FDA recommends second phase 3 trial for Reviva’s schizophrenia drug
Reviva’s schizophrenia drug advances to second phase 3 trial following FDA recommendation
Israel extends order permitting closure of foreign broadcasters
Israel’s parliament has extended an order allowing the government to shut down foreign broadcasters operating in the country.
The legislation, passed by 22 votes to 10, expands temporary powers introduced during the Gaza war to shutter outlets seen as a threat to national security.
It allows the government for the next two years to cease operations of a foreign outlet even in peace time and without the need for a court order.
Originally dubbed the “Al Jazeera Law”, the powers were used to shut down the Qatari-owned channel’s offices and block its broadcasts in May 2024.
Israel accused Al Jazeera – which has been a strong critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza – of anti-Israel bias and of supporting Hamas in its coverage.
Al Jazeera denied the accusations and condemned Israel’s actions, calling it a “criminal act” and an attack on press freedom.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said last year that the temporary order violated “freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom of the press, and blocks citizens and residents from receiving a variety of information that does not fit the Israeli narrative or is not broadcast on Israeli media channels”.
The legislation extending the order was passed hours after the Israeli cabinet approved a plan to shut down Army Radio, or Galei Tzahal (GLZ), a state-funded station that is operated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) but is editorially independent.
Under the plan proposed by Defence Minister Israel Katz, the station will cease operations by 1 March 2026.
Katz argued that Army Radio, which employs both active duty soldiers and civilians, “no longer serves as a mouthpiece and ear for soldiers and broadcasts political and divisive content that is not in line with IDF values”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the cabinet meeting that a station broadcasting under the authority of the military was highly unusual.
“I think it exists in North Korea and maybe a few other countries, and we probably don’t want to be counted among them,” he said.
The Union of Journalists and Journalists’ Organisations said they would petition the High Court of Justice against the decision, calling it “a severe and unlawful infringement on freedom of expression and freedom of the press”.
The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) think tank said shutting Army Radio constituted a serious violation of freedom of expression and effectively wiped out half of Israel’s independent public radio news broadcasts.
“The decision to shut down a public media organisation is not an isolated move. It is part of a broader and worrying pattern of ongoing harm to Israeli democracy,” it warned.
The Reasons Why Coyotes Won’t Replace Wolves: A Look at Their Impact on Moose and Beaver Populations
So are coyotes the new wolf? Can they fill the same ecological role that wolves used to? These are the questions I set out to answer in my paper published in August 2025 in the Stacks Journal. I focused on their role as predators – what they eat and how often they kill big herbivores, such as deer and moose.
I started by reviewing every paper I could find on wolf or coyote diets, recording what percent of scat or stomach samples contained common food items such as deer, rabbits, small rodents or fruit. I compared northeastern wolf diets to northeastern coyote diets and red wolf diets to southeastern coyote diets.
I found two striking differences between wolf and coyote diets. First, wolves ate more medium-sized herbivores. In particular, they ate more beavers in the northeast and more nutria in the southeast. Both of these species are large aquatic rodents that influence ecosystems – beaver dam building changes how water moves, sometimes undesirably for land owners, while nutria are non-native and damaging to wetlands.
Second, wolves have narrower diets overall. They eat less fruit and fewer omnivores such as birds, raccoons and foxes, compared to coyotes. This means that coyotes are likely performing some ecological roles that wolves never did, such as dispersing fruit seeds in their poop and suppressing populations of smaller predators.
Killing deer and moose
But diet studies alone cannot tell the whole story – it’s usually impossible to tell whether coyotes killed or scavenged the deer they ate, for example. So I also reviewed every study I could find on ungulate mortality – these are studies that tag deer or moose, track their survival, and attribute a cause of death if they die.
These studies revealed other important differences between wolves and coyotes. For example, wolves were responsible for a substantial percentage of moose deaths – 19% of adults and 40% of calves – while none of the studies documented coyotes killing moose. This means that all, or nearly all, of moose in coyote diets is scavenged.
