Countries around the world have had their future economic prospects assessed by influential body, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). What the IMF says matters - it aims to keep the global economy stable and its twice-yearly forecasts are one of the most authoritative looks at what is really going on around the world. Yet like all forecasts they can also turn out to be incorrect, so they shouldn't be treated as gospel. Here are three things we've learnt about the UK from the IMF's latest report. The global economy has been rocked by the US-Israel war with Iran. The transportation and production of energy in the Middle East has been severely disrupted, causing oil prices to jump and inflation to rise.

Let's Talk About the Super El Niño and Climate Change Here's what we know about the record-setting El Niño on a record-hot planet, and the most important questions scientists are trying to answer. The tropical Pacific has seen heat build for months as a "super" El Niño takes shape. A climate phenomenon that forms every few years, this year's iteration of El Niño has been on a tear of daily records and is forecast to reach unprecedented strength this winter. While it's characterized by hotter-than-normal waters in the eastern tropical Pacific, El Niño is a global problem. It's fair to wonder how another global problem is interacting with El Niño: climate change, driven by burning fossil fuels.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Tropical Storm Rachel is threatening to drop up to five inches of rain on the Southwest early next week. Where to follow the track. Tropical Storm Rachel is threatening to drop several inches of rain on the Southwest this weekend into early next week. The storm, which has weakened slightly as of Friday morning, is expected to make landfall as a tropical storm late Saturday or early Sunday morning, according to the National Weather Service, which offers online storm-tracking forecasts and graphics on the National Hurricane Center website . Tropical Storm Rachel has 50-mph maximum sustained winds and is currently heading northeast at 3 mph.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Hurricane Isaias is expected to make landfall as soon as this evening on the Gulf Coast in the US. Where to follow the track. Hurricane Isaias could reach Category 3 this morning as it approaches landfall on the Gulf Coast. While the forecast calls for the storm to weaken slightly ahead of landfall, the storm is still expected to make landfall as a hurricane late Friday or early Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service, which offers a suite of online storm-tracking forecasts and graphics on the National Hurricane Center website . ET Friday, Hurricane Isaias has 110-mph maximum sustained winds and is moving north-northeast at 15 mph.

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Look Up Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Hurricane Isaias is expected to strengthen further ahead of a Gulf Coast landfall in the US. Where to follow the track. Hurricane Isaias strengthened Thursday morning as it continues its arcing path toward the Gulf Coast. The storm is expected to make landfall as a hurricane late Friday or early Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service, which offers a suite of online storm-tracking forecasts and graphics on the National Hurricane Center website . ET Thursday, Hurricane Isaias has 80-mph maximum sustained winds and is moving east-northeast at 9 mph.

Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable @Home Look Up Trending Now Mashable Selects Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net All Series Tropical Storm Isaias: Spaghetti models track the storm's path online Tropical Storm Isaias formed Wednesday morning and is expected to become a hurricane early Thursday. Where to follow the track. Tropical Storm Isaias formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday morning and is expected to reach hurricane strength early Thursday as it pushes toward a Gulf Coast landfall. The National Weather Service has launched its suite of online storm tracking forecasts and graphics on the National Hurricane Center website . The National Hurricane Center's prediction cone reveals a northeastward trajectory that turns northward Thursday night, with a projected landfall late Friday or early Saturday morning somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. California's economic growth expected to continue, but slowly and with few jobs gains OpenAI's record-breaking $122-billion funding round in March underscores how AI investment is fueling California's economic growth. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

It will take a better understanding of underground physics, but volcanologists believe it may be possible. In the summer of 1991, Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, self-destructed. The eruption started on June 12, and three days later it culminated in a tremendous explosion . By the time pyroclastic flows--incandescent avalanches of molten rock and gas--tumbled down its sterilized slopes, Pinatubo's peak had been obliterated and replaced by a 2.5-kilometer-wide chasm. The eruption killed more than 800 people, mainly because roofs, weighed down by rain-saturated ash, collapsed. But it could have been so much worse: About 250,000 people, across multiple cities and a sprawling US Air Force base, lived in the volcano's shadow. When Pinatubo started convulsing and belching steam in April of that year, scientists from the US and the Philippines deployed an array of instruments that tracked the volcano's inner tumult. "We didn't know much about that volcano, and so there was this really rapid geological assessment. And the assessment said, 'Oh, crap, when this thing erupts, it only erupts big,'" says Mike Poland, current scientist in charge at the US Geological Service's Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

Google DeepMind has released the WeatherNext 3, an updated version of its last AI-powered weather model that it claims offers even more detailed forecasts across key variables like temperature, moisture and wind speed. DeepMind notes the new model should be particularly useful to companies working in renewable energy production, because of its ability to forecast "100-meter wind speeds (roughly at turbine-height) for precise wind-energy output, alongside high-resolution cloud cover and sun radiation levels to help solar farms." WeatherNext 3's ability to offer hourly and higher-resolution forecasts (in a 5-kilometer square grid rather than the 25-kilometer square grid of WeatherNext 2) is all due to the new data it's trained on, DeepMind says. Rather than primarily relying on data from numerical weather prediction models, which include a six-hour lag, WeatherNext 3 incorporates live satellite data, which gives the model "a rich, continuously updating view of the atmosphere." The model's ingestion of sparse weather station data means it can also offer more detailed forecasts of variables like humidity, which can usually change dramatically from one kilometer to the next.

Google and the UK government are collaborating on a project to test whether airplanes can avoid creating contrails. The project, called Operation Blue Skies, will conduct the trial over Shanwick airspace, which sits above the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. Contrails are the long white streaks in the sky left by jet engines. Most often created in cold, humid air, they form when water vapor condenses and freezes around aircraft exhaust. Researchers estimate that they contribute to about one-third of aviation's total climate impact.