’s approach to cost control is a permanent structural adjustment, not a temporary one-off fix, freeing up capital to reinvest in key growth areas including digital infrastructure, artificial intelligence integration, new product development, and customer experience capabilities.

    Large jackpot draws are inherently variable in outcome, Pickup explained, noting that these fluctuations typically even out over longer time periods. For the full fiscal year, total revenue for The Lottery Corporation dipped 2.7% year-over-year to $3.58 billion, while after-tax profits fell 22.1% to $284.6 million.

    The financial damage from the lack of mega-jackpots was partially offset by a November price increase for Powerball tickets, which boosted margins and revenue. Long-term prospects for the business also received a boost earlier this year, when the company secured a 40-year extension of its lottery license with the state of Victoria, locking in operating rights for decades to come.

    For shareholders, the company maintained its dividend payout, approving a total fully franked ordinary dividend of 16 cents per share – matching the same payout level distributed in the prior financial year.

  • Turkey rejects Israeli claims after strike on Syria air base

    Turkey rejects Israeli claims after strike on Syria air base

    A recent Israeli strike on a Syrian air base in the northwestern province of Idlib has sparked a sharp diplomatic rebuke from Turkey and exposed growing rifts between Israel and the United States over the future of post-Assad Syria. The incident, which US officials have publicly attributed to Israel, marks a significant escalation of Israeli military activity in Syria just months after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s long-ruling government, and has further inflamed long-simmering tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem.

    After more than 24 hours of official silence following the strike, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released a statement defending the action, framing it as a response to an impending security threat. The statement claimed that Israel and Syria had maintained an informal status quo on security arrangements, which Syria was set to violate by allowing Turkish military forces to deploy to the Abu Duhur air base near Aleppo. “Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings,” the statement read, stopping short of explicitly confirming Israeli responsibility for the attack.

    Turkey, which has been a key backer of Syria’s new transitional government led by former jihadist commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, rejected the Israeli claims outright in an official statement released Wednesday and carried by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency. Ankara slammed the allegations as a cynical attempt to justify an illegal attack that violates Syria’s fundamental sovereignty and territorial integrity. “The frivolous allegations put forward by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office aim to legitimize Israel’s unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Turkish government statement said.

    The strike also represents an unusual open defiance of the United States, which has moved to support Sharaa’s new administration as it works to consolidate control across Syria after Assad’s ouster in December 2024. Tom Barrack, the US envoy for Syria and ambassador to Ankara who has close personal business ties to US President Donald Trump, confirmed Israel’s role in the attack in a post on X Tuesday. Barrack called the strike an “unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability” and urged all parties to prioritize diplomatic dialogue over further military action. “We encourage all parties to prioritise logical discourse over further military incidents,” he wrote.

    Since Assad’s government fell to Turkish-backed Islamist opposition forces led by Sharaa, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes across Syrian territory, stepping up a long-running campaign targeting what it says are Iranian-aligned militant assets in the country. Israel has also deployed troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the occupied Golan Heights that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since the 1974 disengagement agreement, and has carried out regular ground incursions deeper into Syrian territory. This most recent strike penetrated much further north into Syria than Israel’s typical limited security zone operations near the Golan, a move widely interpreted as Israel seeking to exploit the chaos of Syria’s political transition to advance its own strategic interests before the new government can consolidate power.

    Syrian state media, citing a military source, reported that Israeli aircraft carried out eight separate strikes targeting the base’s runway, causing significant damage to infrastructure but no reported casualties. A security source speaking to AFP confirmed that the Abu Duhur facility had been non-operational since 2012 and is currently secured by forces aligned with Syria’s new defense ministry. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a prominent war monitor, reported that the strikes followed a recent visit by a Turkish military delegation to the airfield as part of international efforts to reactivate the facility for security operations.

    Relations between Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have deteriorated sharply in recent years, reaching new lows amid Israel’s devastating military offensive in Gaza that Erdogan has repeatedly and vociferously condemned. While Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation to formally recognize Israel and remains a NATO ally of the United States, ideological differences and competing regional interests have driven a deep wedge between Ankara and Jerusalem in recent years. Tensions spilled into Israeli domestic politics ahead of October’s national elections, when Netanyahu’s Likud party ran campaign billboards that pictured Erdogan alongside Naim Qassem, the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, framing the two as foreign actors pushing for Netanyahu’s electoral defeat.

    Syria’s transitional government joined Turkey in condemning the attack, releasing a statement that labeled the strike “an unjustified act of aggression” and called on the UN Security Council to take formal action to hold Israel accountable. The foreign ministry stressed that Syria’s new administration has exercised deliberate restraint since taking power, working to consolidate domestic stability and avoid regional escalation that could derail its political transition.

