British woman Ethel Caterham, officially recognized as the world’s oldest living person, has celebrated her 117th birthday.

Caterham marked the milestone on Aug. 21 with family and friends at her care home in Surrey, England. She was born on Aug. 21, 1909, in Hampshire.

Guinness World Records said Caterham has now become the first British person ever verified to reach the age of 117.

She became the world’s oldest living person in April 2025 following the death of Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas at the age of 116.

Caterham has lived through both world wars and, at the age of 110, recovered from COVID-19. She also travelled to India alone at the age of 18 in 1927, where she worked as a nanny for a British family.

Despite her remarkable longevity, Caterham is still several years short of the all-time verified longevity record. Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment lived to 122 years and 164 days. (Newswire)

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TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance agreed on Friday to pay $400 million (roughly €342 million) to resolve allegations by the US Justice Department that the platform violated children’s online privacy laws.

“Under the settlement, TikTok will pay $300 million immediately and an additional $100 million upon entry of an order vacating a prior consent decree entered against TikTok’s predecessor, Musical.ly,” the department said in a statement.

It’s “one of the largest recoveries ever obtained” from a case involving the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a federal law which safeguards online privacy of minors, the statement added.

What was TikTok accused of?

The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission sued TikTok and ByteDance in 2024, alleging that the platform put children’s privacy at risk.

The agencies accused TikTok of knowingly allowing children to use the platform and violating federal law that online services directed at children obtain parental consent before collecting their personal data.

The Justice Department said that since the lawsuit was filed, TikTok has “undergone significant changes to its ownership, management, compliance functions and privacy practices” concerning younger users.

TikTok parent company ByteDance sold off a majority stake of its US entity earlier this year in order to avoid a ban by the Trump administration.

TikTok did not immediately comment on the settlement.

TikTok faces growing global scrutiny

The settlement comes as TikTok, alongside other social media platforms, faces increasing pressure around the world.

In 2024, Brussels launched a probe into TikTok under the Digital Services Act (DSA) — a landmark regulation that the European Union has used to curb harmful practices by Big Tech in recent years.

The video-sharing platform risks a large fine after the EU accused TikTok in July of failing to protect children through account settings that can expose them to risks such as “unwanted contact, cyberbullying, or predatory behavior.”

The United Kingdom also launched a probe into TikTok in July to investigate whether the app is doing enough under UK law to protect children from harmful content. (DW)

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A last-ditch effort to reach a new trade deal before a midnight tariff deadline failed Friday, as Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended talks with the United States and summoned his negotiators back to Ottawa.

The decision meant new 50 per cent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian exports to the U.S. took effect at 12:01 a.m., and Carney vowed Canada would retaliate with equal measures of its own. (TorontoStar)

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At an auction in Mumbai, a rare collection of Mahatma Gandhi’s handwritten notes was sold for Rs 16.2 crore, setting a record price for an Indian historical document.

The notes include 688 handwritten messages by Gandhi on non-violence, truth and self-restraint, written between 1944 and 1946.

The handwritten reflections were later compiled and published as a book titled ‘A Thought for the Day’. The collection offers a glimpse into Gandhi’s personal reflections.

The auction was conducted by Indian auction house Saffronart under the title, ‘Gandhi: From the Collection of Anand T Hingorani’.

Anand T Hingorani was a freedom fighter and a follower of Gandhi since the age of 13. He was also among the participants from Sindh who joined Gandhi’s historic 1930 Dandi March against the British salt tax.

Hingorani worked at Sabarmati Ashram and joined Gandhi during the Civil Disobedience Movement and the Quit India Movement.

Gandhi’s writings and personal reflections
After the death of Hingorani’s wife, Vidya, Gandhi wrote to him for around two years, offering consolation and encouragement.

The auction lot also included letters, manuscripts, photographs and personal objects that had been preserved by the Hingorani family.

“These reflections offer a rare insight into how Gandhi lived the principles he advocated publicly, making this an especially valuable record of his thought and practice,” said Dinesh Vazirani, co-founder of Saffronart.

Further, Gandhi’s notes on God and the Bhagavad Gita, a portable spinning wheel and two letters discussing the spiritual discipline of spinning, were among the other items at the auction.

The auction also featured several personal objects, including Gandhi’s Peti Charkha as well as his West End Watch.

“We, as the family of Anand T Hingorani, are honoured to share an extraordinary historical legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and his close bond with our father.”, the Hingorani family said.

