By ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL and HARUKA NUGA

More than a decade ago, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished without a trace, sparking one of aviation’s most baffling mysteries.

Despite years of multinational searches, investigators still do not know exactly what happened to the plane or its 239 passengers and crew.

On Wednesday, the Malaysian government said a vessel began a new search operation for the missing plane, reigniting hopes the aircraft might finally be found.

A previous, massive search in the southern Indian Ocean, where the jet is believed to have gone down, turned up almost nothing. Apart from a few small fragments that washed ashore, no bodies or large wreckage have ever been recovered.

Here is what to know about the deadly aviation tragedy.

Flight goes missing

The Boeing 777 disappeared from air-traffic radar 39 minutes after departing Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, 2014.

“Good night, Malaysian Three Seven Zero,” the pilot said in the last radio call to Kuala Lumpur and the final communication before the plane crossed into Vietnamese airspace and failed to check in with controllers there.

Minutes later, the aircraft’s transponder stopped broadcasting its location. Military radar showed the jet turn back over the Andaman Sea. Satellite data suggested it continued flying for hours, possibly until fuel exhaustion, before crashing into a remote section of the southern Indian Ocean.

Theories about what happened range from hijacking to cabin depressurization or power failure. There was no distress call, ransom demand, evidence of technical failure or severe weather.

Malaysian investigators in 2018 cleared the passengers and crew but did not rule out “unlawful interference.” Authorities have said someone deliberately severed communications and diverted the plane.

The passengers came from around the world

MH370 carried 12 crew members and 227 passengers, including five young children. Most passengers were Chinese, but there also were citizens of the United States, Indonesia, France, Russia and elsewhere.

Among those aboard were two young Iranians traveling on stolen passports, a group of Chinese calligraphy artists, 20 employees of U.S. tech firm Freescale Semiconductor, a stunt double for actor Jet Li and several families with young children.

Many families lost multiple members.

The search covered a vast area

Search operations began in the South China Sea between Malaysia and Vietnam before expanding to the Andaman Sea and the southern Indian Ocean.

Australia, Malaysia and China coordinated the largest underwater search in history, covering roughly 120,000 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of seabed off western Australia. Aircraft, vessels equipped with sonar and robotic submarines scoured the ocean for signs of the plane.

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Signals thought to be from the plane’s black box turned out to be from other sources and no wreckage was found. The first confirmed debris was a wing fragment, known as a flaperon, discovered on remote Réunion Island in July 2015, with additional fragments later found along the east coast of Africa.

The search was suspended in January 2017.

In 2018, U.S. marine robotics company Ocean Infinity resumed the hunt, under a “no-find, no-fee” agreement, focusing on areas identified through debris drift studies. The effort ended without success.

The search faced enormous challenges

One reason why such an extensive search failed to turn up clues is that no one knows exactly where to look.

The Indian Ocean is the world’s third largest and the search was conducted in a difficult area where searchers encountered bad weather and average depths of around 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).

It’s not common for planes to disappear in the deep sea, but when they do remains can be very hard to locate. Over the past 50 years, dozens of planes have vanished, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The hunt is renewed

Malaysia’s government gave the green light in March for another “no-find, no-fee” contract with Ocean Infinity to resume the seabed search operation at a new site stretching over 15,000 square kilometers (5,800 square miles) of water. Ocean Infinity will be paid $70 million only if wreckage is discovered.

However, the search was suspended in April due to bad weather. The government said Wednesday that Ocean Infinity will resume the search intermittently from Dec. 30 for 55 days in targeted areas believed to have the highest likelihood of finding the missing aircraft.

It is unclear if Ocean Infinity has new evidence of the plane’s location. The company has said it would utilize new technology and has worked with many experts to analyze data and narrow the search area to the most likely site.

Staff at the center, many of whom also live in NYCHA housing, say they keep the door to the mold-filled closet closed as much as possible. They say they’ve filed multiple repair tickets with NYCHA, but the agency has yet to address the problem.