    Interestingly, despite rising cross-border tensions, Israeli officials and representatives of Syria’s new government have already held multiple rounds of direct bilateral talks, and the two sides have agreed to establish a formal intelligence-sharing mechanism. But core territorial disputes remain unresolved. Last month, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani demanded an unconditional full withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Syrian territory occupied since 1974, warning that the continued Israeli presence beyond the 1974 disengagement line poses a direct threat to regional security. Just one week later, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz reaffirmed that Israel has no plans to withdraw its forces from Syrian territory, cementing the status quo of occupation.

    During a high-profile visit to Damascus last month, UN Secretary-General António Guterres echoed the global majority position, stating that all violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are unacceptable and must end, and explicitly reaffirmed that the Golan Heights is internationally recognized Syrian territory. Israel captured the majority of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and later formally annexed the territory, a move that has never been recognized by the vast majority of the international community.

  • Harvard agrees to pay $53 million to settle lawsuits related to morgue manager who sold body parts

    Harvard agrees to pay $53 million to settle lawsuits related to morgue manager who sold body parts

    One of the world’s most prestigious higher education institutions, Harvard University, has reached a $53 million settlement agreement to resolve multiple civil lawsuits brought by families of individuals whose donated bodies were illegally exploited by a former morgue manager at Harvard Medical School (HMS). The resolution, formally proposed to a Boston court on Monday, brings a partial close to a years-long scandal that erupted after former morgue supervisor Cedric Lodge pleaded guilty to running a black market operation stealing and selling human remains taken from donated cadavers.

    Now 58 years old, Lodge oversaw HMS’s Anatomical Gifts Program, the initiative that manages body donations intended to support critical medical education and research for Harvard medical students. According to federal court documents, his illegal trafficking scheme operated undetected between 2018 and 2021. In his role, Lodge abused institutional trust to dismember donated cadavers, removing body parts that he and his co-conspirators then sold to private buyers across Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

    Standard protocol at Harvard Medical School requires that after donated cadavers have served their purpose for student education and research, they are either cremated with remains returned to families or laid to rest in the university’s dedicated medical cemetery. Lodge’s actions completely violated these long-standing policies and betrayed the trust of donors and their next of kin, who agreed to donation to advance medical science.

    Lodge and six additional co-defendants, all of whom had no official affiliation with Harvard, were indicted and ultimately pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2025. That December, the U.S. Department of Justice announced sentencing outcomes: Lodge received an eight-year prison term, while his wife, who participated in the selling scheme, was sentenced to one year and one day in custody.

    The first civil lawsuits against Harvard were filed in 2023 by family members of affected donors. These plaintiffs argued that university leadership and HMS administration were grossly negligent, ignoring repeated red flags of Lodge’s misconduct for years before his criminal indictment. Though a Massachusetts state court judge initially dismissed the claims, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court reinstated the class-action suits in autumn 2024, clearing the way for negotiations that led to Monday’s settlement.

    Under the terms of the agreement presented to the court this week, the $53 million settlement fund will be distributed to eligible claimant families once the court issues formal approval. In a public letter shared Monday, signed by George Daley, dean of Harvard’s faculty of medicine, and Bernard Chang, HMS dean for medical education, university leaders acknowledged the profound harm caused by Lodge’s crimes. The letter stated: “Lodge’s criminal acts were morally reprehensible and inconsistent with the standards that Harvard University and HMS expect for the treatment of anatomical donors and their loved ones.”

    Beyond the financial settlement, HMS has also committed to permanent institutional changes to honor affected donors and prevent future abuses. Starting in the 2027-2028 academic year, the school will launch a new annual need-based scholarship for medical students, created specifically to honor all anatomical donors who contribute to medical education and research.

    University leaders emphasized that while criminal sentencing and the civil settlement mark major milestones in addressing the scandal, the harm inflicted on donor families will take far longer to heal. The letter concluded: “While Lodge’s sentencing and the settlement conclude the case, the process of recovering from this painful incident continues.”

  • Bezos consortium bought nearly 40 percent of Liverpool: report

    Bezos consortium bought nearly 40 percent of Liverpool: report

    One of the most iconic clubs in global soccer, Liverpool FC, has entered a new era of ownership after a US-backed consortium including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos secured a near-40 percent minority stake in the Premier League side, according to a new report from The Athletic.

    Initial reports had pegged the stake purchased from current owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) at one-third of the club, but The Athletic’s latest update corrected the figure to approximately 38 percent, held by the investment vehicle 1892 Holdings. The agreement also includes a non-binding option for the consortium to acquire a controlling majority stake in the club within the next 12 months, a clause that has sparked widespread speculation about a full takeover of the 20-time English champions.

