What happened
The world’s ocean temperatures reached 70 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend, the hottest on record, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced yesterday. The previous daily average record was set in March 2024, but oceans may not have been this warm in “millennia,” The Washington Post said. 

Who said what
Global ocean temperatures typically peak in March or April, so this off-season record is “another clear signal of an ocean under growing stress,” said Copernicus deputy director Samantha Burgess. The brewing “super” El Niño is “adding heat to the system, but it is doing so on top of decades of human-driven warming.” The seas are likely the warmest they have been “for the entire Holocene period, and possibly even as far back” as “125,000 years ago,” University of Ottawa environmental studies professor Ryan Katz-Rosene said on social media. “Should be major news!”

“An ocean this warm destabilizes weather patterns and threatens food security, economic prosperity and marine life,” former NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco told The Associated Press. “A warmer ocean is not our friend.” 

What next?
“Warmer seas help to fuel more extreme weather,” supercharging storms and intensifying heatwaves, the BBC said. This year’s El Niño “is expected to keep strengthening until Christmas” and is “on course to be the strongest in centuries.”

What happened
San Francisco 49ers principal owner Jed York yesterday pleaded no contest in Ohio to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and possessing criminal tools, after being arrested Sunday at an East Palestine trailer park on suspicion of “engaging in prostitution.” As part of a plea deal to reduce the prostitution charge, York (pictured above) was fined $1,150, completed an online course and was credited with time served for one day in the Columbiana County Jail.

Who said what
The “criminal tool in ​York’s possession was believed to be a cellphone used to reply to a prostitution advertisement,” Reuters said. The cellphone was returned to him but “$160 that was seized was to be given to the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force,” The Associated Press said. Columbiana County Prosecutor Vito Abruzzino told the AP that prostitution cases typically ended in plea deals. The 49ers said it was a “legal matter” that “has been resolved” and there would be no “further comment at this time.” 

What next?
The NFL said the case “will be reviewed under the personal conduct policy.” But it’s yet to be determined “whether York will emerge with the same punishment that a player would receive for the same offense,” said NBC Sports. “Owners are supposedly held to a higher standard than players,” but “there’s a perception” they are often “held to a lower standard in practice.”

The frozen landscape of Antarctica is releasing higher levels of mercury into the ocean and marine ecosystem because of climate change, and the toxic metal is accumulating in the region’s wildlife, causing health problems in the food chain. Mercury has also reached the commercial fish industry, bringing the problem home directly to humans.

Mercury “reaches Antarctica through the atmosphere, traveling from sources such as coal plants and mining operations to settle on Antarctic ice and the Southern Ocean,” said Eos. As it “accumulates in sediment, it can transform into methylmercury, a more toxic form that more readily accumulates in living organisms.”

Mercury accumulation in Antarctica, specifically on the Antarctic Peninsula, has “doubled relative to the global shelf average and risen sharply since industrialization,” said a study published in the journal PNAS. The increase is “driven not only by atmospheric deposition but also by climate warming–induced ice melt and erosion that remobilize legacy mercury stored on land.” 

Methylmercury “enters and travels through the Antarctic food web, taken up by plankton, then krill, fish, seabirds and marine mammals,” said Eos. The toxin can “harm animals’ neurology, behavior, growth and reproduction.” Already, mercury levels in “Antarctic species such as Antarctic toothfish, marlin and sharks frequently exceed previous records and food safety limits,” said Science Alert. The metal can also get to commercial fisheries, where mercury pollution can affect human health.