Two Nasa astronauts were on their way to the international space station on Wednesday after Boeing’s pioneering Starliner capsule finally made its much delayed first crewed flight from Cape Canaveral.

The visually stunning liftoff, against a mostly clear and blue Florida sky, came seven years beyond the spacecraft’s original target date, five years after the failure of an uncrewed test flight, and following a more recent series of postponements for technical reasons that saw launch attempts aborted twice.

Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams reached orbit 12 minutes after the 10.52am ET launch. They are scheduled to dock with the ISS shortly after noon on Thursday, and if the eigh-to-10-day mission is successful, Starliner will give Nasa a second privately owned option for ferrying humans to lower Earth orbit alongside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule.

Bill Nelson, the agency’s administrator and former space shuttle astronaut, hailed what he said was “a special moment”.

“This is another milestone in this extraordinary history of Nasa,” he told a post-launch press conference. “The whole team went through a lot of trial and tribulation. But they had perseverance.

“With Dragon and Starliner, the US is going to have two unique human space transportation systems. We always like to have a backup that makes it safer for our astronauts.

“That’s why we started the commercial crew program [CCP] in the first place, partnering with US companies to deliver safe and reliable spaceflight at the same time of cutting the cost. When we expand our fleet of spacecraft, what we’re doing is expanding our reach to the stars.”

The launch also gave a welcome lift to Boeing. Although space operations are conducted independently of its aviation wing, executives will be pleased the company’s name is attached to some good news following a recent series of safety and quality issues.

“The whole company has rallied around us. I get emotional talking about it,” Aaron Kraftcheck, senior manager for Starliner’s flight software, design and development, told reporters in April.

Nasa has ordered from Boeing a further six astronaut rotation flights to the space station as part of the CCP. Each capsule can be flown up to 10 times, Boeing says, with a six-month turnaround between each mission.

The hi-tech Starliner capsule, officially called CST-100 (crew space transportation), is designed to totally transform how astronauts fly in space. Its autonomous flight, navigation and course-correct systems make Williams and Wilmore effectively only passengers, although they can step in to take over manually if required.

Innovation includes a weldless design, which reduces the risk of structural failure, and interior space similar to a midsize SUV. Starliner can carry up to seven humans, but will be configured for four astronauts and cargo for space station flights.

Today’s crew both have extensive spaceflight experience, having spent more than 500 days in orbit between them on previous space shuttle and ISS missions. With Wednesday’s launch from Cape Canaveral space force station aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, Williams became the first female to fly in an orbital test vehicle.

“Butch and Suni bring a lot to the table in terms of helping us as a team get to a place where we’re ready to go fly. They’ve been very integral to the process for years, and all of that culminates with this one,” LeRoy Cain, manager of mission integration and operations for Boeing’s commercial crew program, and a former Nasa flight director, told Nasa TV.

Cain was flight director during the 2002 Columbia space shuttle disaster, which killed seven astronauts, and he said safety was an overriding priority.

“Exploring space is not for the faint of heart. It has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It’s very unforgiving [and] the margins are small. I expect it to be a very successful flight test. I think we’ll learn some things, we learn every time we fly. And that’s part of the beauty of this business, part of why we were so drawn to the exploration of space.”

Wilmore, in a short speech from Starliner’s flight deck immediately before launch, paid tribute to the hundreds of Nasa and Boeing employees who worked on the mission, and the 450 suppliers from 37 states that contributed.

“[They are] people who use their gifts and talents for the common good, are passionate,” he said.

“We all know that when the going gets tough, and it often does, the tough get going, and Suni and I are honored to share this dream of spaceflight with each and every one of you.”

Fossil-fuel companies are the “godfathers of climate chaos” and should be banned in every country from advertising akin to restrictions on big tobacco, the secretary general of the United Nations has said while delivering dire new scientific warnings of global heating.

In a major speech in New York on Wednesday, António Guterres called on news and tech media to stop enabling “planetary destruction” by taking fossil-fuel advertising money while warning the world faces “climate crunch time” in its faltering attempts to stem the crisis.

“Many governments restrict or prohibit advertising for products that harm human health, like tobacco,” he said. “I urge every country to ban advertising from fossil-fuel companies. And I urge news media and tech companies to stop taking fossil-fuel advertising.”

