One morning in the winter of 1978, a handful of state wildlife staff huddled together in the Uinta Mountains in north-eastern Utah. Deep snows coated the peaks and filled the valleys. A pair of helicopters cruised over the frozen landscape, helping those on the ground search for their prize: a cow moose in a snowy meadow.

Crouched in one of the aircraft, a man aimed his rifle: there was a sharp report, and the cow took off at a run. Within minutes her legs went wobbly as the tranquilliser in the dart took effect, and the crew landed and got to work.

They tagged and collared the moose, then slid a specially designed sling under her belly, attached by a rope to one of the helicopters. For a moment, as the pilot eased into the air, the moose lurched, drawing her legs upward as her feet left the ground.

But then the animal appeared to relax as she soared over the rugged valley, bound for her new home more than 200 miles away in Colorado’s North Park region near Walden– a vast expanse of sagebrush and willow between two mountain ranges.

Few creatures evoke the American wilderness like Alces americanus, the American moose. It is the second-largest land animal in North America, behind the bison. Its imposing size is undercut by a goofy countenance – the wide fan of horns, thin legs that suspend a hefty body and a face like a hand- puppet fashioned from a worn-out sock.

Despite their ungainly appearance, however, moose are formidable and sometimes graceful, reaching speeds of 35mph at full gallop. Over time, in Colorado, the moose has emerged as a potent symbol and ambassador of the wild in a state enamoured of its outdoor places, depicted in murals and statues in many mountain towns.

But as much as Alces americanus seems to belong in Colorado, its native range does not extend into the state. Colorado’s wildlife department introduced moose in the 1970s to help generate revenue through the sale of hunting licences. In that era of wildlife management, the decision of a few high-ranking state officials was enough to set a great ecological experiment into motion.

“We brought them to Colorado because we could,” said the late Gene Schoonveld, a biologist at the forerunner to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, who was among the officials to set the translocation in motion (Schoonveld died in 2022). “We had the space and the habitat for them.”

Now, that experiment is reaching a head, and thousands of wild moose roam the state’s woodlands and mountains – coming into increasing and often deadly conflict with humans.

Though they are notoriously hard to count, there are now an estimated 3,000 moose scattered through Colorado’s major mountain ranges. That figure, however, does not adequately describe their growing presence – or the way they have transformed the landscape. The comment sections for dozens of hikes on the popular AllTrails app now contain a litany of moose sightings.

Moose have even made their way into the suburban sprawl of Denver, the state’s capital, browsing in the green belt, sauntering across golf courses or loitering in shopping centre car parks.

As Colorado’s human and moose populations have grown, so have the number of conflicts between them. Moose attacks in the state now outnumber attacks by bears and pumas (also known as mountain lions or cougars) combined, even though moose numbers are significantly lower.

Over two weeks in the spring of 2022, moose attacked people in three separate incidents. Near the mountain town of Nederland, a cow moose trampled and severely injured a hiker and a dog; a police officer shot her and wildlife officials took her calf into custody. In September 2022, a moose gored and nearly killed a bowhunter in northern Colorado after the hunter’s arrow whistled wide of its mark. More often than not, however, moose come out on the losing end of these clashes. According to the Colorado Department of Transportation, cars struck and killed 59 moose in 2022. In 2012, the number was just four.

In State Forest park, where officials originally released moose in 1978, as many as 700 now roam the area. “It’s the last frontier,” says Tony Johnson, a State Forest ranger. “There are no chain stores, but moose on every corner.”

Human values have always shaped wildlife policy. In Colorado and elsewhere in the American west, mountain goats, elk and bison have been introduced to places where they never lived before or have been sustained in unnaturally high numbers to satisfy hunters and wildlife watchers. Those efforts have frequently changed the environment dramatically.

Amid the rich willow stands of North Park, the two dozen transplanted moose flown to the state kicked into reproductive overdrive, with many producing two offspring at once – a phenomenon called “twinning” that occurs when food is especially plentiful. A decade after their introduction, the moose population had grown to about 250.

The animals proved so successful and popular with residents and visitors that, between 1987 and 2010, wildlife officials transplanted more moose to other parts of Colorado, where they also thrived.

“Biologists generally expected them to do well,” Eric Bergman, a research scientist and moose specialist with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, “and they certainly did.”

Rocky Mountain national park, just east of North Park, is among the places that have witnessed that rapid growth. Park biologists estimate that 40 to 60 moose now wander the western side of the park.

At the Rocky Mountain park headquarters, a landscape ecologist, Will Deacy, shows an infrared image of a mountainside covered in dark trees. A closer look revealed white silhouettes scattered among the pines: moose going about their mysterious business. “They are a new species in a new context,” Deacy said. “There is so much we just don’t know.”

One of those unknowns is just how moose will affect a landscape already heavily browsed by native elk. Settlers nearly hunted elk to extinction in this part of the state, but in 1913, officials reintroduced them within the protective boundaries of the national park. By the late 20th century, elk here also no longer faced predation by wolves or grizzlies.

