Our daily trek around the world

⛰️ A pair of Chinese climbers abandoned their Mount Everest summit attempt to rescue an unconscious climber. Fan Jiangtao and Xie Ruxiang from China’s Hunan province were just 1,000 feet away from the summit late last month, when they spotted an unconscious woman who was out of oxygen and showing signs of severe frostbite. While it’s neither uncommon nor frowned upon for Mount Everest climbers to prioritize their own summit over helping others, Fan, Xie, and their two sherpas instead carried the woman for four hours to a base camp below.

🌊🌡️ El Niño has officially begun after a four-year hiatus, per US officials. The natural climate phenomenon is marked by particularly warm surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, which drives hotter weather across the globe. El Niño is associated with dryer seasons in the northern US and Canada, while the opposite is true for the US Gulf Coast and Southeast (which typically experience increased flooding). Experts predict the current El Niño will last for about a year, and will likely make 2024 the world’s hottest year on record.

🇨🇺🇨🇳 Cuba has reportedly agreed to host a secret Chinese spy base. China will pay “several billion dollars” to the Cuban government in exchange for allowing it to build a secret eavesdropping facility ~100 miles from Florida, per a new WSJ report citing US officials with knowledge of highly-classified intelligence. China’s new facility will reportedly allow it to intercept electronic communications throughout the southeastern US, which is home to dozens of military bases. Officials in the US and Cuba have denied the WSJ’s claims, while Beijing declined to comment.