Fewer than three weeks before actor Alec Baldwin is due to go on trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutors have said that he “engaged in horseplay with the revolver”, including firing a blank round at a crew member on the set of Rust before the tragic accident occurred.

Baldwin is facing involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

In new court documents, prosecutors said they plan to bring new evidence to support their case that the 66-year-old actor and producer was reckless with firearms while filming on the set and displayed “erratic and aggressive behavior during the filming” that created potential safety concerns.

Prosecutors in the case, which is due to go to trial on 10 July, have previously alleged that to watch Baldwin’s conduct on the set of Rust “is to witness a man who has absolutely no control of his own emotions and absolutely no concern for how his conduct affects those around him”.

In the latest filing, special prosecutors Kari Morrissey and Erlinda Johnson allege that Baldwin pointed his gun and fired “a blank round at a crew member while using that crew member as a line of site as his perceived target”.

Prosecutors also allege that after he asked for the “biggest” gun available, the actor used the prop weapon “as a pointer directing crew members”; fired it after “cut” was called on a scene; placed his finger on the trigger in scenes that required no shooting; rushed the film’s armorer to reload faster; and was “inattentive during the firearms training” and “distracted by texting/face timing family members and making videos for his family’s enjoyment”.

Minutes before the 911 call was made reporting the shooting of Hutchins and director Joel Souza, Baldwin had been photographed manipulating his prop gun and “appears to have his finger inside the trigger guard and his thumb on the hammer”.

They also allege that when Rust resumed filing in Montana the following year Baldwin “was insistent that he not be required to follow safety recommendations made by film set safety experts”.

Baldwin has pleaded no guilty to involuntary manslaughter charges in the death of Hutchins during a rehearsal on the set when he aimed a revolver in her direction. The gun fired, killing Hutchins and wounding Souza. He faces up to one and a half years in prison if convicted.

In April, Rust’s set armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, 26, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being found guilty on the same charges Baldwin now faces. The actor has repeatedly tried to have the charges dismissed and previously refused a plea deal.

Separate to Baldwin’s criminal prosecution, Hutchins’ family recently renewed their negligence lawsuit against Baldwin and other producers and crew, contending that Hutchins’ death was caused by reckless behavior.

“The fact that live ammunition was allowed on a movie set, that guns and ammunition were left unattended … and that defendant Baldwin inexplicably pointed and fired a gun at Halyna Hutchins, makes this a case where injury or death was much more than just a possibility – it was a likely result,” the lawsuit said.

Baldwin recently announced that he and wife, Hilaria Baldwin, along with their seven children all under the age of 10 will star in their own reality TV show about their family to be broadcast next year.

The decision to make the announcement soon before the Santa Fe trial was criticized as a stunt by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred.

“This appears to me to be a calculated and cynical public relations move to try to influence the jury pool in New Mexico to think of him as a sympathetic family man rather than as the killer of Halyna Hutchins,” Allred told the celebrity news site TMZ.

Which of Germany’s old stagers will be next to steal the scene? Toni Kroos had teased Scotland to pieces on the opening day but this time the floor was left to his captain, who delivered a resounding statement. Four months from now Ilkay Gündogan will turn 34 but this was another of those evenings where, as with his imminently retiring colleague, the idea that the show will one day end feels simply unfair.

Gündogan intervened decisively midway through each half, ­creating the opener for Jamal Musiala and sweeping in a second goal that finally deflated a largely impressive Hungary. Had Marco Rossi’s players converted one presentable chance among several, notably through Barnabas Varga on the hour, they would have quietened a buoyant crowd. Instead they were the latest to find that the hosts have begun this summer with the dead-eyed edge of old. Germany were clinical and their momentum is gathering.

