Rishi Sunak was dealt a series of shattering blows last night as Labour won a knife-edge battle to seize the West Midlands mayoralty from the Conservatives and Sadiq Khan trounced his Tory rival in London to secure a third term.

The results, along with decisive victories for Labour’s Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, Steve Rotheram in Liverpool and Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire, left Labour in charge of most of England’s mayoralties.

The West Midlands upset where Andy Street lost to Richard Parker by 1,508 votes, announced after a dramatic series of recounts, followed a disastrous showing for the Tories in Thursday’s local council elections. They finished third behind the Liberal Democrats in the number of seats won, for the first time since 1996.

The danger for Sunak is that Conservative MPs will now see the PM and the national party as having destroyed a successful and popular mayor in the West Midlands who was credited by many with boosting the region’s economy. Street’s fate was sealed despite him having done all he could to disassociate himself from the national Conservative party in his campaign for a third term.

After hours of frenzied speculation about the result in the West Midlands Conservative former home secretary Suella Braverman responded by saying it was time for Sunak to make bold offers to voters.

“Let me cut to the chase so no-one wastes time over-analysing this: we must not change our leader,” she said. “Changing leader now won’t work: the time to do so came and went. The hole to dig us out of is the PM’s, and it’s time for him to start shovelling.”

She said Tory voters wanted a reason to vote Conservative. “We need to be frank about this if we are to have any chance of fixing the problem,” she added, and urged Sunak to adopt “strong leadership, not managerialism” on tax, migration, the small boats and law and order.

Writing exclusively for the Observer, Labour leader Keir Starmer says that Sunak has no option but to call a general election immediately to avoid further damage being inflicted on the country by his paralysed government and deeply divided party.

“Tragically, Britain is now the victim of a zombie government, stuck in purgatory with a prime minister who won’t call an election he fears he’ll lose, but can’t give this country the change it deserves. Dragging this out will only cause more damage, more decline and more drift.”

Starmer said the results, in which Labour gained 185 council seats while the Tories lost 473, showed how all parts of the country were coming together behind a national project under Labour that would heal old divides, including those over Brexit and arguments around Scottish independence.

“My changed party is for anyone who loves this country, aspires for themselves and their family, and knows we can all do better than this.

“Winning the trust of people across past divides, such as leave and remain or yes and no in Scotland, is vital. Our country should demand a brighter future, and it’s only by coming together, we can secure it.”

Despite a late rush of wild speculation that he was in trouble in the race for the London mayoralty, Khan easily secured a third term, increasing his vote share to 44%, finishing 11% ahead of his Conservative rival Susan Hall. She had focused her campaign on attacking Khan’s decision to expand the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez).

In his victory speech at City Hall, Khan reinforced Starmer’s call for a general election. “For the last eight years, London has been swimming against the tide of a Tory government,” he said. “And now, with a Labour party that’s ready to govern again under Keir Starmer, it’s time for Rishi Sunak to give the public a choice.

“A general election will not just pave the path to a new direction for our country, but it will make bold action Londoners want to see a reality.”After Ben Houchen provided a rare positive result for the Conservatives on Friday by retaining the Tees Valley mayoralty, the Tories were pinning their hopes on Street hanging on in the West Midlands to provide them with a positive narrative of success from the regions.

But although Street had seemed to be edging ahead in a close contest until early yesterday afternoon, word then got out that Labour’s Parker had pulled off a sensational win but by such narrow margin that Street’s team had asked for recounts. The only full recount was in Coventry, while “bundle checks” were carried out across other parts of the West Midlands.

Parker said he would “make this region a roaring success again” and that his election shows “people are calling for Labour, and calling for change”.

He said: “This is the most important thing I will ever do, this week people here voted for the person and the party. They recognise that a Labour mayor can make a positive difference in this region.”

“You have put your trust in me and I will repay that trust – I will deliver for you and your family, I promise you that I will deliver jobs, we will fix our public transport system, we will build the homes you need and we will give this region the fresh start it richly deserves.”

He said he would stand up “in the face of unprecedented Tory cuts”, and added: “I will also stand up for those people who didn’t vote for me.

“It also means so much to our country, it shows that people are calling for Labour, and calling for change. People are looking once again at our party and asking us to govern, up and down the country.”

Starmer said Labour’s victory in the West Midlands mayoral election was a “phenomenal result’’ which was “beyond our expectations’’.

Labour’s deputy national campaign co-ordinator and Lewisham MP Ellie Reeves posted on X: “Congratulations RichParkerLab. An incredible result and significant victory.”

Rebel Tory MPs had been threatening to move against Sunak if the results were at the worse end of Tory expectation, but backed off after Houchen’s win on Friday. Now the threat to him may be reignited when MPs return to parliament on Tuesday.

Conservative MP Martin Vickers, a member of the executive of the 1922 committee of backbenchers, urged his colleagues to stop any talk of a coup and rally behind Sunak. “After 14 years, the chances are you are going to have a change of government, but you don’t give up on that basis. You fight against it, try to minimise losses and hope something turns up. Who knows what crises might occur during the next three or four months?”

