New study adds to the possibility of favorable conditions for life at Saturn’s moon Enceladus
Researchers turn human skin cells into eggs — but not yet usable ones
A trio of space weather satellites blast off together to study the sun’s violent side
Scientists discover a new dinosaur from Argentina with a crocodile bone in its mouth
Day and night get equal billing Monday as fall equinox arrives. Here’s what to know
The comet known as 3I/Atlas will hurtle within 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) of the red planet, its closest approach during its trek through the inner solar system. Its breakneck speed: 193,000 mph (310,000 kph).
Both of the European Space Agency’s satellites around Mars are already aiming their cameras at the comet, which is only the third interstellar object known to have passed our way. NASA’s satellite and rovers at the red planet are also available to assist in the observations.
Discovered in July, the comet poses no threat to Earth or its neighboring planets. It will come closest to the sun at the end of October. Throughout November, ESA’s Juice spacecraft, which is headed to Jupiter and its icy moons, will keep an eye on the comet.
The comet will make its closest approach to Earth in December, passing within 167 million miles (269 million kilometers).
Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope put the comet’s nucleus at no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) across. It could be as small as 1,444 feet (440 meters), according to NASA.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How long can East Ridge’s defense keep the Raptors in the game?
Our pick: Forest Lake 28, East Ridge 6
Mounds View (2-3) at Woodbury (3-2), 7 p.m.
Both of these teams are 1-1 in Metro East subdistrict play, but with the way the section is shaping up, either could be in position to grab a No. 2 seed in the Class 6A playoffs with a win Friday, creating a viable path to state in the process.
Whoever establishes more offensive balance figures to have the edge
Our pick: Mounds View 24, Woodbury 17
White Bear Lake (2-3) at Stillwater (2-3), 7 p.m.
Two major injuries suffered two weeks ago in a big win over Mounds View have altered the Ponies’ season, as quarterback Jack Runk suffered a knee injury and running back Emilio Rosario-Matias also went down.
Can the Ponies find new ways to move the ball on the fly over the back half of the regular season? They figure to lean heavily on running back Chase Edstrom and receiver Carter Zollar.
Stillwater: 22, White Bear Lake 20
Lakeville South (4-1) at Edina (3-2), 7 p.m.
This game carries the distinct look and feel of a second-round playoff game in Class 6A. Chicago Blackhawks first-round pick Mason West has thrown for 10 touchdowns for Edina.
West will need a big game to keep up with a Cougars rushing attack finding its stride.
Our pick: Lakeville South 23, Edina 20
River Falls (5-1) at Rice Lake (6-0), 7 p.m.
Both sides are coming off massive victories — River Falls hung 44 on Hudson, while Rice Lake edged New Richmond — that muddled the Big Rivers Conference title hunt and made this bout a key fixture in that equation.
The Warriors will move the ball. Can they prevent River Falls from doing the same?
Our pick: Rice Lake 27, River Falls 19
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Earth’s nastiest and costliest wildfires are blazing four times more often now than they did in the 1980s because of human-caused climate change and people moving closer to wildlands, a new study found.
A study in the journal Science looks at global wildfires, not by acres burned which is the most common measuring stick, but by the harder to calculate economic and human damage they cause. The study concluded there has been a “climate-linked escalation of societally disastrous wildfires.”
A team of Australian, American and German fire scientists calculated the 200 most damaging fires since 1980 based on the percentage of damage to the country’s Gross Domestic Product at the time, taking inflation into account. The frequency of these events has increased about 4.4 times from 1980 to 2023, said study lead author Calum Cunningham, a pyrogeographer at the Fire Centre at the University of Tasmania in Australia.
“It shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that we do have a major wildfire crisis on our hands,” Cunningham said.
