Over 70 shark, ray species win new wildlife trade protections


By AFP
November 28, 2025


Manta rays are among the species that will have upgraded protections

 - Copyright AFP/File Mladen ANTONOV

The world’s top wildlife trade organisation increased protections on Friday for more than 70 species of sharks and rays, in a move conservationists hailed as a “historical win”.

Signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) backed increased trade restrictions on species from whale sharks to manta rays at talks in Uzbekistan.

Conservationists and experts have warned that shark and ray species face growing pressure from overfishing and climate change.

“This is a historical win for sharks, something we were strongly hoping for,” said Barbara Slee, senior programme manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

“Scientific data clearly shows sharks need to be treated as a conservation issue not a fishing resource,” Slee told AFP.

CITES regulates trade in over 40,000 species, effectively banning sales of the world’s most endangered flora and fauna listed under its Appendix I, and putting limits on threatened species under Appendix II.

Friday’s decisions move whale sharks, manta rays and devil rays onto Appendix I after countries on Thursday did the same for the critically endangered oceanic whitetip shark.

A range of other species, including tope and smooth-hound sharks often hunted for their meat, and gulper sharks targeted for their liver oil, were placed on Appendix II.

This means trade will be regulated and allowed only if it is considered sustainable.

After several contentious sessions on regulating trade in other species, including eels, the proposal to increase shark protections passed by consensus, which Slee said was a sign of changing perceptions of sharks.

“This should mark the end of overfishing and a fresh wave of hope for sharks,” she said.

Over a third of ray and shark species are threatened with extinction, largely due to overfishing, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Many are targeted for specific body parts, like fins or liver, or their meat, while others are killed incidentally by fishing nets targeting other species.

German president honours victims in Guernica, razed by Nazis


THEY USED IT AS A TEST OF HEINKEL BOMBERS

By AFP
November 28, 2025


On Wednesday, Steinmeier visited Picasso's famous painting 'Guernica', which portrays the atrocity - Copyright AFP Thomas COEX

Fabian Erik SCHLÜTER

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier honoured Nazi war victims in Guernica on Friday, becoming the first German leader to visit the Spanish town where hundreds of civilians were killed in 1937.

The elite Condor Legion razed the northern Basque town on April 26, 1937 in support of General Francisco Franco’s rebels during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) alongside Fascist Italy.

Steinmeier and German First Lady Elke Buedenbender joined King Felipe VI at a ceremony held at a Guernica cemetery in memory of the victims, AFP journalists saw.

The heads of state were due to visit the town’s Museum of Peace, which tells the story of the tragedy, viewed by historians as a precursor to the mass terror bombing of civilian targets during World War II.

Some 50 aircraft dropped 30 tonnes of explosives on Guernica in successive waves, including incendiary bombs, before Messerschmitt fighter planes mowed down civilians as they tried to flee.

Guernica, considered the first town to be destroyed by aerial bombardment, became synonymous with the horror of civilian suffering during wartime.

At the start of his three-day state visit to Spain on Wednesday, Steinmeier urged Germans never to forget the “crime” of Guernica, for which his country had earned “a heavy burden of guilt”.

“Guernica is a reminder — a reminder to stand up for peace, freedom and the preservation of human rights,” he told a gala dinner at Madrid’s Royal Palace.

The visit comes almost 30 years after former president Roman Herzog became in 1997 the first German leader to officially recognise the country’s “involvement” in the massacre and apologised to the Spanish people.

“To you, survivors of this attack, to you, witnesses of the horror suffered, I send my message of remembrance, solidarity and mourning,” Herzog wrote in a speech read out in Guernica by Germany’s ambassador.

The raid was immortalised by Pablo Picasso’s anti-war masterpiece “Guernica”, a painting that captures the horror of innocent civilian suffering and which Steinmeier viewed at Madrid’s Reina Sofia art museum on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the painting last week and has compared the massacre in Guernica to the suffering inflicted by Russia’s invasion of his country.

Spain remembered its own authoritarian past on November 20, which marked the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death and the end of his 36-year dictatorship.