In further ominous news, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows another fall in Sunak’s personal approval ratings, which plummeted by a further six points from a fortnight ago to -40. Starmer’s rating remained stable at -9. Overall, it showed that Labour has maintained a 16-point lead over the Conservatives.

With concerns growing over the threat from Reform UK – which almost pushed the Tories into third place in the Blackpool South byelection – Vickers has joined calls for Jeremy Hunt to announce further tax cuts is his autumn statement.

Another senior Tory on the right of the party said: “We just need more robust Tory policies, particularly on the visceral issues like crime and punishment, public order, immigration and asylum.”

However, writing in the Observer, Gavin Barwell, the former Tory MP and chief of staff to Theresa May in Downing Street, says that many of those eyeing the leadership did not want to take over now “and be blamed for the inevitable defeat”. He also argues that there is “probably nothing Sunak or anyone else can do to avert defeat” following the reputational damage inflicted on the Tory brand by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Labour won three of the eight police and crime commissioner elections declared yesterday, gaining Cheshire from the Conservatives and holding West Midlands and Merseyside.

The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by the Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. Ukraine’s military has acknowledged that Russia has gained a “foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says the fighting there is continuing.

Residents have scrambled to flee the village, among them a 98-year-old woman who walked almost 6 miles (10km) alone last week, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane, until she reached the Ukrainian frontline.

Not a single person is seen in the footage, and no building in Ocheretyne appears to have been left untouched by the fighting. Most houses, apartment blocks and other buildings look damaged beyond repair, and many houses have been reduced to piles of wood and bricks. A factory on the outskirts has also been badly damaged.

The footage shows smoke billowing from several houses and fires burning in at least two buildings.

Russia has in recent weeks also stepped up attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Four people were wounded and a two-storey civilian building was damaged and set ablaze overnight after Russian forces struck the north-eastern city with exploding drones, the region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said on Saturday.

The four people, including a 13-year-old, were hurt by falling debris, he said on the Telegram messaging app.

Moscow’s forces struck a drone warehouse in Kharkiv that had been used by Ukrainian troops, the Russian state agency RIA reported on Saturday, citing Sergei Lebedev, described as a coordinator of local pro-Moscow guerrillas. His comments could not be independently verified.

Russian forces continued hitting Kharkiv and its surroundings on Saturday, according to updates posted by Syniehubov and other Ukrainian officials on Telegram. One strike hit a civilian business in an industrial district of the city, wounding at least five people, Syniehubov said. A further attack killed a 49-year-old civilian outside his house in Slobozhanske, a village outside the city, the governor reported.

In the Black Sea port of Odesa, which has been repeatedly targeted in recent days, three people were hurt in a rocket attack on “civil infrastructure”, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

Ukraine’s military said Russia launched 13 Shahed drones at the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of eastern Ukraine overnight, all of which were shot down by Ukrainian air defences.

Ukraine’s energy ministry on Saturday said overnight strikes damaged an electrical substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region, causing a brief power cut.

According to Serhiy Lysak, the province’s governor, falling drone debris damaged critical infrastructure and three private houses, one of which caught fire. Two residents were hospitalised.

Russia’s defence ministry said early on Saturday that its forces shot down four US-provided long-range Atacms missiles over the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. The ministry did not provide further details.

Ukraine has recently begun using the missiles to hit Russian-held areas, including a military airfield in Crimea and in another area east of the occupied city of Berdiansk, US officials said last week.

Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly twice the striking distance – up to 186 miles – that it had with the mid-range versions it received from the US last October.

A Ukrainian drone also damaged telecommunications infrastructure on the outskirts of Belgorod, a Russian city about 31 miles from the Ukrainian border, according to the local governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, who did not say what the site was used for.

Hours later, Gladkov reported that five people in Belgorod were hospitalised, with shrapnel wounds and other injuries, after a strong blast on Saturday that also damaged about 30 private homes and caused two fires.

Extreme heat has gripped much of south and south-east Asia over recent weeks, killing dozens of people, forcing millions of students to miss school and destroying crops.

Both the Philippines and Bangladesh shut schools due to the unbearable heat last month, while governments across the region have issued health warnings. In Thailand, at least 30 people have died from heatstroke since the start of the year.

The extreme weather has seen durian fruit burst on trees in Thailand, destroyed rice crops and caused eggs to shrink, according to local media. The heat has even been cited as a factor that led to an ammunition blast in Cambodia that killed 20 soldiers at an army base last weekend.

Records have been broken across the region. Bangladesh experienced its hottest April ever recorded, with daily maximum temperatures between 2C and 8C hotter than the 33.2C average daily high for the month. In Myanmar, 48.2C was reached in the town of Chauk, in central Magway region – the hottest April temperature since records began.

In Vietnam, 102 weather stations reported record highs in April. Northern and central areas of the country experienced temperatures up to 4C higher than the same period last year, while seven stations recorded temperatures above 43C on Tuesday last week. Kolkata, in India, also reached 43C, the city’s hottest April day since 1954.

