The Guardian

London Assembly call for bins to be placed in men’s toilets so items that could cause blockages are not flushed away

Men using public toilets in London may soon be confronted with an unusual new arrival in their cubicles.

Sanitary bins, familiar for years in female loos, are poised to be introduced into male conveniences in an attempt to cut down on fatbergs in the capital’s sewers, if Greater London Assembly members have their way. Men use wet wipes too, as well as other products that can clog the sewers if they are flushed, not binned.

National Farmers’ Federation says US court ruling that weedkiller causes cancer sets a ‘reckless precedent’

Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation has rejected the finding of a US court that the weedkiller Roundup causes cancer, saying it set a “reckless precedent” that could harm agriculture.

On Monday, Greenpeace urged the Australian government to start restricting the sale of Roundup – which is widely available in supermarkets and hardware stores – after a Californian court found it caused the cancer of a terminally ill man.

US interior secretary Ryan Zinke blames environmentalists for the devastation in California and calls for an increase in logging

The US interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has blamed environmentalists for California’s ferocious wildfires and claimed, contrary to scientific research, that climate change had “nothing to do” with them. Instead, he said the fires were worsened because of limits on logging.

“America is better than letting these radical groups control the dialogue about climate change,” Zinke told KCRA, a TV station in northern California, on Sunday. “Extreme environmentalists have shut down public access. They talk about habitat and yet they are willing to burn it up.”

Staff at government scientific agency will likely be seconded to help administer funds, documents show

The CSIRO was not aware a $443.8 m grant would be offered to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and staff at the agency are likely to be seconded to the charity to help administer the funds, according to documents tabled in the Senate.

The documents, tabled on Monday, show the agency “didn’t have visibility” before the government announced the grant on 29 April, with correspondence from senior staff noting the prime minister’s office appeared to be involved.

Senate inquiry to visit Port Augusta to investigate mistakes made after the closure of the Northern power plant

For the residents living near the site of South Australia’s demolished coal-fired power plant, the coming months could be their third straight summer of dust.

A flawed rehabilitation of an ash dam has led to potentially hazardous particles being blown across Port Augusta and its 14,000 residents for the last two years.

70% of vessels implicated in illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing are registered in tax havens, report finds

Money channelled through secretive tax havens has been used to fuel deforestation in the Amazon and illegal fishing around the world, racking up a heavy environmental toll but leaving few ways for businesses to be held to account.

Billions of pounds worth of finance has travelled through countries internationally recognised as tax havens, and has been traced by researchers to activities that contribute to environmental destruction, such as growing soy and beef in deforested areas of the Amazon, and expanding a network of largely unregulated fishing vessels operating under “flags of convenience”.

Trump is trying to accelerate the key contributor to California’s expanding wildfires – climate change

Last week, 18 wildfires were burning at once in California, including its largest in history, destroying over 1,100 homes and forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate. The smoke made the air in the state’s Central Valley unhealthy to breathe for a record 15 consecutive days, as I can personally attest.

Fun fact: there are currently no clouds at all over NorCal. The opaque skies from #SanFrancisco to #Sacramento to #Redding to #Lake Tahoe are the exclusive product of dense #smoke from numerous large #wildfires. #CarrFire #RanchFire #DonnellFire #FergusonFire #CAfire #CAwx pic.twitter.com/feVtfkDJTT

Under pressure from Labor, minister proffers timeline of grant decision-making

The environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, says his department conducted two stages of due diligence on the Great Barrier Reef Foundation before he approached the organisation on 9 April to offer $443.8m in funding.

Under pressure from Labor in the House of Representatives on Monday, the environment minister proffered a timeline of his decision making. It came after Frydenberg said on Sunday extensive due diligence had been done ahead of awarding the controversial grant, and the managing director of the foundation said on Monday she was unaware of that due diligence process and no one from the government had contacted her.

