The head of Japan’s meteorological agency dismissed widespread rumors of a major earthquake in Japan this summer as unscientific and a “hoax,” urging people not to worry because even the most advanced science still cannot predict any quake or tsunami.

“At the moment, it is still impossible to predict an earthquake with specific timing, location or its magnitude,” Japan Meteorological Agency Director General Ryoichi Nomura told reporters. “Any such prediction is a hoax, and there is absolutely no need to worry about such disinformation.”

Nomura was referring to rumors in Hong Kong and other Asian cities that a major earthquake or a tsunami in July in Japan had led to flight cancellations and reductions in service, affecting tourism.

He said it was “unfortunate” that many people are affected by the disinformation, though he sympathized with the sense of unease that the people tend to develop toward something invisible.

The rumor originates from a 2022 Japanese comic book “The Future I Saw,” which features a dream foreseeing a tsunami and is also available in Chinese. The chatter began spreading earlier this year through social media, mainly in Hong Kong.

The author previously gained attention for allegedly predicting the 2011 quake and tsunami in northern Japan.

Japan, which sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” is one of the world’s most quake-prone countries.

Last summer, a panel of seismologists noted a slight increase in the probability of a megaquake on Japan’s Pacific coasts. The government organized an awareness-raising week but only triggered panic buying, beach closures and other overreactions and complaints.

While it is important to inform people about the science, Nomura said, it is also necessary for everyone in this quake-prone country to take early precautions.

“In Japan, an earthquake can occur anytime, anywhere,” Nomura said. “So I ask everyone to take this opportunity to ensure your preparedness for a major quake.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

As the owner of a marina, Kate Gervais is used to seeing boats in the water. But for the last couple of days, she's been seeing them in the air.

The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) used one of its firefighting helicopters to haul abandoned boats off an uninhabited island in the southernmost reaches of Puget Sound, where the vessels had come to rest after drifting with the currents, and fly them to the mainland to be deconstructed later.

With 14 vessels removed, it was the agency's largest operation of its kind, officials said.

It was a very, very weird sight, said Gervais, who owns Boston Harbor Marina, just north of Olympia. The sailboat with the mast was the weirdest one to see.

A boat removal by helicopter is typically done by a private pilot, but for this operation, which was funded by a federal grant, the DNR opted to use one of its firefighting helicopters. It was cheaper and helped stretch the $1 million National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant, said Commissioner of Public Lands Dave Upthegrove.

The state agency opts to airlift boats when towing them would disrupt the marine bed or the surrounding environment too much. The aquatic lands where the boats land often include kelp beds, which are critical for supporting the forage fish that salmon rely on.

Vessels for this operation were found in hard-to-reach coves, at the tree line or in mud that rendered an airlift a better option, agency staff said.

Since the boat removal program began in 2002, the department has hauled out more than 1,200 derelict vessels. There are at least 300 more out there, with more found all the time, Upthegrove said.

It's a real challenge impacting the Puget Sound when people essentially dump their old boats into the water because they don't want to deal with disposing of them, he said. That burden then falls on all of us.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Inside a bakery at a New Jersey Walmart, Melissa Fernandez assembles and decorates cakes. “The Cupcake Bouquets are number one right now. It’s the biggest seller,” said Fernandez. “So it’s twelve cupcakes set up to look like a flower bouquet.”

Across the country, cake decorators at the nation's largest retailer collectively decorated more than a million cakes during the May and June graduation season.

Fernandez promotes her skills on social media. A TikTok of her making the cupcake bouquet has almost half a million views. Fernandez said, “Well, TikTok helps me to stay up to date. A lot of trends that I see on there, within that week or within that month, customers will come asking about it.”

The 6,200 Walmart cake decorators in the U.S. are the highest-paid non-managerial hourly workers in a typical Walmart store. There’s no sugar-coating the importance Walmart places on this part of its business, which drives sales, excitement and repeat customers.