'The furries are coming for me!' GOP lawmaker turns heads with odd fundraising pitch

Matthew Chapman
November 28, 2025 
RAW STORY




Shutterstock

Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) sent out a bizarre fundraising call to action for his supporters on Friday, headlined, "the furries are coming for me."

"I'd heard of furries, but to be honest, I didn't think they were real. Then one filed to run against me for Congress," stated the email. "Samuel Smeltzer, whose furry name is Elyon Badger, announced he's running against me, in costume, on a far left progressive platform."

"Never seen a fundraising appeal quite like this one," wrote Axios' Andrew Solender on X.

The campaign page of Smeltzer, which advertises him under his "fursona," introduces him as "a Michigan Army National Guard veteran, LGBTQIA+ activist, and small business owner running to represent Michigan’s 7th District in Congress. I’ve experienced the failings of our system firsthand and I’m running to build a government that finally works for the people, NOT THE BILLIONAIRES."

The furry community is known for creating anthropomorphic animal avatars of themselves, which they perform in often elaborate and expensive fursuits. The community is not inherently sexual, but there is a not-safe-for-work and sexualized subculture within it that has gotten them labeled as deviants in some conservative political circles.

In particular, there has been a persistent myth, often promoted by GOP lawmakers, that schools around the country have provided litter boxes to students who "identify as animals" to do their business in class. While it is unclear where this myth started, there is one documented case of a school district in Colorado providing cat litter in kits — not to help students satisfy a kink, but as emergency supplies in case a mass shooter forces them to barricade in classrooms for extended periods of time.

New Study: Gender-Affirming Care Dramatically Lowers Suicide Risk for Trans Kids


Twenty-seven states in the US ban gender-affirming treatments for trans youth, including hormone therapy.

By Chris Walker , TruthoutPublishedNovember 26, 2025

A Transgender Pride Flag at the Pride March held in Paris, France, on June 29, 2024.Benjamin Vodant/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Anewly published study reveals that a certain kind of gender-affirming care for transgender kids and young adults likely lowers rates of suicidality among those populations.

The study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, examined 432 patients between the ages of 12 and 20 years old who received treatment at an unnamed Midwestern academic medical center. Patients who were set to receive gender-affirming care filled out Ask Suicide-Screening Questions (ASQ) surveys prior to receiving hormone therapy (HT) treatment, then repeated the questionnaire at future visits.

Upon examining the results, the study found that suicidality among these patients “significantly declined from pretreatment to post-treatment,” and was “consistent across sex assigned at birth, age at start of therapy, and treatment duration.”

The study included all youth who initiated hormone treatment therapy during the years 2017 to 2024 at the medical center in question. The average follow-up to the surveys the patients took occurred around two years after their treatment began, with some patients providing feedback up to five years after they started.

Suicidality scores among the patients who provided responses dropped by over 67 percent, the study discovered. What’s more, of the hundreds of patients who started hormone therapy, only seven discontinued their treatment, with four saying they had a “shift in gender identity” (while still identifying as gender diverse), and one stopping out of concerns over “hair loss.” Two stopped for unknown reasons.

Related Story

HHS Packed Anti-Trans Activists Into Report Undermining Gender-Affirming Care
Studies on youth-based gender-affirming care consistently show it is highly beneficial for those who receive it. By Chris Walker , Truthout November 20, 2025

The study concluded:


HT was associated with clinically meaningful reductions in suicidality over time, extending prior findings with a larger sample and longer follow-up. These study findings provide clinical evidence supporting the mental health benefits of timely access to HT in this population.

In response to the study, trans rights journalist Erin Reed wrote, “gender-affirming care saves lives.”

Such care “remains one of the most effective interventions available for transgender youth who need it,” Reed added.

Despite multiple studies coming to the same conclusion — that gender-affirming care for trans youth is highly beneficial — 27 states across the country have banned the practice, usually by citing unfounded fears regarding potential regret, errant concerns about a supposed “social contagion,” or misinformation regarding the safety of treatment methods.

