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This summer is what climate change looks like, scientists say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

The blistering heat threatening lives and fueling wildfires across Southern Europe and North America this July would have been “virtually impossible” without man-made global warming, scientists said on Tuesday. Their findings come as the planet’s ocean and land temperatures hit new records in recent weeks, with waters around Florida and the Mediterranean coast surpassing 30 degrees Celsius and parts of the Northern Hemisphere baking in heat of 45C or more. Scientists have long warned climate change would make heat waves hotter, longer and more frequent. Tuesday’s study found that this month’s extreme temperatures are no longer an outlier now that humans have warmed the Earth by about 1.2C above pre-industrial levels.  In fact, “it could well be that this is what will be a cool summer in the future unless we rapidly stop burning fossil fuels,” said study co-author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. “This is not the new norm...

Orioles center fielder Aaron Hicks exits win against Phillies: ‘It could be a strain. It could be a cramp.’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

The Orioles were already down one center fielder and, at least for Monday night in Philadelphia, they were down another.Aaron Hicks dove for a line drive hit by Johan Rojas in the third inning of the Orioles’ series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies. He threw the ball back to the infield and sat for a moment before training staff members came out to evaluate him. He eventually left the game with a left hamstring injury and was replaced in center field by rookie Colton Cowser.Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said Hicks would be evaluated Tuesday and that they’re hoping it’s a cramp.“It could be a strain. It could be a cramp,” he said.Hicks ran to his right on the liner from Rojas and fully stretched out. He appeared to make a spectacular catch and — although replay later showed the ball popped out of his glove — Rojas was ruled out.Entering Monday, Hicks is hitting .254 in 41 games for the Orioles this season with a .351 on-base percentage...

Israeli military kills 3 alleged Palestinian gunmen in volatile West Bank

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said it shot and killed three alleged Palestinian gunmen in the northern occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the latest bloodshed in one of the most violent stretches of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in years.Israeli security forces said they opened fire at Palestinian militants who had shot at them from a car in the West Bank city of Nablus, the territory’s commercial capital and a major focus of the Israeli military’s recently stepped-up raids. In the hilly neighborhood of al-Tur shortly after the shooting, Israeli forces inspected a shattered black Skoda surrounded by spent bullet casings.Palestinian media described the Israeli killing of the gunmen as an ambush following the militants’ attempted attack on Israeli forces near a Jewish settlement overlooking Nablus. The Israeli military said it confiscated three M-16 rifles and other equipment from their car. Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the territory, which Israel captured...

Maine aims to restore 19th century tribal obligations to its constitution. Voters will make the call

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Voters in Maine will likely be the ones to decide whether to restore long removed language about the state’s obligations to Native American tribes to printed versions of its constitution.The Maine Legislature is poised to give its final approval on Tuesday to a proposal to restore the language that requires Maine to honor treaties the state inherited from Massachusetts when it became its own state more than two centuries ago. The language has always applied, but was removed from printed versions of the constitution in 1876.Statewide voters would have to approve of the change to the constitution for it to take place. The date of the referendum has not yet been set.The restoration of the language to the printed constitution would improve transparency and illuminate Maine’s debts to Native American tribes, said Democratic House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross. The language is not in the official online version of the Maine Constitution either, though it ca...

Permafrost expert and military pilot among 4 killed in a helicopter crash on Alaska’s North Slope

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A helicopter crash in Alaska took the lives of a permafrost expert from the Netherlands, a pilot who recently transitioned from the military to fly charter helicopters and two other scientists conducting field work in the North Slope, one of the remotest regions in the U.S.Ronald Daanen, 51, and Justin Germann, 27, both from Fairbanks; Tori Moore, 26, of South Bend, Indiana; and pilot Bernard “Tony” Higdon, 48, of North Pole, Alaska, all perished last week when the 1996 Bell 206 helicopter they were in crashed into a lake while they were on a scientific mission.The three passengers were employees of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, working in the Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys.Alaska search and rescue divers recovered the bodies of a helicopter pilot and three scientists on Sunday from the sunken wreckage of the aircraft, which went down in a shallow lake about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Utqiagvik — the northernmost city in ...

