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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden’s envoy for Afghanistan will meet with the Taliban’s political leadership this week to urge them “to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement,” the State Department announced.

But as the militant group seized a seventh provincial capital Tuesday, Biden’s administration is making clear that it will not halt the U.S. military withdrawal, even as nearly daily American airstrikes are one of the last things keeping more cities from falling into Taliban hands.

Instead, U.S. officials have been calling on Afghan security forces to step up and “to use those advantages” and “to exert that leadership,” as Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said, that two decades of American training and investment were supposed to have brought to bear.

“We will certainly support from the air where and when feasible, but that’s no substitute for leadership on the ground. It’s no substitute for political leadership in Kabul. It’s no substitute for using the capabilities and capacity that we know they have,” Kirby told reporters Monday.

Instead, with the U.S. withdrawal scheduled to finish in just three weeks, the administration is putting diplomatic efforts to end the Taliban offensive front and center. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad is in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban leadership is based and where peace negotiations between them and the Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani began last September.

Those negotiations have yielded nothing but an agenda and repeated commitments to keep talking. Khalilzad himself – who negotiated former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal deal with the Taliban and was retained by Biden – conceded last week that the two sides remain “far apart.”

But he hopes to bring the pressure from the international community on the militant’s leadership, meeting counterparts from Pakistan, China, the United Nations, and more on Tuesday. The State Department said the group will work “to help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” including by reaching an agreement on demanding an urgent reduction in violence and opposing any government “imposed by force.”

It seems clear that the Taliban will care little for another joint declaration by world powers – and despite commitments to talks from its political leadership, its fighters continue to conquer territory and, according to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, commit atrocities that could amount to war crimes.

Khalilzad said last week that the Taliban want to take the “lion’s share of power” for themselves in any future Afghan government, although he and other State Department officials have also argued there is still hope for diplomacy, especially if the international community stands united against the Taliban offensive.

Have negotiations “achieved the results any of us want? Of course not, not yet. But we’re not ready to throw in the towel on diplomacy,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said last Tuesday.

But critics say the talks are nothing more than political cover for the Taliban, as it consolidates gains on the battlefield with brutal efficiency – intent on taking power by force.

“Supporting negotiations is helpful, but only talking about negotiating while the other side is winning militarily and pushing for surrender is futile,” wrote five retired U.S. ambassadors who served in Afghanistan – James Cunningham, Hugo Llorens, Ronald Neumann, Richard Olson, and Earl Anthony Wayne.

In an op-ed Friday, the group called for sustaining U.S. air support for Afghan forces “to prevent the defeat and collapse of the Afghan state until a stalemate can force serious negotiations and a sustainable settlement.”

The Biden administration, however, is not interested in doing so.

“There are difficult choices every commander-in-chief needs to make on behalf of the American people. President Biden has been clear: After 20 years at war, it’s time for American troops to come home. And as President Biden has said, the status quo was not an option,” a senior administration official told ABC News.

During the last two decades of war, the Taliban made incremental gains on the battlefield, particularly in more rural districts. But before Biden’s withdrawal announcement, fighting was largely stalemated, and the militant group rarely gained control of capital cities in Afghanistan’s 34 provinces or held them for long, according to Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program.

The group had been preparing for this moment, however, developing footholds outside cities, amassing heavy weaponry and an illicit fortune, and capitalizing on weaknesses in Afghan security forces, Kugelman tweeted: “What’s happening now has been alarmingly speedy, but not sudden.”

That speed may have taken some U.S. officials by surprise, and it’s pushing Ghani and his administration to boosting support for local militias and warlords to help fight back. Some analysts fear that raises the risk of all-out civil war, with competing factions, backed by foreign powers, fighting for control.

In the end, it is Afghan civilians that continue to suffer. In the last 72 hours alone, 27 children were killed, and 136 were injured, according to UNICEF, as fighting displaces tens of thousands of people.

“As a mom, I want this war to end,” tweeted Shaharzad Akbar, head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. “I don’t want more children reliving my childhood. War has no winners. It has all been loss.”

ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Greek residents waited out the wildfires through the night on Sunday, after being evacuated on a ferry off the coast of Pefki, a town in the north of Evia.

In a televised address, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that 586 fires broke out in the last few days after temperatures reached 113 degrees in one of the worst heat waves the country has seen in more than three decades.

