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From snail slime to salmon sperm: the K-beauty boom hits UK high streets
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South Korean skincare retailers want to capitalise on viral sales of beauty ranges by opening stores across the UK Korean beauty products are moving from phone screens to UK high streets as social media drives sales of skincare with the help of eye-catching ingredients such as snail slime and salmon sperm. Retailers are looking to capitalise on the TikTok and Instagram trend for skincare and makeup ranges from South Korea – known as K-beauty – by opening physical stores and launching brands in a push to get consumers to pick up products that havegone viral online. Continue reading...
BlackRock to order senior managers back to office five days a week – reports
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New-York based asset management company about to issue new guidance, according to FT Business live – latest updates BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset management company, is reportedly preparing to order its senior managers to work from the office five days a week. The New-York based company is expected to tell its staff as early as Thursday that about 1,000 managing directors around the world should work in the office full-time, the Financial Times has reported. Continue reading...
Plastics industry pushed ‘advanced recycling’ despite knowing problems – report
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Producers promoted chemical recycling – processes used to break plastics into constituent molecules – but knew of limitations Plastic producers have pushed “advanced recycling” as a salve to the plastic waste crisis despite knowing for years that it is not a technically or economically feasible solution, a new report argues. Advanced recycling, also known as chemical recycling, refers to a variety of processes used to break plastics into their constituent molecules. The industry has increasingly promoted these technologies, as public concern about the environmental and health effects of plastic pollution has grown. Yet the rollout of these technologies has been plagued by problems, according to a new analysis from the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group. Continue reading...
‘A future on our terms’: how community energy is lighting up Latin America
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Small-scale schemes are replacing dirty diesel with clean electricity in remote areas – and ensuring a just transition When the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, Roxana Borda Mamani had to leave Mexico, where she was studying for her degree in rural development and food security, and return to her remote village in the Peruvian Amazon. At the time, the Indigenous community in Alto Mishagua had neither an internet connection nor a reliable energy source. “How am I going to study?” Borda asked. “With energy from the sun,” replied her friend, a fellow member of the Latin American Observatory for Energy Geopolitics at the Brazil-based Federal University of Latin American Integration (Unila). Continue reading...
‘We’re still living with the aftermath’: Floridians brace for fresh hurricane season
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With less than a month before the start of the 2025 hurricane season, residents are still recovering from catastrophic damage from the past two years Idalia. Debby. Helene. Not visiting friends, not neighbors. All hurricanes that have not yet faded into memory for the residents of Taylor county in Florida where all three powerful storms hit in just two years. Continue reading...
New York watchdog warns Trump cuts will usher in ‘open season’ for scammers
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City comptroller Brad Lander, also a mayoral candidate, calls for state and local action to take up oversight work of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau New York City’s financial watchdog is raising the alarm about the Trump administration’s cull of a key federal agency that oversees consumer financial protection laws, warning it will usher in an “open season” for fraudsters. Brad Lander, New York City’s comptroller and a candidate for the city’s mayoral race, said the uprooting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will leave many Americans vulnerable to scams and predatory lending as the federal agency’s oversight and regulatory powers have been significantly diminished. Lander is calling on state and local governments to make up for the gap in oversight. Continue reading...
Why is Trump considering raising taxes on millionaires? | Alex Bronzini-Vender
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Tax-cutting once unified the Republicans. Now, that sacred cow might get killed “I actually love the concept,” Donald Trump recently told Time magazine of a proposal circulating within his cabinet to raise taxes upon those earning over $1m. “I don’t want it to be used against me politically, because I’ve seen people lose elections for less, especially with the fake news.” Few presidential administrations have killed sacred cows at a faster rate than that of Donald Trump. But this really is shocking: a sitting Republican president praising a proposal to raise taxes upon the wealthy, adding only the slight caveat that it would be adversely spun by those in “the fake news”. A tax increase, Trump apparently believes, would be tenable as policy but not as politics. Alex Bronzini-Vender is a writer living in New York Continue reading...