The maintenance closet (right) at NYCHA’s O’Dwyer Gardens Community Center, where dark mold has covered the walls and ceiling for almost a year. (Photos by Bella Week)

Just before 3 p.m. at the Community Center at O’Dwyer Gardens, a NYCHA public housing complex in Coney Island, a dozen small kids run in and drop their backpacks. A few greet staff with knee-high hugs as they enter the main room, where after-school programming is about to begin. Behind the door of a maintenance closet near the foosball table, dark mold has been spreading across the walls and ceiling for almost a year.

Staff at the center, many of whom also live in NYCHA housing, say they keep the closet door closed as much as possible to protect themselves, the children, and seniors who use the space. They say they’ve filed multiple repair tickets with NYCHA, but the agency has yet to address the problem.

“We’re all hesitant to go in the closet,” said Chyanne Cooper, who has worked at the center for seven years and participated in its programs before that. “A lot of us have kids as well, so we don’t want it to affect us or affect these kids.”

Sadaf Sheikh, the center’s program director, said the smell is overwhelming. “If you open the closet, it is so strong,” she said. “One time I went in the closet, I felt sick.”

Exposure to mold can cause or worsen asthma and other respiratory illnesses, conditions that disproportionately affect Black and brown children living in low-income households, where environmental triggers, including mold, are common. 

Visible mold covers the ceiling of the maintenance closet in a community center that hosts daily programming for dozens of kids. Photo by Bella Week.

Coney Island has struggled with persistent mold outbreaks since flooding from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and many residents experience ongoing respiratory issues. A 2023 report by the New York State Department of Health found that asthma rates among NYCHA residents in Coney Island are two-and-a-half times that of residents who don’t live in public housing.

“We definitely have a few kids that have asthma,” said Cooper. She described one child whose parents ask staff to hold on to his inhaler and assist him with it when needed.

Staff say they try to keep the closet door shut and avoid going inside unless necessary, which it sometimes is. “That’s where all our toilet tissue, extra soaps, and cleaning products are,” said Cooper. “But with kids constantly being in that room, it’s hard to just let it air out because we don’t want to get exposed to it, or for the kids to get exposed.”

For some workers, avoiding the closet is not an option. “Mostly the maintenance people are in contact with the mold,” said Sania Riley, who has worked at the center for a year. “So they still have to suffer with it.”

Maintenance worker LaTanya Thomas was the first to notice mold. “When I went in to clean out the closet and straighten it up, the boxes were full of mold,” she said. “They were wet and moldy, so I threw away a lot of stuff.” (Photo by Bella Week)

One of those maintenance workers is LaTanya Thomas, 50, who said she often spent time in the closet after her shifts until a few months ago. “That was my little solace place after I finished work,” she said. “I would go sit in the closet and be on my phone.”

Thomas said she stopped spending extended time in the closet around the time she began experiencing frequent headaches and nausea that led her to call out sick. She was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, which is not known to be related to mold exposure. After using many of her sick days earlier this year, she is now on unpaid leave while undergoing treatment.

Staff say they first submitted a repair ticket in February, a month or two after noticing that the mold had spread from the ceiling to the walls. They were told it would be addressed in October. Since then, NYCHA has sent workers to inspect the closet, but no repairs have been made, and staff say they haven’t been given a timeline. 

“They come in, observe it, then leave without saying when work will be done,” Sheikh said, adding that at one point, NYCHA marked the ticket as resolved, requiring staff to submit a new request. “Now it’s December and it’s still like that. It’s been almost a year.”

In a statement, NYCHA Press Secretary Michael Horgan said the agency has improved its average response time for mold complaints at O’Dwyer Gardens from 83 days in May 2022 to approximately two days as of December 2025. Horgan added that open mold-remediation work orders across the development have decreased by up to 80 percent through more efficient resolution of mold and moisture conditions.

Staff at the community center say those figures mean little as long as the mold in the closet remains unaddressed. “Do better,” said Angoinette Batey, a staff member at the center. “They’re not doing enough. They’re just not doing it.”

Staff say they first submitted a repair ticket for the closet in February, a month or two after noticing that the mold had spread from the ceiling to the walls. (Photo by Bella Week)

NYCHA has a well-documented history of failing to address repairs effectively and on time, including mold. Since 2014, the agency has been under a court order to remediate mold within 15 days of a complaint. 

