7 h. ago The Guardian view on Trump bombing Iran: an illegal and reckless act | Editorial

The US president has chosen war at Israel’s behest. He may imagine he has scored an easy win, but the world is likely to pay a steep priceDonald Trump was predictably quick to claim victory following the illegal US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities: “Completely and totally obliterated,” he crowed. Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and sycophants at home rushed to fawn over his “courageous” and “brilliant” decision. The most senior US military official, Dan Caine, offered a more muted assessment: it was “way too early” to know the full outcome despite severe damage. We cannot yet know whether the blow has ended Iran’s nuclear aspirations – or will spur it to pursue the bomb. It may be weeks or months, too, before Iranian retaliation plays out, with all its potential repercussions.Two nuclear-armed states have gone to war on the unevidenced claim that a third state is on the verge of acquiring its own nuclear arms. In March, the US director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, said I...

Events

7 h. ago The Guardian view on extreme weather: build national readiness – or let everyday life keep breaking down | Editorial

Britain faces rising climate threats, yet lacks a country adaptation plan. Urgent, coordinated investment is needed to protect lives and infrastructureBritain’s four-day heatwave – made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis – is expected to claim about 600 lives. Researchers say high temperatures from Thursday to Sunday would lead to a sharp rise in excess mortality, especially among older people in cities such as London and Birmingham. They forecast the deadliest day as Saturday, with temperatures above 32C and about 266 deaths. These are not abstract figures, but lives cut short by a threat we understand, yet remain unprepared for.Young people seem to grasp this. In a YouGov poll last week, roughly a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds said they hoped there wouldn’t be a heatwave – while more than two-fifths of older people welcomed the sunshine. That generational split isn’t just cultural. It reflects an entirely rational anxiety: younger people face a future living in a climate...

Politics

55 h. ago The Guardian view on Our Story With David Attenborough and The Herds: a new theatre of the Anthropocene | Editorial

A cinematic immersive experience and stampeding animal puppets are bringing the climate emergency into the cityAs parts of the UK swelter, this week brought yet more alarming reports of increasing temperatures, extreme weather events and dwindling chances of meeting the global 1.5C target. It was the UK’s warmest spring on record and its driest in more than 50 years.Communicating the urgency of our predicament without provoking despair and hopelessness is an intractable challenge, especially when it comes to children. But two trail-blazing theatre experiences are bringing the breakdown of the natural world into urban metropolises, and raising the alarm with such immediacy that even those of us fortunate enough to live in places that have so far been relatively unaffected by the climate crisis must pay attention. Continue reading...

Politics

59 h. ago MPs vote on 'matter of life and death' after heated debate on Assisted Dying Bill

MPs have voted for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which will now go to the House of Lords after hours of heated debate in Parliament today

Events

63 h. ago UK heatwave 'made 100 times more likely' by climate crisis as 'deadliest extreme weather' sparks amber alert

Scientists have warned that the extreme 32C heat hitting the UK this weekend was made more likely by human-caused climate change

Events

64 h. ago Gardeners with these four flowers in gardens urged to 'take action' during UK heatwave

Certain flowers and plants are extremely 'heat sensitive' and need extra TLC during the hot weather

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on Trump and Iran: Netanyahu’s war has no visible exit | Editorial

The US president promised to keep his country out of conflicts. The Israeli prime minister has other ideasThe maxim that wars are easy to start and hard to end does not appear to be troubling Benjamin Netanyahu. For the Israeli prime minister, conflict is an end as much as a means, extending his political survival. Under international pressure – however belated and insufficient – over the slaughter in Gaza, he launched the attack on Iran. Initially presented as essential to prevent Tehran from the imminent acquisition of a nuclear bomb, a claim running counter to US intelligence, it is increasingly discussed as the path to bringing down the regime. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “can no longer be allowed to exist”.Donald Trump has generally seen armed conflict as a trap rather than an escape route. He said that the US would “measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the war...

Politics

3 d. ago The Guardian view on assisted dying: a momentous bill that needs further attention | Editorial

Kim Leadbeater has led a strong campaign, but concerns about the likely impact on vulnerable people remainThe central issue before MPs, as they decide how to vote on the latest version of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill, is how to value individual autonomy relative to collective responsibility for vulnerable members of society when making regulations around the end of life. Should terminally ill people be allowed to end their lives with medical help? If so, under what safeguards? The question remains ethically, medically and legally complex.Technological and social changes enabling people to live much longer have created challenges around the resourcing of care and experiences of ageing and dying. There are profound questions about how we manage the final stages of life – and what we owe to those living through them. Continue reading...

