News Atlas

GuardianOct 5Preview

Is it true that … houseplants freshen the air in our homes and offices?

If you want to seriously oxygenate your rooms with greenery, you’re going to need a lot of space‘Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen when they photosynthesise,” says John Tregoning, a professor at Imperial College London and author of Live Forever? A Curious Scientist’s Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death. “If you’ve got enough of them, they should produce more oxygen than there was initially.”It’s tempting to think of plants as a kind of natural air filter, cleaning the air in stuffy, poorly ventilated spaces. But the reality is different. Continue reading...

Kate LloydLife and styleHouseplants

GuardianOct 5Preview

Putin's escalating bombing campaign won't break Ukrainians' resolve. History shows that it's doomed to fail | Rajan Menon

As winter approaches and the fifth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion looms, it’s worth remembering that this mode of warfare rarely crushes moraleVladimir Putin’s army hasn’t made much headway in Ukraine this year, and his territorial goals – annexing four Ukrainian provinces – remain elusive, despite more than four and a half years of war. That explains his recent efforts to sap Ukrainians’ will to resist by launching relentless drone and missile strikes against their cities – targeting, among other sites, residential buildings, large open-air markets, shopping malls, the Dobrobut medical centre and the National Academy of Sciences, both in Kyiv. The capital has been hit the hardest, but other cities – Dnipro, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy – haven’t been spared.Air-raid sirens pierce the quiet of night. People scramble to shelters (assuming there are any nearby) or,

Rajan MenonUkraineRussia

GuardianOct 5Preview

Forty years of the Phantom of the Opera - the show that wouldn’t die: ‘People come back to hear the impossible’

As Andrew Lloyd Webber’s enduring gothic melodrama celebrates its 40th birthday, producer Cameron Mackintosh and cast members from down the years recall what makes it so specialThere is something about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterly musical The Phantom of the Opera – celebrating 40 years on the West End this month – which seems to take hold of its fans in a special way. For me, it was the show that first sparked my love of theatre and inspired me to work in the industry. Even today, Phantom is still the memory that gets my heart racing as I sit in the stalls, waiting impatiently for the curtain to come up, hoping for an experience just as intoxicating and all-consuming as that very first experience all those years ago.It’s not just the fans, either. When I talk to a cluster of key creatives, all of whom have a special working relationship with the show, each of them seems a little spellb

Miriam GillinsonMusicalsAndrew Lloyd Webber

GuardianOct 5Preview

Authorities issue shark warning over whale that swam 11km upstream in Clarence River and later died

Juvenile humpback was spotted near Bundjalung national park in what experts say is a rare but not unprecedented eventGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWhile the case of a whale found 11km upstream in a New South Wales river this weekend was unusual, it was not unprecedented, experts say.The juvenile humpback, which swam into the Clarence River on the state’s mid-north coast and later died, was towed out to sea on Sunday, according to NSW authorities. Continue reading...

Petra StockAustralia newsWhales

GuardianOct 5Preview

Revealed: the methane mega-leaks from UN climate summit host Turkey

Exclusive: Cop31 leader calling for global curbs on climate-heating gas has landfills producing some of world’s worst plumesTwo or three nights each week, the smell descends. Residents of villages on the rural outskirts of Istanbul don’t know what the smell is, but they have been plagued by it for years: a smell so bad they have to sleep with their windows closed even during hot summer nights. They know the source, too: the huge Silivri municipal waste dump a few miles away that is belching out stinking gases as food and other organic waste rots.“The smell is not subtle. It suffocates you,” said Kemalettin Özenç, sitting outside a tea shop in the village of Yolçatı. “It’s worse when the air is still: sometimes families linger until midnight out here. Even when you go inside it’s inescapable.” Continue reading...

Damian Carrington and Ruth Michaelson and Ayça Aldatmaz in IstanbulGreenhouse gas emissionsClimate crisis

GuardianOct 4Preview

Green party votes to adopt policy that equates Zionism with racism

Motion calling for single Palestinian state, which is opposed by most Green MPs and expected to be challenged, passes by 1,022 votes to 813The Greens have formally adopted a policy that equates Zionism with racism and calls for Israel to be replaced by a single Palestinian state, a move opposed by the bulk of the party’s MPs and which is expected to face legal challenge.Zack Polanski, who heads the Greens in England and Wales and missed the vote at the party’s conference in Brighton to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, has faced criticism for a perceived lack of leadership on a hugely divisive issue. Continue reading...

Peter Walker Senior political correspondentGreen partyPolitics

GuardianOct 4Preview

More than 400 schools in France to be closed on Monday as more protests planned

Education minister says 24 schools have been burnt or ransacked and 78 staff members injured since student unrest began last monthEurope live – latest updatesMore than 400 schools in France will be closed or partly closed on Monday as authorities brace for another week of student protests.Lessons will be totally or partly suspended in 400 to 500 schools because security conditions “have not been fulfilled”, the education minister, Édouard Geffray, said on Sunday. Continue reading...

Rory CarrollFranceProtest

GuardianOct 4Preview

Trump wants control of South America. If Bolsonaro Jr wins in Brazil, that could become a reality | Steve Bloomfield

The US president has taken credit for far-right victories across Latin America, but those wins have had more to do with fears of gang crime than his meddlingDonald Trump has enjoyed very few foreign policy victories since returning to power. From failed wars to failed peace processes, his second term in office has been marked by one costly blunder on the world stage after another. In Latin America, though, the US president has a different story to tell.His administration’s national security strategy outlined how the US wanted to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”. It was a brazen document, laying out how his government would interfere in the political life of countries it considered part of its sphere of influence, rewarding governments and movements that are “broadly aligned with our principles and strategy”. Continue reading...

Steve BloomfieldBrazilDonald Trump

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