Satellite built to track emissions fails just as New Zealand scientists about to take control and reap returns of NZ$29m government investment
For scientist Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, the news that a methane-tracking satellite was lost in space last week left her feeling like the air had been sucked from her lungs.
As nation moves to raise retirement age, new report warns the real problem isn’t when people retire, but how
Insurance worker G Young Soo started working at his company at 23, and spent more than three decades climbing the ranks to become a branch director. Now approaching his 60th birthday, Young Soo’s employer has systematically stripped away his salary.
As part of South Korea’s “peak wage” system, Young Soo’s wages were cut by 20% when he turned 56, and by a further 10% each year after that. By the time he is forced to retire next year, he will earn just 52% of what he made at 55, despite the same workload and hours.
Labor is making urgent representations to the White House about Donald Trump’s threat to impose 200% tariffs on drug imports to the US, an announcement Jim Chalmers says is very concerning for the Australian economy.
The US president said on Wednesday that the punishing new border levies would come with a transition period that could last more at least a year, after sustained pressure from the US pharmaceutical industry over price controls on common drugs in countries like Australia.
Watchdog releases nine new rulings setting clear precedents for online selling
Online pharmacies are no longer allowed to run adverts for weight loss injections, the advertising watchdog has ruled, as part of a crackdown on what has been described as a “wild west” culture of online selling.
In the UK, advertising prescription-only medications (POMs) – which includes all weight loss jabs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro – to the public is illegal. However, a Guardian investigation previously found some online pharmacies either breaking these rules outright, or exploiting grey areas to peddle the medications to the public.
Mario Guevara, arrested in Georgia while covering a protest, still detained after Ice refused his family’s bond payment
A week after an immigration judge granted him bond, a Spanish-language journalist who was arrested while covering a protest last month remains in federal custody.
Police just outside Atlanta arrested Mario Guevara while he was covering a protest on 14 June, and he was turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) several days later. He was being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston – in south-east Georgia, near the Florida border – when an immigration judge last week granted him bond.
Nagi Maehashi, the cook behind RecipeTin Eats, says it is “upsetting” to have become “entangled in a tragic situation” after Erin Patterson told her triple murder trial she used the beef wellington recipe for the fateful lunch.
In a post to Instagram on Tuesday, Maehashi requested that journalists of Australia “please stop calling and emailing and texting and DM’ing me about the Erin Patterson case”.
TSA ends screening check in place for almost 20 years after Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down flight in 2001
For the first time in almost 20 years, travelers are no longer required to take off their shoes during security screenings at US airports, Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, announced on Tuesday.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has abandoned the additional security step that has for years bedeviled anyone passing through US airports, according to media reports.
Exclusive: Most of defense department’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 went to military contractors
A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon’s discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a “continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing”.
A standard Earth day is 86,400 seconds, but over three days in July and August, scientists expect the planet’s rotation to quicken relative to the sun
Time flies, and three days in July and August could flit by faster than usual this year – but only if your clocks are set to astronomical time.
A standard Earth day is 86,400 seconds. But on 9 July, 22 July and 5 August, scientists expect the planet’s rotation to quicken relative to the sun, truncating the days by a millisecond or more.
Justices lift lower court order that froze ‘reductions in force’ federal layoffs while litigation in case proceeded
The US supreme court has cleared the way for Donald Trump’s administration to resume plans for mass firings of federal workers that critics warn could threaten critical government services.
Extending a winning streak for the US president, the justices on Tuesday lifted a lower court order that had frozen sweeping federal layoffs known as “reductions in force” while litigation in the case proceeds.
The unique charm of Gianni Infantino’s extended summer of football is clearly not lost on João Pedro. He only flew in from a Brazilian beach last week, does not look any the worse for it and has already paid back a significant chunk of his £60m transfer fee after blasting Chelsea into the final of the Club World Cup with two brutal finishes against his boyhood club.
This was a scintillating way for one of the newest faces in Enzo Maresca’s attack to mark his full debut. Fluminense made João Pedro but the Brazilians were broken by one of their own in the heat of New Jersey and could have no complaints about going out. Chelsea were much the better team during a one-sided semi-final, even if they were complaints about the reversal of a first-half penalty awarded after an inadvertent handball by Trevoh Chalobah, and will probably not be worrying about fatigue affecting their Premier League campaign given that the financial rewards of their time in the US have been accompanied by sporting benefits.
