Members reportedly sought access to IT systems at agency that Project 2025 has called ‘harmful to US prosperity’
Staffers with Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) reportedly entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the Department of Commerce in Washington DC today, inciting concerns of downsizing at the agency.
“They apparently just sort of walked past security and said: ‘Get out of my way,’ and they’re looking for access for the IT systems, as they have in other agencies,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former Noaa official who is now a fellow at the University of New Hampshire. “They will have access to the entire computer system, a lot of which is confidential information.”
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/04/2025 - 20:11
02/04/2025 - 17:30
Labour pledges to protect 66,500 more properties, criticising previous Tory efforts
Ministers are topping up flood defence investment in England to a “record” £2.65bn, after accusing the previous government of “putting lives at risk” by under-spending.
An extra £250m is being pledged on top of the £2.4bn previously announced, to shore up defences and protect an extra 66,500 properties from flooding over a two-year period, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.
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02/04/2025 - 13:32
Exclusive: cross-party backing likely for amendment to GB Energy bill aiming to block solar panels made by forced labour
The government is facing defeat next week over a move to guarantee that companies using forced labour do not drive the UK’s green energy transition.
The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have thrown their weight behind an amendment by the cross-bench peer David Alton to the Great British Energy bill, which is making its way through the House of Lords.
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02/04/2025 - 13:18
New, groundbreaking research shows how, at a local scale, agricultural research and development led to improved crop varieties that resulted in global benefits to the environment and food system sustainability.
02/04/2025 - 12:31
Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree
The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”.
A new analysis by Hansen and colleagues concludes that both the impact of recent cuts in sun-blocking shipping pollution, which has raised temperatures, and the sensitivity of the climate to increasing fossil fuels emissions are greater than thought.
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02/04/2025 - 12:19
Deprived of Rachel Reeves’s affections, the energy secretary revelled in playing climate crisis hero to her villain
He lives!
They seek him here! They seek him there! For the last 10 days or so, Ed Miliband has been the Invisible Man. A large number of the cabinet were in Oxfordshire for Rachel Reeves’s growth speech last Wednesday. Ed was not.
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02/04/2025 - 11:39
Scientists say unusually mild temperatures linked to low-pressure system over Iceland directing strong flow of warm air towards north pole
Temperatures at the north pole soared more than 20C above average on Sunday, crossing the threshold for ice to melt.
Temperatures north of Svalbard in Norway had already risen to 18C hotter than the 1991–2020 average on Saturday, according to models from weather agencies in Europe and the US, with actual temperatures close to ice’s melting point of 0C. By Sunday, the temperature anomaly had risen to more than 20C.
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02/04/2025 - 10:09
Just 9,119 were counted in 2024 – down 96% on previous year and second-lowest mark in nearly three decades
The number of monarch butterflies spending the winter in the western United States has dropped to its second-lowest mark in nearly three decades as pesticides, diminishing habitat and the climate crisis take their toll on the beloved pollinator.
The butterflies, known for their distinctive orange-and-black wings, are found across North America. Monarchs in the eastern US spend their winters in Mexico, while monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains typically overwinter along the California coast.
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02/04/2025 - 09:46
Scientists taking samples from city’s river did not expect to find presence of under-threat molluscs
Traces of rare mussels sensitive to pollution and thought to be on the point of extinction in France have been discovered in the Seine in Paris, raising hopes that efforts to clean up the river that bisects the French capital might be succeeding.
The findings were made after Olympic swimming events were held in the Seine last year – the first time swimming in the river has been deemed safe in a century.
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02/04/2025 - 07:05
Video posted online is said to show Trump Jr with a ruddy shelduck while on hunting trip
Donald Trump Jr has been accused of killing a protected duck while hunting in the Venice lagoon.
Andrea Zanoni, a regional counsellor in Veneto, said a video of a hunting trip in northern Italy showed Trump Jr with the body of a rare ruddy shelduck (Tadorna ferruginea).
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