Thousands gathered for New York City’s annual Climate Week last week to promote climate solutions, from the phaseout of fossil-fuel subsidies to nuclear energy to corporate-led schemes like carbon credits. Others touted a more offbeat potential salve to the crisis: psychedelics.

Under the banner of Psychedelic Climate Week, a group of academics, marketers and advocates gathered for a film on pairing magic mushrooms with music, a discussion on funding ketamine-assisted therapy and a panel on “Balancing Investing & Impact with Climate & Psychedelic Capital”.

Many attendees shared the belief that psychedelic experiences may spark “consciousness shifts”, which can inspire climate-friendly behaviors, said Marissa Feinberg, the founder of Psychedelics for Climate Action, which convened the event series.

The promotion of psychedelics was one of several features of Climate Week that diverged from the usual lineup of platitude-heavy panel talks. Other events included a series of climate-themed discussions and a performance by a “drag wrestling collective” in a pop-up boxing ring, as well as events filled with dancing, meditation and imbibing cacao.

Such themes of wellness and personal improvement come amid growing public anxiety about the climate crisis, to the extent that many younger people do not see themselves having children, and frustration over the faltering progress to move away from fossil fuels.

There is a sense of anger among many people that “fossil-fuel companies are using the power of their wallet and their political reach to intimidate anyone who wants to move forward”, said Christiana Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat who was previously the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change.

“I don’t know about drugs, but many people in the climate and biodiversity community are certainly beyond despondent,” said Figueres. “When you feel angry and despondent, there’s a lot of energy there and you have to take that and turn it into agency for good.”

There is surging interest in the potential for hallucinogens – including psychedelics like LSD, empathogens like MDMA, and dissociatives like ketamine – to serve as healing aids for depression, addiction and other mental health problems.

Psychedelic drug use, under the right circumstances, can “relieve your personal stress” and promote “mindfulness”, said Feinberg in an interview from a midtown Manhattan coffee shop. Someone who is tense and seeking convenience might buy a plastic water bottle, but those who take psychedelics – and internalize the feeling of connectedness they inspire – may behave with more intention, she said.

“You take that moment of peace and calm, and you plan your day, and you bring that water bottle with you, and you have that more intentional start to your day,” she said. Gesturing toward her own cup of water, she said: “I opted for the paper cup.”

It’s not only consumers who can benefit from psychedelic experiences, said Feinberg. They may also help C-suite executives “think outside the box” when it comes to social issues and climate, she said. Amazon’s anti-worker policies and sky-high carbon emissions may be related to Jeff Bezos’s feelings of unworthiness, Feinberg suggested.

If Bezos experienced “healing”, he might shift from solely focusing on amassing wealth to incorporating compassion and sustainability, she argued. The same may be true of some politicians, she said, adding that one sponsor of Psychedelic Climate Week offered free treatments of ibogaine – a psychedelic and dissociative drug – to politicians out of a Cancún clinic.

Another one of Feinberg’s collaborators, the University of Maryland business school professor Bennet Zelner, is researching psychedelic experiences for organizational leaders, examining whether they spur more compassionate decision-making.

“His work is very compelling to our group,” said Feinberg, who is also the founder of a communications firm and does public relations for Nushama, a Manhattan clinic offering ketamine treatment for mental health.

Some research does suggest psychedelic experiences are associated with “pro-environmental” behavior or feeling “nature-connectedness”. But the evidence is limited, subjective and full of potentially confounding factors, said Nicolas Langlitz, a historian of science at the New School who studies psychedelics. A 2017 study found those who reported hallucinogen use were also more likely to report that they recycled and saved water, but its participants, who were recruited from Amazon’s crowdsourcing platform, were younger, more educated and more experienced with psychedelics than the average US citizen.

“Generally, the milieu around psychedelics – and especially the parts of that milieu that these studies tap into – just tends to be a lot more liberal, a lot more environmentally conscious,” said Langlitz.

Though research shows those who have partaken in Indigenous-led ayahuasca ceremonies in the Amazon rainforest feel more “nature-relatedness”, it does not interrogate the willingness of foreigners to take carbon-intensive flights to the rainforest from far-flung western countries.

Such studies also generally focus on individual changes in feelings and behavior amid a longstanding heated debate about whether such shifts translate into carbon reductions, and whether they should command environmentalists’ attention.

“I’m generally skeptical about any individualized solution,” said Langlitz. “I think, at the end of the day, it’s policy decisions that make a difference.”

