Our daily trip around the world

🇲🇽 A drug cartel in northern Mexico has launched a violent response after the son of El Chapo was reportedly arrested. Armed members of the Sinaloa cartel burned vehicles and stormed an airport in the city of Culiacan yesterday, forcing local officials to cancel flights, suspend schools, and order residents to shelter in place. The scene was similar to a cartel siege on Culiacan in 2019 – the last time Mexico tried to arrest El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán – when eight people were killed before authorities eventually released Guzmán to avoid further bloodshed.

🥵 An ongoing heat wave in Europe is setting temperature records for January. At least eight countries have logged their hottest January temperatures in recorded history so far this month, with the heat wave encompassing a total of 15 European nations. Separately, a new peer-reviewed study published in Science found the world’s glaciers are melting faster than expected, with two-thirds of them projected to melt completely by 2100.

🇦🇫 Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government signed a $540 million oil-and-gas agreement with a Chinese firm yesterday. It marked the largest deal struck by Afghan officials since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, though its government still isn’t formally recognized by any nation. Afghanistan is estimated to contain untapped natural resources worth more than $1 trillion, Reuters reports, but decades of turmoil has prevented the country from reaping the benefits.