Skip to main content

Record-breaking heat wave grips western United States

A record early heat wave striking the western United States on Friday is a one-in-500-year event and almost certainly the result of human-caused climate change, experts say. The heat has been toppling records this week and is set to continue into the weekend across western cities while expanding eastward. Four locations in the desert area near the California-Arizona border registered 44.4 degrees Celsius on Friday, a US national record for March. The readings were recorded near Yuma and Martinez Lake in Arizona, and around Winterhaven and Ogilby in California. Read: Intense heatwave grips US, triggering record-breaking temperatures Already, 65 cities have recorded new March highs, ranging from Arizona and California to Idaho, Weather.com reported. Death Valley reached 40°C on Thursday, while typically cool and foggy San Francisco tied its historic March record at 29°C. In Colorado, skiers were seen hitting the slopes shirtless. The National Weather Service issued extreme heat warni...
Post a Comment

Battles, bombardment in Gaza as Israel reschedules talks with US

Battles and bombardment pounded Gaza on Thursday, after Washington said Israel agreed to reschedule cancelled talks with tensions worsening between the allies. The United States’ criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has mounted over Gaza's civilian death toll, dire food shortages, and Israeli plans to push its ground offensive against Hamas militants into the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians. World leaders have warned against a Rafah offensive which they fear would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation for the Palestinian territory's 2.4 million residents. The United Nations reported late Wednesday that famine "is ever closer to becoming a reality in northern Gaza", and said the territory's health system is collapsing "due to ongoing hostilities and access constraints". Bombardment and fighting have continued despite a binding United Nations Security Council resolution passed three days earlier demanding an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza and the release of hostages held by militants. Netanyahu scrapped an Israeli visit to Washington to discuss the Rafah plan, in protest of the UN ceasefire resolution from which the United States abstained, allowing it to pass. Netanyahu's government has since backtracked and agreed "to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah", according to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. She added that they were working to find a "convenient date". US officials say they plan to present Israel with an alternative for Rafah, focused on striking Hamas targets while limiting the civilian toll. Since October 7, 2023, Israel's horrifying military assault on Gaza has killed at least 32,490 people, most of them women and children. Thousands have been injured while thousands more remain missing, believed to be buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israel’s incessant airstrikes. The health ministry, in a preliminary toll issued early on Thursday, said 66 more people were killed overnight. On October 7 last year Hamas launched an unprecedented raid that resulted in about 1,160 deaths of Israeli settlers, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. The fighters also took about 250 settlers captive. Israel says that, after an earlier truce and hostage release deal, about 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 presumed dead. Fighting continued around three of Gaza's hospitals, raising fears for patients, medical staff and displaced people inside them. The Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis, near Rafah, "has ceased to function completely", the Palestine Red Crescent said earlier this week, following the evacuation of civilians from the medical centre. Israel's military accuses Hamas fighters of hiding in medical facilities and using civilians as shields. An allegation that the Palestinian resistance group has continuously denied. Early on Thursday, the Israeli army claimed fighters had been firing on troops "from within and outside the emergency ward at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City”. Read Pakistan welcomes UNSC resolution seeking truce in Gaza Troops began raiding Al-Shifa early last week, and on Wednesday night carried out an air strike on the emergency ward "while avoiding harm to civilians, patients, and medical teams", the army said. The UN has reported "intensive exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and armed Palestinians". It cited the health ministry as saying the army has confined medical staff and patients to one building, not allowing them to leave. Israel's army said troops had evacuated civilians, patients and staff "to alternative medical facilities" it set up. Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles have also massed around the Nasser Hospital, the health ministry said, adding that shots were fired but no raid had yet been launched. The Red Crescent warned that thousands were trapped inside. Gaza has endured almost six months of war and a siege that has cut off most food, water, fuel and other supplies. Israel denies it is blocking food trucks but aid entering the Gaza Strip by land is far below pre-war levels -- around 150 vehicles a day compared with at least 500 before the war, according to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. With limited ground access, several nations have begun aid airdrops, and a sea corridor from Cyprus delivered its first cargo of food. But UN agencies said these are no substitute for land deliveries. Desperate crowds have rushed towards aid packages drifting down on parachutes. Hamas said on Tuesday that 18 people drowned or died in stampedes trying to recover airdropped aid. Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal, involving US and Egyptian mediators, have brought no result so far, halfway through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, before meeting visiting Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, stressed that "the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low" in Gaza. US criticism has mounted but President Joe Biden has made clear he will not use his key point of leverage -- cutting US military assistance to Israel, which amounts to billions of dollars. Netanyahu, who leads a coalition including religious and ultra-nationalist parties, faces ongoing protests at home over his failure to bring home all of the hostages. Alongside the bloodiest-ever Gaza war, Israeli military violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where medics and the army said three people were wounded in a gun attack Thursday that targeted a school bus. The war has raised fears of wider regional conflict, particularly along the Israeli-Lebanon border. Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Wednesday announced the deaths of eight of its members after a day of cross-border fire with Israel that left at least 16 people dead. Israeli first responders said they pronounced a man dead in an Israeli border town, after Hezbollah rocket fire followed an Israeli strike on what its military called a "military compound" in southern Lebanon.