    FSG, the US-based sports ownership group that has owned Liverpool since 2010, confirmed the deal with 1892 Holdings last Friday. The consortium is fronted by British-Indian millionaire Amit Bhatia, who was previously co-owner of English Championship side Queens Park Rangers for 18 years. Bhatia stepped down from his QPR role shortly after his link to the Liverpool deal became public. Joining Bhatia in the consortium are Bezos and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

    For Bezos, the world’s fourth-wealthiest individual with an estimated net worth of $256 billion, this stake marks his first confirmed investment in a professional sports franchise. The Amazon founder had long been linked with potential bids for two NFL teams, the Seattle Seahawks and Washington Commanders, but he never followed through on a purchase until this Liverpool deal.

    FSG’s decision to sell a large minority stake comes 14 years after the group bought Liverpool for a total of £300 million (equivalent to $406 million at current exchange rates). It is not the first time FSG has sold off a portion of its stake: three years ago, the group sold roughly 3 percent of the club to global sports investment firm Dynasty Equity.

    The investment arrives at a pivotal moment for Liverpool, which is gearing up to kick off its 2025-26 Premier League campaign this Sunday with an away fixture against Newcastle United. The club is looking to rebound from a hugely underwhelming 2024-25 season, where a fifth-place finish left them out of the Champions League places. That disappointing result led to the sacking of manager Arne Slot just 12 months after he won the Premier League title in his first season in charge, succeeding the popular long-term manager Jurgen Klopp.

    New head coach Andoni Iraola has already begun reshaping the squad, with the club having spent roughly £94 million on new signings Jeremy Jacquet and Victor Munoz since the end of last season. With the Premier League transfer window set to remain open for several more weeks, the fresh injection of capital from the new minority investors is expected to give Iraola additional room to add more reinforcements to his squad before the campaign gets fully underway.

  • NASA images reveal crater left by SpaceX rocket’s Moon crash

    NASA images reveal crater left by SpaceX rocket’s Moon crash

    Nearly two weeks after a discarded SpaceX rocket stage collided with the lunar surface, NASA has publicly released high-resolution new images capturing the fresh impact crater the collision left behind, marking the culmination of a global collaborative effort to locate and document the crash site. The new imagery was captured between August 11 and 12 by NASA’s long-serving Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a robotic spacecraft that has been mapping the moon’s surface and studying its geology since it launched into lunar orbit in 2009. The impact itself occurred on August 5, when the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which had completed its primary mission earlier that year, crashed into the moon’s surface after months of uncontrolled drift through cislunar space.

    By analyzing the length of the shadow cast by the crater’s edges in the new images, NASA planetary scientists have confirmed the impact scar measures approximately 60 feet (18 meters) wide and less than 10 feet deep. This impact was not an unplanned accident: the Falcon 9 rocket launched in January 2025 carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1, a private commercial lunar lander mission that successfully completed its own soft landing on the moon as planned. After deploying the lander, the empty upper stage was left in a trajectory that would eventually intersect the moon’s gravity, resulting in the controlled, uncrewed impact.

    This is not the first set of imagery released from the crash site. Just one day after the impact, South Korea’s lunar orbiter, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (known domestically as Danuri), captured the first photos of the impact location, which were published by the Korean space agency on August 6. Locating the small impact crater on the vast lunar surface required close international coordination between the two space programs, with additional input from amateur astronomy enthusiasts and planetary researchers around the world. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies repeatedly refined the discarded rocket’s trajectory over months to narrow down the impact location, before sharing that coordinate data with the Danuri team. The Korean team then shared their own refined positioning data with NASA’s LRO team to help plan the precise flyover and imaging sequence.

    Capturing the high-resolution images was far from a straightforward task, NASA officials explained in an official statement. The LRO operates in a polar orbit that circles the moon from pole to pole once every two hours, while the moon slowly rotates beneath the spacecraft. This means the orbiter can only capture images of a specific location when that location rotates into the orbiter’s field of view — a wait that took six full days for this particular crater. Additionally, the orbiter has to be tilted at a precise angle to point its camera at the impact site while flying 60 miles overhead. Even a timing error of just 10 seconds, NASA noted, would have pushed the crater 10 miles off-center in the frame, resulting in a ruined shot.

    The new images, captured from multiple different viewing angles, reveal distinct geological features surrounding the new crater that scientists say will provide valuable insights into lunar surface composition. The collision ejected subsurface material outward from the impact site, creating fanning streaks of lighter and darker material stretching away from the crater. NASA scientists explain the darker streaks consist of material excavated from around 1.5 feet below the surface; this material had been altered over billions of years by constant exposure to solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and small micrometeorite impacts, changing its surface properties to appear darker when excavated. The brighter streaks, by contrast, hug the crater’s rim and consist of completely unaltered, fresh material dug out from deeper below the lunar surface, giving scientists a rare close-up look at untouched lunar regolith.

