2015 ON TRACK TO BE EARTH’S WARMEST YEAR

Fueled by a combination of man-made global warming and the natural El Niño climate cycle, 2015 remains on pace to be the warmest year since records began in 1880, federal scientists announced Wednesday, smashing a record set just last year.

But going back even farther, before instrumental records, 2015 will almost certainly be the Earth’s warmest year since the 600s.

Current temperatures are unprecedented for at least 1,400 years, according to the most recent United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which met last year.

Climate scientists can analyze ice cores, lake sediments and tree rings to determine the air and sea temperatures of past centuries.

— Doyle Rice

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Syrian President Bashar Assad made a secret visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, their two governments disclosed Wednesday. The trip, which took place Tuesday, was Assad’s first-known visit abroad since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

New York City police officer Randolph Holder, 33, died Tuesday night after being shot in the head during a gunbattle in East Harlem, Police Commissioner William Bratton said Wednesday. Holder is the fourth New York officer shot and killed on the job in the past 11 months.

The pilot of a Californiabased Marine Corps U.S. F-18 fighter jet was killed Wednesday when his plane crashed after taking off from an air base in eastern England, the Air Force said.