The herd ballooned to as many as 3,500 animals by the early 2000s – far more than the maximum of 2,100 that the park service deem sustainable – and rapidly chewed through willow stands. The park’s willows, a keystone species throughout the Rockies, declined by 96% between 1999 and 2019.

With moose now inhabiting every major valley within the park, there is a fear that these larger animals could have a similar impact.

According to biologists, an adult moose can eat up to 27kg (60lb) of willow a day, far more than an adult elk, which consumes roughly a third of that amount of forage, only a fraction of which is willow. And because national parks ban hunting, moose tend to congregate within their borders, achieving densities almost five times higher than outside them.

That could create new problems for willows and the myriad creatures that depend on them. Research in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks by Joel Berger, a wildlife biologist at Colorado State University, found that migratory songbirds, such as warblers and flycatchers, occur at much lower densities where there are large populations of moose.

“People love their moose,” says Elaine Leslie, former chief of the National Park Service’s biological resource management. But too many of the animals could threaten “the primary purpose of the park, which is the preservation of resources”.

Leslie sees a potential solution in the reintroduction of wolves to Colorado, which brought 10 animals to the central Rockies in December 2023. Wolves are the main predator of elk and moose, and could ease pressure if they recolonise an area and reduce populations or induce herds to keep moving.

If natural means of moving moose do not work, the park might be forced to explore other, more extreme options such as darting the animals with contraceptive drugs or, in the worst case, culling them.

While Leslie calls moose “one of my favourites,” she says: “I’m worried about what is happening at the ecosystem level, especially in Rocky Mountain national park. That is a very biodiverse area right now.”

Despite growing pains as Coloradoans figure out how to co-exist with this large, non-native ungulate, the state has become something of a de facto refuge for the species. Moose populations in much of their native range across the northern US are plummeting.

In New Hampshire, they declined by nearly half from the mid-1990s to late 2010s, owing to habitat loss and warming temperatures, which triggered a sharp rise in ticks. Wyoming was a stronghold of the species, but today Colorado has more moose than its northern neighbour. And there are signs that Colorado’s moose numbers may be naturally stabilising: lower pregnancy rates and animals skipping breeding.

Communities are learning to coexist with the animals. In Walden, moose are such frequent visitors that a sign outside town proudly proclaims it to be the “Moose viewing capital of Colorado”.

“We have them in town quite often,” said Josh Dilley, State Forest’s park manager. They especially like to congregate around the elementary school, he explained, “so we’ll go sit strategically between the moose and the kids while they’re going to school.” When moose loiter too long in front yards and public parks, rangers scare them away with firecrackers or non-lethal rubber buckshot. On rare occasions, they sedate an unruly moose with a dart and take it elsewhere by truck.

Still, Leslie warns, without stronger controls and monitoring, Colorado could face increasingly denuded stream banks, more frequent attacks and car collisions – and more moose in the crosshairs.

“It’s partly everybody’s fault – the state and the feds – because we don’t think into the future very well and we don’t learn from history,” Leslie says. “Unless everybody gets on the same page, it’s going to get ugly.”

Dominga Menezes was only 12 years old when she danced for a dictator.

It was 25 July 1974, and São Leopoldo, a medium-sized city in Brazil’s southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, was celebrating both the anniversary of its founding and 150 years of German immigration to Brazil.

Then leader of Brazil’s military dictatorship, Gen Ernesto Geisel was himself of German descent, and was guest of honour at the ceremony next to the Sinos River, where the first German immigrants had arrived in 1824.

One hundred and twenty girls danced onstage, each wearing a leotard with one of the three colours of the state flag.

“The whitest girls were wearing green; the Black girls, red; and the light-brown-skinned were in yellow,” said Menezes, now 62. “It was much later that I realised the teachers had put me in yellow because I’m of Indigenous descent.”

She does not know why each race was associated with each colour. But she remembers that, in school, the students with more “German” physical characteristics – fair skin, blue eyes and blonde hair – were the ones praised by the teachers.

“Every year at school, in July, there was a lot of talk about German immigration. But they never raised the question of who else was here: the Indigenous people and the Black people,” said Menezes.

This year, as São Leopoldo celebrates its 200th anniversary and the bicentenary of German immigration, things were supposed to have gone differently: diversity was a central theme of a string of events planned by the city hall.

But those plans were thrown into disarray by the unprecedented flooding that devastated Rio Grande do Sul.

Although São Leopoldo was not wiped out by the disaster – as was the case with others, such as Eldorado do Sul – parts of it spent almost a month under the muddy water.

Nine people died, and 100,000 of its 217,000 residents had to leave their homes.

When water finally receded in late May, the city was left to face the aftermath.

“The biggest problem now is psychological. Families have lost the school as a reference point, the health clinic, and their church. They’ve lost everything,” said the city mayor, Ary Vanazzi, 64.

