Sandi Toksvig embarks on a journey across the nation as she digs out the history buried beneath our feet. But one discovery pushed her over the edge, leaving her in tears.
Sandi says she made a shocking discovery while filming for her new show(Image: Channel 4)
Sandi Toksvig is no stranger to curiosity, but in her latest series – Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig – she’s delving deeper than ever before and one moment left her in floods of tears.
The beloved broadcaster is turning her lifelong love of archaeology into a full-scale adventure, uncovering the history buried beneath Britain’s soil.
“I studied archaeology many years ago at Cambridge University. It was a theoretical course, so I never went on a dig,” Sandi Toksvig says. “So when I got offered this, it was a bit that was missing in my education. I really needed to do this.”
Teaming up with her friend, archaeologist Raksha Dave, Sandi, 67, embarks on a thrilling nationwide journey across four episodes. From Dorset to Northumberland, the duo dig up remarkable discoveries that stretch from the Iron Age to the Second World War.
The series begins in Dorset, where a team from Bournemouth University excavates a 2,000-year-old Iron Age cemetery belonging to the Durotriges, one of Europe’s earliest women-centric communities.
From there, Sandi and Raksha head off to join the University of Reading at Cookham Abbey, before venturing north to explore Hadrian’s Wall and finally taking on their most ambitious dig in Essex – uncovering the wreckage of a US fighter plane from the Second World War.
“It’s such an astonishing range,” Sandi says. “We cover everything from the Romans to the Iron Age, which is the period from about 800 BCE to 43 CE, to look at the Durotriges. They were a local Iron Age tribe in modern Dorset and one of Europe’s first women-centric communities.”
But not every discovery is easy to process. In the opener, deep in a two-and-a-half-metre pit, Sandi comes face-to-face with a haunting find.
“We discovered a 15-to-17-year-old skeleton face down with a break across one of the arms,” Sandi recalls. “The arms had been tied together prior to death. The nature of the death seemed to be violent and suggested this was perhaps a sacrificial grave. Everybody was being careful.”
Experienced and steady, Raksha handled the skeleton with care. “She very carefully picked it up and handed it to me,” Sandi says. “I turned the face at last to the light and it felt like the person was looking at me.
“At that moment, I unexpectedly burst into tears. I could not stop crying. To hold that person’s head in my hands was one of the greatest privileges of my life.”
For Raksha, the discovery was groundbreaking. “It was pretty gobsmacking,” she says. “It’s very rare to find a human sacrifice. That’s not the first one they’ve discovered, there’s an obvious pattern that follows from years of digging. This suggests that it was the norm for the Durotriges.”
The chemistry between Sandi and Raksha is a highlight of the show. “Very occasionally, you meet somebody and you think, ‘We’re going to be friends,’” Sandi says.
“I am so drawn to anybody with expertise; Raksha has archaeology running throughout her bones. She is a magnet for archaeological finds. Give that woman a trowel and stick her in a couple of inches of dirt – she’ll find you something fantastic!”
Raksha laughs, saying, “Sandi calls me a magpie because every time I turn up on the site, I find stuff.” But it’s not all glamour and golden relics. “Camera crews don’t realise how crazy it can be,” says Raksha, 48.
“There’s a lot of dirt flying around. Quite often, you can be in challenging places, not all sites are accessible. You don’t know what the weather’s going to be like, it could be really horrid and muddy.
Also, camera crews are not used to an archaeological digging timetable. When you’re down a hole shovelling into a wheelbarrow all morning, you need to have a break.”
Despite the challenges, the pair’s friendship made every trench, trowel and muddy pit worth it. “Raksha is really good fun,” Sandi says. “We had beer, sitting back in a wheelbarrow – she taught me that leaning back in a wheelbarrow is a rather comfortable chair.
We’re friends and I admire her beyond words. The fact she’s been President of the Council for British Archaeology doesn’t surprise me.” Their shared laughter balances the show’s emotional weight, but both women hope the series sparks a bigger debate about archaeology’s future.
“I hope more will volunteer. Things are beginning to rot because of climate change,” Sandi says. “The safest way to protect something was to leave it buried. Now, we need to get cracking. I would encourage everybody to volunteer. It’s a fantastic experience.”
Hidden Treasures with Sandi Toksvig airs on November 4th, on Channel 4.
STOCKTON — Four of California’s gubernatorial candidates tangled over climate change and wildfire preparedness at an economic forum Thursday in Stockton, though they all acknowledged the stark problems facing the state.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, stood apart from the three other candidates — all Democrats — at the California Economic Summit by challenging whether the spate of devastating wildfires in California is linked to climate change, and labeling some environmental activists “terrorists.”
After a few audience members shouted at Bianco over his “terrorists” comment, the Democratic candidates seized on the moment to reaffirm their own beliefs about the warming planet.
“The impacts of climate change are proven and undeniable,” said Tony Thurmond, a Democrat and California superintendent of public instruction. “You can call them what you want. That’s our new normal.”
The fires “do have a relationship with climate change,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Besides environmental issues, the hour-and-a-half forum at the business-centric California Forward’s Economic Summit focused primarily on “checkbook” topics as the candidates, which also included former state Controller Betty Yee, offered gloomy statistics about poverty and homelessness in California.
Given the forum’s location in the Central Valley, the agricultural industry and rural issues were front and center.
Bianco harped on the state and the Democratic leaders for California’s handling of water management and gasoline prices. At one point, he told the audience that he felt like he was in the “Twilight Zone” after the Democrats on stage pitched ways to raise revenue.
Other candidates in California‘s 2026 governor’s race, including former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and former Rep. Katie Porter, were not present at Thursday’s debate. Former Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon planned to come, but his flight from Los Angeles was delayed, audience members were told.
All are vying to lead a state facing ongoing budget deficits caused by overspending. A state Legislative Analyst’s Office report released this month cited projected annual operating deficits ranging from roughly $15 billion to $25 billion through 2029. At the same time, federal cutbacks by the Trump administration to programs for needy Californians, including the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare program, will put more pressure on the state’s resources.
All of the candidates had different pitches during the afternoon event. Asked by moderator Jeanne Kuang, a CalMatters reporter, about ways to help rural communities, Thurmond cited his plan to build housing on surplus property owned by the state. He also repeatedly talked about extending tax credits or other subsidies to groups, including day-care providers.
Yee, discussing the wildfires, spoke on hardening homes and creating an industry around fire-proofing the state. Yee received applause when she questioned why there wasn’t more discussion about education in the governor’s race.
Villaraigosa cited his work finding federal funds to build rail and subway lines across Los Angeles and suggested that he would focus on growing the state’s power grid and transportation infrastructure.
Both the former mayor and Yee at points sided with Bianco when they complained about the “over-regulation” by the state, including restrictions on developers, builders and small businesses.
Few voters are probably paying much attention to the contest, with the battle over Proposition 50 dominating headlines and campaign spending.
Voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether to support the proposition, which is a Democratic-led effort to gerrymander California’s congressional districts to try and blunt President Trump’s attempt to rig districts in GOP-led states to retain control of the House of Representatives.
“Frankly, nobody’s focused on the governor’s race right now,” Yee said at an event last week.
An easyJet flight(Image: Mrkit99 via Getty Images)
easyJet has today made an announcement, aimed at people aged above 17 and three months. The airline is launching applications for its 2026 engineering apprenticeship programme, with roles available at a number of major UK airports.
This comes at a time when the UK Civil Aviation Authority estimates that 27% of the aircraft engineering workforce is set to retire within the next decade, and after new research commissioned by easyJet suggests more needs to be done to encourage young Brits to consider a career in engineering.
Some 65% of the 2,000 16-24 year olds surveyed said they had never considered a career in the field, with many deterred by misconceptions about their suitability for the profession. Over half (59%) believed they lacked the right qualifications, while 34% said engineering was never presented as an option at school and 21% thought it was too expensive to pursue.
The study also highlighted a gender gap, with only 36% of young women considering a career in engineering, compared to 52% of young men. In reality, an apprenticeship offers an accessible alternative route into the profession, providing the skills, experience and confidence needed for a successful career in engineering.
As well as this, the research revealed a growing trend among 16-24 year-olds expressing an interest in pursuing a career with a purpose. Over half (52%) expressed a desire to be in a role that benefits society, with more than two-fifths (44%) stating they aspired to a career that would help tackle climate change.
A further 43% identified engineering as a profession that could help achieve these goals through activities such as developing lower-emission technologies. In an effort to dispel misconceptions and support young 16–24 year olds in their ambition of a purpose-driven career path, easyJet is welcoming its next batch of aspiring engineers, offering an apprenticeship programme that will provide essential skills while earning and learning on the job, without the barriers of traditional routes to access the profession.
Speaking about the call for more apprentices to join its ranks, Brendan McConnellogue, Director of Engineering and Maintenance at easyJet said: “Today’s young people are motivated by purpose – they want to solve problems, travel, innovate and play their part in building a more sustainable future.
“Our engineering apprenticeships give candidates the chance to gain valuable experience working on our state-of-the-art fleet of aircraft while helping to deliver on aviation’s commitment to decarbonisation.
“This programme not only provides a pathway to grow professionally but also allows apprentices to make a meaningful contribution to the success of our operations throughout our network. We’re looking forward to opening the doors to applicants from all backgrounds who are ready to take their first step into a rewarding career in aviation.”
Aviation Minister, Keir Mather, said: “This engineering apprenticeship scheme marks an important step in continuing to build a highly skilled aviation workforce fit for the future.
“Initiatives like easyJet’s unlock exciting, flexible routes into aviation, backing an expanding sector whilst offering young people valuable opportunities and long-term careers – helping deliver our Plan for Change.”
Applications for the 2026 intake are now open, with spots up for grabs across all of easyJet’s major engineering bases nationwide including Luton Airport, London Gatwick Airport, Manchester Airport, Liverpool Airport, Bristol Airport, Edinburgh Airport and Glasgow Airport. Those with a minimum of 2 GCSEs at grade 3 and above or equivalent (SCQF Level 4) Scottish Qualifications in English and Maths are urged to apply here
Celebrated for decades as Hollywood royalty, Jane Fonda could easily be living a comfortable life of extravagance and leisure.
