First Thing: Ocean around Florida as warm as a hot tub

‘Unprecedented’ readings above 100F add to previous warnings that water temperature is putting marine life in peril. Plus, how workers in Japan are keeping cool

Good morning.

The surface ocean temperature around the Florida Keys soared to 101.19F (38.43C) this week, in what could be a global record as ocean heat around the state reaches unprecedented extremes.

A water temperature buoy located in the waters of Manatee Bay at the Everglades national park recorded the high temperature late on Monday afternoon, US government data showed. Other nearby buoys topped 100F (38C) and the upper 90s (32C).

Normal water temperatures for the area this time of year should be between 73F and 88F (23C and 31C), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The level of heat recorded this week is about the same as a hot tub.

Records for ocean surface temperature are not kept, but a 2020 study suggested that the highest temperature observed was 99.7F (37.61C) in the Persian Gulf.

What else is happening? Wildfires were burning in at least nine countries across the Mediterranean as blazes spread in Croatia and Portugal, with thousands of firefighters in Europe and north Africa working to contain flames stoked by high temperatures, dry conditions and strong winds.

What could happen to the Gulf Stream system? It could collapse as soon as 2025, a study suggests. The shutting down of the vital ocean currents, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, would bring catastrophic climate impacts.

Unrepentant Robert Kennedy Jr attempts to revive campaign after antisemitism accusations

The Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr has said that he should have been “more careful” in making his recent false remarks about the “ethnic targeting” of the Covid pandemic.

At a debate in New York on Tuesday night, Kennedy sought to put the accusation of antisemitism that has engulfed his campaign behind him. But he stopped short of retracting his false claim that coronavirus had been targeted to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people from the impact of the disease.

“I should have been more careful about what I said because I know anything I say will be distorted and weaponised against me,” he said.

Speaking at a presidential campaign event hosted by the celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Kennedy said the accusation of antisemitism had hurt him personally. “I have a thick skin, but the charge of antisemitism is one that cuts me, it hurts me. I haven’t said an antisemitic word in my life.”

This is not the first controversy since he launched his campaign, is it? No. Kennedy’s attempt for the White House has been contentious from the outset, given his embrace of virulent conspiracy theories that promote vaccine hesitancy. A political watchdog, the Congressional Integrity Project, released a report that set the candidate’s disputed views on Covid against years of antisemitic, racist and xenophobic remarks which it called “horrific” and “beyond the pale”. The report said his promotion of anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories had “deadly real world consequences”.

Congress to hold hearing over claims US government has UFO evidence

An extraordinary claim that the US government is harboring alien spacecraft is to be examined in a congressional public hearing in Washington today, as a number of American elected officials appear more receptive than ever before to the idea that extraterrestrials are real.

The House oversight committee will hear from David Grusch, a former intelligence official who alleges the US has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles. Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, has also suggested the US has collected “dead pilots”.

Grusch’s allegation that the federal government was hiding this evidence of extraterrestrials from Congress sparked a firestorm in June, prompting the Republican-led oversight committee to launch an immediate investigation.

Since then the intrigue around what evidence the government has, or doesn’t have, around UFOs has intensified.

What do the elected officials believe? Last week Tim Burchett, a Republican congressman from Tennessee who is co-leading the UFO investigation, said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials. A bipartisan group of senators also waded into the discourse, when they proposed new legislation to collect and distribute documents on “unidentified anomalous phenomena”.

In other news …

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he will not tolerate corruption or treachery in affairs of state while his country is struggling to find the means to defend itself against Russian invaders. Zelenskiy made anti-corruption appeals in his nightly video address as two landmark cases came to light.

Tucker Carlson “knows” he was fired by Fox News in April as a condition of the $787.5m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems regarding the broadcast of Donald Trump’s lie about election fraud, the former host says in a new book. “They had to settle this; Rupert [Murdoch, the 92-year-old Fox News owner] couldn’t testify,” he told his biographer.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, warned of China’s “problematic behavior” during a visit to the Pacific island nation of Tonga, citing Beijing’s militarisation of the South China Sea and “economic coercion”. China’s growing presence in the region has fuelled concern in the US and Australia.

