AUSTRALIA
El Nino has ended: agency
An El Nino weather event has ended, the Bureau of Meteorology said yesterday, adding that they were uncertain if a La Nina phenomenon would form later this year, as other forecasters have predicted. El Nino generally brings hotter, drier weather to eastern Australia and Southeast Asia and wetter conditions to the Americas, while a La Nina has the opposite effect. The weather phenomenon had formed in the middle of last year following three years of La Nina. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific cause El Nino and cooler temperatures lead to La Nina, which a US government weather forecaster this month gave a 60 percent chance of emerging in the second half of this year. The sea surface has been cooling since December and oceanic and atmospheric indicators now show the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has returned to neutral, the bureau added. “Climate models indicate ENSO will likely continue to be neutral until at least July 2024,” it said, describing the switch between the two phases. While some climate models predict a flip to La Nina later this year, the bureau said it was uncertain whether this would happen and urged caution about such forecasts.
Photo: AP
UNITED STATES
ISS debris hit house: NASA
NASA on Monday confirmed that a mystery object that crashed through the roof of a Florida home last month was a chunk of space junk from equipment discarded at the International Space Station (ISS). The cylindrical object that tore through the home in Naples on March 8 was subsequently taken to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral for analysis. NASA said it was a metal support used to mount old batteries on a cargo pallet for disposal. The pallet was jettisoned from the space station in 2021, and the load was expected to eventually fully burn up on entry into Earth’s atmosphere, but one piece survived. The chunk of metal weighed 0.7kg and was 10cm tall and about 4cm wide. Homeowner Alejandro Otero told television station WINK at the time that he was on vacation when his son told him what had happened. Otero came home early to check on the house, finding the object had ripped through his ceiling and torn up the flooring. “I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage,” Otero said. “I’m super grateful that nobody got hurt.”
UNITED STATES
‘Rust’ armorer gets jail
Hannah Gutierrez, the chief weapons handler for the Western movie Rust, was on Monday sentenced to 18 months in prison in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was shot when actor Alec Baldwin was handling a gun during the film’s production in 2021. Gutierrez, 27, was last month found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for mistakenly loading a live round into a revolver Baldwin was using on a Santa Fe, New Mexico, movie set. The shooting, which stunned Hollywood, is believed to be the first time in modern times that a member of a film crew or cast was killed by a live round accidentally loaded into a gun. Baldwin’s trial is set for July 10 after a grand jury indicted him on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in January. Gutierrez, step-daughter of Hollywood gun trainer Thell Reed, was sentenced by New Mexico District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer. Gutierrez’s lawyer, Jason Bowles, had requested she be given probation, but prosecutors argued for a full 18 months due to lack of contrition.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
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