Instead, the 87-year-old actor and Vietnam War-era provocateur is as likely to be seen knocking on voters’ doors in Phoenix on a balmy summer afternoon as sashaying down a red carpet at a glitzy movie premiere.
Politically active for more than a half-century, Fonda is now focusing her energy, celebrity, connections and resources on fighting climate change and combating the “existential crises” created by President Trump.
Calling fossil fuels a threat to humanity, Fonda created JanePAC, a political action committee that has spent millions on candidates at the forefront of that fight.
“Nature has always been in my bones, in my cells,” Fonda said in a recent interview, describing herself as an environmentalist since her tomboy youth. “And then, about 10 years ago … I started reading more, and I realized what we’re doing to the climate, which means what we’re doing to us, what we’re doing to the future, to our grandchildren and our children.
“Our existence is being challenged all because an industry, the fossil-fuel industry, wants to make more money,” she said. “I mean, I try to understand what, what must they think when they go to sleep at night? These men, they’re destroying everything.”
Rather than hosting fancy political fundraisers or headlining presidential campaign rallies, Fonda devotes her efforts to electing like-minded state legislators, city council members, utility board officials and candidates in other less flashy but critical races.
Fonda said her organization took its cue from successful GOP tactics.
“I hate to say this, but you know, in terms of playing the long game, the Republicans have been better than the Democrats,” she said. “They started to work down ballot, and they took over state legislatures. They took over governorships and mayors and city councils, boards of supervisors, and before we knew what had happened, they had power on the grassroots level.”
Fonda said her PAC selects candidates to back based on their climate-change record and viability. The beneficiaries include candidates running for state legislature and city council. Some of the races are often obscure, such as the Silver River Project board (an Arizona utility), the Port of Bellingham commission in Washington and the Lane Community College board in Oregon.
“Down ballot, if you come in, especially for primaries, you can really make a difference. You know, not all Democrats are the same,” she said. “We want candidates who have shown public courage in standing up to fossil fuels. We want candidates who can win. We’re not a protest PAC. We’re in it to win it.”
On Wednesday, Fonda announced that she is relaunching the Committee for the First Amendment, which was initially formed after the blacklisting of Hollywood actors, directors, screenwriters and others who were labeled communists or sympathizers by the House Un-American Activities Committee after World War II.
“The McCarthy Era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together and stood up for the principles in the Constitution against the forces of repression,” Fonda said. “Those forces have returned. And it is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights.”
The Trump administration has pressured media companies, law firms and universities to concede to its demands or face repercussions. The suspension of ABC’s late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel, which has been rescinded, is among the most prominent examples.
“The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” Fonda said.
Since her birth, Fonda’s life has been infused by political activism.
Her father witnessed the lynching of a Black man during the 1919 Omaha race riots when he was 14, casting him into becoming a lifelong liberal.
Though such matters were not discussed at the dinner table, Fonda’s father raised money for Democratic candidates and starred in politically imbued films such as “The Grapes of Wrath,” about the exploitation of migrant workers during the Dust Bowl, and “12 Angry Men,” which focused on prejudice, groupthink and the importance of due process during the McCarthy era.
But his daughter Jane did not become politically active until her early 30s.
“Before then, I kind of led a life of ignorance, somewhat hedonistic,” she said. “Maybe deep down, I knew that once I know something, I can’t turn away.”
In “Prime Time,” Fonda’s 2011 memoir, she describes the final chapter of her life as a time of “coming to fruition rather than simply a period of marking time, or the absence of youth.”
“Unlike during childhood, Act III is a quiet ripening. It takes time and experience, and yes, perhaps the inevitable slowing down,” she wrote. “You have to learn to sort out what’s fundamentally important to you from what’s irrelevant.”
In 1972, Fonda appeared in Jean-Luc Godard’s film “Tout Va Bien,” about workers’ rights in the aftermath of widespread street protests in France four years earlier. It was her first role in a political movie and coincided with her off-screen move into activism.
Fonda’s most noteworthy and reviled political moment occurred the same year, when she was photographed by the North Vietnamese sitting atop an antiaircraft gun.
Actor and political activist Jane Fonda at a news conference in New York City on July 28, 1972. Fonda spoke about her trip to North Vietnam and interviews with American prisoners in Hanoi, Vietnam.
(Marty Lederhandler / Associated Press)
The images led to Fonda being tarred as “Hanoi Jane” and a traitor to the United States, which had deployed millions of American soldiers to Southeast Asia, many of whom never returned. Fonda says it is something she “will regret to my dying day.”
“It is possible that it was a setup, that the Vietnamese had it all planned,” Fonda wrote in 2011. “I will never know. But if they did, I can’t blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake.”
Fonda’s political beliefs have been a through line in her Hollywood career.
In 1979, she played a reporter in “The China Syndrome,” a film about a fictional meltdown at a nuclear power plant near Los Angeles. The movie’s theatrical release occurred less than two weeks before the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.
The 1980 movie “9 to 5,” starring Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, was a biting comedy that highlighted the treatment of women in the workplace and income inequality long before such issues were routinely discussed in workplaces.
Dolly Parton, left, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are harassed office workers in the 1980 movie “9 to 5.”
(20th Century Fox)
Two years later, as home VCRs grew popular, Fonda created exercise videos that shattered sales records.
She urged women to “feel the burn,” and revenue from the videos funded the Campaign for Economic Democracy, a political action committee founded by Fonda and Hayden.
This year, Fonda offered signed copies to donors to JanePAC, which she created in 2022.
“I’m still in shock that those leg warmers and leotards caught on the way they did,” Fonda wrote to supporters in April. “If you’ve ever done one of my leg lifts, or even thought about doing one, now’s your chance to own a piece of that history.”
UCLA lecturer Jim Newton, a veteran Los Angeles Times political journalist and historian of the state’s politics, described Fonda as confrontational, controversial and unapologetic.
“She’s remarkable, utterly admirable, a principled person who has devoted her life to fighting for what she believes in,” said Newton, who quotes Fonda in his new book, “Here Beside the Rising Tide: Jerry Garcia, the Grateful Dead, and an American Awakening.”
Newton added that Fonda’s outspoken nature certainly harmed her career.
“I’m sure that there are directors, producers, whatnot, especially in the ‘70s and ‘80s, who passed on chances to work with her because of her politics,” he said. “And I’m sure she knew that, right? She did it. It’s not been without sacrifice. She’s true to herself, like very few people.”
A year after Fonda and Hayden divorced in 1990, she married CNN founder and philanthropist Ted Turner, who she once described as “my favorite ex-husband.” Though Fonda largely paused her acting career during their decade-long marriage, she remained politically active.
In 1995, Fonda founded a Georgia effort dedicated to reducing teenage pregnancy. Five years later, she launched the Jane Fonda Center for Reproductive Health at Emory University.
After Fonda and Turner divorced, she worked with Tomlin on raising the minimum wage in Michigan and then launched Fire Drill Fridays — acts of civil disobedience — with Greenpeace in 2019.
Jane Fonda speaks during a rally before a march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House as part of her “Fire Drill Fridays” rally protesting against climate change on Nov. 8, 2019.
(Alex Wong / Getty Images)
Fonda said she decided to create her political action committee after facing headwinds persuading Gov. Gavin Newsom to create setbacks for oil wells in 2020.
“He wasn’t moving on it, and somebody very high up in his campaign said to us, ‘You can have millions of people in your organization all over California, but you don’t have a big enough carrot or stick to move the governor. … You don’t have an electoral strategy,’” Fonda recalled. “Since we’ve started the PAC, it’s interesting how politicians deal with us differently. They know that we’ve got money. They know that we have tens of thousands of volunteers all over the country.”
Initially concentrated on climate change, JanePAC has expanded its focus since Trump was reelected in November.
“We’re facing two existential crises, climate and democracy, and it’s now or never for both,” Fonda said. “We can’t have a stable democracy with an unstable climate, and we can’t have a stable climate unless we have a democracy, And so we have to fight both together.”
Fonda’s PAC has raised more than $9 million since its creation through June 30, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In 2024, JanePAC supported 154 campaigns and won 96 of those races. The committee gave nearly $700,000 directly to campaigns and helped raise more than $1.1 million for their endorsed candidates and ballot measures. In 2025, they have endorsed 63 campaigns and plan to soon launch get-out-the-vote efforts in support of Proposition 50, Newsom’s ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional districts that will appear on the November ballot.
Arizona state Rep. Oscar De Los Santos, the minority leader in the state’s House of Representatives, recalled Fonda’s support during the 2024 election, not only for his reelection bid but also a broader effort to try to win Democratic control of the state Legislature.
In addition to raising $500,000 at a Phoenix event for candidates, De Los Santos recalled the actor spending days knocking on Arizona voters’ doors.
“It is a moral validator to have Jane Fonda support your campaigns, especially at a time when corporate interests have more money and more power than ever, having somebody in your corner who’s been on the right side of history for decades,” said De Los Santos, who represents a south Phoenix district deeply affected by environmental justice issues.
Voters are often stunned when Fonda shows up on their doorstep.
“I’ve had people walking out of their laundry room and dropping all the laundry,” Fonda said with a laugh.
But others don’t know who she is and Fonda doesn’t tell them.
Jane Fonda
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s amazing. You wouldn’t think that in just a few minutes on someone’s doorstep, you can really find out a lot,” Fonda said, recalling discovering her love of canvassing when she was married to Hayden.”I loved talking to people and finding out what they care about and what they’re scared of and what they’re angry about.”
Fonda does not walk in lockstep with the Democratic party. In 2023, she joined other climate-change activists protesting a big-money Joe Biden fundraiser. They argued that the then-president had strayed from the environmental promises he made when he ran for election, such as by approving a massive oil drilling project on the North Slope of Alaska.