Researchers say damaging wildfires are becoming more frequent worldwide. Studying the time period from 1980 to 2023, the authors found 43% of the 200 most damaging fires occurred in the last 10 years. (AP Digital Embed)
About 43% of the 200 most damaging fires occurred in the last 10 years of the study. In the 1980s, the globe averaged two of these catastrophic fires a year and a few times hit four a year. From 2014 to 2023, the world averaged nearly nine a year, including 13 in 2021. It noted that the count of these devastating infernos sharply increased in 2015, which “coincided with increasingly extreme climatic conditions.” Though the study date ended in 2023, the last two years have been even more extreme, Cunningham said.
Cunningham said often researchers look at how many acres a fire burns as a measuring stick, but he called that flawed because it really doesn’t show the effect on people, with area not mattering as much as economics and lives. Hawaii’s Lahaina fire wasn’t big, but it burned a lot of buildings and killed a lot of people so it was more meaningful than one in sparsely populated regions, he said.
“We need to be targeting the fires that matter. And those are the fires that cause major ecological destruction because they’re burning too intensely,” Cunningham said.
But economic data is difficult to get with many countries keeping that information private, preventing global trends and totals from being calculated. So Cunningham and colleagues were able to get more than 40 years of global economic date from insurance giant Munich Re and then combine it with the public database from International Disaster Database, which isn’t as complete but is collected by the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.
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The study looked at “fire weather” which is hot, dry and windy conditions that make extreme fires more likely and more dangerous and found that those conditions are increasing, creating a connection to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.
“We’ve firstly got that connection that all the disasters by and large occurred during extreme weather. We’ve also got a strong trend of those conditions becoming more common as a result of climate change. That’s indisputable,” Cunningham said. “So that’s a line of evidence there to say that climate change is having a significant effect on at least creating the conditions that are suitable for a major fire disaster.”
If there was no human-caused climate change, the world would still have devastating fires, but not as many, he said: “We’re loading the dice in a sense by increasing temperatures.”
There are other factors. People are moving closer to fire-prone areas, called the wildland-urban interface, Cunningham said. And society is not getting a handle on dead foliage that becomes fuel, he said. But those factors are harder to quantify compared to climate change, he said.
“This is an innovative study in terms of the data sources employed, and it mostly confirms common sense expectations: fires causing major fatalities and economic damage tend to be those in densely populated areas and to occur during the extreme fire weather conditions that are becoming more common due to climate change,” said Jacob Bendix, a geography and environment professor at Syracuse University who studies fires, but wasn’t part of this research team.
Not only does the study makes sense, but it’s a bad sign for the future, said Mike Flannigan, a fire researcher at Thompson Rivers University in Canada. Flannigan, who wasn’t part of research, said: “As the frequency and intensity of extreme fire weather and drought increases the likelihood of disastrous fires increases so we need to do more to be better prepared.”
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
By IBRAHIM HAZBOUN and RENATA BRITO, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli intervention of a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and hundreds of activists raises questions about what any nation can legally do to enforce a blockade in international waters.
As dozens of boats sailed closer to Gaza on Wednesday afternoon, the Israeli navy warned them to turn back.
“You are entering an active warzone. If you continue and attempt to break the naval blockade, we will stop your vessel,” a member of the Israeli navy told the activists via radio. Then Israeli military personnel stormed the vessels and seized activists, including Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson and several European lawmakers.
The Israeli action sparked condemnation from world leaders and human rights groups who say Israel violated international maritime law.
A Gaza-bound Sumud flotilla boat is escorted into the port of Ashdod, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, after being intercepted while approaching the Gaza coast by Israeli navy soldiers. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
This combination of images released by the Israeli Foreign Ministry shows Greta Thunberg, second from right, with other flotilla activists after the Israeli navy intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025. (Israeli Foreign Ministry via AP)
This frame grab from video released by the Global Sumud Flotilla shows Israeli navy soldiers boarding one of the flotilla’s vessels as it approached the coast of Gaza early Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Global Sumud Flotilla via AP)
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A Gaza-bound Sumud flotilla boat is escorted into the port of Ashdod, Israel, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025, after being intercepted while approaching the Gaza coast by Israeli navy soldiers. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
The activists say their non-violent, civilian mission is lawful. Though they carried only a symbolic amount of aid, including baby formula, food and medical supplies, their goal, they say, is to establish a humanitarian corridor to facilitate the flow of aid into famine-stricken Gaza.
