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Politics
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US man says ‘hold tight’ to loved ones after wife and toddler killed by lightning
Kameron Glasgow of Florida honors wife Kenya and daughter Kennedi at local vigil after last week’s tragedy A Florida man whose wife and toddler daughter were killed by a lightning strike while he was near them recently has implored people to “hold … tight” to their loved ones. Kameron Glasgow made that arresting remark to local media at a weekend gathering honoring the memories of his wife, Kenya, and two-year-old daughter Kennedi after they died on 23 August from an exceedingly rare cause. Continue reading...
Space junk punched a new hole in the moon. It’s not ours to abuse | Moriba Jah
The space industry treats the sky as a place to dump what it no longer wants. We must develop a new model of accountability On 5 August, a piece of a derelict SpaceX rocket traveling at 5,400 miles an hour met with the moon and punched a fresh hole into it near Einstein Crater . Astronomers were thrilled. The European Southern Observatory caught sodium and lithium flaring in the debris plume and called it a bonus. The media called it a light show. Nobody was physically hurt, so nobody is responsible, and within a week the story was gone. I have spent 20 years tracking the junk humanity leaves behind in space for a living, and I want to tell you plainly what that crater actually is: a receipt. It’s what you get when an entire industry treats the sky, and now the moon, as a place to dump what it no longer wants, and calls the dumping “normal operations” or “space exploration”. Continue reading...
As Canada tariff talks collapse, who’s calling the shots in Trump’s trade team?
US trade representative Jamieson Greer has a level-headed reputation but commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and White House adviser Peter Navarro also have key roles Having reportedly read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in French, during a military tour of duty in Iraq, Jamieson Greer considered himself an unlikely target for accusations of francophobia. But Donald Trump’s US trade representative, hitherto one of the president’s less high-profile cabinet members, found himself in that uncomfortable position amid the acrimonious collapse of bilateral trade talks with Canada that now threatens to degenerate into an all-out trade war between the two close trading partners whose economies are tightly intertwined. Continue reading...
Trump’s plan to sell off a part of Yosemite is what oligarchy looks like | Rebecca Solnit
Public lands belong to all of us. Noone should plunder those lands for profit Do people still say a car was “sold for parts”? Because the US is being sold for parts or just handed over to the oligarchy. It’s a fire sale, a bankruptcy auction, it’s a planned dismantling of everything from its military to its institutions of higher education to its scientific research to its public lands. And while the threat to sell off part of Yosemite National Park is about a quarter-mile parcel on the park’s edge, Yosemite is a crown jewel in the national park system and, arguably, the world’s first national park. Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Continue reading...
Nearly 20 people still missing after ferry capsizes off northern Cyprus
Divers join search teams scouring deep waters for any survivors, with eight people so far confirmed to have died Nearly 20 people are still missing after a ferry capsized off northern Cyprus , killing at least eight, as divers join search teams scouring deep waters for any survivors. The double-hulled ferry with 267 people onboard took in water and flipped over on Sunday just off the port city of Kyrenia, leaving survivors clinging to the upturned hull. They were rescued by passing vessels and members of the coastguard. Continue reading...
China is concealing scale of flood disaster, say Tibet campaigners
Rights group claims 300 homes were destroyed in Tibet and number of missing people is ‘far higher’ than Beijing admits A Tibetan advocacy group says hundreds of homes were destroyed on the Tibetan side of the border in last week’s deadly floods, raising questions about Beijing’s official account of the scale of the disaster. Public discussion about the flash floods has been restricted, with security officials in Tibet announcing on Sunday that it had penalised at least 10 people for sharing “false disaster information”. There was no further information on the nature of the penalties. Continue reading...
Uber driver takes TfL to court over ‘pain‘ caused by licence renewal delay
Julius Mugabo launches landmark case as union says thousands in capital lost incomes due to ‘broken system’ An Uber driver who got into thousands of pounds of debt and feared losing his home due to delays in Transport for London renewing his licence to pick up passengers is taking on the organisation in the high court in the first challenge of its kind. Julius Mugabo, 55, has been an Uber driver licensed by TfL since 2016. Under the Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998, all minicab drivers cannot work lawfully unless TfL has carried out checks on them and issued or renewed their licences. These licences must be renewed every three years. Continue reading...