This was further evidence that Sweden should be taken seriously. A squad rich in depth and top-level experience are gathering steam and look a nightmarish proposition for whoever is sent their way in the quarter-finals. They will top Group C by avoiding defeat against Germany on Saturday and, with the obvious exception of Spain, have looked at least as convincing as anyone on show so far this summer.
Make no mistake, they will have to pass far tougher tests than the obstacle posed by a limited Poland. The tournament debutants will play for pride in their meeting with Denmark and almost grasped a huge chunk of it here when Milena Kokosz cracked a stupendous strike against the post in added time. In truth, though, Sweden could have doubled their tally at a minimum. They were relentless, thrillingly so at times, and the only concern for Peter Gerhardsson may be that his players were not more clinical.
Doll with insulin pump and glucose monitor is latest in range designed ‘to enable more children to see themselves’
In Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie, Barbieland is a haven of equality and diversity. But although the dolls have been around since 1959, it was only in 2019 that the manufacturer, Mattel, started selling Barbies with physical disabilities.
Mattel has now launched its first Barbie doll with type 1 diabetes, the latest addition to a range it says has been designed “to enable more children to see themselves reflected and encourage doll play that extends beyond a child’s lived experience”.
On Capitol Hill, Israeli PM says ‘demonization’ led to drop in support for Israel among US voters, especially Democrats
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he’s vowed to combat an orchestrated social media campaign of “vilification and demonization” that he says is responsible for a drop in support for Israel among US voters, especially Democrats.
“I think there’s been a concerted effort to spread vilification and demonization against Israel on social media,” the Israeli prime minister told journalists on Capitol Hill after being asked to respond to opinion polls showing a move away from the historic trend of strong backing for Israel.
RCMP arrested and charged four people who were trying to form an ‘anti-government militia’ and capture land
Police in Canada have arrested and charged four people, including active military members, who they allege were “planning to create anti-government militia” and to “forcibly take possession of land” in the province of Quebec.
The scope of material uncovered by police, including explosives and assault rifles, marks the largest weapons cache ever seized as part of terrorism investigation.
Series of posts repeatedly abused country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, in comments on his career and personal life
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has responded to Polish users’ questions about Polish politics with erratic and expletive-laden rants about the country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, his political career, and personal life.
In a series of posts – often picking up language from users or responding to their goading – Grok repeatedly abused Tusk as “a fucking traitor”, “a ginger whore” and said the former European Council president was “an opportunist who sells sovereignty for EU jobs”.
US president announces tariffs of up to 200% on foreign drugs and 50% on copper as he continues to shift plans
Donald Trump vowed to further escalate his trade wars on Tuesday, threatening US tariffs of up to 200% on foreign drugs and 50% on copper, amid widespread confusion around his shifting plans.
Hours after saying his latest deadline for a new wave of steep duties was “not 100% firm”, the US president declared that “no extensions will be granted” beyond 1 August.
The Man of Steel – played with square-faced soullessness by David Corenswet – has an uninteresting crisis of confidence in Gunn’s cluttered, pointless franchise restarter
Here is a film occupying the heartsinking Venn diagram overlap between franchise exhaustion and AI soullessness: a film fatally unconvinced of the reason for its own existence. We’d all hoped that writer-director James Gunn, who was in charge of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movie series, might put some wind back beneath Superman’s wings – or in his cape, or under his boots, or at any rate somewhere near his costumed person. The Man of Steel needed a fresh start after his self-cancelling contest in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016, and getting muddled together with a lot of other utility superheroes in Justice League a year later – though I will admit to enjoying the pure hubristic craziness of the lengthy Zack Snyder cut of that movie when it saw the light of day.
But this? If it was to be a reboot then really we needed to get back to basics, and be reminded why we liked superheroes in the first place – and I do – and remember why they were exciting and escapist and fun. We needed the clarity and simplicity of something like the origin myth of the infant Superman arriving here from his doomed planet, like Moses, destined to put heart back into an America hit by the Great Depression, hokey though all that may be.
No 2 seed too good for British hopeful in quarter-final
Spaniard will next face Fritz after 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 win
Two days after a bruising five-set win against Nicolás Jarry led to his opponent criticising his frequent cheering, Cameron Norrie immediately made it clear that he would remain true to himself even in the face of one of the greatest young talents in his sport’s history. After starting his day against Carlos Alcaraz with a positive service hold, Norrie punctuated that small win with a loud, booming cheer.
Although Norrie was angling for a tight tussle, the stratospheric talent across the net ensured that he did not stand a chance. Alcaraz brushed aside the last British player standing at Wimbledon with the force of his devastating, astonishingly complete game, dismantling Norrie to return to the semi-finals.
