World’s largest coral reef discovered off the Solomon Islands
On Thursday, as a National Geographic expedition was exploring the waters around the Solomon Islands, its members spotted something that looked like a shipwreck underwater. Intrigued, they sent a diver down to investigate. The diver came back to the surface with extraordinary news: the object was not a shipwreck but a massive coral – soon confirmed as the biggest coral in the world. Image via National Geographic
(LONDON) — On Thursday, as a National Geographic expedition was exploring the waters around the Solomon Islands, its members spotted something that looked like a shipwreck underwater. Intrigued, they sent a diver down to investigate.
The diver came back to the surface with extraordinary news.
The object was not a shipwreck but a massive coral — soon confirmed as the biggest coral in the world. The gigantic coral, which is visible from space and believed to be about 300 years old, stores an invaluable historical record of ocean conditions from past centuries.
“Just when we think there is nothing left to discover on planet earth, we find a massive coral made of nearly 1 billion little polyps, pulsing with life and color,” said Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and founder of Pristine Seas, the expedition that made the serendipitous discovery.
The coral is three times bigger than the previous record holder, which is known as “Big Momma” and located in American Samoa. While “Big Momma” is as tall as a giraffe, the new coral is the size of a blue whale.
The Solomon Islands, a cluster of hundreds of islands in the South Pacific and fittingly bordered by the Coral Sea, hosts the second highest coral diversity on the planet, boasting more than 490 known species.
“What many people don’t realize is that corals, though appearing as simple rocks, are actually living creatures that build these incredible habitats,” said Ronnie Posala, Fisheries officer at the Solomon Islands Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.
He added that corals are critical defenses against the effects of climate change, saying that they “act as the first line of defense for coastal communities, buffering against powerful waves and storms.”
Corals and coral reefs are endangered due to global warming, which results in coral bleaching. According to UNESCO, the coral reefs in all 29 reef-containing World Heritage sites would cease to exist by the end of this century if human-created processes continue to emit the current level of greenhouse gasses.
“Despite its remote location, this coral is not safe from global warming and other human threats,” said Sala.
But the newly discovered reef also brings optimism, according to Eric Brown, a coral scientist on the National Geographic expedition.
“While the nearby shallow reefs were degraded due to warmer seas,” said Brown, “witnessing this large healthy coral oasis in slightly deeper waters is a beacon of hope.”
(LONDON) — President Joe Biden will see out his term knowing that President-elect Donald Trump — a man he fought desperately hard to unseat in 2020 and called a “genuine danger to American security” — will succeed him.
Foreign policy has been central in Biden’s long political career. It will likewise form a major chunk of his legacy, as will the two wars — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Middle East conflagration sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — that erupted during his term.
Now less encumbered by political calculations — for himself or for Vice President Kamala Harris — and with only two months until Trump’s second inauguration, the outgoing president may have one last window to wield the power of the Oval Office in both theaters.
But with Trump looming above the outgoing Biden-Harris administration, American allies and enemies may be hesitant to engage with the outgoing administration.
European nations, for example, are already shifting focus to how best to court Trump, Leslie Vinjamuri of the British Chatham House think tank told ABC News.
“All these European leaders are very quickly reaching out,” she added. “They’re congratulating him. They want to talk with him. They want to work with him, because they understand that the stakes are extremely high and they clearly feel that by talking with him, they have an ability to influence policy and the outcome.”
“What they don’t want to do is to be seen to be making a deal with Joe Biden that undercuts whatever it is that Trump is going to do,” Vinjamuri added.
“It’s a very tricky position to be in, because if anything’s visible that cuts across what he wants to do, you as a leader risk being punished.”
Those at the top of American politics know that foreign policy success can accelerate careers and define legacies. Former President Richard Nixon infamously undermined President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War during the 1968 election campaign for fear it would reduce his chances of victory.
Though he has already secured his second term, Trump appears unlikely to help the Biden administration with any foreign policy “wins” in its closing days.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and room for maneuver — it’s highly unpredictable,” Vinjamuri said.
