More than 55% of sperm samples from a French infertility clinic contained high levels of glyphosate, the world’s most common weedkiller, raising further questions about the chemical’s impact on reproductive health and overall safety, a new study found.

The new research also found evidence of impacts on DNA and a correlation between glyphosate levels and oxidative stress on seminal plasma, suggesting significant impacts on fertility and reproductive health.

“Taken together, our results suggest a negative impact of glyphosate on human reproductive health and possibly on progeny,” the authors wrote.

The paper comes as researchers look for answers to why global fertility rates are dropping, and many suspect exposure to toxic chemicals like glyphosate is a significant driver of the decline.

Glyphosate is used on a wide range of food crops and in residential settings in the US. The most popular glyphosate-based product is Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, which has been at the center of legal and regulatory battles in recent years. US government research from 2023 found genotoxicity in farmers with high levels of the herbicide in their blood, suggesting an association between it and cancer.

In December, a group of top US public health advocacy groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the product, though its defenders have said there is no definitive proof of its toxicity to humans. Still, dozens of countries have banned or restricted its use.

The levels French researchers found in sperm were four times higher than in the men’s blood, which the authors wrote is the first time the comparison had been made. They called the finding “worrying”, and it suggests the chemical is particularly dangerous for reproductive systems.

Oxidative stress “is considered to be one of the most important factors in male fertility by regulating the vitality and functionality of mammalian spermatozoa”, the authors wrote, and they found a “significant positive correlation” between stress and glyphosate levels.

Agricultural workers recorded the highest glyphosate levels, and 96% of farmers included in the study had at least some. A landscaper also showed among the highest levels, and smokers typically had elevated levels much higher than those who did not smoke. Eating organic produce did not have a clear impact on levels.

The study’s authors wrote it “would be wise for regulators to apply a precautionary principle” in regulation, which means erring on the side of caution to protect human health until further research can be done to confirm the problems identified in the study.

New rules intended to reduce the use of antibiotics in farming in the UK have been criticised as too lax and weaker than their equivalent under EU laws.

The updated regulations come into force on Friday. They ban the routine use of antibiotics on farm animals, and specifically their use to “compensate for poor hygiene, inadequate animal husbandry, or poor farm management practices”.

Experts, however, say there are loopholes in the legislation that are closed off under EU laws in place since 2022, and by which the UK would be bound if it were still a member state.

Ministers repeatedly promised, before and after Brexit, that farming and food standards in the UK would not be watered down after leaving the EU. The Guardian, however, has revealed numerous examples of environmental rules that have been weakened, from regulations on air pollution and water quality to pesticide use and agricultural emissions.

This latest divergence is of particular concern because the overuse of antibiotics in farming has dire consequences for human health. The UK’s former chief medical officer Sally Davies said in an interview with the Guardian earlier this week that antibiotic overuse was leading to the rise of near-invincible superbugs that pose a severe threat to human health, making previously minor ailments deadly and threatening to make routine operations unsafe.

About two-thirds of antibiotics globally are used on farm animals, and they are often used indiscriminately either to promote growth or to try to prevent infections that arise from overcrowding, poor management and insanitary conditions on factory farms.

The EU has taken strong steps to clamp down on overuse on its farms. Prof Roberto La Ragione, the head of the school of biosciences at the University of Surrey and a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, said preventing overuse was of vital importance.

“Antibiotics are critical to human and animal medicine, but the emergence of resistance is a global concern,” he said. “Therefore we must reduce their use to help stop the emergence and spread of resistance.

“We know that animal health and welfare are inextricably linked with our own, so it is vital that antibiotic resistance is tackled in humans and animals, and we can all play a part, from the scientific community to pet owners, vets, doctors, pharmacists, companies, farmers and the government.”

Under the new rules, it will still be possible to feed antibiotics prophylactically to large groups of animals, a practice campaigners say is effectively the same as, and just as dangerous as, routine use. The guidelines say this prophylaxis should only be “in exceptional circumstances”, but questions in parliament by the shadow minister Daniel Zeichner elicited a response from the farming minister Mark Spencer that this would include “where there would be a risk of infection or severe consequences if antibiotics were not applied”.

Coílín Nunan, a scientist adviser at the Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, said this meant widespread prophylactic use on large groups of animals would still occur frequently, because when animals are kept in highly intensive conditions there is often significant risk of infection.

EU rules ban antibiotics for group prophylaxis, which is limited to an individual animal only.

Nunan said: “Unfortunately the government has deliberately weakened the legislation in comparison to the EU, and this will allow some poorly run farms to keep on feeding large groups of animals antibiotics, even when no disease is present.

“We are also concerned the ban on using antibiotics to compensate for inadequate animal husbandry and poor farm management practices may not be properly implemented.”

The Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics wants the government to ban group prophylaxis, introduce mandatory data collection from farms on their use of antibiotics, set tougher targets for the reduction of farm antibiotic use and improve animal welfare and husbandry standards.

UK farming and veterinary oversight continue to be in turmoil after Brexit. There is a shortage of vets, and higher workloads as a result of the changes to animal certification and increased bureaucracy related to animal exports and imports.