Study finds climate change fingerprints on July heat waves in Europe, China and America

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.These unusually strong heat waves are becoming more common, Tuesday’s study said. The same research found the increase in heat-trapping gases, largely from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has made another heat wave — the one in China — 50 times more likely with the potential to occur every five years or so.A stagnant atmosphere, warmed by carbon dioxide and other gases, also made the European heat wave 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 degrees Celsius) hotter, the one in the United States and Mexico 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) warmer and the one in China one 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) toastier, the study found. Several climate scientists, using tree rings and ot...

Proposal before Maine lawmakers would jumpstart offshore wind projects

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine is poised to launch an offshore wind program that would meet clean energy goals and produce enough power for about 900,000 homes from floating wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine.The goal calls for requests for proposals to be issued for 3,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines by 2040. That’s enough electricity to power about half of Maine’s electricity load. The bill was revised after a veto by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to ensure non-union companies can get into the business, setting a path to approval by the Maine Senate and House on Tuesday.Approval would put Maine on a path to catch up with other states that already have offshore wind projects. The catch, however, is that the wind turbines would be farther offshore than those projects, and would involve floating turbines. It also includes incentives aimed at ensuring wind power developers steer clear of lucrative lobster fishing grounds.The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mark Lawrence,...

Extremist attacks wounded Paris. Here’s why the city turned to the 2024 Olympics to heal

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

PARIS (AP) — For the mayor of Paris, the city’s journey to next year’s Olympic Games included an epiphany born of brutality: the slaughter of 17 people by gunmen acting in the names of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.Anne Hidalgo says the 2015 attacks at a provocative satirical newspaper and a kosher Parisian supermarket were “truly fundamental” in steering her to the idea of bringing the Games back to the French capital for the first time since 1924. With the country outraged and hurting from the bloodshed, she saw the Olympics as an opportunity for France to rebound and heal.“What really scared me at that moment was to hear young people, even children, explain that the terrorists were heroes and that Charlie was guilty of having pushed freedom of expression too far,” Hidalgo says, referring to Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper that repeatedly caricatured the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.“I said to myself that things were really, really, really bad, and that we absolut...

NATO and Ukraine to discuss Black Sea grain issue at Zelenskyy's request

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

NATO and Ukraine are to discuss security in the Black Sea this week, particularly the operation of a corridor for grain exports, at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (pictured), the Western alliance said on Saturday (22 July).NATO spokesperson Oanu Lungescu said the NATO-Ukraine Council, set up at this month's alliance summit, would discuss the situation following Russia's withdrawal from the year-old deal overseeing grain exports from Ukrainian ports.Zelenskyy said he had requested the meeting in a telephone conversation with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.Lungescu said the two men discussed Russia's pullout from the deal and its "continued attempts to weaponise food, which are affecting millions of vulnerable people around the world".The meeting, she said, would take place at the level of ambassadors. The council's inaugural meeting, at NATO's summit in Vilnius, was attended by heads of state or government.Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, had ...

Man caught on camera naked, terrorizing L.A. residents

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:13:25 GMT

A man has been terrorizing residents of an east Hollywood apartment building and creeping around the complex naked. Fearful residents in the complex say the man keeps breaking in, walking around naked, and disturbing their peace. “He’s been trying to break into apartments,” said 27-year-old resident Vanessa Salguero. “He was walking around naked one night, just full on naked. I wasn’t able to sleep the last week or so. I developed really bad insomnia, really bad anxiety and I know everyone else has been feeling the same thing.” A man has been terrorizing residents of an east Hollywood apartment building and creeping around the complex naked. The strange man was also caught on home surveillance camera carrying a large knife on one occasion and carrying a large knife and a mask, during a separate incident. Residents say the unwelcoming visits started after another woman was taken into psychiatric hold after terrorizing those same residents and threatening to blow up the...