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine has dominated much of Biden’s presidency. He will leave office with Moscow’s forces holding large parts of Ukraine and still advancing, even if slowly and at huge cost.
“I think that now Biden can be much more decisive in support of Ukraine, especially when he sees that Trump will be the next president,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News.
“Biden has his hands completely untied,” Merezhko added. “Now Biden is thinking about his legacy.”
“He might even try to take some decisions which will make irreversible changes in support of Ukraine — for example, he might lift all the restrictions on the use of the Western weapons on the territory of Russia,” Merezhko said. “And he might start the process of inviting Ukraine to join NATO.”
Merezkho acknowledged that progress on the NATO front might be ambitious. “Yes, he doesn’t have much time,” he said. “But he — with [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken — might do something creative to help Ukraine.”
It appears unlikely that Biden’s final months will bring Kyiv any closer to NATO membership. Ukrainian leaders are still pushing for an invitation to join the alliance despite fierce opposition from Russia — and hesitance among key alliance members. Allies have repeatedly said that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” but even top officials in Kyiv acknowledge this cannot happen amid war with Moscow.
The outgoing president may at least be able to ring fence much-needed funding for Kyiv.
Matthew Savill of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., said Biden “might choose in his last months in office to use the remainder of the funding available for support to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority, amounting to over $5 billion.”
The Pentagon has already committed to rolling out new funding packages between now and January totaling some $9 billion. “That is consistent with how we’ve been doing this in the past,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told journalists last week. “It’s something that we’ve done on a pretty regular, almost weekly, basis.”
Biden has also reportedly already decided to allow non-combat American defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair U.S.-provided weaponry.
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that deeper sanctions on “Putin’s inner circle” are on Kyiv’s wish list, along with the delivery of all previously allocated aid, commitments for more, plus the end to restrictions on Western weapon use inside Russia.
Trump has suggested he would quickly end Russia’s invasion by threatening to cut off military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to hand Moscow direct or indirect control of swaths of occupied territory in the south and east of the country.
As such, his election has raised concerns in Ukraine of an imminent sellout.
Merezhko, though, stressed the unpredictability of the president-elect. “Trump might become even more critical of Russia to show that all suspicions about him are groundless,” he said.
“We know that Trump loves his country and seeks to protect its interests in accordance with his vision,” Cherniev said. “Therefore, we are confident that the U.S. will not leave us alone with Russia, since this is not in the interests of the U.S. and the free world.”
“However, much will depend on Putin’s willingness to make concessions and compromises,” he added. “If the Russian dictator does not show due flexibility, I think Trump will increase his support for Ukraine.”
As to potential tensions between Trump and Biden in the coming months, Merezhko said, “Competition between them will continue.”
“For us, it would be better if they compete amongst themselves on who will do more for Ukraine.”
European nations, meanwhile, will be bracing for Trump while hoping to influence the president-elect’s take on the war.
Vinjamuri, of the Chatham House think tank, said Europeans will also be working closely with the Biden administration “to put in place everything that they can to keep Europe and Ukraine in as good a place as possible before Jan. 20, when Trump comes in and tries to negotiate a peace deal.”
“That means that getting Ukraine in the best position on the ground, because when you start negotiating a peace, a lot of what gets locked in is based on what land people hold,” she said.
The Middle East
The Biden administration’s pre-election Middle East diplomatic push does not appear to have made significant breakthroughs in either Gaza or Lebanon. Fierce ground fighting and devastating Israeli airstrikes continue on both fronts, with the toll of civilian dead and displaced growing ever larger.
The regional war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw around 250 taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel’s military response in the strip has killed some 43,600 people and injured more than 102,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s airstrike and ground campaign in Lebanon has killed more than 3,000 since Oct. 8, 2023, Lebanese health officials say.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — one of his prime political rivals and an advocate for a cease-fire deal — on the eve of the U.S. election, reinforcing his position and entrenching his government’s commitment to what he has called “total victory.”
