Israeli airstrikes killed over a dozen people overnight and into Thursday in Rafah in the Gaza Strip, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas' cease-fire terms and vowed to expand the offensive into the southern Gaza town.

More than half of strip's population has fled to Rafah, on the mostly sealed border with Egypt, which is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid. Egypt has warned that any ground operation there or mass displacement across the border would undermine its four-decade-old peace treaty with Israel.

The number of monarch butterflies at their wintering areas in Mexico dropped by 59% this year to the second lowest level since record keeping began, experts said Wednesday, blaming heat, drought and loss of habitat.

The butterflies' migration from Canada and the United States to Mexico and back again is considered a marvel of nature. No single butterfly lives to complete the entire journey.

For the eighth straight month in January, Earth was record hot, according to the European climate agency. That was obvious in the northern United States, where about 1,000 people were golfing last month in a snow-starved Minneapolis during what the state is calling "the Lost Winter of 2023-24."

For the first time, the global temperature pushed past the internationally agreed upon warming threshold for an entire 12-month period, with February 2023 to January 2024 running 2.74 degrees Fahrenheit (1.52 degrees Celsius) hotter than pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Space Agency. That's the highest 12-month global temperature average on record, Copernicus reported.

They were warned that criticism of Israel's conduct during its war on Hamas in Gaza could cost them politically. But in the four months since Israel's blistering offensive was ignited by Hamas' Oct. 7 attack, progressives in Congress who have called for a ceasefire are seeing record fundraising dollars as they fight to remain in office.

Members of the "squad" — a group of liberals in the House — are being singled out by pro-Israel PACs like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC. The groups have pledged or plan to spend tens of millions of dollars to try to defeat them in Democratic primaries and the general election this year, turning the otherwise safely Democratic districts into election battlegrounds.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the Middle East on Thursday with public divisions between the United States and Israel at perhaps their worst level since Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza began in October.

Wrapping up a four-nation Mideast trip — his fifth to the region since the conflict erupted — Blinken was returning to Washington after getting a virtual slap in the face from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the war would continue until Israel is completely victorious and appeared to reject outright a response from Hamas to a proposed cease-fire plan.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas is still possible.

Blinken made the announcement late Wednesday after talks with Israeli leaders. The discussions focused on Hamas’ response to a cease-fire proposal floated by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar.

A U.S. drone strike hit a car in the Iraqi capital Wednesday night, killing three members of the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, including a high-ranking commander, officials said.

Foreign diplomats have put forward proposals to bring calm to the volatile Lebanon-Israel border, in parallel with the ongoing Gaza cease-fire negotiations, according to officials Wednesday. This includes a pullback by Hezbollah from the frontier and the deployment of thousands of additional Lebanese Army troops.

The proposal put forward by European diplomats would be based on the "partial implementation" of the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, two Lebanese political officials and a Lebanese diplomat based in Europe told The Associated Press.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas' terms for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, calling them "delusional," a position that complicates efforts to strike a deal between the sides.

Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with Israel's war against Hamas, now in its fifth month, until achieving "absolute victory."

Spain's Eurovision song "Zorra," whose title can be translated as an anti-female slur, is causing a storm among conservatives and feminists while Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says he likes it.

The song by the duo Nebulossa was chosen Saturday as Spain's offering for the Eurovision song contest in May. The music platform Spotify had it as the most viral tune in Spain and No. 3 worldwide Wednesday.