The family said the artefacts, which had been “cherished and safeguarded” for generations, offered testimony to defining moments in India’s history and the freedom struggle. It described the auction as an opportunity to share Gandhi’s ideals and historically significant memorabilia with the world.

“This auction is not merely an offering of rare collectibles, but the sharing of historically significant memorabilia of India’s freedom struggle and Gandhi’s ideals with the world,” they added.

Saffronart has not disclosed the identity of the buyer. (ThePrint)

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Donald Trump called the strait of Hormuz “an American territory” on Friday, as the US continues its military blockade of Iran’s shipping and ports while Trump’s administration struggles to end its war with the country.

“We don’t even know if we won, because I view the strait of Hormuz as an American territory right now,” Trump said, addressing a crowd in South Carolina. He was campaigning for senator Darline Graham, who is running to permanently fill her late brother Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat.

Later in his remarks, Trump joked about bombing Iran.

“It’s a Friday night. We have plenty of time,” Trump said before reciting The Snake, a poem he frequently uses at campaign rallies to underscore his anti-immigrant policies. “What the hell do I have to do? Go back and bomb Iran a little bit more?”

As of Friday, American forces have redirected 68 commercial vessels to comply with the blockade, the US Central Command (Centcom) wrote on social media.

The US and Iran have failed to negotiate a peace deal as the conflict approaches the six-month mark. The Trump administration is seeking to squeeze Iran financially, restricting access to the strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the country’s oil exports. Roughly one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supply typically passes through the waterway, which is bordered by Iran and Oman.

Trump threatened to declare the strait a US territory last week.

“Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” he said during a speech at a New York police academy.

“We control it with the blockade, and I like the idea of declaring it a territory,” he told reporters on Monday when asked about that comment.

He also posted an image of a map to social media labeling the waterway as a “new U.S. territory”.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, dismissed Trump’s comments as “delusions”. (TheGuardian)

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The aircraft crashed around 12:15 pm (2015 UTC) on approach to Cape Newenham Long Range Radar Site Airport, located about 725 kilometers (450 miles) west of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, from where it had departed.

Six passengers and two pilots were aboard the plane during the incident, said Clint Johnson, Alaska region chief of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

Reports identified the plane as a ‌Cessna 441 operated by Anchorage-based air charter company Security Aviation.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski expressed her condolences, following news of the crash.

“I’ve traveled extensively with Security Aviation throughout Alaska, and have met many of their experienced pilots,” she said on X, naming the charter company that operates in the remote region.

She added that multiple agencies, including the US Coast Guard, NTSB, Alaska State Troopers, and the Rescue Coordination Center had responded to the crash.

Air Force Alaskan Command mourns ‘loss for our military family’

The Associated Press cited the US ​military’s Alaskan Command as saying that the plane was a “civilian-contracted aircraft.”

The passengers on board were “dedicated professionals carrying out a vital mission in a demanding environment,” AP quoted Lt. Gen. Robert Davis, commander of Alaskan Command, the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and Eleventh Air Force, as saying in a statement.

The specifics of what work the crash victims were doing at the radar site — which tracks aircraft operating in Alaskan airspace — was not immediately clear from the Alaskan Command’s statement.

“This is a devastating loss for our military family and the communities we serve,” Davis said, according to AP.

The Pacific Air Forces Regional Support Center manages the radar site. (DW)

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Four years ago, three Sri Lankan migrant workers aboard a fishing boat off South Korea’s western coast spotted two Air Force pilots in the Yellow Sea after their fighter jet caught fire and crashed.

Working with the boat’s South Korean captain, they pulled the pilots from the water and brought them to safety.

On Friday, that act of rescue helped secure a longer future in South Korea for two of the men.

The Justice Ministry said it had granted the two Sri Lankans skilled-worker visas allowing them to remain in the country long term, citing their “exceptional contribution to the national interest” in saving lives. The third rescuer had already obtained long-term residency status.

The rescue took place on Aug. 12, 2022, off the coast of Hwaseong, about 45 kilometers south of Seoul. The Sri Lankan workers were aboard a fishing vessel when they came across the pilots, whose fighter jet had gone down after an engine fire.

At the time, all three men were in South Korea under the Employment Permit System, holding E-9 visas typically issued to foreign workers in sectors facing labor shortages. The status allows workers to stay for a maximum of four years and 10 months.

The two men granted E-7-4 skilled-worker status on Friday can initially remain in South Korea for up to two years. Their visas can then be renewed in two-year increments without a limit on the number of extensions, giving them a pathway to a far more stable life in the country than their original temporary-worker status allowed.