Firefighters were still struggling to extinguish the blazes Monday on Evia island, one of the hardest-hit areas. Twenty countries, including the U.S., have been sending in firetrucks, reconnaissance support and manpower to Greece, according to Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

“In response to a request for support from the government of Greece, I am grateful that the U.S. European Command’s Navy component, part of the U.S. Naval Forces Europe, is providing a P-8 aerial reconnaissance aircraft to support firefighting efforts,” Pyatt said in a statement.

Mitsotakis apologized for the “weaknesses” of the fire response, saying the wildfires made “obvious that the climate crisis is knocking on the door of the whole planet.”

“It’s a shame,” one volunteer firefighter told ABC News. “This morning, there was nothing. Now there are two helicopters since 5 p.m.,” the volunteer said, deploring the lack of resources to fight the fires.

On Monday evening, five firefighting trucks and water tankers from Slovakia arrived on the island of Evia to support the local fire brigades.

Hundreds of volunteers are organizing rescue and support for stranded villagers and evacuees.

“If it weren’t for them, the young men … we would have burned,” Gianna Anastasiou, a restaurant owner on Evia island told ABC News. Her village has been cut off for days, without electricity and running water.

A volunteer firefighter and her family saved 12 pets from the fires that tore through Evia, as some were left behind during evacuations.

“This one is a survivor,” 27 year-old Eva Karakassi told ABC News, pointing to one kitten that was rescued from a burning house by a firefighter on Sunday morning.

The pets and their saviors spent the night on the beach, as villages around the island are still in danger from the flames. Over 2,700 residents have been evacuated from the island of Evia, according to the Hellenic coast guard, and the island is under a constant cloud of smoke.

Greek authorities announced that 500 million euros would be spent on these areas.

“It’s not over yet,” Anastasiou said, fighting through tears and thanking the residents from all over Greece for sending supplies to the affected villages.

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(NEW YORK) — An alleged victim of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew of Britain on Monday, accusing the embattled 61-year-old royal of sexually abusing her at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and elsewhere when she was under the age of 18, according to court records.

The lawsuit, filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre in federal court in New York, comes almost two years to the day that Epstein died in a New York jail while he was awaiting trial on conspiracy and child sex trafficking charges. The legal action also comes just days before the expiration date of a New York state law that permits alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil claims that might otherwise be barred by statutes of limitations.

“If she doesn’t do it now, she would be allowing him to escape any accountability for his actions,” Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, chairman of Boies, Schiller Flexner, told ABC News. “And Virginia is committed to trying to avoid situations where rich and powerful people escape any accountability for their actions.”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and accuses Andrew of sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Twenty years ago, Prince Andrew’s wealth, power, position, and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened, vulnerable child with no one there to protect her. It is long past the time for him to be held to account,” the lawsuit states.

Reached late Monday, a U.K.-based spokesperson for Prince Andrew said there would be no comment on the suit.

“I am holding Prince Andrew accountable for what he did to me. The powerful and the rich are not exempt from being held responsible for their actions. I hope that other victims will see that it is possible not to live in silence and fear, but one can reclaim her life by speaking out and demanding justice,” Giuffre said, via her lawyers, in a statement to ABC News.

“I did not come to this decision lightly. As a mother and a wife, my family comes first. I know that this action will subject me to further attacks by Prince Andrew and his surrogates. But I knew that if I did not pursue this action, I would be letting them and victims everywhere down,” the statement said.

Giuffre, now a 38-year-old mother living in Australia, first accused the prince of sexual abuse in public court filings in December of 2014, in a case brought by alleged Epstein victims against the U.S. Department of Justice. That lawsuit challenged Epstein’s lenient deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008.

Giuffre alleged in those court submissions that she was directed by Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to have sex with Andrew on three occasions in 2001, in London, New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Her claims were met then with vehement denials from Maxwell and from Buckingham Palace on behalf of the prince, the second son of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

“It is emphatically denied that [Prince Andrew] had any form of sexual contact or relationship with [Giuffre]. The allegations made are false and without any foundation,” the Palace statement said.

Since that time, Giuffre’s lawyers contend they have made multiple attempts to engage with Andrew or his advisers in discussions about her allegations in an effort to avoid litigation. But those efforts, Boies said, have been ignored.

