The quake, the strongest to hit the Philippines this year, struck off the coast of Mindanao island at 7:37 a.m. local time, causing widespread panic and disruption across several southern provinces.

Authorities said the death toll rose after at least 17 fatalities were reported in Sarangani province, where a landslide buried homes in the mountainous town of Glan.Rene Punzalan, a disaster mitigation official in Sarangani, said 13 villagers were killed in the landslide, while four others died elsewhere in the province.

The new casualties brought the overall death toll from the earthquake to at least 32.The earthquake damaged buildings, disrupted transportation and displaced thousands of residents. Philippine disaster officials said most fatalities were caused by collapsing structures, landslides and falling debris across the provinces of Sarangani, South Cotabato, Davao Occidental and nearby Balut Island.

In General Santos City, a regional commercial hub with a population of more than 700,000, several buildings were severely damaged or collapsed, including a popular fast-food restaurant. Seven people were reported killed in the city, while police said at least 12 others remained missing.

Search and rescue operations were underway at damaged structures, including a warehouse and commercial buildings, according to emergency responders.President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the suspension of classes in affected areas and directed national disaster agencies to mobilize emergency assistance.

Officials said more than 100 students suffered minor injuries or fainted during school flag-raising ceremonies as the quake struck shortly after public schools reopened following the summer break.The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology said the earthquake occurred near Maasim town in Sarangani province at a depth of about 33 kilometers.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the depth at 55 kilometers, differences that are common during initial assessments.Authorities recorded multiple aftershocks, including tremors reaching magnitude 6.5, and warned residents to avoid returning to damaged buildings until structural inspections are completed.The quake generated tsunami warnings across parts of the Pacific.

Waves of up to 1.4 meters were recorded along sections of the Philippine coastline, while smaller waves were detected in Indonesia, Palau and Japan.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center later said the broader tsunami threat had largely passed, prompting Philippine authorities to lift evacuation warnings by mid-afternoon.

The earthquake temporarily shut General Santos International Airport and led to the cancellation of 17 domestic flights, according to aviation authorities.Situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire, the Philippines is among the world’s most disaster-prone countries and frequently experiences major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tropical cyclones.

A prolonged marine heatwave off the California coast is altering whale migration and feeding behavior, increasing the risk of entanglements with commercial fishing equipment and accelerating efforts to expand whale-safe fishing technologies across the U.S. west coast.

Scientists say warming offshore waters are shrinking the cold, nutrient-rich zones that sustain krill, anchovies and sardines, key prey species for humpback whales. As those prey populations move closer to shore, whales are increasingly entering areas heavily used by California’s Dungeness crab fleet.

The overlap has intensified concerns over the fishery’s conventional trap system, which relies on vertical lines extending from traps on the seafloor to floating surface buoys. Tens of thousands of such lines can remain in the water during crab season, creating entanglement hazards for whales migrating and feeding along the Pacific coast.

California regulators this spring again imposed restrictions on portions of the commercial crab fishery off central California, temporarily closing areas to traditional gear as whale activity increased near fishing grounds.

Similar closures have become more common in recent years as ocean warming disrupts long-established migration and feeding patterns.Marine biologists say humpback whales face the greatest risk because of their behavior around fishing equipment.“Humpbacks are curious and they’ll scratch their backs on the gear,” said Kathi George, director of cetacean conservation biology at The Marine Mammal Center.

“If they get a line caught on their body, they’ll breach and they’ll roll and end up entangling themselves.”Entangled whales can remain trapped in fishing gear for months, often dragging heavy equipment across long distances.

Researchers say the strain can prevent whales from feeding or diving normally, contributing to exhaustion, infection, starvation and drowning.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 36 whales were confirmed entangled along the U.S. west coast in 2024, the highest reported number since 2018.

Scientists caution that many incidents likely go unrecorded because entangled whales can disappear offshore before being observed.In response, California approved commercial deployment of ropeless “pop-up” crab fishing systems for the first time this year, allowing parts of the fleet to continue operating later into the season while reducing risks to marine mammals.