    The collaborative effort to locate and image the crater highlights how international partnerships and open data sharing between space agencies are advancing lunar science in an era of growing commercial and public exploration of the moon. As more private and public missions target the moon in preparation for future crewed landings under NASA’s Artemis program, studies of new impact craters like this one will help researchers better understand lunar surface processes and the composition of the moon’s outer layers.

  • The Indian activist jailed after taking on a luxury hotel plan

    The Indian activist jailed after taking on a luxury hotel plan

    In the northeastern Indian state of Assam, a long-serving community rights activist centered on the Kaziranga National Park region remains behind bars, after state authorities blocked his court-ordered release and invoked a controversial sweeping security law to detain him indefinitely without trial. The case has thrown a spotlight on a simmering conflict between conservation, development, and indigenous land rights around one of the world’s most celebrated wildlife protected areas.

    Forty-year-old Pranab Doley, a well-known local activist who has spent decades advocating for communities living on the edge of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, was arrested in late June, just weeks after he joined a public demonstration against a proposed five-star luxury hotel project on park-adjacent land. On July 29, a local court granted bail to Doley and four other co-accused protesters. When Doley’s father and legal counsel arrived at the prison on July 30 to escort him home, they were turned away: the Assam state government had triggered the National Security Act (NSA), a decades-old legislation that permits authorities to hold individuals for extended periods without formal trial, to block his release.

    Official detention orders reviewed by the BBC justify Doley’s ongoing detention by referencing 13 criminal cases filed against the activist dating back to 2017, citing a pattern of alleged unlawful assembly, intimidation, public obstruction, and even violence. The order also raises questions about the source of funding for Doley’s international travel and alleges suspicious cross-border financial transactions. But Doley’s legal team and supporters reject these claims, arguing that most of the decades-old cases have already been resolved, with only two remaining open at the time of his latest arrest – both of which Doley openly disclosed in his official affidavit when he ran as an independent candidate in Assam’s 2024 state legislative assembly elections, an election he ultimately lost.

    “He is an activist who fights for people’s rights,” Doley’s lawyer Mrityunjoy Pegu told the BBC. “That is why the police had registered some cases against him.” Critics of the detention argue the state has deployed a draconian law to silence opposition to a high-profile development project, sparking widespread anger across regional human rights circles.

    The proposed hotel project, first announced in 2023 as a public-private partnership between the Assam government and the Saraf Group, is being developed by Juniper Hotels with backing from Hyatt, the U.S.-based global hospitality brand. State officials frame the 10-acre development as an economic boon for the region, arguing it will attract high-spending international tourists, generate local employment, and bring much-needed infrastructure investment to the Kaziranga area, which is globally renowned as a conservation success story for the endangered one-horned rhinoceros.

    But dozens of local farming families say the project will displace them from land their families have cultivated for generations. While the Assam district administration claims the full project site is government-owned land, protesting residents push back against this narrative, noting that state officials have collected land revenue from their families for decades. Geeta Gwala, one of the residents who has challenged the land acquisition in court, says her family has held formal tax receipts for their 2.81-acre plot dating all the way back to 1956. A court-ordered land boundary demarcation to resolve the ownership dispute had been scheduled for June 24, but has yet to be completed, according to Gwala.

    Deputy Commissioner Biswajit Phukan, the top local district official, clarified that the government has not seized land already formally registered to protesting families, and that while some residents may have informally cultivated portions of the project site, the land was never legally allocated to them. He added that the administration has offered financial compensation, alternative land to eligible residents, and job skills training to support local people affected by the project. Phukan declined to comment directly on Doley’s detention, noting that the administration does not wish to prejudice ongoing legal proceedings, and said the government remains “extremely sensitive” to local community concerns.

    For Doley, the debate over the hotel project is not an abstract policy dispute – it is rooted in decades of personal experience with the complex tensions between conservation, flooding, and land rights along the Brahmaputra River floodplains where Kaziranga is located. Growing up in a small farming family near the park, Doley saw his own village displaced multiple times by recurring river erosion and annual flooding, a common issue in the region where shifting riverbanks render official land records outdated far faster than bureaucratic systems can update them. Even today, Doley’s own parents do not hold formal legal title to the land they live on.

    He also witnessed first-hand the conflict between wildlife conservation and local communities: when annual monsoons flood Kaziranga, rhinos, tigers, and elephants flee to higher ground on adjacent farmland, destroying crops and sometimes triggering deadly encounters between people and animals. These experiences shaped Doley’s core belief: that conservation of Kaziranga’s unique ecosystem cannot be separated from protecting the land rights of the communities that have lived alongside the park for generations.

