2 killed in Caribbean strike on alleged ‘narco-trafficking’ boat, Pentagon says
The Pentagon, heaquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, is seen from the air. ((Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images))
(WASHINGTON) — U.S. Southern Command said in a statement that it struck an alleged “narco-trafficking” boat in the Caribbean Sea on Monday, killing two people.
“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” SOUTHCOM wrote in a post to X.
“Two male narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” it added. SOUTHCOM also published a video of the strike on X.
At least 189 people have now been killed by U.S. strikes in Operation Southern Spear.
Workers line up to disinfect their protective equipment at General Referral Hospital of Mongbwalu during the Ebola outbreak response in Mongbwalu, Ituri province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 20, 2026. (Michel Lunanga/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Doctors and public health workers at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) told ABC News that the deadly virus is still spreading at an alarming rate.
“The outbreak is completely out of control,” said Dr. Richard Kojan in an interview from the city of Bunia in Ituri province, which is the hardest hit.
Kojan, who has been involved in fighting previous Ebola outbreaks in central and western Africa and is president of the Alliance for International Medical Action, said deep mistrust within some local communities is hampering efforts to contain the virus.
Another clinician, Dr. Richard Lokudi, who is the director of the main hospital in Mongbwalu, the hardest hit area, told ABC News that the disease was spreading “at an exponential speed.”
Dr. Lokudi said seven symptomatic patients suspected of having Ebola had recently “escaped” from Mongbwalu Hospital.
This was creating “chains and chains of contamination,” Dr. Lokudi said, adding that this was making the virus “difficult to fight.”
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,000 suspected cases of a rare strain of Ebola, known as Bundibugyo, have been identified in the eastern DRC and more than 230 suspected deaths from the virus have been recorded.
There is currently no vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain. Seven confirmed cases have also been identified in neighboring Uganda, the WHO said.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
Jeremy Konyndyk, who worked as a senior official at USAID under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and is now president of Refugees International, said that the outbreak had already reached an “explosive” level of transmission.
Konyndyk, who is based in Maryland, described the situation in central Africa as“about as urgent as any Ebola response has ever been” and said the 1,000 suspected cases were “almost certainly the tip of the iceberg” and “perhaps even an undercount by a factor of two or three.”
Health officials believe the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola had been circulating, undetected, in the Ituri province for up to three months before it was officially identified. The unusual strain was harder to identify via testing.
However, levels of mistrust within local communities toward measures to contain the virus, as well as skepticism that the virus even exists, are now hampering efforts to stem the outbreak, health officials say.
Kojan said there is currently a lack of laboratory testing capacity in the region, which is needed for accurate diagnosis and effective contact tracing.
The lack of lab capacity means symptomatic patients suspected of having the virus can wait for days for test results, increasing the risk of them leaving isolation prematurely, Kojan said.
“People don’t trust that, you know, Ebola is a reality,” he said.
The Congolese clinician said he was on “the front line” without access to a laboratory, meaning he was struggling to build trust with patients.
New cases every day
Both Both Dr. Lokudi and Dr. Kojan said their healthcare facilities were receiving new suspected cases of Ebola every day.
Amidst the high levels of mistrust, there has also been growing anger towards strict healthcare procedures, which are necessary to safely bury the dead and stop the virus from spreading.
The two Congolese doctors confirmed reports that on two occasions, isolation tents and healthcare facilities had been set on fire by angry crowds in recent days.
In an exchange of messages with ABC News on Tuesday, Lokudi said the police and military were now protecting his hospital, but he said angry groups of youths had still been gathering nearby.
He said that in some cases, amid “resistance” from local populations, officials were unable to safely access remote areas of Ituri province to investigate suspected deaths from the virus.
Lokudi described the situation as “really concerning,” saying that if teams do not go to such areas, then family members face a high risk of catching the virus if they themselves bury their loved ones.
Ebola is transmitted via bodily fluids, so treating sick patients and handling the deceased should only be done by healthcare teams in protective suits. Ideally, a victim’s home should also be sprayed down with disinfectant.
In the remote rural communities affected, these vital protective measures can run contrary to local burial practices and reports suggest this, mixed with a level of misunderstanding, has been the source of many people’s anger.
Kojan described a lack of masks and protective clothing as another “really big problem,” and both doctors said more adequately trained healthcare professionals were needed on the ground to raise awareness and implement barriers to stop the spread of the virus.
Cuts to U.S. programs created difficulties
Konyndyk said significant cuts to U.S, humanitarian aid in the DRC had made things harder.
“We’re kind of fighting this one with several hands tied behind our back,” Konyndyk told ABC News.
