Our daily trip around the world

🇲🇽🌀 Hurricane Otis made landfall in southern Mexico as a Category 5 storm. Otis rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane over a 12-hour period overnight Tuesday, before hitting Mexico’s Acapulco region yesterday morning. The storm, which featured sustained winds of 165 MPH and knocked out all communications in Acapulco, marked the strongest hurricane to hit the region in recorded history. Otis was downgraded to a tropical storm by yesterday evening, after its power weakened as it moved north into Mexico.

🌍🫘 An international organization invented new bean species to combat Africa’s hunger crisis. Up to 60% of areas that grow beans in sub-Saharan Africa might not be suitable by the end of this century, per a 2016 study. To future-proof beans, an international group called the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance created and distributed over 650 new bean varieties across 32 African countries. And the new beans are, in fact, a magical fruit – they use less water, are more resilient to increasingly irregular weather patterns, and can better withstand prolonged dry and wet periods compared to previous species, allowing some African nations to more than double their bean productivity.

🇯🇵 Japan's Supreme Court nullified a law requiring transgender residents to be sterilized to officially change their gender. In Japan, transgender individuals who want an official gender change must be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, be at least 18 and unmarried, not have underage children, and have genital organs resembling the opposite gender. Yesterday’s Supreme Court’s decision reversed a previous ruling from 2019 that found the country’s sterilization clause for trans individuals was constitutional.