Fonda said she supported Biden’s 2024 reelection despite disagreeing with some of his policies because of the threat she believed Trump poses.
“When you see what the choice was, of course you’re going to vote,” she said. “I get so mad at people who say, you know, ‘I don’t like him, so I’m not going to vote.’ [A] young person said to me, we already have fascism. They don’t know history. You know, we don’t teach civics anymore, so they don’t understand that what’s happening now is leading to fascism. I mean, this is real tyranny.”
But she also faulted Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris after she became the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, as well as 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for failing to speak to the economic pain being experienced by Americans who backed Trump.
“They’re not all MAGA,” she said.
Many were just angry and hurting, she said, because they couldn’t afford groceries or pay medical bills. Fonda believes many now have buyer’s remorse.
Fonda reflected on the parallels between the turmoil in the 1960s and today. In the interview, which took place before the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, she argued that today’s political climate is more perilous.
“I’m not sure that what we have right now in the U.S. is a democracy,” she said. “It’s far graver. Far, far graver now than it was.”
Fonda said she remains driven, not by blind optimism, but by immersing herself in work that she believes makes a difference.
“This is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life,” she said.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized President Trump’s rejection of climate science as economic self-sabotage and “an abomination,” warning the country is “doubling down on stupid.”
“What an embarrassment,” Newsom told former President Clinton during a live-streamed fireside chat during Climate Week in New York City.
Newsom’s rebuttal came during a series of high-visibility appearances on the East Coast, including a spot on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday where he called Trump an authoritarian and raised the prospect of the president attempting to remain in office illegally after his term ends.
Newsom homed in on Trump’s climate change denials while speaking to New York Times reporter David Gelles at the paper’s Climate Forward forum on Wednesday, saying thermometers are not political.
“You don’t have to believe in science. Believe in your own damn eyes,” Newsom said.
Newsom accused Trump of trying to recreate the 19th century by dismantling clean-energy standards and incentives, adding that the rollbacks cede momentum to China in electric vehicles, renewable energy innovation and other technologies. Newsom said California has worked for decades to be a leader in environmental policies that reduced smog, cleaned up waterways and created the market that led to an influx of electric cars and green technologies.
“There’s no Elon Musk, there’s no Tesla, without California’s regulatory framework,” Newsom said. “It wouldn’t exist.”
On Wednesday, his office said the state now has more than 200,000 public and shared electric vehicle charging points throughout the state — with nearly 70% more ports than gasoline nozzles.
Newsom said California’s economy has thrived amid investments in green energy.
Critics, including U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, said Wednesday that California’s focus on green energy has come at another price — high electricity bills.
“If you’re blue-collar, you’re working class, that hurts your quality of life,” said Wright, who spoke onstage with Gelles after Newsom.
Among those bills was an extension of the state’s nation-leading cap-and-trade program through 2045. That program caps greenhouse gas emissions and raises billions for the California climate initiatives. The program also will provide $20 billion for the state’s controversial, much-delayed high-speed rail project, which U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called a “boondoggle.”
With Trump pulling back electric car subsidies and attempting to override fuel efficiency standards, Newsom said California is “the only game in town right now as it relates to large scale environmental leadership.”
The governor’s series of appearances this week underscored how the fight over climate change — and Trump’s insistence that it’s a “green scam” invented by “stupid people” — has become another deeply political talking point. Newsom didn’t waste time pointing that out.
“It’s a disgrace what Donald Trump has done, and it is a disgrace what his administration is doing to the environment,” Newsom said.
In his appearance on Colbert’s show, Newsom reupped his view that Trump’s government is an authoritarian regime.
“People ask, well, is ‘authoritarianism’ you being hyperbolic?” Newsom said. “Bulls—, we’re being hyperbolic. If you’re a Black and brown community, it’s here in this country.”
Vice President JD Vance said Newsom’s allegations about the Trump administration are dangerous.
“Here’s what happens when Democrats like Gavin Newsom say that these people are part of an authoritarian government, when the left-wing media lies about what they’re doing, when they lie about who they’re arresting, when they lie about the actual job of law enforcement, what they’re doing is encouraging crazy people to go and commit violence,” Vance said, speaking about the gunman who opened fire onto a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement location in Dallas on Wednesday.
Vance added that anyone whose political rhetoric encourages violence against law enforcement can “go straight to hell.”
“Though when I watch you speak I certainly feel like I’m already there,” Newsom wrote
Newsom on Tuesday also said he believes Trump will attempt to ensure he remains president after his term ends.
“I fear that we will not have an election in 2028, I really mean that in the core of my soul, unless we wake up to the Code Red — what’s happening in this country, and we wake soberly to how serious this moment is,” Newsom said.
The Trump administration halted construction on a nearly complete offshore wind project off Rhode Island as the White House continues to attack the battered U.S. offshore wind industry that scientists say is crucial to the urgent fight against climate change.
Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80% complete, with 45 of its 65 turbines already installed.
Despite that progress — and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews — the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.”
It did not specify what the national security concerns are.
President Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. He recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social site this week.
Scientists across the globe agree that nations need to rapidly embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, including extreme heat and drought; larger, more intense wildfires; and supercharged hurricanes, typhoons and rainstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding.
Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind” in a post on X. Both governors are Democrats.
Construction on Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully operational next year. Orsted says it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction and is considering legal proceedings.
Revolution Wind is located more than 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast, 32 miles southeast of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. Rhode Island is already home to one offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.
Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. The densely populated states have minimal space available for land-based energy projects, which is why the offshore wind project is considered crucial for the states to meet their climate goals.
“This arbitrary decision defies all logic and reason — Revolution Wind’s project was already well underway and employed hundreds of skilled tradesmen and women. This is a major setback for a critical project in Connecticut, and I will fight it,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement.
Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. and provides about 10% of the electricity generated nationwide.
“Today, the U.S. has only one fully operational large-scale offshore wind project producing power. That is not enough to meet America’s rising energy needs. We need more energy of all types, including oil and gas, wind, and new and emerging technologies,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Assn., which supports offshore oil, gas and wind energy.
Green Oceans, a nonprofit that opposes the offshore wind industry, applauded the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management decision. “We are grateful that the Trump Administration and the federal government are taking meaningful action to preserve the fragile ocean environment off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” the group said in a statement.
This is the second major offshore wind project the White House has halted. Work was stopped on Empire Wind, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to resume after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, intervened.
“This administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future — solar and wind power,” Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.”
O’Malley writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, R.I., and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.
A bathing ban has been slapped on one of Northern Ireland’s most popular beaches just before the bank holiday weekend – after blue-green algae was detected over 100 times across the region this year
Blue-green algae was detected in the water of Benone Beach in Co Londonderry(Image: Getty Images)
Beachgoers have been warned not to swim at one of Northern Ireland’s most popular seaside spots after “potentially toxic” blue-green algae was found in the water.
The bathing ban was put in place at Benone Beach in Co Londonderry by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) ahead of the bank holiday weekend. The north coast beach, with its seven-mile stretch of golden sand and stunning views of Benevenagh mountain and Donegal, is popular with tourists.
Daera said in a statement: “Blue-green algae was observed on part of Benone Beach on Thursday through the Daera monitoring programme for bathing waters.
Blue-green algae bloom are seen at Battery Harbour in Cookstown, Northern Ireland on August 18(Image: Getty Images)
“Analysis has confirmed high levels of blue-green algae and the department has issued the bathing water operator, Causeway Coast and Glens Borough council, an ‘Advice against Bathing’ notification.”
The department noted that no other north coast beaches are affected. Daera added that it “will continue to monitor these beaches for blue-green algae and provide advice to bathing water operators when required”.
The council confirmed a red-level warning had now been put in place. A spokesperson for Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said: “A temporary Advice Against Bathing Notice has been issued for Benone Strand from Friday 22nd August 2025.
Some blue-green algae produce toxins, posing a danger to humans, pets, livestock and wildlife(Image: Getty Images)
“This is an escalation from the amber to red level in accordance with the Inter-Agency Blue Green Algae Protocol. Daera will continue to monitor Benone Strand and advise of any changes.”
Blue-green algae has been detected more than 100 times across Northern Ireland since the start of the year, Deara previously said. Large algal blooms have also covered Lough Neagh for the third summer in a row, raising concerns for pets, livestock and wildlife.
Technically known as cyanobacteria, blue-green algae are microscopic organisms naturally found in lakes and streams. They can multiply rapidly in warm, shallow, nutrient-rich waters, with some strains producing toxins.
These toxins are particularly dangerous for pets, livestock and wildlife. Humans exposed to high levels can suffer health effects such as diarrhoea, vomiting, throat irritation and breathing difficulties.
Blue-green algae are often found in warm and nutrient-rich waters (Image: Getty Images)
Nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertiliser run-off and wastewater treatment are key contributors to the algae. The spread of invasive zebra mussels is also thought to play a role, as they clear the water, allowing more sunlight to fuel algal growth.
Rising water temperatures – linked to climate change – are another factor.
The Stormont Executive launched an action plan last year to tackle the environmental crisis at Lough Neagh. Earlier this week, Environment Minister Andrew Muir called for more support from colleagues to address both the blue-green algae problem and the broader environmental issues at the lough.
When the fires this year upended Los Angeles and put into question what it even means to return to normal, I was reminded of a chapter in “California Against the Sea” that had expanded my own understanding of what it takes to truly adapt our built environment — and to reimagine the places that we have come to love and call home.
This chapter, which opens with a radical shoreline reconfiguration just north of San Francisco, came not without controversy, but it provided a glimpse into what compromise might need to look like for so many communities struggling to keep up with climate change. Rather than hold the line with increasing futility, here was a humbling example of what can be possible when we transcend the throes of politics — and when we choose to set aside our differences and think beyond just reacting to the same disasters time and time again.
Since the book was published in 2023, the bridge described in the following excerpt has been completed, and the creek is finally free. Accommodating nature in this way called for some tough and unfamiliar changes, but go out to the beach today, and you can see the marsh starting to recover and the entire ecosystem gently resetting with the rhythms of the sea.