His house spent more than 20 days submerged; everything inside of it was lost.

At Visconde de São Leopoldo Historical Museum, about 10% of the 10,000 artefacts in its collection, all of them related to German immigration, went underwater.

The most affected piece was a 120-year-old Schiedmayer grand piano. The keys are covered in mould, what is left of the strings are rusted, and pieces of what used to be the soundboard are warped.

Museum staff are hoping to reopen in time for 25 July, when the bicentenary is celebrated, said historian Rodrigo Luiz dos Santos, 39. “Even if it’s with a smaller exhibition … From the perspective of culture, of the city’s memory, we think it’s important to have this moment,” he said.

Speaking at the G7 summit in Italy, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he invited representatives of the German government to attend a bicentennial “celebration party” in São Leopoldo.

But, according to the mayor, there will be only a symbolic celebration.

“There’s no mood for anything like that … We’ll celebrate it in a different way, perhaps with more solidarity,” said Vanazzi.

Inside the museum, a dirty brown line 1.5 metre from the floor shows the high water mark, and dos Santos suggested that one of the walls would be left without repainting as a reminder of the floods.

“The same river that brought the immigrants was the one that 200 years later took over the city,” he said.

About 40 Germans were in the first wave of immigrants who came to the region in 1824.

Other people from the then German Confederation had previously reached Brazil, but from that moment German migration became continuous, later spreading to other regions of the state.

Its cultural impact can still be felt in regional culture, for example in its most traditional cake, the cuca, a version of the German streuselkuchen.

German migration was encouraged by newly independent Brazil, which wanted to expand its occupation of the territory. But the promotion of European immigration was also linked to the idea of “whitening the Brazilian population”, said dos Santos.

“There is no street in São Leopoldo named after a Black or Indigenous person,” said Dominga Menezes, who still lives in São Leopoldo and, now a journalist, recently published a book about how the focus on German migration has silenced Black and Indigenous stories in the region.

She and her husband, fellow journalist Gilson Camargo, 61, describe countless conflicts between the Germans and the Indigenous communities who inhabited the region and were practically wiped out.

They also highlight something that is still controversial in some parts of the state: the fact that many of the immigrants were slave owners.

The book was launched in the city’s public library only a week before the floods.

“Despite all the sadness, I think we need to learn a lesson from this,” said Menezes, who drew a parallel between the city’s reckoning with its past and its response to the recent disaster.

“When the floods started, people said it wasn’t the time to find who was responsible – but that was a way of not facing up to the problems.

“People must know what happened was an environmental tragedy, but it was also caused by humans … We cannot deny history once again,” said Menezes.

An onslaught of record-breaking heat across much of the US has provided yet another indicator of a longer-term issue – summers are progressively getting hotter for Americans in all corners of the country.

The US climate scientist Brian Brettschneider has analysed almost 130 years of federal data and it shows that from New York to Los Angeles summers have got significantly hotter in that time compared with the average levels of warming brought about by the burning of fossil fuels.

Summers are, on average, now about 0.8C (1.5F) hotter across the US than this earlier period, but many places have had far more extreme summertime increases, being up to 2.8C (5F) hotter.

More than a third of people in the US live in a county that has summers 1.5C (2.7F) hotter, or more, than they were on average in 1895, Brettschneider’s analysis of federal government data shows. This means that about 117 million Americans are experiencing these new conditions, with 55.7 million of these people in counties that have heated up by 2C (3.6F) or more.

A smaller, but significant, number of people, about 12 million, live in places that have heated up 2.5C (4.5F) or more over summer since the 19th century. Globally, the average year-round temperature is slightly more than 1C (1.8F) warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, with last year the hottest ever recorded, the latest in a string of record annual highs.

“Summer is a time is when we are hyper-aware of warm temperatures and many of us are feeling that right now,” said Brettschneider, a climate scientist who compiled the county-level figures drawn from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) temperature data for the summer months stretching back to 1895.

The fastest-warming counties span places with sparsely populated desert, rugged mountains and breezy coastal cities, with the three highest temperature increases over summer occurring in Grand county, Utah; Ouray county, Colorado; and Ventura county, California. The counties that include Los Angeles, Baltimore and Phoenix all have summers 2.2C (4F) or more hotter than the prior average, while the heart of New York City is 2.1C (3.8F) warmer.

Regional temperature discrepancies are influenced by factors such as natural variation and land-use changes, as well as the overall warming climate, cautioned Jane Baldwin, a climate scientist at the University of California, Irvine.

Winters are warming more quickly than summers, too. But even seemingly small increases in summer temperatures can have an outsized impact in fueling punishing heat, Baldwin said.

“One degree celsius of warming may sound relatively small but it can translate into quite substantial impacts as it’s an average and the extremes of that average can cause much higher likelihoods of deaths from heatwaves, as well as agricultural impacts and wildfires,” she said.

“Heat is a silent killer and it unfortunately affects the most underserved members of society the worst.”