The technology eliminates permanently floating buoy lines. Instead, ropes and buoys remain stored with the trap on the seafloor until fishermen return and activate an acoustic release mechanism that sends the gear to the surface.

Supporters say the system could substantially reduce whale entanglements while allowing fishermen to maintain harvests during periods when traditional gear would otherwise be prohibited.

Environmental groups and fisheries managers increasingly view adaptive fishing systems as necessary as climate-driven ocean changes intensify along the Pacific coast.

Scientists expect continued overlap between whales, shipping traffic and fishing operations as warming conditions reshape marine ecosystems.“We will have to continue to be adaptive and science driven in terms of our management to reduce wildlife risk and keep fishermen on the water,” said Caitlynn Birch, a marine scientist and Pacific campaign manager at Oceana.

Birch said California’s transition toward whale-safe fishing systems could become a model for other fisheries operating along the west coast.Separate monitoring efforts are also expanding in California’s coastal waters as researchers and conservation agencies seek to better track whale movements in high-risk areas.

Camera systems installed near locations including Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island may eventually support broader surveillance coverage across the San Francisco Bay region to improve detection of whales moving near shipping lanes and fishing zones.

Marine heatwaves in the Pacific have become more frequent and intense over the past decade, affecting fish populations, marine mammal migration routes and coastal fisheries.

Researchers say those changes are forcing regulators and fishing industries to adopt increasingly flexible management systems capable of responding quickly to changing environmental conditions.

United States Southern Command released video footage on social media showing what appeared to be a vessel at sea moments before an explosion engulfed it in flames.The military said it immediately alerted the United States Coast Guard to begin search-and-rescue operations for the surviving individual.The strike marked the latest in a series of U.S. military operations targeting suspected drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea since September

. According to Associated Press reporting, the campaign has resulted in at least 193 deaths. The Pentagon has repeatedly said the targeted vessels were operating along known drug-smuggling routes and linked to trafficking networks, though officials have not publicly presented evidence showing that the destroyed boats were carrying narcotics.

The operation came days after the White House announced that President Donald Trump had approved a revised U.S. counterterrorism strategy prioritizing the dismantling of drug cartels across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Trump has described cartels as an “unacceptable threat” to hemispheric security and has urged regional governments to intensify military cooperation with Washington against organized crime and transnational gangs.

The strikes have intensified in recent weeks despite growing scrutiny from legal scholars and human rights groups, who have questioned the legality of using military force against suspected traffickers outside conventional armed conflict zones.

Critics have argued the operations risk constituting extrajudicial killings because the U.S. government has disclosed limited evidence about the identities of those targeted or the intelligence underpinning the attacks.

The campaign has also coincided with a major expansion of U.S. military activity in Latin America and Caribbean waters, where the administration says it is attempting to curb narcotics flows into the United States and disrupt cartel financing networks.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said sea surface temperatures in April were the second-highest ever recorded for the month, with warming accelerating across parts of the Pacific Ocean as neutral conditions transition toward El Niño.

Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said daily ocean temperatures in recent days had moved close to surpassing the previous records set in 2024.

“It’s a matter of days before we are back in record-breaking ocean SSTs again,” Burgess told AFP, referring to sea surface temperatures.

Copernicus said marine heatwaves reached unprecedented levels in waters between the tropical Pacific and the United States during April, reflecting broader warming trends tied to both natural climate variability and long-term greenhouse gas emissions.

Last month, the World Meteorological Organization said El Niño conditions could emerge between May and July. The climate phenomenon, linked to warming Pacific Ocean waters and shifting trade winds, alters global weather systems and raises the likelihood of drought, heavy rainfall and severe heat events.

Scientists say El Niño is unfolding against a backdrop of persistent global warming, with oceans absorbing roughly 90 percent of excess heat generated by human-driven emissions from fossil fuels.