The former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has spent more than 15 years in self-imposed exile to avoid legal charges, will return to the country next month, his daughter has said, amid tense political deadlock. Thaksin was ousted by a military coup in 2006 and has lived in exile ever since.

Stat of the day: Saudi Arabia’s $6bn spend on ‘sportswashing’

Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3bn (£4.9bn) in sports deals since early 2021, more than quadruple the previous amount spent over a six-year period, in what critics have called an effort to distract from its human rights record. Saudi Arabia has deployed billions from its Public Investment Fund over the last two-and-a-half years, according to analysis by the Guardian, spending on sports at a scale that has completely changed professional golf and transformed the international transfer market for football. On Monday, the Saudi Arabian club Al Hilal submitted a world-record bid for the French captain, Kylian Mbappé, understood to be worth €300m (£259m).

The $6.3bn investment is almost equivalent to the GDP of Montenegro or the island of Barbados. It dwarfs data compiled by Grant Liberty two years ago, estimating that Saudi Arabia spent $1.5bn in the period between 2014 and early 2021. Rights groups including Grant Liberty, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch term such spending “sportswashing” – bankrolling big-name sporting events in order to distract from a poor record on human rights.

Don’t miss this: ‘The bombs won’t stop us’ – business brisk at Ukraine’s surrogacy clinics

Surrogacy clinics, which have thrived in Ukraine thanks to a liberal legal framework, are still doing brisk business, with hundreds of foreigners coming to Kyiv despite the war, mostly from Italy, Romania, Germany and Britain. According to data from surrogacy clinics in Ukraine, more than 1,000 children have been born in Ukraine to surrogate mothers since the beginning of the Russian invasion, 600 of whom were born at the BiotexCom clinic in Kyiv, one of Europe’s largest surrogacy clinics. “Even in the first months of the war, foreign couples would still come here from all over the world to pick up their children,” Ihor Pechenoha, medical director at BiotexCom, told the Guardian. “The number of requests today are at a prewar level, and we receive more requests than we can take.” In early February last year, before the Russian invasion, Pechenoha had already prepared his clinic in case of war. “We set up a bomb shelter with all the supplies necessary for the babies and the embryos,” he says.

Climate check: Can slag heaps help combat the climate crisis?

As recent extreme weather events in the northern hemisphere have demonstrated, global heating is so far advanced that we will have to rely on some forms of carbon capture to prevent the worst affects of the climate emergency. Research presented at the Goldschmidt conference in Lyon, France, this month suggests that slag, the waste produced by the iron and steel industry, could be used to lock away carbon dioxide for thousands of years. Around the world about 400m tonnes of slag waste is generated every year. Some of it is used in construction, as road aggregate for example, but much of it remains heaped and unused. Jahmaine Yambing from the University of Cambridge has explored the potential of slag heaps to capture carbon by studying the 20m tonnes of slag produced by the former Consett steelworks in County Durham, UK.

Last Thing: The fan jacket – the Japanese innovation keeping workers cool in extreme heat

The de rigueur jacket in Japan for this year’s summer season is a functional little number with twin electric fans installed around the lower back. As rising temperatures have made the traditionally hot and sticky Japanese summer months more severe, those toiling outside in particular are turning to the fan-jakketo to make their workdays cooler and safer. Blowing air around the inside of the jackets, the fans create a personal micro-environment with a gentle breeze to keep wearers cool when the heat and humidity are at their most punishing. Among the variations available are hooded jackets to circulate air around the head and full bodysuits with fans in the trousers. Makita also sells cold packs that can be placed inside the lining of jackets to further cool the circulating air. There are currently enough fan jackets on the market for Yahoo Japan to list a top 100 for the category.

Sign up

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]