The state of New South Wales is 100% in drought. Farmers are struggling with failing crops, low water supply and diminishing livestock feed. From ground level, the earth looks a brown dustbowl, but from the air it is transformed into an artwork of colour and texture. Photographer David Gray has captured the scenes using a drone

Coral Triangle could be key to conserving the world’s reefs as Indonesia corals survive worst coral bleaching event in history.

A recent scientific survey off the coast of Sulawesi Island in Indonesia suggests that some shallow water corals may be less vulnerable to global warming than previously thought.

Between 2014 and 2017, the world’s reefs endured the worst coral bleaching event in history, as the cyclical El Niño climate event combined with anthropogenic warming to cause unprecedented increases in water temperature.

Researchers say endangered killer whale who lives off the coast of Seattle is back to feeding and frolicking with her pod

Researchers say an endangered killer whale thatcarried her dead calf on her head for more than two weeks has finally abandoned the calf’s body and is back to feeding and frolicking with her pod.

The Center for Whale Research in Washington state says it watched the orca, known as J35, chase a school of salmon in Haro Strait west of San Juan Island, between the US mainland and Vancouver Island, on Saturday afternoon.

Papers show UK environment secretary suggested owners voluntarily end controversial practice of burning heather to head off threat of compulsory ban

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has been accused of letting the owners of large grouse moors who are alleged to be damaging the environment off the hook.

The accusation from campaigners concerns the owners’ practice of repeatedly burning heather on their moorland estates to help boost the numbers of grouse for shooting.

Inspired by the art of ikebana – a traditional style of Japanese flower arranging – Montreal-based artist Raku Inoue hand-crafts bugs using materials from his garden. He transforms his garden waste, including sticks, seeds and petals, to create his Natura Insects series. “I think about the main shape of the insect,” he says, “and try to find something to satisfy that. It’s very much like a puzzle.” As the year progresses, his creative options change. “I choose the materials according to what nature offers during that time. All four seasons offer many different materials to play with.” The series started as a morning routine over coffee to sharpen his thoughts for the day. “It was never meant to be a complex process, but rather an easygoing, morning mind-stretching exercise.”

Emails obtained by New York Times show workers worried that companies could get away with using asbestos in ways the EPA did not list

The Environmental Protection Agency’s own staffers objected to a controversial new US rule governing the use of cancer-causing asbestos, according to internal emails.

Related: EPA ordered to ban pesticide linked to learning disabilities

The Carr fire, one of 13 large fires burning in California, was ignited in late July when a trailer tire blew out and created sparks as it ground on the asphalt. It killed seven people and destroyed 1,077 homes in the small city of Redding, in the far north of the state. New photos released by the city show the extent of the damage

A Sumatran orangutan, fireflies mating and a sea lion cooling off in record-breaking Californian heat are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

A federal court said the agency must prohibit the use of chlorpyrifos after seven states and DC backed the case against it

A federal court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban a widely used pesticide linked to learning disabilities in children.

The decision said the EPA must prohibit the use of the pesticide, known as chlorpyrifos, within 60 days.

Ordinary Australians are making a difference for teams that rely on raw data such as the University of Adelaide’s recent project on the monotremes

Not everyone would be delighted to receive 150 echidna poo samples in the post but Tahlia Perry was thrilled.

The PhD researcher is part of the University of Adelaide’s Grutzner Lab team studying the molecular biology of echidnas and the best way to collect the monotremes’ hormones is by testing their scats. In February, Guardian Australia put a call out for citizen scientists to participate in the project by downloading the echidna CSI free app and sending through their scat samples – and the team has been inundated. Perry says around 4,000 people have downloaded the app and there have been approximately 2,400 echidna sightings across the country.

More than 1,000 firefighters are battling blazes for a seventh day in the popular tourist area in Portugal. Extremely high temperatures have been blamed for sparking the wildfires

The world’s largest fish roams less than previously thought, new research has found. Using a ‘biological passport’, results show that whale sharks in the western Indian Ocean and the Arabian Gulf rarely swim more than a few hundred kilometres from their feeding grounds, making local action vital to their conservation