“When we have fought Ebola in the past on this scale, it has been a combination of the Ministry of Health, WHO, USAID, CDC,” he said.
“USAID is fully gone, CDC is badly weakened. WHO has been badly weakened, the U.S., of course, withdrew from WHO and cut off all funding,” Konyndyk added.
The former USAID official said in an interview that they were “almost certain” that if USAID were still in place, this outbreak would have been caught earlier.
Konyndyk said he believed earlier reports of “an unknown viral hemorrhagic fever outbreak” in the region “would have been brought to the attention of the U.S. mission” in the DRC.
“I’ve talked with some of the members who worked on that team, who were forced out of the government, who would say things like, look, I would be on the phone every week with health leaders in this part of the country,” Konyndyk told ABC News.
“I think the U.S. visibility on that diminished badly and that contributed certainly to the US being slow to wake up to this, but also to the world being slow to wake up to it,” the humanitarian leader said.
A White House official in response said the claim that cuts to U.S. aid have affected the response to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC was “ridiculous.”
“You could just as easily say people died because England didn’t give enough money or Canada didn’t give more or China didn’t. Why not blame the other countries who don’t do any foreign aid?” the official added.
The Trump administration has argued that its “America First Foreign Assistance programs” are intertwined with broader foreign policy goals and the national interest.
“The United States has saved more lives, and continues to save more lives, than any other country in the world, and we’re going to continue to do it,” the White House official said in a statement. “We’re not going to continue to pour billions of dollars out the door of American taxpayer funds for programs that don’t work and in some cases were flat-out corrupt.”
Back in the affected area of the DRC, both doctors interviewed by ABC said they had messages for the US and the world.
International support is needed urgently “on all levels,” according to Lokudi.
Kojan said he is appealing to the world to realize that this is about people’s “humanity.”
“People are really scared. It’s our humanity … so my message is, you know, we need attention.”
Olympic rings stand in front of Ponte di Castelvecchio on day fourteen of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games on February 20, 2026 in Verona, Italy. (Photo by Claudio Lavenia/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Transgender women athletes cannot participate in female Olympic events, the International Olympic Committee said on Thursday, as the committee announced a new policy limiting eligibility for female events to biological females.
The policy will begin for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The committee said the decision was “evidence‑based and expert‑informed,” and “protects fairness, safety and integrity in the female category.”
The IOC said eligibility will be “determined on the basis of a one‑time SRY gene screening.”
The committee said “athletes with an SRY-positive screen, including XY transgender and androgen-sensitive XY-DSD athletes, continue to be included in all other classifications for which they qualify. For example, they are eligible for any male category, including in a designated male slot within any mixed category, and any open category, or in sports and events that do not classify athletes by sex.”
IOC President Kirsty Coventry said in a statement that the new policy “is based on science and has been led by medical experts.”
“At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat,” she said. “So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
The Hookers’ boat, “Soulmate,” is seen in Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, April 8, 2026. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — More than two weeks after American Lynette Hooker went overboard and disappeared in the Bahamas, her daughter is speaking out to ABC News.
“It still feels surreal,” Karli Aylesworth said. “… This feels like something you just watch in a movie, but it’s my life.”
Aylesworth’s mother, Lynette Hooker, has been missing since the evening of April 4 when Aylesworth’s stepfather, Brian Hooker, said she went overboard. The couple had departed Hope Town for their yacht, Soulmate, in Elbow Cay, when bad weather caused her to fall off their dinghy, Brian Hooker told authorities.
Brian Hooker, 58, was arrested on April 8 and questioned by police. He was released on April 13 without charges.
Brian Hooker told ABC News on April 14 that he was staying in the Bahamas with a “sole focus” of finding his wife, “no matter how likely or unlikely that is.”
But Brian Hooker then left the Bahamas, his attorney said on April 15, noting that his mother is not well.
Aylesworth and her boyfriend said they doubted Brian Hooker’s story from the beginning and are now left with more questions than answers.
“I don’t understand how she drowned or got floated away,” Aylesworth said. “It just made me be more, ‘Why didn’t he do this? Why didn’t you do that? Why did that happen?'”
Aylesworth said she met with the Coast Guard and the Bahamian authorities, who allowed her to visit the sailboat her mother and stepfather called home.
“I went and got some of her belongings, like a headband. I got her ‘L’ necklace that she used to always wear. I got a picture frame I made for her, something that my grandma sewed for her,” she said.
“It was really hard because it was almost eerie, because I felt like she was going to, like, come out of the corner or something,” she said. “… Just knowing that she’ll never, I don’t know, it’s just hit me like a freight train that she’s not there.”