    Doley first rose to prominence as an activist challenging alleged extrajudicial killings of suspected poachers within Kaziranga, before expanding his work to address forced evictions, unfair land acquisition, and inadequate compensation for displaced local families. Last year, he brought these demands to the global stage, speaking at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva to urge governments and corporations to prioritize indigenous community rights when pursuing development projects.

    The tensions over the hotel project boiled over on June 28, when Doley joined a peaceful protest at the construction site. Police allege that protesters entered the project area, damaged construction equipment, and attacked law enforcement officers, naming Doley as the crowd’s primary instigator. Doley’s organization, the Greater Kaziranga Land and Human Rights Protection Committee, denies these claims, arguing that police initiated violence against peaceful demonstrators and that Doley was never involved in any confrontation.

    The judge who granted bail to Doley and four other co-defendants largely backed the activists’ account, finding that available video footage contradicted many of the prosecution’s key claims. While the footage showed minor pushing and shoving between protesters and police, it showed no evidence of a direct attack on officers or any attempt to set construction machinery on fire, as police had alleged. The judge’s ruling noted that Doley was captured on camera speaking with officials to seek a negotiated resolution to the dispute, and acknowledged that while some officers were injured, the protest stemmed from legitimate concerns about environmental harm and community impacts. The ruling concluded: “True public order is achieved not by silencing the affected, but by listening to them.”

    Despite the court’s bail order, Doley remains in detention under the National Security Act, as his legal team works to challenge the government’s action. For supporters, his detention has become a flashpoint for the broader fight over who gets to benefit from development and conservation around one of India’s most iconic protected areas – and Doley now waits for the justice he spent years fighting for on behalf of others.

  • Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, US court hears

    Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, US court hears

    One of the most consequential legal battles in the history of social media got underway this week in Oakland, California, where 29 US states are bringing sweeping claims against Meta Platforms, accusing the tech giant of intentionally addicting underage users and covering up well-documented harms to adolescent mental health. Over the next six weeks, a jury will weigh competing narratives from state prosecutors and Meta’s defense team, unpacking millions of internal company documents that lie at the heart of the case.

    The lawsuit, first filed in 2023, alleges widespread violations of state and federal child privacy laws, and asks the court to order billions of dollars in damages and sweeping changes to Meta’s flagship products, Facebook and Instagram—including the elimination of public like counts and the infinite scroll feature that keeps users scrolling for hours on end.

    In her fiery opening statement on Tuesday, lead California attorney Megan O’Neill built her case around internal Meta research, employee communications, and executive chat logs that reach all the way to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. O’Neill argued that for years, Meta’s own data confirmed its platforms pose severe risks to young users, yet the company prioritized profit over child safety while deliberately misleading the public about its products’ dangers. Citing one internal study, O’Neill noted that Meta itself acknowledged “teens have an addict’s narrative about use” of Instagram. Another internal assessment, she told the jury, found that product features built to maximize user screen time were “inherently at odds with well-being” and eroded users’ ability to engage in meaningful, value-add activities.

    O’Neill pulled back the curtain on what she called Meta’s core business model: “Hook the users; hold them for as long as they can; harvest their data; hide the truth from the public when making public statements.” She emphasized that the company’s public assurances that it prioritizes safety over profit directly contradict its internal decision-making, where growth and revenue have repeatedly won out over public health protections. The prosecution also claims Meta was fully aware that millions of children as young as 11 and 12 were active on Instagram, yet took minimal action to block their access, a violation of age restrictions designed to protect minors.

    Meta’s lead defense attorney Paul Schmidt pushed back forcefully against every one of the states’ claims, framing the prosecution’s argument as an oversimplified distortion of the full picture of Meta’s research and policy. Addressing the widely cited internal statistic that one in five teens report Instagram worsens their mental health, Schmidt reminded the jury of the full findings: 41% of teen users reported the platform made them feel better, while an additional 41% said it had no negative impact on their well-being.

    Schmidt also disputed the claim that Meta intentionally allowed under-13 users onto its platform, arguing that the very privacy laws the company is accused of violating bar Meta from collecting and storing the detailed user data needed to accurately verify every user’s age. Most notably, Schmidt repeated a stance Meta has already advanced in other 2024 litigation: that clinical social media addiction does not exist as a diagnosable condition.

    He acknowledged that some users struggle to regulate their social media use, noting Meta has rolled out a suite of tools to help people manage their screen time. He also pushed back on the claim that Meta designs its platforms to be addictive, citing public statements from both Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri that the company never built its products with the goal of hooking young users, and adding that no conclusive research supports the existence of a diagnosable social media addiction. On the question of how many under-13 users are active on Instagram, Schmidt countered the prosecution’s “millions” claim, putting the actual number at just over 100,000.

