Activists stage a demonstration near the Houses of Parliament asking the government to reject any proposed plans for Rosebank oilfield. Photograph: Denise Baker/Getty Images
Critics debunk economic claims as research finds Rosebank development would produce estimated 250m tonnes of CO2
Scores of Labour MPs have urged the prospective prime minister Andy Burnham to rule out the “tin-eared” and “deluded” development of the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea, which new research indicates would produce as much carbon dioxide as the UK does in 10 months.
Estimates seen by the Guardian show that Rosebank, which mainly contains oil, would produce about 250m tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime. That is the equivalent of about 70% of the UK’s annual emissions.
Last week’s record-breaking heatwave, which may return next week as the weather turns hotter again, showed the folly of exploiting the field, according to many MPs, who argue it would not bring down the price of fuel and would do little for the UK’s economy.
Mike Reader, the Labour MP for Northampton South, said: “Opening up the North Sea would be tin-eared while we’re dealing with record-breaking heat, and the second energy spike in four years caused by our over-reliance on oil and gas. Anyone who thinks this is a good time to take our focus off clean, secure power is frankly deluded.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Colorado residents fill out cards and share their stories for content to send to congressional representatives regarding healthcare cuts and the Affordable Care Act during an event called “Don’t Let the Ghouls Gut Our Healthcare!” on November 1, 2025 in Northglenn. (Photo by Tom Cooper/Getty Images for Economic Security Project)
“As working families continue to get squeezed left and right by GOP-driven healthcare cost hikes and bureaucratic red tape, millions more Americans will lose the care they rely on to stay alive and healthy.”
On the heels of data revealing that millions of people have lost health insurance coverage during US President Donald Trump’s second term amid a series of GOP attacks on access to care, polling published Monday shows that a majority of Americans support eliminating private insurers.
The 1,606 adult US citizens surveyed by The Economist/YouGov June 26-29 were asked: “Do you support or oppose a national health plan in which all Americans get their health insurance from the federal government and private health insurance companies are eliminated?”
Fifty-two percent expressed support, and the proposal was even more popular than that among respondents under age 45 as well as registered Democrats and Independents. Just 30% of those polled were opposed, while the rest said that they were “not sure.”
The polling follows the administration’s quiet release of data showing that 4.2 million lost Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage as of February. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have come under fire for letting ACA subsidies expire at the end of last year—as well as for enacting the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to leave more working-class Americans uninsured over the next decade. Already, Protect Our Care estimates that 3.8 million people have lost coverage under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, bringing the total for Trump’s term to around 8 million.
“A mind-boggling number of Americans have found themselves joining the ranks of the uninsured,” Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said in a Tuesday statement. “And this is just the beginning. As working families continue to get squeezed left and right by GOP-driven healthcare cost hikes and bureaucratic red tape, millions more Americans will lose the care they rely on to stay alive and healthy.”
“These are diabetic patients rationing insulin and parents skipping cancer screenings,” he continued. “These are small business owners and farmers shutting down their life’s work because they can no longer afford to buy insurance on their own. These are moms, veterans, and seniors. These are the millions who will hand Trump and Republicans in Congress a withering rebuke at the ballot box in November for making healthcare unaffordable so they could make billionaires and big corporations richer.”
As premiums soar and Americans begin to endure the consequences of the national Republican healthcare agenda, a sweeping coalition of groups that support a universal single-payer system declared earlier this month that “now is the time for Medicare for All.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) have repeatedly introduced the Medicare for All Act in Congress, and support for it has grown among elected Democrats and the US public—as suggested by the new polling.
In a statement about the healthcare findings, the pollsters explained:
While eliminating insurance companies may sound like a radical change to healthcare, the share of Americans who want to replace private insurance with a government health plan (52%) is larger than the share who want to expand the existing Obamacare (the health coverage system established by the Affordable Care Act) (38%). The share who favor repealing Obamacare (28%) is about as large as the share who oppose replacing private insurance with a government plan (30%).
Americans who support a national healthcare plan do not universally see expanding Obamacare as a step in the right direction. Only a little more than half (56%) of the Americans who support creating a national health plan also support expanding Obamacare. On the other hand, most Americans who support expanding Obamacare would also support a national health plan that replaces private insurance (77%).
Although “only 8% of Americans would describe themselves as socialists,” which is “smaller than the shares who describe themselves with several other ideological adjectives offered in a poll question, including progressive (17%), liberal (23%), and conservative (34%),” the pollsters also noted, “many policy proposals championed by democratic socialists draw significant support from Americans.”
For example, majorities of respondents endorsed the government covering the cost of college tuition for all students (55%) and building public housing (57%).
When asked, “Do you think Donald Trump has had the right priorities or hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems?” 60% of respondents said the president “hasn’t paid attention to the most important problems.”
The polling comes just over four months away from the November midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to reclaim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Some Democratic candidates, including US Senate hopefuls Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, are explicitly running on support for Medicare for All.
