Exclusive: Ofgem to be given powers to issue fines and rein in bonuses for executives who ‘reward themselves while customers suffer’
Energy bosses in the UK will have their bonuses curtailed when suppliers and brokers break the rules under a crackdown on mis-selling.
Through the energy independence bill, which will be introduced on Wednesday, Ofgem will be given new powers to order compensation, impose fines and ban rogue operators that have pushed businesses and households into overpriced contracts.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/04/2026 - 01:00
Mink farms are the perfect petri dishes for deadly flu strains to emerge. Yet officials appear to be protecting business interests over human lives
Could this be ground zero? Could it be the spot where the next pandemic begins? It’s certainly a candidate, not least because the chain of events that could trigger a plague far worse than Covid-19 looks like the opening sequence of a disaster movie. A really bad disaster movie, in which the levels of carelessness and turpitude defy belief.
A report by the investigative news service ProPublica reveals that bird flu has been raging in a mink farm in Utah since August, and it appears next to nothing has been done by public officials. In 2023, I warned in the Guardian that mink farms could scarcely be better designed to generate lethal plagues. This is for three reasons: mink are fed on the offcuts of chickens, cows and other farm animals, in which new viral variants often develop; mink readily host both avian and human flu viruses, which can then exchange genetic material, turning a bird disease into a human one; and mink possess extremely high “zoonotic potential” – the ability to infect animals of other species, including human beings.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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11/03/2026 - 22:00
Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing too
Hajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family’s field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.
“It should be perfect for planting,” she says. “If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year.”
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11/03/2026 - 12:22
Nations in the group fare worse than others, with funding for nature projects especially hard hit even as climate crisis intensifies global need
The UK government has slashed overseas aid to Commonwealth countries, the Guardian can reveal, in contrast to the warm words for the group from King Charles and the prime minister, Andy Burnham, this week.
Amid sharp cuts in the UK’s aid budget overall, the Commonwealth has fared poorly, an analysis of the most recent and projected aid figures, seen by the Guardian, has shown.
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11/03/2026 - 10:50
British Veterinary Association president tells MPs surge in cases putting farmers under severe pressure and stress
The worst bluetongue season on record has been a major animal welfare crisis in Great Britain, MPs have been told, putting farmers under “severe emotional stress”.
Bluetongue, a viral disease that affects sheep, cattle and goats, can cause fever, lesions, stillbirths and death. The tongue may go blue and protrude from the mouth.
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11/03/2026 - 09:00
Annual reports show NSW renewable company’s CEO opted out of cash bonus, while CSIRO’s chief received an extra $200,000
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Executives at the troubled Snowy Hydro company collectively banked bonuses worth a combined $751,925 in the last financial year, despite its renewable energy project blowing out to 12 times its original cost.
But Guardian Australia can reveal chief executive, Dennis Barnes, who has a base salary of $1,845,126, opted not to accept the extra cash.
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11/03/2026 - 08:05
Garden Climate Assessment Tool will allow users to predict a plant’s response to the projected climate in a given location
“In the 20th century, we could pretty much grow the same things with confidence, we could learn from previous generations,” said Prof Sam Brockington, a curator at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.
“But now we’re moving into climate scenarios that we just don’t have the traditions to understand fully.”
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11/03/2026 - 08:00
For the first time since 1937, no open permits to hunt ruffed grouse in Ohio have been issued due to falling numbers
Every November, hundreds of hunters descend on four designated wilderness areas in southern Ohio in pursuit of the elusive ruffed grouse.
But not this year.
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11/03/2026 - 08:00
Cop30 host sets out steps to break link with coal, oil and gas as it aims to move focus from negotiating to implementing
All countries can start to break their dependence on fossil fuels now without needing to wait for new technologies or economic changes, Brazil’s government has said ahead of a global climate summit.
Brazil, the host of last year’s UN climate conference, set out the world’s first global “roadmap” for phasing out fossil fuels on Tuesday, showing that countries could boost their economies and pull people out of poverty while breaking the link with coal, oil and gas.
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11/03/2026 - 06:55
Drax’s FTSE 250 owner strikes £20bn deal to build infrastructure in what it says is site’s ‘next chapter’
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Britain’s most polluting power plant could soon power the country’s largest datacentre under a £20bn deal to build AI infrastructure on the site of the Drax power plant in North Yorkshire.
The power plant’s FTSE 250 owner has struck a deal with the infrastructure investor Brookfield and and the AI infrastructure platform Radiant to develop a datacentre with an eventual capacity of more than 1 gigawatt that could begin operations by early 2028.
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