    As the trial unfolds over the coming weeks, the jury will be tasked with sorting through conflicting evidence to decide whether Meta’s business practices have harmed a generation of young users—and what changes the company will be forced to make if found liable. A ruling against Meta could reshape the design and regulation of social media platforms across the industry, setting a new precedent for how tech companies must address underage use and adolescent mental health.

  • Nonprofit sues US as it pushes to auction massive tracks of water around American Samoa

    Nonprofit sues US as it pushes to auction massive tracks of water around American Samoa

    In a legal challenge that has put a spotlight on the growing global clash between critical mineral development and marine conservation, a prominent U.S. environmental nonprofit launched a federal lawsuit Tuesday to block the Trump administration’s plan to auction off 33 million acres of seabed off the coast of American Samoa for commercial deep-sea mining.

    Earthjustice filed the suit in federal court against the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, acting on behalf of two Pacific conservation organizations: Fa‘asao Amerika Samoa and the Conservation Council for Hawai‘i. The legal complaint asks a federal judge to immediately halt all progress on the leasing plan and force NMFS to comply fully with the Endangered Species Act and other core federal environmental protection laws.

    “The United States has never opened its waters to deep-sea mining. Until now,” the lawsuit states. The administration’s plan would sell mineral extraction leases for a vast stretch of seabed rich in nickel, cobalt and manganese – minerals critical to manufacturing batteries, consumer electronics and a range of modern industrial products. The complaint argues that NMFS’ recent conclusion that mining leasing would not harm critical habitats or endangered and threatened species is “a wholly arbitrary and capricious determination” that ignores well-documented ecological risks.

    For the Indigenous communities of American Samoa, a healthy ocean ecosystem is not just an environmental asset but a foundation of daily life and cultural identity. The ecosystem supplies food for local households, buffers shorelines from storm damage, and has shaped cultural practices that have persisted for more than 1,000 years. Many native marine species found in American Samoan waters, including endangered sea turtles considered sacred (called *i‘a sa* by local communities), migrate between American Samoa and Hawaiian waters. American Samoa already enforces strict protections for sacred marine species including whales, sharks and giant manta rays, banning any capture or harm to these animals.

    The waters around American Samoa support an extraordinarily diverse array of rare marine life, including shallow and mesophotic coral reefs, deep-sea invertebrates, hundreds of fish and coral species, and multiple protected populations. The proposed mining lease area hosts five endangered sea turtle populations, four endangered whale species, five threatened coral species and four threatened marine animals including the giant manta ray. It sits just 57 miles from the protected Rose Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, one of the region’s most ecologically important intact marine ecosystems.

    The Trump administration’s push to expedite deep-sea mining permits runs directly counter to a growing global movement to restrict the untested practice. Dozens of countries have already called for a global moratorium or full ban on commercial deep-sea mining, citing major unresolved risks including underwater noise pollution, light disruption, and suffocating sediment plumes that can wipe out deep-sea ecosystems that have taken millennia to develop. Notably, no commercial deep-sea mining operation is currently operating anywhere in the world. The International Seabed Authority, the U.N. body that regulates mining in international waters, has only issued exploration licenses to date and has not approved any commercial extraction projects.

    Because the United States has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, domestic deep-sea mineral activity is regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). When contacted by the Associated Press on Tuesday, a NMFS spokesperson declined to comment on ongoing litigation, and the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately issue a response to requests for comment.

    The American Samoa leasing plan is not the administration’s only recent move to expand domestic deep-sea mining. Just one day before the lawsuit was filed, the federal government published a proposed leasing notice for 69 million acres of federal waters surrounding the Northern Mariana Islands, marking a massive expansion of the administration’s push for domestic seabed mineral development.

    In a statement supporting the expansion, Matt Giacona, acting director of the Marine Minerals Administration, framed the policy as a matter of national and economic security. “Critical minerals are essential to America’s national security, economic strength and resource sovereignty,” Giacona said. “The United States cannot afford to depend on foreign nations for the resources that power our economy and support our defense industrial base.”

    The administration’s moves have drawn sharp condemnation from the scientific and environmental communities. “It’s disgraceful that the Trump administration is bulldozing ahead with plans to allow deep-sea mining while the people who live closest to the proposed project are rightfully demanding that it be stopped,” said Nick Katkevich, oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These massive mining projects are just too experimental and dangerous for marine life to allow them to go forward.”

  • Why has Russia threatened the UK and what happens next?

    Why has Russia threatened the UK and what happens next?