A spokesperson for the Veterinary Medicines Directorate said: “We do not support the routine use of antibiotics, including where antibiotics are used to compensate for inadequate farming practices. However, a blanket ban of prophylaxis could be harmful to animal health and welfare, while also increasing the risk of diseases spreading.”

The Environmental Defenders Office did not breach the conditions of its $8.2m in federal funding, according to a government review of the legal firm’s conduct.

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, requested the review after a federal court judgment in January made sharp criticisms of the EDO’s conduct in a legal matter against Santos.

The case, brought by Tiwi Island traditional owners, argued Santos had not properly assessed submerged cultural heritage near an area it proposed to construct a pipeline for its Barossa offshore gas project off the Northern Territory.

The traditional owners sought an injunction on pipeline works until the gas company submitted a new environmental plan and it was assessed by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema).

The case was dismissed in January and the judgment by Justice Natalie Charlesworth made adverse findings against the EDO that one of its lawyers and a cultural heritage consultant engaged in a form of “subtle coaching” in a meeting with Tiwi islanders. Charlesworth also found that evidence from one expert witness involved “confection”.

After the judgment, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, vowed to defund the EDO if the Coalition won the next election.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott cut the EDO’s funding in 2013, ending 20 years of commonwealth funding for the public interest law firm. The funding was restored by the Albanese government.

Plibersek’s department sought independent legal advice on whether the conduct described in Charlesworth’s judgment breached the EDO’s grant conditions.

The business grants hub within the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, which administers the grant agreement, also assessed whether any possible fraud had occurred in relation to the grant agreement.

“The legal advice was that the comments in the judgment do not provide a reasonable basis to conclude that the EDO had breached the terms of the grant agreement,” the final report states.

The business grants hub also found the EDO “has been compliant with the grant conditions to date” and there was no evidence indicating possible fraud.

The report says, based on this advice, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water had concluded the EDO was not in breach of its agreement.

But the department did find further steps should be taken and said it was working with the business grants hub to implement “additional assurances” in relation to the grant agreement and to negotiate some variations to “expressly clarify the standards expected by the Commonwealth of the EDO”.

The EDO chief executive, David Morris, welcomed the review’s findings.

“We are proud to deliver high-quality legal services under the terms of the federal government’s grant agreement, and to represent those seeking to exercise their right and to protect nature and the climate,” he said.

“Without federal support, many Australians would be unable to access the legal system or participate fully in environmental decision making.”

Only the most grim-faced of churls would refuse to recognise the progress Mikel Arteta’s outstanding Arsenal side have made this season. The very fact a title win is on the table this weekend says more than enough and now they must make sure that, just in case West Ham cause an almighty stir at the Etihad, they do not taint it with unnecessary regrets. When Everton pitched up in London on the final day two years ago the home side cruised to a 5-1 win; nostalgia buffs among the support might prefer the 4-3 rip-roarer in 2002 that rubber-stamped the double winners’ season and ended with a Premier League trophy presentation. Even if the latter scenario is an outside bet this time, Arteta will expect his players to block out any noise – including dispatches from Manchester – and put an opponent to the sword one last time, making sure they at least do their bit. An opportunity to make dreams come true may yet present itself. Nick Ames

Spain has refused permission for a ship carrying arms to Israel to dock at a Spanish port, its foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said on Thursday.

“This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port,” he told reporters in Brussels.

“This will be a consistent policy with any ship carrying arms to Israel that wants to call at Spanish ports. The foreign ministry will systematically reject such stopovers for one obvious reason: the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace.”

Albares did not provide details on the ship but the transport minister, Óscar Puente, said it was the Marianne Danica that had requested permission to call at the south-eastern port of Cartagena on 21 May.

El País said the Danish-flagged ship was carrying 27 tonnes of explosive material from Chennai in India to the port of Haifa in Israel.

The announcement comes during a row between prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists and his coalition partners, the leftwing Sumar alliance, over another ship, the Borkum, which is due to dock in Cartagena on Friday.

Pro-Palestinian groups say the Borkum is carrying arms to Israel, prompting Sumar to demand that it be turned away. But Puente said the Borkum was transporting military material to the Czech Republic, not Israel.

Spain has been one of Europe’s most critical voices about Israel’s Gaza offensive and is working to rally other European capitals behind the idea of recognising a Palestinian state.

Spain halted arms sales to Israel after it launched a military onslaught against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza war began on 7 October when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s military retaliation has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas issued a full pardon on Thursday to a former US army sergeant convicted of murder for fatally shooting an armed demonstrator in 2020 during nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice.

Abbott announced the pardon just minutes after the Texas board of pardons and paroles disclosed it had made a unanimous recommendation that Daniel Perry be pardoned and have his firearms rights restored. Perry has been held in state prison on a 25-year sentence since his conviction in 2023.

The Republican governor had previously ordered the board to review Perry’s case and said earlier that he would sign a pardon if recommended. The board, which is appointed by the governor, announced its unanimous recommendation in a message posted on the agency website, and Abbott’s pardon swiftly followed.

