The paper, entitled ‘Will the declining sea ice extent in the Arctic cause a reversal of net benthic-pelagic exchange directions?’ – suggests that these changes will go on to disrupt the natural movement of matter between the seabed and the water column – a key process for cycling carbon and nutrients. This movement depends on physical mixing, animal activity, and other drivers, and it can work in two directions – particles and dissolved matter moving down, or being stirred back up.
This study is part of the Changing Arctic Ocean Seafloor project (or ChAOS), which focused on the Barents Sea – a shallow shelf sea in the Arctic Ocean. Much of this work hs been carried out by Plymouth Marine Lab’s Dr Saskia Rühl.
Through in-situ sampling and experiments, Rühl and her team have examined how matter moves between the seabed and water under different ice conditions.
The study found that in the southern Barents Sea – which has more of an Atlantic influence – dissolved substances mostly move down into the seafloor while particles move up into the water. In the northern barents Sea, however – with more of an Arctic influence – the opposite happens. This makes the northern area more of what the scientists call ‘a depositional zone’ – where material settles and supports productivity near the sediment surface.
All of these findings offer insight into how a warming Arctic could reshape these vital processes in the future. As the Polar Front is pushed further North, the Northern regions are likely to become more similar to today’s Southern conditions, leading to a larger area in which particles are not deposited reliably, and seafloors are more prone to disturbances.
“Our findings highlight the need for broad, multidisciplinary monitoring of the Arctic’s changing ecosystems,” said Dr Rühl. “Understanding how particulate and dissolved fluxes respond to climate and human pressures is critical for predicting impacts on biodiversity, fisheries, and the Arctic’s role in storing carbon.
“This research provides a vital foundation for future studies and for refining ecosystem models in one of the world’s most climate-sensitive seas.”
Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom.
The seasons are changing and as Central Park kisses Summertime goodbye, it opens its arms to another Global Citizen Festival. What’s set to be a day filled with moving, grooving, action-taking, and calls for urgent change will go beyond the physical stage we’re setting up in New York — we want to be wherever you are, and that’s why we’ve set up a stellar streaming plan for the 2025 festival. But first… what, and who, should you expect to see?
We’re thrilled to have a remarkable lineup of artists and speakers to guide you through the night. The 13th annual Global Citizen Festival will be headlined by The Weeknd and Shakira, and will include performances by Tyla, Ayra Starr, Mariah the Scientist, and Camilo. We’re also welcoming back Global Citizen Ambassador, Hugh Jackman to the stage as host for the festival; Bill Nye, Adam Lambert, Danai Gurira, and Liza Koshy will serve as co-hosts.
Others set to take to the stage include Kristen Bell, Tony Goldwyn, Laurie Hernandez, Nate Burleson, Vladimir Duthiers, Lydia Kekeli Amenyaglo, Fy Rajaonarivelo, Esther Kimani,Omowumi Ogunrotimi, Valeriia Rachynska, and Taily Terena. Solstice Unites will open the Global Citizen Festival with a historic Global Powwow to honor the land and the ancestral stewards of the grounds, and a special performance from the women-led Samba reggae marching band Fogo Azul.
Where Can I Watch Global Citizen Festival 2025?
You don’t have to miss a second of the festival – wherever you are is where we’ll be, because we’ll be streaming live around the world. It kicks off at 2:00pm EST in Central Park, New York, but you can keep up with the festivities from across the globe.
Tune in on Saturday, Sept. 27 and watch the festival live on:
YouTube
Apple Music and the Apple TV app
The Amazon Music En Vivo channel on Twitch, the Amazon Live FAST channel on Prime Video and FireTV
Brut, DITU, iHeartRadio, Mediacorp, Veeps, ViX, VIZIO WatchFree+
The Global Citizen website and the Global Citizen app.
Here’s your shortcut to every Global Citizen Festival streaming experience available this year.
It will also be broadcast theatrically in India with PVR INOX Cinemas on Sunday, Sept. 28.
What Are We Advocating This Year?
This year, our campaign is working to mobilize $200 million to help protect 30 million hectares of the Amazon rainforest, expand access to quality education for 30,000 children globally through our partnership with FIFA, and push to deliver reliable energy access to 1 million people across Africa.
