Analysis published at Cop30 summit shows adhering to pledges offer world hope of avoiding climate breakdown
Sticking to three key climate promises – on renewables, energy efficiency and methane – would avoid nearly 1C of global heating and give the world hope of avoiding climate breakdown, analysis published at the Cop30 climate summit suggests.
Governments have already agreed to triple the amount of renewable energy generated by 2030, double global energy efficiency by then, and make substantial cuts to methane emissions.
This week marks 50 years of Spanish democracy, but the failure to talk more about the crimes of the dictatorship leaves us vulnerable
Like most Spaniards alive today, I was born after the death of Franco 50 years ago. Even for my parents’ generation, the dictatorship that lasted from 1939 until 20 November 1975 is today a distant bad dream. Growing up, the stories I heard were mostly about the post-Franco democratic transition, a time full of promise and energy as younger people set about rebuilding everything from scratch.
My mother, who was pregnant with me when she voted in the first free elections in 1977, talks about that time as the happiest of her life. International media reporting from that year described “a broad optimism” in a soon-to-be “healthy, modern, lively nation”.
María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
Trains between Oxford and Milton Keynes put back to 2026 partly due to dispute, Chiltern Railways says
The start of passenger services on the new East West Rail line will be delayed until at least 2026 with no start date confirmed, the operator has said, partly due to a row over guards on the trains.
Passenger trains were supposed to come into service between Oxford and Milton Keynes this autumn, the first stage on the new railway along the Oxford-Cambridge arc where the government hopes for rapid economic growth.
Platform reveals it hosts more than 1bn AI videos as it starts testing over next few weeks before global rollout
TikTok is giving users the power to reduce the amount of artificial intelligence-made content on their feeds, as it revealed the platform hosts more than 1bn AI videos.
The change, which is being tested over the next few weeks before a global rollout, comes as new video-generating tools such as OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 3 have spurred a surge in AI content online.
After 14 years of Tory rule, the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer thought he had seen it all. Westminster would surely tick along nicely once Keir Starmer’s party took over. How wrong he was ...
I feel I should probably start with an apology. A few days after the 2024 general election, I wrote that it felt as if the grownups were back in charge. It wasn’t as if I was carried away by the vision of Keir Starmer or the charisma of Rachel Reeves. More that I felt we had regained a basic level of competence. That politics would become business as usual rather than the breathless psychodrama of the past 10 years. You could go to bed at night relatively confident that the country would be more or less recognisable when you woke up. There would be no more mad people doing mad things as we raced through five or six news cycles in the course of a couple of hours.
And part of me was a little concerned. Because what is good for economic stability and social justice isn’t necessarily good for a sketch writer. Dull, well-intentioned politicians putting in place dull, well-intentioned policies, and a government that is ticking over more or less OK, do not necessarily make for great entertainment. So what would I write about?
The Neoliner Origin set off on its inaugural two-week voyage from France to the US with the aim of revolutionising the notoriously dirty shipping industry
It is 8pm on a Saturday evening and eight of us are sitting at a table onboard a ship, holding on to our plates of spaghetti carbonara as our chairs slide back and forth. Michel Péry, the dinner’s host, downplays the weather as a “tempête de journalistes” – something sailors would not categorise as a storm, but which drama-seeking journalists might refer to as such to entertain their readers.
But after a white-knuckle night in our cabins with winds reaching 74mph or force 12 – officially a hurricane – Péry has to admit it was not just a “journalists’ storm”, but the real deal.
If tropical cyclone Fina crosses the Northern Territory coast on Friday, it could equal the earliest cyclone to make landfall in Australia.
Fina, a category one cyclone about 370km north-east of Darwin, was moving east and expected to intensify to category two before turning south on Thursday.
Tiny Caribbean nation hold on for crucial point in Kingston
Haiti also book improbably place at next year’s tournament
The tiny Caribbean nation of Curaçao became the smallest country ever to qualify for the World Cup, as Haiti booked their return to the tournament for the first time in 52 years along with Panama.
A nerve-shredding finale to the Concacaf qualifying campaign saw Curaçao – with a population of just 156,000 – squeeze into next year’s finals in the United States, Canada and Mexico with a 0-0 draw against Jamaica in Kingston.
The actor indulges his love of the past in a breezily enjoyable play about a man falling for a woman from the 1930s, played by a standout Kelli O’Hara
Tom Hanks is a star who’s always had one foot squarely in the past. As an actor he’s forever been likened to James Stewart, a reincarnation of the charming, essentially good American everyman, a from-another-era lead who’s increasingly been more comfortable in period fare (in the last decade, he’s appeared in just four present-day films). As a producer, he’s gravitated toward historical shows such as Band of Brothers, John Adams and The Pacific; his directorial debut was 60s-set music comedy That Thing You Do! and his undying obsession, outside of acting, is the typewriter, collecting and writing about its throwback appeal.
