The annual Muslim pilgrimage to the sacred city of Mecca that wrapped up last week became a death march for over 1,300 Hajj participants who died in temperatures that climbed above 124 degrees.

Saudi Arabia's health minister Fahad Al-Jalajel, who on Sunday announced a death total of 1,301, blamed the fatalities on pilgrims "walking long distances under direct sunlight without adequate shelter or comfort."

The 5-6 day odyssey of hiking and prayer drew almost 2 million pilgrims from around the world. Fatalities included a number of elderly people and those suffering from chronic diseases, A-Jalajel said. About  83% of the fatalities were among people who were not authorized to make the pilgrimage, he said.

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The US government, in a report published on Tuesday, acknowledged for the first time the harms that federal dams have inflicted on Native American tribes in the US Pacific north-west.

The report by the interior department details the “historic, ongoing and cumulative impacts of federal Columbia River dams on Columbia River Basin Tribes”, including how dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have devastated salmon runs, inundated villages and burial grounds, and deprived tribal members of the ability to exercise traditional ways of life.

The Columbia River basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, historically supported abundant wild salmon, which play an important role in tribal identity and spirituality, as well as steelhead and native resident fish.

The construction of large hydroelectric dams throughout the basin at the turn of the 20th century impeded fish migration and flooded entire villages and towns, forcing people to relocate and transforming the ecosystem.

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One evening in 2019, Janice Blanock was scrolling through Facebook when she heard a stranger mention her son in a video on her feed. Luke, an outgoing high school athlete, had died three years earlier at age 19 from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer.

Blanock had come across a live stream of a community meeting to discuss rare cancers that were occurring with alarming frequency in south-western Pennsylvania, where she lives.

Between 2009 and 2019, five other students in Blanock’s school district were also diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma. (The region saw about 30 overall cases of the cancer during that time.) In the video, health experts and residents were talking about whether the uptick in illnesses was related to fracking. Blanock was riveted.

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Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who has served nearly 50 years in prison for the killing of two FBI agents, was due to have his first parole hearing since 2009 on Monday, his lawyer said.

Peltier, 79, has maintained that he did not kill the FBI special agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Advocates, including figures such as the late Nelson Mandela and a former prosecutor and judge involved in his case, have long said he should be freed because of what they call legal irregularities in his trial.

The Biden administration's proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza received the United Nations' endorsement Monday when the Security Council voted 14-0 in favor of a resolution supporting the plan, with only Russia abstaining but not vetoing. Still, acceptance by the warring parties remains elusive.

The U.S. drafted the measure and finalized it Sunday after six days of negotiations among council members. The three-stage proposal would bring about an immediate stop in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, along with the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed misgivings about the version of the plan President Joe Biden made public May 31, though the White House has said Israel was involved in crafting it. Netanyahu is under pressure from the far-right flank of his governing coalition to continue the war, and in addition to the truce the proposal calls for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and, in the second phase, a permanent end to the conflict.

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Scientists in Bolivia are hoping to track glacial changes at lightning speed.

Joe Biden has ruled out Ukraine joining Nato in the aftermath of a ceasefire with Russia in a major blow to Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ahead of Nato’s annual summit on July 9, the US president said Ukraine would have to rely on supplies of Western weapons to ward off a second Russian offensive.

Peace, he said, “doesn’t mean Nato.”

“It means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries, where we supply weapons so they can defend themselves in future,” he told Time magazine.

Mr Zelensky has pushed for Ukraine to be granted swift entry to Nato after the war is over, arguing Vladimir Putin is likely to stage another invasion before long.

Membership of the alliance would compel the US and western nations to come to the defence of Ukraine in the event of any Russian attack, under Article 5 of the Nato treaty.

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Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen has become the latest target of doxing efforts by supporters of the former president following Trump’s conviction of criminally falsifying business records last week.

According to Advance Democracy, the addresses and phone numbers of Cohen’s wife and children were posted on a website on Monday, days after the non-profit group warned of a high volume of social media posts containing violent rhetoric targeting the New York judge Juan Merchan and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, each of whom played key roles in Trump’s conviction.