We go a bit more into detail on these goals in this article — which is a must-read to fully grasp this year’s festival mission.
Want to Get Tickets?
If you’ll be in New York and you’ve just now decided that you have to be there (great decision, by the way) then we’ve got good news for you: you can still get tickets! But you have to move fast, the countdown to the big day has officially begun.
As always, tickets to the Global Citizen Festival are free — and can be earned by taking action on our campaign goals through the Global Citizen app or website. You can use the Global Citizen app or site to call on world leaders to support policies that defeat poverty and defend the planet. By doing this, you’ll earn points for every action you take, which you can redeem for a chance to win a Global Citizen Festival ticket for free.
How Else Can I Get Involved?
We’re stepping it up in the name of action this year, going beyond Central Park and into the community. On Sept. 19, Global Citizen is calling on residents to join a beach cleanup at Canarsie Pier, in partnership with the Jamaica Bay – Rockaway Parks Conservancy, supported by Goodera, and in collaboration with the Black Surfing Association East Coast Chapter.
Let’s defend the planet together and protect New York City’s coastline. Plus, everyone who volunteers will earn a free ticket to the 2025 Global Citizen Festival. Don’t miss your chance to make an impact — sign up today right here.
Keep up with all festival updates by downloading the Global Citizen app, and following Global Citizen on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Wherever you are in the world, you can be part of Global Citizen Festival 2025 — by taking action, tuning in, and helping build a healthier, more sustainable future for all.
Integration of Falcon Shield with Salesforce Security Center and Charlotte AI with Agentforce delivers enhanced protection, visibility, and faster response for mission-critical AI agents, applications, and workflows
AUSTIN, Texas and Fal.Con 2025, Las Vegas – September 16, 2025 – CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD) and Salesforce, the world’s #1 AI CRM, today announced a new strategic partnership to enhance the security of AI agents and applications built on Agentforce and the Salesforce Platform. Through integrations between CrowdStrike Falcon® Shield and Salesforce Security Center, Salesforce admins and security professionals will gain enhanced visibility, compliance support, and protection for mission-critical workflows – simplifying operations and uniting business and security teams on a shared foundation of trust in the agentic era.
The partnership also enables customers to access CrowdStrike’s agentic security analyst, Charlotte AI, through Agentforce for Security and use it to work directly alongside teammates in Slack, flagging potential threats and recommending actions in a conversational manner as any other employee would.
As agents join the workforce, security teams must understand what they are doing, trace them back to their human creators, and prevent them from becoming over privileged or compromised. CrowdStrike and Salesforce are meeting this challenge by delivering the visibility and control needed to secure the future of AI-powered business.
“Adversaries are already targeting AI agents and applications with identity-based attacks. Together with Salesforce, we’re extending the power of the Falcon platform to protect mission-critical workflows and secure the next generation of AI-powered business,” said Daniel Bernard, chief business officer at CrowdStrike. “By integrating Falcon Shield into Salesforce Security Center and bringing Charlotte AI into Agentforce, business and security teams gain a unified view of risk and response – protecting today’s operations while enabling tomorrow’s AI-driven enterprise.”
“A key to unlocking the full potential of agentic AI lies in the ability to secure it,” said Brian Landsman, CEO of AppExchange and Global Partnerships at Salesforce. “Our partnership with CrowdStrike ensures that our customers can build their agentic enterprises on Salesforce while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.”
Through the integration of Falcon Shield, which provides visibility and automated response to threats targeting SaaS applications, with Salesforce Security Center, which provides one comprehensive view of permissions and controls across the company’s Salesforce environment, customers gain:
Visibility and Accountability: Trace agents to their human creators, enabling a clear chain of accountability and privilege governance.
Proactive Risky Behavior Detection: Flag misconfigurations, overprivileged agents, and unusual activity inside Salesforce in real time.
Automatic Threat Containment: Automate response actions with Falcon® Fusion – such as blocking risky access or disabling compromised agents – directly from Salesforce Security Center.
Unified AI Agent Protection: Combine Falcon Shield, Falcon® Next-Gen Identity Security, and Falcon® Cloud Security to deliver end-to-end control over Agentforce agents and applications.