Coyotes are adept predators of deer, however. In the northeast, they killed more white-tailed deer fawns than wolves did, 28% compared to 15%, and a similar percentage of adult deer, 18% compared to 22%. In the southeast, coyotes killed 40% of fawns but only 6% of adults.
Rarely killing adult deer in the southeast could have implications for other members of the ecological community. For example, after killing an adult ungulate, many large predators leave some of the carcass behind, which can be an important source of food for scavengers. Although there is no data on how often red wolves kill adult deer, it is likely that coyotes are not supplying food to scavengers to the same extent that red wolves do.
Are coyotes the new wolves?
So what does this all mean? It means that although coyotes eat some of the same foods, they cannot fully replace wolves. Differences between wolves and coyotes were particularly pronounced in the northeast, where coyotes rarely killed moose or beavers. Coyotes in the southeast were more similar to red wolves, but coyotes likely killed fewer nutria and adult deer.
The return of wolves could be a natural solution for regions where wildlife managers desire a reduction in moose, beaver, nutria or deer populations.
Yet even with the aid of reintroductions, wolves will likely never fully recover their former range in eastern North America – there are too many people. Coyotes, on the other hand, do quite well around people. So even if wolves never fully recover, at least coyotes will be in those places partially filling the role that wolves once had.
Indeed, humans have changed the world so much that it may be impossible to return to the way things were before people substantially changed the planet. While some restoration will certainly be possible, researchers can continue to evaluate the extent to which new species can functionally replace missing species.
Alex Jensen, Postdoctoral Associate – Wildlife Ecology, North Carolina State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Clashes in Aleppo escalate as deadline for SDF’s integration into army nears | Syria’s War
Clashes between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, did not come in a vacuum.
Tensions between the two sides have been high as an end-of-year deadline to incorporate the SDF into the Syrian armed forces approaches.
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The fighting erupted on Monday afternoon during a visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan but had ended by that evening after the two sides agreed to halt firing.
Analysts told Al Jazeera that the SDF, led by military leader Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) and the Syrian government, have seemingly reached an impasse on how to integrate the Kurdish fighters into the new state military structure and that a failure to find a serious deal could lead to renewed bouts of fighting or military confrontation between the two sides.
“The red lines of the [Kurdish] self-administration on one hand, and Turkiye/Damascus on the other, do present some striking incompatibility, and I do not see a way that the two can be reconciled,” Thomas McGee, the Max Weber Fellow specialising on Syria at the European University Institute in Florence, told Al Jazeera.
Negotiations
On March 10, the new Syrian government in Damascus, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the SDF signed a historic agreement that planned to integrate the latter group into Syria’s new armed forces by the end of 2025.
The SDF is largely made up of members of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the military wing of the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is labelled a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union and Turkiye.
The agreement was seen as a means of avoiding a potentially explosive confrontation between Damascus and the US-trained SDF. However, 10 months on, while the agreement has helped the two sides avoid clashes, little progress has been made.
”For there to be any progress on implementing this point, one side would have to give way … as such, the status quo prevails,” McGee added.
A point of contention seems to be between the SDF’s preferred position of incorporating their existing battalions into the Syrian armed forces with a degree of autonomy, versus Damascus’s preferred position of the individual integration of SDF fighters.
Analysts told Al Jazeera that these two positions were likely untenable and that an agreement didn’t seem imminent.
Turkiye has backed Damascus and even threatened unilateral military intervention should an agreement not be reached.
“We just hope that things go through dialogue, negotiations and peacefully. We don’t want to see any need to resort to military means again. But SDF should understand the patience of the relevant actors is running out,” Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan told Turkish state media.
After a decades-long armed rebellion by the PKK, Turkiye has reached a deal with the group to disarm and lay down its weapons. Despite Fidan’s strong words, analysts said it is unlikely it would want to undermine those talks by militarily confronting the SDF.