In his speech, Guterres announced new data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showing there is an 80% chance the planet will breach 1.5C (2.7F) in warming above pre-industrial times in at least one of the next five calendar years. The past 12 months have already breached this level, with the average global temperature 1.63C (2.9F) higher than the pre-industrial average from June 2023 to May this year, following a string of months with record-breaking heat, according to the European Union’s Copernicus monitoring system.

Governments agreed in the 2015 Paris climate pact to restrain the global temperatures rise to 1.5C to avoid cascading heatwaves, floods, droughts and other ruinous impacts, and while a single year beyond this limit does not mean the target has been lost, scientists widely expect this to happen in the coming decade.

According to the WMO, there is a roughly 50-50 chance that the period of 2024 to 2028 will average above 1.5C in warming, globally. “We are playing Russian roulette with our planet,” Guterres, known for his strident language on the climate crisis, told an audience underneath a suspended 94ft model of a blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History. “We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.”

In a nod to the venue of his speech, Guterres said that “like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs – we are the meteor. We are not only in danger – we are the danger.”

Guterres insisted that the 1.5C target was “still just about possible” but said there needed to be far greater effort from countries to slash carbon emissions, boost climate finance to poorer countries, and for the fossil-fuel industry to be made pariahs by governments, the media and other businesses for its role in causing the climate crisis.

“The godfathers of climate chaos – the fossil-fuel industry – rake in record profits and feast off trillions in taxpayer-funded subsidies,” he said. “It is a disgrace that the most vulnerable are being left stranded, struggling desperately to deal with a climate crisis they did nothing to create.

“We cannot accept a future where the rich are protected in air-conditioned bubbles, while the rest of humanity is lashed by lethal weather in unlivable lands.”

‘Stop taking fossil-fuel advertising’

Guterres attacked fossil-fuel firms for their meagre investments in cleaner forms of energy and for “distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt” about climate science, before calling for government bans on fossil-fuel advertising and for public relations and media companies to cut ties with oil, gas and coal interests.

“I call on these companies to stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction. Stop taking on new fossil-fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones. Fossil fuels are not only poisoning our planet – they’re toxic for your brand.”

Guterres lauded the growth in clean energy deployment, amid record levels of investment in wind, solar and other renewable sources, predicting that “economic logic makes the end of the fossil-fuel age inevitable,” but added that governments must hasten the phase-out of fossil fuels.

“It’s We the Peoples versus the polluters and the profiteers,” he said. “Together, we can win. But it’s time for leaders to decide whose side they’re on.”

The speech has been timed to act as a key rallying call by a UN leadership concerned that the climate crisis has slipped down the list of priorities for a world racked by war in Ukraine and Gaza, and other economic worries. A meeting of the powerful G7 group of countries will take place in Italy next week, and then November’s Cop29 climate summit, to be held in Azerbaijan, along with a G20 gathering in Brazil.

Countries are currently working on new pledges on how they will cut emissions until 2035, with these promises to be delivered by next year. Governments have not kept pace with previous pledges, however, with emissions rising to a new record level last year at a time when they must be halved by 2030 to avoid the worst climate effects.

Even though there are hopes that last year will represent a peak in global emissions, there “lies the bleak reality that we are way off track to meet the goals set in the Paris agreement,” said Ko Barrett, secretary general of the WMO.

The world is also lagging in progress towards a pledge made in December to triple renewable electricity generation by 2030, although there are signs that the pace of deployment has started to quicken.

The impacts of the climate crisis continue to be made increasingly vivid amid this wrangling, with countries including India and the US recently gripped by severe heatwaves. A study released this week found that extensive flooding that has devastated parts of southern Brazil, leading to 169 deaths, was made at least twice as likely due to human-caused climate change.

“The problem is now urgent, and we can’t say we need to do something about it in the future, we need to take action now,” said Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “The earlier we start making big cuts to emissions, the earlier we can start making a difference.”

Almost four out of every 10 journalists covering the climate crisis and environment issues have been threatened as a result of their work, with 11% subjected to physical violence, according to groundbreaking new research.

A global survey of more than 740 reporters and editors from 102 countries found that 43% of those threatened “sometimes” or “frequently” were targeted by people engaged in illegal activities such as logging and mining. Some 30%, meanwhile, were threatened with legal action – reflecting a growing trend towards corporations and governments deploying the judicial system to muzzle free speech.