OnlyFans and AI training: why gen Z doesn’t care where our money comes from | Alice Lassman
With traditional goals such as stability and homeownership feeling out of reach, young people are focused on the present By now, we all know the shape of financial nihilism: the throw-your-money-at-anything reaction to the dissolution of the slow, linear path to wealth; the prediction markets , meme stocks , cryptocurrencies and microluxuries growing in its place. We’re left in an economic no man’s land. But financial nihilism only describes where we put our money. What about how we earn it in the first place? The modern economy has long relied on our need for stable employment – to pay the mortgage, to keep our kids fed, or, for some, to chase prestige and power – to generate the work ethic that keeps the wheel of production turning. None of this is going well for young people. Our jobs are insecure , we can’t afford houses, we’re deferring having kids (if we have them at all), and only 6% of us say a leadership position is our primary career goal. Hope is one of the economy’s most productive inputs, powering our willingness to endure long hours. When the production function of income – the mechanism that turns hard work into a stable salary, then a mortgage, then a pension – breaks down, so does our relationship with the input. I call this production nihilism: my generation’s growing indifference to the kinds of work we’re willing to participate in, and where we’re willing to earn. Continue reading...
British Museum hosted Palantir founder Peter Thiel in private viewing of Bayeux tapestry
Concern among staff that fragile artwork’s scarce ‘light hours’ given to someone with no known interest in museum The British Museum privately hosted the Donald Trump-supporting tech billionaire Peter Thiel in the exhibition space of the Bayeux tapestry earlier this month, the Guardian understands. The museum’s director of development, Charlotte Appleyard, hosted the PayPal founder at a VIP viewing of the tapestry, which is yet to open to the public, on 18 August. Continue reading...
Bhutan hosts first ‘conscious food summit’ amid threats to global food systems
Organisers say world must revive its spiritual relationship with food as climate crisis and conflict disrupt food security Mending the broken food system under the threat of climate-driven weather extremes will require more than economic fixes and intensive agriculture, and the world must revive its spiritual relationship with food, according to the organisers of a pioneering summit this week. Delegates from more than 60 countries and the UN will gather for the next five days in Paro, in the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan, for the world’s first “conscious food summit”, which will bring together governments and farmers, mindfulness experts and yoga therapists. Continue reading...
Venus Williams bows out after 2am following latest start in US Open history
Kenin wins 6-2, 7-6 (6) in late-night contest Williams loses 15th straight tour-level match First-round clash finally begins at 12.13am Sunday had become Monday by the time Venus Williams finally emerged beneath the closed roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium, her entrance pushed deep into the night after Novak Djokovic’s bruising defeat by Argentina’s Mariano Navone went the five-set distance. The first ball was struck at 12.13am, the latest start to a match in US Open history, yet several thousand spectators remained to watch a player who has been part of this tournament for as long as the building itself. At 46 years old, ranked 611th in the world and making her record-extending 26th US Open singles appearance, Williams has grown accustomed to making history simply by showing up. Even by those standards this latest installment was, as she would later describe it, “completely insane”. Continue reading...
Iran hostilities flare after US strike in strait of Hormuz; supertanker hits mines and catches fire – Middle East crisis live
US targets Iran’s Larak Island in first exchange of fire in more than a month, sparking reprisals against US forces in Jordan and UAE US strikes Iranian launchers in strait of Hormuz, prompting Iranian retaliatory attacks Welcome to our live coverage as hostilities between the US and Iran flared again for the first time in a month, with American strikes on Iran prompting retaliation from Tehran. A supertanker caught fire and was brought to a complete halt after hitting two naval mines in the southern strait of Hormuz , Iran state TV reported on Monday, citing a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps . Iran’s supreme leader called the US and Israel enemies of all Islamic nations . In a written message issued six months on from the start of the war, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei also urged rulers of Muslim nations to “know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it”, the official Irna news agency reported. Israel’s Shin Bet security agency says it urgently evacuated prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s oldest son from the US due to a threat against him. In a brief statement the Associated Press obtained on Sunday, the Shin Bet confirmed there had been a “significant threat” to Yair Netanyahu, without elaborating. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent will step up efforts to isolate Iran economically as he hosts G20 counterparts this week , a US official has said. Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian is due to take part in a summit starting on Monday of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation , a regional bloc that seeks to be a counter-influence to the west. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is expected to hold separate bilateral talks with Pezeshkian and China’s Xi Jinping, among other leaders, a Kremlin spokesperson said. Continue reading...
