In today’s newsletter: Amid at least 129 deaths and billions of dollars of damage, there has been little reckoning about the part global heating and cuts to public services may have played in the disaster
Good morning. The death toll from the catastrophic floods in Texas has climbed to 129, including at least 27 children and counsellors at Camp Mystic in Kerr County.
With more than 160 people still missing, authorities warn that the number of casualties is likely to rise. On Sunday morning, some search operations were cancelled as heavy rain and strong winds battered the state once again.
Israel-Gaza | An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 10 people, including six children, who were waiting to collect water in Gaza, Palestinian health officials have said. Dozens of others were killed in Gaza over the weekend in a separate strike near a food aid distribution site. Meanwhile, former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has said that a proposed “humanitarian city” would be a concentration camp for Palestinians.
Health | Health officials have urged people to come forward for the measles vaccine if they are not up to date with their shots after a child at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool died from the disease.
UK news | Charlotte Church, veteran peace campaigners, Trade unionists, activists and politicians, are among hundreds who have signed a letter describing the move to ban the group Palestine Action as “a major assault on our freedoms”.
Spain | Several people were hurt in a second night of anti-migrant unrest in the town of Torre Pacheco in south-east Spain after a pensioner was beaten up, authorities said.
NHS | Health secretory Wes Streeting will meet representatives from the British Medical Association this week as he looks to avert five days of strikes by resident doctors.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/14/2025 - 00:47
07/14/2025 - 00:00
Researchers in Europe found everyday plastics, especially farmers’ baler twine, being used by the birds as a building material and entangling their young. It is a problem that affects other species too, say experts in the US, UK and Argentina
On a late spring morning in the farmlands of southern Portugal, Dr Marta Acácio set her ladder against a tree and began to climb. Four metres up, she reached the giant white stork nest that was her goal. She knew from telescopic camera shots there was a healthy looking chick inside – and now she wanted to ring it.
But when Acácio, an ecologist from University of Montpellier in France, tried to scoop up the chick, it would not come away: it was tethered to the nest by a piece of plastic baler twine. She turned the chick over and recoiled: its belly was a mass of maggots.
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07/14/2025 - 00:00
Increasing frequency of heatwaves and flooding raises fears over health, infrastructure and how society functions
Ed Miliband to tell MPs who reject net zero policies they are betraying future generations
Record-breaking extreme weather is the new norm in the UK, scientists have said, showing that the country is firmly in the grip of the climate crisis.
The hottest days people endure have dramatically increased in frequency and severity, and periods of intense rain have also ramped up, data from hundreds of weather stations shows. Heatwaves and floods leading to deaths and costly damage are of “profound concern” for health, infrastructure and the functioning of society, the scientists said.
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07/14/2025 - 00:00
Exclusive: Energy secretary’s ‘radical truth-telling’ comes as Reform plans net zero bonfire and Tories also ditch targets
‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK
Ed Miliband is to explicitly call out politicians who reject net zero policies for betraying future generations in an unprecedented update to parliament about the state of the climate crisis, which he is calling “an exercise in radical truth-telling”.
With Reform UK proposing to scrap all net zero measures and even questioning the science behind climate change, and the Conservatives ditching environmental targets, Miliband hopes to regain the initiative with a stark warning to MPs.
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07/14/2025 - 00:00
Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something
Nowhere does landscape marry passion quite so much as in Yorkshire’s Wuthering Heights. The tempestuous Pennine contours and tumbling streams perfectly frame Emily Brontë’s turbulent romance. Wild storms and dark gullies echo the cries of Heathcliff, Cathy and sexual jealousy. From moorland peaks to the historic Brontë village of Haworth below, the scene is unspoilt.
I cannot think of any British government for half a century that would have dreamed of destroying this place. Yet the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, apparently wants to do so, with the largest onshore windfarm in England, the Calderdale Energy Park. He clearly regards this unique landscape as the perfect spot for 41 giant wind turbines, each no less than 200m tall. Their height would top Blackpool Tower by 40m.
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07/13/2025 - 16:04
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Authorities are appealing for information after a ‘suspicious’ fire at a childcare centre in Sydney’s west in the early hours of Monday morning.
The ABC reports the blaze took place at a Play to Learn facility in Castle Hill. Another Play to Learn centre also caught fire in Sydney’s Turramurra on Friday. NSW police said:
About 1:30am today, emergency services were called to a business in Excelsior Avenue, Castle Hill, following reports of a fire. NSW Fire and Rescue are on scene and have extinguished the blaze. There has been minor damage caused to the building.
This level of experimentation with our endangered koalas is cruel, was a catastrophic failure and should not have happened. The control settings around this translocation experiment were obviously fundamentally flawed and I don’t think the public would find this level of experimentation with our endangered koalas at all acceptable.
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07/13/2025 - 15:37
State authorities believe more than 160 people could still be missing as flash flood warnings remain in Kerr county
More heavy rains in Texas on Sunday paused a weeklong search for victims of catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe River and led to high-water rescues elsewhere as officials warned that the downpours could again cause waterways to surge.
It was the first time a new round of severe weather had paused the search since the 4 July floods, which killed at least 129 people. Authorities believe more than 160 people may still be missing in Kerr county.
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07/13/2025 - 14:12
Grand Canyon Lodge consumed by two wildfires that have burned more than 45,000 acres in area
The historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the monument’s North Rim has been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire, the park said on Sunday. The blaze has forced officials to close access to that area for the season.
The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, park superintendent Ed Keable told park residents, staff and others in a meeting Sunday morning. He said the visitor center, the gas station, a waste water treatment plant, an administrative building and some employee housing also were lost.
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07/13/2025 - 10:00
Finalists for 2025 will be exhibited at Hobart’s Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery from 6 to 31 August as part of the Beaker Street festival and will include the first-ever image of a wild eastern quoll glowing under UV light
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More than half of koalas relocated to NSW forest died in failed government attempt at reintroduction
07/13/2025 - 10:00
Exclusive: Translocation and deaths of seven out of 13 koalas in April, with some showing signs of septicaemia, not made public by state government
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An attempt by the New South Wales government to reintroduce koalas to a forest in the state’s far south has failed after more than half of the moved animals died, including two with signs of septicaemia, and the remaining marsupials were taken into care.
The translocation and deaths of seven out of 13 koalas in April were not made public by the government, prompting questions about whether something went wrong with the project and calls from the NSW Greens for a review.
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