In 2019, when conditions still hadn’t improved, a judge appointed an Ombudsperson to address unresolved complaints about mold and leaks. That same year, as part of a lawsuit settlement, a federal monitor was appointed to oversee NYCHA’s efforts to improve conditions, including reducing mold.

In response to questions about the mold at the community center, NYCHA Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Sklar said the agency would send an inspector on Dec. 29 to assess conditions and determine next steps. Batey confirmed that the inspector arrived that day.

“When they come in they tell us it’s so bad,” said Sheikh. “We know it’s so bad. We want to know: When are you gonna fix it?”

 To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post NYCHA Has Ignored Mold at This Brooklyn After-School Center for a Year, Staffers Say   appeared first on City Limits.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON  — Flu is rising rapidly across the U.S., driven by a new variant of the virus — and cases are expected to keep growing with holiday travel.

That variant, known as “subclade K,” led to early outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada. In the U.S., flu typically begins its winter march in December. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported high or very high levels of illness in more than half the states.

The CDC estimated there have been at least 7.5 million illnesses, 81,000 hospitalizations and 3,100 deaths from flu so far this season. That includes at least eight child deaths — and is based on data as of Dec. 20, before major holiday gatherings.

Some states are particularly hard-hit. New York’s health department said the week ending Dec. 20 marked the most flu cases the state had recorded in a single week since 2004: 71,000.

It’s far too soon to know if this flu season will be as severe as last winter’s.

But it’s not too late to get a flu shot, which health experts say can still prevent severe illness even if someone gets infected. While this year’s vaccine isn’t a perfect match to the subclade K strain, a preliminary analysis from the U.K. found it offered at least partial protection, lowering people’s risk of hospitalization.

According to the CDC, only about 42% of adults and children have gotten a flu vaccination so far this year.

What is subclade K flu?

The flu virus is a shape-shifter, constantly mutating, and it comes in multiple forms. There are two subtypes of Type A flu, and subclade K is a mutated version of one of them, named H3N2. That H3N2 strain is always harsh, especially for older adults.

Subclade K’s mutations aren’t enough of a change to be considered an entirely new kind of flu.

But they’re different enough to evade some of the protection from this year’s vaccine, said Andrew Pekosz, a virus expert at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Will subclade K make people sicker?

The CDC said it’s too soon to know how severe this season will be.

Flu seasons dominated by any version of H3N2 tend to be bad, with more infections overall and more people becoming seriously ill. But Hopkins’ Pekosz cautioned it will take time to tease apart whether this subclade K version simply spreads more easily or also is more dangerous.

That question aside, the CDC notes there are some prescription medicines to treat flu — usually recommended for people at high risk of complications. But they generally need to be started a day or two after symptoms begin.

Who needs a flu vaccine?

The CDC and major medical societies all recommend a flu vaccine for just about everyone age 6 months and older. Despite lots of recent misinformation and confusion about vaccines, the flu recommendations haven’t changed.

Flu is particularly dangerous for people 65 and older, pregnant women, young children and people of any age who have chronic health problems, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease and weak immune systems.

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The vaccines are brewed to protect against three influenza strains. Despite concern over that new H3N2 variant, they appear to be a good match against H1N1 and Type B flu that may also circulate this year, Pekosz said.

There are shots for all ages, as well as the nasal spray FluMist for ages 2 to 49. For the first time this year, some people may be eligible to vaccinate themselves with FluMist at home.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS, Associated Press

LARNACA, Cyprus (AP) — Photis Gaitanos’ rough fingers adroitly untangle the venomous spikes of a lionfish from a net, throwing the exotic-looking creature into an ice-filled rubber bin along with other fish from the day’s catch.

Unlike a few years ago when he would have mostly caught local staples as sea bream, red mullet or bass, the veteran fisherman now hunts for the invasive species that made its way from the Red Sea to the warming waters of the Mediterranean,

Lionfish, with their red and orange-hued stripes and antennae-like barbs that menacingly ward off enemies, threaten to decimate indigenous fish stocks, wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of the roughly 150 professional fishermen in Cyprus.

A lionfish is seen on a fishing boat off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus, in the eastern Mediterranean, early Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

The prickly fish has even made its way as far north as the Ionian Sea, where Italian authorities have asked the public to photograph and report sightings.