If the veterans are trading star ­billing, Musiala is a dazzling constant. “The way he’s going right now, he can be one of the best,” Gündogan said afterwards and it was justified praise. He turned in another irrepressible performance and what a special moment it was when, in his home city, he met the captain’s pass and hammered high into the net. Musiala tormented Hungary out wide but his acuity in occupying pockets of space more centrally was fundamental to the moments that won this game.

Exhibit A came in the 22nd ­minute of a game Germany had started slowly, finding that Hungary were as good as their word in promising a more aggressive display than in a poor defeat against Switzerland. Some of the hosts’ connections around the box had started to show promise, and Peter Gulascsi had saved from Kai Havertz after ineffectual defending from Willi Orban, but it took Musiala’s initiative to calm their early jitters.

Musiala had collected the ball in a tight space on the edge of the box, with four opponents looking to minimise his options, and slipped it through to an on-rushing Gündogan. There was a sizeable element of fortune after that, the pass bouncing off his thigh as he sought to tame it and seemingly allowing Orban to take control.

The centre-back, no more con­vincing than he had been earlier on, stumbled as he tried to shepherd the ball towards the byline. The complaint was that Gündogan had shoved him, but Orban had seemed to lean into his opponent and surely should have been stronger. Several of Hungary’s players certainly erred in stopping with hands held aloft while ­the midfielder took control of matters and, from the left side of the six‑yard box, teed up an alert Musiala for a second thudding finish in as many games.

Hungary had come close after only 16 seconds, Manuel Neuer ­diving at the feet of Roland Sallai, and gave the 38-year-old more to do. They did not appear perturbed at going behind and were denied soon afterwards when Neuer brilliantly repelled a Dominik Szoboszlai free-kick and blocked the rebound from Varga. If the excellence of golden oldies is to be a theme, Neuer was another who warmed to it.

By the three-quarter mark Germany had not put Hungary, who had recorded a win and two draws in their previous three meetings, out of view. Then Kroos sped up a prolonged passing move with a first-time clip to Musiala, imbued with instructions to maintain that raised tempo. Eyes in the back of his head, Musiala found the left‑back Maximilian Mittelstädt in space and the resulting cutback was swept in by Gündogan.

He barely put a foot wrong throughout and Julian ­Nagelsmann pointed out that, off the ball, he had kept Germany on the straight and narrow when they were listing. “He worked amazingly,” Nagelsmann said. “He tried to steer the match, he used some of the stoppages and tried to double check things with me. I have big trust in him because I know what is within him.”

Perhaps the post-match enthusiasm would have been more restrained if Varga, unmarked from a perfect Sallai cross, had equalised rather than looping his header over. There was little influence Gundogan could exert on that sequence. Sallai had a goal correctly disallowed before the interval and, towards the end, a late goalline clearance from Joshua Kimmich ensured the bank of almost 20,000 fans behind Neuer’s goal were left with nothing bar an improved showing to savour. Hungary, fancied as potential dark horses, are on the brink of elimination.

For Germany the latter stages were celebratory and Nagelsmann could play to the gallery by enhancing the local flavour. Mittelstadt, who plays here for VfB Stuttgart, was joined on the pitch by clubmates Chris Fuhrich and the Brighton loanee Deniz Undav; the crowd loved those little touches, just as they had adored those of Gundogan and his cohort.

The French government should intervene in TotalEnergies and spur faster climate action, a senate inquiry commission has concluded.

The commission, set up to explore ways the state could guarantee that the oil conglomerate complies with French climate commitments, recommended 33 steps the government should take to “encourage a rapid, orderly and effective transition”.

The actions include taking a “golden share” in Total that would grant the government more influence over strategic decisions and a potential right of veto that could stop the company moving its headquarters to the US. It also called on the French government to provide incentive for faster and greater investments from Total in renewable energy.

“The commission recommends that the state re-enters into the capital of TotalEnergies to have a right to review what is happening there,” said Yannick Jadot, a senator with the Greens who served as the rapporteur.