By bringing Charlotte AI into Slack through Agentforce for Security, CrowdStrike and Salesforce empower teams to quickly and efficiently handle security incidents without having to switch applications:
Accelerated Incident Response: Instantly create dedicated incident channels in Slack to coordinate response.
Conversational Threat Investigation: Use natural language to query Charlotte AI for immediate answers on threats, hosts, and data.
Real-Time Remediation: Isolate compromised devices or take other response actions directly from Slack, ensuring swift containment.
Together, CrowdStrike and Salesforce deliver stronger protection and visibility for mission-critical workflows – enabling enterprises to embrace AI securely today while building the foundation for future innovation.
Availability:
The Falcon Shield integration will be available from within the Salesforce Security Center and on the Salesforce AppExchange this year.
Charlotte AI will be integrating into Slack via Agentforce for Security and available via the AgentExchange and Slack Marketplace this year.
About CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike (NASDAQ: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk – endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.
Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.
Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.
This press release includes descriptions of products, features, or functionality which may not currently be generally available. Any such references are provided for informational purposes only. The development, release, and timing of all features or functionality remain at our sole discretion and may change without notice. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Customers should make purchasing decisions based only on services and features that are currently generally available. For more information on our existing offerings please talk to your CrowdStrike representative.
Amid increasing challenges today’s healthcare systems are facing, South Korea’s nurses are stepping into expanded roles to address critical care gaps. Evidence-based clinical decision support (CDS) tools and system-level reforms are essential to empowering the nursing workforce and improving patient outcomes.
South Korea’s healthcare challenges and nursing resilience
South Korea’s healthcare system is under intense pressure. During the webinar, “Beyond Burnout – How South Korean Nurses Are Driving Change and Sustainable Solutions,” panelists highlighted a convergence of challenges — chronic workforce shortages, rising patient demand due to an aging population, and widespread burnout. Nurses are increasingly recognized as essential to system resilience, with their roles broadening to cover care gaps as healthcare systems continue to face staffing challenges.
Han Dong Su, CEO of Nurse Institute and Ph.D. in Psychiatric Nursing, said new nurses now face months or even years before securing posts, while experienced nurses are placed on unpaid leave as hospitals suppress hiring. Hiring rates in 2024 dropped significantly, driven by policy changes and an imbalance in nursing graduates.
Despite these hurdles, nurses have shown resilience and adaptability, remaining central to patient care quality. The speakers agreed that expanding nurses’ responsibilities demands parallel improvements in training, compensation, and support — reforms that are vital for sustainable progress.
Key challenges and opportunities in expanded nursing roles include:
Competency gaps: Nursing education in Korea continues to emphasize memorization over clinical reasoning and hands-on judgment. As a result, students may graduate with excellent grades, yet still feel unprepared for real clinical decisions or advanced responsibilities.
Transition to practice: Many new nurses experience a significant gap between education and actual clinical practice. They often enter complex roles with limited support, which heightens anxiety and can erode confidence early in their careers.
Global models: Some countries, like Australia, have implemented evidence-based protocols such as the Emergency Care Assessment Tool (ECAT). These tools empower nurses to lead patient assessments and care pathways, improving wait times and helping build confidence in clinical judgments.
Systemic inertia: Progress in advanced nursing roles is often hindered by entrenched role boundaries, limited feedback mechanisms, and insufficient legal and compensation frameworks to support these expanded responsibilities.
Panelists agreed: Expanded roles only succeed with matching training, support, and recognition.
How clinical decision support systems empower nurses
Evidence-based tools, especially clinical decision support systems like UpToDate® and UpToDate® Lexidrug™, are vital for empowering nurses and strengthening institutional resilience.
During the webinar, several key benefits of clinical decision support systems (CDSS) for nursing teams were highlighted:
Supports clinical reasoning: Real-time, evidence-based information empowers nurses to make quicker and safer decisions, allowing for more accurate assessment of patient needs and effective collaboration.
Bridges the education-practice gap: Integrating digital tools such as UpToDate into nurse training helps reduce anxiety, reinforces best practices, and builds on-the-job confidence.
Reduces errors and overload: Digital references decrease reliance on memory and informal learning. By managing information load and guiding task prioritization, CDSS helps support nurse well-being and lowers error rates.
