📌 Kennedy Confirmed, Whale Spits Out Kayaker, More

The US Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump's health secretary.

Kennedy, known as a vaccine skeptic, is in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations, food safety and health insurance programs for roughly half the country.

Republicans fell in line behind Trump despite hesitancy over Kennedy’s views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to elevate the scion of one of America's most storied political — and Democratic — families to Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, was the only "no" vote among Republicans, mirroring his stands against Trump's picks for the Pentagon chief and director of national intelligence. All Democrats opposed Kennedy.

The GOP has largely embraced Kennedy's vision to "Make America Healthy Again" by directing the public health agencies to focus on chronic diseases such as obesity.

With Trump's backing, Kennedy insisted he was "uniquely positioned" to revive trust in those public health agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes for Health.

A plan for Russia to establish its first naval base in Africa will go ahead, Sudan’s foreign minister has confirmed.

If the agreement is implemented, Russia would join the US and China in the region; they have bases to the south in Djibouti. The announcement came during a visit by the foreign minister, Ali Youssef Ahmed al-Sharif, to Moscow, where he met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

After their meeting, Sharif said the two countries were in “complete agreement” on establishing a Russian base “and there are no obstacles.” The Red Sea is one of the world’s most strategically important waterways, connecting the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean. About 12% of global trade passes through it.

Sudan first floated the idea of allowing Russia to have a naval facility on its coast in 2017. A deal was signed in 2020 that reportedly permitted Russia to keep up to four navy ships in Sudan — including nuclear-powered — for 25 years. The base would be “defensive and not aimed against other countries.”

Last April, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, visited Sudan and pledged “uncapped” support for its army. Russia has also backed Sudan at the UN Security Council, where it vetoed a resolution calling for a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons.

MIT researchers may have contributed to a solution to assist artificial pollination — robotic insect swarms.

Pollination is a crucial part of global food production. Yet, bee populations continue to decline as we rip away their habitats, continue to fail in our fight against climate change, and use pesticides extravagantly.

The miniature drones are designed to hover, maneuver, and execute aerial flips. The researchers say that, unlike earlier prototypes that struggled with endurance and control, the latest version can stay airborne for roughly 17 minutes — over 100 times longer than previous designs.

Each drone weighs less than a paperclip, with an enhanced wing structure and artificial muscle design that allow for greater stability and speed. The researchers say they are moving closer to practical uses, such as operating in swarms to coordinate pollination in greenhouses, indoor farms and outdoor fields.

Beyond agriculture, robotic insect swarms could be used for environmental monitoring, disaster response, and precision surveillance. Their small size and flight capabilities allow them to navigate tight spaces and operate in challenging environments where traditional drones cannot.

Captain America: Brave New World

opens Friday, freighted with some of the superhero franchise’s worst-ever reviews.

Many critics considered the film one of Marvel’s worst outputs. Rotten Tomatoes top critic A. A. Dowd wrote for

Digital Trends

that the film is a new “rock bottom” for the franchise with a “mess” of a plot, stating, “no blockbuster that cost this much money should look this shoddy.

Washington Post

critic Ty Burr called the film “humorless” and a “pixel-pounding mishmash” that is “more interested in fan service and protecting corporate IP” than in telling a coherent story.

The film stirred some controversy by including what seemed to be an Israeli superhero when it was announced in September 2022 that Israeli actress Shira Haas would play Ruth Bat-Seraph, also known by her alter ego Sabra, a character who appears in the Marvel comics.

The character is a member of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, in the Marvel comics, but Marvel clarified in 2022 that the character would be reimagined for the film. An updated description for the film described Haas’s character as a US government official, not a member of the Mossad.

Despite its flaws, the film’s box office outlook is promising.

Variety

and

Deadline

predict the film will gross about $80 million over the weekend and $90 million–$95 million over the extended President’s Day weekend.

Another group of ancient humans called the Julurens — meaning the “big head” people, lived alongside homo sapiens.

A researcher from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa is revealing insights revolutionizing our understanding of human evolution, particularly in eastern Asia, where scientists have uncovered a far more intricate picture of our ancient past.

Paleoanthropologists Christopher Bae and Xiujie Wu found that eastern Asia was home to distinct human species during the Late Quaternary period, roughly 50,000–300,000 years ago. Instead of a linear progression, the human story looks like a network of populations interacting, mixing, and coexisting.

Four human species co-existed: Homo floresiensis, a diminutive human found on the Indonesian island of Flores; Homo luzonensis from the Philippines; Homo longi, discovered in China; and the recently named Homo juluensis, which includes fossils from sites across eastern Asia.

“We did not expect being able to propose a new hominin (human ancestor) species and then to be able to organize the hominin fossils from Asia into different groups. Ultimately, this should help with science communication,” Bae says in a university release.

The discoveries challenge our previous understanding of human migration and interaction. Rather than a simple “out of Africa” narrative where one human group replaced all others, the evidence suggests a more nuanced story of multiple dispersals, interactions, and genetic exchanges.

Over 250 people from 20 nationalities working in telecom fraud centers in Myanmar's Karen State have been released.

An ethnic armed group brought the workers to Thailand, who were received by the Thai army. They are being assessed to determine whether they were victims of human trafficking.

Last week Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra met Chinese leader Xi Jinping and promised to shut down the scam centers, which have proliferated along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Foreign workers are typically lured to these scam centres by offers of good salaries or, in some cases, tricked into thinking they will be doing different work in Thailand, not Myanmar. The scammers look for workers with skills in the languages of those who are targeted for cyber-fraud, usually English and Chinese.

They are pressed into online criminal activity, from love scams and crypto fraud to money laundering and illegal gambling. Some are willing to do the work, but others are forced to stay, with release only possible if their families pay large ransoms. Some of those who have escaped have described being tortured.

The released foreign workers were handed over by the Democratic Karen Benevolent Army, one of several armed factions that control territory inside Karen State. These armed groups have been accused of allowing the scam compounds to operate under their protection.

A huge humpback whale scooped a kayaker in its mouth off the coast of southern Chile before spitting him out unscathed.

The kayaker, Adrian Simancas, was out with his father in the seas off the town of Punta Arenas when the whale surfaced and scooped him up in his mouth. “I felt like I was being lifted, but it was clearly too strong to be a wave,” said Simancas.

“When I turned, I felt something blue and white passing close to my face, like on one side and above. I didn’t understand what was happening. Then everything … I went under and thought I had been swallowed.”

Luckily, the whale quickly spat out Simancas unharmed. His father, in another kayak, caught the whole thing on [camera](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NeXwRxPGsgs). Adrian Simancas was sure he was going to die during the ordeal. “I thought I was done for, that I was dead. It was like three strange seconds down there,” he said.

Experts said the whale could never have swallowed the kayaker, as humpbacks have small throats. “It seems that the kayak was right in the whale’s feeding patch (of krill or fish),” marine biologist Maria Jose Perez of the University of Chile said.