3 d. ago Is Farage’s win a new dawn? We could ask Labour, but they’re still fast asleep | Marina Hyde

The local elections results tell us one clear thing: the ‘two main parties’ offer a change that actually changes nothing – and voters know itIt’s been a funny old decade. Just over 10 years ago, the comedian Russell Brand was lionised in some quarters for appearing on a Question Time panel with Nigel Farage, and producing what was widely, if bafflingly, interpreted as a brilliant zinger about the then Ukip leader. “He is a pound-shop Enoch Powell,” honked Brand, “and we gotta watch him.” Well now. Perhaps it takes someone who needs to be watched to know someone who needs to be watched. Mr Brand returned to the UK this week from the Florida base of his conspiracist Christian media outlet, appearing in court today on rape and sexual assault charges. He denies them.Anyway: the local elections, where the big thing that people said could never happen seems to be happening. Farage now leads Reform UK, which even last year used to be bundled in the “other” category by political pollsters –...

Politics

9 d. ago ‘Everyone’s scared’: little appetite for mirth before White House correspondents’ dinner

Annual event likely to prove gloomy affair amid Trump attacks on press and rise of Maga media ecosystemIt is no laughing matter. The annual dinner for journalists who cover the White House is best known for American presidents trying to be funny and comedians trying to be political. But this year’s edition will feature neither.Instead the event in a downtown Washington hotel on Saturday night will, critics say, resemble something closer to a wake for legacy media still trying to find an effective response to Donald Trump’s divide-and-rule tactics and the rise of the Maga media ecosystem. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Giant icebergs the size of cities once drifted off the coast of Britain, scientists find

Research could indicate how current climate change and global warming are affecting Antarctica

Politics

1 week ago Experiments to dim the SUN in bid to curb global warming will be approved by the UK government within weeks

Experiments to reflect sunlight away from Earth will be given the green light by the Government within weeks. Trials could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or brightening clouds.

Politics

2 w. ago Melting glaciers will harm us all. Yet still we watch, unmoved | Robin McKie

The degradation of the Arctic tundra has triggered a terrible chain reaction that can only lead to greater mayhemThe problems that now afflict attempts to establish a military presence in the far north of Canada and Greenland provide timely warnings about the miseries that lie ahead for the rest of the planet as global warming continues its remorseless spread.The Arctic has suffered especially early impacts because temperatures here are rising faster than in any other part of our planet. Crucially, this process threatens to trigger even greater climatic mayhem. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Climatologist Friederike Otto: ‘The more unequal the society is, the more severe the climate disaster’

The German scientist on her new book arguing that inequality, wealth and sexism are making the climate crisis worse – and what we need to do about itFriederike Otto is a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London. She is also the co-founder of the World Weather Attribution initiative, which seeks to determine the influence of global warming on intensity and likelihood of an extreme weather event. The project also examines how factors such as ill-suited architecture and poverty exacerbate heatwaves, hurricanes, floods and wildfires. This is the theme of her second book, Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change.The thesis of your book is that the climate crisis is a symptom of global inequality and injustice. That will be quite topsy-turvy to some people, who think global heating is caused by the amount of carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere.Yes, of course, if you just stick to the physics, then the warming is cau...

Events

3 w. ago Global warming isn't funny. But more comedians are using humor to bring awareness to it

Comedians have long used jokes to raise awareness of serious problems, and many are now turning the gaze to climate change

Events

3 w. ago Trump administration cuts $4m to Princeton’s climate research funding

White House claims university’s work exposed students to ‘climate anxiety’ and ‘exaggerated climate threats’US politics live – latest updatesAlmost $4m in federal funding has been stripped from an Ivy League university’s prestigious climate research department because the Trump administration has determined it exposed students and other young people to “climate anxiety”.The government research grants to Princeton University have been cut off because the White House considers its work on topics including sea level rise, coastal flooding and global warming to be promoting “exaggerated and implausible climate threats”, according to the New York Times. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago White House ends funding for key US climate body: ‘No coming back from this’

Nasa cuts contract that convened USGCRP, which released assessments impacting environmental decision-makingThe White House is ending funding for the body that produces the federal government’s pre-eminent climate report, which summarizes the impacts of rising global temperatures on the United States.Every four years, the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is required by Congress to release a new national climate assessment to ensure leaders understand the drivers of – and threats posed by – global warming. It is the most comprehensive, far-reaching and up-to-date analysis of the climate crisis, playing a key role in local and national decision making about agriculture, energy production, and land and water use. Continue reading...

Society

last month Rob Beckett looks back: ‘Where I was from, you got attention by being good at fighting or football. There were no class clowns’

The standup comedian and broadcaster on realising he was funny, Parenting Hell and avoiding the spotlightBorn in south London in 1986, Rob Beckett is a comedian and broadcaster. He started on the standup circuit in 2009, performing at the Edinburgh fringe in 2012 with his show Rob Beckett’s Summer Holiday. Television quickly beckoned – after hosting ITV2’s I’m a Celebrity spin-off series, he became a panel-show regular, appearing on programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, as well as the travel series Rob & Romesh vs . In 2020, he launched the hit podcast Parenting Hell with comedian Josh Widdicombe. He is married and has two daughters. His current tour, Giraffe, continues until April 2026.That’s my dad in the background but, aside from that, I’ve got no other details. It might have been on holiday, possibly at my dad’s mate’s place in Spain. We always went there – he gave it t...

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