The dangers of warming summers have already been illustrated this year, with record temperatures baking the US south-west and, more recently, the eastern half of the country.

Prolonged heat of 32C (90F) and more has hit about 80% of the population, lingering in some places for the longest time in decades, the National Weather Service has said, adding that the “early arrival of this magnitude of heat, the duration, abundant sunshine and lack of relief overnight will increase the danger of this heat wave beyond what the exact temperature values would suggest”.

The recent heatwave that engulfed much of the southern US, as well as large parts of Mexico and Central America, was made 35 times more likely due to human-induced climate change, according to a rapid analysis by scientists.

Studies have found that summers are generally getting hotter, including much warmer night-times which reduces the amount of relief people get from the elevated temperatures. Heatwaves are getting fiercer and are moving more slowly as the planet warms, with heat now the largest weather-related cause of death in the US.

“We are now starting to have this complicated relationship with summer,” said Deepti Singh, a climate and extreme events expert at Washington State University. “The extreme events are happening more quickly than the rate of mean temperature warming, which is putting a strain on everything we depend upon as a society.

“If you talk to climate scientists, there’s certainly an anxiety as summer approaches. It can be distressing.”

The county-level map of summer temperature increases shows that the warming isn’t uniform, however, with large jumps in heat across much of the US west and in the north-eastern US.

Summer temperatures have somewhat flatlined in the US south-east, meanwhile, a phenomenon known as a “warming hole” that could be down to reflective particulate pollution or reforestation in the region that has helped ameliorate the overall temperature rise, although much of the south-east still gets extremely hot in summer.

Hotter summers not only mean worsening heatwaves – they also contribute to warmer rivers and streams, affecting wildlife, and increase the risk of giant wildfires. More than 50,000 people died because of smoke from various California wildfires in the decade to 2018, a study released this month found, with worsening smoke starting to erase broader progress made in cutting air pollution in the US over the past 50 years.

“People underestimate how at risk they are from the heat,” said Kristie Ebi, an epidemiologist who specializes in climate change impacts at the University of Washington.

“It’s pregnant women, outdoor workers, people on certain medications – the list of vulnerable people is actually quite long. Humans are pretty darn good at thinking others at risk but that they aren’t. We need to understand we are all at risk from this.”

Ebi said there was also a “misconception” that people already living in hot areas can simply acclimatize to extra heat, warning that everyone should check on neighbors, and seek shade, water and cooling when temperatures climb. “There are physiological limits that we all face,” she said.

Longer-term, the hotter summers will keep coming as long as humans continue to expel planet-heating emissions, scientists caution. “Until we stop burning coal, oil and natural gas, conditions like this week’s dangerous heat will become more and more common,” said Andrew Pershing, vice-president of science at Climate Central.

William Armstrong was a Victorian inventor and engineer who in 1870 created the world’s first hydroelectric power scheme, at his family home of Cragside, near Rothbury, Northumberland. It was run by water that ran down a steep slope from an artificial lake, driving a turbine and dynamo to generate electricity.

In 1880, Lord Armstrong used the hydroelectricity to light Cragside by powering incandescent bulbs invented by Joseph Swan. He also used it to run other inventions, such as an electric saw, fire alarms, buzzers for servants’ quarters and dinner gongs. Visitors to Cragside were astonished and it became known as “the palace of the modern magician”.

Apart from hydroelectricity, Armstrong pioneered hydraulic mechanisms, including ones that raised and lowered Tower Bridge, and he installed a hydraulic lift in Cragside.

He was also an environmentalist who realised fossil fuels could not be relied on indefinitely and that renewable forms of power generation, such as hydroelectric and solar, would be needed. In 1883 he made an astonishing prediction: that because coal “was used wastefully and extravagantly in all its applications”, Britain would cease to produce it within two centuries. Yet the genius and foresight of Armstrong are now largely forgotten.

On a blustery morning in May on Shoreham-by-Sea’s west beach, Eric Smith and George Short are pointing out treasures the waves have left on the tideline. Cuttlefish bones and balls of whelk eggs, they say, are evidence of recovering marine habitats.

“Just give nature a bit of space and it will come back” says Smith, 76, a former lorry driver by trade, freediver by choice. He first started diving in Sussex coastal waters at the age of 11, and still recalls the underwater “garden of Eden” of his childhood, a kelp forest teeming with bream, lobsters and cuttlefish that stretched 40km between Shoreham and Selsey Bill. It vanished after years of intensive trawling, a destructive form of fishing involving dragging heavy nets along the seabed.

For decades, Smith was a lone voice in his community, battling to stop trawlers further destroying the seabed that hosted the kelp forest, a nursery and spawning ground for fish and other marine life and one of the country’s most biodiverse ecosystems.

Today, he is part of Sussex Bay, a combination of grassroots conservationists, locals, businesses and other groups, spearheaded by Adur and Worthing councils, dedicated to a pioneering project: the rewilding of rivers, land and seascape centred along a 100-mile stretch of coastline in Sussex.

