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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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Elon Musk sparks backlash with post claiming only far-right 'AfD can save Germany'

A post from Elon Musk on his platform X that only the far-right AfD party can “save Germany” sparked accusations Friday that he was seeking to interfere in the country’s upcoming polls. The tech billionaire posted the message over a video commentary that criticised the leader of Germany’s CDU party Friedrich Merz, on course to become the next chancellor, for his refusal to work with the AfD. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has enjoyed a surge in the polls, and is currently second-placed, but mainstream parties have ruled out cooperating with it. While the German government refused to be drawn on the comments by Musk, set to be “efficiency czar” under US President-elect Donald Trump, politicians from major parties reacted with outrage. “It is threatening, irritating and unacceptable for a key figure in the future US government to interfere in the German election campaign,” Dennis Radtke, an MEP for the centre-right CDU, told the Handelsblatt daily. Germans are set to go to the polls on February 23 after the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition last month in a row over the budget. Musk was a “threat to democracy in the Western world”, Radtke added, accusing the world’s richest man of turning X, previously called Twitter, into a “disinformation slingshot”. Alex Schaefer, a lawmaker from Scholz’s centre-left SPD party, said Musk’s post was “completely unacceptable”. “We are very close to the Americans, but now bravery is required towards our friend. We object to interference in our election campaign,” Schaefer told the Tagesspiegel daily. The AfD however celebrated Musk’s praise in its own X message, which said “millions of people have long recognised this – and the number is growing”. The German government was reluctant to be drawn into commenting on Musk’s post, with a spokeswoman telling a regular press conference in Berlin that “freedom of expression also applies to X”. But the spokeswoman, Christiane Hoffmann, added the government was worried about “how X has developed in recent years, especially since Elon Musk took over”. Despite such concerns, the government had decided not to close their accounts on the platform as it remained “an important medium for reaching and informing people”, she said. It is not the first time Musk has weighed in on German politics. Last month he tweeted in German that “Olaf is a fool” after the collapse of Scholz’s government.

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

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

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

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