Brian Eno and Olly Alexander also among signatories saying exploitation of Rosebank and Jackdaw fields defies reality
More than 200 musicians including Massive Attack and Brian Eno have written to Andy Burnham, urging him to reject plans for more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
The letter, signed by artists such as Olly Alexander and Paris Paloma, called on the prime minister to reject the Rosebank oilfield, warning the project will fail to lower energy bills or provide energy security as most of the oil is likely to be exported.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/17/2026 - 04:00
08/17/2026 - 04:00
As warming seas push native species to cooler waters farther north, once-rare visitors have become more common
‘It sounds silly but I thought it was a person in the water waving,” says Kurt Lander, skipper of the Yellowfin charter boat, based out of Brighton. But when he grabbed his binoculars, he realised the fluttering movement he had noticed in the middle of the Channel shipping lane was a pair of sunfish.
The huge fish were lying on their sides and flapping their fins. “Apparently, they do it as a visual attraction to birds,” he says. “They’re trying to get the birds to eat the parasites off them.”
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08/17/2026 - 02:50
Wildfire thought to be largest in Belgium’s history creeps closer to German border prompting evacuations
Over in France, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu was booed on arrival to Le Porge, one of the towns most affected by the massive wildfire in the Gironde region last month.
Lecornu was set to meet with the local officials to discuss the reconstruction of the region, but a clip published by BFMTV showed a group of frustrated local residents booing his arrival.
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08/16/2026 - 18:45
Hurricane Lala downgraded after skirting Big Island as one person dies and 183,000 still without power
Hurricane Lala weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday after skirting Hawaii without making landfall, but it wasn’t done punishing the Big Island with hurricane-force gusts. Total rainfall of nearly 3ft (1 meter) was expected on the higher windward slopes, turning rivers into raging torrents and threatening mudslides.
The Hawaii governor, Josh Green, said at least one person died in a car accident in the South Point area of the Big Island, where more than 100 homes were destroyed. A little over 183,000 utility customers remained without power across Hawaii by Sunday mid-afternoon, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us. At least three hospitals were operating on generator power, and 19 roofs were lost, Green said.
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08/16/2026 - 10:37
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08/16/2026 - 10:16
Belgium battling biggest fire in more than a century as flames near German border and 600 people told to evacuate
Two people have died in fires on the Greek island of Salamis as firefighting aircraft were called on to help tame the biggest blaze in Belgium in more than a century in the latest wave of European wildfires.
The bodies of two people were recovered from the Peristeria beach area of Salamis on Sunday after two fires broke out on the island, a fire department spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. Hundreds of people have been ordered to evacuate.
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08/16/2026 - 09:00
Famous raptor helped livestream viewers in difficult moments, and inspired a conservation project at her lake home
The bald eagle Jackie made her home on the shore of southern California’s Big Bear Lake for most of her 14 years. But her death earlier this week drew international attention.
The Los Angeles Times described her as “arguably the world’s most famous bald eagle”. For years, millions of people tuned into a live stream of Jackie’s nest, watching her rear her eaglets, work out life with her mate, Shadow, and, perhaps most memorably, incubate her eggs while almost completely buried in snow.
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08/16/2026 - 07:00
Loggerhead turtles abound this season but rollback of Endangered Species Act protections could threaten future
Wildlife groups in Florida are celebrating record numbers of sea turtle nests this season, but experts warn Donald Trump’s recent gutting of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) could reverse decades of their recovery from the edge of extinction.
With more than two months of the summer nesting season still to run, loggerhead turtles have already made 13,770 nests, hundreds more than recorded in any previous year, along an 8.5-mile stretch of shoreline monitored by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
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08/16/2026 - 06:33
Nurses collapsing, builders with heatstroke, bus drivers in cabs that reach 44C. The new PM wanted to spend the summer talking about the cost of living – he should change his plans
I don’t think I have ever written before about a British strike directly related to the climate emergency. But that’s exactly what began late last week in north London, with a zeitgeisty connection to Andy Burnham’s fixation on buses: picket lines outside depots and massed walkouts, while the temperatures in the relevant parts of the capital and its suburbs hovered at about 34C (93F).
Last Friday, more than 1,500 drivers employed by the transport giant Arriva began a planned run of 26 stoppages through to October, affecting bus routes spread between London and Essex. Everything is being led by the union Unite, whose recent grievances include alleged company union-busting and assaults by the public on staff. But the fundamental basis of the dispute is at the heart of the national condition: the near-impossibility for millions of people of working through another insanely hot summer.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
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08/16/2026 - 04:00
Molendotech will collate data from daily tests that detect E coli and other bacteria amid reports of swimmers falling ill
A UK university spinout behind a rapid bacterial water testing kit is planning to launch live water quality maps, as scores of beachgoers report falling ill after swimming.
Molendotech, a spinout from the University of Plymouth, sells a portable test that detects E coli and other bacteria in water and delivers results on the spot, without waiting for days to get laboratory results.
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