After multiple progressives running to represent various New York districts in the US House of Representatives won their primaries last week, Sanders called their victories proof that Americans “are sick and tired of status quo politics,” while Jayapal similarly celebrated that “bold, people-powered candidates took on the Democratic establishment and won.”
“They ran on Medicare for All. On a public option for housing. On a foreign policy that centers human dignity over political convenience. And they won,” Jayapal said. “This is what happens when movements build power. People-powered movements win.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss rotting brain. Front Orca says “Wish someone would lock him up”.
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Israeli soldiers carrying rifles patrol a street during a raid on Balata Refugee Camp in Nablus, West Bank, Palestine, on June 18, 2026. [Nedal Eshtayah – Anadolu Agency]
The Israeli army on Thursday confirmed the authenticity of a widely circulated image showing a Palestinian detainee being abused by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Anadolu reports.
The image shows the detainee lying face down, blindfolded and bound with wire, with an iron rod strapped to his back.
The image sparked widespread criticism on social media and renewed calls from human rights advocates for an independent investigation into the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody.
The confirmation came in a statement carried by Israel’s Army Radio, which quoted an unnamed military spokesperson after the image circulated widely on social media.
Blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back, a widely circulated image of a Palestinian detainer from Gaza is being described as a stark depiction of violations against Palestinian prisoners.
“The army confirms that the footage published on Palestinian networks over the past 24 hours, showing a man from Gaza handcuffed, tied to a bed, blindfolded, and with a rod tied to his back, is real footage that occurred in the Gaza Strip,” the spokesperson said.
Army Radio published the image but provided no details about where or when the incident occurred.
The image renewed attention to the harsh detention conditions and abuse of Palestinian detainees held by Israel.
According to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups, about 9,500 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, where detainees face torture, starvation, and medical neglect that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of prisoners.
Israel has waged a genocidal war on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 73,000 Palestinians and injuring more than 173,000, according to Palestinian figures, while widespread destruction has affected about 90% of the enclave’s civilian infrastructure.
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“With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months.”
A new report released Wednesday shows that surface temperatures of the world’s oceans hit a record for June, sparking fresh warnings of grave “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems” across the globe.
The analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Marine Service, and confirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), finds that “record global sea surface temperatures” of 21.0° Celsius (69.8° Fahrenheit) in June of 2026 beat the previous record in the same month broken in 2023 and again in 2024.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo warned that the “current conditions” of the oceans “could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory.”
“With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months,” Buontempo warned. “That Copernicus Marine data reaches the same conclusion through independent methods speaks to the strength of European science—and to why open, robust data matters now more than ever.”
According to a statement from Copernicus, warmer oceans have wide-ranging impacts on natural systems and human infrastructure, noting that “higher ocean temperatures keep the atmosphere warm for longer, provide extra energy to storms and increase evaporation, thus enhancing the potential for extreme precipitation and flooding. Ocean warming also contributes to sea level rise and ice melt, and stresses marine ecosystems.”
With the onset of a new El Niño cycle—which tends to trigger more pronounced weather events worldwide—the continued increase of ocean temperatures is a serious concern of scientists.
Wednesday’s report on ocean temperatures also arrives as record-breaking heat waves hit both Europe and North America, offering more evidence of the perils of an ever-hotter world that is being pushed to the brink by the burning of fossil fuels and the failure of governments worldwide to finally act against the fossil fuel industry that is driving the crisis.
Surging ocean surface temperatures are “not unexpected,” Michael Meredith, an ocean scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in response to the Copernicus report. “But the pace of warming we are now seeing is alarming.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
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The United States announces that the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, carrying 3,500 U.S. troops, has reached the area of responsibility of U.S. Central Command in the Middle East on March 2026. [US CENTCOM/Handout – Anadolu Agency]
The Iranian army warned on Thursday that the continued presence of US manned and unmanned military aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz threatens regional security and vowed a “swift and decisive” response to any American interference in the strategic waterway.
In a statement carried by the semi-official Fars News Agency, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the continued presence of US fighter jets and drones over the Strait of Hormuz “has caused insecurity in this waterway and will threaten regional security.”
Iran “will not hesitate to take any action” to repel “any aggression and violation by the US military and its supporters in defense of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.”
“Any American interference in the Strait of Hormuz will be met with a decisive and swift response from the armed forces,” the statement said
The headquarters described the Strait of Hormuz as “the sovereign territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and that the security and stability of the strategic waterway constitute “a red line” for the country’s armed forces.
It also reiterated that all oil tankers and commercial vessels must use the navigation route designated by Iran when transiting the strait.
According to the statement, any vessel failing to comply with Iran’s designated route or navigation protocols will face “an immediate and forceful response” from the armed forces and risk its own security.
Iran and the US reached the memorandum of understanding on June 18 called for extending the ceasefire reached earlier for 60 days, lifting the US naval blockade on Iran, and the full reopening of Strait of Hormuz.
Technical negotiations to implement the memorandum and agree on a final deal that will also include consensus on the status of Iran’s nuclear program continue under joint Qatari-Pakistani mediation.
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