So much of the climate debate is still framed around what it is that we have to give up, but does it have to be this way? Rather than confront these decisions as though it’s our doom, can we embrace change and reconsider each effort to adapt as an opportunity — an opportunity to come together and build more bridges to the future?
A few winding turns past Bodega Bay, about an hour north of San Francisco, relentless waves pound against a stretch of coastline in dire need of re-imagining. Gleason Beach, once reminiscent of a northern version of Malibu, is now mostly just a beach in name. Sand emerges only during the lowest of tides. Bits of concrete and rebar are all that remain of 11 clifftop homes that once faced the sea. A graveyard of seawalls, smashed into pieces, litters the shore. Here along the foggy bluffs of the Sonoma coast, the edge of the continent feels more like the edge of the world — a window into the future if California does not change course.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
These wave-cut cliffs, a brittle mélange of ancient claystone and shale, have been eroding on average about a foot a year, exacerbated since the 1980s by a hardened shoreline, intensifying El Niños and, now, sea level rise. With the beach underwater, the seawalls destroyed and so many homes surrendered, the pressure is now on Highway 1 to hold the line between land and sea. Year after year, residents have watched the waves carve away at the two-lane road — their only way to get to work, their only way to evacuate, their only way to reach all the rocky coves, beaches and seaside campgrounds that make this coast a marvel.
Broken concrete is all that’s left of a number of clifftop homes at Gleason Beach on the Sonoma Coast, pictured here in 2019.
(Carolyn Cole/ Los Angeles Times)
So, with every storm and every knock from the ocean, officials have scrambled to save the highway, pouring millions of tax dollars into a vicious cycle of sudden collapses and emergency repairs. From 2004 to 2018 alone, state transportation officials spent about $10 million in emergency defenses and failed repairs. In 2019, almost half a mile had to be reduced to one lane.
This lifeline for the region now hangs inches from the edge. The once spectacular coastline had seemingly morphed overnight — an apocalyptic transformation, decades in the making, seen with stark clarity now that orange caution tape and makeshift traffic lights mark what’s left of the shore.
“This is what unmanaged retreat looks like, and it is quite frankly a hot mess of septic systems, old house parts and armoring that have fallen into the intertidal zone with no real mechanism for cleaning it up,” Sonoma County supervisor Lynda Hopkins declared. “If we don’t start planning ahead and taking proactive measures, Mother Nature will make the decisions for us.”
With the realities of climate change looming ever closer, California transportation officials agreed it was time to try something different: make peace with the sea and move the crumbling highway more than 350 feet inland. They knew nailing down the details would be fraught, but, if done right, this would be the first radical effort by the state to plan for a reimagined coast — a coast that could support California into the next century. It was the rare managed retreat proposal that intentionally sought to both raise and relocate critical infrastructure far enough from the shore to make room for the next 100 years of rising water.
Compromise wasn’t easy. Officials studied more than 20 alternatives that tried to balance safety codes, traffic needs, fragile habitats, public access to the coast and other competing requirements that were tricky to meet given the topography. There were also all the nearby property owners who needed persuading, not to mention a skeptical, conservation-minded community that was averse to saving a human-altered shoreline with more human alterations. They ran into every argument and counterargument that have tugged, pulled and paralyzed other communities.
At its heart this project, like so many attempts along the California coast, called for a reckoning over what was worth saving — and what was worth sacrificing — and whether it was possible to redesign a treasured landscape so that it survives into the future.
Book cover for “California Against the Sea” by Rosanna Xia
(Heyday Books)
“It seems daunting; it’s a lot of change to cope with, but it’s also an opportunity for communities to think about, ‘What are the coastal resources we want to have access to fifty, one hundred years from now?’” said Tami Grove, who oversees transportation projects for the California Coastal Commission and spent years reconciling all the emotional meetings, the disagreements, the many stops and stalls and hand-wringing compromises. “It gets lost, sometimes, when people are worried about everything that we’re going to lose to sea level rise — but there are things that we’re going to be able to choose and enhance and design into the future if we start planning now.”
In what many described as a major coup in government bureaucracy, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the coastal commission and county leaders set aside their differences to come up with a new solution together. By November 2020, they had hammered out a plan to relocate almost one mile of the highway — most notably with a new 850-foot-long bridge spanning Scotty Creek, a degraded stream that, choked for decades by the highway’s current configuration, rarely reached the ocean anymore. Rather than agonize over how to restore the landscape to some former, unobtainable baseline of “natural,” officials unanimously agreed that this bold re-imagining of the coast was the best way forward among no perfect options.
The concrete bridge (a monstrous overpass or a reasonable compromise, depending on who’s talking) will at least allow Scotty Creek to flow freely into the ocean again — making room for more red-legged frogs, Myrtle’s silverspot butterflies, and the passage of steelhead trout and coho salmon. Officials reasoned that elevating the highway would avoid paving over what’s left of the wetlands, which were already in desperate need of healing. By rerouting traffic onto a bridge, these drowning habitats would have the space to recover and migrate inland as the sea moved in.
State transportation officials also agreed, as part of the $73 million project, to pay $5 million to help clean up the mess of abandoned homes and failed road repairs. An additional $6.5 million will go toward wetland, creek and prairie restoration. Some of the old highway will be converted into a public coastal trail, and visitors will have access to a new parking area, as well as a beach that was once limited by private property.
Caltrans also set aside money to negotiate and acquire land from three private properties, including oceanfront portions of a historic ranch that will be most impacted by the realigned highway. Once completed, much of the open space will be transferred to Sonoma County to manage on behalf of the public.
This all came as a shock at first for Philip and Roberta Ballard, who own and live on the ranch, but they said they’ve come to understand the necessity of this project. The bridge still feels way too big — especially for this rural stretch of paradise that first captured their hearts more than two decades ago — but after years of meetings, questions and debating each trade-off, the retired couple decided to turn their energies toward making sure Scotty Creek got restored as part of the deal.
The creek, the largest watershed between Salmon Creek and the Russian River, has needed help since before they purchased the ranch, they said. In a past life, steelhead trout and coho salmon thrived in this stream. The once-abundant fish disappeared after the concrete culvert, installed in 1952 to support the highway, blocked their ability to migrate between fresh- and saltwater. The brackish habitat drowned over the decades. Then the creek, swollen after a series of big storms in the 1980s, flooded the lower plain. The stream banks were denuded of vegetation and the riffle crests obliterated as the choked stream tried to reach the sea.
Since 2004, the Ballards, both professors emeriti of pediatrics at UC San Francisco, have been piecing together ways to restore the creek, one small project at a time. Full restoration would require grading and reshaping the riverbanks, bringing back the native vegetation, improving water flow and re-creating the pools that once provided shelter to juvenile fish. The $6.5 million that Caltrans promised as part of the final deal will go a long way, they said, to nursing this entire ecosystem back to life.
“A lot of our efforts have gone into trying to make the best out of something that is necessary,” Roberta Ballard said. “We’ve arrived at feeling reasonably good about getting the best mitigation we can get for this region and getting something reasonably positive out of it.”
Construction crews work on building a new bridge over Scotty Creek, as part of Caltrans’ Gleason Beach Roadway Realignment Project.
(John Huseby / Caltrans)
When we don’t understand and don’t allow for the ocean’s ways, we end up with homes perched on crumbling cliffs and seawalls still making a stand. Guided by a few mere decades of history and a narrow understanding of the California shore, many today know only how to preserve the version of the coast they learned to love. Rather than imagine a different way to live, we cling to the fragility of what we still have and account for only what we consider lost. Even remembering how wide a beach used to be, or how the cliffs once withstood the tide, glorifies the notion that resilience is measured by our ability to remain unchanged.
We fail to see how we’ve replaced entire ecological systems with our own hardened habitats, and then altered the shoreline even more once the shore began to disappear. Neither replicating the past nor holding on to the present is going to get us to the future that we need. Learning from the recurring cycles of nature, listening to the knowledge gained with each flood and storm, adapting and choosing to transform — this is what it means to persevere. Change, in the end, has been the only constant in our battle for permanence. Change is the only way California will learn how to live with, not on, this beautiful, vanishing coastline that so many people settled and still wish to call home.
Stefan Galvez-Abadia, Caltrans’s district division chief of environmental planning and engineering, is now attempting with his team to design a prettier bridge at Gleason Beach, one more fitting for the rural landscape. They’ve studied the arched columns of Bixby Creek Bridge on the Big Sur coast and other popular landmarks that have become iconic over time. They’ve conducted surveys on what color to paint the bridge — some shade of gray or brown, for example, or a more distinct hue like that of the Golden Gate Bridge. Donne Brownsey, who served as vice chair of the Coastal Commission at the time, remarked that the project reminded her of a concrete beam bridge in Mendocino County that spans the mouth of the Ten Mile River, just north of where she lives in Fort Bragg. “It was a new bridge, it caused a lot of consternation, but I didn’t know that the first few times I went over it — I would look forward to that part of the drive, because I could see the whole estuary to the west, and I could see the rivershed to the east,” she said. “You don’t even really see the bridge anymore because the swallows now all nest there, and it’s just part of nature.”
The bridge at Gleason Beach, facing similar design constraints as the Ten Mile Bridge, also has to be massive — a counter-intuitive twist to what one might think it means to accommodate the environment. Engineers had at first tried more minimal options — a shorter bridge, thinner columns, a less intrusive height — but many were not large enough in size or distance to outlast the coastal erosion projected for the next 100 years. And to give the wetlands enough space to grow back, the highway needed to be elevated at a landscape-wide scale.
The completed bridge and realignment of Highway 1 can now be seen at Gleason Beach, about an hour north of San Francisco.
(Caltrans)
Despite so many years of seminars and talks about climate change adaptation, turning an abstract concept like managed retreat into reality has been a delicate exercise in compromise, Galvez-Abadia said. There were few case studies to turn to, and each one he examined dealt with an increasingly complicated set of trade-offs.