The commission, which was set up at the request of the Greens but contained senators from a range of political parties, praised Total for making greater efforts to transition to clean energy. But it said the energy company – and others like it – should move away more quickly from fossil fuels and increase its investments in renewable energy.

Beyond Total, the report called for an end to imports of Russian liquefied natural gas and suggested including it in European sanctions. It also recommended studying a method by which fossil fuel companies could pay contributions to a “loss and damage fund” to compensate poor countries for the havoc caused by increasingly extreme weather.

Total is one of several energy companies linked to “carbon bomb” projects, whose vast emissions are set to blow past internationally agreed temperature targets. In 2021, the International Energy Agency found no room for new oil and gas fields if the planet was to be kept from heating 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, but its warnings have not been heeded.

The findings, which echo research from the IPCC and other scientific bodies, were used to argue for faster action.

Activists welcomed the report, but said its recommendations did not go far enough to halt climate breakdown.

Soraya Fettih, from the campaign group 350.org, said the report “recognises the need for the state to demonstrate more vigilance over the activities of the company”. But she said it remained “far too timid” in its recommendations on the regulatory role of the state.

Edina Ifticène, fossil energy campaigner at Greenpeace France, said the industry and its political supporters had “brushed aside” Total’s responsibility for the climate crisis. “The state must establish strong political constraints forcing the fossil fuel industry to reduce its carbon footprint and pay for the damage already caused.”

The commission’s report comes a day after the Paris court of appeals ruled that a previously rejected climate case against Total was admissible, and will now be heard on merit.

Total has been approached for comment.

An Alaska man and two police officers rescued a baby moose from what police described as “a sure demise” after it fell into a lake and got stuck in a narrow space between a floatplane and a dock.

Spencer Warren, who works for the outdoor tourism company Destination Alaska Adventure Co, had arrived at work about 6.30am on Friday to prepare a floatplane for the day’s trip when he heard what he thought was an odd-sounding bird.

He quickly spotted the moose calf stuck between the floats of the plane and the dock at Beluga Lake in Homer, a Kenai peninsula community about 220 miles (350km) south of Anchorage. The floats replace the wheels on a plane, allowing it to take off and land on water.

He immediately thought, “Oh, man, where is mama? I know she’s nearby,” before spotting the worried mother about 4ft (1.2 meters) away with another calf. Mother moose can be dangerously protective of their calves – a photographer was killed by a mama moose protecting her calf just last month in Homer.

The baby moose tried to get out of the lake, but couldn’t get its footing on the top of the metal float with its hooves. Its wary mother was keeping Warren, the would-be rescuer, from getting too close as it struggled.

“It’s like an ice rink for the moose and its hooves,” Warren said of Friday’s rescue. “So he just kept slipping and slipping and could not get up.”

Warren checked in with his boss, who called Homer police.

One officer eventually positioned his police cruiser between the mama moose and the floatplane to allow another officer and Warren to rescue the calf, Lt Ryan Browning of the Homer police told the Associated Press.

The calf had one leg outstretched across the top of the plane’s float, where it was stuck.

“You know, kind of thankfully, he wasn’t moving so that it made the rescue a little bit easier,” Warren said. “We just lifted him straight out and put him on the dock there.”

The exhausted calf splayed out on the boardwalk until an officer helped it stand. The calf reunited with its mother and she licked the water off its body – all of it caught on camera by Warren.

“Anytime you can rescue a little critter, it always makes you feel good,” Browning said.

Prof Lynn Dicks has had her hands in the soil for almost three decades – and she has watched it slowly become stripped of invertebrate life.

“In my life, I have seen the decline,” says Dicks, an ecology professor at the University of Cambridge. She knows it from the data: “The data we have of long-term trends in insect abundance over time, that the decline rates are, on average, about 1% a year.

But she sees it, every day, as well. “There are fewer insects just flying around. When you leave the window open and the lights on at night, you don’t get flooded with them any more like you used to.”