The previous El Niño contributed to 2023 and 2024 becoming the second- and hottest years on record respectively, according to climate agencies. Some forecasters believe the developing event could rival the strength of the “super” El Niño recorded in the late 1990s.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, said last week that a strong El Niño could significantly increase the chances of 2027 becoming the hottest year ever observed globally.

Burgess cautioned that forecasting the intensity of El Niño during the Northern Hemisphere spring remains difficult because of seasonal uncertainties in climate models. She said, however, that the event was already likely to have substantial global consequences.

“We’re likely to see 2027 exceed 2024 for the warmest year on record,” Burgess said, noting that El Niño’s strongest influence on global temperatures often emerges in the year after it peaks.In its monthly climate bulletin, Copernicus said April temperatures globally were 1.43 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, making it the third-warmest April on record.

The agency also reported Arctic sea ice levels remained near historic lows during April, while Europe experienced contrasting weather conditions that could increase the risk of drought and wildfires during the coming summer.

Climate researchers say the persistence of marine heatwaves, shrinking ice cover and rising global temperatures underscores the intensifying impact of climate change, even before the full effects of El Niño materialize.

Nearly 90 years after a strange marine carcass was discovered inside the stomach of a sperm whale off the coast of Canada, scientists, cryptozoologists and marine historians remain divided over whether the remains represented an unknown species or a decomposed basking shark, one of the Pacific Ocean’s most elusive and heavily persecuted marine animals.

The mystery dates back to October 1937, when workers at a whaling station in Haida Gwaii recovered a 3-metre carcass from a sperm whale caught in waters off the Pacific coast. Witnesses described the creature as having a dog-like head, a camel-shaped nose, a reptilian body and a horse-like tail. The remains were reportedly coated in a thin white layer.

The carcass was placed on a platform assembled from wooden crates and photographed before an image appeared on the front page of a regional newspaper on 31 October 1937. The discovery quickly became linked to local stories about “Cadborosaurus,” a legendary marine cryptid said to inhabit the waters of the Salish Sea and the Pacific Northwest.

No biological samples from the carcass survive today, leaving researchers to rely entirely on a small number of black-and-white photographs and eyewitness testimony. The absence of physical evidence has allowed competing interpretations of the discovery to persist for decades.

John Kirk, president of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, argues that the remains belonged to an unidentified marine species rather than a known shark. Kirk has cited interviews with whaling station workers, including one flenser involved in removing the carcass from the whale.Kirk contends that scientific institutions prematurely dismissed the discovery.

He has also pointed to a second alleged Cadborosaurus specimen discovered in 1968 near Naden Harbour, southeast of Haida Gwaii, which was later discarded after museum officials identified it as a fetal baleen whale.“We lost a massive discovery here because of misidentification,” Kirk said in interviews discussing the case.

He has maintained that the 1937 remains possessed hair-like structures inconsistent with shark anatomy and argued the carcass more closely resembled a marine mammal than a reptile or fish.Most marine biologists, however, reject the theory that the remains represented an unknown species. They instead identify the carcass as a decomposing basking shark, a species once common off the coast of British Columbia before government eradication campaigns sharply reduced its population.

Basking shark are the second-largest fish species in the world and can exceed 10 metres in length. Unlike most sharks, they feed passively on plankton near the water’s surface. Because their skeletons are composed primarily of cartilage rather than bone, their bodies undergo dramatic transformations during decomposition.

Ben Speers-Roesch, a marine biologist at the University of New Brunswick, said decomposing basking sharks often create what scientists call the “pseudo-plesiosaur carcass” phenomenon. As the shark’s gill structures collapse and soft tissue deteriorates, the remains can appear to have a long neck, small head and paddle-like appendages resembling extinct marine reptiles.

“With a long spinal cord and a small head at the end, it looks like a mythological sea serpent,” Speers-Roesch said, noting that unfamiliarity with shark decomposition can lead observers to misidentify carcasses.Marine scientists have cited similar cases elsewhere.