‘The fledglings couldn’t escape’: Dartmoor blaze raises questions about wildfire strategy
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Commoners say restrictive grazing may be raising risk of fires like one that scorched 500ha of moorland The spot where the wildfire broke out could hardly have been worse. Cut Hill is one of the remotest and highest peaks on Dartmoor, miles from any road, a place of tussocky, ankle-turning terrain. And the weeks of hot weather meant the molinia, the moorland grass, was as tinder dry as farmers can remember it at this time of year. Once it took hold, on Sunday, the fire raged. Continue reading...
‘Astonishing journeys’: online tool tracking migratory animals highlights challenge of protecting them
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The University of Queensland system is intended to give policymakers idea of how species traverse the oceans and what it will take to save them Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email Off the east coast of Florida, female loggerhead turtles swim more than 1,000km north, hugging the edge of the continental shelf to get to feeding grounds. Humpback whales move through Moreton Bay off the Brisbane coast in Australia, on their way to feed around the Balleny Islands more than 4,000km away off the Antarctic coastline, where wandering albatross circle above, travelling 1,000km a day. Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email Continue reading...
Trump tariffs to hit small farms in Maga heartlands hardest, analysis predicts
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Major corporations are best placed to benefit from Trump polices at the expense of independent farmers The winners and losers of Trump’s first tariff war strongly suggest that bankruptcies and farm consolidation could surge during his second term, with major corporations best placed to benefit from his polices at the expense of independent farmers. New analysis by the non-profit research advocacy group Food and Water Watch (FWW), shared exclusively with the Guardian, shows that Trump’s first-term tariffs were particularly devastating for farmers in the Maga rural heartlands. Continue reading...
Next sales buoyed by unusually warm spring weather in UK
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Fashion and homeware retailer continues winning streak with revenues £55m higher than expected Business live – latest updates Sales at Next have beaten expectations after unusually warm UK weather boosted the fashion and homeware retailer’s summer clothing range. The company, which recently surpassed £1bn in profit for the first time, continued its winning streak on Thursday as it reported that full-price sales rose by 11.4% in the 13 weeks to 26 April, compared with the same period last year. Revenue was £55m higher than initially expected. Continue reading...
Keir Starmer to make statement on US trade talks after reports of deal
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No 10 says prime minister will give update later after Donald Trump said he was ready to announce ‘major trade deal’ The UK and United States are expected to announce a trade agreement, the first by the White House since Donald Trump announced global tariffs. Downing Street said Keir Starmer would make a statement on trade talks with the US on Thursday. The Guardian US reported that the UK has reached an agreement with Trump. Continue reading...
Bank of England expected to cut UK interest rates today as trade war threatens economy – business live
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Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news Federal Reserve warns of inflation and jobs risks amid Trump’s erratic trade strategy Trump expected to announce framework of UK trade agreement, sources say Shares have opened a little higher in London. The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares is up 0.2%, or 16 points higher, at 8575 points. Continue reading...
Could a new wave of urgent theatre hold the key to tackling climate change?
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From a New Forest giant inspiring an asthmatic teen to a herd of animal puppets walking to the Arctic Circle, theatre far and wide is taking action – but with energy and optimism, rather than doom-laden tales Climate stories are typically defined by despair. The future we are told of is such a tragic, barren dystopia, it’s hard to look at head-on. But a flood of theatre-makers are writing their way past fear into something more useful, inspiring action through love, music, puppetry and folklore. “The ones who profit most from the idea that we’re doomed are the oil companies and the people massively polluting our planet,” reasons playwright Flora Wilson Brown. “If we allow ourselves to think there’s nothing we can do, we won’t do anything. There’s still time to act.” Wilson Brown rejects this nightmarish narrative in her play, The Beautiful Future Is Coming, at Bristol Old Vic. Exploring the impact of the climate crisis through the eyes of three couples, the play jumps between 1856, 2027 and 2100. In the scenes set in the past, life is returned to Eunice Foote, the real scientist who discovered the greenhouse effect years before the man who took credit for it; in the future, we visit the Svalbard seed vault, where humanity has stashed the ambition of life on another planet. “It’s about making the impact emotional,” Wilson Brown says, “rather than statistical.” Continue reading...
