The Guardian

Woman, 45, sustained ‘significant trauma’ and had part of arm amputated after one attack, and two teens were injured in another

Two separate shark attacks at Florida beaches wounded three swimmers, including two teenagers, prompting some popular vacation spots to temporarily close, according to authorities.

A shark bit a 45-year-old woman at about 1.20pm on Friday while she swam at Watersound beach, along the coast of Walton county, Florida, in the eastern part of the state.

Imogen May has withheld payments since 2019 and is thought to be one of thousands boycotting water charges

South West Water has taken a legal stake in a customer’s home after she withheld her bill payments in a protest over sewage dumping in rivers and the sea.

Thousands of water company customers are thought to be withholding payments but this is the first known case of a company enforcing a claim against a customer’s home.

Opposition leader reportedly told News Corp he would oppose the legislated 2030 emissions target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election

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Peter Dutton has been accused of planning to break Australia’s commitment to the landmark Paris climate agreement after he said he would reject the country’s 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target.

The opposition leader reportedly told the Weekend Australian that he would oppose the legislated 2030 emissions target – a 43% cut compared with 2005 levels – at the next election but remain committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

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Environment Agency figures show an average of 40 warnings and alerts a day were issued during period

A record number of flood alerts and warnings were issued in Great Britain in the first four months of 2024, averaging 40 a day, according to analysis of Environment Agency figures.

Round Our Way, a not-for-profit organisation supporting people in the UK affected by the climate crisis, obtained data from the agency under the Freedom of Information Act on the number of warnings and alerts issued across the country since records began in 2006.

Roughly half of Arizona and Nevada under excessive heat alert as temperatures soar past 110F in some states

The first heatwave of the year is expected to maintain its grip on the US south-west for at least another day through Friday, after records tumbled across the region with temperatures soaring past 110F (43C) from California to Arizona.

Although the official start of summer is still two weeks away, roughly half of Arizona and Nevada were under an excessive heat alert, which the National Weather Service extended until Friday evening. The alert was extended through Saturday in Las Vegas, where it’s never been hotter this early in the year.

I think we’ve heard this one before

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The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world

In these still largely prosperous rural heartlands, filthy water has become a surprisingly powerful symbol of national decline

Laura Reineke has been a mermaid for seven years now. Or more precisely, she’s a member of Henley Mermaids, the name she and a few friends from her open-water swimming club gave to the WhatsApp group they created for arranging river dips. Seven years of navigating various unmentionable waterborne substances later, the mermaids aren’t just swimmers now but fully fledged clean-water activists, campaigning to highlight pollution in Oxfordshire’s waterways alongside the likes of TV presenter Steve Backshall (who lives nearby with his Olympic rower wife Helen Glover) and lobbying local politicians.

Reineke, who works for the conservation charity Wild Fish, still swims daily with the help of an app tracking Thames Water’s regular discharges into the river: but lately, she says even the supposedly clean stretches seem murkier. “You can’t see the bottom any more, the plant life is covered in sewage – it’s grotty. It’s really, really sad.” Though as she points out, it’s much worse for the fish.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Promise to invest in ‘cheap, clean, homegrown energy’ ticks every box but £8.3bn over a parliament is not game-changing

Great British Energy, Labour’s proposed publicly owned energy company, scores well with voters, according to the pollsters, and one can understand why. The promise to invest in “cheap, clean, homegrown energy, to cut bills for families and rebuild the strength of British industry” ticks every imaginable box. What’s not to like?

And, since the privatised utilities are never going to win a popularity contest (especially when the boss of British Gas’s owner is being paid £8m), the publicly-owned structure of GB Energy is almost a cherry on top. Other countries have state-owned firms making good profits in the UK energy market. Now the home side will be on the pitch.

Exclusive: Party wants to appeal to voters’ patriotism by improving access to nature and green spaces

Local communities would be given the right to buy up derelict eyesores and turn them into parks under a Labour government, while walkers and swimmers would gain access to hundreds of miles of river pathways, the party has pledged.

Labour will make a direct appeal to voters’ patriotism, presenting the restoration of nature as a matter of national identity and status.

Exclusive: Data shows implementing policy that closes 92% of English countryside cost £69m over five years

England’s model for countryside access cost six times more to implement than Scotland’s right to roam policy, new figures reveal.

In England, only 8% of the countryside is open for walking, picnicking and other outdoor activities. This includes footpaths, the coastal path, mountains, moors, heaths and downs. In Scotland, all of the countryside is open for access as long as guidelines are followed such as leaving no trace and not harming farmland.

Up to 90% ‘lost in the blink of an eye’, say scientists studying Cyclone Ilsa’s effect on birds on Western Australian island

Increased tropical cyclones due to global heating could lead to dramatic declines in seabird populations, according to a new study.

