Earth sweltered to a record hot September last month, with U.S. climate officials saying there’s nearly a two-to-one chance that 2020 will end up as the globe’s hottest year on record. Boosted by human-caused climate change, global temperatures averaged 60.75 degrees (15.97 Celsius) last month, edging out 2015 and 2016 for the hottest September in 141 years of recordkeeping, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday. That’s 1.75 degrees (0.97 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average.

In the wake of heat waves, global warming, forest fires, storms, droughts and a rising number of hurricanes, the U.N. weather agency warned Tuesday that the number of people who need international humanitarian help could rise 50% by 2030 compared to the 108 million who needed it worldwide in 2018. In a new report released with partners, the World Meteorological Agency says more disasters attributed to weather are taking place each year. It said over 11,000 disasters have been attributed to weather, climate and phenomena like tsunamis that are related to water over the last 50 years — causing 2 million deaths and racking up $3.6 trillion worth of economic costs.

An icebreaker carrying scientists on a year-long international effort to study the high Arctic has returned to its home port in Germany carrying a wealth of data that will help researchers better predict climate change in the decades to come. The RV Polarstern arrived Monday in the North Sea port of Bremerhaven, from where she set off more than a year ago prepared for bitter cold and polar bear encounters — but not for the pandemic lockdowns that almost scuttled the mission half-way through.

The latest premiere at the Jewish State Theater in the Romanian capital, Bucharest, explores the horrors of the Holocaust via a survivor's memories of the Auschwitz and Plaszow concentration camps.

With performance halls shut because of the coronavirus pandemic, the best concert venue a violinist could hope for one recent October Friday was a sidewalk in the Bronx. Fiona Simon tuned her instrument as she prepared for one of her only public performances with the New York Philharmonic in months. The setting was a far cry from the orchestra's usual home at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Traffic hummed and sirens wailed as a crew laid cables and unloaded speakers from the back of a double-parked pickup truck.

There's little evidence of Americans' passion for fitness at the tens of thousands of small and independent gyms around the country. Gyms, health clubs and workout studios began reopening in late spring following government-ordered shutdowns aimed at halting the coronavirus spread. But most are only allowed to have a fraction of their regular clientele onsite at one time. And some clients are staying away for fear of catching the virus.

"We’re still waiting. The worst presidential debate in American history is still ringing in our ears, and we’re still waiting for the president of the United States to do something as simple as condemn white supremacy, and he still hasn’t done it," writes Leonard Greene. "Not on stage. Not in a statement. Not even in a tweet."

"Some political debates have highlights. The first presidential debate this year had only lowlights. Joe Biden called President Donald Trump 'a clown.' Trump said Biden wasn’t smart. Biden said Trump 'has been a fool,'” writes Ramesh Ponnuru. "And on it went, in what must have been the nastiest presidential debate in U.S. history. The most common word in the transcript will be '(crosstalk).'”

"I’ve watched a lot of presidential general election debates. This was the first time that I spent much of the time hoping that the feed to foreign nations was somehow disabled, because what we saw Tuesday night — what President Donald Trump did on Tuesday night — was so deeply embarrassing to the nation," writes Jonathan Bernstein.

U.S. officials accused Iran on Wednesday of being behind a flurry of emails sent to Democratic voters in multiple battleground states that appeared to be aimed at intimidating them into voting for President Donald Trump. The announcement at a rare, hastily called news conference just two weeks before the election underscored the concern within the U.S. government about efforts by foreign countries to spread false information meant to suppress voter turnout and undermine American confidence in the vote.

President Donald Trump spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing projects in China, operating an office there during his first run for president and forging a partnership with a major government-controlled company, The New York Times reported Tuesday. China is one of only three foreign nations — the others are Britain and Ireland — where Trump maintains a bank account, according to a Times analysis of the president’s tax records.

Authorities searched Wednesday for two men suspected of gunning down three people and wounding a fourth inside of a Houston nightclub. Police were called to the DD Sky Club at about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday in response to reports that there were multiple people dead inside, Police Commander Caroleta Johnson told the Houston Chronicle.