The study comes as the Trump administration appears to be readying itself to attempt to ban youth-based gender-affirming care across the entirety of the U.S.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) updated a questionable study it published in May that claimed such care caused children more harm than good.

The report did not include authorship when it was first released. The new version includes the authors’ names, which critics have pointed out include a hodge-podge of anti-LGBTQ voices — including one “expert” who is the founder of a noted hate group.

Meredithe McNamara, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Yale School of Medicine, described that report’s authors as “engineers of a cottage industry that solely exists to dismantle health care for a vulnerable group of people.”

“Transgender identity is real, transgender people of all ages thrive when they have access to the care they need, and politics needs to get out of medicine,” McNamara added in her criticism of the HHS report.

‘Middle Finger to the LGBTQ Community’: Trump Halts US Commemoration of World AIDS Day

The move came on the heels of a report detailing how the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts set off a crisis in global AIDS response efforts.

The Biden administration commemorated World AIDS Day at the White House on December 1, 2024.
(Photo by Shedrick Pelt for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 28, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

The Trump administration drew outrage this week for ending formal US commemoration of World AIDS Day, directing US State Department officials to “refrain from publicly promoting” it through social media or other communication channels.

The decision was reported after the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) released an analysis detailing the harms done by the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign assistance cuts.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration temporarily halted HIV-related funding, sending global response efforts into “crisis mode,” USAID said. Though President Donald Trump ultimately dropped a proposal to slash hundreds of millions of dollars from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the administration’s throttling of funds forced clinics to shut down and disrupted key community programs, the report states.

“The funding crisis has exposed the fragility of the progress we fought so hard to achieve,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. “Behind every data point in this report are people—babies and children missed for HIV screening or early HIV diagnosis, young women cut off from prevention support, and communities suddenly left without services and care. We cannot abandon them. We must overcome this disruption and transform the AIDS response.”

In its reporting on the Trump administration’s decision to halt official commemoration of World AIDS Day, which is on December 1, the New York Times pointed to studies suggesting that “cuts by the United States and other countries could result in 10 million additional HIV infections, including one million among children, and three million additional deaths over the next five years.”



Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), head of the Congressional HIV/AIDS Caucus, said in a statement that “silence is not neutrality; it is harm.”

“I’m calling on the administration to immediately reverse this decision and recommit our fight against HIV/AIDS,” he added.

Big dreams for Palestinian teens at Singapore robot fest

By AFP
November 28, 2025


The Palestinian delegation to the World Robot Olympiad in Singapore left without a medal, but with a sense of pride - Copyright AFP Roslan RAHMAN

Martin Abbugao

Palestinian student Razan Shawar has travelled for 24 hours to showcase her team’s AI-powered invention at World Robot Olympiad in Singapore, telling AFP innovation — not war — should be why people hear about her country.

The 15-year-old high school student from Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said she dreams of making “something big, so the world can know that the one who did this is Palestinian”.

Together with the rest of the Palestinian delegation, she made the journey from the West Bank via Jordan and Dubai to attend the three-day global robotic tournament in Singapore that ended on Friday.

More than 1,500 competitors from over 90 countries and territories gathered in the Southeast Asian city for the event, aimed at harnessing the innovative spirit of the world’s youth to find solutions for pressing challenges.

Malaysia stamped its class in the tournament, winning a third of the contested medals in various categories, according to an AFP tally.

Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Canada and the Philippines were also among the first-place awardees.

For the Palestinian students, who left without a medal, it was important to represent their nation on the global stage.

Palestinian delegations have attended World Robot Olympiads since 2014, but the Israel-Hamas war meant they did not send representatives at all to the 2023 edition in Panama, and since then, no participants from the Gaza Strip — only the West Bank.

– ‘Palestinians can’ –

Competing in the Future Innovators senior category, this year’s Palestinian delegation created a robot that can be used to boost agriculture production.

The “Agribot”, supported by artificial intelligence technology, works by measuring six key soil parameters like moisture, acidity and nutrients using sensors.