Enables teamwork: Evidence-based protocols give structure to team dynamics and foster respectful collaboration, ensuring nurses act as decision partners rather than being limited to task execution.
System-level reforms needed to empower and support nurses
Speakers called for broad, multi-level reform. Key recommendations include:
Advance education for clinical reasoning: Professor Park advocated revising curricula to focus on case-based learning and simulation, moving away from memorization and better preparing nurses for evolving roles.
Redefine and support advanced roles: New responsibilities need clear definitions, fair compensation, legal recognition, and ongoing development. Creating career paths for clinical support and advanced practice nurses is critical.
Widen CDSS adoption: All presenters agreed that decision support tools should be standard. Hospitals and training programs must prioritize technical fluency and workflow integration.
Enduring reform will require leadership and buy-in from decision-makers and regulatory bodies, along with the expertise of nurses themselves.
Take action to support your nursing workforce
Discover how UpToDate can empower your nursing workforce with evidence-based tools that enhance decision-making, collaboration, and care outcomes. Visit UpToDate’s page to see how this solution can transform your institution.
The Mpox patient that sticks most clearly in Dr Elin Hoffman Dahl’s mind had lesions all over his body: in his mouth making it agony to eat; painful swellings under his feet meaning even walking to the toilet was a struggle, while the skin was “almost completely gone” from a number of other areas.
“He was a very beautiful person and I remember he asked for a small mirror. It was very heartbreaking to see,” Dr Hoffman Dahl says.
For many people, Mpox is a relatively mild though uncomfortable virus that clears up without specific treatment. But in Sierra Leone, where Dr Hoffman Dahl was deployed to support the country’s outbreak with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an epidemic of untreated HIV has transformed it into a deadly disease for some.
While Sierra Leone’s outbreak response is largely being heralded as a success story, Mpox has revealed that the scale of HIV in the country may be far higher than national data suggests. Meanwhile, Trump’s aid cuts left the country scrambling to plug gaps in programmes that has likely hampered the speed of its response, activists have told The Independent.
The first Mpox cases were recorded in January this year and from April they began to spike. Dr Hoffman Dahl, an infectious diseases doctor in Norway, travelled with MSF to join a team of highly-skilled Sierra Leonean doctors – well-accustomed to dealing with infectious-disease outbreaks. But she and her team were alarmed by the rates of HIV they were finding in their Mpox patients, several times higher than the estimated national average of 1.7 per cent.
Dr Hoffman Dahl says this was a surprise in a country that’s considered to have a relatively low HIV burden. Her colleagues who had worked on Mpox in Democratic Republic of Congo were taken aback by the severity of the skin damage they were seeing.
Democratic Republic of Congo has also been experiencing an Mpox outbreak this year. (AP)
As well as cases of undiagnosed HIV, “I think one striking thing was that there was also quite a high number of people who had been diagnosed previously, but were not on treatment. And that, of course, tells you something – that it’s a stigma to be on treatment,” Dr Hoffman Dahl says. I had, for example, one patient who I was very open about [having]… stopped his medication two years ago.”
With medication, people living with HIV can generally deal with infections like anyone without the virus. But when Mpox finds someone with untreated HIV, whose immune system is severely compromised, it becomes a different story.
Then, the aim becomes, “to start people on HIV medicines and keep them alive until their immune system is able to heal the skin,” Dr Hoffman Dahl explains: “to keep them alive long enough for the medicines to reconstruct the immune system and to bring down the HIV virus.”
For her patient, this proved impossible.
‘Covering the gap’
“We managed to get [his] daughter to see him,” she recalls – he hadn’t seen her for months, reluctant to be seen so sick. “Two or three days later he died,” Dr Hoffman Dahl says, of complications from the infections battling it out in his body.
“It’s quite devastating…as a doctor you understand where it’s going and you feel like you’re not able to do enough”. Without enough labs, the more expensive antibiotics needed to deal with resistant infections and experimental anti-virals for Mpox that might be available in richer countries: “You’re not able to keep him alive just long enough for the drugs to be working.”
James Riak Mathiang, health programme manager for humanitarian charity GOAL Sierra Leone, worked closely with the country’s National Public Health Agency when Mpox cases emerged, to raise public awareness and work with communities to prevent more cases.