The project, awarded £100,000 in March by Rewilding Britain, covers an area encompassing 11 councils and a million people. It could see oyster beds, salt marsh and kelp reintroduced to help combat the climate crisis and encourage wildlife. The scheme, the first of its kind, also encompasses the River Adur, which flows 20 miles through the rolling South Downs national park to the sea, close to Shoreham. It aims to crowdfund a further £1m, for additional projects, this month.

At its heart lies the kelp forest, 96% of which vanished between the late 1980s and the century’s end. It did not survive a huge storm in 1987, after years of trawling in one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, the English channel. Three years ago, amid concern over decline in fish catches, a bylaw was passed by the Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCA) to ban nearshore trawling from 300 square km of Sussex seabed, to protect fish and marine habitats and support sustainable inshore fisheries.

Smith and other freedivers, including his daughter, Catrine Priestley, who runs the Sussex Underwater community group, have begun filming the signs of recovery, including new mussel beds that are binding the seabed back together.

“I’ve seen kelp washed up here in the winter, for the first time in 10 years,” says Smith, who still dives off his boat regularly, despite being unable to walk far, after having both hips and knees replaced.

“We’ve had the biggest bed of mussels stretching from Lancing to Brighton. I saw an electric eel last year and an angel shark, which is critically endangered. First one I’ve seen since 1966. Also the bream are coming back. They are very vulnerable to bottom trawling – and one of the species targeted by the vessels.”

A sudden streak of sunshine through the grey clouds lifts the sea’s colour from slate to a warmer shade of grey, but the recovery described by Smith remains hidden to non-divers. The Sussex Bay project aims to raise awareness of recovering land, sea and river ecosystems and the benefits they can bring to communities.

“People don’t know what is on the coast here,” says Short, the kelp recovery coordinator at Sussex Kelp Recovery Project. “To many, it’s grey and empty. But Eric, Catrine and others provide a window beneath the waves.”

“We have lots of anecdotal observations from the freediving community, citizen scientists and sea swimmers, about changes,” she says. “They show how if we remove this pressure on nature, things grow back.”

Annual dolphins and porpoise sightings are also up in Sussex, from a reported 31 in both years 2018 and 2019, to 56 and 57 in 2022 and 2023, after the trawling ban.

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are displacing healthy diets “all over the world” despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the nutritional scientist who first coined the term.

Prof Carlos Monteiro of the University of São Paulo will highlight the increasing danger UPFs present to children and adults at the International Congress on Obesity this week.

“UPFs are increasing their share in and domination of global diets, despite the risk they represent to health in terms of increasing the risk of multiple chronic diseases,” Monteiro told the Guardian ahead of the conference in São Paulo.

“UPFs are displacing healthier, less processed foods all over the world, and also causing a deterioration in diet quality due to their several harmful attributes. Together, these foods are driving the pandemic of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes.”

The stark warning comes amid rapidly rising global consumption of UPFs such as cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks, ready meals and fast food.

In the UK and US, more than half the average diet now consists of ultra-processed food. For some, especially people who are younger, poorer or from disadvantaged areas, a diet comprising as much as 80% UPF is typical.

In February, the world’s largest review of its kind found UPFs were directly linked to 32 harmful effects to health, including a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, adverse mental health and early death.

Monteiro and his colleagues first used the phrase UPF 15 years ago when designing the food classification system “Nova”. This assesses not only nutritional content but also the processes food undergoes before it is consumed.

The system places food and drink into four groups: minimally processed food, processed culinary ingredients, processed food and ultra-processed food.

Monteiro told the Guardian he was now so concerned about the impact UPF was having on human health that studies and reviews were no longer sufficient to warn the public of the health hazards.

“Public health campaigns are needed like those against tobacco to curb the dangers of UPFs,” he told the Guardian in an email. “Such campaigns would include the health dangers of consumption of UPFs.

“Advertisements for UPFs should also be banned or heavily restricted, and front-of-pack warnings should be introduced similar to those used for cigarette packs.”

He will tell delegates: “Sales of UPFs in schools and health facilities should be banned, and there should be heavy taxation of UPFs, with the revenue generated used to subsidise fresh foods.”

Monteiro will tell the conference that food giants marketing UPFs know that, in order to be competitive, their products must be more convenient, more affordable and tastier than freshly prepared meals. “To maximise profits, these UPFs must have lower cost of production and be overconsumed,” he said.

He will also draw parallels between UPF and tobacco companies. “Both tobacco and UPFs cause numerous serious illnesses and premature mortality; both are produced by transnational corporations that invest the enormous profits they obtain with their attractive/addictive products in aggressive marketing strategies, and in lobbying against regulation; and both are pathogenic (dangerous) by design, so reformulation is not a solution.”

However, Dr Hilda Mulrooney, a reader in nutrition and health at London Metropolitan University, said comparing UPF to tobacco was “very simplistic”.