The rhetoric of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government tries to blur the slaughter and plans for ethnic cleansing. Words matter
Visiting Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu delighted in telling Donald Trump that he had nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. The Israeli prime minister cited Mr Trump’s efforts to end conflicts in the Middle East. But in truth he is grateful to the US president for joining his war against Iran last month and for allowing carnage in Gaza to continue after a brief pause. He is also eager that the US president does not strong‑arm him into another ceasefire. Perhaps the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Qatar will reach a temporary deal again, with hostages released and possibly more aid allowed in. Even so, few expect that a lasting peace would result.
Words matter. They have become so detached from reality when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza that it is not merely absurd, or despicable, but obscene. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has laid out plans for a “humanitarian city”: this means forcing all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp that the military would bar them from leaving. Prof Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, used the accurate words: it would be “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them”. The “emigration plan” which Mr Katz says “will happen”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is in fact an ethnic cleansing plan. No departure can be considered voluntary when the alternative is starvation or indefinite imprisonment in inhuman conditions.
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Federal prosecutors described ‘planned ambush with intent to kill Ice correction officers’ on 4 July in Alvarado
Ten people have been charged with attempted murder after allegedly ambushing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Texas on 4 July.
Federal prosecutors said attackers drew the agents out of an Ice detention center in Alvarado, Texas, with fireworks and by vandalizing vehicles. They allegedly shot a police officer in the neck and unloaded between 20 and 30 rounds on immigration agents, and were later apprehended by local law enforcement near the scene.
Mythical representations of women, whether Botticelli’s Venus, the Hindu goddess Lakshmi or the pre-Raphaellites’ women of the Arthurian legends are often united by a common trait: their long flowing hair. You might think such lengths are confined to the realm of myth untouched by the realities of split ends, but if you look on social media you’ll find content creators with locks that could rival Rapunzel.
These creators often promise specific products have helped them grow their hair “crazy long crazy fast”. Hair and scalp oiling is most commonly what they attribute to growing their hair so long – as much as five inches in two months – often accompanied by other haircare routine tips such as using a bamboo bristle brush, scalp massaging and hair growth supplements.
PRE-MATCH POSTBAG: Fifa-Fuelled Fume special!!! “If there was any question about whether this tournament has been packaged specifically for European consumption, then scheduling the semi-finals at 3pm local time on workdays should pretty much clear that up” – Joe Pearson (gratefully retired)
“Hi from MetLife. I had to give up on public transit and share an Uber (which, even split three ways, was more than any of us paid for a ticket) to the stadium today. This is what you get when the tristate area’s premier venue caters to the suburbs where cars reign. Anyway, I’ve lived here for 17 years, I’m sure it’s going to be very easy for all the out-of-towners to figure it out for next year’s World Cup! You know what does have ample (and easy) public transport? Fifa’s new offices at our Dear Leader™️’s tower in Midtown. At least Infantino can get to work, if not a game” – Gerry, Queens NYC
French president also spoke of empowered ‘wider Europe’ on first day of state visit to UK
European countries need to reduce their “dual dependencies” on the US and China, Emmanuel Macron has warned, as he sketched out his vision of an empowered “wider Europe” on the first day of a historic state visit.
The French president addressed several hundred MPs and guests at the start of a three-day state trip – the first state visit of a European leader since Brexit.
“There’s a (frankly terrifying) 153m outdoor elevator about 8km from the stadium in Lucerne,” writes Ben Mock. “Feels like a fitting analogy for the task ahead of Poland tonight.” Frankly terrifying looks about right.
It’s finished Germany 2-1 Denmark, the eight-times champions fighting back from a goal down at half-time to secure their second win in Group C. If Sweden win tonight, both teams will be guaranteed a quarter-final place before they meet in Zurich on Saturday.
Texas governor Greg Abbott said many people staying in state’s Hill Country still unaccounted for as questions mount over official response to disaster
Rescue crews continued on Tuesday to comb through parts of the Texas Hill Country devastated by catastrophic flash flooding over the Fourth of July weekend, but with more than 100 dead and hope fading for survivors, efforts have increasingly turned to search and recovery.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the death toll across the six affected counties surpassed 100. Most of the deaths were in Kerr county, where officials said 87 bodies had so far been recovered, including 56 adults and 30 children. Identification was pending for 19 adults and seven children with one additional person still unidentified, county sheriff Larry Leitha told a news conference.
