About a thousand swimmers a day will be allowed to use three bathing sites after €1.4bn clean-up programme
Parisians and tourists flocked to take a dip in the River Seine this weekend after city authorities gave the green light for it to be used for public swimming for the first time in more than a century.
The opening followed a comprehensive clean-up programme sped up by its use as a venue in last year’s Paris Olympics after people who regularly swam in it illegally lobbied for its transformation. The outgoing mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, also helped to champion the plans, jumping in the river herself before the Olympics.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/06/2025 - 07:00
Exclusive: Letter to government says lower prices for repaired goods would cut waste, create jobs and help households save money
Ministers are facing fresh calls to scrap VAT on all repaired and refurbished electronics, with businesses, charities and community groups arguing the move would help households cut costs and stop electrical goods being binned prematurely.
In a letter to the environment secretary, Steve Reed, the signatories say that removing VAT on repaired electronics should be part of a wider push to cut waste, extend the life of products and develop a “truly circular economy”.
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07/06/2025 - 07:00
Diquat is banned in the UK, EU, China and other countries. The US has resisted calls to regulate it
The herbicide ingredient used to replace glyphosate in Roundup and other weedkiller products can kill gut bacteria and damage organs in multiple ways, new research shows.
The ingredient, diquat, is widely employed in the US as a weedkiller in vineyards and orchards, and is increasingly sprayed elsewhere as the use of controversial herbicide substances such as glyphosate and paraquat drops in the US.
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07/06/2025 - 04:06
Hundreds of rescuers searching for those missing in devastating floods including girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian youth camp
Texas continues grim flood recovery
Officials have said waters in some parts of Texas are starting to recede to where they were before the storm.
The Guadalupe River near Kerrville – which surged by more than 20 feet within 90 minutes during the downpour — is, according to CNN, back down to just a foot or two higher than its level before the flood.
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07/06/2025 - 04:00
Steve Reed says changes to living standards are happening and will make a big difference to trust in government
It was probably easier for Steve Reed to feel more cheerful about Labour’s most torrid week in government while sitting on bales of hay in the blazing sunshine about 40 miles from Westminster.
The environment secretary might have sympathised with Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall – he has experience of bearing the flak for some of the government’s most controversial decisions on family farm taxes – but at Hertfordshire’s Groundswell festival, named the Glastonbury for farms, he may simply have been happy not to be pelted with manure by unhappy farmers.
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07/06/2025 - 02:00
While we work towards net zero, we also need to adapt. And we can pay for cooling measures like splash pads and trees by taxing the worst polluters
There’s a lot to be anxious about as a new parent, let alone in a heatwave when the thermometer in your one-year-old daughter’s room is reading 26C. That’s six degrees higher than the upper limit of the recommended temperature for a child’s room. After scrolling my phone for advice on how to cool her room, I couldn’t help waking up every few hours to check she was OK on the baby monitor.
In the UK, we are unprepared at every level for the extreme weather caused by climate breakdown. Whether it’s unbearably hot buildings in the summer, our damp and cold homes (some of the leakiest in Europe) filled with mould in the winter, our unprotected towns built on flood plains, or our unfit-for-purpose train tracks that get shut down at the slightest weather warning, the climate crisis is already wreaking havoc on public and private infrastructure – and it’s only getting worse.
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07/05/2025 - 15:00
Activating real civic resilience could be a KPI for the prime minister’s progressive patriotism, rather than spending billions more on big, shiny machines
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Australians have long taken some comfort in the protection afforded by geography and the tyranny of distance. It was an article of faith that Australia would have 10 years warning to prepare for any conflict, and that the nation the defence minister calls our capital-A ally would spring to our defence.
The 10-year buffer was debunked in the 2020 defence review, and the update two years later concluded that the Australian Defence Force “as currently constituted and equipped is not fully fit for purpose”.
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07/05/2025 - 07:00
Following the destruction from 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an anti-drilling coalition took action with HB 1143 – and got it signed by DeSantis
The giant and catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, didn’t reach Apalachicola Bay in 2010, but the threat of oil reaching this beautiful and environmentally valuable stretch of northern Florida’s Gulf coast was still enough to devastate the region’s economy.
The Florida state congressman Jason Shoaf remembers how the threat affected the bay.
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07/05/2025 - 06:00
Climate change, development, labor shortages and tariffs are making life the pits for the state’s cherry farmers
Nearly 100 years ago, north-west Michigan cherry farmers and Traverse City community leaders started a festival to promote the city and their region’s tart cherry crop as a tourist destination.
Now known as the “cherry capital of the world”, Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival draws 500,000 visitors over eight days to this picturesque Lake Michigan beach town to enjoy carnival rides and airshows, and to eat cherries. It also sparked a thriving agrotourism industry amid its rolling hills that now boasts dozens of shops, wineries, U-pick orchards, and farm-to-table restaurants helmed by James Beard-award-winning chefs.
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07/05/2025 - 03:15
Girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River, are still missing, says city manager. This blog is now closed.
We have more from the Associated Press on Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian summer camp from which up to 25 people are missing.
Chloe Crane, a teacher and former Camp Mystic counsellor, said her heart broke when a fellow teacher shared an email from the camp about the missing girls.
At least 24 people have died and up to 25 people are missing after torrential rain caused flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday.
Rescue teams are searching for the people who were attending the Christian all-girls Camp Mystic summer camp just outside the town of Kerrville 104km (64 miles) north-west of San Antonio.
As of Friday night, emergency personnel had rescued or evacuated 237 people, including 167 by helicopter, Reuters reports.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management had 14 helicopters and hundreds of emergency workers, as well as drones, involved in search-and-rescue operations.
A month’s worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours. In less than an hour the river rose 26 feet (7.9m) in what Kerr county sheriff’s office called “catastrophic flooding”.
The flooding swept away mobile homes, vehicles and holiday cabins where people were spending the 4 July weekend, the BBC said.
A state of emergency has been declared in several counties.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday, US President Donald Trump said, “We’ll take care of them,” when asked about federal aid for the disaster.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the top local elected official, said a disaster of such magnitude was unforeseen. “We had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what’s happened here,” he said. “None whatsoever.”
More rain is expected in the state, including around Waco, and flooding is anticipated downriver from Kerr county.
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