    In recent weeks, rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and the United Kingdom have put global attention on the escalating confrontation over the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. After UK leadership reaffirmed London’s full commitment to backing Kyiv, questions have emerged about what led Russia to issue direct threats against the British state, and what potential ramifications this standoff could have for European and global security moving forward.

    Against the backdrop of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in early 2022, the United Kingdom has consistently stood as one of Kyiv’s most vocal and material backers. From providing advanced military hardware — including long-range strike capabilities, air defense systems, and armored vehicles — to imposing sweeping economic sanctions on Russian elites and key sectors of Moscow’s economy, the UK has positioned itself at the forefront of Western support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. It is this consistent, unapologetic support that has drawn repeated pushback from the Kremlin, which has framed Western involvement in the conflict as a direct provocation against Russian national interests.

    Most recently, Downing Street reaffirmed this long-held stance, with the UK Prime Minister stating publicly that London will maintain 100 percent support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian occupation. This clear reiteration of policy has been met with a new round of threats from Moscow, which has sought to warn the UK away from continued backing of Kyiv by raising the prospect of direct retaliation, ranging from increased cyberattacks on British critical infrastructure to heightened military activity near European NATO borders.

    Looking ahead, the trajectory of this confrontation depends on multiple interconnected factors. Analysts broadly agree that the UK is unlikely to reverse its course on Ukraine support, given widespread cross-party political consensus in London that backing Kyiv is critical to preventing wider Russian aggression across Europe. At the same time, NATO as a whole has moved to bolster its eastern flank in response to increased Russian rhetoric, reducing the risk of direct military escalation between Russia and the alliance. While the threat of asymmetric action — including disinformation campaigns, cyber interference, and hybrid attacks — remains elevated, most assessments suggest that Russia is unlikely to take steps that would trigger direct Article 5 collective defense action from the full 31-member alliance.

    This latest exchange underscores the growing rift between Russia and the West over Ukraine, a divide that shows few signs of narrowing in the near term. For the UK, the commitment to Ukraine remains a core pillar of its foreign policy, even as it faces growing Russian threats that demand increased vigilance from British security and intelligence services.

  • Israel’s starvation of Gaza leaves children stunted

    Israel’s starvation of Gaza leaves children stunted

    Deep in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, six-year-old Amira Rashid lies motionless on a thin mattress, her small hands marked by dark blue bruises from the ongoing intravenous drips that have become a constant in her young life. Instead of picking out a first-grade school uniform and packing a new backpack ahead of the upcoming term, as any child her age would do under ordinary conditions, Amira is trapped by severe acute malnutrition – a condition that developed after months of catastrophic food scarcity during Israel’s 2023–2025 military campaign and siege on Gaza.

    Her mother Aya Rashid spoke with Middle East Eye about the stolen future she grieves for her daughter. “I was hoping to enrol Amira in school, buy her a uniform, a backpack and stationery like the other children,” she said. “But her health prevents her from leaving the house or interacting with her peers.” Amira is one of tens of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza who have developed life-altering malnutrition since the siege began in October 2023, and her family is among the hundreds of thousands that remained in northern Gaza through the entirety of the conflict.

    In August 2025, the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) officially declared famine across Gaza City, the region where the Rashid family has lived for generations. For Aya, the reality of that famine has been unrelenting. “We suffered immensely from hunger and severe food shortages. We ran out of flour, and there was none in the markets. With no food aid available, I could only manage to bake barley bread.”

    Amira’s health began its sharp decline months before the famine was officially declared. In January 2025, after the young girl began complaining of persistent chest pain, Aya brought her to Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, one of the few remaining functional pediatric facilities in northern Gaza. When doctors measured Amira’s height and weight, they were stunned to find that both fell drastically below the standard range for a healthy six-year-old. “When a doctor saw her, he was taken aback,” Aya recalled. “He said she needed comprehensive testing immediately; she was in a terrible condition.”

    Testing confirmed a diagnosis of severe acute malnutrition, which had already caused permanent stunting. Even after Amira was admitted to the hospital, the chaos of the ongoing war blocked access to the specialized care she needed, and her condition never improved. Today, the six-year-old weighs just 12.5 kilograms and stands one meter tall – doctors say her bone age matches that of a healthy two-year-old. “It’s crushing. I’ve spent so much time in hospitals and with doctors, but they say the malnutrition she endured has severely and permanently damaged her body,” Aya said.

    A ceasefire agreement signed in October 2025 raised faint hope for Aya that increased access to food and medical care would help her daughter recover, but those hopes have been dashed. “I thought her condition would improve once the truce began and food came in. I never imagined it had reached the point of a clinical illness.” Without underlying allergies or nutrient absorption disorders, Amira still fails to respond to the limited treatment available in Gaza. “I have lost all hope of her recovering inside Gaza after exhausting every available treatment. Even the doctors are now saying her condition requires travelling abroad.”