Cause of Heathrow shutdown fire remains unknown
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Suspicious activity ruled out after investigation into blaze that left London hub and homes without power Business live – latest updates Investigators have so far failed to find the root cause of a large fire at a substation six weeks after it left almost 70,000 homes without power and shut Heathrow airport. After an urgent investigation ordered by the government, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said it had ruled out any suspicious activity. Continue reading...
Country diary: In praise of the ‘low-value’ sycamore tree | Phil Gates
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Weardale, North Pennines: This one is showing its worth, teeming with aphids, ready to kickstart a vast and far-reaching food web Sunbeams flicker through the translucent young foliage of the sycamore canopy overhead. A shadow darts among them: a blackcap, pecking aphids from the underside of the leaves. The insects hatched from overwintering eggs in early April, congregating on loosening bud scales, waiting for tender new leaves to unfurl. Now there are legions of them, aligned along leaf veins, hypodermic stylets plugged in, siphoning sweet sap while simultaneously giving birth to more. They stand with regimented parade-ground spacing, just close enough to stay in touch with their long antennae. A shiver of fidgeting sweeps through the colony as the blackcap approaches. Continue reading...
‘Outdated and unjust’: can we reform global capitalism?
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President Trump’s tariffs have plunged the world economy into chaos. But history counsels against despair – and the left should seize on capitalism’s crisis of legitimacy Since Donald Trump launched his chaotic trade war earlier this year, it has become a truism to say he has plunged the world economy into crisis. At last month’s spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, where policymakers and finance ministers from all over congregated, the attenders were “shellshocked”, the economist Eswar Prasad, a former senior IMF official who now teaches at Cornell, told me. “The sense is that the world has changed fundamentally in ways that cannot easily be put back together. Every country has to figure out its own place in this new world order and how to protect its own interests.” Trump’s assault on the old global order is real. But in taking its measure, it’s necessary to look beyond the daily headlines and acknowledge that being in a state of crisis is nothing new to capitalism. It’s also important to note that, as Karl Marx wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.” Even would-be authoritarians who occupy the Oval Office have to operate in the social, economic and political environment that is bequeathed to them. In Trump’s case, the inheritance was one in which global capitalism was already suffering from a crisis of legitimacy. Continue reading...
Rare New Zealand snail filmed laying egg via its neck for first time
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Mount Augustus snail, among largest in world, can live for decades and eats slugs and earthworms Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email A large rare carnivorous New Zealand snail has been filmed laying an egg from its neck for the first time, in a delightfully icky stroke of luck. The department of conservation, which has been managing a captive population of Powelliphanta augusta, or the Mount Augustus snail, for almost two decades, was undertaking a routine weight check when a small, white egg started emerging from a snail’s neck. Continue reading...
British Steel to hire more staff weeks after government rescue
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Open roles include engineers and manufacturing operators as firm prepares to ramp up production British Steel has said it will hire more than 180 new employees, as it prepares to ramp up iron and steel production for the first time since its government rescue. The company has started recruiting for 165 roles in Scunthorpe and a further 17 at its operations in Teesside and Skinningrove, to support production at its two blast furnaces. Continue reading...
Has UK-India trade deal ‘sold out British workers’ as Farage and Badenoch claim?
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Row over exemption of national insurance contributions for Indian short-term workers overshadows deal A multibillion-pound free trade agreement with India has long been touted as a big Brexit boon. Cheaper clothes and shoes for British shoppers, a huge market for scotch whisky producers and luxury carmakers, and billions of pounds worth of extra trade are among the benefits of the agreement, which was finalised this week. Continue reading...
Ill winds are blowing for Labour’s 2030 deadline for clean energy
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Loss of the vast Hornsea 4 offshore wind project is bad news but it reveals a big flaw in setting a deadline Danish firm shelves huge UK windfarm project over rising costs “Immensely challenging” and pushing the limits “of what is feasibly deliverable”. That was the state-owned National Energy System Operator’s description of its own proposals on how to decarbonise electricity generation in Great Britain by 2030. In short, it thought clean power by that date, a key Labour manifesto pledge, was “credible” and “achievable” as long as little went wrong along the way. Neso’s £200bn plan, detailing a rapid rollout of offshore wind, onshore wind, solar farms plus a major upgrade of the electricity grid, was adopted virtually unchanged by the government at the end of last year. Continue reading...