It takes precise readings with its mechanical arm, and the analysis can help farmers increase yield and reduce waste.

The students now aim to make it easily available to farmers who mostly rely on traditional methods, said Razan.

Jehad Abudayyeh, 16, said that agriculture “is so important in our country… because it’s a way of life. I’m very happy that my project will help them.”

Team member Mustafa Ali, who is also 16 and hopes to become an IT engineer, dreams of a more conducive environment for technology to thrive.

“I hope my country will be safer and the war ends,” he said.

Razan hopes to shine a light on other aspects of Palestinian life apart from conflict.

“We want to show the world that we are not just under war, that we can… stand here and show people and the world that we can do this, we can be in this competition,” she said.

“We made our project, we’re proud of it,” she added.

“Palestine has students who aim to be better, and show the world that Palestinians can.”

China says humanoid robot buzz carries bubble risk


By AFP
November 27, 2025


Chinese firms have soared ahead in the race to develop AI-powered robots that could one day help perform everyday tasks - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

More than 150 Chinese companies are making humanoid robots but a market bubble risks forming in the rapidly growing futuristic industry, a Beijing official has warned.

Government support and strong supply chains are helping Chinese firms push ahead in the race to develop AI-powered robots that could one day help perform everyday tasks.

But the sector risks overcapacity as production scales up quickly without actual orders, Goldman Sachs warned recently.

And on Thursday Chinese official Li Chao told a National Development and Reform Commission briefing on Thursday: “‘Speed’ and ‘bubble’ have always been issues that need grasping and balance in the development of frontier industries.”

She added that “the same goes for the humanoid robot industry”, in answer to a question about the bubble concerns.

It mirrors wider fears of a market crash fuelled by frenzied investment in artificial intelligence technology worldwide.

“In recent years, driven by innovation and increased demand, humanoid robotics representing the scale of the embodied intelligence industry is seeing explosive growth,” Li said Thursday.

But the sector is not yet mature in terms of technology, commercialisation or use, she cautioned.

More than half of China’s 150 humanoid robot companies — a figure still increasing — are “startups or ‘cross-industry’ entrants, which is a good thing for innovation”, Li said.

“But we must also be vigilant in preventing products that are highly repetitive from ‘gathering’ in the market, squeezing research and development space and other risks.”

An April report published by Leaderobot, a specialist consulting firm, predicted that China’s humanoid robotics industry would reach 82 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) in 2025, accounting for half of global sales.

Large-scale real-life use cases remain elusive, but ambitious trials have grabbed headlines.

A robot made by Shanghai’s AgiBot set a Guinness World Record this month for the longest reported distance ever walked by a humanoid machine, having completed a three-day, 100-kilometre (62-mile) trek.

Beijing also hosted the world’s first-ever humanoid robot games in August, where more than 500 “athletes” vied in disciplines ranging from basketball to competitive cleaning.

UK government’s budget leak: What lessons can be learned?


By Dr. Tim Sandle

SCIENCE EDITOR

DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 27, 2025


British finance minister Rachel Reeves has faced opposition calls to resign

 - Copyright POOL/AFP Aaron Favila

Just prior to the British government announcing the budget for 2025 / 2026, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) inadvertently issued a document – containing key details of Wednesday’s Budget – too early. This meant that journalists received the content of the budget before the government had announced it.

Consequently, Rachel Reeves’s statement was thrown into chaos after the OBR’s economic forecast appeared online around 40 minutes before she announced her policies. OBR chairman Richard Hughes has said he was “personally mortified” by what happened and the results of a “full investigation” would be reported to MPs.

A digital security expert has told Digital Journal about the key lessons businesses can learn from the recent document leak. Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ProfileTree, said the recent incident in which the OBR accidentally published key Budget information ahead of schedule provided valuable insights for businesses of all sizes on data security, crisis management, and transparency.
Have clear publishing protocols

To address such issues, Connolly says: “Organisations need stringent content approval processes before anything goes live. This means multiple verification steps and scheduled publication times with automatic safety checks that flag unusual timing or content.”