Kurdish self-administration
On December 8, the more than five-decade rule of the Assad regime ended, allowing millions of Syrians to return to their country amid hopes for a better future. This was particularly true in areas controlled by the SDF during Syria’s civil war; under Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish rights were restricted and many Kurds said they were treated as second-class citizens.
But during Syria’s revolution and the subsequent almost 14 years of civil war, the SDF controlled areas in the northeast – at times by force and against the will of Arab inhabitants – and was able to build a level of autonomy. Analysts said the group is hesitant to relinquish that power.
“In terms of Kurdish self-defence and ability of Kurds to make own decisions, they think they’ve now achieved something which they’ve never had before, and don’t want to give it up,” Robin Yassin-Kassab, a Syrian writer and co-author of the book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, told Al Jazeera.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said on Monday that the SDF ”showed no willingness” to integrate into the country’s central administration in Damascus.
Yet analysts say there is a deep mistrust between Damascus and the SDF and that the government could have taken some steps to build confidence.
“The government has failed to take advantage of certain opportunities to show good faith in implementing the agreement from its side,” McGee said.
He added that the government could have taken steps such as recognising Newroz as a national holiday or acknowledging the rife Kurdish statelessness that occurred under the Assad regime.
“Also, during my recent visit to Hasakah, many locals were commenting on the fact that services [such as civil documentation] that had been available to them through the Security Squares of Qamishli and Hasakah under the Assad regime are no longer in place since December last year,” McGee said.
Little progress
Syria’s new administration has gained substantial international and regional backing, and that could have built its confidence in its dealings with the SDF.
The US, in particular, has grown closer to Damascus in recent months, with al-Sharaa making a historic visit to the White House and seemingly winning the approval of US President Donald Trump.
The US also trained and armed the SDF in its fight against ISIL (ISIS). But Trump’s special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, has said the US supports the SDF integrating into the Syrian state and that it would not like to see the SDF breaking away to form an autonomous entity or even a semi-autonomous region like Iraqi Kurdistan. Barrack also praised the ”reasonable options” presented by the government to the SDF.
“The US want the SDF to integrate into the new Syrian transitional government but don’t want the SDF – Damascus to descend into conflict because it will create more opportunities for ISIL to pop up in vacuums,” Wladimir van Wilgenburg, an analyst of Kurdish politics based in Erbil, told Al Jazeera.
On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that Damascus “expressed openness to the SDF reorganising its roughly 50,000 fighters into three main divisions and smaller brigades as long as it cedes some chains of command and opens its territory to other Syrian army units”.
However, officials also told Reuters a deal didn’t appear to be imminent and more talks were needed.
Still, analysts said the March 10 deal signed by al-Sharaa and Abdi in Damascus did have a positive impact in limiting clashes.
“It is notable that there has been extremely little direct conflict between the Syrian government and self -administration since the signing of the agreement, indicating that at least the provision relating to the ‘ceasefire’ has broadly held,” McGee said. “Other provisions have clearly, however, seen little progress.”
It’s still unclear how Monday’s clashes may affect the deal, and analysts say the prospect of SDF fighters integrating into government forces before the end of 2025 is unlikely.
“The deadline is approaching fast but some officials say it’s more important to implement the agreement than focus on the deadline, so there could be an extension,” van Wilgenburg said.
JJ Redick Criticizes Referees Following Lakers vs. Clippers Game – Basketball Insiders
Frustration Boils Over in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick voiced clear frustration with NBA officiating after his team’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers. Redick spoke postgame about what he sees as ongoing problems with consistency from crew to crew. His comments added to a growing league-wide conversation involving coaches, players, and front offices.
Redick did not focus on a single whistle or missed call. He instead pointed to patterns he believes hurt teams during close, physical games. The Lakers–Clippers matchup featured heavy contact, emotional moments, and several stoppages that slowed momentum.
Consistency Remains the Core Issue
Redick centered his criticism on how rules get enforced differently depending on the night. He stressed that teams prepare based on league guidance, yet often see those standards shift during games. That lack of clarity, in his view, makes it harder for players to adjust in real time.