“We will continue to support foreigners who have made special contributions to our society so that they can live stably in the country,” Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho said.

The decision follows another official recognition of the men’s actions. In May, they received a letter of appreciation from the Air Force chief of staff for helping save the two pilots. (KoreaBizwire)

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The El Niño event that is developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest in living memory, the UK Met Office has warned.

The powerful natural climate phenomenon pushes up global temperatures and can increase the risks of extreme weather.

Added to the effects of human-induced climate change, the Met Office is warning that it is “very likely” to mean 2027 is the hottest year on record.

There is growing evidence that weather patterns around the world are already being affected, with below-average monsoon rains in India and suppressed hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean.

El Niño could put the UK at greater risk of a wet, stormy autumn.

“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event”, said Prof Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the UK Met Office.

“I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts.”

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a naturally occurring weather pattern, which happens about every two to seven years, lasting for around a year.

Trade winds that typically blow from east to west across the Pacific Ocean can weaken or even reverse, allowing warm water to spread eastwards.

Heat is released from the ocean into the atmosphere, lifting global temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns.

Scientists declare an El Niño when sea surface temperatures in a key area of the Pacific are 0.5C or more above average.

Current measurements show that they are well over 2C above normal.

Latest forecasts from the Met Office suggest that these temperature anomalies could exceed 3C later this year as El Niño nears its peak.

This would be unprecedented in records going back to 1950, and probably the strongest event since the 19th century.

Very high temperatures in the deeper ocean – around 8C above normal at a depth of 100m (330ft) in some places – could help to supercharge this El Niño, essentially providing a reservoir of warm water fuel to reinforce the event.

“We have many months to go while this event continues to develop and that’s one of the reasons that we have increased confidence that this will be a record-setting event,” said Dr Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a US research group.

Some other climate groups have projected something even stronger than the Met Office’s forecast, perhaps even 4C above average.

If that came to pass, “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility to say this might be the strongest El Niño event in 500 or even 1,000 years,” Hausfather said, although it is impossible to say for sure that far back in time.

Weather impacts around the globe

The change in the distribution of heat across the ocean – and shifts in the wind patterns in the atmosphere above – can have wide ranging effects on the weather right across the globe.

No two El Niño events are the same and the impacts on weather patterns can vary. However, there is evidence that the effects are already being felt.

For example, in El Niño years the southwest monsoon can deliver suppressed rainfall in South Asia – and so far in 2026 it is running well below normal.

Changes in wind patterns in the Caribbean and tropical Atlantic can reduce hurricane activity.

So far this season there have been only three named storms.

2027 “very likely” to be the hottest on record

During El Niño events, significant heat is released from the ocean to the atmosphere.

Met Office climate scientist Dr Nick Dunstone says this can lead to “an increase in global average temperature, particularly in the calendar year following the winter peak of the El Niño.

“Hence, 2027 is very likely to replace 2024 as the warmest year on record.”

Earlier this month, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warned that El Niño could threaten tens of millions of people in at-risk countries with crisis-level acute food insecurity. (BBC)

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Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been moved back to Adiala Jail from Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad, a spokesman for his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said. 

Khan underwent a medical check-up at the hospital and was sent back to prison after doctors deemed it safe for him to remain in custody, according to Pakistani media reports.

“A team of qualified doctors, including an ophthalmologist, a cardiologist, and a physician, conducted a detailed examination of him and declared him medically fit,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar wrote on X about Khan’s health checks.

“After the completion of this entire process, he was transferred back to Adiala Jail,” he added.

The 73-year-old ex-premier was moved to a hospital around midnight for a medical evaluation following a Supreme Court order directing authorities in Islamabad to provide specialised medical care to him amid health concerns.

Citing sources, Geo News reported that the PTI founder’s commute to and from prison was facilitated under extremely tight security. He has now been shifted to his cell.

During his brief stay at the hospital, dozens of PTI supporters had gathered near the hospital, according to French AFP news agency.

Why Ex-PM Was Taken To Hospital

Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023. He says the cases against him are politically motivated, an accusation the government denies.

According to his lawyers, his health has deteriorated in prison, and he has lost significant vision in his right eye. In its order on Tuesday, the Supreme Court told authorities to transfer Khan to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad within 48 hours and allow him access to a medical panel that includes his personal physician.