In his new play, The World of Tomorrow, his fondness for the “good old days” has led to the inevitable, a story about a man with a fondness for the “good old days” who actually gets to experience one of them for himself. It’s a loosely familiar tale of time travel, based on a short story written by Hanks that tries, and half-succeeds, to bring something new to a table we’ve sat at many times before.
The native species is typically grey or brown and the pink hue is thought to be caused by a genetic mutation
An “exceptionally rare” pink grasshopper has been spotted basking in the sun alongside a river in New Zealand’s South Island.
A group of department of conservation researchers were conducting their annual grasshopper survey near Lake Tekapo in the MacKenzie basin when they came across the dark pink female critter.
Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the World Health Organization in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work
The World Health Organization has said its workforce will shrink by nearly a quarter – or over 2,000 jobs – by the middle of next year as it seeks to implement reforms after its top donor, the United States, announced its departure.
US President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the body upon taking office in January, prompting the agency to scale back its work and cut its management team by half.
UN committee to consider claim by prominent Māori leader Tureiti Moxon that alleges government policies have harmed Indigenous people
The United Nations has agreed to hear an urgent complaint against New Zealand’s coalition government alleging it is responsible for significant and persistent discrimination against Māori.
Prominent Māori leader, Lady Tureiti Moxon, has filed the complaint to the UN’s committee for the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (CERD).
LAPD sources tell NBC4 singer has not been cooperative with investigation into death of Celeste Rivas, 15
The singer D4vd has been identified as a suspect in the death of Celeste Rivas, a teenager who went missing and was found dead in the singer’s Tesla in September, Los Angeles police department sources told NBC4 Investigates.
The decomposed body of Rivas, 15, was found on 8 September in the front trunk of a black Tesla registered to D4vd, whose real name is David Anthony Burke. The car had been ticketed in a Hollywood Hills neighborhood and then impounded in a tow yard in Los Angeles.
Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, which was looted by the Nazis and nearly destroyed in a fire during the second world war, sells at Sotheby’s auction
A painting by Gustav Klimt has sold for a record-breaking $236.4m (£179.7m, A$364m) with fees, making it the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction and the most expensive work of modern art sold at auction.
The six-foot-tall painting, titled Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, was painted by the Austrian painter between 1914 and 1916 and shows Lederer, a young heiress and daughter of Klimt’s patrons, draped in a Chinese robe.
The Senate on Tuesday moved swiftly to approve legislation that would force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, hours after a near-unanimous vote in the US House, nearly wrapping up a bipartisan effort Donald Trump had fought for months.
By unanimous consent, the Senate agreed to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber from the House, which had overwhelmingly approved the bill earlier on Tuesday in a 427-1 tally. Once the legislation is forwarded to the Senate, it will be automatically approved and cleared for Trump’s signature. The president, who dropped his opposition after it was clear it would pass, has said he would sign it.
Ukraine plans to seek nearly $44bn from Russia for the damage linked to an increase in climate-warming emissions from the ongoing war, a government minister told Reuters. The move marks the first time a country is claiming damages for such an increase in emissions, including from the fossil fuels, cement and steel used in fighting the war, and from the destruction of trees through resultant fires. “A lot of damage was caused to water, to land, to forests,” said Pavlo Kartashov, the country’s deputy minister for economy, environment, and agriculture. “We have huge amounts of additional CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases,” Kartashov said in an interview on the sidelines of the Cop30 climate summit in Brazil.
A Russian missile strike wounded at least 32 people in Ukraine’s Kharkiv overnight, its governor said early Wednesday, the third such attack on the eastern region in three days. Moscow has been intensifying its daily drone and missile barrages in recent months, targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and hitting a number of civilian sites ahead of winter. Kharkiv governor Oleg Synegubov said at least 32 people were wounded in the latest overnight attack, including two children and an 18-year-old girl.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will head to Turkey on Wednesday seeking to revive the United States’ involvement in diplomatic efforts to end the Russian invasion. Zelenskyy said he wanted to reinvigorate frozen peace talks, which have faltered after several rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul this year failed to yield a breakthrough. Moscow has not agreed to a ceasefire and instead kept advancing on the front and bombarding Ukrainian cities. Zelenskyy will meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Wednesday, he told reporters at a press conference in Madrid on Tuesday.
The United States on Tuesday approved a $105m sale to Ukraine to upgrade and sustain Patriot missile defences, as Russia keeps pummelling its smaller neighbour. The state department said it informed Congress of the deal for parts, training and services on the Patriots, which Ukraine relies on to shoot down incoming missiles. “The proposed sale will improve Ukraine’s ability to meet current and future threats,” a state department statement said.
Poland has identified two people responsible for an explosion on a railway route to Ukraine, prime minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday, claiming that they were Ukrainians who collaborated with Russian intelligence and that they had fled to Belarus. The blast on the Warsaw-Lublin line, which connects the Polish capital to the Ukrainian border, followed a wave of arson, sabotage and cyber-attacks in Poland and other European countries since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Spain will provide Ukraine with a fresh military aid package worth 615m euros ($710m) to support its fight against Russia’s invasion, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Tuesday. Speaking at a Madrid press conference alongside visiting Zelenskyy, Sanchez said that around 300m euros of the package would be allocated to “new defence equipment”. “Your fight is ours,” Sanchez said, adding that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s “neo-imperialism” seeks to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for”.