The Lakers have dealt with tight margins this season. Small swings, like foul trouble or overturned calls, can shape outcomes. Redick believes those swings should come from play, not confusion over interpretations.
JJ Redick on the refs:
“The consistency needs to be addressed. I keep asking the league to please reach out to me and respond. I don’t get any response from the league. Nobody ever reaches out to me. The definitions just get changed every single night” pic.twitter.com/WgDWCrRbkT
— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) December 21, 2025
A Growing Trend Around the League
Redick’s comments did not come out of nowhere. Several NBA coaches have spoken publicly this season about officiating standards. Some have taken fines. Others have used press conferences to push for dialogue with the league office.
As a first-year NBA head coach, Redick has quickly shown he will advocate for his team. He has emphasized communication and accountability since taking the job. That approach now includes speaking openly about refereeing concerns.
Players Feel the Effects on the Floor
When officials set unclear boundaries, players often react with visible frustration. That frustration can lead to technical fouls, hesitation on defense, or altered shot selection. Redick acknowledged how those moments can swing energy within a game.
Against the Clippers, the Lakers struggled to find rhythm for long stretches. Physical defense and frequent stoppages played a role. Redick tied those issues back to what he believes is uneven enforcement.
Looking Ahead
Redick made clear he wants conversation, not conflict. He hopes the league will address communication between officials and teams moving forward. For the Lakers, the focus now shifts back to execution and preparation.
Still, Redick’s message landed clearly. As the season continues, officiating will remain under the spotlight. Coaches like Redick plan to keep speaking until they see clearer, more consistent standards across the NBA.
Introducing the New Triumph Thruxton and Tracker 400 Motorcycles
When Triumph released its first-ever 400cc motorcycles last year – the Speed 400 and Scram 400 – very few people would have foreseen the success that followed. Many at the time termed them as the most value-for-money motorcycles on the market, and it seems like the bikemaker has taken note of that success.
Now, the British brand has followed up with two new motorcycles built on the same 400cc platform – the Thruxton 400 and Tracker 400. The Thruxton is a café racer-esque bike, while the Tracker is more of a flat track-inspired motorcycle – both, built as roadsters, in essence.
We’ll start with the engine: you get a revised version of the 398cc TR Series engine used in the Speed and Scrambler 400. It’s more powerful than before, producing 5% more peak power – 41.4 horsepower compared to 39.5 hp of the Speed and Scram 400s.
Triumph
As for torque, you get the same 27.7 lb.ft (36.7 Nm) as before. But Triumph claims that 80% of that torque comes at around 3,000 revs, which means there’s more low-end torque now than before.
Now, a small Thruxton hasn’t exactly been a well-kept secret. We’ve known for a while that Triumph had been working on one. Many even pondered if it would simply be a Speed 400 clothed in café-racer fairings. Well, I’m glad to say that’s not the case.
Triumph has done much more. For starters, the Speed 400’s handlebars are replaced with more café-racer-styled clip-ons, while the footpegs have been pushed up and back. The suspension setup is different, too – 43-mm front forks offer 5.3 in (135 mm) of travel up front, and a preload-adjustable rear monoshock comes with 5.1 in (130 mm) of travel.
As you can see, there’s a rear cowl in place of a passenger seat. Don’t worry, there’s actually a seat hidden beneath that cowl in case your buddy is hellbent on tagging along for a ride – although, judging by its size, don’t expect it to offer much in terms of passenger comfort.
Triumph
Then, there’s the design. It’s an absolute peach, which considering it’s lifted off of Triumph café racers of the past, is not even surprising. There are some beautiful, flowing lines from the half-fairing to the fuel tank, which features scalloped cutouts, all the way to the short rear fender.
Triumph also includes a Monza-style fuel cap, while touches like the brushed heel guards, the blacked-out engine, and the classic round headlamp are all appreciable. Definitely not what most entry-level singles offer.
