Breaking Waves: Ocean News

The heritage site was destroyed by contractors building transmission lines for the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Indigenous community members have described their shock and anger after an Aboriginal rock shelter was “damaged beyond recovery” by contractors building transmission lines for a New South Wales renewable energy zone. The heritage site was destroyed by bulldozers in March during the construction of access tracks for the Central-West Orana renewable energy zone, a transmission line project located about 300km north-west of Sydney. Continue reading...

Calaminarian grassland is a rare habitat where plants thrive in soils contaminated by heavy metals. But should these toxic meadows be protected or allowed to fade away? At first, the small purple flowers are hard to spot in the weak May sunshine. Slowly the drifts of delicate mountain pansies, along with the white rosettes of alpine pennycress, begin to jump out, scattered across an area little bigger than a football pitch, on the banks of the River Allen in Northumberland. This is a pocket of calaminarian grassland, an increasingly rare habitat where specialist plants called metallophytes have adapted to live in soils deeply contaminated by heavy metals, the legacy of more than 1,000 years of lead mining. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: As heatwaves intensify, ​B​ritain must confront the limits of a society built for cool​er weather, forcing policymakers, communities and households to rethink how ​w​e live, work and stay cool The UK swelters once again. On Tuesday, temperatures surged to 35C, condemning millions of people to another sticky night in homes ill-prepared for such warm conditions. The heat is record-breaking: we are still in spring, yet temperatures are close to extremes we once never expected even in high summer. Yorkshire experienced its first ever “tropical night” in spring on Monday, when the evening temperature failed to fall below 20C. Health alerts remain in effect across large parts of the country due to the increased likelihood of deaths, particularly among vulnerable and elderly people. Yet, experts warn, this may just be the road to a new normal. UK politics | Tony Blair has accused Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting of putting Labour’s future at risk by abandoning the centre ground, warning that the party’s “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” means it is likely to lose the next election. UK news | One out of every five people arrested after their participation in the 2024 summer riots has since been reported to the police for domestic abuse, the Guardian can disclose. Middle East | The continuing US-Israel war on Iran has compounded other global disasters to drive record numbers of people into hunger at a time when funding to combat famine has fallen dramatically, the head of the UN World Food Programme has said. UK news | The court of appeal will review the non-custodial sentences given to three teenage boys for the rape of two girls, Keir Starmer has announced. US politics | Alabama cannot use a new Republican-friendly map in this year’s midterm elections because it intentionally discriminates against Black voters, a panel of three federal judges have ruled. Continue reading...

Puncak Jaya in Indonesia is one of the last equatorial mountains with glaciers but the ice has retreated drastically because of the climate crisis. Project Pressure came to the mountain to create the first 3D model of the remaining ice before it disappears ‘Planetary destruction on fast-forward’: witnessing the disappearance of Indonesia’s eternity glaciers Continue reading...