“You don’t have many choices when it comes to sea level rise,” he said, flipping through almost two dozen renderings his team had tried. “Whichever way you choose, you’re going to have some kind of impact. These are the difficult decisions that we will all have to make as a region, as a community, for generations to come.”
As he filed away his notes and prepared to break ground, he reflected once more on all the years it took to reach this first milestone. The process wasn’t easy. A lot of people are still frustrated. Even more are disappointed. Many tough property negotiations still lay ahead, but he hoped, at least, to see the wetlands and creek recover beneath the bridge one day. If the native plants reemerge, the salmon return, and there still remains a coast that families could safely access and enjoy, perhaps this new highway — however bold, however different — could show California that it is possible, that it isn’t absurd, to build toward a future where nature and modern human needs could finally coexist.
About 50 residents had to be evacuated as the fires ripped through the countryside. Madrid Security and Emergency Agency described the blazes as of “maximum concern”
The blaze broke out on Thursday(Image: AP)
An out-of-control wildfire broke out near Madrid on Thursday, sending a massive plume of smoke over the Spanish capital and forcing people out of their homes.
About 50 residents had to be evacuated as the fires ripped through the countryside. Madrid Security and Emergency Agency described the blazes as of “maximum concern” as extreme levels of forest fires are reported throughout the region, and 40mph winds threaten to push them further and faster.
The blaze began in the town of Méntrida, located in the Castile-La Mancha region about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Madrid. Local authorities advised residents to remain indoors and keep their windows closed due to poor air quality.
By late evening, officials reported that the fire had scorched around 3,000 hectares (approximately 7,400 acres). Firefighters on the ground and in the air were working to contain the flames, which ignited around 3 p.m.
Residents had to be evacuated (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Strong winds carried the smoke over Madrid, turning the skies orange and filling the air with haze throughout the afternoon. Much of Spain remains under heat and wildfire alerts, with temperatures in Madrid reaching 37°C (100°F) on Thursday.
Europe is warming faster than any other continent, with average temperatures rising at twice the global rate since the 1980s, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Experts warn that climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of heatwaves and droughts, increasing the risk of wildfires across the region.
This summer so far has been a particularly bad one for wildfires across Europe, with many countries in the south of the Continent becoming tinder-box dry after months of intense heat.
“Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal,” declared U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres via Twitter from Seville, Spain, earlier this summer. Echoing his oft-repeated plea for dramatic measures to curb climate change, Guterres proclaimed: “The planet is getting hotter & more dangerous — no country is immune.”
The extreme heat poses a significant threat to life. In 2023, a record-breaking heatwave in Europe claimed 61,000 lives. According to William Spencer, climate and first aid product manager at the British Red Cross, “Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and getting worse because of climate change.
“Sadly, we have seen cases already this year of the tragic impact high temperatures can have on human life. High temperatures make it harder for the body to cool itself and we all need to take care to manage the health risks of heat. If you are travelling to a country experiencing extreme heat, there are several steps you can take to keep yourself and others safe.”
As mercury levels soar, the newly launched early warning system, Forecaster.health, is set to be a game-changer. This pioneering pan-European platform offers real-time predictions on the mortality risks associated with temperature changes, tailored for various demographics.
Holidaymakers worried about the scorching weather can now assess their personal health risks before jetting off. Before you pack your bags for that much-needed getaway, be sure to check the weather forecast to stay ahead of any potential heat hazards.
Fears of exceptional heat as Foreign Office updates advice amid wildfire concerns for British tourists
15:43, 04 Jul 2025Updated 15:45, 04 Jul 2025
Tourists shelter from the sun in Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece. Concerns are rising about a ‘heat dome’ hitting the country (Image: Getty)
The South of Europe is bracing for a Heat Dome, which is predicted to extend its reach to Greece, bringing with it heatwave conditions from Sunday, July 6, 2025.
Early reports suggest that this heatwave will be relatively short-lived, but temperatures are expected to soar to a sweltering 42 or even 43 degrees Celsius next week.
Wednesday, July 9, is set to be the toughest day, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. In some areas, such as Halkida in Evia, the mercury will hit 42 degrees Celsius.
Following a brief respite with cooler than average temperatures, the heat is set to return with a vengeance, as a five-day heatwave is forecasted, with high temperatures lingering for several days.
However, relief is in sight, with a significant drop in temperatures expected from Thursday, July 10 Keep Talking Greece reported.
Open TV’s meteorologist Klearhos Marousakis predicts a sharp rise in temperature from Monday to Thursday, July 7-11, due to a westerly current entering Greece, acting as a windbreak for the eastern mainland. He forecasts peak temperatures of 40 to 42 degrees Celsius around Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
From Saturday, July 5, temperatures will gradually begin to climb as the meltemi (summer northern winds) depart the area and the pressure difference decreases. The very dry wind levels are expected to persist until Friday, July 5.
The Foreign Office has updated its travel advice – with concerns rising about an outbreak of wildfires in the dry country. It said: “There is a high risk of wildfires during the summer season from April to October. Ensure that your mobile phone is registered to receive emergency alerts to be warned of wildfires near your location.
“Wildfires are highly dangerous and unpredictable. The situation can change quickly.”
To avoid starting wildfires:
leave no litter, especially not glass which is known to start fires
make sure cigarettes are properly extinguished
do not light barbecues
Causing a wildfire or a forest fire is a criminal offence in Greece – even if unintentional. If you see a fire, call the emergency services on 112.
Be cautious if you are in or near an area affected by wildfires:
call the Greek emergency services on 112 if you are in immediate danger
contact your airline or travel operator who can assist you with return travel to the UK
Meanwhile, Europe experienced its first major heatwave of the summer this week, with Barcelona recording its hottest June in over a century and Paris reaching scorching temperatures.
Samantha Burgess, from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, stated that the unusually hot weather “is exposing millions of Europeans to high heat stress”, with temperatures more akin to those usually seen in July and August.
Barcelona’s Fabra Observatory reported a record-breaking average temperature of 26C for last month, the highest since records began in 1914.
Ramon Pascual, a representative for Spain’s weather service in Barcelona, told the Associated Press that the “very intense heatwave” is undeniably linked to global warming.
Mr Pascual pointed out that the rising sea temperatures are not helping those living in the Mediterranean region, as they significantly reduce any cooling effects from nearby bodies of water.
Spain’s weather service reported that recent surface temperatures for the Mediterranean near the Balearic Islands are 5-6C above average.
Spain’s national average for June was 23.6C, which is 0.8C hotter than the previous hottest June in 2017.
Madrid was expected to hit a sweltering 39C.
In Paris, temperatures were predicted to reach a staggering 40C. The national weather agency, Meteo-France, placed several departments under the highest red alert.
Over 1,300 schools were either partially or fully closed due to the heat.
Visitors to the Eiffel Tower without tickets were left disappointed as the landmark closed due to the extreme heat.
Visitors were advised to delay their plans as the summit was temporarily shut down until Thursday for “everyone’s comfort and safety”.
Climate specialists are sounding the alarm, predicting that future summers could outdo all previous records, with scorching highs over 40C becoming an annual occurrence by the century’s end.
Italy’s health ministry has reported a heatwave gripping 17 out of its 27 key cities.
Florence felt the brunt of the heat on Tuesday, with mercury hitting 38C, leading to a city centre blackout due to a surge in power usage. Energy giant Enel confirmed that power was swiftly restored thanks to emergency systems.
Tragedy struck near Bologna where a 46 year old construction firm boss succumbed while working on a school car park, with state broadcaster RAI attributing his collapse to the intense heat, pending autopsy results.
In Soest, Netherlands, local fire services announced they’d be joining a water gun battle with a real fire hose, teasing on social media: “Bring your water pistol and swimming clothes with you, because you’re guaranteed to get soaked!”.
Portugal’s meteorological authority confirmed a record-breaking high for June in mainland Portugal, with Mora, west of Lisbon, scalding at 46.6C on June 29.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s firefighters are battling blazes for the third day running, leading to the evacuation of around 50,000 people.
Spain has seen the most recent cases of the disease as experts say one activity ‘drastically increases’ the risk of catching it
One of the early symptoms of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever is a severe headache(Image: Getty)
New cases of a killer virus have been detected in holiday hotspots loved by British tourists – and experts have warned it could reach the UK. It’s been described as the current biggest threat to public health, after breaking out in Iraq and Namibia.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), has also caused two reported deaths in Pakistan – with several cases reported in Spain. Last week, insiders speaking to Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee revealed it was “highly likely” there could soon be cases in the UK.
In its most recent report the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said a case of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever was recetnyl reported in Spain with the illness ‘known to be circulating among animals in this region and human CCHF cases have been previously reported in the area.”
In the eight years to 2024 a total of 16 autochthonous CCHF cases have been reported in Spain with dates of disease onset between April and August. The province of Salamanca is a hotspot for CCHF, with 50% of the cases being exposed to ticks.
It adds that in certain conditions in Spain people are much more likely to catch Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever: “This risk drastically increases for people performing activities that expose them to tick bites (e.g. hunting, forestry work, hiking, animal surveillance).
The UK Heath Security Agency has said it is estimated that globally between 10,000 and 15,000 human infections, including approximately 500 fatalities, occur annually, although this is likely to be an underestimate as many cases.
Confirmed CCHF cases have been imported into the UK, including one fatal case in 2012 and one in 2014. In March 2022, a CCHF case was reported in the UK following an initial positive test result.
To prevent CCHF:
Use DEET-containing insect repellent to prevent tick bites.
Wear gloves, long sleeves, and pants when handling animals where CCHF is found.
Avoid contact with body fluids of potentially infected animals or people.
“As a general precaution against CCHF, but also against other tick-borne diseases, people who may potentially be exposed to ticks should apply personal protective measures against tick bites. In 2023 experts speaking to Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee revealed it was “highly likely” there could soon be cases in the UK.
During the hearing, James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, said CCHF could find its way to the UK “through our ticks, at some point”. The disease is caused by Nairovirus, a condition that is spread by ticks and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and has a fatality rate of between 10 and 40 percent. Typically, the condition is found at small stages in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and in Asia, reports the Express. However, the disease could be expanding out of its usual territories and moving towards the likes of Britain and France due to climate change.
