At least 26 Palestinians have been killed after Israeli forces opened fire on Sunday near a southern Gaza aid distribution center run by a controversial US-backed foundation, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

“Crowds of citizens headed to receive food aid” from a site in the Rafah area, when Israeli forces opened fire, said a paramedic from the PRCS, the only medical professionals present in the area.

The GHF is a private organization backed by Israel and the United States. It was set up amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and selling it for profit. Humanitarian organizations say there is no evidence of this, and Israel hasn’t presented any evidence publicly.

United Nations aid agencies have criticized the GHF’s aid mechanism, saying it violates humanitarian principles and raises the risks for Palestinians.

UN aid groups, such as UNRWA, typically check identification and rely on a database of registered families when distributing aid.

But the GHF is not screening Palestinians at aid distribution sites, despite Israeli officials saying that additional security measures were a core reason for the creation of the new program.

Criticism has been mounting against both Israel and the GHF after chaos broke out last week when tens of thousands of starving Palestinians arrived at two new food distribution sites.

According to Palestinian Ministry of Health figures from before Sunday’s incident, 11 people have been killed and dozens injured since the aid distribution sites have opened. The GHF said on Thursday that no one has been killed or injured since the distribution of aid began last week.

The statement added that it has provided more than 4.7 million meals in six days, including delivering 16 truckloads of food on Sunday morning, providing over 887,000 meals.

In a statement issued Sunday, the GHF said it will “continue scaling, with plans to build additional sites across Gaza, including in the northern region, in the weeks ahead.”

Aid was distributed “without incident,” read the statement, with the group adding it was “aware of rumors being actively fomented by Hamas suggesting deaths and injuries today.”

However, a mixed picture appears on the ground with claims of the aid distributed believed to be inaccurate.

The GHF also claims the reports of “deaths, mass injuries and chaos” at its sites are “false.”

“They are untrue and fabricated,” the statement continued.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Growing up in Brazil, neuroscientist Danielle Beckman always dreamed of moving to the US for work. So, in 2017, when Beckman got the opportunity to work at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis, she jumped on it.

“I was so excited,” she recalled. “Coming to the US was always the dream. It was always the place to be, where there’s the biggest investment in science.”

But months into President Donald Trump’s second term, as his administration wages an unprecedented war on the country’s top universities and research institutions, Beckman no longer sees the US as a welcome home for her or her research, which focuses on how viral infections like Covid-19 affect the brain.

Beckman is part of a growing wave of academics, scientists and researchers leaving the US in what many are warning could be the biggest brain drain the country has seen in decades.

But America’s loss could be the rest of the world’s gain.

As the Trump administration freezes and slashes billions of dollars in research funding, meddles with curricula, and threatens international students’ ability to study in the US, governments, universities and research institutions in Canada, Europe and Asia are racing to attract fleeing talent.

The European Union pledged €500 million ($562 million) over the next three years “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.”

A university in Marseille, France, is wooing persecuted academics under a new program called a “Safe Place for Science.” Canada’s largest health research organization is investing 30 million Canadian dollars ($21.8 million) to attract 100 scientists early in their careers from the US and elsewhere. The Research Council of Norway launched a 100 million kroner ($9.8 million) fund to lure new researchers. The president of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University recently told a crowd at a higher education summit the school is identifying “superstar” US researchers and making them offers as soon as the next day.

The Australian Academy of Science also launched a new talent program to recruit disillusioned US-based scientists and lure Australians back home.

“We know these individuals are highly trained, talented, and have much to offer,” said Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of the academy, noting the program has received “encouraging interest” so far.

“It’s vitally important that science can continue without ideological interference,” Arabia said.

The US could lose its scientific edge

The US has long been a powerhouse when it comes to research and development, attracting talent from far afield with its big budgets, high salaries and swanky labs.

Since the 1960s, US government expenditure in research and development (R&D) has more than doubled from $58 billion in 1961 to almost $160 billion in 2024 (in inflation-adjusted dollars), according to federal data. When incorporating R&D funding from the private sector, that number balloons to more than an estimated $900 billion in 2023.