Feinberg, for her part, said individual and system-wide solutions were both needed. “Systems are created … for individuals to participate in,” she said, adding that systems and individuals “inform each other”.

“We all have power. We all influence each other. Someone can only make a product that someone’s going to buy, and I’m only going to buy something that’s on the shelf,” she said. “So it all plays hand in hand.”

Other studies indicate a correlation between using the substances and pro-social behavior or anti-authoritarian sentiment. Yet counter-examples abound, said Langlitz. Neo-Nazi figures have said psychedelics have inspired them. Albert Hofmann, who invented LSD in 1938, was close friends with Ernst Jünger, who railed against democracy, and Armin Mohler, the far-right political philosopher, Langlitz said.

“Jünger and Hofmann tripped together,” said Langlitz. “There are pockets of psychedelic countercultures that are rightwing and authoritarian.”

Psychedelics have also gained prominence among business leaders. Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO, has reportedly used ketamine both therapeutically and recreationally and has still been widely criticized for mistreating workers and mishandling hazardous products. (Feinberg declined to comment on Musk specifically, but said that “psychedelic healing does not happen overnight and it’s not at all a silver bullet”, and that “psychedelics do not work for everyone in a positive way”.)

In the absence of robust climate policy, however, interest in inward-focused climate action is likely to abound. Figueres said she had started to lead spiritual retreats in locations around the world to help people “turn inside and understand what is going on and how they can compost those feelings and emotions in order to strengthen their agency”.

“This is an issue very close to my heart,” she said.

At least 166 people have died from Hurricane Helene, many are still missing and more than 1 million people remained without power as rescue and recovery efforts continued from the devastating storm.

Hundreds of people were missing in Buncombe county, home to Asheville, earlier this week, and 85 people were missing in Tennessee, CNN reported.

Joe Biden will travel to both North and South Carolina on Wednesday to survey the storm damage. The vice-president, Kamala Harris, will travel to Georgia to do the same. Donald Trump traveled to Georgia earlier in the week.

Nearly 1.3 million people were without power in several south-eastern states as of 7.30am ET, according to the site poweroutage.us, which tracks outages. That total includes more than 373,000 people in Georgia, nearly 494,000 in South Carolina, and more than 347,000 in North Carolina. More than 40,000 people were still without power in Florida and Virginia, as well as an additional 10,000 people in West Virginia.

Several areas affected by the storm are also struggling to find drinking water. In Asheville, North Carolina, around 100,000 people were without running water, according to the Washington Post. Residents are boiling water and washing themselves and dishes in creeks, the Post reported. Fema delivered a cargo plane of food, water and emergency supplies on Tuesday, CNN reported.

Residents in Augusta, Georgia, also have not had running water for three days and several are under a boil water advisory.

Biden and some lawmakers from affected states, including Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, suggested earlier this week he would call on Congress, which is on recess, to pass additional disaster relief funding. But that does not seem likely.

A stopgap funding measure Congress passed earlier this month allows Fema to more quickly use $20bn in disaster relief funds. About $6bn of those funds, however, were expected to be used to address relief for previous disasters, including Vermont flooding and Hawaii wildfires, according to Roll Call.

“Congress has previously provided the funds it needs to respond, so we will make sure that those resources are appropriately allocated,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday.

A US bomb from the second world war that had been buried at a Japanese airport has exploded, causing a large crater in a taxiway and the cancellation of more than 80 flights but no injuries, Japanese officials said.

Land and transport ministry officials said there were no aircraft nearby when the bomb exploded at Miyazaki airport in south-western Japan on Wednesday.

Officials said an investigation by the self-defence forces and police confirmed that the explosion was caused by a 500-pound US bomb and there was no further danger. They were determining what caused its sudden detonation.

A video recorded by a nearby aviation school showed the blast spewing pieces of asphalt into the air like a fountain. Videos broadcast on Japanese television showed a crater in the taxiway reportedly about 7 metres in diameter and 1 metre deep.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said more than 80 flights had been cancelled at the airport, which hopes to resume operations on Thursday morning.

Miyazaki airport was built in 1943 as a former imperial Japanese navy flight training field from which some kamikaze pilots took off on suicide attack missions.

A number of unexploded bombs dropped by the US military during the second world war had been unearthed in the area, defence ministry officials said.

Hundreds of tons of unexploded bombs from the war remain buried around Japan and are sometimes dug up at construction sites.

What did Iran fire?

