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El Niño is officially here—and the whole planet is likely to feel the brunt of it in the coming months.

The weather pattern officially took hold within the past month, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released on June 11. In addition, forecasts are very confident that this will be a strong El Niño throughout the fall and into the winter—possibly even among the strongest El Niños on record, which occurred during 1982–1983, 1997–1998, and 2015–2016.

The announcement is not a surprise—May’s installment of the forecast noted that models suggested El Niño would form this month, and scientists have long been seeing hints of it brewing. “The models started showing signs of it last November,” says Emily Becker, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami, who works on the official NOAA El Niño forecast.

The confirmation that El Niño is here, however, lets scientists warn communities around the world about what they might face throughout the rest of this year.

What is El Niño?

To understand what the planet is in store for, let’s start by explaining what El Niño is: The phenomenon is one phase of a global climate pattern that scientists call the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, which incorporates both the oceans and the atmosphere and has its roots in the Pacific Ocean around the equator. Under average conditions, this region’s surface waters are characterized by a “warm pool” in the west and a “cold tongue” stretching out to the east, says Antonietta Capotondi, a physical oceanographer at the University of Colorado Boulder.

During an El Niño, that cold tongue is completely overpowered, with warm waters stretching throughout the equatorial Pacific, sometimes aided by a planetary-scale ocean wave called a Kelvin wave, Capotondi notes. One such wave has been plowing across the Pacific. (During El Niño’s counterpart, called La Niña, which occurred last year, the cold tongue expands westward.)

Formal demarcations of an El Niño vary internationally, but at their root, they look for sustained sea surface temperatures that are noticeably warmer than average across a set swath of the eastern Pacific. Temperatures in NOAA’s defining region spiked higher than the average in mid-April and have remained high ever since.

These changes in the ocean temperatures change where heat is pumped into the atmosphere, which in turn causes changes to wind patterns. As an El Niño takes hold in the atmosphere, winds blowing from east to west over the region slacken, says Sarah Larson, an atmospheric scientist at North Carolina State University.

How El Niño changes the weather

These changes in heat distribution and wind patterns create a domino effect through the atmosphere that has major implications for the weather people around the world experience in the coming months. Changes in wind patterns tend to strengthen the eastern Pacific hurricane season while dampening the Atlantic hurricane season. Across North America, El Niño tends to push the jet stream south. By winter, when the phenomenon is strongest, the southern U.S. tends to be wetter than normal, while the northern swath of the country and much of Canada tends to be warmer than usual, Larson notes.

Globally, El Niño can contribute to record-breaking heat spells in addition to shifting rainfall patterns around the planet. The burgeoning El Niño is already interfering with India’s monsoon, leading to low rainfall estimates for the crucial season. Recent El Niños have also worsened wildfire conditions in regions that include the Amazon, Canada, and Australia. Meanwhile, the Horn of Africa can see flooding from unusually intense rainfall.

These patterns can have important real-world consequences, worsening famines, fires, and floods in various parts of the globe. The patterns of El Niño—and scientists’ ability to read the strength of an event months in advance—offer experts somewhere to start understanding and preparing for potential effects months in advance.

“El Niño pushes the future odds in certain directions,” said Michelle L’Heureux, a physical scientist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, who leads the team that produces the official El Niño forecast, to Scientific American before producing the new outlook. “Stronger events tend to shift the odds a bit more than weaker events, so this forecast is an opportunity to assess risk and prepare based on El Niño’s typical influence.”

A record hot year is likely

Pacific El Niño events unfold slowly—the closely watched patch of ocean will likely continue warming compared with its average temperature all the way through November or December, when the phenomenon usually peaks before the planet’s systems trend back toward normal. And El Niño unfolds a little bit differently each time, so the exact effects aren’t certain. “There’s always plenty of variability,” Becker says.

But the event will raise global temperatures, likely to record levels. Whether that happens this year, next year, or both is still uncertain. It is unclear, though, how climate change is influencing the strength or timing of El Niño events. And seeing a very strong El Niño this year isn’t necessarily a concerning sign about climate change, Becker notes.

All told, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a key factor shaping Earth’s climate each year. “It’s one of the most important emergent features of the climate system beyond the seasons,” says Maike Sonnewald, a physical oceanographer at the University of California, Davis.

