Our daily morning stroll around the world

🇮🇱🇺🇸 President Biden told Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to take “immediate action” to protect civilians. In a 30-minute phone call yesterday, the two world leaders discussed the airstrike in Gaza late Monday that killed seven foreign humanitarian aid workers with the World Central Kitchen. According to the White House, Biden told Netanyahu that future US support in Israel’s war against Hamas depends on immediate efforts to address civilian harm and the security of aid workers, with other top US officials saying they expect to see policy changes from Israel within “hours and days.”

🌀 A PSA for James Franco: the hurricane season is not over. In fact, the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season is projected to be the most active in ~30 years. A team of Colorado State University meteorologists forecast 23 named storms, 11 hurricanes, and five major hurricanes of Category 3 or greater for this upcoming season, which runs from June through November. This marks the highest such figures from CSU across its three-decade history of spring hurricane predictions, with scientists attributing the projected spike in activity to record warm sea surface temperatures and the rapidly developing La Niña global cooling event.

🌳 Logging in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil and Colombia nearly halved last year. Primary forest loss decreased by 36% in Brazil and 49% in Colombia between 2022 and 2023, despite deforestation worldwide increasing by a quarter, per new data from the University of Maryland. Analysts attribute the decline to new energy policies following transitions of presidential leadership, including regulations aimed at halting overall Amazon deforestation by 2030.