Now, let’s talk about the aptly-named Tracker 400. I say so because it’s based on flat trackers of the past. And although I don’t expect to see people racing with the bike, at least it does a good job at looking the part.
Triumph
The design journey starts with the race-inspired logos and the fuel tank, which sport crisp creases. The angular flyscreen and color-matched rear cowl further enhance the tracker appeal, as do the 17-inch cast aluminum wheels that are wrapped in Pirelli MT60 RS tires with a blocky tread pattern.
As for the handlebars, they’re wider and flatter than the Thruxton, and go really well with the redesigned footpegs. Which, by the way, are moved 3.4 in (86 mm) farther back and 1 in (25 mm) higher than the Speed 400, offering a more aggressive stance.
The chassis is shared with the Thruxton, and it is somewhat tweaked from the earlier 400s. It sports a similar steel tube front frame as the Speed 400, but there’s a new rear subframe and a shorter wheelbase. The suspension setup, though, is similar to its predecessor, with 43-mm upside-down Showa Big Piston forks with 5.5 in (140 mm) of travel and a gas monoshock rear suspension unit giving 5.1 in (130 mm) of travel.
Triumph
Similar to the Speed and Scram 400s, Triumph has kept rider aids to a minimum on both these new bikes. You only get ride-by-wire, traction control, and ABS. The cockpit is fairly similar, too, with a single analog speedo and LCD, and there’s LED lighting with daylight running. That’s about it.
The new Thruxton 400 will start at US$6,295, and bears a 2026 model year. On the other hand, the Tracker 400 is priced at a MSRP of $5,995 and comes as a 2027 model year. We’ve been quoted a March-April 2026 US launch timeline for the two bikes.
Triumph
Most motorcycle brands have realized that the boom in the small-displacement segment is not merely a fad, but it’s here to stay. In fact, it is one of the biggest categories of motorcycles in terms of sales (and margins) right now. And that has led even the most traditional bikemakers to change their strategy.
Take the likes of BMW, Kawasaki, and Honda – all big-scale global manufacturers, and when you look at some of their latest releases, there’s one common pattern: increasingly more sub-500cc motorcycles. Is that a coincidence?
Triumph’s move surely suggests not. What we have here are small, functional motorcycles that look cool. Another success story brewing for Triumph?
Source: Triumph
Oracle consortium strikes deal with TikTok for US operations
The Associated Press reported Friday (December 19), citing an internal memo from ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew, that TikTok’s parent has signed binding agreements with a consortium of investors to form a new joint venture for the app’s US business.
The agreement with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX is reportedly set to close on January 22, allowing the app to continue running in the US.
TikTok plans to retrain its recommendation algorithm exclusively using US user data as part of the joint venture.
Chew wrote in the memo to staff obtained by the AP: “I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued dedication and tireless work. Your efforts keep us operating at the highest level and will ensure that TikTok continues to grow and thrive in the US and around the world.
“With these agreements in place, our focus must stay where it’s always been—firmly on delivering for our users, creators, businesses and the global TikTok community.”
Under the structure, the three investors will each hold 15% stakes in the new US entity, while ByteDance will retain 19.9% ownership, with another 30.1% going to affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, the AP said, citing the memo.
Separately, Business Insider reported that an additional 5% will be held by other unnamed investors, bringing outside ownership to 50%.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued dedication and tireless work. Your efforts keep us operating at the highest level and will ensure that TikTok continues to grow and thrive in the US and around the world.”
Shou Zi Chew, ByteDance
The reported memo confirms earlier reports that a group of investors including Oracle and Silver Lake would hold a combined 50% stake in TikTok US to appease the Trump administration.
Under the “divest-or-ban” law passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress and signed by then-President Joe Biden, TikTok is required to sell its US operations or face an effective ban on operating in the US. The law’s original deadline was in January of this year, forcing the app offline briefly for American users. TikTok has about 170 million users in the US.