Drought conditions already hitting UK crop production, farmers say
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Environment Agency recommends rationing water as UK sees driest start to spring in 69 years Crops are already failing in England because of drought conditions this spring, farmers have said. People should start to ration their water use, the Environment Agency said, as water companies prepare for a summer of drought. The government has also asked the water CEOs to do more to avert water shortages, and the EA said hosepipe bans are on the horizon if a significant amount of rain does not fall. Continue reading...
‘A cemetery of trees’: vast green expanses turned to dust as loggers plunder South America’s Gran Chaco
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Jaguars, giant armadillos and ocelots among species threatened by shrinking habitat in one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world In the Gran Chaco forest, vast green expanses – home to jaguars, giant armadillos and howler monkeys – have turned to fields of dust. The forest once brimmed with life, says Bashe Nuhem, a member of the Indigenous Qom community, but then came a road, and soon after that logging companies. “It was an invasion. Loggers came without any consultation and families moved away. Those that stayed were left with only a cemetery of trees,” she says. The Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon; its 100m hectares (247m acres) stretch across Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia. It is also one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world – host to more than 3,400 species of plants, 500 birds, 150 mammals, 120 reptiles and 100 amphibians. Continue reading...
BMW boss predicts Trump’s 25% tariffs on foreign cars will be lowered by July
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The German carmaker has reported that its first-quarter profits for 2025 have fallen by 25% The boss of BMW has predicted that Donald Trump’s import tariffs on foreign cars will be lowered this summer, as the German carmaker reported profits for the first three months had tumbled by a quarter. Oliver Zipse, BMW’s chief executive, said he expected that Trump’s 25% tariffs on the import of foreign cars would be dropped by July. Continue reading...
Trainline shares tumble amid warnings over expansion of London contactless zone
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Ticket website also faces uncertainty over hit to foreign travel and government plan for UK rail booking system The online rail ticket retailer Trainline has warned of “headwinds”, including the expansion of London’s contactless travel zone and economic uncertainty denting foreign travel. Shares in the London-listed company tumbled by as much as 8% on Wednesday, before recovering slightly to a fall of 4%, despite reporting surging profits for the year to 28 February. Continue reading...
Real-world geoengineering experiments revealed by UK agency
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Trials will test ways to block sunlight and slow climate crisis that threatens to trigger catastrophic tipping points Real-world geoengineering experiments spanning the globe from the Arctic to the Great Barrier Reef are being funded by the UK government. They will test sun-reflecting particles in the stratosphere, brightening reflective clouds using sprays of seawater and pumping water on to sea ice to thicken it. Getting this “critical missing scientific data” is vital with the Earth nearing several catastrophic climate tipping points, said the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), the government agency backing the plan. If demonstrated to be safe, geoengineering could temporarily cool the planet and give more time to tackle the root cause of the climate crisis: the burning of fossil fuels. Continue reading...
‘It’s like putting a whale in a blender’: the rise of deadly ship collisions in Chile
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On average, five fatal whale strikes occur in the country’s waters each year, the highest in the world – and just a fraction of the total number killed, say researchers Photographs by Francis Pérez The memory of a blue whale gliding past his small boat haunts Patricio Ortiz. A deep wound disfigured the cetacean’s giant body – a big chunk had been ripped from its dorsal fin. Cargo ships are the only adversary capable of inflicting such harm on a blue whale, he says. “Nothing can be done when they’re up against those floating monsters.” Continue reading...
Two-thirds of global heating caused by richest 10%, study suggests
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Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes The world’s wealthiest 10% are responsible for two-thirds of global heating since 1990, driving droughts and heatwaves in the poorest parts of the world, according to a study. While researchers have previously shown that higher income groups emit disproportionately large amounts of greenhouse gases, the latest survey is the first to try to pin down how that inequality translates into responsibility for climate breakdown. It offers a powerful argument for climate finance and wealth taxes by attempting to give an evidential basis for how many people in the developed world – including more than 50% of full-time employees in the UK – bear a heightened responsibility for the climate disasters affecting people who can least afford it. Continue reading...