The Shebaz Sharif government in Islamabad first announced it would implement the order but later filed a petition in the top court, seeking a review and recall of its order. The government has said medical reports disclosed no condition requiring immediate treatment.

Opposing Khan’s transfer, Pakistan’s Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar has argued that a convicted prisoner must be treated inside the jail or at a public hospital according to law. He added that he was requesting Khan’s medical tests be carried out at a government hospital instead of a private facility. 

He was taken to the hospital after PTI threatened to file a contempt of court petition against the government on Friday if he is not admitted to the hospital by Thursday at 11.59 pm.

Later, Pakistan’s Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said the government would fully comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling, claiming the government had not intended to defy or delay implementation of the decision. (NDTV)

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US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened “tremendous” punishment on any country that helps or does business with Iran, an economic pressure campaign that comes as the war in the Middle East nears its sixth month.

Calling it the “most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”, he also listed several activities that he said need to stop immediately.

“No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it. Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” he said in a Truth Social post.

“Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences. Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies – It all needs to stop NOW,” Trump said without specifying what punishment countries would face.

He didn’t name any country but said “they know who they are”.

Before the war broke out in February, China, India, Turkey, Germany, South Korea, and Japan were among Iran’s largest trading partners.

“This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide. IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” Trump said.

The US Treasury has for months been carrying out ‘Operation Economic Fury’, aiming to cut off Tehran’s funding with targeted sanctions.

The war in the Middle East broke out when the US and Israeli forces conducted joint strikes on Iran on February 28, killing a swath of the country’s leadership, including the then 86-year-old Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. In response, the Iranian forces attacked American and Israeli assets in the Middle East. (NDTV)

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At least nine people, including a child and woman, were killed and six others injured in a devastating fire at a hotel on Mirza Galib Street in central Kolkata on early Wednesday.

The incident comes just two days after another hotel fire in West Bengal, India.

On Monday, eight people died and several others were injured, allegedly due to a short circuit, at a hotel in Tarapith in Birbhum district, officials said.

According to police sources, five fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the blaze that erupted around 2 am.

Police and Disaster Management Department personnel reached the spot for the rescue operation. The injured have been taken to a nearby hospital.

“The dense smoke made it difficult for firefighters to climb the staircase and reach the upper floors. While nine people have died, more deaths are feared,” a police officer said.

“Our priority is to rescue those trapped and determine the reasons for the fire. The flames have been doused, and the cooling process is underway,” he added.

West Bengal Fire Department headquarters is located close to the hotel building.

The hotel operators in Tarapith have been taken into custody after an FIR was registered, and police are questioning them as part of the investigation. (NewIndianExpress)

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India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has charged the husband and mother-in-law of 33-year-old model and actor Twisha Sharma with abetment to suicide and cruelty following her death at her matrimonial home in Bhopal on May 12.

Sharma, who had married lawyer Samarth Singh five months earlier, was found dead amid allegations from her family that she had faced harassment and mistreatment after marriage. Singh and his mother, retired judge Giribala Singh, have denied the allegations.

In its chargesheet, the CBI alleged that Sharma was subjected to repeated mental cruelty by her husband and that Giribala Singh encouraged her son’s conduct. Investigators said the alleged mistreatment ultimately drove Sharma to take her own life.

Sharma’s family had earlier accused her husband and mother-in-law of dowry harassment and alleged that she was murdered. Their lawyer said the CBI’s decision to invoke abetment-to-suicide provisions indicated that investigators were treating the death as an alleged suicide. The agency has sought permission to continue its investigation and could file a supplementary chargesheet if further evidence emerges.

A lawyer for Giribala Singh said investigators had found no evidence supporting the earlier allegations of murder and dowry harassment.

Sharma’s family has also alleged that tensions intensified after she became pregnant, claiming her husband and mother-in-law questioned the paternity of the child and pressured her to terminate the pregnancy. Giribala Singh has denied the allegation, maintaining that Sharma chose to have the abortion.

Sharma, who won the Miss Pune title in 2012, had worked as a model, actor and marketing professional. She had appeared in advertising campaigns and a Telugu-language film.

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Colombian superstar Shakira committed Monday to help build at least 10 new schools in a remote and hard-hit region of her home country after it suffered a devastating earthquake last week that killed hundreds and affected thousands of educational sites across western Colombia.

The globally recognized “Hips Don’t Lie” musician made the pledge during a surprise visit to Quibdó, the capital of the Colombian province of Chocó, where she toured damaged schools, hugging students and taking photos with them.