But the higher burden of HIV won’t be focused on until Mpox cases have been brought to zero, he says. Only after that will there be “further questions”, despite the fact that for some, their Mpox will never be brought under control unless their HIV is treated.
The impact on the Mpox response of Trump’s slashing foreign assistance spending down to the bare bones has likely been huge according to Riak Mathiang.
US aid funds cut by Trump could have been used for testing and hospital beds for Mpox patients. (AP)
The biggest effect is from the loss of what’s known as flexible funding from the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development (USAID), he thinks. That’s money not earmarked for a specific programme, giving outbreak management teams the leeway to respond “immediately”.
“Let’s say there’s an outbreak today; tomorrow you can start the response,” Riak Mathiang says, including testing and paying for health workers and hospital beds.
“Even the partners who may not been affected by USAID directly, they have to reposition or repurpose their budget to cover the gap,” he says, leaching from other sources of ready money. As a result, not as many organisations came on board to support the response as they had during Covid or past Ebola outbreaks.
The cuts could have another, longer-term effect too. Where they hit programmes for HIV and TB, they risk driving up those infections which creates more immune-compromised people for Mpox to attack, Dr Mohamed Bella Jalloh explains .
“Those funding cuts can have an effect on the outbreak because the people most affected by those funding cuts are the ones also likely most affected by Mpox,” says Dr Jalloh, a doctor from Sierra Leone currently conducting research in Canada.
Sierra Leone’s outbreak response has become a model for other countries in Africa, Riak Mathiang explains. Despite global shortages of Mpox vaccines, the country has managed to get more than 200,000 doses into the country.
“Case management, surveillance, even risk communication at urban areas, is also going very well,” he says while the government was able to add 400 beds to quarantine Mpox cases in hospitals.
(Getty Images)
Where the response fell short, he thinks, was in its slow start and delays in getting traditional leaders in rural areas on board.
Jedidah Johnson is a doctor working in the private sector who found herself unable to get a vaccine, despite treating patients with Mpox symptoms. She contracted the virus herself, having to isolate from her two small children and developing lesions on her eyes. She understood that government health workers were being prioritised, but became “very frustrated” when she began to hear of others who were getting the vaccine ahead of her and her colleagues – seemingly because of personal connections.
“These were people who were not health care workers. They were not immunocompromised or high risk in any way. But they were able to get the vaccine and I was not because I work in the private sector but I am a frontline healthcare worker and I was seeing patients that were meeting the definition for Mpox,” Dr Johnson says.
Her concerns were not just for herself but for unvaccinated HIV patients who were the most affected.
“I think HIV is a much bigger problem than we let on because you know so many people…present with very late disease and so many people are in denial and are not taking treatment,” she says.
Dropping cases
Though the situation is a completely different one to what it was in early summer, Sierra Leone is still working towards zero cases – and as much as it is not the first, this is guaranteed not to be the last outbreak the country sees.
“I recall I was sitting in medical school during the Ebola outbreak and so we had a lot of foreign experts in, you know managing things…but less so during this current Mpox outbreak,” says Dr Jalloh.
This could be a sign of the dwindling global support for foreign assistance, but there is a brighter side too, he thinks.
He can see more local leadership in managing the response to this outbreak and a “more African-led” operation.
“And in the past couple of weeks, you’ve seen [a] 50 per cent drop in the cases”.
Ambitions to move away from aid dependency are nothing new and national agencies to take on responsibility were already taking shape, but cuts from major donor countries may have forced the issue.
“These conversations had been going on for a long time but even when you’re having conversations, you’re dragging your feet,” Dr Jalloh says, whereas the “shocks” of aid cuts from the US and others have been a “wake-up call. Let’s get things going, right”.
“Aid should not define your agenda”.
This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
Although he has spent most of his career in small animal practice, it was life on the farm that first inspired Jerry Moloney’s veterinary path.
Jerry Moloney has marked half a century in vet practice.
An Essex-based vet who is celebrating 50 years in practice has told how his career was inspired by a single calf.
Jerry Moloney marked the occasion with colleagues from Moloney Veterinary Clinics, where he is clinical director, and his sister Denise, who is also a vet.
But while he has spent much of his career in small animal practice, it was life on the farm and a night nursing a sick calf that persuaded him to become a vet.