WHO noted CCHF was among its nine “priority diseases”, a system that lays bare the biggest public health risks. CCHF was first described in the Crimea in 1944, among soldiers and agricultural workers, and in 1969 it was recognised that the virus causing the disease was identical to a virus isolated from a child in the Congo in 1956. Humans (and possibly non-human primates) are the only animal species known to manifest severe clinical CCHF disease.
Symptoms of CCHF
Among the virus’ symptoms include headaches, high fever, back and joint pain, stomach ache, and vomiting. Red eyes, a flushed face, a red throat, and petechiae (red spots) on the palate are also common.
In severe cases, WHO warns, jaundice, mood swings and sensory perception are encountered. As the illness progresses, large areas of severe bruising, severe nosebleeds, and uncontrolled bleeding at injection sites can be seen, beginning on about the fourth day of illness and lasting for about two weeks.
In documented outbreaks of CCHF, fatality rates in hospitalised patients ranged from nine percent to as high as 50 percent. The long-term effects of CCHF infection have not been studied well enough in survivors to determine whether or not specific complications exist. However, recovery is slow.
Globally, there have been case reports, virological or serological evidence of human infection in at least 55 countries. In the European Region and its neighbouring countries, locally acquired human cases and/or outbreaks have been reported from Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Russia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. Spain officially reported its first autochthonous case in August 2016, the first in Western Europe, following their first detection of CCHFV infected ticks in 2010. At the end of October 2023, French officials reported the detection of CCHFV in H. marginatum ticks collected from cattle in the eastern Pyrénées, which was the first time the presence of the virus in tick populations had been confirmed in the country.
The intensity of the Turkey wildfires has grown as the week continues, with more than 50,000 people having to flee their homes from across İzmir and surrounding provinces
(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes as ferocious wildfires rage across Turkey.
For the past three days, forest fires whipped up by robust winds have wreaked havoc in İzmir, which sits in the west of the country in an area loved by British tourists. Those flying into the region have captured videos of the sky burning orange above the city of 2.9 million, with great plumes of smoke billowing up off the tinder-box dry countryside.
The intensity of the fires has grown as the week continues, with more than 50,000 people having to flee their homes from across İzmir and surrounding provinces.
In Sakarya, 230 people have had to leave behind two neighborhoods, while seven villages have been deserted by 609 people in Bilecik. İzmir’s Seferihisar district is the worst-impacted. There, 42,300 have had to flee an area that is made up of 80% summer houses, CNN Türk reported.
Helicopter pilots and on-the-ground firefighters are working side-by-side with teams of citizens who are determined to save as much of their land and as many of their homes as possible. They used tractors with water trailers and helicopters carrying water to douse the charred hillsides.
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry İbrahim Yumaklı said that 342 forest fires have broken out since Friday.
Mr Yumaklı said on Monday that the blaze was fanned overnight by winds reaching 40-50 km/h in Kuyucak and Doğanbey areas of İzmir. The first fire broke out on Sunday between the districts of Seferihisar and Menderes in İzmir, spreading rapidly due to winds of up to 117 km/h, according to Governor Süleyman Elban.
Residents in the village of Ürkmez were forced to cut trees to create firebreaks and protect their homes.
On Sunday, no flights could land at or take off from Adnan Menderes Airport, which serves the coastal city of İzmir, for several hours. The airport’s departure board showed all flights due to leave on Sunday evening were either suspended or canceled.
Since then, the airport has been running as normal, with the departures and arrivals boards today showing no delays or cancellations.
The area was also hit by wildfires last year, as were many of Turkey’s other coastal areas. It is likely that this will become a more and more regular occurrence in the country, as climate change increases the irregularity of weather patterns and raises temperatures.
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Turkey is not the only European country impacted by blazes this week. Right now, a sweltering ‘heat dome’ is sitting across swathes of Europe including France, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey, with forecasts from European meteorologists warning that more roasting days are on the horizon.
“Extreme heat is no longer a rare event — it has become the new normal,” declared U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres via Twitter from Seville, Spain, where the mercury was projected to soar to a blistering 42 Celsius by Monday afternoon.
Echoing his oft-repeated plea for dramatic measures to curb climate change, Guterres proclaimed: “The planet is getting hotter & more dangerous — no country is immune.”
Kuwait City is one of the hottest places on Earth and the scorching heat is causing chaos for both humans and wildlife as our planet continues to face the realities of climate change
Kuwait City, once known as a blissful “Marseilles of the Gulf”, is now witnessing heat so extreme that animals are being cooked alive.
The Middle Eastern metropolis has become a clear indicator of the harrowing effects of climate change, with birds dropping dead from the scorching heavens and fish boiling in the water.
Back in the halcyon days, Kuwait City thrived as a bustling hub with a flourishing fishing industry and idyllic beaches that lured in basking holidaymakers. But now, it’s gripped by an overwhelming problem of potentially uninhabitable temperatures.
A staggering 54C (129F) was recorded on 21 July 2016 at Mitribah weather station, placing Kuwait third in the solar frying stakes with one of the globe’s most torrid temperatures. Even Europe’s former Cerberus Heatwave pales in comparison, trailing behind Kuwait’s zenith by a whole 10 degrees Celsius.
Dust storms are a regular occurrence in Kuwait City(Image: (Image: GETTY))
An ominous forecast looms as climate experts project that this desert country may blaze ahead with a temperature increase of up to 5.5C (10F) by century’s end relative to figures from the early 2000s. In 2023, the mercury spiked past 50C (122F) on nineteen occasions, a tally that’s feared might just be a starting point.
Urban development has transformed Kuwait City into a sweltering expanse of relentless concrete and asphalt, regions that are fast turning too fiery for safe habitation come summertime.
In further alarm, scientific records trace a downturn in annual precipitation, amplifying fierce dust storms that whip through the increasingly arid nation. The scorching heatwave has led to harrowing scenes with birds dropping dead from the sky and seahorses cooked alive in the bay, as even robust pigeons seek respite from the sun’s relentless blaze.
With temperatures soaring to a life-threatening 50C, which is a staggering 13C above human body temperature, the risks of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and cardiac complications escalate dramatically.
In an unprecedented move, Kuwait has permitted nocturnal funerals due to the unbearable heat, while the wealthy retreat into their air-conditioned sanctuaries, be it homes, offices, or malls.
This extreme weather has spurred the creation of futuristic structures like an indoor shopping avenue, complete with palm trees and European-style boutiques, offering shoppers an escape from the brutal climate.
While the locals take refuge indoors, the pigeons have to settle for the shade(Image: (Image: GETTY))
A 2020 study revealed that a massive two-thirds of domestic electricity consumption is attributed to the relentless use of air conditioning.
Writing for ExpatsExchange, Joshua Wood praised Kuwait for its “high quality of life” in a “modern, luxurious and safe” environment but cautioned about the intense heat, describing it as “very hot from May through September” and reaching “insanely hot” levels during the peak summer months of June to August.
Despite the sweltering heat, the streets are far from deserted. Migrant workers, predominantly from Arab, South and South East Asian nations, constitute about 70% of the country’s population.
Many people are enticed to move to Kuwait and work in sectors like construction or household services. These workers populate the steaming public buses of the capital city and crowd the streets.
Research conducted in 2023 by the Institute of Physics indicated that migrant workers can be particularly vulnerable to adverse health effects due to exposure to severe temperatures. The study suggests that by the end of the century, climate change could lead to a rise in heat-related deaths by 5.1% to 11.7% across the entire population, and even up to 15% among non-Kuwaiti individuals.
Kuwait City has become quite startlingly hot(Image: (Image: GETTY))
Warnings about the planet are often overlooked, yet in Kuwait where the devastating effects of climate change are already evident – the carbon footprint is enormous – only Bahrain and Qatar’s is higher.
While neighbouring countries have committed to significant reductions in emissions, Kuwait’s pledges seem insignificant in comparison. At COP26, the country announced it would only reduce emissions slightly (7.4%) by 2035.
Kuwaiti government officials predict that energy demand will triple by 2030. This is largely due to the anticipated increase in the use of indoor cooling systems.
The government footing a large portion of the electricity bill has led to a lack of incentive for people to curb their usage. Water consumption follows a similar pattern due to energy-intensive processes.
Environmental expert Salman Zafar highlighted the potential consequences of global warming for Kuwait, stating: “Kuwait could be potentially facing serious impacts of global warming in the form of floods, droughts, depletion of aquifers, inundation of coastal areas, frequent sandstorms, loss of biodiversity, significant damage to ecosystem, threat to agricultural production and outbreak of diseases.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday joined President Trump and congressional Republicans in siding with the oil and gas industry in its challenge to California’s drive for electric vehicles.
In a 7-2 decision, the justices revived the industry’s lawsuit and ruled that fuel makers had standing to sue over California’s strict emissions standards.
The suit argued that California and the Environmental Protection Agency under President Biden were abusing their power by relying on the 1970s-era rule for fighting smog as a means of combating climate change in the 21st century.
California’s new emissions standards “did not target a local California air-quality problem — as they say is required by the Clean Air Act — but instead were designed to address global climate change,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote, using italics to described the industry’s position.
The court did not rule on the suit itself but he said the fuel makers had standing to sue because they would be injured by the state’s rule.
“The fuel producers make money by selling fuel. Therefore, the decrease in purchases of gasoline and other liquid fuels resulting from the California regulations hurts their bottom line,” Kavanaugh said.
Only Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson disagreed.
Jackson questioned why the court would “revive a fuel-industry lawsuit that all agree will soon be moot (and is largely moot already). … This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens.”
But the outcome was overshadowed by the recent actions of Trump and congressional Republicans.
With Trump’s backing, the House and Senate adopted measures disapproving regulations adopted by the Biden administration that would have allowed California to enforce broad new regulations to require “zero emissions” cars and trucks.
