The isolated Pacific nation is trying to build its first football team amid a battle for survival against rising sea levels

The Marshall Islands, an isolated sprawl of atolls covering 750,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean but home to barely 42,000 people, may be the final frontier for the world’s most popular sport. It claims to be the last country on Earth without a football team, and to this day, the islands have never hosted an 11-a-side game.

Until recently, football was an alien concept in a nation occupied by the US since the second world war, with baseball and basketball the traditional sports. As interest has grown in recent years, another barrier has emerged. Land has always been at a premium on these fragile shores, but never more than now with rising sea levels bringing fears of permanent flooding.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: PR Handout

💾

© Photograph: PR Handout

The chancellor’s apparent volte-face in backing a third runway has left many in her party disillusioned and led them to label it as an act of desperation

In 2020, Rachel Reeves, the MP for Leeds West and Pudsey, was clear why she opposed expansion of nearby Leeds Bradford airport. It would, she said, “significantly increase air and noise pollution”, so on environmental grounds, it should not happen.

By the autumn of 2021, as shadow chancellor, Reeves was the senior Labour figure chosen to lead her party’s hugely ambitious plans for a green industrial revolution.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Avpics/Alamy

💾

© Photograph: Avpics/Alamy

The horticultural charity’s showpiece garden in Surrey is setting aside an space to test human waste fertiliser

For more than 200 years, gardeners at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) have been reaping the benefits of using compost and manure in their flowerbeds.

But until now, they have never had the satisfaction of using compost created from their own human waste.

Continue reading...

💾

© Illustration: Dave Green Gardens Ltd

💾

© Illustration: Dave Green Gardens Ltd

The reserve in Geltsdale in the north Pennines has been expanded by a third after RSPB buys land

It covers more than 50 square kilometres of blanket bog, heath, meadows and woodland and rises from a valley floor to the 640m summit of Cold Fell in the north Pennines. This is RSPB Geltsdale, and it will now be the organisation’s largest English bird sanctuary when the society announces this week that it has bought land that expands the existing reserve by a third.

“This is going to be a reserve on a different scale from many of our other sites in England,” said Beccy Speight, the RSPB’s chief executive.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Ann and Steve Toon/Alamy

💾

© Photograph: Ann and Steve Toon/Alamy

His second term seems to represent an unassailable victory for conservative white men – but soon he’ll be another incumbent in an anti-incumbent world

Why exactly is Donald Trump’s new presidency so disorienting? So far, explanations have tended to focus on its manic pace, contempt for political conventions and blatant subversion of supposedly one of the world’s most robust democracies.

But all these elements were also present in his first presidency. Meanwhile, other features of both his terms, such as his cult of personality, scapegoating of immigrants and accusation that liberal elites have caused national decline, are standard practice for hard-right strongmen, and have been for at least a century.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Exclusive: Chief climate adviser calls on Starmer to make ‘strong, confident’ case for green UK that public can buy into

Ensuring that the costs of decarbonisation are shared fairly across society must be a top priority for ministers or they risk losing public support for net zero, the UK’s chief climate adviser has warned.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves should be making a “strong, confident” case for decarbonisation as an engine of economic growth, according to Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, the independent statutory adviser.

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

💾

© Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Forest service website among many sites affected as agencies scramble to comply with president’s orders

On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to to take down its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.

By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: USDA

💾

© Photograph: USDA

Palestinians return to Gaza, Americans survey the aftermath of the Palisades fire and Hindus gather at the Shahi Snan in India: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

💾

© Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA

In her big plan to get the economy growing again the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has prioritised growth over almost everything else. But at what cost? John Harris speaks to the Labour MP Clive Lewis about concerns that climate action is taking a back seat. Plus, the columnist Gaby Hinsliff talks us through whether the party’s quest for growth will work

Continue reading...

💾

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

💾

© Photograph: WPA/Getty Images

In early January, soil moisture in much of Southern California was in the bottom 2 percent of historical records.