‘Gone in a flash’
He said: “After a night of high emotion and determination, the calf lived and the rest of my career is history.
“I’ve enjoyed my career so much that the time has gone in a flash and my first days in veterinary practice seem like they were yesterday.”
Originally from County Kildare, Dr Moloney registered with the RCVS in 1975 and has been based in Essex since 1988.
His practice, now owned by VetPartners, operates two sites in Great Dunmow and Takeley, close to Stansted Airport.
Memorable cases
But while there have been many memorable cases, including a catfish that swallowed a stone that had to be surgically removed before it could swim again, Dr Moloney – who is also planning a charity cycling challenge to mark his milestone – cited the human connections as a key factor in his enduring passion for the profession.
He said: “I became a vet to help animals, but it’s people that have kept me in the profession for so long and I have amazing clients and colleagues.
“It’s been particularly rewarding to have mentored young vets and nurses and watched them progress in their careers.
“They have then been able to inspire and teach me and I’ve never lost the excitement of learning something new from colleagues.”
United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US military has struck a Venezuelan boat that he claims was being operated by a drug cartel and was headed to the US.
Trump said three men were killed in Monday’s attack.
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The attack is the second by the US on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat. The first took place on September 2.
Here is all we know about the latest attack:
What happened in this attack?
“This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to US National Security, Foreign Policy and vital US Interests,” he added.
SOUTHCOM is a unified combat command of the US Department of Defense responsible for operations in 31 countries across Central and South America, the Caribbean and their territorial waters.
Trump’s post was accompanied by a 30-second video clip showing a vessel explode into flames. The clip says “UNCLASSIFIED” in green font at the top. Trump wrote that “3 male terrorists” were killed in the attack.
Trump continued his post with: “BE WARNED – IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU!”
What happened during the first attack?
On September 3, Trump posted a video on Truth Social of aerial footage of another vessel being bombed the day before. He wrote that this was an attack against “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area”.
Trump added that Tren de Aragua is a US-identified “foreign terrorist organisation” that works “under the control” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action. No US Forces were harmed in this strike,” Trump wrote at the time.
What do we know about who was on board?
The US and Venezuela have not revealed details about those who died on the vessel or those who were on board the boat in the latest attack. Neither side has released the names of the people killed or on board.
Trump has used the term “terrorists” to describe the people killed in both instances.
After the attack on September 2, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said none of the 11 people killed was a Tren de Aragua member. “When we asked in the towns, none was from Tren de Aragua. None were drug traffickers,” Cabello said.
The Trump administration has not yet offered any evidence to substantiate its claims that the passengers on the first vessel that the US attacked were members of Tren de Aragua or that people in either boat were carrying drugs or were “terrorists”.
How has Venezuela responded?
Maduro’s government has not yet commented on Monday’s attack.
But on Monday, Maduro had called the bombing of the first boat a “heinous crime”.
Maduro described that attack as “a military attack on civilians who were not at war and were not militarily threatening any country”.
The Venezuelan leader accused the US of trying to provoke Venezuela into war and the ultimate goal of the US was for “a regime change for oil” rather than a crackdown on drug cartels.
Maduro said relations with the US have been completely broken. “Today I can announce that communications have been destroyed by them with their bomb threats, death threats and blackmail,” he said.
Maduro also called US Secretary of State Marco Rubio the “lord of death and war”.
Besides the two boats that have been bombed, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday accused US forces of illegally boarding and occupying one of the country’s fishing vessels in Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
An EEZ is the region up to 200 nautical miles (370km) from a country where only it has the right to economically explore and exploit resources. Much of a country’s EEZ lies in international waters, so another nation’s ships may pass through it. But it is rare for a country to target a fishing vessel engaged in economic activity in the EEZ of the country the boat belongs to.
The ministry statement said: “The warship deployed 18 armed agents who boarded and occupied the small, harmless boat for eight hours.”
Last week, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil told CNN in an interview: “We are not betting on conflict nor do we want conflict.”
In response to reports about the US deployment of warships in August, Maduro called on his supporters to join militias to defend Venezuela, declaring, “No empire will touch the sacred soil of Venezuela.”
What is the broader context?
The first attack in Venezuelan waters came after news agencies reported US warships had been deployed to the southern Caribbean.
