Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Record rainfall in famously arid California park has caused a wildflower eruption nearing levels of a superbloom Death Valley and parts of southern California have erupted in wildflowers thanks to record rain that helped deliver spectacular blooms. In the famously arid national park, the rare display has covered miles of the landscape in vibrant shades of yellow and purple. Continue reading...

Fines for illegal dumping decreased over past year with only 0.2% of incidents resulting in court action Fly-tipping incidents across England have reached the highest level since current records began, with most offences continuing to involve household waste. In 2024-25, 1.26m fly-tipping incidents were recorded by local authorities, an increase of 9% on the 1.15m reported in the year before, according to data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Advocates often assume communities of color just don’t know any better when it comes to eating healthy I met the man I’ll call Randy Johnson 13 years ago, as I began research in South Central Los Angeles. I’m an anthropologist who explores how people think about food and use food in their everyday lives. As executive director of a large food justice organization focused on K-12 education throughout the city, Randy was a key source. He talked to me about South Central’s status as a food desert, where its majority Latinx and Black residents had little access to groceries or healthy food. A middle-aged white man, Randy told me of his work in South Central, which centered around encouraging school-age children to eat more fresh vegetables. He described South Central as a wasteland of sorts. “There is just nothing there,” he said, pointing to the common but false idea that there were no grocery stores there. He then pivoted to talking about the residents. “I see them having almost zero education when it comes to [making healthy eating choices]. They don’t know that what they’re eating is destroying them slowly. It’s just that we, as a society, have failed our citizens to educate them that they shouldn’t be buying the fries every day.” Hanna Garth is assistant professor of anthropology at Princeton University Continue reading...

President derided Biden’s ‘green new scam’ during State of the Union address, and hailed the rise in US oil production Trump didn’t say the words “climate change” during the State of the Union, but it loomed large over his 108-minute speech as he touted his “drill, baby, drill” agenda and derided Joe Biden’s “green new scam”. Toward the beginning of his address, the president discussed last year’s flooding at Camp Mystic in Texas, saying they were “one of the worst things I’ve ever seen”. Continue reading...