Events

3 d. ago Club World Cup suffers embarrassing attendance and exposes huge problem for FIFA

FIFA's inaugural Club World Cup has suffered its latest embarrassment as low attendances and extreme weather continuing to plague the stateside tournament

Politics

3 d. ago Scientists confirm breakthrough in search for ways to extend human life

The discovery could be used to produce therapies that make humans healthier for longer without compromising quality of life

Politics

3 d. ago Decluttering expert shares vital tips to organizing your life and home after a messy breakup

Going through a split can be extremely stressful. Thankfully, decluttering expert Lesley Spellman shared tips to organizing your life, mind, and home post-breakup exclusively with the Daily Mail.

Politics

3 d. ago Heatwave latest hit to farmers struggling with increasingly extreme weather

Farming leaders warning of the need to invest in water infrastructure to make food production more resilient to climate change.

Society

3 d. ago ‘Own less, have more’: French app rents out underused household items

Poppins connects people who have things they use rarely with those who want to buy or rent themDo you need a kitchen mixer, a drill, a tent or a raclette machine? Perhaps you have a bread machine, an ice-cream maker or a toastie maker in the cupboard gathering dust?If the answer to either question is “yes”, Lucie Basch has a solution. The French entrepreneur and pioneer of a hugely successful anti-food waste app is now turning her attention to a different problem: the simultaneous underuse and overconsumption of everyday household objects. Continue reading...

Society

4 d. ago Scientists warn that greenhouse gas accumulation is accelerating and more extreme weather will come

A team of 60 international scientists report that by early 2028 society will have emitted enough greenhouse gases that the Earth will be pretty much locked into hitting the internationally agreed upon preferred limit for global warming

Events

4 d. ago Only two years left of world’s carbon budget to meet 1.5C target, scientists warn

Breaching threshold would ramp up catastrophic weather events, further increasing human sufferingThe planet’s remaining carbon budget to meet the international target of 1.5C has just two years left at the current rate of emissions, scientists have warned, showing how deep into the climate crisis the world has fallen.Breaching the target would ramp up the extreme weather already devastating communities around the world. It would also require carbon dioxide to be sucked from the atmosphere in future to restore the stable climate in which the whole of civilisation developed over the past 10,000 years. Continue reading...

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on Israel, the US and Iran: you can’t bomb your way out of nuclear proliferation | Editorial

The age of disarmament is over. But military action only increases the dangers instead of ending the threatEighty years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 40 years after the US and Soviet Union pledged to reduce their arsenals, the threat of nuclear war has resurged with a vengeance. The age of disarmament is over, a prominent thinktank warned this week: “We see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements,” said Hans M Kristensen of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.The world’s nine nuclear-armed states have amassed the equivalent of 145,000 Hiroshima bombs. Israel’s illegal attack upon Iran is purportedly a last-ditch attempt to prevent it joining this club – as Israel did long ago, though does not admit it. While Tehran possesses the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to, US intelligence believes it has not made that decision – and would stil...

Events

4 d. ago The Guardian view on HS2 delays: a chance to break the cycle of costly failure | Editorial

The Guardian view on HS2 delays: a chance to break the cycle of costly failure | Editorial  The Guardian

Events

4 d. ago Met Office warns UK could see temperatures above 45C and month

Experts at the weather agency warn the risk of extreme heat is rising with climate change

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on Gaza’s engineered famine: stop arming the slaughter – or lose the rule of law | Editorial

As Palestinians starve amid the rubble, western governments defend Israel, fund armed aid and dismantle the very rules they claim to upholdGaza’s cries have been drowned out by Israel’s strikes on Iran, and the diplomatic pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu over the suffering has ebbed. Yet as the industrialised world urges de-escalation in the Middle East, the devastation continues. On Tuesday morning, witnesses described Israeli forces firing towards a crowd waiting for trucks loaded with flour, leaving more than 50 dead. These are not stray bullets in wartime chaos, they are the outcome of a system that makes relief deadly.As Médecins Sans Frontières declared this week, what is unfolding in Gaza is “the calculated evisceration of the very systems that sustain life”. That includes homes, markets, water networks and hospitals – with healthcare continually under attack. Last week, a UN commission found that more than 90% of the Gaza Strip’s schools and universities have be...

Politics

5 d. ago Premium insurance demand surges across the world amid travel disruptions

Travel disruptions around the world have risen for various reasons due to Covid-19, extreme weather, and conflicts

Politics