In 1977, the Japanese fishing vessel Zuiyō Maru recovered a decomposed carcass off the coast of New Zealand that some initially believed represented a surviving plesiosaur. Subsequent amino acid analysis determined the remains belonged to a basking shark.Speers-Roesch acknowledged that the 1937 Canadian photographs differ slightly from typical basking shark carcasses because of how the remains were displayed after recovery.

He also noted that juvenile basking sharks have occasionally been found inside sperm whales, making the scenario biologically plausible.“The mystery has persisted because it has elements that are not as easily identifiable as a basking shark,” he said. “But so much of the carcass captures what we know about basking sharks and how they decompose.”

The debate over the Cadborosaurus photographs has increasingly intersected with renewed scientific attention on basking sharks themselves. Once abundant in Pacific waters near Vancouver Island, the species became the target of official eradication programs during the mid-20th century.

In 1955, the Canadian federal government launched a campaign to eliminate basking sharks after the animals were blamed for damaging salmon fishing nets. Authorities equipped patrol vessels with large blades mounted on their bows, devices locally described as “razor-billed shark slashers.”Scott Wallace, a former fisheries scientist who authored a 2007 federal report classifying the species as endangered in British Columbia waters, said the vessels intentionally rammed sharks at the surface.

“They simply cut them in half,” Wallace said in accounts describing the program.Government estimates indicate at least 413 basking sharks were deliberately killed during the following 14 years, while another 1,500 may have died through fishing-net entanglements. Additional mortality occurred through a short-lived commercial fishery targeting shark liver oil. Scientists estimate that as many as 2,600 sharks, representing more than 90% of the regional population, were eliminated.

The eradication campaign formed part of broader marine predator control policies implemented during the period. Fisheries authorities also targeted seals, sea lions and orcas around salmon fishing grounds. In the early 1960s, officials installed a .50-calibre machine gun on a coastal island for use against killer whales, although records indicate the weapon was never deployed.

Today, basking sharks are protected under Canadian federal law. It is illegal to kill, harm or capture the species in British Columbia waters, and federal recovery plans remain in place. Fisheries officials have nevertheless stated that recovery of the population could take up to 200 years.

Interest in the species resurfaced after a rare basking shark sighting off the British Columbia coast in 2024 renewed scientific and public attention on the animals and the history of their decline.For cryptozoologists such as Kirk, the absence of definitive proof continues to sustain theories that unknown marine species may still inhabit the Pacific depths.

Marine scientists, however, argue the case ultimately demonstrates how limited human understanding remains when interpreting rare ocean phenomena, especially when decomposition dramatically alters the appearance of marine animals.

The Orion spacecraft, carrying Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, reentered Earth’s atmosphere at speeds approaching Mach 33, enduring extreme heat before parachuting into the Pacific, where recovery forces including the USS John P. Murtha awaited.

The mission, launched from Florida on April 1, represents NASA’s first crewed journey to the vicinity of the moon in more than five decades. Artemis II did not land or enter lunar orbit but surpassed the distance record set by Apollo 13, reaching approximately 252,756 miles (406,771 km) from Earth.

Mission control monitored the critical reentry phase closely, particularly the performance of the spacecraft’s heat shield, which must withstand temperatures of several thousand degrees. A brief communications blackout lasting about six minutes occurred as expected before parachute deployment.

During the mission’s lunar flyby earlier in the week, the crew captured imagery of the moon’s far side and observed a total solar eclipse, according to NASA. Astronauts also transmitted images showing Earth setting behind the lunar horizon, evoking earlier Apollo-era imagery.

Despite its achievements, the mission encountered minor technical issues, including valve problems affecting drinking water and propellant systems, as well as intermittent malfunctions in onboard sanitation equipment. Crew members reported managing the issues without significant impact on mission objectives.

Artemis II is a precursor to future missions under NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon. Planned follow-on missions include Artemis III, expected to test docking maneuvers in Earth orbit, and Artemis IV, which is intended to attempt a crewed lunar landing near the moon’s south pole later in the decade.

The mission drew international attention and marked a significant step in the United States’ renewed efforts in human deep-space exploration.