A virus carried by nearly 90 percent of Americans could help set the stage for multiple sclerosis relapses, according to new research.

The study adds to growing evidence connecting the Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, with MS. Researchers suggest that heightened activity from the virus may be detectable in the blood in the months leading up to an MS flare-up.

EBV belongs to the herpesvirus family and is most widely associated with infectious mononucleosis, commonly known as mono or the “kissing disease.” After infection, the virus remains in the body permanently. It is generally inactive, though stress or a weakened immune system can allow it to reactivate.

An estimated 300 million American adults have been exposed to or infected with EBV.

Earlier research has also indicated that infection with EBV may raise a person’s risk of developing multiple sclerosis by more than threefold.

About one million Americans live with MS, an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the protective coating around nerves in the brain and spinal cord. The damage disrupts communication between the brain and the rest of the body.

For the latest study, scientists examined blood samples from people with MS alongside samples from healthy control participants.

Their findings showed greater EBV activity in immune cells from MS patients as much as three months before relapse symptoms emerged. Those symptoms can include muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and intense fatigue.

Among participants going through an MS relapse, the researchers also observed changes in immune cells—especially B cells. These cells appeared to mutate and become more potent before a flare-up than they were during the relapse itself.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, drew blood samples from 114 MS patients and 21 healthy subjects.

They then used molecular techniques, such as single-cell RNA sequencing, to identify which immune system cells changed the most before a flare up.

Single-cell RNA sequencing is when researchers analyze thousands of individual blood cells one-by-one, instead of looking at the sample as one whole mixture.

Researchers discovered that B cells, white blood cells that can harbor inactive EBV, showed the strongest changes. 

They saw evidence that the cells were transitioning from their normal state to an activated state, suggesting that something in the body was triggering an immune response. This activation increased before an MS relapse.

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Before a relapse, EBV-related signals were associated with turning on genes that are known to increase a person’s susceptibility to MS. This pattern wasn’t seen in the same way when people were in remission or in healthy people. 

The study doesn’t provide evidence on how to prevent an MS relapse, but opens doors for new treatment methods that target EBV to help with debilitating symptoms.

‘These findings open a new avenue for targeted therapeutics,’ senior author Dr Tanuja Chitnis said in a press release.

‘Currently, most MS treatments work by broadly suppressing the immune system. Our results suggest there’s an opportunity to be more precise and develop approaches that target EBV or the immune cells involved in relapse,’ Chitnis added.

The exact cause of MS remains unknown, but scientists believe a combination of genetics, environmental triggers, and viral infections — especially EBV — plays a key role.

Mono is extremely widespread, especially in teens and young adults, with about 500 out of every 100,000 people in the US getting it each year.

Although roughly 90 to 95 percent of people carry EBV, only about one in four who are exposed actually develop symptoms of mono.

EBV is primarily spread through saliva. In teens who are first exposed and develop mono, transmission typically occurs via kissing, earning the infection the nickname ‘the kissing disease.’

Mono typically causes extreme fatigue, a severe sore throat, fever and swollen lymph nodes in the neck and armpits.

Many people also develop swollen tonsils with white patches, headaches, body aches and an enlarged spleen, which can rupture if the person engages in contact sports or heavy lifting too soon.

While symptoms usually peak within two to four weeks, the fatigue can linger for months, especially in teenagers and young adults, who tend to experience more severe symptoms than younger children.

In an April 2026 study, published in Neurology Open Access, researchers tracked nearly 19,000 people and found that children and young adults who had lab-confirmed EBV followed by symptomatic mono were significantly more likely to develop MS later in life compared to those who never had EBV-positive mono. 

Experts say the findings, published from a population-based study using medical records from the Mayo Clinic-led Rochester Epidemiology Project, underscore the urgent need for preventive strategies, including a potential EBV vaccine, to reduce the long-term toll of the devastating neurological disease. 

Birthday chaos.

A Florida man said he was celebrating his birthday when he vandalized a New York City taxi amid the massive street celebrations that followed the Knicks’ dramatic Game 4 NBA Finals comeback in Manhattan.

Saul Vargas accepted a plea agreement Thursday on a disorderly conduct charge. Video showed Vargas, shirtless, climbing onto the hood and roof of a yellow cab before breaking its windshield as thousands of jubilant Knicks fans poured into the streets near Madison Square Garden on June 11.

“I just want to be 21,” Vargas said while leaving a Manhattan courtroom, according to the Daily Mail.

“At the end of the day, I’m 21. I was being a kid, I was being stupid,” he said, acknowledging that his birthday was no defense for the damage. “It was my birthday, I was trying to have fun but that’s not a good excuse.”

Vargas also expressed remorse toward the cab driver, Noueddine Bitat, whose vehicle was targeted during the post-game mayhem.

“To the taxi driver, I do apologize. It’s something no driver should have to go through,” Vargas said.

Bitat, 59, was traveling along Seventh Avenue near West 36th Street at about 12:30 a.m. when a crowd swarmed his cab, pulled him from the vehicle and attacked it.