The US’s enormous investment in R&D has led to an outsized influence on the world stage. The US has racked up more than 400 Nobel Prizes, more than double the amount of the next country, the United Kingdom. More than a third of the US’s prizes were won by immigrants.

“We have been respected worldwide for decades because we have trained succeeding generations of researchers who are pushing into new territories,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University.

But Trump’s second term has upended the relationship between higher education and the federal government.

Trump’s gutting of federal health and science agencies has led to sweeping job losses and funding cuts, including at the National Institutes of Health, which funds nearly $50 billion in medical research each year at universities, hospitals and scientific institutions.

Between the end of February and the beginning of April, the administration cancelled almost 700 NIH grants totaling $1.8 billion, according to an analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Trump administration has proposed reducing the NIH’s budget in 2026 by 40%.

The National Science Foundation has also slashed nearly $1.4 billion worth of grants. On Wednesday, 16 US states sued the Trump administration over the NSF cuts, which they argue will impede “groundbreaking scientific research” and “(jeopardize) national security, the economy and public health.”

Trump has also targeted elite universities and is in the middle of a legal battle with Harvard University over its refusal to bow to his administration’s directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, resulting in billions in frozen federal funding. That battle significantly escalated this month when Trump banned Harvard’s ability to enroll international students – a decision swiftly halted by a federal judge hours after Harvard filed suit.

This week, the White House directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with Harvard.

“The president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values, but most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society: apprenticeships, electricians, plumbers,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.

“We need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University.”

‘I don’t feel so welcome’

Foreign institutions have already jumped on the chance to welcome Harvard students now caught in legal limbo. On Monday, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said it will accept any Harvard students that wish to transfer, as well as prospective students with a current offer from Harvard.

“I see this as the most significant crisis that universities are facing since World War Two,” Wong said. “We are seeing a complete reset of this collaborative relationship between the federal government and leading research institutions.”

Once the beacon of scientific research, the US has now become an increasingly hostile place to study, teach, and do research. Three quarters of US scientists surveyed by the journal Nature in March said they were considering leaving because of the Trump administration’s policies.

Some have already jumped ship. Yale professors Jason Stanley, Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder, preeminent fascism scholars, announced in March they were leaving for the University of Toronto across the border in Canada because of Trump’s affronts to academic freedom.

Beckman, the Brazilian neuroscientist, said her lab has seen $2.5 million in grant funding cancelled in recent months. On top of these funding woes, Beckman said the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, and shifting attitudes towards foreigners in the US, has also pushed her to look for work elsewhere.

“It’s the first time since I moved here that I don’t feel so welcome anymore,” she said.

As the US research ecosystem responds to shrinking budgets and intrusions on academic freedom, early-career scientists are going to be hardest hit, Wong said. But younger researchers are also more mobile, and institutions around the world are welcoming them with open arms.

“What we are losing is this whole cadre of highly productive, young, energetic, well-trained, knowledgeable, advanced researchers who are primed to take off,” Wong said.

Other countries have long deprioritized investment in scientific research as the US absorbed the R&D needs of the world, Wong said. But that trend is shifting.

R&D spending in China has surged in recent decades, and the country is close to narrowing the gap with the US. China spent more than $780 billion on R&D in 2023, according to OECD data. The European Union is also spending more on R&D. R&D investment in the bloc has increased from about $336 billion in 2007 to $504 billion in 2023, according to the OECD.

For a couple of months, Beckman said she considered stepping away from her Covid-19 research, which has become increasingly politicized under the Trump administration.

But then she started getting interviews at institutions in other countries.

“There is interest in virology everywhere in the world except the US right now.”

The sale of disposable vapes will be banned in the United Kingdom from Sunday, as the country becomes the latest to tackle the “environmental nightmare” of the single-use devices. However, some campaigners warn that the new restrictions are just “a drop in the ocean” in the war against plastic waste.