The global survey by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network (EJN) and Deakin University is the first-of-its-kind scrutiny of the challenges faced by journalists covering arguably the most pressing – if not existential – issues of our time.

The Covering the Planet report includes in-depth interviews with 74 journalists from 31 countries about what help they need to do a better job reporting extreme weather, plastics pollution, water scarcity, and mining as global heating and unchecked corporate greed pushes the planet to its limits.

The majority said climate and environmental stories have more prominence – relative to other subjects – than a decade ago, but the volume of coverage of the climate crisis is still not commensurate with the gravity of the problem.

Record-breaking temperatures, storms, floods, drought and wildfires are striking with increasing intensity across the world, with low-income communities, Indigenous peoples and people of color the most vulnerable to climate impacts. Slow-onset disasters such as sea level rise, glacier melts, ocean acidification and desertification are also driving forced migration, hunger and other human health disasters.

Despite the breadth and magnitude of the problems, 39% of journalists surveyed reported having self-censored – mostly due to fear of repercussions from “those undertaking illegal activities” or the government. It’s not just that some reporters and editors feel compelled to exclude potentially important information from their audience – 62% reported including statements from sources who are skeptical of anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change or climate science, in the misguided belief that this was required for balance.

“The work of ‘covering the planet’ poses diverse challenges for journalists all around the world – but this work is urgent and vital,” said Dr Gabi Mocatta, lead researcher from Deakin University. “This study, for the first time, offers truly global insights on reporting climate change and environmental harms … Such insights are crucial in order to support and amplify the work of journalists who tell the most important stories of our times.”

The survey also found an overwhelming need for more resources for newsrooms covering the environment and the climate crisis: 76% of those surveyed said insufficient resources limit their coverage, and identified more funding for in-depth journalism, in-person training and workshops, and more access to relevant data and subject experts as among their top priorities.

Many rely on funding from non-profits that are often tied to particular subjects, yet journalists would prefer the freedom to cover the most locally relevant climate environmental topics.

“The journalists surveyed are steadfast in their dedication to reporting on how climate change and environmental crimes are negatively impacting both people and the planet – but they desperately need more support,” said James Fahn, executive director of the Earth Journalism Network.

It’s not just environmental journalists under threat. At least 1,910 land and environmental defenders around the world have been killed since 2012.

The giant sequoia is so enormous that it was once believed to be indestructible. High in California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains, the oldest trees – known as monarchs – have stood for more than 2,000 years.

Today, however, in Sequoia national park, huge trunks lie sprawled on the forest floor, like blue whale carcasses stranded on a beach. Many of these trees were felled by a combination of drought and fire. But among the factors responsible for the rising toll is a tiny new suspect: the bark beetle.

Along with wildfires and rising temperatures, scientists fear that the insects could contribute to the breakdown of Earth’s northern conifer forests, including the potential dieback of the taiga, the vast ecosystem that stretches across Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia and Alaska.

The boreal forest spans 11.3m sq km (2,800m acres) and stores about 272 gigatonnes of carbon. Its possible collapse is considered a climate tipping point: the moment when an ecosystem that was previously a carbon store flips over to releasing huge amounts of carbon instead – through a forest fire, or the gases released by decaying trees and eroding soil.

“This is a global phenomenon but it is also a complicated story,” says Prof Diana Six, a forest entomologist at the University of Montana. “You have different beetles in different forests with different behaviour.

“The only commonality, and the reason we are seeing so many incidents all at once, is the influence of humans. Climate change is the main one, but we’ve also changed forests a lot.”

Scientists are careful not to stigmatise the beetle. They are highly specialised – most of their kind have no effect on their tree hosts – but researchers are sure that their impact is growing.

In Canada, just one species, the mountain pine beetle, affected 200,000 sq km – an area almost the size of Uganda – between 2000 and 2020, with other species causing outbreaks elsewhere across the country.

In Europe, forest disturbances from bark beetles have soared, particularly affecting Norwegian spruce monocultures. In the Czech Republic, the centre of the most recent outbreak on the continent, between up to 5.4% of all spruces were damaged each year between 2017 and 2019, transforming their land sector from a carbon sink to a source, with disastrous consequences for the forestry industry.

In California, bark beetle species killed 163m trees between 2010 and 2019, according to the US Forest Service. Outbreaks in the vast taiga of Siberia have been recorded, but their impact is largely unknown.

