Hosepipe ban could follow, says Environment Agency, after England had driest February-April period on record
A drought has been declared in north-west England as reservoir levels dwindle.
Hosepipe bans could follow, the Environment Agency said, though this is a matter for water companies, which have been directed to follow their drought plans.
Continue reading...Twenty-two plaintiffs between ages seven and 25 allege government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach
Twenty two young Americans have filed a new lawsuit against the Trump administration over its anti-environment executive orders. By intentionally boosting oil and gas production and stymying carbon-free energy, federal officials are violating their constitutional rights to life and liberty, alleges the lawsuit, filed on Thursday.
The federal government is engaging in unlawful executive overreach by breaching congressional mandates to protect ecosystems and public health, argue the plaintiffs, who are between the ages of seven and 25 and hail from the heavily climate-impacted states of Montana, Hawaii, Oregon, California and Florida. They also say officials’ emissions-increasing and science-suppressing orders have violated the state-created danger doctrine, a legal principle meant to prevent government actors from inflicting injury upon their citizens.
Continue reading...Sales at UK’s third largest supermarket fell 3.1% in four months to April, as rival Aldi announces big expansion
Asda is unlikely to see growth before the end of this year at the earliest, the supermarket’s chair, Allan Leighton, has said, as sales continue to fall despite price cuts and more stock on its shelves.
Meanwhile, Aldi, which is closing the market share gap with Asda, put further pressure on its rival by announcing significant expansion plans across the UK.
Continue reading...Court decision in favour of Alice Bouilliez reignites push for bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement
A French court has ordered electoral officials to restore a British woman’s pre-Brexit right to vote in European elections, triggering calls for a renewed push for a bilateral treaty on electoral enfranchisement in each other’s countries.
Alice Bouilliez, a former British civil servant who has lived in France for 38 years, said she was “extremely surprised” but delighted that the court in Auch in south-west France had ordered that the authorities put her name back on the electoral register for the EU elections.
Continue reading...The ruling says Trump exceeded authority in imposing sweeping tariffs. Plus, Elon Musk confirms government exit
Good morning.
A federal trade court has ruled Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs regime illegal, a dramatic twist that could block the president’s controversial global trade policy.
What was the ruling? Tariffs typically need to be approved by Congress but Trump has so far bypassed that requirement by claiming that the country’s trade deficits amounted to a national emergency. The court’s ruling said Trump’s tariff orders “exceed any authority granted to the president … to regulate importation by means of tariffs”.
How are markets reacting? Global markets cheered the ruling, with the US dollar rallying along with indexes in France, Germany, Japan, and futures for the US S&P 500, Dow Jones and Nasdaq indexes rising.
What’s next? The Trump administration has already filed to appeal. White House officials attacked the court, calling it “unelected”.
Continue reading...John Casson says Cairo ‘fobbing us off’ by refusing to release British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah
The former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to Egypt, in response to Cairo’s refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access – let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.
Continue reading...Search for family from Texas was launched in August after report came in that a boat carrying eight people had begun taking on water
Nearly a year after the US Coast Guard suspended the search for a family of four missing after the boat they were on capsized in waters off south-central Alaska, the vessel along with human remains have been found, officials said Wednesday.
The discovery came after three private Alaska companies, including one that uses sonar equipment to search underwater, offered in April to help look for the family, who are from Texas, according to a statement released by the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
Continue reading...Defence minister says move ‘prevents establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel’
Israel has said it will establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, after a security cabinet vote held in secret last week.
Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have tried to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.
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