“There is no such thing as a safe cigarette, even second-hand, so banning them is relatively straightforward in that the health case is very clear.

“However, we need a range of nutrients including fat, sugar and salt, and they have multiple functions in foods – structural, shelf-life – not just taste and flavour and hedonic properties.

“It is not as easy to reformulate some classes of foods to reduce them and they are not the same as tobacco because we need food – just not in the quantities most of us are consuming.”

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have clashed over their responses to the Westminster gambling scandal, as it emerged the Metropolitan police is to widen its role in the investigation into bets placed on the general election.

In the last head-to-head debate before voters go to the polls, the Labour leader launched a fierce attack on the culture at the top of the Conservative party, saying it showed the “wrong instinct” to place bets on the future of the country – likening it to the cavalier attitude to Covid rules.

In the angry exchanges, Sunak repeatedly urged the country not to “surrender” to Labour’s plans on tax and migration and said the general election should not be decided purely based on frustration with the Conservatives.

“I understand why you’re frustrated with our party, with me, I get it. But this is not a byelection, it’s a choice with profound consequences for you and our country,” he said. “And before you make that choice, think what a Labour government would mean.

“Can you afford to pay at least £2,000 more in tax?… And if you’re not certain about Labour, don’t surrender to them, don’t vote for any other party, vote Conservative.”

In response, the Labour leader said of the claim that Labour would raise taxes by £2,000 a household: “That is a lie [on tax], he’s been told not to repeat that lie and he’s just done it.”

The UK’s statistics watchdog has previously issued the Conservatives with a warning over the claim, saying they had failed to make clear how the figures were calculated.

Five Conservative politicians and staffers have now been suspended for allegedly betting on the election date. Labour was drawn into the gambling row on Tuesday after being forced to suspend one of his own candidates for betting he would not win the seat he was contesting.

Starmer said he had suspended his candidate, Kevin Craig, “within minutes” – comparing his actions with Sunak, who took days to make the decision. “I think that in the last 14 years politics has become too much about self entitlement, and MPs thinking about what they could get for themselves,” he said.

“The instinct of these people to think the first thing they should do is try to make money, that was the wrong instinct, and we have to change that.”

He said Sunak had “delayed and delayed and delayed” and had been “bullied into” taking action. “My candidates know I have the highest standards. They have seen by my actions the consequences,” he said.

It comes as the Met police confirmed it was investigating a “small number of cases” related to the Westminster gambling row to “assess whether the alleged offending goes beyond Gambling Act offences to include others, such as misconduct in public office”.

A Met police spokesperson said it would announce more on its investigation on Thursday. “The Met is not taking over the investigation into bets on the timing of the General Election. The Gambling Commission will continue to lead the investigation into cases where the alleged offending is limited to breaches of the Gambling Act only,” it said.

The Guardian uncovered the gambling scandal two weeks ago, revealing that Craig Williams was the subject of an investigation by the watchdog for betting that the election would be in July, three days before it was called.

The watchdog is also examining bets allegedly placed by Tony Lee, the Conservative party’s campaigns director and his wife, Laura Saunders, the Tory candidate in Bristol North West, as well as Nick Mason, the Tories’ chief data officer.

The Guardian also revealed that Russell George, a Tory member of the Welsh parliament who represents the same constituency as Craig Williams, is part of the commission’s inquiry.

Six of the Met’s own officers have been caught up in the scandal so far, with one, a protection officer for the prime minister, under investigation for misconduct in public office having allegedly placed five bets on the election date.

Labour suspended the Central Suffolk and North Ipswich candidate Kevin Craig and said it would now return £100,000 he had donated to the party under Starmer’s leadership, while the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, would give back £13,000 donated for staffing costs.

in the second and final debate between the two leaders, hosted by the BBC, they clashed over the economy, immigration and their prime ministerial qualities. Loud protests were heard from outside the building in Nottingham during the exchanges.

Starmer said Sunak would be “Liz Truss Mark II” and that the same damage would follow. “He’s now openly admitted the damage that the Conservatives have done to this country and then is now saying – vote for me.”

He also drew applause from the audience for challenging Sunak on the cost of living, saying: “If you listened to people across the country more often you might not be so much out of touch.”

Starmer accused Sunak of using trans people as “a political football to divide people”, though both said they would protect women’s rights to single sex spaces.

The Labour leader drew whoops of applause when he said that he believed trans people should be treated with “dignity and respect … if you don’t, we end up with the prime minister of the United Kingdom standing in parliament making an anti-trans joke in front of the mother of a murdered trans teenager.”

Sunak replied: “That’s not what I did. I was pointing out that you’ve changed your mind on this question multiple times.”

But Sunak landed blows on Starmer earlier in the debate by questioning his plans on illegal migration, saying his plans for return agreements for migrants were “nonsensical” when it came to countries such as Iran and Afghanistan.