Trump brought the app back online during his opening days in office, granting a 75-day pause to let potential American buyers put together offers.
When talks stalled, Trump pushed the deadline back (after pushing it back multiple times) to December 16, and ordered the Department of Justice not to enforce the law until January 23, 2026, in order to give time for the deal to be finalized.
Financial terms of the deal with Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX were not disclosed. In September, US Vice President JD Vance said the proposed transaction would value TikTok’s US operations at “around $14 billion.” Reuters noted at the time that the price tag is “far below some analyst estimates”. In June, Morningstar analysts predicted that a deal for TikTok’s US business would be “north of $50 billion.”
Shares of Oracle rose nearly 7% in NYSE trading on Friday following the reports.
The AP said a seven-member board with an American majority will lead the new US venture. User data will be stored domestically in Oracle-run systems, the report said. The company plans to retrain its recommendation algorithm using only US user data to “ensure the content feed is free from outside manipulation,” the AP said, citing the memo.
The algorithm has been central to concerns raised by US lawmakers, who have warned that Chinese authorities could exploit it to shape content distribution. In late 2022, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship, and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act, also called the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act, to protect Americans from algorithmic manipulation.
Meanwhile, the new venture will also oversee content moderation and policies within the US, the report said.
Chew added in the memo: “Advertisers will continue to connect with global audiences with no impact,” according to Business Insider.
This agreement concludes years of regulatory pressure on TikTok, keeping ByteDance involved in its US operations while addressing lawmakers’ demands for reduced Chinese control over the app.
Effective December 1, TikTok appointed Ziad Ojakli as head of public policy for the Americas, a veteran government affairs executive. He replaced Michael Beckerman, who spent more than five years steering TikTok‘s policy response to mounting political pressure and announced his departure in April. Beckerman will then transition to a global advisory position.
Before joining TikTok, Ojakli held senior government affairs positions at Ford, SoftBank and Boeing, and served in the George W. Bush administration.
The developments also mark a sigh of relief for ByteDance, whose valuation jumped to $480 billion in a transaction in late November, more than doubling from the $230 billion reported in September last year.
Music Business Worldwide
Tourists rescued from sinking boat in panic and desperation
It was supposed to be just another Thursday in Laos, where Anthonin’s father was born.
Instead, the 30-year-old French citizen found himself among more than 140 people, mostly tourists, on a ferry that capsized in the Mekong River. All but three are thought to have made it to safety.
Videos online show a scene of chaos – people screaming for help, children crying and passengers scrambling to get their belongings.
Anthonin, who declined to give his full name, recalls seeing a mother and her two children on board the ferry – but they were nowhere to be seen on the rescue boat.
On Monday, Lao media reported that the body of a woman, named Pany Her, had been retrieved from the river. Rescuers then found the body of a one-year-old, who they believe was one of her children. Efforts to find a second child are continuing.
The boat was making its way last Thursday from the riverside town of Huay Xay to the historic city of Luang Prabang in northern Laos, a common route along the Mekong – and popular with visitors to the country.
There were 118 tourists and 29 locals, including four crew, on board the boat when it struck underwater rocks, according to an official report carried by the Laotian Times.
Within minutes, the ferry began to sink.
“The [crew] were just totally unprepared for that. There was a lot of confusion… it happened really, really fast,” Anthonin said.
“What was, you know, puzzling and alarming is that there were very few life jackets, around like, 15 life jackets maximum… [it] was really bad.”
As the boat continued to capsize, passengers shouted to a passing boat for help, but it did not stop – possibly because, according to him, it was relatively small.
The second one, however, did stop and take them in. However, according to British tourist Bradley Cook, another passenger on board, that briefly “made it worse”.
The 27-year-old told the BBC that as the rescue boat came closer to their ferry, people started to shift and put weight on one side of the ferry, causing water to fill up the hull even quicker.
Mr Cook went to the other side to climb up on the roof, from where he jumped onto the rescue ferry.