Weather tracker: Warm Yellow Sea strengthens storms in South Korea
More than 200mm of rain forecast in parts of South Korea, while parts of southern Europe to be 10C above average South Korea’s prime minister, Han Seong-sook, met officials to prepare for heavy rain expected this week, with rainfall totals across central and northern parts of the country forecast to exceed 200mm in some areas. South Korea was battered by heavy rainfall earlier this month and some areas were particularly hard hit. Over the weekend further thunderstorms pushed into the region and these are expected to cause disruption through Monday. This heavy rain is caused by a series of severe thunderstorms that developed over the Yellow Sea, on the western side of South Korea, and will slowly push eastwards on Monday before easing on Tuesday. These storms have been strengthened by the very warm Yellow Sea, which now has a surface temperature of 29C, 4C above the climatological average. Continue reading...
‘Breakthrough’ as Turkmenistan starts fixing ‘mindboggling’ methane mega-leaks
Secretive state begins repairs on ageing facilities after being revealed as worst country for leaks of potent greenhouse gas Turkmenistan has started plugging the mega-leaks of methane that spew from its ageing oil and gas facilities, the latest UN data shows, in a move hailed as a breakthrough. Methane, also called natural or fossil gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. It traps 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide and causes 25% of global heating today. Stopping leaks can be quick and cheap and, because methane breaks down in the atmosphere far quicker than CO2, this has a rapid impact, with some experts calling it the climate “emergency brake”. Continue reading...
Australians missing in Nepal targeted by ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘abhorrent’ racist slurs
As families await news after the catastrophe, community members appeal for compassion in the face of hateful rhetoric A slew of racist social media comments have been made towards Australians missing in the catastrophic Nepal-Tibet floods , prompting calls for greater accountability of major platforms to remove hateful rhetoric. On Monday, the total number of Australians missing after flash floods triggered by a massive glacier collapse in the Himalayas rose to 43, and the overall death toll was at least 810 people. Continue reading...
Goodbye to Babylon Berlin, the 1920s TV drama that has eerily foreshadowed real-life politics
The long-running drama reaches Hitler’s rise to power in its final season as its creators reflect on the unsettling parallels between Weimar Germany and the present day It’s the global hit TV series that pulled audiences straight into the chaotic hedonism of 1920s Germany, dramatising the brilliance and brittleness of a newly built democratic system with unprecedented ambition. But in the 13 years that the German makers of Babylon Berlin have worked on the show, modern democracies from the US to Hungary to South Korea have come under pressure in ways the creators say they could never have imagined when they started. Continue reading...
Icac lawyer tells Charles Perrottet the key to lying is ‘you have to be really good at remembering it’
Perrottet disagrees when counsel assisting Peggy Dwyer SC claims brother of former NSW premier is not truthful and ‘constructing evidence’ A brother of former premier Dominic Perrottet has told Icac he would lie to a property developer about delivering political outcomes “to keep him on side”, but Charles Perrottet has denied lying to the New South Wales anti-corruption watchdog. Charles Perrottet, who is among three Liberal figures alleged to have anticipated receiving $2m in prohibited political donations from Jean Nassif, told the Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) on Monday that he “made up” updates for the property developer. Continue reading...
Newborn baby’s body found in Sydney rubbish bin as police hold ‘serious concerns’ for mother
Police urge mother to attend hospital after baby’s body discovered in Harrow Road in Auburn Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast New South Wales police have appealed for information to find the mother of a newborn baby boy, whose body was discovered in a rubbish bin in Auburn in Sydney’s south-west on Monday morning. Police said emergency services responded to reports of the body of a baby located in a rubbish bin along Harrow Road in Auburn at 11.20am, with officers from the Auburn police area command finding the body of a newborn boy. Continue reading...