Furthermore, Connolly notes: “Businesses with no formal review process for external communications create significant vulnerability to both accidental disclosures and inaccurate information being published.”

He suggests that companies should implement formal sign-off procedures for important communications, with designated individuals responsible for final approval before publication.

Create tiered access controls

To build appropriate controls, Connolly recommends: “The OBR incident shows why tiered access is important and why not everyone needs the ability to publish or distribute every document. Setting up proper document permission structures and role-based access controls prevents accidental release of sensitive information.”

Implement immediate response plans

Connolly notes that the speed of response to security incidents is critical, and companies must have incident response teams to act within minutes, not hours. The document was swiftly removed when the OBR realised their error, but in today’s digital world, it’s too late.

The document was visible long enough for screenshots to be taken and distributed across financial and political circles, but Connolly praised the government’s decision to bring forward the Budget statement rather than trying to suppress information.

Connolly recommends: “Companies facing breaches like this should follow this example. Acknowledge the issue promptly, give an honest explanation, and outline the steps being taken to fix it to build trust in these situations.”

Train staff on security fundamentals

Most security breaches result from human error rather than malicious attacks, just like this one. Regular training on the basics, like proper document handling, publication protocols, and data classification, could have prevented this type of incident, Connolly explains.
Implement automated monitoring

Connolly also suggests: “Continuous monitoring systems should be scanning for unauthorised publications or unusual activity. These systems can automatically alert security teams when content appears in unexpected places or at unscheduled times.”

Run regular security drills

Connolly further advises: “Organisations should regularly test their security response with simulations of different scenarios. This builds confidence in how to react when real incidents occur.”

Audit information pathways

Connolly is of the view: “Understanding how information flows through your organisation is crucial. Regularly auditing who has access to what information and how it moves from internal to external channels helps spot weak points, controls access, and keeps sensitive data safe from leaks and breaches.”

The recent OBR incident shows how even established organisations, even the highest level of government, can make fundamental data security mistakes.

Another prominent university to fork over tens of millions in deal with Trump admin

MOBSTER SHAKE DOWN 

Daniel Hampton
November 28, 2025 

RAW STORY

Evanston, IL, USA - October 23, 2023: Northwestern University. (Photo credit: Joseph Hendrickson/ Shutterstock)


A prominent university has agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars as part of a deal to have the Trump administration end federal investigations and lift stop-work orders on terminated federal grants, according to a report.

Northwestern University finalized a comprehensive settlement with the Trump administration that will have it fork over $75 million to the federal government over three years, Bloomberg reported Friday night.

The settlement follows similar arrangements with other prestigious institutions, including Cornell, Columbia, and Brown. Northwestern, which operates campuses in Evanston and Chicago, faced financial strain due to Trump's funding freeze and was financing research on its own.

Interim president Henry Bienen said in a statement to Bloomberg, "We must now refocus on what matters most: advancing our mission, upholding the highest standards of academic and institutional excellence, and empowering students and scholars to drive change in the world through research and innovation."

“We would not relinquish any control over whom we hire, whom we admit as students, what our faculty teach or how our faculty teach,” Bienen added. “I would not have signed this agreement without provisions ensuring that is the case.”

As part of the deal, Northwestern vowed to review international student policies, affirm support for its Jewish community, and end a controversial agreement made last year with pro-Palestinian protesters.

Anger as Trump official issues 'pledge' to be nice to Wall Street fraudsters

(REUTERS)

Jessica Corbett
Common Dreams

November 25, 2025

“Why is Russell Vought showing the world his weird, creepy pledge of allegiance to big corporations? Have some dignity, Russell.”

That’s what Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Union member Alexis Goldstein said on Monday about the CFPB acting director’s new “humility pledge” that examiners with the agency’s Supervision Division will be forced to read to financial institutions before conducting reviews next year.

Several other CFPB Union members joined Goldstein in blasting Vought’s pledge, including treasurer Gabe Hopkins, who said that “whoever wrote this has never even spoken to an examiner before, only been wined and dined by industry lobbyists.”