“That’s one of the most important things, and that’s price point. Walmart has the best price point out of everybody else in the business,” said Michael DeMarco, Walmart coach at the North Bergen store.

The company says its custom cake business is currently increasing at double-digit percentages year to date.

“What we are seeing is the consumer entering into an era of “dups”—duplications—less expensive versions of the original,” said Marshal Cohen, Circana Chief Retail Advisor. “Walmart offering up decorated cakes that would normally cost hundreds of dollars, offering them up for a fraction of the price. And in many cases, they may be almost as good, or in the consumer’s mind, just as good as the original upper-end product.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

From the ruins of war to the pages of Marvel and DC, Croatian artists have built stories as powerful as the ones they illustrate. They have now built a reputation within the popular world of comic books.

Few fans are aware that some of these iconic characters originate from a small Balkan nation with a limited comic book market of its own.

For years, Croatian illustrators have quietly made their mark at top publishers like Marvel and DC Comics, crafting the visual worlds of heroes known and loved by millions.

It’s an unlikely success story born not in flashy studios, but amid the upheaval of war and economic uncertainty. Before the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, comics were a staple of youth culture in the region. From that era emerged a generation of Croatian artists who would later earn international acclaim in an industry far from home.

“We’ve always had great talent. But as the market declined significantly in our country, these talented individuals—thanks to their skill and excellence—were forced to seek opportunities abroad. … There’s no secret to their success, these are simply top-notch cartoonists,” explains Marko Šunjić, founder of Fibra, a Croatian comic book publisher.

Dalibor Talajić, a former clarinet teacher, traded music for illustration and never looked back. Today, his résumé includes titles such as Deadpool, X-Men, Avengers, and The Hulk.

“Ever since I was a kid, I was dreaming about superhero comics, about doing superhero comics. Marvel, DC, that was eventual goal. Unless you’re a genius, which I'm not, you start small. So, I was firstly published in a couple of small publishers, but I was persistent… And it took me, let’s say, 15 years to break the ice, to appear in the foreign market, in the American market. But after that, only two years, it took to get to Marvel,” says Talajić.

Being a comic book artist, he says, is a dream come true—a rewarding but extremely demanding job. Behind every issue are weeks or even months of work, sleepless nights, and a constant run with deadlines.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

To attract the brightest minds to America, President Donald Trump proposed a novel idea while campaigning: If elected, he would grant green cards to all foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges.

It's so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools, Trump said during a podcast interview in June 2024. That is going to end on Day One.

That promise never came to pass. Trump's stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically. International students have found themselves at the center of an escalating campaign to kick them out or keep them from coming, as his administration merges a crackdown on immigration with an effort to reshape higher education.

An avalanche of policies from the Trump administration—such as terminating students' ability to study in the U.S., halting all new student visa interviews and moving to block foreign enrollment at Harvard—has triggered lawsuits, countersuits and confusion. Foreign students say they feel targeted on multiple fronts. Trump himself took the latest action against international students, signing a proclamation barring nearly all foreigners from entering the country to attend Harvard. A federal judge temporarily blocked the order the following day.

In interviews, students from around the world described how it feels to be an international student today in America. Their accounts highlight pervasive feelings of fear, anxiety and insecurity that have made them more cautious in their daily lives, distracted them from schoolwork and prompted many to cancel trips home because they fear not being allowed to return.

For many, the last few months have forced them to rethink their dreams of building a life in America.

This spring, the Trump administration abruptly revoked permission to study in the U.S. for thousands of international students before reversing itself. A federal judge has blocked further status terminations, but for many, the damage is done.

The Associated Press provided this article.

Amazon has pledged to beef up the fight against fake reviews, Britain’s competition regulator said after an investigation into whether big online platforms are doing enough to crack down on phony online ratings for products and services.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it secured the “undertakings” from Amazon, after getting a similar agreement earlier this year from Google to clamp down on rogue reviews plaguing the internet.

