What happened
Iran says negotiations with the US have advanced, but that an agreement is still some distance away. The talks reportedly centre on extending a ceasefire, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and laying the groundwork for further negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme. Hopes of a breakthrough grew after US officials suggested that an announcement could come within days. Markets reacted positively, with oil prices dropping and Asian shares climbing.

Who said what
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai said “a large portion” of the issues under discussion had been resolved, but that “no-one can make such a claim” that a final agreement was imminent. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said negotiators believed that progress was possible “maybe today”, while Donald Trump said any agreement would either be “great and meaningful” or abandoned entirely. But Republican senators including Ted Cruz have criticised the proposed framework as too favourable to Iran.

What next?
Assuming that Trump “doesn’t back away from the deal under mounting pressure from its opponents”, he will be “lucky to get terms similar to the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran”, said Rajan Menon in The Guardian. That “won’t be much of an achievement” considering that he has spent $29 billion as of mid-May on “a failed war that has roiled the global economy”.

What happened
Britain has registered its hottest May day since records began as an early season heatwave sweeps across Europe. Provisional Met Office figures showed temperatures climbed to 34.8C at Kew Gardens in London yesterday afternoon, overtaking the previous national May benchmark of 32.8C set in 1922 and equalled in 1944. Much of south-east England exceeded 33C, while Wales also posted a new May high. Authorities in Scotland dealt with a large grass fire near Edinburgh’s Arthur’s Seat and hundreds of homes in Kent and Sussex experienced water shortages amid soaring demand.

Who said what
“The record-breaking heat is a reminder of how climate change is impacting our lives in the UK,” said Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a climate researcher at the University of Oxford. Temperatures have surged “thanks to a bank of high pressure settling across northwest Europe, as well as warm air sweeping in from Africa”, according to Ben Cooke in The Times. Gareth Redmond-King, from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, warned that “more extreme heat” was likely in the coming months.

What next?
The heatwave is set to continue today. Health officials have issued heat alerts, particularly for the elderly and medically vulnerable people.

Colombia is home to 1,900 identified bird species, a whopping 20% of all known bird species, according to The Bogotá Post. And on May 9, Colombia won this year’s Global Big Day, an annual worldwide birdwatching event in which citizen scientists document the birds they have seen. Over the course of the day 1,566 bird species were recorded by observers in the country, making Colombia the world’s most bird-diverse nation.

Colombia’s biodiversity has given rise to “avitourism”, said The New York Times. Visitors come to see the birds and “generate needed income”, making it more “profitable to protect, rather than destroy, habitats”. The country “stands out as a destination where biodiversity, conservation and community-driven tourism converge to define the future of travel”, said Carmen Caballero, the president of the promotion agency ProColombia, in a release.

Colombia is only the 25th largest country in the world by land mass, but it “contains immense ecological diversity”, which has allowed myriad bird species to thrive, said the Times. Decades of political turmoil have also unexpectedly contributed to this haven. The “conflict between the government, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narco-traffickers made many parts of Colombia too dangerous for development”, said CBS News. “Many bird habitats were preserved as a result.”

This has turned birdwatching into a “great opportunity to support local businesses and promote the country’s biological heritage fairly and responsibly,” Luisa Aguirre, a technical director at the Colombian environmental authority, told The Bogotá Post, adding that Colombia’s Global Big Day win was a “huge recognition of the hard work that local communities, guides and researchers do for nature conservation”.