The ban positions the UK among the first countries in Europe to legislate against disposable vapes, following similar moves in France and Belgium.

An estimated 8.2 million disposable vapes – the equivalent of 13 every second – are discarded in the UK every week, according to an analysis released by environmental group Material Focus in December.

In official guidance, the UK government described the disposable vapes as “eyesores,” and said their widespread disposal has “a hugely damaging impact on our environment and wildlife.” The plastics used in disposable vape products are “nearly impossible for nature to completely break down,” it added.

Improperly discarded batteries can ignite rubbish trucks and waste facilities, it added, with Material Focus linking such incidents to around 1,200 fires between May 2023 and May 2024.

“The ban will also help curb the rise in youth vaping,” the government said. “Over half of children who use vapes report that ‘disposable’ models are their product of choice.”

The legislation will not criminalize possession of disposable vapes. Instead, it targets retailers and distributors, who could face initial penalty fines of £200 ($270) for violations after Sunday. For continued breaches of the new law, an offender could be hit with further fines or a prison sentence.

For those already tackling the environmental fallout, the ban is long overdue.

“Vape producers are being infinitely creative with their products in order to avoid the forthcoming disposable vape ban,” he added.

Anticipating the shift, major vape manufacturers began adapting their product lines ahead of the legislation coming into force.

But, on the ground, one London retailer warned that consumer habits may prove harder to shift.

“The new vapes are also more expensive, which is more difficult for customers,” he added.

Ahead of the ban coming into force, John Dunne, director general of the UK Vaping Industry Association, said in a statement: “We’ve always maintained that bans are not the answer to the issues linked to the vaping industry, but enforcement of the laws that are already in place to protect children and the environment.” He warned that the measure could lead to a increase in vapers returning to cigarette smoking and create a black market for disposable products.

Vape use has surged in recent years. An estimated 5.6 million people vape in the UK, according to a survey carried out by public health charity Action on Smoking and Health last year.

Disposable vapes have proved popular among young adults trying to quit smoking, but their sleek design, bright packaging and sweet flavors have also appealed to teenagers. Almost 1 in 10 secondary school pupils in the UK vape “frequently,” according to a National Heath Service survey published in October, and a quarter of 11- to 15-year-olds have tried vaping.

“I would just put them in the bin, it didn’t feel like the right way,” said 17-year-old Brighton student Eaben Kusik. “It felt a bit wasteful throwing (away) the battery with the vape after three days.

“At first I thought, ‘I don’t like the government banning things,’ but I think it’s a good thing,” he added.

For environmental organization Greenpeace UK, the move marks progress – but not nearly enough.

A separate Tobacco and Vapes Bill, currently making its way through parliament, would give ministers power to further restrict vape packaging, flavors, and marketing – particularly those seen as targeting children.

ISIS has claimed two attacks on Syrian security forces – the first since the transitional government under former jihadist Ahmed al-Sharaa took office.

The terror group, also known as Islamic State, said it had killed and injured seven members of “the apostate Syrian regime” with an explosive device that was detonated on a road in southern Syria. It said the attack took place in the remote desert area of Talul al Safa in the southern Syrian province of Suwayda.

Units of the Free Syrian Army are supported by the US military in what is called the al Tanf Deconfliction Zone close to the borders with Jordan and Egypt, where the US has a small outpost.

The source added that the Talul al Safa area is “extremely rugged and dangerous area, as ISIS had been exploiting its terrain for a long time.”

ISIS lost almost all the territory it controlled in Syria by the end of 2017 but has maintained a foothold in Syria’s vast central desert. ISIS claimed another attack in the same area several days ago.

The Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War says the group has likely maintained cells in southern Syria despite not carrying out any attacks there for at least two years.

The US and other Western governments have urged the new Syrian government to prevent a resurgence of ISIS and other terror groups on Syrian soil. But the government has struggled to extend its authority to Suwayda, where there have been clashes between Druze and Sunni groups.