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A record 274 climbers scale Mount Everest in a single day

By The Associated Press

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Hundreds of climbers scaled Mount Everest in a single day, setting a new record with 274 successful ascents, officials said Thursday.

The climbers took advantage of the clear weather on Wednesday, said Rishi Ram Bhandari of the Expedition Operators Association Nepal. It was the highest number of climbers to reach the summit on a single day from the popular route on the southern face of the peak, which is located in Nepal.

The peak can be scaled from either the southern side in Nepal or northern face in China’s Tibet. On May 22, 2019, Nepal’s side had 223 and the Chinese side had 113 climbers on the summit. Chinese authorities, however, have closed the route this year.

Earlier this week, veteran mountain guide Kami Rita Sherpa scaled the peak for the 32nd time, breaking his own record. His closest competitor, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, scaled the peak for the 30th time this week. Also, Lakpa Sherpa scaled Everest for the 11th time, topping her own record for the highest number of climbs by a female climber.

This year’s Everest climbing season began late because of risk from a huge serac hanging over the key route to the summit. There are around 494 climbers and equal number of their Sherpa guides who are expected to attempt scale the 8,850-meter (29,032-foot) peak by the end of this month when the climbing season on the peak ends.

Thousands of people have climbed the peak since it was first scaled on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

By The Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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