“You have these situations where beetles are way outside of the norm,” Six says. “Couple that with climate change altering the ability of these trees to regenerate, that’s where I think we’re going to see the biggest problems.”

“If the beetles kill a bunch of trees and they grow back, it’s not such a big deal,” she says, but adds: “If the conditions won’t allow regeneration, that is not just serious for carbon sequestration – think about the wildlife that’s going to go: a big extinction.”

The infestations were first noticed in giant sequoias in 2017. Now, dozens have died as a result of the insects, researchers suspect. Park officials believe at least 21 of the huge trees in the park are infected by the western cedar bark beetle and are unlikely to survive: dying from the top down, a pattern consistent with bark beetle damage.

Throughout the park, more are at risk, including General Sherman, the world’s largest tree. They are part of a growing trend in northern hemisphere conifer forests that has claimed tens of millions of trees.

Bark beetles are a highly diverse group of insects, and a natural part of ecosystems, with hundreds of species across the planet. But a subset of this insect family have now cleared swathes of forest in Canada, Siberia, Scandinavia, the US, Mongolia, China and Japan.

High in the canopy of a “monarch” giant sequoia, a mirror dangles: part of a contraption to see whether beetles are present in the canopy. Nathaniel Foote, the Colorado state researcher leading the work, explains it is part of an international effort to understand how fires, drought and the insects interact to damage the trees.

While the exact patterns of how bark beetles kill trees are unique to each species, many follow a similar pattern: the conifers are overcome by the beetles, which lay eggs underneath the bark, with the resulting larvae chewing through the stem, slowly halting the spread of nutrients through the plant. Their green spines turn a sickly orange, and they gradually die. The orange scars in the forest eventually turn grey.

In some regions, this is a natural process, but the unpredictability of temperatures in a warming world has made bark beetle behaviour more unpredictable, sometimes boosted by the heat, weakened trees and an abundance of monoculture plantations.

Trees have natural defences against the insects, producing resin and other reactions to resist attacks. But under increased stress from drought and global heating, these defences have not been enough to stop them being overwhelmed. When they are struggling to get enough water, trees cannot produce enough sap to fight back.

At what point would the beetles be involved in a giant sequoia dying, asks Foote. “We are not quite sure. But in really extreme cases of drought, then people are certainly worried about it. I think we’ve entered an unprecedented series of events.”

The consequences of bark beetle outbreaks are complex. Despite the loss of trees in the medium term, the aftermath can sometimes boost biodiversity in the long run. Destroyed human-made forests and plantations can naturally regenerate, allowing space for squeezed-out endangered species.

But in some landscapes, such as parts of the Rocky mountains, scientists suspect that bark beetle outbreaks – along with other factors – will permanently convert forests to grasslands as the area becomes too warm for tree cover to return.

Outbreaks are spreading north to parts of the world that had previously been too cold for the insects. Usually, their larvae are killed in freezing conditions, but in some places rising temperatures mean that no longer happens.

Thomas Seth Davis, a bark beetle researcher at Colorado State University, says: “The combined pressure from climate change and bark beetles could result in changes in carbon fixation, which could speed up the rate of climate change.

“You could have this feedback effect, where warming becomes more rapid if we lose the carbon-fixation potential of those boreal forests.”

This year, France is the latest country struggling to control a beetle outbreak after droughts and high temperatures. Scientists fear that this could just be the start.

Tomáš Hlásny, a professor at the Czech University of Life Sciences who has led research into the impact of bark beetles in Europe, said the biggest issue was halting carbon emissions, not halting the spread of the insects.

“These outbreaks and wildfires are a manifestation of climate change. People still believe if they take measures, we can carry on as usual. This is wrong,” he says.

“We are basically losing a fight with climate change, not with bark beetles.”

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

It was a September afternoon in 2016 when I got on a bike and cycled to the sea. The Pembrokeshire coast was in full Technicolor that day, glowing with the sunlight reflected back from its sandy seabed. The air was thick and warm, and by the time my dad and I had reached the cove, my clothes were damp and itchy on my skin.

I was 19, and about to enter my second year of university. I had been through a hellish time at secondary school. I had tumbled hard and heavy into my first real relationship – and out of it again. And I was on the brink, I think, of finally starting to know myself.