Dr Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said: “The frequency, intensity, duration and the area covered by these heatwaves are increasing over time. We are on a rollercoaster ride in terms of temperature, which is not going to come down any time soon. It’s going to be worse, which means we need to be prepared.”

Koll added that there was a need for governments to adapt – by developing policies to decide, for example, when schools should be shut or how to protect workers.

KC Libre, 15, is a student at Manuel Roxas high school in Manila, but she is currently studying at home after the school suspended in-person classes last week. “This is the first time that our classes have been suspended because of the hot weather,” she said. “We have 47 students in our class. Even with electric fans, it’s still hot, and usually there are only two electric fans switched on because ceiling fans in some of the rooms are broken.

“I feel irritated and can’t focus when it’s hot. The rooms are on the fourth floor, and so especially when I go up and down [the stairs], it’s really difficult … I won’t have even started writing yet but I’m already sweating.

“Even in our home it’s so hot. We don’t have aircon because we are not well-off. I do my school work at night because it’s less hot. In the morning, it’s as if extreme heat is blowing into you.

“The air coming from the electric fans is so hot … The heat inside of the oven … that’s what it feels like.”

Sae Klomkamnerd, 63, a farmer in Phichit province in Thailand, was forced to sell his 5,200 ducks as the extreme heat stopped them from laying eggs. “During the day, we would draw more groundwater to fill our pond, so the ducks can go in the water to cool down,” he said.

“But it’s still too hot; after 9 or 10 in the morning, the water becomes hot and they don’t want to get in any more. They just go in the shade and hide under the trees.

“In normal weather, 80-90% of the young ducks will lay eggs, but right now, when it’s so hot, it’s down to 60% or even down to 50%. In the case of the older ducks, the number of eggs is even down to 30%.”

He said the eggs the ducks did manage to lay were smaller than usual, meaning each tray of eggs weighed less and therefore fetched a lower price when sold. “I could only get 75 baht [£1.60] for those trays; in a good year, we could sell them for 100-105 baht per tray. This year is really awful, it’s really hard.”

Lay Samrach, 44, a construction worker in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, said: “I have never experienced this kind of heat. Other years were hot but this year it’s even hotter. When it’s too hot I can’t breathe.”

“Last year, we only took one break in the afternoon, but now we have up to three breaks in the afternoon because of the heat. I have to leave all my equipment in the shade. If I don’t do so it will break down my materials. Last year, I could leave my shovel out, but this year I can’t leave it out because I can’t use it if it’s so hot.”

AFP contributed to this report

Spain has denounced comments by Argentina’s presidency that accused the Spanish government of bringing “poverty and death” to its own people.

The office of the Argentinian president, Javier Milei, had published a statement on X, accusing the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, of damaging Spain’s economy and stability.

The post appears to have been in reaction to earlier comments from the Spanish transport minister, Óscar Puente, who had suggested, during a panel discussion in Salamanca on Friday, that Milei had ingested “substances” during last year’s election campaign.

Milei’s office released a statement on Saturday condemning the remarks while also attacking Sánchez.

It accused Sánchez of “endangering Spanish women by allowing illegal immigration” and undermining Spain’s integrity by making deals with separatists, an allusion to a pact Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ party struck with Basque and Catalan regionalist parties to form a government, while suggesting his leftist policies brought “death and poverty”.

That provoked a rebuke from the Spanish foreign ministry who said: “The Spanish government categorically rejects the unfounded words … which do not reflect the relations between the two countries and their fraternal people.”

After the election of Milei, a rightwing populist who took the helm in December, relations between Argentina and Spain, ruled by a left-wing coalition led by Saánchez’s Socialist Workers’ party, have significantly cooled.

Milei will travel to Spain in two weeks for an event on 18 and 19 May organised by the far-right opposition party Vox, which is in a race with the socialists in next month’s European elections.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

For Javier Torres and other workers whose jobs are conducted outdoors in south Florida, the heat is unavoidable. A new law recently signed by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, that prohibits any municipalities in the state from passing heat protections for workers ensures that it is likely to stay that way.

Torres has seen a co-worker die from heatstroke and another rushed to the emergency room in his years of working in construction in south Florida. He has also fallen and injured himself due to heat exhaustion.

“I work outdoors and have no choice but to work in the heat. I work often in painting and, in the majority of cases, we’re exposed to direct sun and we don’t have shade. Sometimes I feel dizzy and get headaches,” said Torres.

He said employers rarely provide workers with water, leaving workers to ensure they bring enough water to work or find a hose to drink from.

The effects of extreme heat on workers are only expected to worsen due to the climate crisis. Many parts of Florida experienced record heat last year. Orlando hit 100F (37.7C) in August breaking a record set in 1938. The National Weather Service recently issued its outlook for summer 2024, predicting Florida summer temperatures will be warmer than normal.

“The heat can be very intense, especially as we get closer to summer,” added Torres. “What we want as workers who labor outdoors is to have water, shade and rest breaks to protect ourselves.”

At the behest of agricultural industry lobbyists, DeSantis signed HB433 into law on 11 April, a bill scaling back child labor protections that also included an amendment prohibiting all local municipalities in Florida from enacting heat protections for workers.

