Libya, Kenya, China.

Today's three stories you should know.

Libya

A staggering 1,100 people have been rescued from vessels in distress in the Mediterranean in just the last 24 hours. Five people were reported to have died. The Italian coastguard saved 674 people on a fishing boat adrift off the Libyan coast, while German charity Sea-Watch rescued 444 people from smugglers’ boats. Libya has become the main departure point for people fleeing poverty, oppression and conflict in several African, Middle Eastern and South Asian nations. The people traveling on the boats had come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

More from AP here.

Kenya

Several recent newsletters have mentioned the drought putting millions at risk of starvation in East Africa as the crisis struggles for attention amid the war in Ukraine. BBC today carried a report from a Kenyan village on the front lines of the emergency.

More from BBC here.

China

China today came a step closer to completing its plans for a permanent orbiting space station. Beijing launched the second of three main modules that will make up the brunt of the station, which is to be called Tiangong or “heavenly palace.” China has made huge strides with its space program in recent years, sending probes to the moon and last year landing a rover on Mars. President Xi Jinping is determined to catch up with the US and Russia after China was excluded from the International Space Station project in 2011 when the US government banned NASA from working with it.

More from Al Jazeera here.