Some people managed to climb over to the ferry, while others swam for it, hung onto the rails and got pulled up by others. Both Anthonin and Mr Cook were among those rescued.
But others were less fortunate.
Anthonin says he was helping some other passengers retrieve their luggage at the back of the sinking ferry when he saw a Lao mother and her two children.
However, when he was on the rescue ferry, he realised they weren’t there.
“Some people were crying, panicking. It was a mess,” he said. “[But] I didn’t fear for my life… I was more affected by the three missing people.”
Lao media later reported that the body of the Lao woman Pany Her and a one-year-old child were found, separately, near Luang Prabang.
Another passenger, Gabrielius Baranovičius, 19, told the BBC that he and his friend, both of whom are from Lithuania, did not panic at first.
“We were just joking around,” Mr Baranovičius said, adding that his attitude quickly changed when he realised they were sinking.
After getting on the rescue boat, Mr Baranovičius said he starting filming what was happening on board “but then I heard other people screaming so [I] turned off the camera and went straight to help other people in the water get on the boat.”
Tens of thousands of tourists use slow boat and speedboat services every year along the 300km (185-mile) route connecting Huay Xay, Pak Beng and Luang Prabang, according to the Mekong River Commission.
For Mr Cook, the experience was “terrifying” and it made him want to get out of Luang Prabang, “although everyone’s really friendly here”, because it was a constant reminder of his narrow escape.
Speaking to the BBC from Vang Vieng, a town in northern Laos, Mr Cook said he planned to file for insurance claims for his electrical items that were broken and for cash that was lost, though he was not sure who would be held responsible.
“I’m assuming it’s just a freak accident,” he said, though he added he “was not sure how avoidable” the ferry capsizing was.
It’s not the first time such a sinking has occurred in Laos.
In September 2023, a passenger boat, which travelled on the same river corridor between Huay Xai and Luang Prabang, capsized in the Mekong in Pakbeng district, resulting in three deaths.
The boat reportedly became entangled in a fishing net, causing loss of control and the vessel overturning in strong currents.
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Displaced Civilians Fleeing Sudan War Endure Endless Pain: ‘We Have Nothing’
People escaping fighting, lack of essential supplies in Heglig area faced with tough humanitarian conditions in search for shelter and safety.
Published On 23 Dec 2025
Kosti, Sudan – The flow of displaced people fleeing the fighting in Sudan shows no sign of slowing – the latest hailing from Heglig.
In early December, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized the strategic Heglig oilfield in West Kordofan province after its rival, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), withdrew from the area.
Nearly 1,700 displaced people, most of them children and women, escaped the fighting in the southern region and the lack of basic necessities.
Some of them were fortunate enough to board trucks as they fled from their towns and villages in the area. After an arduous journey, the displaced people arrived at their new home – the Gos Alsalam displacement camp in Kosti, a city in the White Nile province.
“We left without anything … we just took some clothes,” said an elderly woman who appeared exhausted and frail.
Inside the camp, the people arriving are faced with extremely harsh humanitarian conditions. Tents are being pitched in haste, but as the number of displaced people grows, so do the immense humanitarian needs. Yet, humanitarian support remains insufficient to cover even the bare minimum.
“We have no blankets or any sheets, nothing. We are old people,” said a displaced elderly woman.
‘I gave birth in the street’
Nearly three years of war between the RSF and SAF have forced 14 million people to flee their homes in a desperate attempt to find shelter and safety away from the heavy fighting that has killed tens of thousands.
Some 21 million across the country are facing acute hunger, in what the United Nations calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
In a small corner of the Gos Alsalam camp, Umm Azmi sits next to her newborn baby. She recalled how she was overtaken by labour on the road and delivered her baby in the open air without any medical assistance.
“I was trying for nine months … but I gave birth in the street – the condition is very difficult,” the mother said.
“I had just given birth, and I had nothing to eat. Sometimes we eat anything we find in the streets,” she added.