Dicks has spent her lift trying to work out why, exactly, the UK’s insect populations are nosediving before it is too late to stop species being lost for ever. And pesticide use – the pesticides that farmers have been using on crops for decades – are one of the key factors.

While farming groups say the weight of pesticides used in the UK has halved since 1990, scientists and campaign groups say this is not an accurate measurement of chemical usage. This is because the types of chemicals used have become more toxic and the area of land treated with pesticides has increased.

Pesticide Action Network says some modern pesticides are 10,000 times more toxic than DDT, a notoriously noxious chemical that was banned for its impact on human health and the environment.

And we still don’t know the effects these cocktails of chemicals have on insect ecosystems, pointed out Nick Mole, policy officer at Pesticide Action Network UK. “Hundreds of different pesticides are used to grow food in the UK. As a result, pesticides appear in millions of different combinations in varying concentrations in our landscape. However, safety assessments are only carried out for one chemical at a time. There is little to no understanding of how these pesticides interact with one another to affect soil, water and biodiversity. Much more research needs to be undertaken to understand this properly.”

Dicks said: “The wild insects are being exposed to a very wide range of pesticides as they go about their lives. And it’s fungicide, herbicides, molluscasides, insecticides, a whole cocktail of different things. In fact, a recent European study on bumblebees, showed an average of eight different chemicals in the pollen stores collected by bumblebees, and up to 27 different pesticides being collected.”

Governments also don’t legislate for combinations of toxic chemicals, she explains, adding: “We don’t really know how this is affecting insects more widely. I would say it’s affecting them. In that European study on bumblebees, they could measure the exposure. They call it the pesticide risk, but it’s basically a measure of the exposure to pesticides that’s weighted by their toxicity, and that measure predicted the number of bumblebee queens that could be produced, the number of bees in the colonies, and the way the colonies grew. In fact, the most exposed colonies produced 47% fewer queens than those that were least exposed.”

The State of Nature report, conducted in 2023, found insect numbers crashing. “Pollinating insects (bees, hoverflies and moths), which play a critical role in food production, show an average decrease in distribution of 18% since 1970. Predators of crop pests (ants, carabid, rove and ladybird beetles, hoverflies, dragonflies and wasps) showed an average decrease in distribution of 34%”.

Max Barclay, the curator of beetles at the Natural History Museum in London, said he had also noticed a decline: “I examined horse dung at the weekend in Sussex, and found it was entirely devoid of dung beetles and their larvae and was just lying on the pasture in its original shape for weeks instead of being broken down into the soil. This has potential long-term consequences for soil health and fertility. Intact piles of dung all over a pasture is not something I have experienced when I was starting out in beetle studies in the 1980s and 90s, but now is a commonplace sight.”

He said the pesticides used in livestock farming were decimating beetle populations: “Ivermectin and associated worming drugs used routinely for sheep, cattle and horses can have a devastating effect on dung beetle faunas, which are important for recycling nutrients into the soil and through their burrowing for soil aeration.”

And unlike with crop pesticides, the issue is getting worse and the worming drugs are more frequently used. “Ivermectin has been available since the 1970s but recently there has been a cultural change, from worming animals when needed, to administering regular worming doses whether or not there is evidence of worms. This means that the dung and pasture is permanently contaminated with toxic chemicals.”

Ali Karley, Jenni Stockan and Cathy Hawes, respectively an agroecologist, an invertebrate specialist and an ecologist working in arable biodiversity at the James Hutton Institute said they had also noticed beetle declines.

They said: “From our Environmental Change Network data at our Glensaugh research farm, a hill farm in north-east Scotland, we’ve seen a reduction of about 70% in ground beetle abundance over 30 years, although this number varies with habitat. The biggest declines are in bog heathland and the least in grassland.”

They said pesticide use could be reduced with a technique known as integrated pest management, which “seeks to use natural predators or parasites to control pests, using selective pesticides for backup only when pests are unable to be controlled by natural means. It’s important to adopt an integrated approach to enable pesticide reduction without increasing risk.”