“Since 2015, we’ve been trying to have a dialog with Prince Andrew or his lawyers,” Boies said. “We have given him every opportunity to provide any explanation or context that he might have. We’ve tried to reach a resolution without the necessity of litigation. Prince Andrew and his lawyers have been totally non-responsive.”

The most recent letter to the prince’s presumed legal team was sent last month and warned that a lawsuit would soon be filed unless the prince agreed to enter into discussions for an alternative resolution, according to the court filing Monday.

“If she had simply failed to sue now, it would have validated the stonewalling tactics that Andrew and his advisers have employed,” Boies said.

For nearly a decade, the prince has been under scrutiny for his association with Epstein, a multi-millionaire financier and the subject of state and federal investigations since the mid-2000s for allegedly recruiting underage girls for illicit massages and sex.

Epstein initially avoided federal charges involving allegations of abuse of nearly three dozen girls by agreeing to plead guilty to two comparatively minor charges in Florida state court in 2008. He served just 13 months of an 18-month term in a county jail.

Prince Andrew, who said he’d first met Epstein in 1999, became embroiled in the controversy in late 2010 when he was photographed walking with the convicted sex offender through New York’s Central Park shortly after Epstein’s sentence ended in Florida.

Epstein was charged again, in July 2019, in a two-count federal indictment for child sex trafficking and conspiracy for alleged crimes in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005. He died in prison on Aug. 10 from an apparent suicide.

Following those new charges against Epstein, the prince again found himself under scrutiny from the press and prosecutors for his association with Epstein both before and after the wealthy financier was designated as a sex offender.

In a rare television interview with the BBC in November 2019, Andrew categorically denied Giuffre’s allegations that he had sexual contact with her. He claimed to have no memory of ever meeting her and suggested that a widely-circulated photograph of him with his arm around the waist of then 17-year-old Giuffre, allegedly taken by Epstein in the London home of Maxwell in 2001, might have been doctored.

“I don’t believe that photograph was taken in the way that has been suggested,” he said. “I think it’s, from the investigations that we’ve done, you can’t prove whether or not that photograph is faked or not, because it is a photograph of a photograph of a photograph. So it’s very difficult to be able to prove it, but I don’t remember that photograph ever being taken.”

The prince also contended that he had an alibi for the date of the alleged encounter, claiming he was home with his daughter, Beatrice.

“I was at home,” the prince said. “I was with the children, and I’d taken Beatrice to a Pizza Express in Woking for a party at, I suppose, sort of 4 or 5 in the afternoon. And then, because the Duchess was away, we have a simple rule in the family that when one is away the other one is there. I was on terminal leave at the time from the Royal Navy, so therefore I was at home.”

The prince’s interview was harshly criticized in the British press and, within days, he released a new statement conceding that his “former association” with Epstein had become a major distraction for the royal family, and he stepped back from official duties.

He vowed in that statement that he would be willing “to help any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations.”

But Geoffrey Berman, then the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, publicly called out the prince a few months later for failing to live up to his stated promise. At a press conference in front of Epstein’s New York mansion early last year, Berman said Prince Andrew has provided “zero cooperation.”

Giuffre’s court filing Monday contains a copy of the photograph of her standing beside Andrew, along with references to flight records from Epstein’s private planes that indicate Giuffre was a frequent passenger to destinations in the United States and abroad while she was under 18.

Giuffre contends in her lawsuit that the prince engaged in the alleged sexual acts with her “knowing that she was a sex-trafficking victim being forced to engage in sexual acts with him” and that he was aware of her age. She contends she did not consent to engaging in sexual acts with the prince.

“[Giuffre] was compelled by express or implied threats by Epstein, Maxwell, and/or Prince Andrew to engage in sexual acts with Prince Andrew, and feared death or physical injury to herself or another and other repercussions for disobeying Epstein, Maxwell, and Prince Andrew due to their powerful connections, wealth, and authority,” the suit alleges.

Giuffre has previously settled two federal lawsuits she filed in connection with her allegations that she was recruited by Maxwell and Epstein into a life of sexual servitude to Epstein and other powerful men. She settled with Epstein in 2009 and reached an out-of-court settlement in her defamation claim against Maxwell in 2017. There were no admissions of wrongdoing in either case, and the financial terms of the settlements were not disclosed.

