Some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated.

“We report that nine of the 13 oldest … individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years,” they wrote in the scientific journal Nature Plants, describing “an event of an unprecedented magnitude”.

“It is definitely shocking and dramatic to experience during our lifetime the demise of so many trees with millennial ages,” said the study’s co-author Adrian Patrut of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. Among the nine were four of the largest African baobabs. While the cause of the die-off remains unclear, the researchers “suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa in particular”.(theguardian)…[+]

A Texas-born man who prosecutors say rose to the top ranks of a Mexican drug cartel using ruthless violence to defeat rivals and secure control of drug trafficking routes was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Atlanta to serve nearly five decades in prison. Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “La Barbie” because of his light eyes and complexion, was sentenced to serve 49 years and one month and was also ordered to forfeit $192 million, which prosecutors say is a conservative estimate of the value of the cocaine Valdez was responsible for importing into the United States. Valdez, 44, was accused of bringing trucks full of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern United States and shipping millions of dollars in cash back to Mexico.

He was arrested in Mexico in 2010 and was among 13 people extradited to the US from Mexico in September 2015 to face charges. He pleaded guilty in January 2016 to charges of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine, and conspiring to launder money. Valdez was born in Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border. His father was a nightclub and bar owner, and they lived in a middle-class subdivision populated by border patrol agents, police officers and firefighters.(theguardian)…[+]

Hundreds of the migrants and refugees onboard the Aquarius rescue ship are being transferred to Italian coastguard and naval vessels to begin their journey to Spain, despite pleas for them to be allowed to recuperate in the nearest port. On Tuesday afternoon, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the crew of the Aquarius had been instructed by the maritime rescue coordination centre in Rome to transfer 400 of the 629 people onboard to the two vessels, which will then sail for Valencia.

The migrants and refugees, including children and pregnant women, were saved by the French NGO SOS Méditerranée from waters off the coast of Libya on Saturday, but the Aquarius was caught in a dramatic standoff over the weekend in which both Italy and Malta refused to allow it to dock.(theguardian)…[+]