Some farmers are doing this already. Dicks said she felt optimistic about the future, with many farmers ceasing to use insecticides.

“I’m quite optimistic that we can change and that we can reduce pesticide use in all of our farmland,” she said, “But it does take goodwill, and it’s going to take supporting farmers to do that, and getting research to show a positive effect of that transition on insects in the real environment.”

Out of a near cloudless sky comes a low, hornet-like drone, announcing the arrival of a flyer many times bigger than any of the neighbourhood birds. It is a localised summer regular and, over decades, I have learned to narrow down this particular sound to two similar species.

More than a century ago, a previous country diarist watched and listened as I do. The Cheshire naturalist TA Coward observed the first flying machines and their impact on birds. By the time he came to write his column in 1919, he noted: “A few years ago, the appearance of an aeroplane caused great consternation among these lesser flyers; rooks, pigeons, starlings, partridges and others scattered and took cover, long before our less keen eyes had spotted the approaching machine. Now they are indifferent.”

And so it is today. The approaching plane might have scared the Unterhose off the Luftwaffe, but it shows no sign of diverting the flightpath of fly-catching starlings. The Shuttleworth aerodrome is just four miles as the crow flies, and it is the norm to see summer displays of vintage aircraft. The Spitfire or Hurricane comes into view at buzzard height, and my limited reading tells me the curve in the wings pinpoints a Spitfire.

Coward pondered the radical change in bird behaviour he had witnessed within a short space of time: “Presumably they had learned that this stiff-winged, noisy creature is not a gliding hawk, and that it does not swoop upon or strike down any of their kind. But does each bird learn this lesson in its youth, or is there an acquired hereditary knowledge?” Such a question exercised me much of last month, when robins nesting in the garden flew within arm’s length many times every day to feed their young. When do birds work out that some big beasts have no predatory intent?

High above the Spitfire, white wisps trail across the sky. The pandemic restored our blue virginity and offered a reset. Humanity never took it. Ever more jets fly today, pumping out the climate-wrecking gases that present the true danger to birds and people alike.

In 2001, after spending a year studying in Beijing as part of our degree, two friends and I decided to travel to Mongolia and Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway. We did everything as cheaply as possible, to the extent that I was terrified we were going to be flung off the train at the Mongolia-Russia border, because we’d got our visas from a tiny, dodgy-looking agency in a random tower block in Beijing.

Being worried was pretty much my default state at that time. I found talking to strangers difficult, and struggled to raise my hand in class. I was always terrified of making mistakes. Though it wasn’t a devastating shyness, I envied the way that friends and classmates always seemed at home in different groups and situations – a feeling that had always eluded me.

Studying Chinese was both a way of facing my fears head-on and a constant source of anxiety, as it demanded a willingness to make a complete fool of myself (the perils of a tonal language) and a confidence that I felt I just didn’t have. But, by the end of our year in Beijing, I was definitely making progress, and starting to feel more comfortable plunging into what had once felt like the high-wire balancing act of every conversation.

On this journey, though, the Chinese we’d been learning didn’t do us any good, as almost all the other passengers were Mongolian. But, despite the language barrier, we soon found ourselves lulled into the rhythm of life on the train, its closed world creating oddly intimate relationships (although the unfortunate gentleman who found himself sharing our cabin took one look at us and left, never to be seen on the journey again).

We spent hours watching the Russian landscape roll past. We jumped off the train at short station stops, as our fellow passengers laid out their goods on the ground, selling a few T-shirts or quilts before rolling everything up again, moments before the train left. We bought smoked fish from elderly ladies at the Irkutsk stop. We played cards in the guards’ cabin, communicating in a bit of shared Chinese, and in gestures and guesses, and vodka washed down with shots of milk.

