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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...
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UN Security Council demands immediate ceasefire in Gaza after US abstains

The United Nations Security Council on Monday demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian fighters Hamas and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages after the United States abstained from the vote. The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the body. "The Palestinian people has suffered greatly. This bloodbath has continued for far too long. It is our obligation to put an end to this bloodbath, before it is too late," Algeria's UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama told the council after the vote. Israeli army radio reported shortly before the council meeting started that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would cancel a planned delegation to Washington if the US did not veto the resolution. Read more: Gaza protesters, police clash near red-zone Washington had been averse to the word ceasefire earlier in the nearly six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and had used its veto power shield US ally Israel as it retaliated against Hamas for an Oct. 7 attack that Israel says killed 1,200 people. But amid growing global pressure for a truce in the war that has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, the US abstained from the vote on Monday to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the month of the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan, which ends in two weeks. The resolution also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Israel says Hamas took 253 hostages during its Oct. 7 attack. Also read: Israel besieges two more Gaza hospitals, demands their evacuation, Palestinians say "The United States support for these objectives is not simply rhetorical. We're working around the clock to make them real on the ground through diplomacy, because we know that it is only through diplomacy that we can push this agenda forward," said US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield. "A ceasefire can begin immediately with the release of the first hostage and so we must put pressure on Hamas to do just that," she said. Thomas-Greenfield said the US abstained from the vote because it did not agree with everything in the resolution and the text did not include a condemnation of Hamas. The Security Council resolution also "emphasises the urgent need to expand the flow of humanitarian assistance to and reinforce the protection of civilians in the entire Gaza Strip and reiterates its demand for the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale." The US has vetoed three draft council resolutions on the war in Gaza. It has also previously abstained twice, allowing the council to adopt resolutions that aimed to boost aid to Gaza and called for extended pauses in fighting. Russia and China have also vetoed two US-drafted resolutions on the conflict - in October and on Friday.

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

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