Author: The Guardian

There are a lot of humans. Teeming is perhaps an unkind word, but when 8 billion people cram themselves on to a planet that, three centuries before, held less than a tenth of that number, it seems apt. Eight billion hot-breathed individuals, downloading apps and piling into buses and shoving their plasticky waste into bins – it is a stupefying and occasionally sickening thought.And yet, humans are not Earth’s chief occupants. Trees are. There are three trillion of them, with a collective biomass thousands of times that of humanity. But although they are the preponderant beings on Earth – outnumbering…

An Arizona judge declared a mistrial on Monday in the case of a rancher accused of fatally shooting a Mexican man on his property near the US-Mexico border.George Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the 30 January 2023 shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, 48, who lived just south of the border in Nogales.Prosecutors said Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 rifle towards a group of men, including Cuen-Buitimea, about 100 yards (90m) away on his cattle ranch. Kelly has said he fired warning shots in the air, but he did not shoot directly at anyone.Court officials took…

Australia’s prime minister has labelled the X owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church.On Monday evening in an urgent last-minute federal court hearing, the court ordered a two-day injunction against X to hide posts globally containing the footage of the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel last Monday evening that the eSafety commissioner had directed X to remove, but X had only blocked from access in Australia pending a legal…

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, said legislation passed by the US House of Representatives and awaiting Senate approval had clarified that Ukraine would be receiving the longer-range version of Atacms (Army Tactical Missile Systems) that it has long sought. Atacms is highly prized by the Ukrainian army for its firepower, speed of deployment and accuracy, but Ukraine has so far been restricted to a version that can only fire 165km (102 miles). Newer versions can fire about 300km. Atacms can be launched from the similarly prized Himars system already supplied by the US to Ukraine. A White House statement confirmed that…

Key eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureJust in case you missed the full-time scenes:ShareCalling his brother?ShareThe all-nighter begins.ShareI can’t help but, with my Premier League-focused glasses, notice the presence of two former Manchester United players in Inter’s starting XI. Congratulations to Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Matteo Darmian on escaping Old Trafford to find true happiness elsewhere. Alexis Sánchez didn’t make it off the bench but gets another medal, too.ShareNot a classic game, but my word what it must be like to witness it all in Milan tonight. That is Inter’s first league title since 2021, when…

CLATTS HOW NOT TO DO ITIt’s all too easy to criticize Nottingham Forest after their recent self-pitying tirade on Professional Match Officials Ltd, which is convenient because that’s exactly what Football Daily wants to do. After losing to Everton, Forest were denied three penalties in this game – one stonewall and two 50-50 on the tried and tested Seen-‘Em-Given-O-Meter. Shout-Out – Serial complainers from City Ground published their criticism of all three decisions in a single tweet, suggesting the PGMOL and video assistant referee Stuart Attwell, who supported the Luton game, were corrupt and reviewed their Various other decisions that…

1.Natasha, 10, asks: what’s the biggest litter a cat has ever had?Reveal2.Aoibheann, 8, asks: why is the bark of a redwood tree red?Reveal3.Esther, 9, asks: do we have taste buds all over our mouths, including under our tongue?Reveal4.Buster, 6, asks: why are there 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour?Reveal5.Joey, 5, asks: how do horses sleep?RevealMolly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.Does your child have a question? Submit one here Source link

The head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate has resigned over the failures surrounding Hamas’s unprecedented attack on 7 October, the military said, becoming the first senior figure to step down over his role in the deadliest assault in Israel’s history.Maj Gen Aharon Haliva’s resignation sets the stage for what is expected to be further fallout from Israel’s top security brass over Hamas’s attack, when militants breached border defences, rampaged through Israeli communities unchallenged for hours and killed 1,200 people, most civilians, while taking about 250 hostages.That attack set off the war against Hamas in Gaza, which is in its seventh…

American Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship in Texas by two strokes to claim her second Grand Slam title and a stunning fifth in a row The game is won.The 25-year-old’s win at The Woodlands tied her for the LPGA record for consecutive wins, with Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sorenstam (2004-05) the only others to achieve that Women of this feat.Korda trailed South Korea’s leading player Yu Hae-ran in the final round of her first Grand Slam tournament of the year and started the final round with Canada’s Brooke Henderson in Houston. He shot a 69 and ended the…

This was the grandmother and granddaddy of all FA Cup ties which at a breathless close had Manchester United somehow scraping through 4-2 on penalties, after a beyond ­valiant Coventry City reeled in a 3-0 deficit at 71 minutes, forcing extra time in the 95th of the regulation, via Haji Wright’s cooler than cool ­equalising penalty.When the shootout came Bradley Collins saved Casemiro’s opener before Coventry took a 2-1 lead through Wright and Victor Torp, Diogo Dalot scoring United’s. Then came sheer heartache for the Sky Blues as they failed to register again.After Christian Eriksen made it 2-2, André Onana…