Hafed Al-Ghwell, senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News he has little expectation of peace during Biden’s final months. “I don’t think he has any incentive to do anything,” Hafed said.
“In the case of Israel and Palestine, Biden has taken not just a political stand but an ideological one, and there is no sign that he is going to change that,” Hafed added. “He has called himself a Zionist, and he had ample opportunity to stop this war. Even when the United Nations proposed a resolution to end the occupation, he didn’t support it.”
“It would be really controversial for an outgoing president to make any major decisions,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be confident in the new White House’s backing in his suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese groups, as well as in his wider showdown with Iran.
Netanyahu “probably feels like he has a free run,” Vinjamuri said. “Even if Biden tried to push him, I’m not so sure he would be responsive, because he knows that Trump is now coming into office.”
Hafed suggested Netanyahu’s domestic concerns, too, will be driving his policy in the coming months. “He knows that the minute this war stops, the Israeli public won’t want him around,” he said. “So, he will continue the war in Lebanon and probably threaten Iran, knowing he will have the full support of Trump.”
Burcu Ozcelik at RUSI said the extent of Trump’s influence over Netanyahu tops “a complex list of unknowns.”
“Trump in recent weeks indicated that he was prepared to give Israel freer rein, provided that the war ended by the time he entered office,” he added.
Those living in the region will be left grappling with the fallout, Hafed continued. “For the people of the Middle East, Biden’s legacy is one of a bloodbath,” he said. “The region is bitter and battered.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this article.
(LONDON) — Kate, the Princess of Wales, is opening up about her health six months after announcing she had been diagnosed with cancer.
Kate, the wife of Prince William and a mom of three, said in a video message Monday that she is focused on staying “cancer free” and gradually returning to work after completing chemotherapy.
“As the summer comes to an end, I cannot tell you what a relief it is to have finally completed my chemotherapy treatment,” Kate, 42, said in the video message shared by Kensington Palace. “The last nine months have been incredibly tough for us as a family. Life as you know it can change in an instant and we have had to find a way to navigate the stormy waters and road unknown.”
Kate went onto describe her cancer journey as “complex, scary and unpredictable for everyone,” adding of the perspective it’s given her, “This time has above all reminded William and me to reflect and be grateful for the simple yet important things in life, which so many of us often take for granted. Of simply loving and being loved.”
The video gives an intimate glimpse into Kate and her family, including William and their three children, Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte.
The footage, taken by photographer Will Warr in August in Norfolk, England, shows the Wales family playing outside, enjoying a picnic together and embracing in hugs and kisses.
In one clip, Kate, William and their three children are seen playing a card game with Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton.
In other clips, William and Kate are seen walking and sitting together and embracing.
Kate announced in March that she had been diagnosed with cancer after undergoing what the palace described as “planned abdominal surgery” in January.
She has not revealed publicly what type of cancer she faced, nor exact details of her treatment beyond that she was undergoing “preventative chemotherapy.”
In the newly-released video, Kate said she plans to take on a few additional public duties after remaining out of the public spotlight for most of the past year.
“Doing what I can to stay cancer free is now my focus. Although I have finished chemotherapy, my path to healing and full recovery is long and I must continue to take each day as it comes,” she said. “I am however looking forward to being back at work and undertaking a few more public engagements in the coming months when I can.”
Since March, she has been seen only a few times publicly, including attending Trooping the Colour in June and watching the men’s singles final at Wimbledon in July alongside her daughter Charlotte.
Prior to attending Trooping the Colour in June, Kate shared a health update, saying she was “making good progress” while undergoing chemotherapy but was not “out of the woods yet.”
Kate said at the time that her treatment would continue “for a few more months.”
Kate’s absence from public duties came at the same time that her father-in-law, King Charles III, also faced a cancer diagnosis.
Buckingham Palace announced in February that Charles was diagnosed with cancer, but did not specify the type of cancer, the stage of cancer or the type of treatment.
Charles also spent time away from public duties before returning to a modified schedule of public engagements in late April.