Trump said the new rules adopted by Congress were designed to displace California as the nation’s leader in fighting air pollution and greenhouse gases.
In a bill-signing ceremony at the White House, he said the disapproval measures “will prevent California’s attempt to impose a nationwide electric vehicle mandate and to regulate national fuel economy by regulating carbon emissions.”
“Our Constitution does not allow one state special status to create standards that limit consumer choice and impose an electric vehicle mandate upon the entire nation,” he said.
In response to Friday’s decision, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said “the fight for fight for clean air is far from over. While we are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision to allow this case to go forward in the lower court, we will continue to vigorously defend California’s authority under the Clean Air Act.”
Some environmentalists said the decision greenlights future lawsuits from industry and polluters.
“This is a dangerous precedent from a court hellbent on protecting corporate interests,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. “This decision opens the door to more oil industry lawsuits attacking states’ ability to protect their residents and wildlife from climate change.”
Times staff writer Tony Briscoe, in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.
A five-year project with £15m of government funding aims to help residents impacted by the worsening threat of coastal erosion – as experts predict one seaside village will soon vanish
Coastal erosion is eating away at a popular UK seaside village(Image: SWNS / James Linsell-Clark)
A tiny UK seaside village famed for its rugged cliffs and sugar-like sand is in grave danger of vanishing into the sea.
Since the 1990s, more than 250 metres of coastline at Happisburgh, in Norfolk, has been eroded. If it continues at this alarming rate, the village as it is now will be underwater water in just 30 years.
It may sound like something out of an apocalypse film, but for residents quite literally living life on the edge – it’s a terrifying reality. “What’s happening in places like Happisburgh isn’t just a prediction – it’s a process that’s already underway,” explains climate analyst Dr Ian Richards. “Homes have collapsed, roads have disappeared and the cliff line is retreating faster than anyone expected.”
Over the next 100 years, it is predicted that more than 1,00 homes will be lost to erosion in North Norfolk(Image: SWNS / James Linsell-Clark)
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, a North Norfolk District Council spokesperson explained how the authority has been working tirelessly to protect the beaches and seaside communities that are threatened by erosion. Over the last 15 years, several coastal projects have sought to mitigate the worsening disaster and help locals impacted by crumbling cliffs.
“The council has been working with and will continue to work with partners such as the Environment Agency and the national government to maintain sea defences where possible,” they added. “Where this isn’t possible or feasible, the Council has been working with coastal communities to develop, prepare, and adopt more options to help those communities impacted by coastal erosion.”
Coastwise will help ‘roll back’ properties likely to impacted by erosion(Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror)
Coastwise – which started in 2022 and will run to 2027 as part of the Coastal Transition Accelerator Programme (CTAP) – is one of the only ongoing projects still trying to help residents adapt to the effects of erosion and climate change along a section of the North Norfolk coastline. It has received £15 million from Defra, as part of the government’s £200 million innovation fund, to help ‘transition and prepare’ coastal communities in the area.
“Coastwise will work with residents and businesses to prepare and plan for the long term,” the initiative states. “Some immediate changes will support the long-term resilience of communities near the coast.” These actions may include:
‘Rolling back’ property and facilities most likely to be affected by coastal erosion.
Improving and replacing damaged community facilities like beach access or coastal transport links.
Replacing public or community-owned buildings in areas at risk with removable, modular, or other building ideas.
Repurposing land in coastal erosion zones for different uses, such as creating temporary car parks or restoring natural habitats.
Despite Happisburgh’s bleak future – the village is still popular with tourists(Image: Getty Images)
“Actions may also include working with the finance and property sectors to explore funding methods to help move communities away from fast-eroding areas,” Coastwise added. “For example, schemes to encourage the relocation of at-risk infrastructure for businesses and homeowners.”
After the project ends, it is hoped that communities in North Norfolk feel they have a ‘more sustainable future’ and can access support helping them move away from risk. The initiative also aims to give the council enough resources and capability to ‘assess, find funding, manage and deliver effective adaptation and transition options to its communities’.
While Coastwise will not provide compensation for homes lost to erosion, it may be able to offer financial support for residents needing to transition out of the coastal erosion risk area. At the moment, there are around 600 properties in Happisburgh, homing some 1,400 people.
Despite Happisburgh’s bleak future, the Parish Council says tourists should ‘definitely visit’ the village. “It is a wonderful holiday destination with a fabulous beach and is a beautiful village,” a spokesperson added.
This attitude has also been adopted by locals, including Maria Jennings – a B&B owner who is confident the village’s environmental challenges won’t put off tourists just yet. “We know the risks, but we also know the beauty,” she said. “People come here to relax, enjoy the beach and walk the coast. Most understand the situation – they just want to enjoy it while they still can.”
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As California positions itself as a leader on climate change, former Los Angeles mayor and gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa is pivoting away from his own track record as an environmental champion to defend the state’s struggling oil industry.
Villaraigosa’s work to expand mass transit, plant trees and reduce carbon emissions made him a favorite of the environmental movement, but the former state Assembly speaker also accepted more than $1 million in campaign contributions and other financial support from oil companies and other donors tied to the industry over more than three decades in public life, according to city and state fundraising disclosures reviewed by The Times.
Since entering the race last year to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, Villaraigosa has accepted more than $176,000 from donors with ties to the oil industry, including from a company that operates oil fields in the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles County, the disclosures show.
The clash between Villaraigosa’s environmentalist credentials and oil-industry ties surfaced in the governor’s race after Valero announced in late April that its Bay Area refinery would close next year, not long after Phillips 66 said its Wilmington refinery would close in 2025.
Villaraigosa is now warning that California drivers could see gas prices soar, blasting as “absurd” policies that he said could have led to the refinery closures.
“I’m not fighting for refineries,” Villaraigosa said in an interview. “I’m fighting for the people who pay for gas in this state.”
The refineries are a sore spot for Newsom and for California Democrats, pitting their environmental goals against concerns about the rising cost of living and two of the state’s most powerful interest groups — organized labor and environmentalists — against each other.
Villaraigosa said Democrats are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in their approach to fighting climate change.
He said he hoped no more refineries would close until the state hits more electrification milestones, including building more transmission lines, green-energy storage systems and charging stations for electric cars. The only way for the state to reach “net zero” emissions, he said, is an “all-of-the-above” approach that includes solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear power and oil and gas.
“The notion that we’re not going to do that is poppycock,” Villaraigosa said.
Villaraigosa’s vocal support for the oil industry has upset some environmental groups that saw him as a longtime ally.
“I’m honestly shocked at just how bad it is,” said RL Miller, the president of Climate Hawks Vote and the chair of the California Democratic Party’s environmental caucus, of the contributions Villaraigosa has accepted since entering the race in July.
Miller said Villaraigosa signed a pledge during his unsuccessful run for governor in 2018 not to accept campaign contributions from oil companies and “named executives” at fossil-fuel entities. She said he took the pledge shortly after accepting the maximum allowable contributions from several oil donors in 2017.
Miller said that more than $100,000 in donations that Villaraigosa has accepted in this gubernatorial cycle were clear violations of the pledge.
That included contributions from the state’s largest oil and gas producer, California Resources Corp. and its subsidiaries, as well as the founder of Rocky Mountain Resources, a leader of the oil company Berry Corp., and Excalibur Well Services.
“This is bear-hugging the oil industry,” she said.
Environmental activists view the pledge as binding for future campaigns. Villaraigosa said he has not signed it for this campaign.
The economy is dramatically different than it was in 2018, Villaraigosa said, and working-class Americans are being hammered, which he said was a major factor in recent Democratic losses.
“We’re losing working people, particularly working people who don’t have a college education,” he said. “Why are we losing them? The cost of living, the cost of gas, the cost of utilities, the cost of groceries.”
Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said such statements are consistent with Villaraigosa’s messaging in recent years.
“Villaraigosa is squarely in the moderate lane in the governor’s race. That doomed him in 2018, when voters wanted to counterbalance President Trump and Villaraigosa was outflanked by Newsom,” Kousser said. “But today, even some Democrats may want to counterbalance the direction that they see Sacramento taking, especially when it comes to cost-of-living issues and the price of gas.”
He added that the fossil-fuel donations may not be the basis for Villaraigosa’s apparent embrace of oil and gas priorities.
“When a politician takes campaign contributions from an industry and also takes positions that favor it, that raises the possibility of corruption, of money influencing votes,” Kousser said. “But it is also possible that it was the politician’s own approach to an issue that attracted the contributions, that their votes attracted money but were not in any way corrupted by it. That may be the case here, where Villaraigosa has held fairly consistent positions on this issue and consistently attracted support from an industry because of those positions.”
Other Democrats in the 2026 governor’s race, including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, former state Controller Betty Yee and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, have signed the pledge not to accept contributions from oil industry interests, Miller said.
Former California Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and businessman Stephen Cloobeck have not. (Cloobeck has never run for office before and has not been asked to sign.)
Other gubernatorial candidates have also accepted fossil-fuel contributions, although in smaller numbers than Villaraigosa, state and federal filings show.
Becerra accepted contributions from Chevron and California Resources Corp., formerly Occidental Petroleum, while running for attorney general. Atkins took donations from Chevron, Occidental and a trade group for oil companies while running for state Assembly and state Senate. And while running for lieutenant governor, Kounalakis took contributions from executives at oil and mining companies.
Campaign representatives for the two main Republican candidates in the race, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton, said they welcomed oil-industry donations.
Villaraigosa is a fierce defender of his environmental record dating back to his first years as an elected official in the California Assembly.
As mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013, Villaraigosa set new goals to reduce emissions at the Port of Los Angeles, end the use of coal-burning power plants and shift the city’s energy generation toward solar, wind and geothermal sources.
The child of a woman who relied on Metro buses, he also branded himself the “transportation mayor.” Villaraigosa was a vocal champion for the 2008 sales tax increase that provided the first funding for the extension of the Wilshire Boulevard subway to the Westside.
But, he said, Democrats in 2025 have to be realistic that the refinery closures and their goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions could disproportionately affect low-income residents who are already struggling to make ends meet.