This place was my haven: a sanctuary of salt and rock through many of those turbulent years. The cove we had cycled to that day was our favourite – a hidden nook in the Castlemartin coastline, just a few miles from my parents’ cottage. We called it The Swimming Place.

Bike down and wheels still spinning, I kicked off my trainers and left my shorts and T-shirt in a heap. Dad was two socks in front of me, and without a pause for too much thought I chased him down the sand and into the Irish Sea.

We had the place entirely to ourselves. Dad swam nearby, diving into a splash of front crawl, heading out toward the edge of our narrow bay. Overwhelmed, suddenly, with envy, I did what I hadn’t done in years: I held my breath and pulled my own head underwater.

There, suspended beneath the glimmering surface, I remembered it all. My love of diving, swimming, rivers and lakes. I felt the cold ocean’s press on my cheeks and my eyelids, and knew what it was like again: to be free and fully present in my own skin.

Though I’ve always loved the water, I had spent seven years prior to that day retreating away from moments like this one. I was afraid. Struggling for a long time with chronic acne and unhelpful treatments, and the pressures of teenage girls’ appearance, I had become entirely reliant on my makeup. I needed total control over how I looked, and going swimming (properly swimming) meant washing this control away. At this point in my life, I couldn’t even leave my room without it. My bare face and natural appearance were not something I identified with. I hated it, deeply, though I wished more than anything that I didn’t.

But those 10 minutes of contentment I floated within – the muffled quiet of the underwater world – were fuel for the next chapter of my life. This would be my yardstick. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how I did it. Whether through medication or mental attitude, I would find a way to have the kind of life that allowed me to dive into the water whenever it called.

That day was the beginning of a slow but determined journey back to my own body – a slow unlearning of my deep self-consciousness. Life didn’t change in a heartbeat: I returned to the shore with all the same fears, but I clothed myself in a new determination to change things. I felt the tide turn. That taste of liberation was enough to spur me back to the doctors and be truly honest about my experience.

It would be another two years before I received the dermatological treatment I really needed. It would be three years before I reached my new goalpost: smiling straight into a camera, hair dripping and cheeks wearing only salt from the Mediterranean sea.

I had been compelled to pretend I was happy with my body, but having to look a certain way, nonetheless. And, so, despite the small voice telling me that makeup and “beauty” are not the stuff of literature, I gave them sentences, paragraphs and eventually, pages in a book. I hoped that others, who had hidden experiences of their own, might read it and know that what they feel is not insignificant either.

Reflecting on this moment again today, it seems strange to think that going bare-faced on an empty beach was such a challenge. But this is exactly the perspective I had once dreamed of reaching. Swimming regularly now in my local pool, it makes me deeply sad that these simple things were not always simple.

Though it’s still a work-in-progress (and probably always will be), I do my best never to take for granted this freedom I have found. To pay attention, each time I sink under the surface of the water, embracing that swell of fear and joy and liberation.

Kathryn Tann is the author of Seaglass: Essays, Moments and Reflections, published by Calon.

A lone rātā that appears to be striding across the landscape has taken gold in New Zealand’s tree of the year competition.

The New Zealand Arboricultural Association – which runs the competition to celebrate New Zealand’s trees – said the “extraordinary” northern rātā had earned the name “The Walking Tree” because of its resemblance to one of JRR Tolkien’s sentient tree-like Ents.

The 32-metre tall tree, which grows near Karamea, on the west coast of the South Island, “captivated the hearts and imaginations of New Zealanders with its unique appearance and fascinating life story”, the association said.

The tree was the clear winner in the third annual competition, gaining 42% of the total votes and beating out other well-known favourites, including the country’s most photographed tree – a willow that emerges out of Lake Wānaka and has become so recognisable it has gained its own social media hashtag: #thatwanakatree.

The northern rātā is one of New Zealand’s tallest flowering trees. It begins life as an epiphyte, attached to another host tree. Eventually, its roots reach the ground and it envelops the original host. The species can live for 1,000 years. It is unclear how old the Walking Tree is but its existence was known about as far back as 1875.

Karamea local Pete Curry said his family cleared the land of trees when they arrived in the region in 1875. “The land was dense bush and my great-grandfather and his brothers cleared it for farming,” Curry told Christchurch newspaper The Press.

But they left the Walking Tree standing.

“They must have thought the tree was unique because they didn’t leave anything else. They slashed and burned everything in those days.”