Tehran deployed ballistic missiles, which use trajectories outside or near the limits of Earth’s atmosphere, in the attack. It used similar weapons against Israel earlier this year.

This time, it said it had also deployed hypersonic missiles that have an estimated maximum speed of 10,000mph.

Why did Iran attack?

While details of the timings and nature of the attack were not known in advance, it was not a surprise.

World powers have for months predicted a “regional escalation” from Israel’s war on Gaza, in which it has killed 40,000 Palestinians. That followed an attack by Hamas militants on 7 October 2023 that killed about 1,200 Israelis. Israel is now fighting allegations of genocide at the world’s highest court.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have now expanded the war to Lebanon, which they are bombing heavily.

Lebanon is home to Iran’s key regional ally, Hezbollah, which has been firing rockets into northern Israel in response to the bloodshed in Gaza.

Last week, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkie radios belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon, killing scores and wounding thousands of others, including civilians. On Friday, Israel assassinated the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah. In July, the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in the Iranian capital – an attack attributed to Israel.

Israeli attacks have devastated the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital, as well as villages in the country’s south. At least 1 million people in Lebanon – a fifth of the population – are now displaced.

The US has warned of an escalation but at the same time supported Israel’s attacks both diplomatically – by arguing its case at international institutions such as the UN – and materially, by sending it the bombs and weapons it has used to kill thousands.

What damage did the Iranian missiles cause?

The impact of the damage is being assessed. The IDF said on Wednesday some of its airbases were hit. Images posted by Israelis showed craters in central and southern parts of the country.

No injuries have been reported in Israel, but one person was killed in the occupied West Bank, authorities there said.

Iran said the attack targeted military installations but at least one rocket had hit an Israeli school.

The US president, Joe Biden, described Iran’s attack as “ineffective”.

What will happen now?

Iran said its attacks were over, although it has more missiles ready to be fired if Israel responds.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Tehran had made a “big mistake” and vowed that “it will pay for it”.

In hindsight, the quiff was probably a bad idea. It was the morning of my final audition to play Harry Potter in 2000. I should have been rehearsing the scene I’d be performing later that day at Leavesden Studios, in front of a panel that included director Chris Columbus. Instead, I spent half an hour papier-macheing my fringe with fistfuls of wet-look hair gel, intent on giving these Hollywood bigwigs some of the old razzle dazzle.

Needless to say, securing the lead role in one of the biggest film franchises of all time requires more than a hairstyle. Mid-audition, as I anxiously fumbled through my lines, I locked eyes with one of the producers. He gave me a smile that I’m sure was meant to be encouraging, but it was clear he’d already made up his mind.

The journey to this point started on Christmas Day, 1998. What I had really wanted that year was the latest novel in the Goal Kings series, which followed a team of teenage football players. Instead, I got a book about a child with a lightning-bolt scar. But like the other 120 million people who bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, I quickly came around to the young wizard and his outcast mates.

The following year, an unusual announcement was made during one of my school assemblies: auditions for the Harry Potter film adaptation had begun, and they were open to any would-be wizards in my age range.

The film-makers were determined to cast children who were British and relatively unknown to the film industry, so had flung the net surprisingly wide. I was a relatively unknown British child living in rural West Sussex, but outside a few school productions I’d not done any acting, so I have no idea what compelled me to believe I stood a chance. Either way, I excitedly told my mum the second I got home, and she signed me up for the casting call at a nearby school in Brighton.

My main recollection of that day is queueing for a really long time. About 300 kids reportedly auditioned for the role of Harry, and it felt as if they were all standing in front of me that drizzly afternoon.

After I finally did my bit, one of the casting directors took my mum aside. “He’s rather good,” she whispered. This inspired some optimism on the drive home. But as the weeks rolled on and we heard nothing, the hope faded and I got back to more important stuff, like watching WWF.

Months later, the house phone rang. I’d been invited to audition for Harry, at Leavesden, where the films were going to be shot. It didn’t seem real, but before long confirmation came in the form of the scenes I’d need to learn: a conversation about dementors, and the poignant moment in which Harry’s late parents are revealed to him in the magical Mirror of Erised, which as far as I remember mostly boiled down to me pulling a variety of concerned facial expressions.

Having spent a few weeks practising looking a bit worried, then a bit sad, then a bit shocked, and then ultimately quite happy, it was go-time. I got my hair looking just how I wanted it (objectively bad) and hopped in the car with my dad.