The lengthy pledge states in part that the CFPB’s “goal is to work collaboratively with the entities to review entities’ processes
for compliance and/or remedy existing problems,” and the agency “is doing so by encouraging self-reporting and resolving issues in Supervision, where feasible, instead of via Enforcement.”

CFPB Union president Cat Farman inquired: “Is this fan fiction I’m reading? What’s next, ‘Russell Vought Tells CFPB Examiners to Serve Tea to Their Wall Street Masters in Tiny French Maid Aprons’?”

“Instead of traumatizing CFPB workers with his roleplay fantasies,” Farman argued, “Vought should resign so we can finally do our jobs protecting Americans from Wall Street fraud again.”

Vought—also the Senate-confirmed director of the Office of Management and Budget, a role he previously held during President Donald Trump’s first term—has unsuccessfully tried to shutter the CFPB completely this year.

As the New York Times reported Monday:

The new pledge is, for now, mostly symbolic. Mr. Vought halted nearly all work at the bureau shortly after his arrival in February, and bank examinations have not resumed. The agency’s hundreds of examiners have been told to spend their time closing out all open matters; they are currently barred from initiating new ones.And Mr. Vought has refused to request money for the consumer bureau from the Federal Reserve, which funds its operations. The bureau warned in court filings that it would run out of operating cash early next year.

In a Friday statement announcing the pledge, the Vought-led agency claimed that under the Biden administration, the Supervision Division “was the weaponized arm of the CFPB.”

The agency added that “where these exams were previously done with unnecessary personnel, outrageous travel expenses, and with the thuggery pervasive in prior leadership, they will now be done respectfully, promptly, professionally, and under budget.”

Given that Vought “stopped all supervision exams in 2025, refuses to fund CFPB, and says he’s shutting us down by 2026,” CFPB Union member Doug Wilson asked: “So how will we supervise banks in 2026 if CFPB is closed? How can bank exams be ‘under budget’ if there is no budget?”

Ripping Vought’s pledge and press release as “incredibly disrespectful to Supervision’s dedicated workers,” fellow CFPB Union member Tyler Creighton said that the pair of documents also “misunderstands or misconstrues Supervision’s prior work.”

“Supervision’s workers have always conducted examinations professionally, efficiently, conscientiously, and with a focus on remedying consumer harm,” Creighton said. “We will continue to do so as soon as Donald Trump and Vought end their 10-month suspension of examinations and let us get back to work for the American people.”

Another CFPB Union member, Steve Wheeler, highlighted that “they’re trying to make it sound like it’s groundbreaking to send notifications of exams ahead of time and keep data pulls relevant to the examined area, when those are things we already do.”

Originally proposed by now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the CFPB was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis via the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama.

Warren joined the CFPB Union members in calling out the new pledge, declaring that “Donald Trump is Wall Street first.”

Union member Ravisha “Avi” Kumar pointed out that “under previous administrations, CFPB examiners protected consumers from banks, like Wells Fargo, that incentivized their employees to cut corners and overlook consumer harm. CFPB forced the banks to return that stolen money to consumers.”

“Ironically, under this administration, Vought says he will incentivize examiners to rush jobs (cut corners) and stick to the surface (overlook consumer harm),” Kumar added. “How is that still consumer financial protection?”

The pledge announcement came a day after CFPB officials told staff that much of the agency workforce will be furloughed at the end of the year and that remaining consumer litigation will be sent to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

“This is Russ Vought’s latest illegal power grab in his ongoing plan to shut down the CFPB and protect CEOs instead of consumers,” said Farman. “CFPB attorneys are afraid DOJ will dismiss these cases.”

“Vought’s already helped Wall Street swindle $18 billion from Americans this year,” the union leader continued. “If Vought is going to keep refusing to fund CFPB in order to illegally dismantle the agency, while he wastes over $5 million of CFPB’s dwindling budget on personal bodyguards, then it’s time for Congress to impeach and remove Russell Vought from power.”