Danish firm shelves huge UK windfarm project over rising costs
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Ørsted cancels fourth stage of Hornsea project off Yorkshire coast, which was set to include enough turbines to power 1m homes Nils Pratley: ill winds are blowing for Labour’s 2030 deadline The world’s biggest wind power developer has cancelled plans for one of the UK’s largest offshore windfarms, in a significant blow to the government’s green energy targets. The Danish wind power company Ørsted said the Hornsea 4 project no longer made economic sense because of soaring costs in the industry’s global supply chain, after it won a government contract last year. Continue reading...
Amazon makes ‘fundamental leap forward in robotics’ with device having sense of touch
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Vulcan device ‘capable of grabbing three-quarters of items in warehouses’ fuels fears of mass job losses Amazon said it has made a “fundamental leap forward in robotics” after developing a robot with a sense of touch that will be capable of grabbing about three-quarters of the items in its vast warehouses. Vulcan – which launches at the US firm’s “Delivering the Future” event in Dortmund, Germany, on Wednesday and is to be deployed around the world in the next few years – is designed to help humans sort items for storage and then prepare them for delivery as the latest in a suite of robots which have an ever-growing role in the online retailer’s extensive operation. Continue reading...
‘Blood timber’: western firms fuel conflict and ‘slavery’ in Colombia
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Trade in uncertified hardwood illegally logged in Chocó rainforest and imported by US and Europe is financing paramilitaries, says Environmental Investigation Agency The Atrato River winds through the dense rainforest of Colombia’s Chocó region for nearly 400 miles (600km) before spilling into the Caribbean Sea. Some of these tropical forests are among the wettest on Earth. Their flooded lowlands and swollen rivers are so impenetrable they have acted as an evolutionary barrier, making Chocó a haven for rare and remarkable species found nowhere else on the planet. “We have so many animals that you won’t even know the names of many of them,” says María Mosquera, a community leader in the region, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. Continue reading...
‘It’s pretty scary’: Sunshine Coast residents fear storm surges as Bribie Island buffer erodes away
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Successive cyclones have gradually worn away the northern tip of the Queensland barrier island, which shields coastal residents on the mainland Australia news live: latest politics and federal election updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Jen Kettleton-Butler is on “a postage stamp of island” trying to rescue an echidna she calls Eddie. Wind roars in her microphone and the camera she holds pans from a public toilet that is disappearing beneath waves to a thin strip of coastal forest that, too, is being reclaimed by the ocean. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
GM mosquitoes: inside the lab breeding six-legged agents in the war on malaria
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A British company is producing mosquitoes that carry a ‘self-limiting’ gene that kills off female offspring, limiting the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever In an unassuming building on an industrial estate outside Oxford, Michal Bilski sits in a windowless room with electric fly swatters and sticky tape on the wall, peering down a microscope. On the slide before him is a line of mosquito eggs that he collected less than an hour previously and put into position with a brush. Bilski manoeuvres a small needle filled with a DNA concoction and uses it to pierce each egg and inject a tiny amount. Continue reading...
‘The hypocrisy is staggering’: will swift bricks fall prey to government fears of Reform?
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Campaigner Hannah Bourne-Taylor fears goal of requiring all new homes in England to include a hollow brick to help endangered cavity-nesting birds may be dropped On more than 50 occasions over the past three years, Hannah Bourne-Taylor has lugged an oversized brick through the parliament’s security screening. Security staff know her fondly as “the swift brick lady”. But now Bourne-Taylor is having to ruffle political feathers over what appears the simplest of nature-friendly measures – a small legal clause requiring all new dwellings in England to include a £35 hollow brick, providing homes for endangered cavity-nesting birds including swifts, house martins, sparrows and starlings. Continue reading...
Meta’s quarterly earnings beat Wall Street expectations as its AI investments rise by billions
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‘We’ve had a strong start to an important year’, Zuckerberg said as company posts $42.35bn in revenue for first quarter Meta reported earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street’s expectations for yet another quarter even as it lavishes billions on artificial intelligence. Meta posted $42.32bn in revenue in the first quarter of 2025, beating both its own quarterly revenue goals of $41.8bn at the higher end and Wall Street expectations of $41.38bn. Continue reading...