Maxwell, in deposition testimony in the defamation case, denied Giuffre’s allegations and described her accuser as an “absolute liar.”

“She has lied repeatedly, often, and is just an awful fantasist,” Maxwell said during a 2016 deposition.

Maxwell, who is currently awaiting trial on charges she aided Epstein’s alleged abuse of four underage girls, denied recruiting Giuffre for sexual activities with Epstein and denied instructing Giuffre to have sex with the prince or other men.

“I never saw any inappropriate underage activities with Jeffrey ever,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against her. She has not been charged in connection with Giuffre’s allegations of sexual abuse, though she is facing two perjury charges for alleged false statements in the 2016 depositions.

Boies told ABC News on Monday that it is his hope that the lawsuit finally leads to Prince Andrew agreeing to answer questions under oath.

“It’s one thing to ignore me. It’s another thing to ignore the judicial process of the state of New York and the United States,” Boies said. “If Prince Andrew does not take seriously the rule of law in this country, he is being very ill-advised. This is a serious lawsuit, and the court will take it seriously. We take it seriously. If he doesn’t take it seriously, it is at his peril.”

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(NEW YORK) — A United Nations climate panel has confirmed — in its strongest language ever — that the impacts of human-caused climate change are severe and widespread, and that while there is still a chance to limit that warming, some impacts will continue to be felt for centuries.

“It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land,” the report reads. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”

The UN panel said there is more evidence than ever before that human activity and greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet at a rate unprecedented in the last 2,000 years and that the impacts of that warming are already severe and widespread.

“Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” according to the report.

“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and their attribution to human influence, has strengthened” since the last UN climate science report in 2013.

The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was compiled by 234 authors from 66 different countries who analyzed more than 14,000 scientific reports about climate change. It will set the stage for global negotiations later this year on how to more drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the impact of warming temperatures as much as possible.

John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said the report underscores the “overwhelming urgency” and high stakes for those international talks.

“The world must come together before the ability to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is out of reach. As the IPCC makes plain, the impacts of the climate crisis, from extreme heat to wildfires to intense rainfall and flooding, will only continue to intensify unless we choose another course for ourselves and generations to come. What the world requires now is real action,” he said in a statement.

That review confirmed that warming temperatures are contributing to more extreme events in every inhabited part of the world and that if temperatures increase an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, the world will see increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. At 2 degrees of warming, the changes will start to reach levels that could threaten human health and agricultural systems in parts of the world.

Global average temperatures have increased between 0.8 degrees and 1.3 degrees Celsius since the industrial age, and climate researchers around the world have ruled out any natural explanation for the rapid rate of increasing temperatures. The report says “some recent hot extremes over the past decade would have been extremely unlikely to occur without human influence on the climate system.”

The report finds that global surface temperatures, meaning the temperatures of the oceans and on land, will continue to increase until at least 2050, regardless of actions taken to decrease emissions.

And unless greenhouse gas emissions are drastically reduced, the world will exceed 1.5 degrees of warming in the next 20 years. Limiting future warming to 2 degrees Celsius will require “immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the IPCC.

Ko Barrett, a vice chair for the UN climate panel and senior adviser for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that even though the world’s current path is likely to meet or exceed the amount of warming targeted in the Paris Agreement there is still a chance to limit the amount of warming and limit the impacts of climate change.

“It’s true that unless there are immediate rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be beyond reach. But there are pathways that take us to keep these levels in check. It just requires strong rapid and sustained reductions in CO2 (carbon dioxide), methane and other greenhouse gases,” she told ABC News.

Barrett said that even with the sobering findings of the report, she’s seen a stronger reaction from governments and young people throughout the world who want to prevent the worst-case scenarios.

“At the same time that it’s, you know, undeniable that these — some of these findings are dire. There also is, at least in my mind, a real sense of hope and a drive for action,” she said.

While drastic emissions reductions could stabilize rising temperatures and prevent more dire consequences from additional warming, the UN panel found that some impacts of climate change to the oceans and ice in the Arctic are locked in for years to come, while the amount of emissions will determine how rapidly those impacts accelerate.

The report found that oceans will continue to warm, become more acidic and contain less oxygen for the rest of the 21st Century — though those impacts can still be made less severe if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Glaciers and permafrost are also almost certain to continue melting for decades — or even centuries — and the report says the Arctic may “practically” be ice free in September near the middle of the century under certain greenhouse gas scenarios. September is when we usually see the minimum sea-ice coverage in the Arctic.