“He says he’s going to sit down with people. Are you going to sit down with the Iranian ayatollahs? Are you going to do a deal with the Taliban? It’s completely nonsensical what you are saying. You are taking people for fools,” Sunak said.

The Labour leader said that Sunak’s plan to deport people to Rwanda was also not having any deterrent effect.

“At the moment they are not being processed … there are tens of thousands of people sitting in hotels and you haven’t processed their claims. At the moment 100% of them are effectively being granted asylum … and because they aren’t being processed, they can’t be returned to where they come from,” he said.

The prime minister said that Starmer also had no plan for how he would deal with those asylum seekers currently in limbo. “If Keir Starmer becomes prime minister, all those illegal migrants will be out our streets, and that is a choice for you,” he said.

“Do not surrender to the Labour party the control of our borders. If Labour wins, the people smugglers are going to need a bigger boat.”

So, this was the night Georgia advanced to the last 16 in their first appearance at a major tournament courtesy of a magnificent victory over Portugal and one that will live long in the memory of the thousands of supporters who were here to witness history. No wonder Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, who got the nation dreaming after scoring inside 92 seconds and afterwards swapped shirts with his childhood hero Cristiano Ronaldo, pined to see the scenes in Tbilisi.

There will be a rich tapestry of lasting images from this win but the sight of Georgia’s substitutes’ bench emptying, reserve goalkeepers Giorgi Loria and Luka Gugeshashvili, too, streaming to mob Georges Mikautadze after his penalty earned a two-goal buffer is hard to top. Guram Kashia looked to the skies, kissed his wrist and beat his chest. Willy Sagnol, wearing a plain white T-shirt, merely clenched his left fist. It is fair to say the celebrations back home will be rather more unrestrained. “This is the best day in the lives of Georgians,” Kvaratskhelia said. “We just made history. Nobody believed we would defeat Portugal but this is why we’re a strong team. We just encourage each other and said that we could do it. Even if there is just a 1% chance, we proved that you can make it happen.”

On the basis of the 68-place gulf between them in the Fifa rankings alone, it felt a big ask. Where to start with arguably the greatest underdog story at a European Championship since Wales went deep into the tournament at Euro 2016 or Iceland knocked out England the same summer. It would be easy to linger on the petulance of Ronaldo, who booted a water bottle down the touchline in anger after being withdrawn midway through the second half. But then that would be to ignore the endearing brilliance of this Georgia team; the way they commemorate blocks like victories, the dancing feet of Kvaratskhelia, the brute strength of Kashia, a warrior and a leader. It is not Ronaldo but Mikautadze who is leading the way for the golden boot in Germany. Ronaldo is yet to get off the mark for a Portugal side who will play Slovenia in the last 16. It is the first time in his career Ronaldo has failed to score in the group stage of a major tournament.

Georgia had to win to avoid elimination while Portugal came into the game with a place in the last 16 already boxed off. Roberto Martínez changed nine of his 10 outfield players, Ronaldo the only survivor from their impressive win over Turkey. Diogo Costa remained in goal and with 92 seconds on the clock it was the Portugal goalkeeper who was fishing the ball out of his net.

Martínez conceded his team struggled to cope with Georgia’s intensity and hunger. At the end of the first half Portugal had recorded twice as many touches and 11 shots compared to their opponents’ three. But there was only one that mattered, Kvaratskhelia drilling the ball across Costa and into the far corner to register his first goal at a major tournament. It is a goal that will be replayed for years to come in Georgia but one the right-back António Silva will not want to see in a hurry. Silva played a careless backward pass towards halfway and the moment Mikautadze seized possession, the first time they had done so in the opposition half, he ran towards a wall of noise from the Georgia supporters staring back at him. Mikautadze spied Kvaratskhelia to his left and played the perfect pass, allowing his teammate to do the rest.

A brave and disciplined Georgia were intent on upsetting Portugal. Kashia nicked the ball from Ronaldo to huge cheers and soon afterwards Georgia dispossessed João Félix before playing their own neat triangles. Any time the ball was within a five-metre radius of Kvaratskhelia the noise was deafening from the Georgia supporters. Ronaldo was booked for dissent after airing his anger at the Swiss referee, Sandro Schäfer, for failing to penalise the Georgia defender Luka Lochoshvili for getting touch-tight. He fumed as Pedro Neto was booked for diving on the verge of half-time. He saw a shot superbly blocked by Giorgi Gvelesiani and another by Lasha Dvali early in the second half. No matter how much they believed, Georgia probably never envisaged the sight of Ronaldo playing ballboy in a bid to restart the action and fashion an equaliser.

Diogo Dalot forced a phenomenal left-hand save from Giorgi Marmardashvili, again superb in the Georgia goal, but then the referee pressed pause as the VAR reviewed Lochoshvili’s fall inside the box at the start of the phase of play. The referee headed to the pitchside VAR monitor and then pointed to the penalty spot, confirming Silva, who was later withdrawn alongside Ronaldo, swiped at the midfielder. Mikautadze sidefooted his spot-kick into the corner and while Costa went the right way, neither he nor Portugal were a match for Georgia.