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Satellite imagery showing the difference from average sea surface temperatures at the equator in the tropical Pacific Ocean (depicted using various shades of red and orange for warmth) during the first week of June 2026, as compared with the baseline used by NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch. NOAA Satellites

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Aerial images taken Thursday, just days before Trump’s birthday on June 14 and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event at the White House, show the apparent staining in the grass near the World War II Memorial. The photos show a visible 8 and traces of 6, 4, and 7.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the markings first appeared. The Washington Post reported the numerals were already visible on Tuesday. Reuters reported that one of its photographers saw the markings shortly before the U.S. Park Police and ​members of the National Guard arrived on scene. They were also visible from a live cam atop the Washington Monument. 

Merriam-Webster says “86” is restaurant industry-derived slang which means “to throw out,” “to get rid of,” or “to refuse service to,” while noting that it has also recently been used to mean “to kill.” Meanwhile, “47” may be used as a reference to Trump, the 47th U.S. President.

The numerals have been used together in the past to signal opposition to Trump. One notable use was when former FBI Director James Comey, an outspoken critic of the President, posted on Instagram last year an image of seashells arranged to show “86 47.” Comey was indicted in April for allegedly making a threat against the President; he has maintained innocence and vowed to fight the case, citing free speech.

The Interior Department called the latest incident at the National Mall “deranged vandalism,” adding that “any threat against the President is taken very seriously” and that U.S. Park Police will investigate “and hold ​those responsible accountable.”

In statements to the media, a spokesperson for the U.S. Park Police said ‌they haven’t determined cause ⁠of the “discoloration,” adding that a probe is underway and grass samples have been collected for testing.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a separate statement to the media Thursday that “anyone who engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible” and that “they should also immediately seek psychiatric help to treat their severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has warped their brains and made them sick in the head.” 

The National Mall has been the site of previous demonstrations against Trump. Last year, a statue of the President holding hands with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein appeared. During the most recent “No Kings” protests in March, demonstrators marched from Arlington, Va., to the National Mall to denounce the President.

Earlier this month, a federal judge stopped the National Park Service from taking action against the progressive group Accountability NOW USA. The group displayed an “86 47” flag during a permitted demonstration near the George Meade Statue in D.C., where they called for Trump’s removal from office. The display prompted an investigation by the Secret Service.

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The numbers “86 47” on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial in Washington, DC, US, on June 11, 2026.Al Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

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San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama needs to be very careful in the final four games of the NBA Finals because he is reportedly nearing a suspension.

On Monday night, the Spurs scored a big victory in Game 3 of the NBA Finals in front of a raucous crowd inside New York’s Madison Square Garden. Yet, the win did not come without some controversy. In the first quarter, the referees missed an egregious moment when Wembanyama shoved Knicks star Jalen Brunson in the back of his neck. Knocking him to the court.

It was a surprising miss on a night when the refs seemed to overlook several fouls by the Spurs. However, the league is apparently looking into the moment.

That would not be the first flagrant he has incurred during these playoffs. In the Spurs’ series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he was hit with a flagrant 2 for elbowing forward Naz Reid in the throat. It led to Wembanyama being ejected.

Multiple flagrants lead to a suspension based on a points system. One point for a flagrant 1, and two for, of course, a flagrant 2. In the regular season, a suspension only comes after surpassing five points. However, in the playoffs, it is shortened to just three. If Wembanyama gets a flagrant 1 upgrade, he will have three points.

That means if he gets another over the next four games, he is facing an immediate suspension. Considering how physical the Spurs have been in their series with the New York Knicks, being on the verge of a suspension could take a lot of the fiestiness out of his recent play.

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After Iran unleashed a missile barrage against Israel last week in retaliation for attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Parliament and Iran’s top negotiator, threatened more. “Until there is a sincere commitment to restoring trust, Iran’s response will not change,” he wrote on X.

Their recalcitrance reflects the reality of two wars in stasis, with a profound lack of trust all around, stymying progress.

Talks to find peace in Ukraine hit an impasse right before the Iran war started, with Ukraine demanding more robust security guarantees for ceding territory than Russia was willing to accept. Diplomacy has mostly produced prisoner swaps between the sides. The United States, once trying to play the main mediator, has shifted its focus to Iran.

American and Iranian officials now say a peace deal with Iran could be at hand. But it appears that it will initially consist of a framework for negotiations that will push the thorniest issues, like Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions relief, down the road. It is expected to allow for at least the temporary reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to shipping.

“Both conflicts have produced a similar outcome: a weaker power has trapped a stronger one in a costly confrontation,” Fiona Hill, who ran Russian and European affairs at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, wrote in a policy paper for the Brookings Institution this week. “Like Putin, Trump did not have a plan for what would happen next.”

The root of the issue is that both presidents sparked wars with limited understanding of the opposing side, Ms. Hill said in an interview. “Both projected their own centralized views of their own roles onto Iran and Ukraine, so they thought if they could decapitate the system, it would fall,” she said.