“If we were to stop emitting greenhouse gases today the planet would stop warming, but sea level would continue to rise. However, I think it’s important to manage that our emissions matter hugely for the long-term amount of sea level rise and how quickly it comes,” Bob Kopp, an author of the report and director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, told reporters on Sunday.

The report found that global mean sea level has already risen by .656 feet between 1901 and 2018 and will continue to rise at least through 2100.

“In the longer term, sea level is committed to rise for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt and will remain elevated for thousands of years,” the report says.

While the report lays out some dire impacts of climate change it’s also a call to action for reducing greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to prevent some of these worst-case scenarios and limit these impacts as much as possible.

“Stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and reaching net-zero CO2 emissions. Limiting other greenhouse gases and air pollutants, especially methane, could have benefits both for health and the climate,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Panmao Zhai.

The IPCC is expected to release two more reports on adapting to the impacts of climate change and possible policy solutions to limit warming and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement in early 2022.

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(NEW YORK) — A 4,600-year-old intact wooden boat bearing the name of Fourth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh, Khufu, was transported to a new museum about 7 kilometers away from Cairo’s Great Pyramid in a 48-hour journey that Egypt’s antiquities ministry described as a “unique archaeological and engineering project.”

The boat, measuring 42 meters in length and weighing 20 tons, was transported from the Great Pyramid to the Grand Egyptian Museum in a “metal cage lifted on a smart remote-control vehicle,” the antiquities ministry said in a statement.

Surrounding roads were sealed off, with residents taking glimpse of the low-key parade through their home windows as the journey concluded in the early hours of Saturday.

“The boat was exhibited inside a museum bearing its name at Giza Plateau, which was not equipped with the latest technological equipment to house and display this magnificent artifact,” the ministry statement read.

“The aim of the transportation project is to protect and preserve the biggest and oldest organic artifact made of wood in the history of humanity for the future generations.”

The subdued event stood in stark contrast to the glittering ceremony Egypt held in April to convey 22 mummies from the 120-year-old Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square to the newly inaugurated National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in the old Islamic city of Fustat.

However, Saturday’s procession still looked imposing, with the giant black vehicle decorated with a drawing of the ancient boat and illuminated with fluorescent colors as it roamed through an ancient area housing many of its pharaonic treasures.

The boat was discovered in 1954 at the southern corner of the Great Pyramid, which was built as a tomb for Khufu and is the only surviving wonder of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

“The transportation of Khufu’s first boat is one of the most important, challenging, and unique archaeological and engineering project,” said Atef Moftah, the general supervisor of GEM.

GEM, which Egypt says will be the biggest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilization, is due to open later this year.

Egypt hopes the museum’s inauguration and a series of high-profile discoveries made in recent years will help revive its ailing tourism industry, which makes up around 15% of the country’s gross domestic product.

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(NEW YORK) — Firefighters are still battling a large blaze on the island of Evia in Greece, where fires closed in on the beaches, forcing residents to flee via boats and ferries.

More than 1,100 were transported from the island to safety overnight on boats, after authorities issued evacuation alerts in dozens of towns.

People were trapped in villages on the island and calling for help on Greek television on Saturday morning, including a mother and her baby pleading for air tankers to be sent to her home.

Greek authorities reported the first casualties, with two dead including one volunteer and dozens injured. Volunteers rode in on motorcycles to bring water and help put out fires in the suburbs of Athens. A Kryoneri resident called them “a gift from God,” as firefighters are spread thin across the country.

Reinforcement coming in from Europe and the U.S. — 90 helicopters and planes, 23 vehicles and roughly 400 firefighters — are continuing to arrive on Saturday. Residents of Kryoneri, 14 miles north of Athens, were still undecided on what to do and whether to leave their home behind.

“I’m very scared,” Eleni Glibti, a resident of Kryoneri told ABC News. “I don’t know what to do, it’s illegal to be here.”

Sixty-four fires were still active overnight.

Weather conditions slightly improved in north of Athens on Saturday morning, with temperatures dropping to 91 Fahrenheit, giving firefighters a break and allowing them to get control over fires in the Attica region and the north of Athens.