I remember getting a brief tour of the studio and seeing the early sketches for the Golden Snitch, the most important ball in a game of Quidditch, which was an incredibly exciting moment for an 11-year-old Potterhead. I also recall sitting opposite a pair of gangly, red-headed brothers in the waiting area. I found out years later that they were James and Oliver Phelps, who would play the Weasley twins.

What I remember least is the audition itself, which isn’t some kind of minor trauma response, because the experience wasn’t at all traumatic. The casting team – made up of Columbus, producers David Heyman and Mark Radcliffe, and casting directors Janet Hirshenson and Karen Lindsay-Stewart – were all incredibly kind, gentle and welcoming.

Really, I think I just left as little of a mark on myself as I did on that panel. I felt shy, froze up and didn’t deliver my lines with as much gusto as I had while practising them at home. (The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently revealed on social media that I’d subsequently been considered for boy-villain Draco Malfoy, which is somehow worse than not being cast as Harry. Learning that you’d make a good match for one of literature’s most unlikable characters is a truly humbling experience.)

Leaving the room, I knew I hadn’t got the part. Even as an 11-year-old amateur, it was clear I’d missed the mark. On the drive home, I experienced two emotions more starkly than I ever had before: disappointment that my life wasn’t about to be transformed, and regret at my half-hearted performance. Worse still, I was dreading the embarrassment of updating everyone at school, having proudly told them all about the casting director’s “rather good” remark.

Relative to what some 11-year-olds are being forced to endure, not becoming a multimillionaire actor isn’t exactly history’s biggest boo-hoo moment. But that three-pronged poker of dismay, remorse and shame was fairly crushing as a kid, and took a while for me to shake.

That said, it also forced me to confront and process those emotions, which was helpful training for a lifetime studded with just as much disappointment and embarrassment as is customary. And while Daniel Radcliffe’s (estimated) £95m fortune would be nice, I honestly wouldn’t want to swap his younger years for mine. After all, you only get one shot at being an awkward, clumsy teenager, more concerned with your hairstyle than your life prospects, and I’m glad I was able to experience all those highs and lows in complete and utter anonymity.

The golden jackal, Canis aureus, may seem an exotic creature from a far-off country but the species has suddenly expanded its range into western Europe. Much smaller than a wolf but larger than a fox, the jackal will compete with both species for food and territory. The animals have been found as far north as Finland and Norway and have also reached Spain.

Genetic research shows the individual jackals studied had travelled at least 745 miles (1,200km) from their original homes, and sometimes twice as far. This is comparable with wolves looking for new territories.

Climate breakdown seems to be the driver of the expansion of the jackal’s normal territory, which is described as Eurasia. They are common in India and found in the Baltic states but there is also a population in Austria.

Finland has decided that since jackals arrived naturally, rather than being introduced, they should be classified as a native species and protected.

It is clear jackals could thrive in the UK, and could help keep the deer population under control, but they would have to be introduced.

Jackals live in pairs and sometimes have “helpers”. These are last year’s cubs, which stay with their parents and help to hunt and raise the next litter. Jackals keep clear of humans and are mainly nocturnal.

Tim Walz and JD Vance faced each other for the first and only vice-presidential debate of this election cycle – and clashed on issues including abortion, childcare, the cost of living and Trump’s 2020 election claims.

Here are the facts on some of the false or misleading claims offered during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate.

Vance on Harris’s record as ‘border tsar’

Vance attacked Harris’s record on the border. “The only thing that she did when she became the vice-president, when she became the appointed border tsar, was to undo Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border,” he said.

This contains inaccuracies.

First, Harris was never a “border tsar” – that’s a term invented by her critics. She had a role in the Biden administration to look into addressing the root causes of migration to the US, including safety and economic turmoil in Central American countries.

Second, she did not “undo Donald Trump executive actions”. Presidents sign executive orders, and she was not president. Joe Biden did reverse some Trump executive orders on the border. He initially kept in place Trump-era restrictions known as Title 42, which allowed the US to turn away immigrants at the border on the grounds of preventing the spread of Covid-19, before eventually lifting them.

Vance on Trump’s role on January 6

Vance defended Trump’s role on the day of the insurrection at the US Capitol. The Ohio senator picked out one line of his running mate’s speech on 6 January 2021 – prior to the insurrection.

According to Vance, Trump “said on January 6 the protesters ought to protest peacefully”.

But Trump also repeatedly encouraged supporters to “fight”.

“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump said in 2021.

Vance on Trump and the Affordable Care Act

Vance claimed that Donald Trump bolstered or salvaged the Affordable Care Act.