The exemption came in response to efforts by farm workers in Miami-Dade county to pass heat protections, including proper rest breaks, access to water and shade, as increasingly warming temperatures have expanded the days farm workers are exposed to heat.

Ana Mejia, a farm worker, worked for 11 years at Costa Farms in south Florida where she said she experienced two serious heat stress incidents on the job. Costa Farms was included on the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s Dirty Dozen report of unsafe employers in 2024. Costa Farms declined to comment.

“I worked outdoors during my entire time at Costa Farms in temperatures that quite often exceeded 100 degrees,” said Mejia. “I had headaches, sweat excessively, my body would start to shake and tremble. I started to feel dizzy and a lack of coordination, and this feeling of shock and desperation. It was a very bad experience.”

She recounted having to be brought to onsite medical care, but only being given an electrolyte drink and finding no medical professional on site or called to help her.

“The high standards of meeting productivity quotas per day combined with working in high temperatures is putting us in danger,” added Mejia. “The rest breaks are at the discretion of supervisors and often they don’t want to give rest breaks because it will reduce the productivity of the business.”

There are currently no protections in the US for workers from heat. Only a handful of states such as California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Minnesota have passed any heat protections for workers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) is currently reviewing federal heat standard protections and issues fines against employers citing the general duty clause in cases where workers die due to heat stress, but worker groups have advocated that heat protections which include water, rest, shade, breaks and acclimatization are needed to save workers from heat illnesses and their lives.

Up to 2,000 workers in the US die every year due to heat stress, according to a 2023 report by Public Citizen.

Several business groups are lobbying against heat protections for workers at the federal level, and lobbyists aggressively pushed lawmakers to pass the Florida heat exemption bill.

Orlando Weekly reported on texts from corporate lobbyists to lawmakers urging them to pass the heat exemption bill before the end of the legislative session.

“I haven’t texted you in weeks–HEAT cannot die,” wrote Carol Bowen, a lobbyist for the Associated Builders and Contractors in a text message on 7 March to the House speaker Paul Renner’s chief of staff Allison Carter, the day before the last day of the legislative session when the bill was ultimately passed. “The entire business community is in lock step on this. Thank you for your attention to this concern.”

Ahead of a vote on the bill, the Florida chamber of commerce lobbyist Carolyn Johnson told Republican lawmakers their vote on the bill would be double-weighted on the How They Voted report the chamber sends to its members.

Jeannie Economos, an organizer with the Farmworker Association of Florida, said worker advocacy groups opposing HB433 were hoping the clock would run out for the bill to get passed by the state legislature. Several labor and environmental groups sent letters imploring DeSantis to veto the bill.

“It’s incomprehensible that people who live in Florida, and are supposed to represent the people of Florida, can vote against the health and safety of the workers that make this economy run, who were considered essential workers just a couple years ago and given PPE, are now treated like this, and not giving protection from extreme heat,” said Economos. “That makes no sense and it’s unconscionable.”

She said worker advocacy groups in Florida were regrouping and planned on developing strategies on how to override the Florida law, while continuing to advocate for heat protections at the federal level and conducting heat stress trainings for outdoor workers to protect themselves.

“For us right now, while HB433 is a setback to our campaign, we know the issue of extreme heat isn’t going away anytime soon,” said Oscar Londoño, executive director of the worker advocacy non-profit WeCount!, which has been pushing for heat protections for workers through its ¡Qué Calor! campaign. “We know that the issue is going to get even more and more relevant, and that workers will need to continue to do what is necessary to protect their lives on a job, whether that is through direct action, through workplace organizing, or through ongoing corporate campaign, workers will find a way to win the protection they deserve in Florida.”

Dozens of students at the University of Mississippi gathered this week to protest against Israel’s war in Gaza and to call for the state’s flagship university to be transparent in its potential dealings with Israel.

There were hundreds of counter-protesters, in contrast to the few dozen pro-Palestine protesters. The scene evoked memories of the resistance to the civil rights struggle in the US south six decades earlier.

The counter-protesters included individuals waving American flags and Trump flags. At one point, they sang the American national anthem, drowning out the pro-Palestine group’s chants. The Oxford Eagle reported that one person held a “Come and take it” flag while another flew a “Don’t tread on me” banner. The pro-Palestine students held signs reading “Jesus was a Palestinian”, “Stop the genocide,” and “Cut all ties with Israel”.

Less than an hour after the protest began, police disbanded it – notably after counter-protests threw items, including water bottles, at the pro-Palestine group. Police safely evacuated the pro-Palestine students as the largely white, male group of counter-protesters chanted, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye,” according to Mississippi Today.

Some university leaders and politicians around the US have used the term “outside agitator” to attempt to discredit student-led protests and movements. That label was also evoked frequently during the civil rights movement, during antebellum slavery and 19th and 20th century labour movements and to imply that protesters were motivated not by their own interests and beliefs, but by those of shadowy others.

