More than 400,000 people evacuated, hundreds of flights cancelled and many roads shut due to flooding and winds
Typhoon Bebinca struck the east coast of China this week, making landfall near Shanghai, a city of almost 30 million people, on Monday. Bebinca developed into a typhoon to the east of the southern Japan islands late last week, before traveling westwards through the East China Sea and making landfall in Shanghai at approximately 7.30am local time (00.30BST).
The Chinese media say it is the strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai in 75 years. Wind speeds were reported to have reached just over 150km/h (about 94mph), making it equivalent to a category 1 hurricane, albeit just shy of a category 2 in strength. Before Bebinca, Shanghai had been hit directly by only two typhoons, one in 1949 and another in 2022, as they usually track further south.
Continue reading...
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/20/2024 - 02:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
Continue reading...
09/20/2024 - 01:34
Do fish feel despair or longing? Do they yearn for a simpler time?
Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints
Continue reading...
09/20/2024 - 01:00
Since last week, wildfires have been raging in central and northern Portugal. At least seven people have died and 50 have been injured. More than 5,000 firefighters have been mobilised to battle the blazes
Continue reading...
09/20/2024 - 00:00
Four bridges will allow herds to pass beneath public footpaths while visitors may catch glimpse of bison from above
When Europe’s heaviest land mammals were introduced into a woodland on the edge of Canterbury, it was hoped they would flourish and make space for other wildlife.
But the European bison have been so successful in West Blean and Thornden Woods that more space must be made for them – in the form of Britain’s first ever bison bridges.
Continue reading...
09/19/2024 - 23:00
The country, which has more 300 days of sunshine a year, has embraced rooftop systems that harness the sun’s energy
The Thriamvos company truck pulls up at noon outside the four-storey building in the heart of Nicosia.
It’s the third rooftop installation of a solar-powered water heating system that Petros Mihali and his assistant, Soteris, have made in the Cypriot capital since their working day began at 7am.
Continue reading...
09/19/2024 - 23:00
In a Guardian interview, Tony Juniper says housebuilding plans could be an opportunity to create ‘wild belts’ around cities to help habitat and species recovery
The collapse in British butterfly populations is a “warning from nature” about the resilience of the UK’s ecosystems, says England’s nature chief, raising concerns about threats to national food security as the planet continues to heat.
Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, says new data showing a sharp fall in butterfly populations this summer was probably the consequence of habitat loss and the use of pesticides, making the insects less resilient to extreme weather fluctuations: the scorching heat and wetter weather driven by global heating.
Continue reading...
09/19/2024 - 14:00
Student-led analyses raise concerns of conflict of interest at six universities, including Princeton, Columbia and Cornell
Prestigious US universities are raking in millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests, raising concerns about conflicts of interest. And one university even appears to have owned a petroleum company from which it has earned millions of dollars, according to a spate of new reports produced by student organizers.
The six analyses, released Wednesday, focus on American University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Princeton University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and University of California, San Diego. They were written by campus organizers at each respective institution and released by Campus Climate Network, an international student-led coalition that is pushing colleges to cut ties with big oil.
Continue reading...
09/19/2024 - 12:00
Around the US, policies empower school staff to view an unpaid food tab as proof of possible abuse
Earlier this year, administrators at South Mebane elementary in North Carolina sparked outrage – and a rushed community fundraising effort – after they issued a terse warning to parents in a school newsletter: students with lunch debt would not be allowed to attend an upcoming dance.
Community members donated more than $4,000 in three days to ensure no students were excluded. But while the newsletter raised worries that students in the Alamance-Burlington school system might be singled out for money problems, the district’s meal policy contains a far more serious warning to families: repeated failure to pay for school meals can result in a referral to child welfare services for neglect.
Continue reading...
09/19/2024 - 10:00
Ken Done, Jonathan Zawada, Blak Douglas and others created companion pieces to children’s works celebrating sharks and rays. They’re now on display at the Australian Museum
Continue reading...