That’s not true.

The former president cut millions in funding for helping people enroll in healthcare, repeatedly supported efforts in Congress to repeal the law and asked the supreme court to overturn the law.

Vance on immigrants and housing prices

Vance twice implicated immigrants in driving up housing prices, though when pressed, agreed that immigration was not the “only” contributor.

A nonpartisan analysis found that Trump’s vow of mass deportation would drive up prices in several sectors and affect the availability of labor. The Peterson Institute for International Economics projects that the policy would be “a major shock to the US economy, with substantial disruption across all sectors, especially agriculture, mining, and manufacturing”.

Vance on Trump’s position on abortion

Vance said that Donald Trump has supported states making their own abortion laws.

Vance claimed that Trump has said that “the proper way to handle this … is to let voters make these decisions, let the individual states make their abortion policy”.

That’s not quite right. Donald Trump declined to say whether he would sign a national abortion ban during the last debate.

Walz on Project 2025’s ambitions

The Minnesota governor claimed that Project 2025, the ambitious blueprint from the Heritage Foundation to remake the federal government under a second Trump term, would require people to register their pregnancies.

“Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies,” Walz said.

That claim is false. Project 2025 calls for a number of restrictive policies on abortion, including reversing FDA approval of abortion pills, rolling back privacy protections for abortion patients and increasing surveillance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over abortion, but it does not call for all pregnant people to register.

The CDC already collects information about abortion from most of the country, but its reports are incomplete, as some states do not supply the data. Project 2025 suggests that the CDC should go so far as to cut funds from a state if it does not tell the CDC “exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method”.

Vance on immigrants in Springfield, Ohio

Referring to Springfield, Ohio – where a number of Haitian immigrants have recently settled – Vance referred to immigrants with legal status as “illegal”.

“You’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed, you’ve got housing that’s totally unaffordable because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans,” he said.

The Haitian immigrants in Springfield, as CBS moderator Margaret Brennan noted, have legal status. Their arrival, local residents and leaders have said, has helped revive the town, which has lost a quarter of its population since the 1960s.

Vance on the climate crisis and manufacturing

The Ohio senator has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the reality that carbon emissions have caused global heating.

Tonight, he was a bit subtle: “One of the things that I’ve noticed some of our Democratic friends talking a lot about is a concern about carbon emissions, this idea that carbon emissions drives all the climate change … let’s just say that’s true, just for the sake of argument.”

Despite Vance’s skepticism, it is indeed true. One hundred percent of global heating since 1950 is due to human activity such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

Vance also took viewers on a circuitous journey to suggest that if Harris really cared about the climate crisis, she would bring back manufacturing jobs to the US.

Carbon emissions, whether they are manufactured in the US or overseas, contribute to global heating. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 – the Biden administration’s landmark climate legislation – is greatly aimed at incentivizing domestic manufacturing.

Read more about the 2024 US election:

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is ending his retirement from acting to star in his son’s directorial debut.

The 67-year-old British actor quit acting after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and has largely stayed out of public life since.

But he is now set to star in a film titled Anemone, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, US independent production company Focus Features confirmed on Tuesday.

The film will feature actors including Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green, and is currently shooting in Manchester.

Father and son wrote the screenplay, which “explores the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds”, Focus Features said.

Daniel Day-Lewis made his screen debut as a teenager in Sunday Bloody Sunday before moving on to a number of memorable period drama roles, including as Hawkeye in The Last Of The Mohicans.

He is known for his dedication to method acting, and has won three best actor Oscars, for playing disabled Irish writer Christy Brown in My Left Foot, oil man Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood and Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

Day-Lewis was made a knight bachelor of the British empire by the Duke of Cambridge in 2014.

In June 2017 it was announced he was retiring from acting, months before Phantom Thread was released.

“Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor,” the statement, issued by his representative, read.

“He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject.”

He had previously taken extended breaks from the industry, including a stint working as an apprentice shoemaker in Florence in the 1990s.

“My life as it is away from the movie set is a life where I follow my curiosity just as avidly as when I am working,” he told the Observer in 2008. “It is with a very positive sense that I keep away from the work for a while. It has always seemed natural to me that that, in turn, should help me in the work that I do.”

In January, Day-Lewis presented US film-maker Martin Scorsese with an award for his western epic Killers of the Flower Moon.

The actor, who starred in Scorsese’s Gangs Of New York and The Age Of Innocence, said working with the director was “one of the greatest joys and unexpected privileges of my life”.