The association’s president, Richie Hill, said the Walking Tree was a prime example of some of New Zealand’s remarkable trees.

“This award recognises the significant role that trees play within our communities, not only enhancing our local environments but also providing a sense of place for past, present, and future generations.”

Development West Coast chief executive, Heath Milne, said the region – largely made up of conservation land – is spoilt when it comes to trees.

“But one tree stands a branch above the rest – Karamea’s Walking Tree”.

The House passed legislation on Tuesday that would sanction the international criminal court after its chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.

The 247-155 vote amounts to Congress’s first legislative rebuke of the war-crimes court since prosecutor Karim Khan’s decision last month to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas. The move was widely denounced in Washington, creating a rare moment of unity on Israel even as partisan divisions over the war with Hamas intensified.

While the House bill was expected to pass Tuesday, it was not likely to attract significant Democratic support, dulling its chances in the Senate. The White House opposes the legislation, calling it overreach.

Both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House foreign affairs committee acknowledged the bill is unlikely to become law and left the door open to further negotiation with the White House. They said it would be better for Congress to be united against the Hague-based court.

“We’re always strongest, particularly on this committee, when we speak with one voice as one nation, in this case to the ICC and to the judges,” GOP representative Mike McCaul, chair of the foreign affairs Committee, said during House debate. “A partisan messaging bill was not my intention here but that is where we are.”

State department spokesperson Matt Miller reiterated the administration’s opposition to the sanctions bill.

“We have made clear that while we oppose the decision taken by the prosecutor of the ICC, we don’t think it is appropriate, especially while there are ongoing investigations inside Israel looking at somebody’s very same questions, and we were willing to work with Congress on what a response might look like, but we don’t support sanctions,” Miller said.

The House bill would apply sweeping economic sanctions and visa restrictions to individuals and judges associated with the ICC, including their family members. Democrats labeled the approach as “overly broad”, warning it could ensnare Americans and US companies that do important work with the court.

“This bill would have a chilling effect on the ICC as an institution, which could hamper the court’s efforts to prosecute the dubious atrocities that have been perpetrated in many places around the world, from Ukraine to Uganda,” said representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee.

The legislation reprimanding the ICC was just the latest show of support from House Republicans for Israel since Hamas killed around 1,200 people in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted at least an additional 250 people. Republicans have held several votes related to Israel in recent months, highlighting divisions among Democrats over support for the US ally.

Congressional leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress this summer, which is likely to further inflame tensions over Israel’s handling of the war. Many Democrats are expected to boycott the speech.

Both the ICC and the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, have begun to investigate allegations that both Israel and Hamas have committed genocide during the seven-month war.

Last month, prosecutor Khan accused Netanyahu; his defense minister, Yoav Gallant; and three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the ICC’s move as disgraceful and antisemitic. President Joe Biden and members of Congress also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself.

“Failing to act here in the Congress would make us complicit with the ICC’s illegitimate actions and we must not stay silent,” McCaul said. “We must stand with our allies.”

Last week, an investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call revealed a covert Israeli campaign to derail the ICC’s inquiry into war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The investigation detailed how, for close to a decade, Israel deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil and pressure senior ICC staff in an effort to thwart the court’s work, going so far as to deploy the head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, to allegedly threaten the court’s former chief prosecutor.

A row has broken out over falling sperm counts after a new study suggested fears of a “spermageddon” may have been exaggerated.

Recent research has suggested a global reproductive crisis could be in the offing, with researchers in Israel suggesting average sperm counts may have more than halved in the past 40 years.

But seeds of discord have been sown after an analysis of sperm counts from would-be donors in Denmark revealed no significant changes over a six-year period.

“I can’t comment on whether this is representative of the world, but in this population, at this location, there isn’t really evidence of a decline,” said co-author Prof Allan Pacey, of the University of Manchester.

Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, researchers at the University of Manchester, Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, and the sperm bank Cryos International in Denmark, analysed data collected between early 2017 and late 2022 from samples of 6,758 prospective sperm donors in Denmark.

All of the men were aged between 18 and 45, with the samples analysed using computer systems.

The results suggest that, while average sperm concentration and total sperm count varied over the six-year period, there were no clear patterns.

However, the team found a decline in sperm quality between 2019 and 2022, with the average concentration of motile sperm – those able to swim – and total numbers declining by 16% and 22% respectively.