“What worries me the most is that schools are not rebuilt once this emergency is over,” Shakira told journalists. “Every day that children don’t go to school is a day they miss out on their future.”

She was accompanied by Howard Buffett, son of billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett and longtime donor to Colombia who has helped Shakira set up schools there before. The Howard G. Buffett foundation will collaborate with Shakira’s Fundación Pies Descalzos, or Barefoot Foundation, on the project.

“When she calls, I come,” Buffett said during the visit. The singer also announced pledges of $500,000 each from Global Citizen and Live Nation toward the cause.

The 7.4 magnitude quake on Aug. 10 struck a vast swath of western Colombia, killing at least 287 people and destroying more than 26,000 dwellings, according to authorities. The government has said 194 people are missing, while other civilian-run databases put the number at more than 4,100.

The epicenter was in Chocó, one of Colombia’s poorest regions and where at least 3,100 homes were destroyed and over 265 educational sites affected, according to the regional government latest report Monday.

“It’s a place I love, a place where I’ve seen our students grow in our classrooms,” Shakira said in a video posted on X by the Colombian news outlet La FM. Her foundation, which focuses on educational access for youth in Colombia, has been in Chocó for 22 years, running two schools from which hundreds of students have graduated, she said. “I really want to see it rebuild again.”

Aid groups have struggled to assess the damage so far in Chocó, an area the size of Switzerland where communication is difficult. The province has few roads linking it to the rest of the country, and its numerous towns and villages are connected mostly by rivers and unpaved roads.

Most of Chocó’s 600,000 inhabitants live in poverty, according to figures published last year by Colombia’s national government, and it is largely inhabited by Indigenous tribes and Afro Colombian communities.

“There is not a way to alleviate the pain of so many, there are no magic solutions,” Shakira said during her visit to a large high school in Quibdó.

“But what there is, is commitment to be here alongside those from Chocó, to not abandon El Chocó like it historically has been abandoned, until every Colombian and every person from Chocó can return to their normal lives like they deserve and all the children can return to their schools and dream of the futures they deserve,” she said. (abcnews)

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Though many of Bangladesh’s shipbreaking yards have gone green on paper, workers continue to face deadly safety hazards, with at least 84 accidents recorded since the Hong Kong Convention came into force last year.

There are 31 functioning shipyards, of which 23 have “gone green” and eight are under trial, according to relevant sources.

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United States air safety investigators have found evidence of metal fatigue in an engine fan blade that fractured during a Ryanair flight last month, sending debris into the cabin and shattering a window where a passenger was partially pulled into the opening.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a preliminary report that about 37 percent of the fracture surface on the failed blade showed features consistent with fatigue.

Investigators traced the damage to an area near the root of the blade, finding signs of high-amplitude fatigue caused by repeated stress. The agency has not yet determined the root cause of the failure.

Cabin depressurised

The July 10 incident occurred on a Boeing 737-800 operated by Malta Air, a Ryanair subsidiary, flying from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Memmingen, Germany.

According to the NTSB, the aircraft was climbing through 16,000 feet (4,877 metres) when the pilots received a high-vibration alert from the right engine. The vibration rapidly increased before the crew heard a loud bang and the cabin lost pressure.

Fragments from the engine struck the fuselage and penetrated the cabin, shattering the window at row 11.

A flight attendant responding to calls for help found a 61-year-old passenger in seat 11F partially lodged in the missing window opening. Passengers managed to pull the man back into the cabin.

The passenger suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns. A doctor on board treated him as the aircraft returned to Thessaloniki. Passengers also used a metal box from the galley to try to block the opening.

Bird remains recovered

Investigators found feathers and bird remains in several parts of the engine, but the NTSB has not concluded that a bird strike caused the blade to break.

Maintenance records show the engine was involved in four suspected bird strikes over the previous year, with remains found after two of them.

The engine’s fan blades underwent ultrasonic inspections in November 2025 and May 2026, with no damage detected. The NTSB investigation remains ongoing. (Al Jazeera)

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Indian Actor Chiyaan Vikram has come under heavy criticism after he shared a fun-filled moment with a large gibbon. While fans initially praised Vikram’s adorable moment with the animal, it soon drew criticism after a journalist claimed it was illegal to keep a Lar Gibbon as a pet.

According to a report by the Free Press Journal, the video landed Vikram’s daughter’s father-in-law, businessman CK Ranganathan, in trouble over an alleged link to the trade of exotic animals. The larva gibbon in Vikram’s video is an endangered species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and India’s Wildlife Protection Act.