US economy shrinks in first quarter of Trump 2.0 amid sweeping tariffs
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Drop comes amid a huge fall in consumer sentiment, which in April dropped 32% to lowest level since 1990 recession The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, triggering fears of an American recession and a global economic slowdown. Donald Trump, who returned to the White House promising to “make America great again”, sought to blame Joe Biden for the figure. Continue reading...
Climate experts and politicians round on Tony Blair for ‘wrong message’
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Former Labour PM accused of ‘handing talking points’ to Tories and Reform after saying net zero strategy faltering Climate experts and politicians have criticised Tony Blair for claiming any strategy that relied on rapidly phasing out fossil fuels was “doomed to fail”. The former prime minister’s comments, published in a report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), prompted an internal row within Labour, with some accusing him of playing into the hands of a narrative used by rightwing parties to delay climate action. Continue reading...
UK watchdog bans coffee pod ads over ‘misleading’ composting claims
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Advertising Standards Authority says neither Lavazza UK nor Dualit’s product can be recycled at home Descriptions of coffee pods as “compostable eco capsules” were misleading as they could not be composted at home, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled. The ASA has banned adverts by Lavazza UK and Dualit, which both made claims about the eco credentials of their coffee products. Continue reading...
BP suffers investor rebellion at first AGM since climate strategy U-turn
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Nearly a quarter of shareholders vote against the chair, Helge Lund, as green protesters are blocked from entering BP suffered an investor rebellion on Thursday after facing shareholders for the first time since abandoning its climate strategy at a meeting marred by protest. About a quarter of shareholders voted against the chair, Helge Lund, at the company’s annual meeting in Sunbury-on-Thames, on the edges of London, which attracted protest from several green campaign groups. Continue reading...
Cheaper energy, more cash and a bit of scrap: how to save British Steel
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UK politicians and industry have options if they want steel to make money while minimising emissions The government has taken control of British Steel, so averting the closure within days of the UK’s last two blast furnaces. However, the takeover leaves a big question: what next? Steep losses at British Steel prompted its Chinese owner, Jingye, to decide last month to close its blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, which would end the production of “virgin” steel in the UK. The government stepped in with emergency legislation, passed in a single day last Saturday, to prevent that. Continue reading...
Trump attacks Fed chair over interest rates and says his termination ‘cannot come fast enough’
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President, whose tariff policy has caused turmoil, said Jerome Powell is ‘always too late and wrong’ with rate policy Business live – latest updates Donald Trump early on Thursday blasted the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, for not lowering US interest rates and expressed a wish for him to be gone from his role. The US president lambasted Powell as “always too late and wrong” in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump noted that the European Central Bank (ECB) was poised on Thursday to lower interest rates again, without mentioning that the body has been responding to the chaos caused by Trump’s initiatives on tariffs. Continue reading...
Bibles, bullets and beef: Amazon cowboy culture at odds with Brazil’s climate goals
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As the first climate summit in the Amazon approaches, a gulf is opening between what the area’s farming lobby wants, and what the world needs Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again The life and death of a ‘laundered’ cow in the Amazon rainforest Yellowstone in Montana may have the most romanticised cowboy culture in the world thanks to the TV drama series of the same name starring Kevin Costner. But the true home of the 21st-century cowboy is about 7,500 miles south, in what used to be the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, where the reality of raising cattle and producing beef is better characterised by depression, market pressure and vexed efforts to prevent the destruction of the land and its people. The toll was apparent along the rutted PA 279 road in Pará state. Signs of human and environmental stress were not hard to find during the last dry season. Record drought had dried up irrigation ponds and burned pasture grass down to the roots, leaving emaciated cattle behind the fences. Exposed red soil was whipped up into dust devils as SUVs and cattle trucks sped past on their way between Xinguara and São Félix do Xingu, which is home to both the biggest herd on the planet and the fastest erasure of forest in the Amazon. Continue reading...
How the truth about supermarket salmon is being hidden – video
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Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you. Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfare Scottish government must do more to control salmon farming, inquiry finds Scottish salmon producers allowed to remove ‘farmed’ from front of packaging Norway rules out fish farm ban despite ‘existential threat’ to wild salmon Continue reading...