A decline in quality was confirmed when the team looked only at samples from men who were accepted as donors, including those who made at least eight donations between 2019 and 2022.

“Some of them went up in [sperm] quality, some of them went down in quality over that time, but more of them went down than up,” said Pacey.

The team suggested the Covid pandemic might have played a role in the decline, noting lockdowns might have led to changes in working patterns, diet and levels of physical activity – factors that can affect sperm motility.

But Pacey said the decline was unlikely to be down to the virus itself as infection rates were not high in Denmark and Covid only affects sperm quality temporarily.

“What [the Israeli team is modelling] is average data taken from papers that were never designed to answer the question,” he said. A separate review and meta analysis published last year by a team in Italy showed no significant trends in sperm concentration in the US and selected western European countries.

Prof Hagai Levine, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, pushed back against criticisms of his team’s work.

“We conducted two systematic reviews and meta analyses to study global long-term trends in sperm concentration and total sperm count. The current study is simply irrelevant for this question,” he said. “It was conducted in one country, over a short period of time and among a potentially biased population.”

Richard Sharpe, an expert in male reproductive health and professor at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in any of the studies, said the new study covered too short a period to shine any meaningful light on sperm counts.

An earlier study by Danish researchers showing no evidence of a decline in semen quality between 1996 and 2010 did not assuage concerns.

“The interpretation of [that work] was that the damage was already done and Danish men’s sperm counts were at an all-time low, reflected in their increasing resort to assisted reproduction,” Sharpe said, adding the new finding of a decline in motile sperm count – a key metric for male fertility – only added to concerns.

Prof Tina Kold Jensen of Syddansk University in Denmark, who was involved in that work, said both meta-analyses and the new work had potential drawbacks.

“I think we’re never going to come up with the complete truth,” she said. “But we have to keep on trying, because it’s so important.”

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer tore into each other’s election promises on tax and immigration in a fiery first TV debate of the campaign.

The pair exchanged barbs in an ill-tempered session before an ITV studio audience in Salford, where Starmer accused Sunak of being “the most liberal prime minister we’ve ever had on immigration” and pledged to keep the UK in the European convention on human rights.

As the leaders sought to draw dividing lines between the parties the Labour leader hammered the Conservative record after 14 years in government and accused Sunak of failing to take personal responsibility for his failures, including the cost of living and NHS waiting times.

Sunak sought to present Starmer as an unreliable politician who was pursuing power for power’s sake. He claimed repeatedly that Labour’s policies would lead to a £2,000 tax rise for families, an attack the Conservatives are planning to deploy repeatedly over this campaign.

“Labour will raise your taxes. It’s in their DNA. Your work, your car, your pension – Labour will tax it,” the prime minister said. In response Starmer said the Tories had “put pretend Labour policies to the Treasury” to produce a fantasy figure.

Starmer said the prime minister’s decision to call an election now demonstrated that he didn’t think his plans for the economy or illegal immigration would have any effect.

“If he thinks things are going to get better towards the second half of this year, why has he called it now? He’s called it now because he knows, and I’ll ask him this, he knows inflation is going to go back up, he knows energy prices are going to go back up in the autumn,” Starmer said. “That’s what he’s not telling you.”

Both leaders committed not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. Starmer defended his policy to introduce VAT to private schools, saying it was a “tough choice” but necessary, to applause from the audience.

The prime minister appeared to suggest he was willing to take the UK out of the European Convention of Human Rights if it blocked his controversial policy to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel to Rwanda.

“I’m crystal clear, I believe all our plans are compliant with our international obligations, but if I am forced to choose between securing our borders and our country’s security, or a foreign court, I’m going to choose our country’s security every single time,” he said.

The Labour leader defended the UK’s membership of the ECHR. “We will not pull out of international agreements and international law which is respected the world over,” he said.

“Because I want the UK to be a respected player on the global stage, not a pariah who doesn’t agree with international law.”

Both leaders said they would work with Donald Trump if he were re-elected US president in November.

On the cost of living, Starmer accused Sunak of being out of touch and living “in a different world”. Referring to his own childhood in response to a question from a member of the audience, the Labour leader said: “I do know the anguish of worrying, when the postman comes with a bill, what is that bill going to be, can I pay it? I don’t think the prime minister quite understands the position that you and other people are in.”

He ruled out a return to austerity if he became prime minister, which Sunak did not. Sunak insisted that voters were “starting to see the benefits” of his economic policies.