The company promised to strengthen its existing systems for fighting fake reviews. It will also tackle catalog abuse, which involves sellers boosting star ratings for a product by hijacking good reviews from a completely different one.

As an example, a shopper might come across a pair of headphones with a five-star rating. But, after looking closer, most of the reviews are for a mobile phone charger, the watchdog said.

As part of its commitments, Amazon has agreed to sanction anyone caught using these tactics. Businesses could be banned from selling on the Amazon website, and users posting fake reviews could be banned from posting them, the CMA said.

The watchdog’s chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said that so many people shop on Amazon and “star ratings and reviews have a huge impact on their choices.”

Amazon’s pledges “mean people can make decisions with greater confidence—knowing that those who seek to pull the wool over their eyes will be swiftly dealt with.”

The pledges apply to Amazon's U.K. website. The company said in a statement that it has zero tolerance for fake reviews and that the measures build on Amazon's existing efforts to tackle them.

“We invest significant resources to proactively stop fake reviews ever appearing on our store, including on expert human investigators and machine learning models that analyze thousands of data points to detect risk,” the company said.

The CMA opened its investigations into Amazon and Google in 2021 to examine whether the two companies broke U.K. consumer law by failing to protect shoppers. It began looking into phony reviews on some big websites amid the boom in online shopping fueled by the coronavirus pandemic.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC) opened June 9 amid rising pressure for nations to turn decades of promises into real protection for the sea.

The weeklong summit came as just 2.7 percent of the ocean was effectively protected from destructive, extractive activities, according to the ocean advocacy nonprofit Marine Conservation Institute. That's far below the target agreed upon under the global “30x30” pledge to conserve 30 percent of land and sea by 2030.

Atop this year’s agenda was a diplomatic race to ratify the High Seas Treaty. Adopted in 2023, the treaty would, for the first time, allow nations to establish marine protected areas in international waters, which cover nearly two-thirds of the ocean and are largely ungoverned.

The ocean is critical in stabilizing Earth’s climate and sustaining life. It generates 50 percent of the oxygen we breathe, absorbs around 30 percent of carbon dioxide emissions and captures more than 90 percent of the excess heat caused by those emissions. Without a healthy ocean, experts warn, climate goals will remain out of reach.

The treaty will only come into force once 60 countries ratify it. As of June 8, just 32 countries had done so. Advocates hope UNOC can build enough momentum to cross the threshold, which would allow for the first official Oceans Conference of Parties.

South Korea, France and the European Union have championed the treaty, but most large ocean nations have yet to ratify it, including the rest of the G20.

Beyond new commitments, the conference cast a spotlight on the growing gap between marine protection declarations and real-world conservation.

The conference featured 10 panels on topics such as blue finance, sustainable fisheries and plastic pollution. Deep-sea mining was expected to feature in broader discussions, while small island states were likely to use the platform to advocate for increased climate adaptation funding.

The outcome of these discussions was expected to form the basis of the Nice Ocean Action Plan—a declaration of voluntary commitments to be adopted by consensus and presented at the United Nations in New York this July.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Digital price labels, which are rapidly replacing paper shelf tags at US supermarkets, haven’t led to demand-based pricing surges, according to a new study that examined five years’ worth of prices at one grocery chain.

But some shoppers, consumer advocates and lawmakers remain skeptical about the tiny electronic screens, which let stores change prices instantly from a central computer instead of having workers swap out paper labels by hand.

Social media is filled with warnings that grocers will use the technology to charge more for ice cream if it’s hot outside, hike the price of umbrellas if it’s raining or to gather information about customers.

Lawmakers have introduced bills to limit the use of digital labels. In Arizona, Democratic state Rep. Cesar Aguilar recently introduced a bill that would ban them altogether. Aguilar said he’s determined to start a conversation about digital labels and how stores could abuse them.

Researchers say those fears are misplaced. A study published in late May found “virtually no surge pricing” before or after electronic shelf labels were adopted. The study also determined that discounts were slightly more common after digital labels were introduced.