The US Fleet Forces Command announced on August 14 that sailors and Marines from the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group had departed Norfolk, Virginia, and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina but did not disclose mission details or the deployment destination.
The Trump administration accuses the Maduro government of working directly with drug cartels and being involved in cocaine trafficking. It has accused Tren de Aragua of being a front for Maduro’s leftist government.
The US government has not provided evidence to substantiate these allegations, which the Maduro government has denied.
A classified US intelligence report released in April found no evidence of links between Tren de Aragua and senior Maduro officials although it noted that Venezuela’s permissive environment enables drug gangs. The report drew input from all 18 agencies that comprise the US intelligence community. All agencies except the Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed with the findings.
In his post on Monday, Trump blamed Venezuela for smuggling cocaine into the US. “The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the US,” he wrote.
But according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, most cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, occurs in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and the main US-bound cocaine routes run through Colombia, Peru and Ecuador – not Venezuela. A 2024 US Drug Enforcement Administration report also found that 84 percent of cocaine seized in the US originated from Colombia and did not mention Venezuela.
Washington has not had formal diplomatic relations with Venezuela since 2019 and does not recognise Maduro’s government as legitimate.
1.5 Million km² Buried by Magma: Colossal Plumes May Rewrite Earth’s Future Continents
Fancy a science article with a side of science fiction? Great news: you’re in the right place. Here, we aren’t just gazing into the crust of the Earth—we’re peering into the planetary future and seeing dreams (and nightmares) erupt alongside volcanoes. Buckle up: the real monsters under our bedrock might just shape the continents to come.
The Mysterious Origin of Volcanoes (Not Just at Plate Edges!)
When we think volcano, most of us picture those classic boundaries where tectonic plates go head to head—literally. But scientists have now uncovered sprawling, branching plumes of abnormally hot rock deep within Earth’s mantle. These giant plumes, it turns out, are the secret puppet-masters behind much of the world’s volcanic activity, including those oddball eruptions far from tectonic borders. In fact, these plumes have likely helped build today’s continents—and could, given a few million years, go full Picasso and redraw Earth’s surface yet again.
Revelations from Lava: Lessons Buried Under 1.5 Million km²
Let’s talk about plumes. No, not the feathered kind—these are titanic upwellings of superheated rock that rise from the mantle. The island of Réunion is perched right above one, and if you think its Piton de la Fournaise is impressive, you should’ve seen the show 65 million years ago: For about 700,000 years, magma floods covered roughly 1.5 million km² of India’s western reaches with lava up to 2400 meters thick. This volcanic marathon created the legendary Deccan Traps.
In 2012, geophysicists and seismologists set out to map the mother of all plumes fueling this phenomenon. They deployed a massive web of seismometers across the floor of the Indian Ocean. Almost a decade (and presumably a lot of coffee) later, their findings revealed something far stranger than expected. In a June paperin Nature Geosciences, the team described a colossal magmatic plume rising from the mantle, with countless branching arms snaking toward the crust. Out of these offshoots rise the vertical plumes hot enough to sustain today’s volcanic hotspots.
This wasn’t the only groundbreaking news. Merely months earlier, another study traced East African mantle plumes, identifying at least two distinct plume heads under the Afar region (Ethiopia) and Kenya. Both sprout from the same source at the core-mantle boundary. A third plume between Kenya and Afar likely fueled the Ethiopian trapps 30 million years ago—and is now merging with the Afar plume.
When these plume tales are compared, a striking conclusion emerges: magmatic plumes are not just quirky, they’re individually unique, with complex life stories that blow traditional models out of the (volcanic) water.
Plumes vs. Plates: Changing the Continental Game
Back in the 1960s, the theory of plate tectonics burst onto the scene, explaining everything from earthquakes to why mountain ranges exist. The Pacific’s Ring of Fire, bursting with about 75 percent of our planet’s above-sea volcanoes and intense seismic activity, is the classic result of plates playing bumper cars. But wait—how do we explain Hawaii, sitting far from any plate margin?
Enter John Tuzo Wilson, who in 1963 proposed that volcanic chains like Hawaii form as a tectonic plate drifts over a stationary hotspot in the mantle. William Jason Morgan later (1971) added that these hotspots stem from superheated plumes rising all the way from the deep mantle.