At the University of Mississippi counter-protest, there were at least two individuals on campus who were reported to be not affiliated with the school, according to the Clarion-Ledger. One counter-protester said he was a student at Mississippi State University, about two hours away, and drove in for the protest. Another told the publication he was a student at the University of Georgia.

There were no arrests, but the actions of the counter-protesters – who shouted “Fuck Joe Biden”, “Who’s your daddy?”, “USA”, “Hit the showers”, “Your nose is huge”, and, in one instance, included a white man making monkey noises at a Black woman – have been widely condemned on social media.

The University of Mississippi’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People criticised the counter-protesters in a statement posted on Instagram.

“The behavior witnessed today was not only abhorrent but also entirely unacceptable,” the statement reads. “It is deeply disheartening to witness such blatant disregard for the principles of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression.”

The Mississippi governor Tate Reeves, who himself recently declared April as Confederate Heritage Month and April 29 as Confederate memorial day, celebrated the counter-protesters in a tweet that some say drew parallels to former Mississippi governor Ross Barnett, a proud segregationist.

Reeves captioned a video of the counter-protesters singing the American national anthem with “the ‘protests’ at Ole Miss today. Watch with sound. Warms my heart. I love Mississippi!”

In September 1962, Barnett spoke to an all-white crowd of over 40,000 at the University of Mississippi football game against Kentucky. As Confederate flags waved, Barnett said: “I love Mississippi. I love her people. Our customs. I love and respect our heritage.” The next day, an insurrection took place on campus as James Meredith enrolled, becoming the first known Black student in the university’s history.

In a separate tweet before the protest, Governor Reeves also echoed a statement made by Joe Biden the morning of the protests.

“Campus police, city, county, and state assets are being deployed and coordinated,” Reeves tweeted. “We will offer a unified response with one mission: peaceful protests are allowed and protected – no matter how outrageous those protesters’ views may seem to some of us. But unlawful behavior will not be tolerated. It will be dealt with accordingly. Law and order will be maintained!”

In Biden’s statements on the protests around the nation, he said: “We’ve all seen images, and they put to the test two fundamental American principles … The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld.”

UMiss for Palestine, the student group that organised the protest, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The group did share a statement on Instagram following the protest, saying the University of Mississippi “is playing host to US military officials who are complicit in the genocide of Palestinian people via an aerospace and defense conference”.

“Our vocal protest outside the library was a peaceful demonstration of our dismay with the behaviour of the university,” the statement continues.

“We were confronted by counter-protesters who engaged in blind reactionarism that had little to do with the genocide we were protesting as well as our demands. We condemn the hateful actions and rhetoric of the counter protesters, who threw food and made violent threats toward our protesters. We expected our first amendment rights to be better protected and were deeply ashamed that they were not.”

The University of Mississippi’s student newspaper, the Daily Mississippian, spoke with students in support of UMiss for Palestine’s efforts. A junior, named Xavier Black, said: “There’s a lot of dissension towards this kind of movement.”

“But as we’ve seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong,” he told the paper. “Time and time again, anytime there’s a student protest, and you’re against it, you’re on the wrong side of history. So I would like to be on the right side.”

Bumblebee nests may be overheating, killing off broods and placing one of the Earth’s critical pollinators in decline as temperatures rise, new research has found.

Around the world, many species of Bombus, or bumblebee, have suffered population declines due to global heating, the research said. Bumblebee colonies are known for their ability to thermoregulate: in hot conditions, worker bees gather to beat their wings and fan the hive, cooling it down. But as the climate crisis pushes average temperatures up and generates heatwaves, bumblebees will struggle to keep their homes habitable.

Most bumblebee broods would not survive at temperatures above 36C, the paper, published in Frontiers in Bee Science, concluded. The research team reviewed 180 years of literature, and found that for all bumblebee species studied the optimum temperature range for incubating nests was between 28C and 32C.

Peter Kevan, the lead author of the study, told the Guardian: “If [bumblebees] can’t keep temperatures below what is probably a lethal limit of about 35C, when the brood may die, that could explain why we are losing so many bumblebees around the world, especially in North America and Europe.”

Kevan, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Sciences in Canada, added that the research examined the often-overlooked role of the nest as a “superorganism”.

“Researchers have been looking at foraging behaviour and fanning to keep the brood cool, but there are very few studies that look at the whole nest,” he said. The study argued that nests should be seen as a whole: while some individual bees may be able to cope with heat, if the nest becomes too hot to raise healthy larvae the whole colony will decline.

Dave Goulson, a professor of biology at the University of Sussex, who was not involved in the research, said: “We have known for a long time that bumblebees are cool-climate specialists. Most insects are more abundant in the tropics, but bumblebees are weird in that they are at their most abundant in places like the Alps and Britain.”

They are big and furry as an adaptation to living in cooler places, he said. “There are even some that live in the Arctic, the Bombus polaris. That means an obvious problem with climate change – they are vulnerable to warming.”

When nests overheat, he added, bumblebees work to cool them by flapping their wings, “but if the air outside is too hot, that’s not going to help”.