Villaraigosa’s comments underscore a broader divide among Democrats about how to fight climate change without making California even more expensive, or driving out more high-paying jobs that don’t require a college education.
Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who became the leader of the California Labor Federation in 2022, said that while climate change is a real threat, so is shutting down refineries.
“That’s a threat to those workers’ jobs and lives, and it’s also a threat to the price of gas,” Gonzalez said.
California is not currently positioned to end its reliance on fossil fuels, she said. If the state reduces its refining capacity, she said, it will have to rely on exports from nations that have less environmental and labor safeguards.
“Anyone running for governor has to acknowledge that,” Gonzalez said.
Villaraigosa said that while the loss of union jobs at Valero’s Bay Area refinery worried him, his primary concern was over the cost of gasoline and household budgets.
His comments come as California prepares to square off yet again against the Trump administration over its environmental policies.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to revoke a federal waiver that allowed California to set its own vehicle emission standards, including a rule that would have ultimately banned the sale of new gas-fueled cars in 2035. Villaraigosa denounced the vote, but said that efforts to fight climate change can’t come at the expense of working-class Americans.
President Trump has also declared a national energy emergency, calling for increased fossil-fuel production, eliminating environmental reviews and the fast-tracking of projects in potentially sensitive ecosystems and habitats. The Trump administration is also targeting California’s environmental standards.
Villaraigosa, an Eastside native, started his career as a labor organizer and rose to speaker of the state Assembly before becoming the mayor of Los Angeles. Now 72, Villaraigosa has not held elected office for more than a decade; he finished a distant third in the 2018 gubernatorial primary.
Over the years, donors affiliated with the fossil-fuel industry have contributed more than $1 million to Villaraigosa’s political campaigns and his nonprofit causes, including an after-school program, the city’s sports and entertainment commission and an effort to reduce violence by providing programming at city parks during summer nights, according to city and state disclosures.
More than half of the contributions and support for Villaraigosa’s pet causes, over $582,000, came during his years at Los Angeles City Hall as a council member and mayor.
In 2008, billionaire oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens donated $150,000 to a city proposition backed by Villaraigosa that levied a new tax on phone and internet use.
Pickens made the donation as his company was vying for business at the port of Los Angeles, which is overseen by mayoral appointees and was seeking to reduce emissions by replacing diesel-powered trucks with vehicles fueled by liquid natural gas.
The rest of the contributions and other financial support flowed to Villaraigosa’s campaign accounts and affiliated committees while he served in the Assembly and during his two gubernatorial runs. These figures do not include donations to independent expenditure committees, since candidates cannot legally be involved in those efforts.
Villaraigosa said that while such voters don’t subscribe to Republicans’ “drill, baby, drill” ethos, he slammed the Democratic Party’s focus on such matters and Trump instead of kitchen-table issues.
“The cost of everything we’re doing is on the backs of the people who work the hardest and who make the least, and that’s why so many of them — even when we were saying Trump is a threat to democracy — they were saying, yeah, but what about my gas prices, grocery prices, the cost of eggs?” he said.
Times staff writer Sandra McDonald in Sacramento contributed to this report.
Throughout his 2024 campaign for president, Donald Trump strongly and repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, the political platform document authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.
“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during a debate with former Vice President Kamala Harris last September. He said he had not read the document, nor did he intend to.
Yet less than six months into his second stay in the White House, the president and his administration have initiated or completed 42% of Project 2025’s agenda, according to a tracking project that identified more than 300 specific action items in the 922-page document. The Project 2025 Tracker is run by two volunteers who “believe in the importance of transparent, detailed analysis,” according to its website.
Of all the action items, nearly a quarter are related to the environment through agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, and the departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Energy. Further, it seems the environment is a high priority for the Trump administration, which has initiated or completed about 70% of Project 2025’s environmental agenda — or roughly two-thirds — according to a Times analysis of the tracked items.
That includes Project 2025 action items like rolling back air and water quality regulations; canceling funds for clean energy projects and environmental justice grants; laying off scientists and researchers in related fields; and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, an agreement among nearly 200 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.
When asked about this overlap, the administration continued to downplay any connection between the president and Project 2025.
“No one cared about Project 2025 when they elected President Trump in November 2024, and they don’t care now,” White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said in an email. “President Trump is implementing the America First agenda he campaigned on to free up wasteful DEI spending for cutting-edge scientific research, roll back radical climate regulations, and restore America’s energy dominance while ensuring Americans have clean air and clean water.”
Project 2025 refers to climate change as an “alarm industry” used to support a radical left ideology and agenda.
“Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs,” it says in a chapter about the EPA.
That same chapter also recommends that the president undermine California’s ability to set strict vehicle emission standards, which Trump vowed to do shortly after taking office; the Senate this week voted to revoke California’s rights to enact policy on the issue.
Gunasekara did not respond to a request for comment.
Matthew Sanders, acting deputy director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford, said these and other Project 2025-mandated moves could have far-reaching ramifications. He noted that 11 other states had chosen to follow California’s emission rules.
“What California does impacts what the rest of the nation does,” Sanders said. “In that sense … decisions about how to effectuate the Clean Air Act mandates are technology-forcing for much of the nation, and isolating California and eliminating its ability to do that will have profound consequences.”
The EPA isn’t the only agency affected by environmental policy changes mirrored in Project 2025.
Sanders said actions on public lands are particularly consequential, not only for the extraction of resources but also for protected species and their habitats. The president has already taken Project 2025-mandated steps to lessen protections for marine life and birds, and has called for narrowing protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act.
He also expressed concern about Trump’s Jan. 20 proposal to revise or rescind National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations that require federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions — a step recommended on page 60 of Project 2025.
While the president described NEPA and other rules as “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” that limit American jobs and stymie economic growth, Sanders said such framing is an oversimplification that can make the environment a scapegoat for other administrative goals.
“When we make these decisions in a thoughtful, careful, deliberate way, we actually can have jobs and economic development and environmental protection,” he said. “ I don’t think that those things are inherently opposed, but the administration, I think, gets some mileage out of suggesting that they are.”
Indeed, the Commerce Department, which houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service and other climate-related entities, has also seen changes that follow Project 2025’s playbook. The document describes the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”
These are some of nearly 70 environmental action items identified in the Project 2025 Tracker, of which 47 are already completed or in progress less than 150 days into President Trump’s second term.
Tracking the administration’s progress is a somewhat subjective process, in part because many of the directives have come through executive orders or require multiple steps to complete. Additionally, many goals outlined in Project 2025 are indirect or implied and therefore not included in the tracker, according to Adrienne Cobb, one of its creators.
Cobb told The Times she read through the entire document and extracted only “explicit calls to action, or recommendations where the authors clearly state that something should be done.”
“My goal was for the tracker to reflect the authors’ intentions using their own words wherever possible,” she said. “By focusing on direct language and actionable items, I tried to create a list that’s accurate and accountable to the source material.”
Though the Trump administration continues to deny any connection to Project 2025, the creators of the massive tome were always clear about their presidential intentions.
“This volume — the Conservative Promise — is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts wrote in its forward. “Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, and agencies, commissions, and boards.”
Europe is a popular tourist destination for many people around the globe, but one common travel destination is sinking, and people fear it will ‘end up like Atlantis’
A popular European city is sinking and some people have compared it to ‘Atlantis’ (stock photo)(Image: AFP/Getty Images)
One favourite European hotspot is going underwater, and travel fans fear it could vanish just ‘Atlantis.’ The iconic city Venice is built on over 100 small islands and intersected by 177 canals, and it is sinking.
Located in northeastern Italy and serving as the capital of the Veneto region, Venice is best explored on foot or by boat due to its car-free policy. This unique characteristic draws flocks of tourists to the Italian gem. However, BBC Future warns that due to subsidence and rising sea levels, Venice is at “real risk of being consumed by the sea”. The outlet even suggests that in the worst-case scenario, the city could “disappear beneath the waves by as early as 2100”.
This alarming situation has led to comparisons with Atlantis, the legendary lost island described by ancient Greek philosopher Plato.
Jennifer Napolski shed more light on the issue in a TikTok video. A voiceover in the clip states: “Venice is an ancient city that once had the most powerful people, materials and power in Europe.”
It goes on to mention Piazza San Marco, the main public square in Venice, and St Mark’s Basilica, some of the city’s most famous attractions.
The voiceover concludes: “However, today, due to climate change, the foundations of Venice are sinking. The sea level is rising and Venice’s life is coming to an end.
“Perhaps in 50 years this miracle on the sea will sink to the bottom of the sea. By then the charming streets, romantic century-old buildings and dreamy islands in the water will disappear onto the sea.
“If you have the opportunity, you must take your family to visit this disappearing city.” Venice grapples with flooding during certain seasons due to “acqua alta”, which translates to “high water.”
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This flooding is caused by a mix of high tides, wind conditions like the Adriatic’s sirocco winds, and low atmospheric pressure causing waters from the Venetian Lagoon to inundate the city.
Flooding is most likely between October and December but can happen at other times depending on the weather. Rising sea levels due to climate change are making the flooding worse, but there is a ray of hope for Venice.
The city awaits the completion of the Mose (Experimental Electromechanical Module) project to save itself from sinking.
The initiative includes putting in place 78 moveable gates to act as sea barriers which will hopefully help prevent severe floods.
Jennifer’s TikTok footage showing Venice under water has sparked almost 3,000 comments as travel fans express their worries over the fate of the enchanting city. One user ominously predicted: “One day they will talk about Venice like we talk about Atlantis.”
Another mused: “What if Atlantis was a prophecy instead of historical fiction?” A third voiced: “Venice underwater. About to be the new Atlantis.”
Someone who has visited Venice shared: “I was there 10 years ago and it was NOT this flooded.” Another user expressed their concern: “This is kind of terrifying for the people who have lived there for generations.”
Someone else commented: “It’s so sad that it could disappear I love Venice. I’ve been there so many times.”
