| Last year was the world's hottest on record, with average temperatures higher than the 2015 Paris Accord target of 1.5C above pre-industrial times. Experts say a single year does not mean the world has reached that level of global warming overall, but warn that climate change appears to be accelerating faster than expected. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has asked cabinet colleagues to draft alternative plans to boost growth, says The Times, amid concerns that market turmoil is derailing Labour's economic strategy. The cost of government borrowing has reached a 30-year high, surpassing even the peaks around Liz Truss's mini-budget. Two more lynx have been spotted on the loose in the Scottish Highlands. The wild cats were seen in the Cairngorms National Park, close to where another pair of lynx were captured yesterday after being illegally released into the wild. All four are thought to be from the same family group. | | |  | Greenland: worth a few bob. Getty |
| Greenlanders should sell up to Donald Trump | Donald Trump's efforts to get Denmark to sell him Greenland have prompted predictable uproar, says The Economist. But the reality is that a sale, if Greenlanders agreed to it, could be the "deal of the century" for everyone involved. For the US the gains are obvious. Greenland sits in a strategically important area between America and Russia, which is fast becoming more navigable as Arctic ice melts. Controlling the territory would bolster America's national security, and probably that of its Nato allies. Greenland also has "immense" resource wealth: perhaps the largest deposits of crucial rare earth metals outside China, and an estimated 52 billion barrels of oil reserves. These resources have been relatively untapped, but the warming climate is making them more accessible. | Many would argue that Greenlanders should "go it alone". But natural resource bonanzas are often a recipe for corruption, and it will surely be hard for the island's 56,000 inhabitants to govern effectively with such an enormous windfall – "imagine an English town council being given Saudi Arabia's oilfields". Selling up to Washington would bring "the full might of America's administrative and security apparatus". It would also, if the price is right, make residents very rich indeed: the US "could probably make every Greenlander a multi-millionaire and still benefit enormously from the purchase". You never know, if a referendum were held they might just go for it. Trump should retract his threat of force and "try putting some red meat in front of the polar bear". | | | | Advertisement | | Vintage Acquisitions specialises in Scotch Whisky Cask investment, offering clients a unique opportunity to own part of Scotland's liquid gold heritage. They provide a comprehensive service that includes access to award-winning distilleries, HMRC-licensed storage, insurance, and flexible exit strategies. In 2025, this is an attractive investment for its tax advantages and potential for appreciation in value as the whisky matures. Clients benefit from personalised guidance, ensuring their portfolio aligns with their financial goals, making it a sophisticated choice for collectors and investors alike. To find out more about investing with Vintage Acquisitions click here. |
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| Plants and animals are adapting to humanity's influence in remarkable ways, says Patrick Greenfield in The Guardian. Cliff swallows, which often nest under bridges, have developed shorter wings, reducing the risk of being hit by passing cars. Magpies repurpose anti-bird spikes as protection for their own nests against crows and other egg-thieving predators. Many female African elephants in Mozambique and Tanzania no longer grow tusks, because their tuskless forebears were less likely to be targeted by poachers. And to cope with warmer temperatures in cities, urban snails have evolved to have shells with paler colours. |
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| | | | | People claim the Pakistani perpetrators in the rape gangs scandal can't be deported because of the European Convention on Human Rights, says Douglas Murray in The Spectator, but that's "pure diversion". Italy and France are also signatories of the convention, but "when they need to act they just do so". In 2023, the French deported the 39-year-old Uzbek national Mukhsinjon Akhmedov in direct contravention of an ECHR ruling. The Italian government expels people it regards as "not conducive to the public good" pretty much every year. Why can't we? | | |  | 007's revolving number plate in Goldfinger (1964) |
| Motorists in New York have been deploying some ingenious "DIY tactics" to avoid the city's new congestion charge, says the New York Post. Some cover up or modify a single digit on their licence plate by scratching it, painting over it or even sticking a bolt through it. Others use a "translucent goo" that renders it harder for the toll cameras to read. A few even use "plate-flippers" that rotate the licence plate at the press of a button from inside the car, as on James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger. | | | | Enjoying The Knowledge?
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| | |  | Japanese straggler Hiroo Onoda finally being led out of the jungle in 1974. Jiji Press/AFP/Getty |
| Come on professor, the war's over | When Japan surrendered at the end of World War Two, not everyone got the memo, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. Unaware that the war was over, Hiroo Onoda, a lieutenant in the imperial army, carried on fighting in the jungles of the Philippines for another 29 years. I was reminded of this story when I read that the universities of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent had published a review into their own historic links to the slave trade, in which they denounced "racially unbalanced" curriculums and declared that degree courses should no longer focus on the "undertakings of white people". Of course, we've read countless stories of this kind in recent years. But it's 2025. Don't these universities know the war is over? | All that hysterical hand-wringing about the supposed need to "decolonise" academia was just a panicked middle-class response to the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020. Even in the leftiest circles it's now all about Gaza and why it's "far-right" to prosecute rape gangs. "BLM is distinctly passé." Yet, like Hiroo Onoda, these poor oblivious academics are fighting fruitlessly on. I wish someone would take them to one side and gently break the news. "Professors! Stop! It's over!" Even the Americans aren't bothering with this self-flagellating tripe any more. And if some "purple-haired student nitwit" moans about studying the undertakings of white people, politely explain that your university is British, and almost all the major figures in British history were, "shocking though it may seem", white. And since this student couldn't work that out, "he or she clearly isn't intelligent enough to be at university in the first place". | | |  | Matthias and Noemi at work in the Netflix series Call My Agent |
| Encouraging remote workers to return to the office is proving just as much of a challenge in France as it is in Britain, says the Daily Mail. But a new survey should remind French WFHers of what they're missing: an impressive 25% of forty and fifty-somethings in France admit that they have had "carnal relations" at work. Favoured locations for le rumpy pumpy include the office itself, the lift, and, rather less glamorously, the stairwell. | | | Elon Musk – world's richest man, CEO of six billion-dollar companies and newest member of the Trump court – has somehow found the time to become one of the top-ranked players of the video game Diablo IV, says The Wall Street Journal. Devotees of the demon-slaying fantasy game say reaching the level Musk did in November would normally involve "sitting all day, every day, at your computer playing". The billionaire recently shared a video of himself completing one of the hardest levels in under two minutes, captioned: "So many life lessons to be learned from speedrunning video games on max difficulty." | | | | | | It's the modest suburban home used as Walter White's family abode in Breaking Bad, which has gone on sale for the first time since the series aired, says The Independent. The four-bedroom house in Albuquerque, New Mexico featured extensively in the hit series, but that has come at a cost for homeowner Joanne Quintana: she says around 300 die-hard fans drive past the property every day, some of whom throw pizzas on the roof to recreate a famous scene. She has stuck it on the market for $4m – 10 times the average house price in the area – saying: "We're done." Put your offer in here. | | | "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
Albert Einstein |
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