Environment

Rescuers were unable to save the whales after they became beached on a remote and rocky part of the country

More than 40 pilot whales died after a mass stranding event on New Zealand’s remote east coast, conservation officials said on Friday, despite rescue efforts by volunteers and conservation workers.

The Department of Conservation (DoC) said 43 whales had died in the mass stranding along the Ngawi coast on the south-eastern tip of the North Island.

Three suitcases’ worth of the spiders were on their way to Germany, where they could fetch an estimated €1.5m

More than 3,000 tarantulas were seized at an airport in Lima on their way to Germany, Peruvian authorities said.

The spiders were hidden inside dirty socks contained in three suitcases carried by two Germans and a Polish citizen, the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (SERFOR) told Agence France-Presse on Thursday.

From energy prices to datacenters, climate became a cost-of-living issue – and a winning one

• Q&A: Ask your questions about Democrats’ win in the midterms

Climate-forward Democrats swept into power on Tuesday night as a blue tsunami flipped the Senate, House and several governor’s races. Voters were laser-focused on affordability, and experts said Democrats succeeded in linking cost-of-living concerns with rising energy prices, datacenters and, to some extent, the climate crisis. They may have even created a path for a “new climate politics”.

The results delivered a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump, who started a war with Iran that raised gas pump prices across the country and exposed the fragility of fossil fuels, all while the US oil industry earned $130bn in profits since the war began. Household energy costs soared, driven by various factors including constraints on renewables, climate disasters and a datacenter boom.

The BLVD is home to 250 enterprises, from banks, tattoo shops and restaurants to museums and a performing arts centre

Passing through the Mojave desert on State Route 14, going by landscapes Hollywood uses to represent alien planets, a driver might not expect to find a walkable, tree-lined boulevard.

But there are nine beautiful, leafy blocks on West Lancaster Boulevard, a piece of what used to be Highway 14. They were redeveloped as part of a mixed-use urban streetscape in the city of Lancaster, California in 2010.

The BLVD, as it’s been rebranded, is home to 250 public and private enterprises, from banks, tattoo shops and restaurants to museums, a performing arts centre and a public library. City Hall is just a block south.

The city invested $11.5m (£8.5m) to transform a busy thoroughfare into an inviting public space. The three lanes in the centre of the former five-lane road were replaced by a series of tree-lined ramblas – Spanish for “avenue” and “watercourse,” because dry stream beds served as streets in early cities.

The redesign was planned and funded by the city of redevelopment agency. Within four years of completion, it had generated more than $270m in economic output, attracted $130m in investment, created hundreds of jobs and prompted the building or renovation of hundreds of housing units, according to the city.

The revitalisation has also created more intangible benefits, residents say. The city centre the feels like a gathering space, they said — somewhere where they can feel like part of a community.

Natural Resources Defense Council shows how federal rules changes will spike up public’s exposure to carcinogens

Amid a surge in early onset cancer, the Trump administration has taken more than 500 actions to systematically dismantle protections against carcinogens once in place across the federal government, an October report alleges.

The Natural Resources Defense Council report, and comments from current and former officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, bring into focus how myriad changes in federal rules or protocol will dramatically increase the public’s exposure to carcinogens. These are taking effect at a time when some forms of early onset cancer are spiking by about 30% per decade.

With parts of region served by company in severe drought still, regulators give it six weeks to come up with action plan

Repeated failures by South West Water to tackle leaks are putting customers at higher risks of losing water supplies as parts of the region remain in severe drought, regulators have said.

In a warning to the privatised company that serves 1.8 million people across the south-west of England, the regulators said it had been failing to meet targets to reduce leaks and repair burst pipes for seven years.

A stricken container ship shed tonnes of tiny pellets called nurdles on the west coast. Five years on, locals are counting the cost to marine life and livelihoods

On the beach in Pamunugama, on Sri Lanka’s west coast, women in uniform work under the scorching sun. They sift through rubbish washed ashore, searching among the usual litter for something much smaller: tiny plastic pellets.

Five years ago, in May 2021, this same beach was swamped with pellets as smoke rose over the Indian Ocean.

Tadpoles collected from puddles in East Gippsland were transported to Melbourne zoo, where they were raised to metamorphosis and successfully bred in captivity for the first time

After the 2019-20 black summer bushfires, scientists in eastern Victoria stumbled across something they had been after for years: puddles of tadpoles from the southern giant burrowing frog, one of the state’s most cryptic amphibians.

The fires had torn through extensive areas in East Gippsland, sparking concerns for the survival of the frog, which is considered critically endangered in Victoria.

Ministers urged to go further than proposed cut to 110 decibels to ease acute stress on birds and others animals

Campaigners are calling on the UK government to protect the welfare of wild animals by cutting the maximum noise level of fireworks sold to the public from 120 to 90 decibels.

The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) has said lowering the limit to 90dB – which is about one-eighth of the loudness of 120dB – would help to protect millions of wild animals from acute stress by reducing the area over which a firework disturbs surrounding wildlife.

Report reveals financial support promised by rich nations for adaptation measures is well behind the pace that is needed

Flows of money to help poor countries cope with the climate crisis have been flat or falling since 2022, despite growing impacts from extreme weather and warnings from scientists that global heating may be accelerating.