Lionesses likely to be out of Euro 2025 if they lose
‘Tomorrow for once we will not be friends,’ striker says
Vivianne Miedema has insisted she will “not be friends” with her partner Beth Mead on Wednesday as the Netherlands striker vowed to do everything in her power to send her team to the knockout stages of Euro 2025 and eliminate England.
The Manchester City striker has been in a relationship with the Arsenal forward Mead, her former Arsenal teammate, for three years and Miedema was asked about the prospect of them facing each other in the pivotal Group D match. “If it’s not a nice moment for Beth, it’s not a problem for me,” Miedema said. “Tomorrow for once we will not be friends. I will do everything I can to win tomorrow. If I have to do something that is not good for Beth, then I will do it.
Foreign secretary, David Lammy, says European nations will act if there is no cooperation with nuclear inspectors
European nations will act to impose “dramatic sanctions” on Iran in the coming weeks if it does not end the uncertainty about its nuclear programme, including by allowing the return of UN inspectors, the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned.
He also told the Commons that Iran could not assume Israel would not strike its nuclear sites again.
After eight-year campaign by Perkins, a former PA for Weinstein, UK ministers have announced plans to stop bosses using NDAs to silence abused workers
Zelda Perkins was 24 when – exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers – she finally agreed to sign the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein’s sexually predatory and abusive behaviour. The suffocating power of that document haunted her for decades, casting a long shadow over her life and making her ill.
“If I go back to that room, I did not ever imagine that it would be possible to reach any form of justice,” she says. Now, eight years since she first broke her NDA and inadvertently became the world’s leading campaigner against them, Perkins feels justice may finally be within her grasp. On Monday, in a move that surprised even the most committed campaigners, the UK government announced sweeping measures that will prohibit bosses from using NDAs to silence abused employees.
Rights activists hail move to arrest Haibatullah Akhundzada and Afghan chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani for crimes against humanity
The international criminal court has issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for the persecution of women and girls.
In a statement, the ICC said on Tuesday there were “reasonable grounds to believe” the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and Afghanistan’s chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, had ordered policies that deprived women and girls of “education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion”.
Eva Victor’s intelligent and subtle debut film tells the story of the aftermath of an assault and as the backlash to #MeToo increases, it serves an important purpose
About 25 minutes into Sorry, Baby, writer-director Eva Victor’s debut feature out this summer, a bad thing happens to Agnes, Victor’s twentysomething academic in a small New England town. The film is forthright and economical with the details; Agnes, an English PhD student, goes to meet her thesis adviser (Louis Cancelmi), with whom she shares a light flirtation and a mutual passion for Virginia Woolf. He shifts the meeting to his house, citing logistics and lavishing praise. Agnes enters at dusk; we linger outside as the shot cuts to dark, signaling hours past. She emerges in silence and hustles to her car, expressionless as she drives away for what feels like an eternity.
Back at home, Agnes sits in the bath and tells her best friend Lydie (an excellent Naomi Ackie) what happened in clipped, detached details. He was insistent. She tried to wriggle free and diffuse tension, he kept pushing. Eventually she froze – “my spine got cold,” she recalls – and she can’t remember the rest. Neither say the word sexual assault or rape, though it’s not for lack of vocabulary or understanding. “Yeah, that’s the thing,” Lydie eventually acknowledges. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
UK-based GlobeScribe is charging $100 per book, per language for use of its services, but translators say that nuanced work can only be produced by humans
An AI fiction translation service aimed at both traditional publishers and self-published authors has been launched in the UK. GlobeScribe.ai is currently charging $100 per book, per language for use of its translation services.
“There will always be a place for expert human translation, especially for highly literary or complex texts,” said the founders Fred Freeman and Betsy Reavley, who previously founded Bloodhound Books, which specialises in crime and thrillers. “But GlobeScribe.ai opens the door to new opportunities, making translation a viable option for a much broader range of fiction.”
With the Test series looming, Lions captain has urged a strong XV to issue an emphatic statement in Canberra
A verdict has finally been reached in the “mushroom murder” trial that gripped the whole of Australia, but the jury is still out on the touring British & Irish Lions. With the first Test looming next week, now would be a perfect time to issue an emphatic statement and the captain, Maro Itoje, is urging his well-stacked team to do exactly that.
There have been glimpses of some highly effective Lions combinations at various stages on their travels, even in defeat against Argentina back in Dublin when their attacking shape showed initial promise. What has held them back, aside from every Lions squad’s perpetual search for cohesion, has been an occasional tendency to play too laterally rather than going route one and blowing the front door off its hinges.