“The crowd came and they attacked him. They grabbed him out of the cab. They grabbed him by the neck. Someone punched him in his head,” Bitat said through a translator at the time.

“They shattered the windshield. They opened the front doors and even the trunks. They were yelling, ‘Knicks in five! Knicks in five!’”

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Vargas, of St. Cloud, Fla., joined other rowdy fans on the car for the celebration — including a man wearing a keffiyeh and another holding a Palestinian flag, perched atop the destroyed cab.

Bitat suffered a diabetic attack and was left with “a lot of trauma.”

Bitat, who is from Algeria, said he was not planning on returning to the chauffeur gig following the beatdown and was “lucky to be alive.”

“It’s just that from what happened, he couldn’t believe doing a job like this could be so risky.”

Vargas was ordered to pay $500 in restitution as part of his plea deal.

The Knickerbockers, who went on to win the NBA Finals in Game 5 two nights later, had erased a record 29-point deficit in the closing minutes of the game to ignite the mass celebration.

Game hero OG Anunoby sent the city into a frenzy with his tip-in with 1.2 seconds left, rebounding a missed three from Finals MVP Jalen Brunson.

Police sought Vargas on a criminal mischief charge after video of the incident of the incident went viral.

The alleged birthday boy later turned himself over to police just before heading back to Florida after learning he was a wanted man.

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago police have made an arrest months after the killing of City of Chicago employee Da’J Flowers.

Darreon Plummer, 33, of Glen Ellyn, faces a first-degree murder charge and is expected to appear in court Friday.

Investigators said Plummer is believed to have been involved in Flowers’ February shooting death on Chicago’s Far North Side.

Flowers, 36, was found shot to death inside a home in the 6900-block of North Bell Avenue in West Rogers Park shortly before 9:15 a.m. on Feb. 5, police said.

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Saudi Arabia is confronting what one regional analyst described as the most serious danger ever posed to its oil output, as Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen step up cross-border strikes and gain ground near the strategically vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told News Media on Thursday that tensions across the Middle East are intensifying. He said Iran had “likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.”

“I think this situation is really precarious for the Saudis,” Abdul-Hussain said. “This is the biggest threat to their production of oil since their kingdom was founded in 1932. And this is almost existential.”

He said Riyadh appears to be seeking outside help to confront the mounting Houthi threat, including through outreach to President Trump. But Abdul-Hussain said he does not expect Washington to enter a conflict centered on the Bab el-Mandeb shipping route. “We’ll probably offer them advice and tell support, but I don’t think we, the United States, will get involved with this war over Bab el-Mandeb,” he said.

The risks to Saudi oil infrastructure have already become clear. Last week, the kingdom temporarily shut down its East-West oil pipeline after a drone strike launched from Iraq. Trump said he believed Iran was responsible. On Tuesday, Saudi forces also intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone that tried to enter airspace near Mecca, one of several recent incidents raising alarm in the kingdom.

Abdul-Hussain said Iran’s strategy is tied to U.S. restrictions that have sharply limited Tehran’s ability to sell oil through legal or illicit channels. “What the Iranians are trying to do is that they’re trying to telegraph to the other oil exporters in the region that either we export, all of us export oil, or none of us will export oil,” he told News Media. He said Iran’s disruption of the Strait of Hormuz pushed Saudi Arabia to redirect crude shipments westward, moving oil through the East-West pipeline to Yanbu on the Red Sea before tankers sailed south via Bab el-Mandeb toward Asian markets.

That workaround, he said, undermined Iran’s pressure campaign. “Iran didn’t like this because clearly all or none didn’t work,” Abdul-Hussain said. “So they likely instigated the Houthis to force a blockade on Saudi Arabia.”

News Media reported Friday, citing a source familiar with the matter, that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump to authorize military action against the Houthis.

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Trump then said the next day during a visit to Ireland that “the Houthis called us and they don’t want to fight with us.”

“They let us know, they don’t want to fight with us…they don’t want us to go after them,” Trump added. “But they have called and they have talked to us, and they don’t want us to, they would much prefer not having us involved.”

Abdul-Hussain told News Media that “Our expectation as Washington is that the Saudis, with all these arms that we’ve sold them over the past few decades, with all the military support and advice we give them, that they should be able to protect their own tankers and ships in this waterway and keep it open.

“The Houthis announced that they’re only going after Saudi ships and Saudi navigation and they made it clear that they are not going after international shipping, whether [they] are U.S. ships or European ships,” he continued. “So this forces a choice on us. Do we go to war with the Houthis out of nowhere, even though they’re not willing to, or at least they didn’t wage war on our ships and our navigations through Bab el-Mandeb?”

“Or we ask the Saudis to handle this, you know, after all the Houthis are not really a state, they’re a non-state actor and Saudi Arabia should be able to deal with them,” Abdul-Hussain added. “Unfortunately, the Saudis don’t seem to have been able to deal with the Houthis.”

A senior administration official told News Media on Thursday that the U.S. remains focused on protecting core national security interests such as the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea while simultaneously empowering allies in the region to manage and resolve security challenges.

The Trump administration also remains in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and Yemen over regional stability , the official added.

News Media has reached out to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.