For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pushed ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and allegiance to the ruling Communist Party. Now, that push has been codified into a sweeping new law that reaches into classrooms, neighborhoods and homes – and gives Beijing the right to target people outside of its borders that it believes violate its rules. The statute, officially known as the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, came into effect on July 1. It bans acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division” among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnicities, which include a Han Chinese majority that makes up over 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/01/china/china-ethnic-unity-law-intl-hnk
Every 40 seconds of nighttime for the next 10 years, a camera the size of a small car will capture strikingly detailed images of the southern sky, stitching together a time-lapse panorama of intergalactic evolution that could help unlock some of the universe’s lingering mysteries. The historic effort, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), began on Tuesday, according to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the state-of-the-art facility in Chile that houses the world’s largest digital camera weighing 6,600 pounds. During its decade-long study, a series of colored filters will give the camera superhuman vision as it scans the sky each night and creates a living image of how celestial objects — from asteroids to supernovae — morph and move.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/01/science/rubin-observatory-legacy-survey-space-and-time
The planet’s oceans are at unprecedented temperatures for this time of year, breaking the all-time June record, according to new data, with alarming implications for global weather and marine life. On June 21, average global sea surface temperatures reached 69.5 degrees Fahrenheit (20.86 Celsius), edging above the June record last set in 2024, according to data from Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which combines measurements from satellites, ships and buoys. The record was echoed in another data set. Data from the Copernicus Marine Service, implemented by the non-profit Mercator Ocean International, found sea temperatures hit 69.38 Fahrenheit (21 Celsius) on June 21, beating the previous record last set in 2024 by 0.18 degrees Fahrenheit.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/01/climate/global-oceans-break-june-temperature-record
For 35 years, Barbara Senich only owned black pants. “I thought somehow, that would make me look less big,” said Senich, 69, who has struggled with obesity for most of her life. At her heaviest, Senich, who is 5’11”, weighed 340 pounds. She lost at least 100 pounds twice on all-liquid diets but eventually regained the weight. Bariatric surgery helped her drop to 185 pounds, but the benefits turned out to be temporary, and the pounds began to creep back once again.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/01/health/glp1-weight-loss-age-wellness
A series of strong explosions rocked Kyiv overnight into Thursday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that intelligence data showed Russia was planning a “massive” overnight strike. Kyiv officials said Russia was launching ballistic missiles and drones at Ukraine, which damaged and set fire to residential buildings, killing at least one person. At least eleven wounded people had been hospitalized following the attacks, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/01/world/russian-strikes-kyiv-zelensky-intl-hnk