A year into Trump’s second term, critics say the EPA is rolling back dozens of protections and giving a leg up to polluters

After a tumultuous year under the Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted a new, almost unrecognizable guise – one that tears up environmental rules and cheerleads for coal, gas-guzzling cars and artificial intelligence.

When Donald Trump took power, it was widely anticipated the EPA would loosen pollution rules from sources such as cars, trucks and power plants, as part of a longstanding back and forth between administrations over how strict such standards should be.

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© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images

Pour la première fois, une étude relie les émissions de polluants lors de la fabrication et l’usage des plastiques à la santé humaine. En 2040, 83 millions d’années de vie seront perdues si l’usage de ce matériau ne diminue pas.

After debris balls closed Sydney beaches in October 2024, Guardian Australia reported they could be linked to sewage outfalls. Authorities were less keen to talk

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Last week, after torrential rain in Sydney, fresh poo balls washed up on the beach at Malabar, the closest beach to the problematic Malabar sewage treatment plant.

Signs were erected on the beach warning people not to touch the “debris balls” or swim. But authorities didn’t let the wider community know. There were no other warnings issued by Sydney Water, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) or the state government.

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© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian Design

© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian Design

© Composite: Victoria Hart/Guardian Design

Fifteen years after a tsunami caused the Fukushima nuclear accident, only bears, raccoons and boar are seen on the streets. But the authorities and some locals want people to move back

Norio Kimura pauses to gaze through the dirt-flecked window of Kumamachi primary school in Fukushima. Inside, there are still textbooks lying on the desks, pencil cases are strewn across the floor; empty bento boxes that were never taken home.

Along the corridor, shoes line the route the children took when they fled, some still in their indoor plimsolls, as their town was rocked by a magnitude-9 earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011 which went on to cause the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chornobyl.

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© Photograph: Kazuma Obara/The Guardian

© Photograph: Kazuma Obara/The Guardian

© Photograph: Kazuma Obara/The Guardian

Exclusive: Campaigners say ‘menacing vehicles’ are putting children at risk owing to their large front blind zones

The number of US-style pickup trucks on UK roads has almost doubled in the past 10 years, data shows.

The vehicles are more environmentally damaging than ordinary cars, and more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. Campaigners have said the extra-large vehicles, which are often too big for UK streets and parking spaces, are built like “battering rams”.

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© Photograph: Cernan Elias/Alamy

© Photograph: Cernan Elias/Alamy

© Photograph: Cernan Elias/Alamy

Potomac River sewage spill creates E. coli contamination 12,000 times above safe limits near Washington, D.C., affecting local waterways and public health.