No 1 seed loses first set but storms back to beat German
Anisimova defeats Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets
There was a rare sight on Centre Court as a frustrated Aryna Sabalenka battled her nerves as much as her opponent in her 11th consecutive grand slam quarter-final. The world No 1 had reached the last eight without dropping a set but needed a decider to beat Laura Siegemund 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 and book her spot in the semi-finals where she will face the No 13 seed, Amanda Anisimova.
“After the first set, I was looking at my box like: ‘Guys, book the tickets. We’re about to leave,’” Sabalenka said. “I was struggling because she was playing a really smart game. I made a lot of unforced errors – unnecessary ones.”
Training rescheduled but all staff and players unharmed
‘We’re shaken,’ says coach Wilkinson, who was not on bus
Wales players were recovering from shock at their hotel in north‑east Switzerland on Tuesday night after their team bus was involved in an accident with a car en route to a planned training session in St Gallen.
An ambulance was called to the scene and took the driver of the other vehicle to hospital after the collision at about 3.30pm local time. Swiss police said the driver was being treated for minor injuries. The Welsh Football Association said everyone on the team bus, including the driver, was unharmed.
This weekend, the Trump administration officially closed the file on the notorious billionaire Epstein. Maga aren’t the only ones who should be outraged
Great news, everyone! We can all stop thinking about Jeffrey Epstein, who was charged with the sex trafficking of minors in 2019 and found dead in his Manhattan jail cell shortly after, apparently of suicide. Great minds have looked into the case and discovered there is nothing more to uncover. So don’t waste your time wondering which powerful people might have been part of Epstein’s alleged trafficking operation. There’s nothing to see here – nothing at all. Case officially closed.
That, in essence, was the message from the Trump administration over the weekend. On Sunday, Axios reported on a memo from Trump’s justice department and the FBI that concluded there is no evidence that Epstein was involved in blackmailing people, kept a “client list” or was murdered. Most importantly, the memo said there is no “evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties”.
The film adaptation of Winn’s book, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, quickly became the third most successful UK movie of the year. What happens now?
On paper it has everything. A redemption-arc narrative about overcoming homelessness, adversity and illness. Two late-middle age lead characters that would appeal to the key silver-pound cinema-going demographic, as well as providing plum roles for top-notch British actors. A backdrop of glorious south coast scenery, as experienced through that most modish of contemporary activities: hiking.
No wonder film-makers were champing at the bit to make a movie out of The Salt Path, the memoir by Raynor Winn published in 2018 – and so one duly emerged, starring Gillian Anderson as Winn and Jason Isaacs as her husband Moth, who was diagnosed with the incurable condition corticobasal degeneration (CBD). It was released in the UK in May, and was a verifiable hit, taking home £7.6m from the UK box office and becoming the third most successful British film of 2025 so far, behind Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and We Live in Time.
Fake voice and text messages on Signal tricked senior leaders, as AI impersonation rises in global politics
An unknown fraudster has used artificial intelligence to impersonate the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, contacting at least five senior officials.
According to a state department cable first seen by the Washington Post and confirmed by the Guardian, the impostor sent fake voice messages and texts that mimicked Rubio’s voice and writing style to those targets including three foreign ministers, a US governor and a member of Congress.
They can be red, inflamed and prone to infection – but experts say there are effective ways to manage the condition
There’s never a good time to have an ingrown toenail. But navigating spring and summer with one can be particularly difficult, with warmer weather calling for open-toe shoes and more exposure to the elements. Contact with dirt or the ocean can allow bacteria to enter the skin near an ingrown toenail, leading to infection, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
I should know: over the years, I’ve managed recurrent ingrown toenails, which occur when the edge of a nail grows into nearby skin, causing inflammation and pain. Twenty per cent of people who see a doctor for foot problems have the condition, according to the National Institute of Health.
The question now: will countries cave in to these threats or stick together and collect the billions they are rightly owed?
Donald Trump’s announcement calling off trade talks with Canada over its digital tax – and that he would impose retaliatory tariffs – demonstrates, once again, not only the president’s ignorance of economics and willful disregard of international norms and the rule of law, but also his willingness to use brute power to get whatever he and the oligarchs who support him want.
He was wrong in labeling the tax as outrageous and “a direct and blatant attack on our country”. It is actually an efficient tax, well designed to ensure that the technology companies – the profits of which benefit the tech oligarchs who have come to dominate US policy – pay their fair share of taxes.
Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist of the Roosevelt Institute
Anya Schiffrin, senior lecturer at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and her student Philip L Crane contributed to this piece
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