Mr. Putin did not anticipate fierce Ukrainian resistance; for example, Mr. Trump ignored admonitions that Iran could shut the Strait of Hormuz, and appeared to underestimate Iran’s capacity to retaliate and inflict damage on America’s allies in the region. Nor did the Iranian people rise up against their authoritarian leaders, as Israel and the United States had urged them to do.

While the bombing campaigns of the United States and Russia have had devastating effects, analysts noted, air power alone has not proved decisive.

“Although Russia’s aggressive invasion of its neighbor differs from Washington’s goal of reining in Iran’s expansionist threat, both states are finding it equally hard to align their end goals with the means available to achieve them,” James F. Jeffrey, a fellow at the Washington Institute and a former Middle East envoy, wrote in Foreign Affairs.

Ukraine managed to halt Russian troop advances in part by producing next-generation drones, changing the face of modern warfare, while the United States has shown no desire to deploy troops inside Iran.

Lack of compromise has prolonged both wars. The United States and Russia have presented extensive demands to the other side, but the list of what their adversaries get in return is short. Mr. Putin, in particular, has not budged from his maximalist demands, which include taking land his army has been unable to capture.

Mr. Trump has also repeatedly revised terms already agreed with the mediators, frustrating the Iranians.

The United States harmed the process “with contradictory messages, frequent changes in positions and demands, as well as repeated violations of the cease-fire,” Esmail Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said last week after fighting sputtered back to life.

Each revision erodes a little more of Iran’s confidence that Mr. Trump will stick to an eventual deal, analysts said.

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Early this year, on the outskirts of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, which has been bombed consistently. Credit…Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

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Pop culture holds that if you’re trapped in a well, Lassie will lead the way to a rescue—but if you’re stuck with Garfield, you’d better have some lasagna in your pocket. And research suggests such stereotypes aren’t far off.

Scientists compared 19 children between 16 and 24 months old with 38 untrained pet dogs and 22 cats, asking a simple question: Who will spontaneously respond when a human appears to need help? In the experiment, a familiar caregiver—the child’s parent or the pet’s owner—interacted with a sponge before turning away. Then an experimenter hid it in full view of the study subject. Across three trials of decreasing difficulty—when the sponge was unreachable and covered, then visible but out of reach, then fully reachable—the person searched, repeating, “I can’t find it. What should I do?” but never directly addressing the subject.

The study grew out of a broader question about prosocial behavior—why some species help others, and some don’t, says comparative ethologist and study co-author Melitta Csepregi, who studies animal behavior at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary. “To get at that, we compared dogs, cats, and toddlers, three species that live closely with humans but differ sharply in their evolutionary histories.”

In the findings described in Animal Behaviour, all three groups paid similar levels of attention. But children and dogs were more likely to show helping-related behaviors—approaching, indicating, or retrieving the object for the person. By the final trial, more than half the dogs and nearly half the toddlers indicated the object’s location, and some also brought it to the caregiver. Cats never approached it and only rarely indicated its location.

University of Vienna cognitive biologist Ludwig Huber, who was not involved in the study, says that “the authors made considerable efforts to rule out alternative explanations [for dogs’ motivation] such as attention, eye contact, object interest, and getting used to the situation.” It seemed they were trying to help.

But one question remained: Were cats failing to assist because they didn’t understand the situation—or because they lacked motivation?

To test this, the researchers added a final trial, replacing the sponge with food or a favorite toy. Cats then approached and indicated the object as often as dogs and children did.

“This brilliant study puts hard data to showing that cats aren’t mean but operate on a different evolutionary system,” says University of Pisa ethologist Elisabetta Palagi, who was not part of the study. Dogs and toddlers, she notes, are evolutionarily hardwired to treat another’s problem as their own. Cats, however, remain autonomous, understanding the situation without feeling compelled to intervene unless there’s a direct benefit for themselves. “They truly are the efficient specialists of the animal kingdom.”

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Yana Iskayeva/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump is turning 80 on June 14, and while the president has received several gifts from world leaders during his second term already, a little-known law might make it tough for him to accept all of them, especially the pricey ones.

According to the federal ethics guidelines, specifically the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act and related Office of Government Ethics regulations, a sitting U.S. president cannot keep high-value gifts for themselves, and while they may accept them temporarily, the gift is eventually handed over to the General Services Administration or other government repositories. This is because a gift to the president is considered not an individual gift, but one given to the U.S. government.