The East Mediterranean has also seen another invasive Red Sea fish in the last decade: the silver-cheeked toadfish. Known as an eating machine whose powerful jaws cut through fishing nets, decimating fishermen’s catch, it has no natural predators off Cyprus, allowing its population to explode.

That toadfish also produces a lethal toxin, making it inedible.

Warmer waters are the culprit

Gaitanos, the 60-year-old fisherman, has fished for years in an area a few kilometers off the coastal town of Larnaca, once famous for its fishing bounty. Now, he says, it’s been more than two years since he’s caught a red mullet, a consumer favorite.

Fisherman Photis Gaitanos collects fish from nets off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus, in the eastern Mediterranean, early Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

“I have been practicing this profession for 40 years. Our income, especially since these two foreign species appeared, has become worse every year. It is now a major problem (affecting) the future of fishing,” he said. “How can it be dealt with?”

Europe’s General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean says with the sea warming some 20% faster than the global average, the presence of invasive species “is progressively increasing in the western basin.”

Models show that warmer seas as a result of climate change could see lionfish swarm the entire Mediterranean by the century’s end. Warmer waters and an expanded Suez Canal “have opened the floodgates” to Indo-Pacific species in general, according to Cyprus’ Fisheries Department.

The European Union’s Fisheries Commissioner Costas Kadis, a Cypriot himself, told The Associated Press that more frequent and intense extreme weather, often linked to climate change, could make the Mediterranean more hospitable to invasive species.

And that’s taking a heavy toll on Europe’s fishing industry as fishermen’s catches diminish while their costs shoot up as a result of repairs to fishing gear damaged by the powerful intruders.

“The native marine biodiversity of a specific region, as in the case of Cyprus, faces heightened competition and pressure, with implications for local ecosystems and industries dependent on them,” said Kadis.

Fishermen cry for help

Gaitanos, who inherited his father’s boat in 1986, is not sure the fishermen’s grievances are being handled in a way that can stave off the profession’s decline.

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“We want to show the European Union that there’s a big problem with the quantity of the catch as well as the kind of fish caught, affected by the arrival of these invasive species and by climate change,” he said.

Some EU-funded compensation programs have been enacted to help fishermen. The latest, enforced last year, pays fishermen about $5.5 per 2.2 pounds to catch toadfish to control their number. The toadfish are then sent to incinerators.

Another project, RELIONMED, which began in 2017, recruits some 100 scuba divers to cull lionfish around wrecks, reefs and marine protected areas. The Cyprus Fisheries Department says surveys show that frequent culls could buy time for native species to recover, but it’s not a permanent fix.

Some try eating the problem

What local fishermen are hoping will catch on with the fish-loving public is a new campaign to serve lionfish as a delicacy after its poisonous spines are carefully removed.

Kadis, the EU Fisheries commissioner, said a social media campaign that began in 2021, #TasteTheOcean, had top European chefs and influencers plugging invasive species as a tasty alternative to the more commonly consumed fish. Renowned Cypriot chef Stavris Georgiou worked up a lionfish recipe of his own.

Stefanos Mentonis, owner of Stefanos restaurant, cooks lionfish in Larnaca, Cyprus, in the eastern Mediterranean, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

For most Cypriots, local taverns with their rich meze menus that feature numerous plates different fish is the way to go. Although eating lionfish has been slow to catch on, many tavernas and fish restaurants have started to introduce it as part of their menu.

The bonus is that lionfish is now priced competitively compared to more popular fish like sea bass. At the Larnaca harbor fish market, lionfish cost less than half as much as more popular fish like sea bass.

“By incorporating invasive species such as lionfish into our diet, we can turn this challenge into an opportunity for the fisheries sector and at the same time help limit the environmental threat caused by these species,” Kadis said

Stephanos Mentonis, who runs a popular fish tavern in Larnaca, has included lionfish on his meze menu as a way to introduce the fish to a wider number of patrons.

Mentonis, 54, says most of his customers aren’t familiar with lionfish. But its meat is fluffy and tender, and he says it can hold up against perennial tavern favorites like sea bream.

“When they try it, it’s not any less tasty than any other fish,” he said.

Associated Press writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.