    Beyond the permanent physical damage, Amira has also experienced severe regression in her cognitive development, now only able to interact comfortably with children two to three years her junior. She has still not learned to read or write, a milestone she was supposed to reach this school year. “Amira doesn’t know how to read or write, and everyone she interacts with in her surroundings are young children,” Aya said. When asked what she wishes for now, she answered simply: “To find a pair of trousers that actually fits my little girl’s waist, to stop seeing her ribcage protruding, and to watch her join her peers in a classroom.”

    Amira’s story is far from unique. The IPC’s August 2025 projection estimates that at least 132,000 children under the age of five will suffer from acute malnutrition through June 2026, alongside nearly 55,500 acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women who require urgent life-saving support. The crisis does not only affect children already born – it has left unborn children facing lifelong health complications before they even take their first breath.

    Ten-month-old Amna Abu al-Hasani is one of these children. Her mother Youssef suffered severe malnutrition throughout her pregnancy, leading to an emergency premature caesarean delivery at eight months. Amna weighed just 1.2 kilograms at birth, and just two months later, doctors diagnosed her with an enlarged heart caused by weakened muscle tissue as well as severe stunting. “My daughter’s malnutrition began in the womb,” the 29-year-old mother told Middle East Eye.

    At 10 months old, Amna weighs barely 5.5 kilograms and has now been diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition, with life-threatening complications affecting her heart, kidneys, and lungs. “The doctors told us all these issues stem fundamentally from her being born malnourished and underweight,” Youssef said. Even when the family uses sparse, sporadic cash assistance to buy fruit and nutritional supplements, she cannot stop her daughter’s health from declining.

    Gaza’s collapsed healthcare system lacks the specialized equipment and expertise to treat Amna’s complex conditions, and while she has an official referral for life-saving treatment abroad, her application for travel approval has sat unprocessed for months. “All I hope for is that my little girl is given a chance at life, that she gets her right to treatment abroad, and returns to our arms in good health,” Youssef said, her fear for her daughter’s future palpable.

    For the thousands of families affected by childhood malnutrition across Gaza, the few remaining functional hospitals and clinics are the only option for care, even as they operate far beyond capacity. Israel’s ongoing blockade continues to cripple Gaza’s healthcare system and maintains strict restrictions on medical travel for patients needing specialized care outside the territory.

    Dr. Mohammed Abu Rai, head of the nutrition clinic at al-Rantisi Hospital, told Middle East Eye that his facility now sees dozens of new malnourished children every single day, forcing staff to rapidly open overflow wards to accommodate the influx. While a recent IPC report recorded a modest drop in acute malnutrition rates following the ceasefire, the organization warns that more than 74,000 children will still require ongoing treatment for acute malnutrition through April 2027, alongside 24,600 acutely malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women over the same period.

    Dr. Abu Rai emphasized that even with the ceasefire in place, Israel has failed to meet its obligations to expand the flow of life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza, prolonging the catastrophic crisis it created. “The entry of food and meat into the Strip is not enough to treat malnutrition among children or even resolve the food crisis for the population post-ceasefire,” he said. “Vegetables and fruits entering Gaza are sold at exorbitant prices that most people simply cannot afford.”

    The destruction of Gaza’s local poultry and livestock farms during the conflict has left the territory almost entirely dependent on imported frozen meat, which has half the nutritional value of fresh product. Repeated extended power outages and poor cold storage infrastructure in Gaza further reduce what little nutritional value the imported meat retains, Dr. Abu Rai added. The World Food Programme has also warned that widespread funding shortfalls are forcing aid organizations to cut already meager food rations across Gaza, a move that threatens to push food security back to catastrophic levels.

    Aid supplies often sit for weeks in unshaded holding areas at border crossings, exposed to Gaza’s scorching desert heat, which degrades the nutritional quality of even basic staple goods. “Even staples like rice and lentils lose their nutritional value, while children’s nutritional supplements arrive in quantities far too small for even a single family,” Dr. Abu Rai said.

    As malnutrition rates remain critically high, the number of children suffering from permanent stunted growth continues to climb. Roughly 18 percent of Dr. Abu Rai’s current patients are already living with stunting caused by prolonged lack of vital nutrients during early childhood, a condition that causes irreversible physical and cognitive harm.

    As Dr. Abu Rai works tirelessly to treat as many young patients as possible within the territory’s limited resources, families like the Rashids and Abu al-Hasanis check their phones constantly, waiting for notification that their children’s travel permits for foreign treatment have been approved. “We miraculously survived certain death multiple times during the war,” Aya Rashid said. “What I fear now is losing my little girl to malnutrition, not to bombs.”