from Latest World News, International News | Breaking World News https://ift.tt/b2rsEjO
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

At least 32 miners dead after bridge fails at cobalt site in southeast DR Congo

A bridge collapsed at a cobalt mine in southeast Democratic Republic of Congo killing at least 32 wildcat miners, a regional government official said Sunday. The bridge came down Saturday onto a flooded zone at the mine in Lualaba province, Roy Kaumba Mayonde, the provincial interior minister, told reporters. He said 32 bodies had been recovered and more were being searched for. The DRC produces more than 70 percent of the world supply of cobalt, which is essential for batteries used in electric cars, many laptop computers and mobile phones. More than 200,000 people are estimated to be working in giant illegal cobalt mines in the giant central African country. Local authorities said the bridge collapsed at the Kalando mine, about 42 kilometres (26 miles) southeast of the Lualaba provincial capital, Kolwezi. "Despite a formal ban on access to the site because of the heavy rain and the risk of a landslide, wildcat miners forced their way into the quarry," said Mayonde. He said ...
Post a Comment
Read more

US, Philippines kick off joint military drills in South China Sea with 16,000 troops

Some 16,000 US and Philippine troops kicked off the annual joint military drills on Monday in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), local media reported. WPS is the official designation by Philippines to the parts of the South China Sea that are included in the country's exclusive economic zone. The 19-day exercises, dubbed "Balikatan 2024," will involve around 5,000 Philippine and 11,000 US troops, making it the largest joint military drills between the two allies conducted in decades, local English daily Manila Times reported citing the military. A total of 14 nations, including Japan and India, will take part in the drills as observers amid mounting maritime tensions in the South China Sea. Contingents from the Australian Defence Force and the French Navy will also join the exercise as participants. Read also: China urges US to stop using Philippines as a pawn to destabilise South China Sea France will join the group sail but will only navigate on the edge of the Philippine E...
Post a Comment
Read more

Indian devotees splurge on jets, gold idols as Hindu temple opens

The private jet parking lots at airports near the Indian city of Ayodhya are full and the shops have run out of gold-plated idols, as wealthy devotees prepare for the invite-only opening ceremony of one of Hinduism's holiest temples. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani are among the 8,000 or so attendees at Monday's inauguration event for the Ram Temple, which devotees believe is built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, a sacred Hindu deity. The construction of the temple, which began after the Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus in 2019 more than two decades after a Hindu mob razed a mosque there, triggering deadly riots, fulfils a key campaign promise of Modi and his Hindu nationalist party. Read BJP-promised temple transforms Ayodhya: Muslims, locals feel neglected The opening ceremony, organised by the trust that built the temple, comes months before a national election which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is widely expected to w...
Post a Comment
Read more