During his trip to Spain Zelenskyy made also took the opportunity to view Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica”, a move laden with symbolism. Among the last century’s most famous paintings, “Guernica” depicts the horrors of war – specifically the bombardment of civilian targets. The enormous, black-grey-and-white painting features screaming women, flailing horses and a gored bull. Picasso used them to represent the bombing by Nazi and fascist Italian war planes of the town named Guernica in 1937, during Spain’s Civil War.
Public accounts committee finds Labour’s progress ‘appears to have stalled’ despite billions of pounds in investment
The NHS has failed to cut waiting times as promised in its recovery plan despite billions of pounds in investment, the public accounts committee (PAC) has warned.
The influential parliamentary committee’s verdict raises serious doubts over whether Labour can fulfil its key pledge to voters to “fix the NHS” by ensuring that patients can once again get hospital care within 18 weeks by 2029.
Key NHS targets to improve access to both planned care and diagnostic tests by last spring “were missed”.
NHS England had spent £3.24bn setting up community diagnostic centres and surgical hubs but had not achieved the aim of reducing delays.
In July, 192,000 people had been waiting at least a year for care, despite a pledge to eradicate that practice altogether by March 2025.
22% of patients were having to wait more than six weeks for a diagnostic test, even though that was due to be cut to 5% by March.
Nearly two-thirds of ‘prevention of future deaths’ reports by coroners are not acted upon, say researchers at King’s College London
The advice given by coroners in England and Wales to help prevent maternal deaths is not being acted upon, research suggests.
Academics at King’s College London looked at prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports issued by coroners in cases of pregnant women and new mothers who died between 2013 and 2023. They found these reports were not being “systematically used nationally”.
Study from University of Oxford looks into evolutionary origins of kissing and its role in relations between species
From Galápagos albatrosses to polar bears, chimpanzees to orangutans, certain species appear to kiss. Now researchers suggest Neanderthals did it too – and might even have locked lips with modern humans.
It is not the first time scientists have suggested Neanderthals and early modern humans were intimately acquainted. Among previous studies, researchers have found humans and their thick-browed cousins shared the same mouth microbe for hundreds of thousands of years after the two species split, suggesting they swapped saliva.
Keir Starmer accused of failing to adequately strategise while in opposition, leading to uncoordinated policymaking
Keir Starmer is failing to make major improvements to public services partly because he did not plan properly while in opposition, according to a report from the Institute for Government (IfG).
The prime minister went into government without a clear idea about how to achieve his targets, the IfG found, resulting in haphazard attempts to reform various sectors, from the health service to the courts.
Eight-time world champion accepts season-long WSL wildcard
In her absence a new generation of surfers has emerged
Stephanie Gilmore may have achieved more than any other woman in surfing, and has spent recent years on sponsor-funded wave odysseys, playing guitar at gigs to adoring crowds, developing apparel collabs and launching her own tequila, but she will turn back the clock in 2026.
The 37-year-old, who turns 38 in January, will return to full-time competition on the elite tour after accepting a season-long wildcard to surf the World Surf League’s Championship Tour.
Four people also rescued alive at popular Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia amid heavy snowfall and strong winds
A British woman and four other foreign tourists have been killed in a blizzard at a nature reserve in southern Chile.
Nine people went missing on Monday in the Torres del Paine reserve in Patagonia, a popular tourist destination, amid heavy snowfall and winds reaching up to 120mph.
Bosnia led for an hour but have to settle for playoffs
Spain and Switzerland held but qualify, as do Belgium
Austria qualified for the 2026 World Cup after snatching a 77th-minute equaliser through Michael Gregoritsch against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Vienna to earn a 1-1 draw and top Group H. It will be Austria’s first appearance at a World Cup finals tournament since 1998.
Bosnia finished second in the group, two points behind on 17, and go into a playoff in March for a spot at the finals tournament, which will be co-hosted next year by Mexico, the US and Canada.
Hampden Park has hosted seismic occasions in a storied history dating back to 1903. Add this one to the list. Scotland’s long, long wait is over. You yearn for almost three decades to return to the men’s World Cup and do so with an overhead kick, a 22-yard stunner and a goal from the halfway line.
Steve Clarke, Andy Robertson, Scott McTominay, John McGinn; you shall go to the ball. So too Kieran Tierney, whose magnificent strike in stoppage time would have made all the headlines before Kenny McLean notched Scotland’s fourth. McLean broke forward, spotted Kasper Schmeichel in a state of desperation, and floated the ball over him. McLean was in the middle of the pitch when he shot. Cue bedlam. Cue wonderful bedlam.
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