Scientists found that after Cyclone Ilsa – a category-5 tropical cyclone – hit Bedout Island in Western Australia in April 2023, several seabird populations experienced a collapse of 80-90% due to the storm at the internationally important breeding site.

Millions of Americans are sweltering as experts warn early heat could herald next record-smashing summer

With the official start of summer still weeks away, a potentially record-setting heatwave is cooking the south-western US, causing dangerous conditions far earlier than normal.

Excessive-heat warnings have been issued from the southern tip of Texas across Arizona and Nevada, and up through the center of California to the northern part of the state, as more than 36 million people across the country brace for days of potentially life-threatening temperatures. Affected areas of California could see conditions of 30F higher than normal for this time of year, as south-west cities, including Phoenix and Las Vegas, prepare to hit peaks above 110F.

Addiction, anxiety and sex reversal have been reported in species by researchers as a range of substances contaminates ecosystems

From brown trout becoming “addicted” to methamphetamine to European perch losing their fear of predators due to depression medication, scientists warn that modern pharmaceutical and illegal drug pollution is becoming a growing threat to wildlife.

Drug exposure is causing significant, unexpected changes to some animals’ behaviour and anatomy. Female starlings dosed with antidepressants such as Prozac at concentrations found in sewage waterways become less attractive to potential mates, with male birds behaving more aggressively and singing less to entice them than undosed counterparts.

Equipment being trialled in Scotland extracts warmth from nearby water sources to provide homes with heating

Scientists in Edinburgh have developed a home heating system that draws its energy from the world’s most abundant resource: water.

The equipment can use sea water, rivers, ponds and even mine water to heat radiators and water for baths and showers, using the same technology as in air source heat pumps.

Fossil fuel firms are biggest beneficiaries of investor-state dispute settlement courts which have awarded $114bn of public money

More than $100bn of public money has been awarded to private investors in investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet.

The controversial arbitration system which allows corporations to sue governments for compensation over decisions they argue affect their profits is largely carried out behind closed doors, with some judgments kept secret. But, according to a global ISDS tracker which launches today, $114bn has so far been paid out of the public purse to investors – about as much as rich nations provided in climate aid in 2022.

A $15bn compensation suit by TC Energy against the US government for cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline which would have carried 830,000 barrels of highly polluting tar sands oil to the US coast every day. The permit was withdrawn by Joe Biden on his first day in office after a long campaign by Indigenous Americans, farmers and climate activists. The pipeline had been championed by ex-president Donald Trump and became a touchstone culture war issue.

Ruby River Capital’s claim for “no less than $20bn” after the Quebec government cancelled a natural gas liquefaction plant on the St Lawrence River. An environmental impact assessment had found that the plant would increase greenhouse gas emissions, hurt Indigenous Canadian communities and destroy biodiversity. RRC’s claim was the largest ever under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The most lucrative ISDS claim currently being heard is Zeph Investment’s $200bn case against Australia over a huge planned mine in Western Australia which, Zeph Investment claims, the Australian government had “effectively destroyed”, in breach of the Asean free trade agreement.

Avima Iron Ore is seeking $27bn from the Republic of the Congo, after it revoked iron ore mining licenses for three Australian-owned firms, handing them instead to a small Chinese investment group. The sum is almost twice as much as the country’s GDP last year.

The secretary general of the UN said fossil fuel companies should be banned from advertising in every country, akin to the restrictions on big tobacco. António Guterres delivered fresh scientific warnings of global heating in a major speech in New York. He called on news and tech media to stop enabling 'planetary destruction' by taking fossil fuel firms' advertising money, while warning that the world faces 'climate crunch time' in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis

• ‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban

Mammal was likely swimming between Queensland islands when it ‘just got unlucky and got snapped’ – spikes and all – in apparent world-first

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The last thing a group of scientists busy tagging marine animals along the coast of north Queensland expected to see was a shark regurgitate a fully intact echidna – but that is exactly what happened.

In what is believed to be a world-first, researchers from James Cook University, including former PhD student Dr Nicolas Lubitz, were tagging marine wildlife off the coast of Orpheus Island between Townsville and Lucinda in May 2022.

António Guterres warns of ‘climate crunch time’ and announces dire new scientific warnings of global heating

Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.

In a major speech in New York on Wednesday, António Guterres called on news and tech media to stop enabling “planetary destruction” by taking fossil-fuel advertising money while warning the world faces “climate crunch time” in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis.

The venomous spiders native to east Asia look frightening, but are reportedly shy creatures

The US north-east is bracing for yet another pest invasion – this time, giant venomous spiders – as scientists warn that the gag-inducing arachnids are set to advance this summer.

The joro spider, an invasive species from east Asia, will be making a larger appearance in New York, New Jersey and other eastern US states as the summer season heats up.