Temperatures are expected to pick back up again next week.

Fires have raged across the Mediterranean for the past 11 days, including in Italy, France and Turkey, where the fires killed at least eight people.

The vast majority of the fires in Turkey had been brought under control on Friday evening, 198 out of 208 fires nationally, per the Turkish Forest and Agricultural Ministry.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that a total of 252 million tree saplings — three saplings for each citizen — will be planted before the end of the year, as part of the Breath for the Future campaign, launched in 2019 among several countries as part of an environmental effort.

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(LONDON) — At least 330 cats in the United Kingdom have died from a rare illness that could be linked to toxins in cat foods that have been recently recalled.

The condition, called feline pancytopenia, is when the number of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets decreases rapidly and results in serious illness, according to the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in London.

As of Monday, Aug. 2, at least 528 cases of feline pancytopenia have been reported, according to the RVC.

The RVC said the mortality rate among reported cases is 63.5% and the actual number of cases is likely much higher.

The RVC first raised the alarm about the spike in severe feline pancytopenia cases in late May. To date, the cause of the deaths is yet to be officially identified.

The RVC and Food Standards Agency in the UK (FSA) are investigating the cat deaths and possible causes.

The agencies are looking into several cat food brands — including Sainsbury’s hypoallergenic cat foods and Pets at Home’s Applaws and AVA cat foods — that were recalled in June. The FSA said the outbreak of pancytopenia could be linked to the recalled cat products.

“Our investigations are ongoing and we are still collecting data from practicing veterinarians, as well as testing food samples associated with affected and unaffected cats to determine the significance of these findings. We have shared our results with the FSA in order to assist them with their investigations into this matter,” RVC said in a statement.

The dry cat food brands pulled off shelves were manufactured by Fold Hill Foods. The company told ABC it “issued a voluntary and precautionary recall of selected cat food products after the FSA made us aware they were investigating a potential link between these cases and diet. This was fully supported by the FSA.”

“As stated by the FSA, there is no definitive evidence to confirm a link at this stage between the cat food products and feline pancytopenia,” a spokesperson for Fold Hill Foods said, noting it is cooperating with the investigation. “As cat owners ourselves, we fully understand how upsetting and stressful this situation is and the urgent need to establish why there has been an increase in cases of Pancytopenia in the U.K.”

The FSA said in a July 16 update that the presence of mycotoxins was identified “in a small number of samples of recalled cat food tested to date.”

Mycotoxins are toxic compounds naturally produced by some kinds of fungi, according to RVC. They can grow on different crops like grains and vegetables and appear on foods like cereals, nuts, and dried fruits, often under warm and humid conditions, the RVC said.

“Mycotoxins are widely found in some types of feed and food and do not, in themselves, indicate they are the cause of feline pancytopenia,” the FSA said.

The FSA and other regulators are continuing to investigate and will conduct wider samples and screenings for any possible toxins in cat feed.

Sainsbury told ABC News it is supporting the investigation. Pets at Home said in a statement it voluntarily recalled its products and supports the investigation as well.

Pet owners should check their cat food at home to make sure they’re not using recalled items. If yes, stop feeding the food immediately and contact local vets if concerned about a pet’s wellbeing, the FSA said.

It’s unclear if pets in the U.S. have been impacted.

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(ATHENS) — Firefighters are working to extinguish dozens of fires across Greece, where over 100 wildfires have started in the past day.

In the town of Evia, 90 miles from Athens, the Greek coast guard and private-owned boats are evacuating people from the beach where residents and tourists fled the flames. According to the Athens News Agency, 90 people have been transported to safety so far.

Greece is facing what has been described as its worst heat wave in more than three decades.

Greece’s Civil Protection Chief Nikos Hardalias said 118 wildfires broke out over the past 24 hours in the country. An EU disaster response group said firefighters and water-dropping planes were being sent to Greece, as well as Italy, Albania and North Macedonia, where fires have also broken out.

“Following the situation with great concern,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted. “European solidarity is at work to fight these terrible fires.”

More than 500 firefighters, 150 vehicles, five aircraft and nine water-dropping helicopters have been mobilized, as well as several groups of volunteers.

Thousands were evacuated in several suburbs north of Athens, including in the town of Varympompi, where several properties were burnt to the ground. Firefighters sprayed water on burned cars and metal structures to prevent another fire from starting.