Monday briefing: Nepal and Tibet’s floods are a warning for the future
In today’s newsletter: As rescuers search for survivors after catastrophic floods, the disaster offers a stark warning about the climate risks facing the region, and the world Good morning. Over the weekend, rescue workers in Nepal and Tibet raced to find people who are still trapped in villages affected by catastrophic flash floods. As of this morning, the death toll stands at 903, and more than 4,000 people are missing. For those of you reading this in a place where life continues as usual, the scale of devastation is hard to fathom. In a matter of minutes, a torrent of mud and debris engulfed entire villages, snapped bridges and swept away people’s homes and families. Some survivors are marooned on top of buildings that rescue workers can’t reach. Others are trapped in tunnels beneath the ground. Many have no idea if their loved ones are still alive. UK politics | PC Andrew Harper’s killers will remain in prison after Andy Burnham announced changes to the early release scheme that will see anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, excluded from the scheme. Milo Yiannopoulos | Far-right British media provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos has been deported from the US back to the UK by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in connection with what the agency said was expired authorisation to be in the country. US-Iran | Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on airbases in Jordan after the United States attacked Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz, the first such strikes in a month. Iceland | In a blow to Brussels, Iceland has held a referendum that has narrowly rejected the government’s proposal to hold accession talks with the EU. Nepal-Tibet disaster | A headteacher in Nepal evacuated 900 children from a school moments before a deadly wall of water struck their town amid the devastating flash floods that have killed almost 800 people and left thousands missing. Tuesday | Justice secretary Alex Norris is due to present the government’s revised plans for the prisoner early release scheme, which includes a headroom review aimed at freeing up more space in the system. Thursday | In the first UK visit by an EU leader of Andy Burnham’s tenure, the prime minister is will host talks with French president Emmanuel Macron. Saturday | Officials from Jamaica will visit the UK to lodge a petition with King Charles to seek legal guidance from the privy council on the country’s request for reparations over Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, on the anniversary of the 1781 Zong slave ship departure from West Africa. Continue reading...
Embattled Sydney property developer Bathla warns it could fold by the end of the week
Administrators will be forced to close the business if it fails to secure additional funding, revealing hundreds of staff have not been paid for weeks Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The administrators of embattled property developer Bathla Group have said the company will fold by the end of the week unless they can secure additional funding to keep it afloat. The insolvency advisory Teneo assumed control of Bathla’s operations on 25 August after the Sydney-based construction company went into voluntary administration. Continue reading...
The Nepal floods seem a world away – but make no mistake, climate breakdown will affect us all | Nesrine Malik
Richer countries might have more resources to deal with catastrophe, but this problem grips the entire planet, however much leaders may want to deny it Climate breakdown is happening on one Earth, but two different worlds. In one, its impacts increasingly encroach on everyday life; longer periods of discomfort and shorter periods of sharp pain. Endless, hotter summers, and within them sudden wildfires, evacuations, homes burned to cinders in a matter of hours. In another, catastrophe. This summer has been a snapshot of that split-screen. The hottest day on record in parts of Europe, and a wave of water, mud and ice in Nepal that so far has claimed more than 750 lives. Thousands of people are still missing. The difference is also one of resources. The climate crisis has an economic cost, but some places can absorb it better than others. Responses to this summer of wildfires in Europe included a rapid scrambling by the French government to provide everything from tax breaks for businesses affected by the fires to relocation costs and aid to rebuild homes . The UK government had deployed almost £100m before the summer to strengthen wildfire resilience. Continue reading...
NHS to offer free high-street cholesterol tests in England
Checks at pharmacies for people aged 40 to 84 are aimed at identifying those at risk of heart attack or stroke The NHS in England is to offer free finger-prick blood tests for cholesterol on the high street for the first time under plans to reduce heart disease and stroke deaths by a quarter within the next decade. The seven-minute tests will be available at participating pharmacies as part of a national rollout to spot “ticking timebombs” earlier. Continue reading...
Man who murdered Molly Ticehurst will not face life in jail, judge says
Justice Natalie Adams says she is troubled by expert evidence about rape allegations in slain woman’s police statement Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Molly Ticehurst’s ex-boyfriend will not face a life sentence for her domestic violence murder, a crime which galvanised a national movement against gendered abuse. Ticehurst, a 28-year-old childcare educator, was found dead in her home at Forbes, in the NSW central-west, in the early hours of April 22, 2024. Continue reading...
‘Everything’s smashed to bits’: Ukrainians turn anger on those storing weapons near their villages
As Russia hits another ammunition warehouse, killing at least 38, locals put blame on poorly placed depots It is a day and a half since a Russian jet-powered drone smashed into an ammunition dump in Myla , a village 15 miles outside central Kyiv. Volodymyr, 61, a security guard, leads visitors from his family’s badly damaged home, its roof blown off, back windows shattered, through the garden towards the impact site 300 metres away. The garden, like so many in Ukraine’s villages and suburbs, is a sizeable allotment. But today the greenhouse is shattered, a vegetable patch is blackened and crisp underfoot. Several metres of grapevine have been destroyed. Even so, Volodymyr finds two surviving bunches to hand to the Guardian. Continue reading...