- New photographs showing sparse meals aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln were shared by a serving officer’s family, following similar images from the USS Tripoli published a week earlier. A family member reported their deployed sailor had lost 17 pounds, and care packages sent months ago still hadn’t arrived, with mail to 27 military ZIP codes in the region suspended. The Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denied any food shortages, calling the reports false and stating both ships have over 30 days of food supplies aboard. https://www.newsweek.com/more-photos-emerge-meals-navy-ships-pentagon-denies-shortages-11867712
- Suspected Somali pirates hijacked a fuel tanker off the northeastern coast of Somalia on Wednesday, seizing it in waters between Hafun and Bandarbeyla in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland. Six armed men from the Bandarbeyla district carried out the hijacking of the Pakistani-owned, locally chartered vessel, which was carrying fuel from Berbera to Mogadishu. The UK Maritime Trade Operations confirmed the incident, and no ransom demands had been reported. https://apnews.com/article/somalia-pirates-fuel-vessel-hijacked-981106bd7520a87c5c72e19a5bbc00e9
- The U.S. Department of Justice agreed to modify sanctions to allow Venezuela’s government to pay the legal fees of former president Nicolás Maduro, who is on trial in New York for drug trafficking charges after being abducted by U.S. forces in January. Maduro’s lawyer had argued that blocking Caracas from funding his defense violated his right to counsel, and the DOJ said the sanctions modification makes the motion to dismiss the case moot. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/25/us-to-allow-venezuelan-government-to-cover-maduros-lawyer-fees
- Five women from the same family were killed and two others injured after a soil mound collapsed onto two rooms of a residential house in the Baghaki area of Qala-i-Naw city in western Badghis province, Afghanistan, on Friday night. The victims were all described as memorizers of the Holy Quran. https://pajhwok.com/2026/04/25/5-of-a-family-killed-in-badghis-landslide-2-injured/
- Sudan is facing widespread dengue outbreaks across at least 14 of its 18 states, compounded by the near-total collapse of the country’s health infrastructure after three years of civil war. The WHO reports concurrent outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria, and measles, with 37 percent of health facilities non-functional and over 21 million people requiring health assistance. https://sudantribune.com/article/313122
- The German government said it believes a phishing campaign targeting users of the Signal messaging app was run from Russia, with German prosecutors launching a spying investigation. At least 300 accounts belonging to politicians, diplomats, civil servants, and journalists were reportedly compromised, including the speaker of parliament and a senior member of Chancellor Merz’s CDU party. The campaign has been stopped, but officials warned the number of unreported cases is likely to rise. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/signal-phishing-attacke-bundesregierung-100.html
- JAXA announced it will launch an H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center on June 10, marking Japan’s first large rocket powered solely by a liquid engine, without solid rocket boosters. Because this is a test of the new booster-less configuration following a failed launch last December, the rocket will carry a dummy satellite and six small satellites developed by universities, rather than a large operational payload. Modifications to the satellite payload section address the cause of the previous failure. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/04/24/japan/science-health/jaxa-h3-rocket-june/
- Iran’s armed forces have warned that if the U.S. continues its naval blockade of Iranian ports, Tehran will block all shipping from the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Red Sea, calling the continued blockade a violation of the ceasefire. Iran’s parliament speaker and lead negotiator said a complete ceasefire is impossible while the maritime blockade persists. https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-04-25-2026#0000019d-c5b0-d8f5-a19f-e7f63f180000
- President Trump canceled the planned trip by envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Islamabad for Iran peace talks, saying there was too much time wasted on traveling. The cancellation came minutes after Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi departed Pakistan, and Trump said Iran had submitted a proposal that was not good enough, though a revised offer arrived within ten minutes of the cancellation. Trump said the decision does not mean a resumption of fighting. https://apnews.com/live/iran-war-israel-trump-04-25-2026#0000019d-c570-d3c1-adfd-ff7413cb0000
- Passengers flying through Panama face higher ticket prices and reduced flight availability as the global jet fuel crisis caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz drives up aviation fuel costs worldwide. Jet fuel prices have roughly doubled since the Iran war began, and airlines globally are cutting schedules, adding fuel surcharges, and eliminating less profitable routes as the IEA has warned Europe may have only six weeks of remaining jet fuel supplies. https://www.prensa.com/economia/pasajes-mas-caros-y-menos-vuelos-por-crisis-de-combustible-de-aviacion/
- North Korea appointed Kim Chol-hae as its new ambassador to Sweden, following the recent naming of new envoys to Britain and Indonesia. Sweden has historically served as an intermediary for U.S.–North Korea communications and was the first Western country to establish diplomatic ties with Pyongyang in 1973, as well as the first to resume diplomatic operations there after North Korea’s COVID-era border closures. https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10725479?sec=001
- Scientists at the U.S. National Solar Observatory developed a method to infer the magnetic polarity and structure of active regions on the sun’s far side by analyzing phase shifts in helioseismic data from the NSF-NOAA GONG network. The technique allows researchers to construct polarity-resolved magnetic maps of regions not directly visible from Earth, a step toward building a complete 360-degree map of solar magnetic activity that could improve space weather forecasting. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-scientists-hidden-magnetism-sun-side.html
- Researchers led by Newcastle University explored whether selectively breeding corals for heat tolerance could help them survive increasingly severe marine heat waves driven by climate change. Using an eight-year pedigree-tracked coral population in Palau, they found meaningful heritability of heat tolerance and that selecting the most tolerant individuals for breeding can produce gains, though the researchers stress that reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains essential since breeding improvements alone are unlikely to keep pace with projected warming. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-evolution-corals-survive-future.html
Evening World News Summary
Related articles