A new UN report has revealed that financial support for adaptation – which includes measures such as stronger infrastructure, early warning systems, flood protection and drought-resilient irrigation – is woefully short of what is needed and far behind even the inadequate promises that rich countries signed up to in 2021 in recognition of their far greater responsibility for the crisis.

When the water in Flint, Michigan, became contaminated with dangerous levels of lead, Dr Siddhartha Roy, then a third year PhD student, was part of the team of scientists who publicly contradicted state and federal claims that it was safe. He became a local hero until a new piece of research challenged the idea that children in Flint had been left permanently brain damaged by the crisis. His adherence to the evidence, no matter who it offended, has earned him the 2026 Maddox prize, which recognises individuals who stand up for science and evidence, despite challenges or hostility. He tells Ian Sample how he reflects on his experience in Flint, and why he lost friends as a result of his work there

Researchers find the birds’ guano feeds algal blooms that absorb significantly more solar energy

Penguin poo is making the Antarctic snow melt faster, a study shows. As temperatures rise, penguins are waddling closer to the south pole, with potential for this previously unrecognised phenomenon to affect a wider area.

Snow algae are tiny single-celled plants that make a home in some of the coldest places on Earth. When nutrients are scarce, the algae produces red pigments to protect itself from the sun and slow growth.

Mink farms are the perfect petri dishes for deadly flu strains to emerge. Yet officials appear to be protecting business interests over human lives

Could this be ground zero? Could it be the spot where the next pandemic begins? It’s certainly a candidate, not least because the chain of events that could trigger a plague far worse than Covid-19 looks like the opening sequence of a disaster movie. A really bad disaster movie, in which the levels of carelessness and turpitude defy belief.

A report by the investigative news service ProPublica reveals that bird flu has been raging in a mink farm in Utah since August, and it appears next to nothing has been done by public officials. In 2023, I warned in the Guardian that mink farms could scarcely be better designed to generate lethal plagues. This is for three reasons: mink are fed on the offcuts of chickens, cows and other farm animals, in which new viral variants often develop; mink readily host both avian and human flu viruses, which can then exchange genetic material, turning a bird disease into a human one; and mink possess extremely high “zoonotic potential” – the ability to infect animals of other species, including human beings.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

Farmers in Gurez store their harvests underground to last the Himalayan winter. As the practice fades, local varieties and handed-down skills are disappearing too

Hajra Begum rolls a potato in her hands, checking its skin for cuts, soft spots and signs of rot. After a day harvesting in her family’s field in Chorwan, a remote mountain village in Gurez, Indian-administered Kashmir, she is sorting the crop for winter storage. Some of the potatoes will feed her family through the cold months; others will be saved for planting in spring.

“It should be perfect for planting,” she says. “If you keep a bad potato, you will waste the whole next year.”

Nations in the group fare worse than others, with funding for nature projects especially hard hit even as climate crisis intensifies global need

The UK government has slashed overseas aid to Commonwealth countries, the Guardian can reveal, in contrast to the warm words for the group from King Charles and the prime minister, Andy Burnham, this week.

Amid sharp cuts in the UK’s aid budget overall, the Commonwealth has fared poorly, an analysis of the most recent and projected aid figures, seen by the Guardian, has shown.

British Veterinary Association president tells MPs surge in cases putting farmers under severe pressure and stress

The worst bluetongue season on record has been a major animal welfare crisis in Great Britain, MPs have been told, putting farmers under “severe emotional stress”.

Bluetongue, a viral disease that affects sheep, cattle and goats, can cause fever, lesions, stillbirths and death. The tongue may go blue and protrude from the mouth.

Annual reports show NSW renewable company’s CEO opted out of cash bonus, while CSIRO’s chief received an extra $200,000

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Executives at the troubled Snowy Hydro company collectively banked bonuses worth a combined $751,925 in the last financial year, despite its renewable energy project blowing out to 12 times its original cost.

But Guardian Australia can reveal chief executive, Dennis Barnes, who has a base salary of $1,845,126, opted not to accept the extra cash.

Garden Climate Assessment Tool will allow users to predict a plant’s response to the projected climate in a given location

“In the 20th century, we could pretty much grow the same things with confidence, we could learn from previous generations,” said Prof Sam Brockington, a curator at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

“But now we’re moving into climate scenarios that we just don’t have the traditions to understand fully.”

For the first time since 1937, no open permits to hunt ruffed grouse in Ohio have been issued due to falling numbers

Every November, hundreds of hunters descend on four designated wilderness areas in southern Ohio in pursuit of the elusive ruffed grouse.

But not this year.

Guardian and Mongabay reveal approaches to officials and MPs on behalf of Vantara zoo ahead of UK-chaired Cites meeting on endangered animal imports

British government ministers were told not to engage formally with Vantara, the controversial mega-zoo run by the Indian billionaire Anant Ambani, after lobbying efforts by the private animal sanctuary in the run-up to a UK-chaired meeting on the trade in endangered species, according to documents.

This week, the UK heads a 32-country committee meeting in Geneva of Cites, the United Nations body that regulates trade in endangered species. The meeting will examine how India has responded to compliance concerns about imports of endangered animals.