Progressive groups reacted with disappointment and anger over Jamaal Bowman’s decisive primary loss to a moderate Democrat in New York’s 16th district, calling for the party to cut ties with pro-Israel lobbying groups they blame for the result.

In a letter to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, more than a dozen progressive organizations said they had “dire concerns” over the party’s continued association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), “the future of the Democratic Party, the future of our multiracial democracy, and the future of our planet”.

Aipac and its affiliates plan to spend $100m across the election cycle, and Bowman’s defeat marks their most significant victory to date. Looking ahead, they have already set their sights set on the Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, who will face Wesley Bell in her August primary. United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with Aipac, has already spent nearly $1.9m promoting Bell’s candidacy.

The signatories of the letter included the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, New York Communities for Change and New York City Democratic Socialists of America.

In the letter, they said that in the run-up to the vote, UDP had flooded the Westchester county–northern Bronx district with nearly $20m in mailers and ads “funded largely by Republican billionaires, to drown out Jamaal Bowman’s message of humanity, dignity, and a thriving future for all”.

The result, they said, had been to unseat a a candidate that Jeffries had personally endorsed, who retains “a deep well of support among the Black and brown communities in the district”, and to replace him with “a conservative politician with a history of racist remarks and governance”.

Bowman, a Black former middle school principal who has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, lost to challenger George Latimer by a wide margin of 58% to 42% of the vote. The race was called within an hour of polls closing.

Bowman had been supported on the campaign trail by heavyweight party progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who called the race “one of the most important in the modern history of America”.

Sanders said in a statement after Bowman’s loss that it was “an outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded Super Pacs to buy elections.”

“Aipac and other Super Pacs spent over $23 million to defeat Bowman. He spent $3 million. That is a spending gap which is virtually impossible to overcome,” he said, adding: “It is not a coincidence that with our corrupt campaign finance system we also have a rigged economy that allows the very rich to get much richer while many working people are falling further behind. Big Money buys politicians who will do their bidding, and the results are clear.”

Progressives, like Sanders, attempted to characterize the race as an example of big-money influence in politics after pro-Israel groups and a number of wealthy residents of the New York suburban parts of the district weighed in with their checkbooks.

Bush underscored that Latimer’s victory represented a clear threat to the progressive movement, saying in a statement: “These same extremists are coming to St Louis. They are bankrolling a faux-progressive, former Republican campaign operative to buy our deep blue Democratic seat. But let me be clear: St Louis will not be silenced or sold out.”

The progressive groups said that Aipac had “turned the NY16 race into the most expensive Democratic primary in history, waging an unacceptable assault on our democracy, our communities, and our shared future” and called on Jeffries to take action against “destructive actions in your own backyard”.

Jeffries, along with most of the House Democratic leadership team, has received Aipac’s endorsement, and the progressive groups demanded that he reject the pro-Israel lobby group’s financial support to protest against Bowman’s defeat.

Protect Our Power said in a statement that Bowman’s defeat was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy”.

The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”.

In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”.

“Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. “To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac,” she added.

Bob Herbst, a member of the group and a constituent of NY-16, called Aipac’s multimillion-dollar spend in the district “a dangerous interference in our democracy”.

The race had been viewed as a crucial test of Democratic party unity over an issue that threatens to separate traditionally Democratic-voting Jewish Americans from the party in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people, and a nine-month Israeli counter-offensive that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and driven hundreds of thousands more to the point of starvation.

Bowman claimed that the results would show “fucking Aipac the power of the motherfucking South Bronx”, though the Aipac campaign focused primarily on Bowman’s weaknesses overall and not specifically or solely his stance on Israel. One UDP attack ad against Bowman specifically called out his votes against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the debt ceiling agreement, accusing the representative of failing his constituents.

“Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden,” the ad’s narrator says. “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda, and it’s hurting New York.”

Nonetheless, Aipac is using Latimer’s victory to claim that Bowman’s stance on Israel is why he lost.

“This race presented a clear choice – between George Latimer, who reflects the views of the Democratic mainstream in his congressional district and across the country, and his opponent, who aligns with the extremist, anti-Israel fringe,” an Aipac spokesperson, Marshall Wittmann, told Axios.

Bowman was no stranger to scandals while in office. In December 2023, he became the 27th House member in history to be censured after pulling a fire alarm on his way to vote on a stopgap spending bill. He was also linked to problematic blogposts that pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The posts, which Bowman said were from more than a decade ago, were unearthed by the Daily Beast earlier this year and the former representative has since said he regrets them.

Bowman’s opponent, Latimer, offered a more measured approach in a district with a large number of Jewish voters.

After Latimer accepted his win on Tuesday night, he told supporters: “We have to fight to make sure that we do not vilify each other, that we remember that we’re all Americans, and that our common future is bound together.”

Joanie Greve contributed reporting