Israeli and European government officials had offered alternatives for the flotilla to transfer its aid to the Palestinian territory, which the activists rejected citing Israel’s tight control on all that enters Gaza.
Defending their mission, flotilla activist and spokesperson Thiago Ávila cited a provisional International Court of Justice ruling that ordered Israel to “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
“You are not allowed by international law to stop us. Therefore we do not comply with your request,” he told the navy via radio shortly before the interceptions began some 70 nautical miles (130 kilometers) from the shores of Israel and Gaza.
Only one boat appears to have crossed the 12-nautical-mile line (22-kilometer line) marking territorial waters off Gaza.
Interception in international waters
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a nation’s territory does not extend beyond 12 nautical miles (19 kilometers) from its shores. It says authorities may exercise control up to 24 nautical miles (45 kilometers) from land to prevent violation of customs, immigration, fiscal or sanitary laws.
Robbie Sabel, an international law expert and former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said states generally don’t have the right to seize ships in international waters, though there are exceptions, including during armed conflict.
Even before the latest war, Israel was in an armed conflict with Hamas, Sabel said, allowing it to intercept ships it suspected violated its longstanding blockade of Gaza. Rights groups have long criticized the blockade as the unlawful punishment of Palestinians.
A contentious maritime blockade
Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said as long as Israel’s blockade of Gaza is “militarily justified” to keep out weapons and the ship intended to break it, Israel can intercept the vessel after prior warning.
The debate over the legality of Israel’s blockade remains a point of contention.
Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing the activists, said in a statement that “the abduction of peaceful civilians in international waters, constitutes a brazen violation of international law.”
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Omer Shatz, an Israeli international law expert who teaches at Sciences Po University in Paris and co-litigated a previous flotilla case before the Supreme Court of Israel, told The Associated Press that even if the disputed siege of Gaza was considered lawful, “international law paves a humanitarian road from the high seas to Gaza,” he said.
“If the basic needs of the population are not provided by the occupying power, there is a right to provide humanitarian aid, albeit under certain conditions,” Shatz said. Israel has the right to board and search the vessels to verify the cargo, as it does with aid trucks crossing into Gaza by land.
Enforcing international maritime law
It’s not the first time Israel has halted and confiscated humanitarian ships bound for Gaza. Dozens of boats have attempted to reach the Palestinian territory in the past two decades, but none has reached it since 2008.
In 2010, an Israeli commando raid on the Mavi Marmara flotilla descended into violence. Eight Turkish activists and one Turkish-American were killed.
A subsequent U.N. report acknowledged “attempts to breach a lawfully imposed naval blockade place the vessel and those on board at risk,” while also urging member states to be cautious in using force against civilian vessels. It called on humanitarian missions to deliver aid through regular channels and said a country’s naval blockade “must abide by their obligations with respect to the provision of humanitarian assistance.”
Enforcing international maritime law is a challenge across the globe. Generally, only states can take other states to court for violations of the U.N. Convention for the Laws of the Sea. But there are other legal frameworks and mechanisms individuals can use to seek justice, including those their state flags are party to. For example, Israel forcibly removing people from foreign-flagged vessels in international waters and taking them to Israel could be considered a crime, Shatz said.
The state prosecutors’ office of Spain told The Associated Press on Thursday that it will gather information on the flotilla interception as part of its ongoing effort to collect evidence of possible human rights violations by Israel to be presented in international courts.
Activists meanwhile say they will continue to attempt to break the Israeli blockade by sea.
A second flotilla of ships formed by The Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Thousand Madleens to Gaza is already on its way after departing Italy last week.
Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain. Tia Goldenberg in Washington, D.C., and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed,