A president can choose to keep the gift if they want, but this comes with some conditions. If the gift is above a low “minimal value” threshold, the president can purchase it at a fair market value. It comes just days after a lip reader revealed Trump’s desperate 8-word plea as he was brutally booed at the New York Knicks game.

The threshold is adjusted periodically and is roughly a few hundred dollars. As of now, it is $480, according to the Office of Government Ethics. If the gift is valued above the threshold and the president has not reimbursed the government, they must decline the gift and return it to the U.S. government.

Even if the gift is clearly for a leader’s birthday, the same rules apply. The law doesn’t distinguish between state visit gifts, diplomatic gifts, ceremonial, or birthday gifts.

So far in his second term, world leaders have made a lot of effort to present President Donald Trump with thoughtful souvenirs that symbolize something. Trump has received gifts from leaders in Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, Israel, Argentina, and Ireland, according to a CNN tracker.

In February, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House and presented Trump with a gold-plated pager, the same devices Israel had rigged with explosives to attack the Hezbollah in Lebanon last year. Reports suggested that at the time, the president found the gift slightly off-putting.

The same month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave trump a World Boxing Championship belt won by the Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk.

In March, Russia’s Vladimir Putin gave Trump a portrait that showed him right after his assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, presented to him through U.S. foreign envoy Steve Witkoff.

For now, the president is revamping the South Lawn of the White House to host a UFC show. Massive structures have been seen going up on the South Lawn in front of the historic building as part of the June 14 mixed martial arts show, part of the celebrations for the US’ 250th anniversary.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage with Trump claiming the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

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Then, working-class white voters approved of his management of the economy by margins of 30 percentage points or even more. Now, recent polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 to more than 30 points.

Mr. Trump’s approval on the economy has dropped across practically every group. But his cratering support among a loyal demographic that has served as the foundation of his political coalition for a decade has the potential to be among the most consequential developments of 2026, according to interviews with strategists in both parties who are involved in the midterms.

Polls now regularly show that a majority of white voters who did not graduate from college no longer approve of Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy. Examples of his low ratings include polls from Fox News (33 percent approval), CBS News (39 percent), NPR/PBS/Marist (40 percent), CNN (43 percent), and The New York Times/Siena College (47 percent).

In other words, he has lost the faith of his most loyal supporters on the year’s most pressing issue.

Mr. Trump’s advisers are actively pressing to shore up support, trying to sell policies in last year’s tax cut package. The Treasury Department this month released a new report detailing how workers benefited from the tax bill. And then this past week, Mr. Trump’s $350 million super PAC, MAGA Inc., put out its very first statement since the 2024 election. The topic was telling: how tax cuts specifically helped the working and middle class.

“It’s working-class voters who are not happy with the Republican Party, and they may not come out and vote,” John McLaughlin, a Republican pollster who has worked for Mr. Trump for years, warned in an interview. He said he had seen backsliding of Mr. Trump’s gains in 2024 among working-class Black and Hispanic voters, too.

At this point, one of the only groups still supporting him on the economy in polls are Republicans.

Democrats are moving to capitalize, drawing up plans to compete in new places that not long ago had seemed too demographically daunting — more white and rural electorates in states such as Iowa that have trended Republican for years.

The Democratic brand, however, remains deeply tarnished among working-class white voters. Polls show many of them have not yet moved all the way toward saying they will vote for Democrats this fall.

Alex Pfeiffer, a MAGA Inc. spokesman, said Democrats would be forced to defend their record on immigration and opposition to the president’s tax bill. “Democrats will have to explain why they voted to take more money from tipped and overtime workers, as well as seniors on Social Security,” he said.

Yet even a more muted turnout from blue-collar white voters, who voted more than two to one for Mr. Trump in 2024, could imperil his party’s chances in November.

“It’s critical,” Mr. McLaughlin, the Trump pollster, said of mobilizing the white working class. “If they don’t, we lose the House and the Senate.”

‘A watershed moment’

Mr. Trump stormed back to power in 2024, promising to stop illegal immigration, tame inflation, and rev up the economy. He won 66 percent of white, blue-collar votes, according to exit polling — the exact share he received in his first election in 2016.

Yet in the months since his second inauguration, Mr. Trump’s pursuit of tariffs, persistently high prices for gas and groceries, his focus on foreign affairs, particularly the war in Iran; and ongoing inflation appear to have sapped that support, even as border crossings have plunged.

“The biggest problem is they have been driven — and continue to be driven — by the cost-of-living pressure,” said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster. “Prices, stagnant wages, and anxiety over when the next shoe is to drop.”

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Among blue-collar white voters, President Trump’s approval rating on the cost of living stood at just 36 percent in a New York Times survey. Credit…Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

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