Goulson said there is already evidence that bumblebees have started to disappear from the warmer edges of their range. “There have been publications showing mountain bumblebees are moving higher as a way to combat warming, but obviously there is a limit to that.”

The paper’s findings, said Goulson, who has spent 30 years studying bumblebees, are “really depressing”. “It is kind of heartbreaking to think that many may disappear.”

Other studies, he said, suggest that the UK “might lose about half our bumblebee species in coming years, depending on the pace of climate change”. Their populations had been declining due to habitat loss, Goulson said. “Now, [with rising temperatures] we have a double whammy.”

Richard Comont, the science manager at Britain’s Bumblebee Conservation Trust, also not part of the study, said he was glad to see the new research. “It’s something that there has been speculation about for a while,” he said.

Bumblebees are important pollinators of wild flowers and crops including tomatoes, runner beans, apples, blueberries, blackcurrants and raspberries. For other pollinators, Goulson said, the outlook under a hotter climate is less clear. Some bee species can cope with warmer temperatures, and some species that now live farther south may move north as temperatures rise, making a new home in the UK. With other pollinators, he said, such as flies, wasps, butterflies, birds and bats, “it’s hard to generalise”.

To stem declines, increasing habitats and decreasing pesticide use could help, Goulson said – but really, “we need to knuckle down” and make sure global temperatures “do not go past 2C” of heating.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

Gardeners are inadvertently killing scores of earthworms with soil conditioners marketed as “organic”, experts fear, as they call for tighter regulation on products that poison the invertebrates.

Earthworms may appear humble, but Charles Darwin thought their work in improving soil structure and fertility was so important he devoted his final book to them and said: “It may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organised creatures.”

However, some gardeners who want a tidy lawn remove worm casts, which can be viewed as unsightly, particularly if the casts – made of the worms’ excrement – are squashed and spread over the surface.

Dozens of products available to gardeners and greenkeepers say they combat these casts, reducing the time-consuming task of their manual removal. However, most contain saponins, which have been found to be highly toxic to earthworms. Some of these are marketed as “organic soil conditioner” with no mention of the deadly effect they have on worms. Others promise to “irritate and deter” worms, pushing them to deeper soil – not mentioning the active ingredient that could kill them.

Despite their potential toxicity to garden creatures, soil conditioners do not go through the same rigorous risk assessments as pesticides, experts say, and are lightly regulated.

Worms ingest dead plant material and break it down into nutrients, and healthy soil is important for a thriving garden and the wider ecosystem. The Royal Horticultural Society points out that casts are good for the soil and can be used as a nutrient-rich potting medium, and it discourages their removal.

Worms are thought to be under threat: though studies into their populations are scarce, recent research suggests numbers in the UK may have fallen by about a third in the past 25 years.

Prof Dave Goulson, a biologist at the University of Sussex, has written extensively on gardening in symbiosis with invertebrates, and has been investigating the soil products. He told the Guardian: “Dozens of products are being sold to gardeners and groundskeepers, especially [at] golf courses, to combat worm casts. Many contain saponins, found in one scientific study to be ‘highly toxic’ to earthworms.

“The products are widely marketed online, with some bulk products obviously aimed at professional greenkeepers, other smaller bottles aimed at gardeners. The saponin usually seems to derive from ‘tea seed’, so is an organic product, but that doesn’t mean it is harmless: botulinum toxin and cyanide are organic. Groundskeepers should not be allowed to poison earthworms while pretending to ‘condition’ the soil. It seems to be pesticides by stealth.”

Campaigners are calling for the government to investigate these products, suspending their use until their effect on earthworms and other wildlife is fully understood.

Nick Mole, a policy officer at Pesticide Action UK, said: “Fertilisers and soil conditioners aren’t subject to anywhere near the same level of scrutiny as pesticides. They don’t appear to go through a risk assessment process to ascertain if they are harmful to non-target species such as earthworms, which is highly concerning given how widely they are used.

“Any substance that is intentionally released into the natural environment has the potential to cause harm, even those labelled as organic. Now that the alarm bells have been sounded the UK government must act quickly to suspend use of these products while they investigate further, including conducting thorough risk assessments looking at the impact of these products on earthworms and other wildlife, including aquatic species. Or will the government sit on its hands for another 10 years, as it did with neonicotinoids and bees?”

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “Decisions on the use of pesticides are based on careful scientific assessment of the risks. Pesticides are only allowed on to the market if they meet strict environmental requirements and pose no threat to human health.”

Three bodies have been found in an area of northern Mexico where two Australian brothers and an American friend are missing.

Perth siblings Callum and Jake Robinson, both in their 30s, were travelling in the region on a surfing holiday, with their friend Jack Carter Rhoad, a US citizen. The trio was reported missing when they failed to check into pre-arranged accommodation near the city of Ensenada last weekend.

Late Friday Mexico time, the state attorney general’s office confirmed at least three bodies had been found in a remote and “difficult to access” area in the Ensenada region of the Baja California peninsula. The bodies have not yet been formally identified.

News outlet Zeta reported the bodies were found in a well, in steep and rugged ground on ranchland at Santo Tomás on the Pacific coast. It also reported a fourth body, likely to have been there longer, was recovered from the same place.

