Breaking Waves: Ocean News

A shortlist of 24 images has been selected for the wildlife photographer of the year people’s choice award. You can vote for your favourite image online. The winner will be announced on 25 March and shown from that date as part of the overall wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which runs until 12 July at the Natural History Museum in London Continue reading...

When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degrees The seaside city of Southend-on-Sea, on England’s east coast, looks grey on a winter afternoon in term-time. Its high street, bordering the university campus, is sparsely populated with market stalls, vape shops and discount retailers, and feels unusually quiet. “There used to be lots of shops, restaurants and youth clubs around here,” says 23-year-old Nathan Doucette-Chiddicks. Now, the city is about to lose something else that it can scarcely do without. Continue reading...

It will take years for changes to take effect, but children who eat school meals and seniors served by Meals on Wheels will feel the DGA ripple effects Most Americans ignore the country’s dietary guidelines, but millions will be directly affected by upcoming changes to these recommendations. On 6 January, after months of proclamations about seismic improvements to the country’s dietary recommendations, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture released those updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). This document – once visually presented to millennial schoolchildren as a food pyramid and to today’s zoomers and gen Alpha as a segmented lunch plate – synthesizes the latest nutritional research and offers revamped eating advice every five years. Continue reading...

Trump has prioritized fossil fuel companies over consumers, hitting the lowest-income families hardest Donald Trump promised to cut energy prices by 50%. Instead, average electricity prices over the past year have risen by about 6.7%, while natural gas prices have increased by 10.8%. Energy prices are influenced by many factors beyond any president’s direct control, including market conditions, weather-driven demand, regional infrastructure constraints and the rapid growth of energy-intensive datacenters that are driving new system costs. Policy choices do not determine prices on their own, but they do shape market outcomes, and the direction of this administration’s energy policy has been clear. From his first days in office, President Trump made clear that his energy agenda would prioritize fossil fuel producers over consumers. His administration moved to expand US liquefied natural gas exports, increasing exposure to volatile global markets. At the same time, it froze wind power projects that provide some of the cheapest new electricity, intervened to keep costly coal plants running, and backed the elimination of energy-efficiency tax credits that lower household energy bills. Mark Wolfe is executive director of National Energy Assistance Directors Association, co-director of the Center on Energy Poverty and Climate and adjunct faculty at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University Continue reading...