I’m obsessed with coastal wildflowers: they look so delicate but thrive in tough conditions
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From the rock sea-spurrey, which appears to grow out of solid rock, to the slender centaury that lives on a landslip, these plants exist where they do for good reason I first encountered coastal wildflowers when I was 11. I was visiting my grandmother’s friend in Devon and a lady said: “Here, dear,” and dug up a clump of Warren crocuses – a rare plant that, at the time, was only thought to grow in the seaside resort of Dawlish Warren. She gave them to me to grow in my garden at home. But of course they didn’t grow away from the sea. That was when I realised there was something special about coastal wildflowers. They fascinate me because, as well as being beautiful flowers, they often grow in tough locations. Take the rock sea-spurrey: a delicate little plant that appears to grow out of solid rock, such as a crevice in a cliff base. It can put up with being splashed with sea spray and baked by the summer sun. And yet it seems to thrive in that difficult, harsh environment. Continue reading...
Lego drops diversity terms from its annual sustainability report
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Move by Danish toymaker appears to reflect US pressure on inclusivity initiatives worldwide Lego has cut diversity terminology from its annual sustainability report despite trumpeting the recent addition of “diverse” characters to make its toys more “inclusive”. Most recently the world’s biggest toymaker introduced sets featuring characters with sunflower lanyards, which are worn to indicate a hidden disability. At the time its chief diversity and inclusion officer, Lauren von Stackelberg, said the company was embedding diversity and inclusion in everything it did. Continue reading...
‘Amazon slayer’: the Dublin minnow taking on the giants in drone deliveries
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The Guardian speaks to Manna Aero founder and orders coffee via startup’s app to be delivered to a suburban home One drone lifts up into the sky at a shopping centre on the outskirts of Dublin, then another. They rise to 70ft (21 metres), tilt forward and zip away in different directions, each carrying a paper bag. On a sleepy morning in the Irish capital the takeoffs build to a steady one every few minutes, with barely anyone glancing at the constant stream of aircraft buzzing back and forth. Continue reading...
Parliament recalled for emergency vote on British Steel
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Easter recess halted in order to pass bill taking assets into public control, with full nationalisation a possibility Business live – latest updates Parliament is being recalled on Saturday to vote on emergency legislation that will bring British Steel under government control, No 10 has said. The bill will give the prime minister the power to “direct steel companies in England”, which No 10 will use to stop Jingye, the Chinese owners of the Scunthorpe site, from closing it. Continue reading...
$2,150 for an iPhone? Trump tariffs are ‘category 5 price storm’
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US is not set up to supply mobile phones and would cost estimated $30bn to move just 10% of chain from China The AI-generated video of tired-looking Americans making mobile phones, which circulated widely on social media this week, was a pointed vision of a post-tariff world. But Donald Trump wants it to become reality for Apple. The iPhone maker is one of the biggest victims of the US president’s realignment of the global trading order because its flagship product is assembled in the epicentre of Trump’s protectionist ire – China. Continue reading...
Tesla stops taking orders in China for two models imported from US
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Carmaker removes ‘order now’ buttons for Model S saloon and Model X SUV on its Chinese website amid tariffs war Business live – latest updates Tesla has stopped taking orders in China for two models it previously imported from the US, as companies scramble to adapt to prohibitive tariffs imposed in Donald Trump’s trade war. The manufacturer, run by Trump’s close ally Elon Musk, removed “order now” buttons on its Chinese website for its Model S saloon and Model X sports utility vehicle. Continue reading...
California’s $59bn agriculture industry reels under Trump’s wavering tariffs
1744372817 from GUARDIAN
Some farmers recovered from president’s first-term trade war and a fresh one is estimated to cost the state $6bn a year California’s $59bn agricultural industry is bracing for disruption as Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to spike tensions and trigger economic turmoil with China – one of the state’s biggest buyers. California is the country’s breadbasket, supplying roughly one-third of US vegetables and 75% of its fruits and nuts. But it also exports much of its produce – close to $24bn worth in 2022. This means farmers in the state could lose out significantly as China imposes retaliatory tariffs on US goods. Continue reading...