The report also claimed that Vikram had officially purchased the Lar Gibbon, which was brought from Manipur to Erode in Tamil Nadu in June. Although the video was deleted within 24 hours, wildlife activists have raised concerns about the legality of keeping an endangered animal as a pet without necessary documents.

The post sparked debate among social media users. “Laws in India often don’t apply to the rich,” one wrote.

“Lol…man doesn’t have movies and thought this would be fun to post, and now he is in trouble,” another commented.

“It was very clear; I was surprised by the video,” someone else added.

As per the report, the Chennai Wildlife Warden Yogen Kulala met Ranganathan at his home after Vikram deleted the video and informed him that an enquiry had been launched. CK Ranganathan is the founder-chairman of CavinKare. He is also the father of Manu Ranjith, who is married to Vikram’s daughter Akshita.

The lar Gibbon is a wild animal native to Southeast Asia and is protected under international wildlife-trade regulations. In India, keeping this exotic animal is subject to specific legal provisions, such as rules governing possession, registration and transfer. 

The larval gibbon is also listed under CITES Appendix I, which calls for strict controls on its international trade. Thus, keeping a Lar Gibbon in India can raise legal concerns. It depends, though, on whether the animal has been acquired, imported or kept without the required documentation and permissions. (NDTV)

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Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said on Thursday (Aug 13) it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, and promised more action in the face of possible regulatory intervention.

The company said it had deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts from just before the Australian social media ban went live in December to June, up from 331,000 Instagram accounts and 173,000 Facebook accounts it said it had removed by January.

The world’s largest social media company has said it wants to comply with a law it and other platforms have vocally opposed, just as Australia’s internet regulator considers an enforcement lawsuit against platforms, including some that Meta owns, that it says have failed to take sufficient steps to comply with the law.

No other platforms have released compliance data that matches the date range given by Meta, but Australian government figures and multiple independent studies have shown more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media in the ban’s first three months.

The Australian government proposed the landmark law, which came into force on Dec 10, on concerns about social media’s impact on the physical and mental health of children and young teens.

With other countries around the world considering similar age-restrictions, Australia has accused the platforms of intentionally setting the ban up to fail, and has introduced a law to double the maximum penalty for non-compliance to A$99 million (US$69.75 million) and give the regulator greater document discovery powers.

PARLIAMENTARY HEARING ON FRIDAY

Representatives of Meta, TikTok, YouTube owner Google and Snap’s Snapchat are scheduled to give evidence in a parliamentary inquiry about the changes on Friday, as are regulatory and government officials.

“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” Meta said in a statement.

“We share the Australian Government’s goal of ensuring young people have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we are meeting our obligations under the law,” the company added.

A 2025 Australian trial of age assurance technology found products on the market could effectively support a ban. 

Most large platforms, including Meta’s, rolled out photo-based age estimation software, although they say they typically first subject users to age inference, or assuming a person’s age based on their online activity.

Meta said it was using AI to analyse user profiles for “contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades” and to analyse reports about suspected underage accounts. 

The company added that it had removed the option for a person to make more attempts to set up an account if their previous account was deleted. (CNA/ Reuters)

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The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) is spreading faster than health authorities can contain it and is on track to become the deadliest on record, according to the World Health Organization.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that at its current pace, the outbreak is on track to eclipse the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016, a crisis that killed more than 11,000 people and accelerated the push to develop a vaccine.

The outbreak in eastern DR Congo has killed more than 2,000 people out of more than 4,300 recorded cases, making it the fastest-moving Ebola outbreak on record. It was formally declared on May 15, though genetic sequencing later revealed the virus had actually begun circulating in February.

The outbreak is being driven by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which no vaccine or treatment has yet been approved.

Containment efforts have been hampered by the region’s remoteness and ongoing conflict near Congo’s borders with South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda. 

Many infections and deaths are occurring in communities that health teams have struggled to reach. Weak infrastructure, under-resourced clinics, circulating misinformation, and strikes by health workers over unpaid wages have further slowed the response.

Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, WHO’s director for health emergency alert and response operations, said the agency’s moderate projection has the outbreak peaking within six months. Under a more severe scenario, he said, it could stretch on for nine to 12 months.

The 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa remains the deadliest on record, having claimed more than 11,000 lives out of roughly 28,000 cases and prompting a major international push towards vaccine development. WHO officials say the current crisis could surpass that toll if access to affected communities does not improve soon. (Al Jazeera)

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