A burnt-out ute, matching the description of the one the three men were driving, was found earlier nearby, sparking an intense search of the area.

The Robinson brothers’ last contact with their family was last Saturday. The surfers had planned to camp near the beach last weekend, then stay at an Airbnb in Rosarito, according to social media posts by friends and family. But they never checked into their accommodation, and Callum Robinson failed to show for work in San Diego last week.

Friends and family appealed on social media for any information on their whereabouts, saying it was “out of character” for them not to be in contact.

On Friday, the Australian brothers’ parents, Debra and Martin Robinson, said they were “heading to the US/Mexico to be as close as possible to the area where they were last seen”.

“Callum and Jake are beautiful human beings,” they said in a statement to media.

“We love them so much and this breaks our heart. Our only comfort right now is that they were together doing something they passionately loved.”

Baja California’s state chief prosecutor, María Elena Andrade Ramírez, said the chances of finding the men had diminished as a result of delays to the investigation.

“Unfortunately, a notice of their disappearance was only filed in the last few days, so very important hours were lost there,” she told a press conference in Mexico on Friday.

Three Mexican nationals, a woman and two men, have been arrested in relation to the disappearance of the three men.

The woman was arrested in the town of Maneadero, about 8km south of Ensenada city on Mexico’s Pacific coast. She was carrying a grey iPhone with a picture of a man matching the description of one of the missing men, as well as a small quantity of drugs.

Investigators have found abandoned tents believed to have belonged to the missing men near to where they were last seen. Andrade Ramírez said also at the same site “other evidence was found that could be linked to these three people we have under investigation”.

Antonio Otañez, president of the Baja California Surf Association, told the Guardian the news of the men’s disappearance was “painful for the surfer community”.

“Everyone is in shock. We can’t believe it.”

He said the Baja California peninsula surfing community would hold a rally on Sunday, “to show solidarity with our Australian and American friends, and to demand security for the surfer community in the whole state”.

“Some friends told me they met [the missing surfers] here in the 38 and in San Miguel. They told me they were really great guys, friendly.”

Otañez said the area was not especially dangerous for surfers.

“You think Tijuana and you think cartel, mafia. But we who live here don’t see such risk. Of course, there’s crime. And you hear about deaths, but these are usually between the drug trafficking groups. But against civilians? Situations like this are very rare here. And still more with foreigners.”

But Otañez said the road to Punta San Jose was isolated.

“You have to drive for about an hour on a dirt track. And there’s no signal, no electricity, nothing. I’ve been various times and it’s a beautiful place with perfect waves. I have no idea what happened. But it’s very easy to get lost there. It’s a dirt track in the middle of nowhere.”

Governor of Baja California Marina Del Pilar said authorities were determined to resolve the case.

“We will not rest until we find the location of Jack Carter [Rhoad], Jake and Callum Robinson, a task in which we will spare no time, resources, or efforts. We will take the necessary measures to resolve this case, as we will not allow Baja California to see its peace disturbed, nor will we allow the tranquillity of those who visit us to be disrupted.”

A spokesperson from Australia’s department of foreign affairs and trade told the Guardian “the Australian embassy in Mexico City is working closely with the Australian federal police and local authorities regarding the two Australians reported missing in Mexico”.

“The department … recognises this is a very distressing time for the family and is in regular contact with them to provide support.”

The department has urged people to exercise a high degree of caution when travelling to Baja California “due to the threat of violent crime”.

Drug cartels are known to operate in the region and the state’s chief prosecutor said “all lines of investigation” remained open.

The US state department said it was aware of a US citizen missing in the Baja California region of Mexico, and stood “ready to provide all appropriate assistance”.

“The US department of state and our embassies and consulates abroad have no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens overseas.”

In reference to news reports that bodies had been recovered in the region where the men were last seen, a spokesperson said: “We are aware of those reports and are closely monitoring the situation. At this time we have no further comment.”

Violence in Mexico soared with the launch of the militarised “war on drugs” in 2006, and it has remained stubbornly high throughout the term of López Obrador, which began in 2018.

In 2023 Mexico saw more than 30,000 homicides for the sixth consecutive year. More than 100,000 people are also missing.

In 2015, Western Australian surfers Adam Coleman and Dean Lucas were murdered, believed to have been shot by gang members in the neighbouring Sinaloa region before their van and bodies were burnt.

The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, as well as the opposition foreign spokesman, Simon Birmingham, and WA’s premier, Roger Cook, expressed their concerns for the surfers’ safety and wishes for their safe return.

with AAP and Reuters

Over the last few years more than 120 million posts have appeared on TikTok about the rise of an unexpected trend: self-imposed celibacy.

While some predicted a post-pandemic era of “sexual licentiousness”, readers from all walks of life and across generations told us that far from doubling down on hookup culture, they’ve found refreshing clarity in a more austere approach to physical intimacy.

While some readers’ forays into sexual abstinence predated Covid, common threads remained. Whether readers had decided to apply the breaks for a few months or the rest of their lives, they all agreed that celibacy had been a positive experience that offered some welcome perspective on not only their relationship with sex, but with themselves.