Sunak said he would use private healthcare if a loved one was on a long waiting list for an operation. Starmer said he would not and would rely on the NHS alone.

In his closing statement, Starmer said re-electing the Tories would be like “the arsonists handed back the matches”.

“I don’t offer you the gimmicks or unfunded promises that Rishi Sunak does,” he said. “I don’t pretend there’s a magic wand that will fix everything overnight. Instead, I offer a practical commonsense plan to change Britain.”

He continued: “Imagine how you would feel waking up on July 5 to five more years of the Conservatives. Five more years of decline and division. The arsonists handed back the matches.

“Now imagine turning the page with a Labour government that rolls up its sleeves and gets on with the job that puts the country back in your service.”

Sunak told voters “if you think Labour are going to win, start saving”, while defending his record on climate. He denied having broken his promises on the environment, saying: “No, we’re going to stick to the targets we put in place but we’re going to do it in a way that saves you all money.

“I’m not going to impose thousands of pounds of costs on you to arbitrarily rip out your boiler, change your car, convert your home.”

With the second week of campaigning drawing to a close, the Conservatives appear no closer to making a dent Labour’s 20-point poll lead.

Sunak has come under heavy pressure from his party to find a way to turn around his flailing campaign. A decision by Nigel Farage to return to the political frontline this week has eroded Tory morale further.

While Labour has been running a cautious, safety-first campaign, the Conservatives have spent the first two weeks making a flurry of policy announcements in the hope that some of them will be appealing to voters.

So far Sunak has announced plans to introduce compulsory national service for 18-year olds, punish fly-tippers with points on their driving licence and introduce an annual cap on visas for migrants. His national service proposal was met with derisory laughter from the ITV studio audience.

Labour has unveiled a “triple lock” commitment to the UK’s nuclear weapons, pledged to reduce migration and carry out a review of the security threats facing the UK within the first 100 days of government.

Responding to Sunak’s claim that Labour’s policy would mean a £2,000 tax rise for families, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, Pat McFadden, said: “Rishi Sunak’s claims about Labour and tax are categorically untrue. Labour will not put up taxes on working people.”

Snap YouGov polling showed 51% of people thought Rishi Sunak performed best overall in the live debate, with 49% voting for Sir Keir Starmer.

A Michigan man who recently went viral for allegedly driving with a suspended license during a virtual hearing on the matter should have had his license reinstated long beforehand, according to clerical records.

The latest update, as first reported by 7 News Detroit, highlights the kind of behind-the-scenes clerical issues that can carry significant implications for people down the line. Corey Harris, 44, ended up in jail through no fault of his own because of the error about his license.

Harris made news headlines and gained unflattering social media fame after a clip of his court session spread widely online.

During the 15 May virtual hearing, the presiding judge, Cedric Simpson, noticed that Harris was driving despite the hearing being about Harris’s suspended license.

“Mr Harris,” said Simpson. “Are you driving?”

“Actually, I’m pulling into my doctor’s office actually, so just give me a second,” Harris said, appearing to look for a parking spot.

Once Harris confirmed he was behind the wheel, Simpson ordered Harris to turn himself into the county jail that night for violating the law.

“I don’t even know why he would do that,” said Simpson, shaking his head in disbelief while Harris also had a stunned facial expression.

But according to Saginaw county court records viewed by 7 News, Harris’s driver’s license was supposed to have been reinstated in January 2022.

The Michigan secretary of state’s office reportedly never received clearance from Saginaw county’s Friend of the Court office to restore Harris’s driver’s license even though he had paid off all required fees.

As a result of the clerical error, Harris’s driver’s license was never officially reinstated, setting the stage for the notorious court hearing.

The Guardian could not reach a representative of the Michigan secretary of state’s office or Saginaw county’s Friend of the Court office.

While the initial video of Harris’s hearing inspired many humorous reactions online, the ordeal was no laughing matter for Harris.

After his arrest, Harris told 7 News Detroit in a 30 May interview that he was initially driving during the virtual hearing because he was “getting my wife medical help”. “I wasn’t thinking about the fact that I got a suspended license,” he added. “I don’t care about all that.”

Harris spent two days in jail and said the entire process was “embarrassing”. He also said that officials were “supposed to have … lifted [the suspension] two years ago, but they didn’t”.