Thursday, June 6, 2024

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1/ Human activities were responsible for 92% of the warming observed in 2023 – earth’s hottest calendar year on record. May was marked the 12th consecutive month to set a monthly global average temperature record. And, over the past year, global temperatures averaged 1.6 degrees Celsius (2.9 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Over the next five years, there’s a 90% chance Earth will set yet another record for its warmest year. “It is shocking but not surprising that we have reached this 12-month streak,” the director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service said. “While this sequence of record-breaking months will eventually be interrupted, the overall signature of climate change remains and there is no sign in sight of a change in such a trend.” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added: “Our planet is trying to tell us something. But we don’t seem to be listening.” (Washington Post / Associated Press / Axios / CNN / New York Times)

2/ A federal judge ordered Steve Bannon to report to prison on July 1, to begin serving his four-month prison sentence.Bannon was sentenced in 2022 for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee related to his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Biden. After the hearing, Bannon promised to take his conviction “all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to,” claiming without evidence that the Justice Department was “shutting down the MAGA movement, shutting down grassroots conservatives, shutting down President Trump.” Bannon, who will be behind bars until just before the November election and unable to continue his podcast, added: “There’s nothing that can shut me up and nothing that will shut me up. There’s not a prison built or a jail built that will ever shut me up.” (Politico / Axios / Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / CNN / Associated Press)

3/ An Israeli airstrike on a school operated by the United Nations for displaced Palestinian refugees in Gaza killed at least 40 people, including women and children. The Israel Defense Forces said its forces launched a “precise strike” targeting a group of about 30 Hamas militants. The IDF claims Hamas was using “three classrooms” as a base inside the U.N. school. Despite footage showing bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital, an Israeli military spokesperson said he was “not aware of any civilian casualties” as a result of the strike. The Biden administration, meanwhile, said it does not have “independent verification of what exactly occurred,” but that it is talking with the Israelis to “try to get a better understanding.” (

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