Children born after 2025 will experience three more years of brutally fire-conducive weather as global heating intensifies European babies will face almost twice as much extreme fire weather as their great-grandparents if climate action does not ramp up quickly, a study has found. Global heating under current policies will expose a child born in Europe in 2025 to three more years of brutally fire-conducive weather over their lifetime than someone born in 1950, the researchers found. Continue reading...

A newsletter for big-picture thinking about autocracy and threats to democracy around the world. Click to read Lucid, by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscriber...

POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW to seek restraining order to restore reporters’ access.

CDU suffered heavy losses in two regional elections, including in home state of former leader Angela Merkel, where it polled just 4.9% Speaking of EU sanctions, Kaja Kallas this morning in her condemnation of the Russian election fixing, also called for penalties against those who had helped stage the vote in occupied Ukraine. She said she had “proposed measures against those facilitating these sham elections in occupied Ukrainian territories”. European Parliament members have also deplored the vote held in “the world’s least-free territories” which they said were staged under martial law, “amid coercion, forced passportisation, door-to-door balloting in the presence of armed personnel and credible reports of grave human rights violations.” More widely, the Duma vote had been held in the “most repressive environment” with “criminalisation and elimination of political opposition”, read a joint statement from senior Russia and Ukraine EP committee heads. They noted the exclusion of any political competition – particularly the Yabloko party and jailing of its leaders in the lead-up to the vote. Continue reading...

Watchdog says users may have been unaware their information was used to target adverts or infer their interests Google has been fined more than €400m (£345m) over the way it processed users’ location data. The fine, by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), comes after complaints from multiple European consumer organisations that Google was following every step users took. Continue reading...

The new prime minister will give a speech in Downing Street shortly - you can watch live on this page.

ALT: Costanza and Heinz Ketchup

‘Persistent’ inequities found to exist in access to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, annual global review says Remarkable scientific progress against cancer has changed very little for millions of patients globally, who face devastating physical, emotional and financial consequences after diagnosis, a new World Health Organization report has warned. One person in five will develop cancer, according to WHO estimates, and the disease will touch 92% of people, either through their own diagnosis or that of a close family member. Continue reading...

Babies exposed to higher levels of neurotoxin more likely to have difficulty controlling impulses later, research shows Exposure to common air pollution may cause childhood obesity because it affects children’s ability to control impulse, new first-of-its-kind peer-reviewed research finds. Particular matter 2.5 (PM2.5) is a neurotoxin that has been linked to obesity, and Mt Sinai researchers say they have for the first time identified impulse control as a potential pathway. The study found that babies exposed to higher levels of PM2.5 during their first year of life were more likely to develop difficulties with controlling impulses later in childhood. Continue reading...

ALT: Girl's Intense Scream at Doctor's Office

ALT: Alex Uyutov: I Want It! (Harry Potter reference)