The king’s first public royal engagement since his own cancer diagnosis was a visit to a cancer treatment center in London.
(LONDON) — At least nine people are dead and over 2,750 people were injured after pager devices owned by a large number of workers in various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded on Tuesday, according to Lebanese officials and the group.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the attack and vowed it would respond. The apparent attack comes amid rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression, which also targeted civilians and led to the deaths of a number of martyrs and the injury of a large number with various wounds,” Hezbollah said in a statement. “This treacherous and criminal enemy will certainly receive his just punishment for this sinful aggression, whether he expects it or not.”
The dead and injured included people who are not members of Hezbollah, such as a 10-year-old girl killed in the eastern village of Saraain, according to Hezbollah-owned Al-Ahed News. Two Hezbollah members were also dead, the outlet reported.
“These explosions, the causes of which are still unknown, led to the martyrdom of a girl and two brothers, and the injury of a large number of people with various injuries,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
About 200 of the injuries are critical, meaning they needed surgery, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Most of the injuries were to the face, hand or abdomen, officials said.
The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those who had one of the pagers and was injured due to an explosion Tuesday, according to Iranian state TV.
Amani said in a phone call after the incident that he was “feeling well and fully conscious,” according to Iranian state TV.
The Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said it condemned the alleged Israeli attack and have begun preparing a complaint to the Security Council.
The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards,” adding that “the government immediately began making all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to place it before its responsibilities regarding this continuing crime.”
Hezbollah said it is conducting a “security and scientific investigation to determine the causes that led to these simultaneous explosions.”
There have also been high-level contacts between the U.S. and Israel prompted by Tuesday’s incidents in Lebanon, according to a U.S. official.
The U.S. said it had no role in the apparent attack on Hezbollah and no warning that it would happen, according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. He also declined to offer an assessment on who could be behind it, saying only that the administration was “gathering information” on the incident.
Miller wouldn’t say whether the administration had any information to doubt Hezbollah’s claim that Israel was behind the explosions and only said that he didn’t want to offer an assessment “one way or the other.” The Israeli government has declined to comment on the matter.
The White House also said it was not aware the attack was going to happen ahead of time and would not speculate on who was behind it, according to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
This attack comes as U.S. diplomats have been working intensely to avoid escalation at Israel’s northern border and amid fears that a full-blown war between the country and Hezbollah, which sits on a vast trove of missiles, could engulf the entire region. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is, coincidentally, on his way to the region and scheduled to land in Egypt on Tuesday night.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke again on Tuesday after speaking on Monday.
The latest conversation was intended “to touch base regarding ongoing tensions in the Middle East and the threats facing Israel, to include the Houthi missile attack over the weekend,” according to Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.
Ryder said America’s focus was to ensure tensions in the region do not escalate.
“We strongly believe that the way to reduce tension along the Israel-Lebanon border is diplomacy,” he said.
Iran and Hezbollah are likely to retaliate for the attack, but it could take them time to do so while they assess what happened, according to a U.S. official. The official also said 50 or more people were targeted in Syria in this attack.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health has issued a statement Tuesday instructing all hospitals in various regions of Lebanon to be on maximum alert and raise their level of readiness to meet the rapid need for emergency health services.
The ministry noted that preliminary information indicates “the injuries were related to the explosion of wireless devices that were in the possession of the injured.”
The ministry also asked all citizens who own pagers to throw them away immediately.
The Lebanese Red Cross said it has deployed “more than 30 ambulances” to help treat and evacuate “the wounded as a result of multiple explosions in the South, the Bekaa and the southern suburbs of Beirut,” according to a post on its official X account.
The group also added “50 more ambulances and 300 Emergency Medical Technicians [are] on standby to assist in the evacuation of victims.”
About 100 hospitals took in the wounded, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said.
Back in February, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had urged members to stop using mobile phones, saying, “I call for dispensing with cellphone devices at this stage, which are considered a deadly agent.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez, Shannon K. Kingston and Anne Flaherty contributed to this report