Economists have long wondered why grocery prices don’t change more often. Here’s one reason: Shoppers watch grocery prices closely, and stores don’t want to risk angering them.

Companies say electronic price labels have tremendous advantages. Walmart says it used to take employees two days to change paper price labels on the 120,000 items it has in a typical store. With digital tags, it takes a few minutes. The labels can also be useful. Some have codes that shoppers can scan to see recipes or nutrition information.

Aguilar, the Arizona lawmaker, said he also opposes the transition to digital labels because he thinks they will cost jobs.

But Relex Solutions’ Amanda Oren said she doesn't think cutting labor costs is the main reason stores deploy digital price tags. “It’s about working smarter, not harder, and being able to use that labor in better ways across the store rather than these very mundane, repetitive tasks,” she said.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

More than 1,000 people gathered in a scenic Minneapolis neighborhood for an annual ritual—the sharpening of a gigantic No. 2 pencil.

The 20-foot-tall (6-meter-tall) pencil was sculpted out of a mammoth oak tree at the home of John and Amy Higgins. The beloved tree was damaged in a storm a few years ago when fierce winds twisted the crown off. Neighbors mourned. A couple even wept. But the Higginses saw it not so much as a loss, but as a chance to give the tree new life.

The sharpening ceremony on their front lawn has evolved into a community spectacle that draws hundreds of people to the leafy neighborhood on Lake of the Isles, complete with music and pageantry. Some people dress as pencils or erasers.

In the wake of the storm, the Higginses knew they wanted to create a sculpture out of their tree. Given the shape and circumference of the log, they came up with the idea of an oversized pencil standing tall in their yard.

“Why a pencil? Everybody uses a pencil,” Amy Higgins said. “Everybody knows a pencil. You see it in school, you see it in people’s work, or drawings, everything. So, it’s just so accessible to everybody, I think, and can easily mean something, and everyone can make what they want of it.”

John Higgins said they wanted the celebration to pull the community together.

“We tell a story about the dull tip, and we’re gonna get sharp,” he said. “There’s a renewal. … And that chance for renewal, that promise, people really seem to buy into and understand.”

Like a real pencil, this one is ephemeral. Every year they sharpen it, and it gets a bit shorter. They have taken anywhere from 3 to 10 inches (8 to 25 centimeters) off a year. They haven't decided how much to shave off this year. They are okay knowing that they could reduce it to a stub one day. The artist said they will let time and life dictate its form—that is part of the magic.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A cheap, eco-friendly flooring system is helping to improve health and bring down construction costs in Uganda. The clay-based earthen floors use local earth instead of cement, helping to reduce carbon emissions, and when replacing traditional mud floors, help reduce dust as well as disease-causing pests.

The Ugandan company racing to install it is EarthEnable, which specializes in this sustainable, affordable system. The flooring is a better option than more rudimentary materials used by those living in poverty, which tend to attract a lot of dust and pests that can damage health.

“In the villages, people use cow dung to maybe take away the dust, but within the shortest time, like in two days, you see that the dust has come. And basically, this floor will help that person come out of the dust,” explains Alex Wanda, a construction officer at EarthEnable.

The raw components are easily available, even here in Jinja, which is 130 kilometers from the capital Kampala. All they need to do is dig the murram, which makes up the majority of the flooring and is right there. It's mixed with sand and water and then compacted. Then it's left to dry out for two weeks before more material is applied, and it's topped off with a sealant made from clay and varnish.

It is cheaper and responsible for far fewer carbon emissions than cement flooring.

“For the cement floor, it is expensive. Why? The client will have to buy cement, will have to buy the gravel, will also have to buy sand and in big quantities, and all that is money, vis-a-vis earthen floor. For us, we need only murram, and you find out that the client doesn’t feel like maybe you are oppressing him. It’s very easy. He directs you where the murram is, you dig it and bring it to the site, and you start construction,” says Wanda.

EarthEnable says their flooring system is also more hygienic—it's easier to keep homes clean and pests out.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.