‘I didn’t have sex with anyone but myself for eight months’

I’ve always been a people pleaser and during sex this instinct made me focus on my partners having a good time, which included faking orgasms. I still enjoyed the sex and was never an unwilling partner but I felt ashamed that I was being deceitful. And of course I also wanted to orgasm during sex, but until recently I’d only ever orgasmed through masturbation.

When my last relationship ended I promised myself that I wouldn’t start another one or have sex with anyone until I’d worked on building my confidence and sense of self-worth to the point that I could value my own pleasure as much as that of my partner. And it worked!

I didn’t have sex with anyone but myself for about eight months. When I returned to sex with a partner, I was able to be honest with them about what I wanted and orgasming during sex has become the norm.

Celibacy gave me space to work on myself and break an unhelpful pattern and I’m so glad I did it.
Anonymous, Australia

‘It is liberating to be free of old ideas about intimacy’

I’ve been celibate for a few years now and love this lifestyle. I’m in my mid-50s and have found peace of mind, financial security and stress-free daily living from my choice. Staying solo (I don’t use the term “single”) is the best decision I’ve ever made.

After a divorce at 30 and a string of short-term relationships with men who were so immature, insecure and self-centred that I had to lose myself if I wanted the relationships to work, I came to realise that solo life was better on every level.

My sexual needs are addressed and enjoyed alone and my emotional life has expanded and is cherished through long-term friendships and my family. I highly recommend this lifestyle for women tired of catering to men.

It is liberating to be free of old ideas about intimacy and relationships and choose to live life on my terms of happiness. I plan on being celibate forever.
Anonymous, Australia

‘Celibacy affords absolute clarity of mind’

My experience of celibacy was not so much a choice as a natural consequence of the intense Zen training I was undergoing at the time. I am an ordained Zen Buddhist monk in my 50s. I am also married with children. I have been through two periods of celibacy: once pre-monastically in India and that was six months’ long. The second time was in the monastery and lasted just over a year.

I have always been very sexual and I still am, perhaps even more so now as a consequence of my experiences. But at the time celibacy was a natural progression from desire to quite literally no desire. True celibacy in my opinion is the inability to even conceptually experience desire. From this place, one person interacts with another as simply human rather than an object of desire.

When sexual thoughts are absent it is incredible to realise how much of our day-to-day life is usually taken up with conscious and subconscious sexual considerations and awareness. Celibacy affords absolute clarity of mind.

My master’s master once said: “The closest most people come to enlightenment is an orgasm.” I now practise Tantra and as long as I remain in a sexual relationship, this bridges the gaps between my sexual relationship and spiritual needs.
Venerable Daiju Zenji, Sydney

‘I was using sex and my appearance as a way to validate myself’

Nearly 10 years ago, a frank conversation with my best friend brought home some hard truths. With my best interests and safety at heart she told me she believed that after years in a nasty relationship that had chipped away at my self-esteem, I was using sex and my appearance as a way to validate myself.

I decided to take a year off from sex and dating. The best thing was being able to separate who I am at my core from how I look or what others think of me.

Getting back into dating after my celibacy ended was tough. It reminded me that there are a lot of duds out there that won’t see or appreciate the inner work you’ve done. Then I met my partner.

I’m glad I did the hard work when I did, because figuring out who I am and not seeking approval through sex has placed me well for a stable relationship.
Anonymous, Australia

‘Life is definitely less complicated’

In the gay scene which is now dominated by dating apps, sex is primarily a commodity that is used to put notches on the bedhead. I just got sick of the merry-go-round where you have to have sex in order to meet someone.

I’ve been celibate for three years now and life is definitely less complicated. I’ve found out that you don’t need to use sex to fill the voids in your life. I got myself a dog two years ago, and it’s awesome coming home to something alive in the house.
Ian, Sydney

‘I don’t miss the sexual urges of my fertile years’

Throughout my life I had the good fortune to enjoy sex without any detrimental physical or psychological interference that might have affected my desire to continue to stay sexually active. But now in my early 60s I’ve been happily celibate for two decades.

I have never worried about “the norm” and for me at least, being sexually active, or not, is simply dictated by biology. Just as I don’t miss my baby teeth, I don’t miss the sexual urges of my fertile years.

As a child I was aware that sex was something that older people seemed to be obsessed about, but I had no interest in it until I became a horny adolescent. Post menopause, I seem to have gone full circle back to feeling free of desire and seeing that sex is simply something younger people are interested in but holds no appeal to me. The desire to masturbate stopped, I don’t even dream about sex. It’s just gone and I don’t miss it at all.

I know many postmenopausal women are convinced to or wish to keep hormones at a level to ensure desire remains, but to me that is back-to-front thinking. Being celibate feels as natural to me now as it did when I was a child.

Living alone and celibate feels like freedom and like my life was always leading to this point where I would be free of complying to anybody’s needs but my own.
Anonymous, Australia

Quotes have been edited for structure, clarity and length.