“A lot of people were scared,” Alex, a volunteer firefighter, told ABC News. “We saw houses after houses burnt, there’s a lot of damage.”

The Hellenic Army is assisting with foot patrols and airborne firefighting assets.

An initial calculation by the National Observatory of Athens indicates that between Aug. 1 and Aug. 4, around 14,826 acres were burned in Greece’s wildfires. That’s more than 50% of the area burned in entire fire seasons of previous years: 25,639 acres burned during the 2020 fire season in Greece, and 23,240 acres burned in 2019.

Athens saw temperatures climb as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit on Tuesday and nearly 108 on Wednesday.

“It’s hell … unbelievable,” said Varympompi resident Vasilis Michelas, who lost his vintage car workshop in the fires. “Thirty-five years … it’s all gone.”

Authorities reported no serious injuries. An assessment of the damage caused so far is yet to be completed, but the national grid operator has warned that the capital’s power supply could be “endangered” after part of the transmission system shut down.

Now, the danger is that the blaze could reach archeological sites in the western Peloponnese. Greek authorities ordered evacuations in the nearby villages, according to Reuters.

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(New York) — The availability of food and how crops will fare as a result of climate change has long been of interest to environmental researchers, but scientists are now finding other threats to food supplies that can severely impact global food security.

Climate change may pose an increased risk for crops to become infected with pests and pathogens, leaving the yields inedible and risking quantities of the world’s food supply, according to a study published Thursday in Nature Climate Change.

Researchers at the University of Exeter in England studied models for the production of four major commodity crops — maize, wheat, soybean and rice — as well as eight temperate and tropical crops, to predict how the crops would respond to future climate scenarios.

The researchers found that, overall, the yield of the crops will increase at high latitudes, such as North America and parts of Europe and Asia. However, the findings also suggest that risk of infection from 80 fungal and oomycete, or fungal-like, pathogens will increase at high latitudes as temperatures increase, according to the paper.

As global temperatures warm, pest outbreaks are common, and pathogens can more easily attack crops, scientists said. Temperature is a “major determinant” of disease risk, and global distribution of plant pathogens have already shifted with the current warming, according to the study.

Climate change will not only affect the number of pathogens able to infect crops, but the composition of how the pathogens are assembled as well, the scientists said.

The higher temperatures also pose the possibility of major shifts in species composition within pathogen communities in some regions, such as the United States, Europe and China.

Food scarcity is a “continuous concern” as global populations expand, the amount of arable land decreases and the threat of climate change increases.

The researchers concluded that plant pathogens represent a “major threat” to crop production and food security, which reinforces the need for “careful crop management.”

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(CALIFORNIA) — For her 40th birthday, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, launched a mentorship initiative for women re-entering the workforce after losing their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The campaign — from the duchess’ nonprofit foundation, Archewell, which she founded with husband Prince Harry — is named 40×40 and is meant to encourage people around the world to give 40 minutes of their time to support women going back to work.

“In reflecting on my 40th birthday and the many things I am grateful for, I’m struck that time is among our greatest and most essential gifts: Time with our loved ones, time doing the things we love, time spent learning, laughing, growing, and the sacred time we have on this earth,” Meghan wrote. “Amongst the most valuable gifts of time is also time spent in service to others knowing that it can contribute to incredible change.”

“To that last point, and with my 40th lap around the sun in mind, it made me wonder: What would happen if we all committed 40 minutes to helping someone else or to mentoring someone in need?” she continued. “And then what would happen if we asked our friends to do the same?”

The duchess went on to note that “tens of millions of women around the world have left the workforce” due to COVID-19, “including over 2 million in the U.S.” She also noted that “the latest research shows that fewer women than men will regain work” as society rebounds from the pandemic.

“I believe mentorship is one way to help women regain confidence and rebuild their economic strength,” Meghan added.

“The time that you donate can contribute to a global wave of service and set in motion meaningful impact in our own communities, and across the world,” she concluded.

Meghan asked 40 activists, athletes, artists and world leaders to join her in donating 40 minutes of mentorship. Among those who have agreed to participating include Adele, Amanda Gorman, Amanda Nguyen, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Gloria Steinem, José Andrés, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and Stella McCartney.

For more information on 40×40, including how you can get involved, visit the Archewell site.

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