There’s a point on the journey where the train crosses the border between Asia and Europe, and we decided to celebrate with a drink in the dining car. When we arrived, we walked straight into a party – music blaring, vodka flowing, boxes of chocolates being passed around. We were welcomed in, and crossed the border dancing to Robbie Williams and Mongolian pop, glancing outside just in time to glimpse the white obelisk that is the only sign of the meeting of continents. It was a moment I remember with a vivid sense of happiness – not because we were back in Europe but because I was here, on a train with people I’d just met, with a language we didn’t share, a long way from anywhere I knew and feeling absolutely exhilarated.

We got off the train late at night in a thunderstorm in Moscow, and somehow managed to find the state-approved hotel we’d booked in order to get our visas. After exploring Moscow and St Petersburg, my two friends flew back to the UK. But by now I was addicted, and I decided to carry on travelling home overland, taking a series of buses the rest of the way.

It was the first time I’d ever travelled completely alone – through six different countries, staying in cheap hostels, speaking to countless strangers, getting by with a few words from a phrase book and a reliance on the kindness of others. Every time I felt the familiar sense of panic at having to make conversation or navigate a new situation, I thought about that moment in the dining car, and the person I had felt I could be. I realised belatedly that it didn’t matter if there were awkward moments. I began to enjoy speaking to new people and started asking questions rather than attempt to fade into the background and hope nobody noticed me. I felt the world opening up.

Eventually I came back home to my parents’ house in Lancashire, refusing to ring for a lift, as if that would somehow negate all the confidence and self-reliance I had learned. I remember feeling that I could do anything.

After graduating I spent much of my 20s living abroad, in Japan, China and Italy. It’s a privileged position, being able to make that choice, and I know how lucky I’ve been. That evening in the dining car of the Trans-Siberian train fed a longing for adventure, for more of those chaotic, joyful, unexpected encounters with other places and lives. It helped turn me into a writer, raiding those memories for my novel. And above all it turned me into someone who isn’t always afraid of making mistakes; who feels at home in the world.

The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks is published by W&N on 20 June, priced £14.99. To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

A marine conservation group has initiated legal action against the UK government, claiming the Conservatives’ decision to issue North Sea oil and gas licences without taking into account their impact on the environment was unlawful.

Oceana UK, part of an international conservation organisation, said that in issuing 82 licences, Claire Coutinho, the secretary of state for energy security, and the North Sea Transition Authority, ignored advice from independent government experts about the potential effects on marine protected areas (MPAs).

The licences, issued between October 2023 and May 2024, cover 226 areas or “blocks” – a third of which overlap with MPAs. Oceana claims the assessments of the blocks – provided by an agency on behalf of the government – did not reflect the advice given by the independent government experts and so were in breach of the law.

The subsequent decision, on 3 May, to award the licences was also unlawful, for the same reason, it said.

More than 2,000 oil spills have happened in the North Sea since 2011, including 215 in MPAs, according to the investigative website, the Ferret. Marine life is at risk from routine spills, exposure to toxic chemicals and extreme noise pollution through seismic blasting connected to oil and gas activities.

“This is not a case of misunderstanding or lack of information,” said Hugo Tagholm, the executive director of Oceana UK. “This is a deliberate choice to unlawfully ignore expert advice and jeopardise our seas, climate and future.”

Last year, Greenpeace lost a legal challenge to the UK’s oil and gas licences, after a court ruled in favour of the government, which argued it was not required to assess the “downstream” greenhouse gases produced by consuming oil and gas.

Rowan Smith, a solicitor for Leigh Day acting on behalf of Oceana, said the charity’s case is that “it is unthinkable for the government to ignore advice from its experts that condemns plans for North Sea oil and gas expansion as harmful for protected marine habitats”.

He added: “Oceana hopes the secretary of state decides not to defend this legal claim, but our client is prepared to pursue it if that becomes necessary.”

A spokesperson for the North Sea Transition Authority said: “We do not comment on potential litigation matters.”

The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero were approached for a comment.