Modern geophysicists now agree: plumes are likely powering current intraplate volcanoes, including Hawaii and even Yellowstone. Plume material emerges about 200°C hotter than its surroundings, and when it hits the crust’s underbelly, it melts rock and injects it with fresh magma, feeding a crustal hot spot.
Evidence? Intraplate volcanic lavas contain helium-3, an isotope trapped deep inside Earth at its formation.
No one has ‘seen’ a plume, but seismic data add more clues: seismic waves slow through hot, elongated structures connected to volcanic hotspots, mapped by those ever-busy seismometers.
Experts are convinced: the complex, branching Indian Ocean plume—and its relatives—have repeatedly shaped Earth’s story. Case in point: African plumes may have spent at least 120 million years breaking up ancient Gondwana. If these plumes keep pulsing, Africa itself could split apart, South Africa could vanish, and East Africa could go island-hopping as a new microcontinent. Even the boldest sci-fi rarely dreams this big.
Continental Futures and the Fiery Unknown
Peer closely at the core-mantle boundary today and, according to researcher Karin Sigloch, you might just predict where oceans will one day appear. If the latest models are correct, tens of millions of years from now, South Africa—and possibly much more of Earth—could become uninhabitable due to plume-driven cataclysm. So next time you hear the ground rumble, remember: the true architects of tomorrow’s continents aren’t just plates—they’re the colossal, unpredictable plumes deep below our feet. And they’ve only just begun rehearsing for their next act.
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French automotive giant Citroën announced last week that it’s to join Formula E with Citroën Racing from Season 12, and the team has secured two top talents for that debut campaign.
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Jean-Éric Vergne makes the move from DS PENSKE after an eight-season affiliation with the DS brand, with which he sealed his second Formula E Drivers’ title to become the only two-time and consecutive champion in the series’ history. JEV’s record speaks for itself as one of the OG drivers from Formula E’s very first season.
The 35-year-old Frenchman from Pontoise is second in the all-time Formula E entry list, has the most consecutive starts – all 144 of those entries – and is sixth in the all-time wins table.
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Vergne dovetails Formula E with a seat in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Peugeot, and he also drove for Toro Rosso in Formula 1 prior to his decade-plus in Formula E.
Nick Cassidy joins the fold alongside Vergne, with the New Zealander also among the most successful drivers in the paddock with 10 wins and 20 podiums to his name. He was runner-up in the Drivers’ World Championship in 2022/23 and third in 2023/24 after two close-run shots at top spot.
Formula E a “new challenge” for powerhouse Citroën
Citroën Racing is a motorsport powerhouse which has won titles in every form of racing it has entered to-date. The French manufacturer says its entry into Formula E provides a “new challenge” in “an electric, innovative and passionate adventure that embodies our values and our vision for the mobility of tomorrow.”
Adding: “Citroën is returning to motorsport, an arena that shaped its history and legend – motorsport in its most visionary form: an 100% electric, responsible and committed competition with popular races in the heart of cities, a young, committed, connected audience and a technological, international showcase for the future of mobility.”
The storied outfit can count victories at Dakar, nine FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) Drivers’ titles for its famed Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena partnership, eight WRC Manufacturers’ titles, three FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) Drivers’ titles, three WTCC Teams’ World Championship victories and even more title-winning success in the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup to its name.
Testing dates and Women’s Test confirmed
This past week, Formula E confirmed all the details for the pre-season schedule in Valencia, including a return of the groundbreaking Women’s Test on 31 October, with double the track time for the world’s best women racers.
All of the teams on the grid – including Citroën Racing – will shake down their Season 12 machinery for the first time over 27-30 October at Circuit Ricardo Tormo with the only opportunity to get on-track collectively before the 2025/26 campaign kicks off with Round 1 from São Paulo on 6 December.
Get your tickets for the start of Season 12!
Join us for the 2025 São Paulo E-Prix and the start of the 2025/26 season. The Anhembi Sambodrome is sure to showcase plenty of overtakes and excitement on the track, and there will be a host of events away from all the racing action.
Tickets are on sale now. Starting at R$149.50, with a discounted rate for concessions, there’s also the Solidarity Ticket available upon donation to our chosen charity. Get your seat before it sells out!
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