Agriculture department cuts to funding for local food in school meals betrays growers, kids and collective wellbeing
“If you happened to smell hickory smoke in the city this week, we were probably to blame,” the North Little Rock school district’s child nutrition program shared in a 30 January Facebook post featuring a picture of the day’s lunch.
The locally sourced menu included school-smoked chopped beef, pulled pork, fresh apples and coleslaw. This isn’t standard cafeteria fare, but funds from the US government helped kids in this Arkansas town get fresh, nourishing foods produced by farmers and ranchers in their own community.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
03/19/2025 - 12:00
‘Ghost kitchens’, fast casual and higher prices: how the pandemic changed the US restaurant industry
03/19/2025 - 12:00
Americans eat takeout more. Some drink less. Bar-and-grill chains have shuttered. But the restaurant industry has evolved and rebounded
Before Covid, Li’l Dizzy’s, a Creole buffet run by one of New Orleans’ famous Black restaurant families, was a mainstay of the city’s Treme neighborhood. But when officials issued the first Covid stay-at-home orders in March 2020, Li’l Dizzy’s closed, and it did not reopen: how could a buffet restaurant operate during a pandemic?
That fall, the cafe’s 73-year-old owner, Wayne Baquet Sr, announced he was selling the restaurant, citing his age and pandemic health risks. The closure appeared to mark the end of a Baquet culinary family legacy that started in Treme in the 1940s and expanded to other family outposts across the city.
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03/19/2025 - 10:48
Scotland’s first minister speaking as report suggests up to 1,200 jobs could be created – but too late for refinery’s workers
There is a realistic chance that one of the UK’s largest oil refineries can be converted into a hub for green chemicals, sustainable fuels and plastics, Scotland’s first minister says.
Grangemouth oil refinery, which is being shut down by its UK and Chinese owners PetroIneos this year with the loss of 400 jobs, could become a world leader in low carbon chemicals and green fuels, John Swinney told media on Wednesday.
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03/19/2025 - 09:00
Increased cost of the fossil fuel has also cut forecasts of how much gas will be needed in Australia’s southern states
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High gas prices and a shift towards running homes and businesses on electricity has helped delay an expected gas shortage in Australia’s southern states until 2028, a government agency says.
A report by the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) said the increased cost of the fossil fuel and trend towards electrification had combined with mild winters to reduce gas use.
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03/19/2025 - 05:54
Thousands sign petition to save ‘vital’ Dartington Estate project that teaches agroforestry methods
Even at this time of year when most of the trees are still bare, there is a feeling of abundance in Martin Crawford’s forest garden, close to the banks of the River Dart in Devon.
Crawford, who has nurtured this landmark garden for three decades, is clearly in his element, pointing out the edible plants that flourish in the tangly two-acre patch, stooping from time to time to pick a leaf or green shoot and take a nibble.
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03/19/2025 - 05:00
Moves to roll back 31 pollution regulations risk public health and big annual healthcare savings, Guardian analysis shows
A push by Donald Trump’s administration to repeal a barrage of clean air and water regulations may deal a severe blow to US public health, with a Guardian analysis finding that the targeted rules were set to save the lives of nearly 200,000 people in the years ahead.
Last week, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provoked uproar by unveiling a list of 31 regulations it will scale back or eliminate, including rules limiting harmful air pollution from cars and power plants; restrictions on the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin; and clean water protections for rivers and streams.
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03/19/2025 - 01:00
Litter such as crisp packets and bottle tops are polluting the coast at the rate of nearly two items a sq metre, conservation charity report finds
Single-use plastic waste increased on UK and Channel Island beaches last year with items such as crisp packets and bottle tops polluting the coast at the rate of almost two items a sq metre, according to data from beach cleanups.
The amount of plastic waste collected on beaches rose by 9.5% in 2024, compared with 2023, and more than three-quarters of a million pieces of waste were picked up by volunteers, according to evidence from the State of our Beaches report by the Marine Conservation Society.
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03/19/2025 - 00:00
Academics say UK defendants should be able to explain reasons for their actions and not have to express remorse
Protesters charged with non-violent offences should not be forced to disavow their motives when defending themselves at trial or seeking mitigation on their sentences, academics have said.
In a challenge to the current approach to protest trials, a study argues courts should allow defendants to explain the reasons for their actions as a defence, and respect their integrity as a mitigating factor.
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03/19/2025 - 00:00
I drove 2,000 miles with a French friend across my home country – and saw the endless nowhere land that is the crucible of Trumpism
In 1941 Dorothy Thompson, an American journalist who reported from Germany in the lead-up to the second world war, wrote an essay for Harper’s about the personality types most likely to be attracted to Nazism, headlined “Who Goes Nazi?” “Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t – whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi,” Thompson wrote.
Talia Lavin, a US writer, recently gave Thompson’s idea an update on Substack with an essay of her own: “Who Goes Maga?”
Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe correspondent
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03/18/2025 - 20:45
The potential layoffs listed in documents reviewed by Democrats are part of the White House'’s broader push to shrink the federal government
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants.
As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists – 75% of the research programme’s staff – could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the house committee on science, space and technology.
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