Abbott’s demand for a review of Perry’s case followed pressure from the former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who on national television had urged the Republican governor to intervene after the sergeant was convicted at trial in April 2022. Perry was sentenced to 25 years in prison after prosecutors used his social media history and text messages to portray him as a racist who might commit violence again.

A jury in Austin had convicted Perry of murder in the death of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, an air force veteran who had been legally carrying an AK-47 while marching in a Black Lives Matter protest. Perry was working as a ride-share driver in July 2020, when he turned his car on to a street crowded with demonstrators and shot Foster before driving off.

Prosecutors argued at trial that Perry could have driven away without opening fire and witnesses testified that they never saw Foster raise his gun. The sergeant’s defense attorneys argued Foster, who was white, did raise the rifle and that Perry had no choice but to shoot. Perry, who is also white, did not take the witness stand and jurors deliberated for two days before finding him guilty.

A woman who alleges she was raped at knifepoint by the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has told a court she would never forget the eyes of her attacker, which “bored into my skull”.

Giving evidence in the trial of Christian Brückner, who stands accused of five sexual assaults in Portugal of women aged between 10 and 80 between 2000 and 2017, Hazel Behan, 40, who was raped in June 2004, told the court: “I believe that this man was my attacker.”

She was sitting just metres away from Brückner, who looked on impassively. Behan, an administrator and mother of three from Ireland, told the court on the second and final day of testimony, delivered over 10 hours, that she still bears the scars of the attack, which took place in Praia da Rocha, in the Algarve, where she was working as a holiday representative.

Brückner, 47, who was named by German police in 2020 as the main suspect in the disappearance of the British toddler Madeleine McCann – not the focus of the trial – was at one point asked by the judge, Uta Engemann, to approach the bench so that she could examine his eyes, after Behan said she would “never forget” the eyes of her attacker.

“When you spend time in a situation like that with a person and there’s nothing else you can see on this human except their eyes, it’s the only thing you can remember. They bored into my skull. I’ll never forget it,” she said. She added that she thought the effect of her attacker’s eyes was intensified by the fact that otherwise he was completely dressed in black.

“They were just so blue … everything so dark … they were like lights, they were so bright. I just know them,” she said.

She said she suffered from recurring post-traumatic stress disorder and frequent panic attacks as a result of the assault. The court was shown pictures of scars on the backs of her legs that remain to this day, from where she was tied with rope to a breakfast bar during the prolonged attack at the flat where she lived.

She also said she still bled from wounds received during the violent attack.

Her attacker had been masked and was covered head to toe in a leotard-style body suit of about 60-denier thickness, and wore leather, or fake leather, gloves, she said, adding that only his eyes had been visible.

He spoke to her in English, in what she said was a German accent. Behan’s testimony has come at what prosecutors have described as a crucial moment in the trial, which began in February and is expected to last into the autumn, hearing from about 40 witnesses and a range of experts. Brückner is serving a seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape of an American tourist in the Algarve.

He is due for release from the end of next year.

Behan described how she had come forward to offer the account of her ordeal to British police in 2020 in response to an appeal by the Metropolitan police, working on the McCann case. The appeal included an official police identity photo of Brückner, requesting eye witnesses to contact them.

The sight of the picture and the physical description of him had made her feel nauseous, and later caused her to vomit, she said. She subsequently learned of Brückner’s conviction in 2019 of the rape of an elderly American tourist, and shared with Irish, British and German police the striking similarities in the modus operandi of the attacker in the woman’s case and hers.

Over two days, Behan told the court in graphic detail how she was repeatedly raped, whipped and tied up in her apartment, the attacker filming the ordeal on a camera he had set up on top of the television in her room. The attacker threatened her, saying: “If you scream, I’ll kill you.” At one point she said she feared she would be beheaded after he wielded a knife at her.

Brückner, who denies the sexual assault charges and also denies involvement in the disappearance of McCann, sat metres away from Behan. Wearing a grey linen jacket with elbow pads and a white shirt, he leaned back in his chair for much of the testimony, often holding his chin in his left hand but appearing to show no emotion.

The trial continues.

This is an extract of this week’s Down to Earth newsletter, to get more exclusive environmental journalism in your inbox every Thursday sign up here

It’s common to think about the climate crisis as something that will happen in the future, in the global south.

But for several months I’ve been investigating the devastating impact of extreme flooding in Europe for my Guardian series The floods. What I saw, through my travels to Chesterfield, England, Germany’s Ahr valley and Wallonia in Belgium, was that the climate emergency is in Europe, now. And it’s been happening for years.

Climate breakdown increases the risk of flooding, because hot air retains water, which increases precipitation. Climate scientists have found a 1C temperature increase means that 7% more water is retained in the air. The 2021 floods which devastated central Europe, specifically Belgium and Germany, were made more likely, some researchers think, by the climate crisis.

The aftermath was akin to a disaster movie. In the Ahr valley, a picturesque tourist region known for its hiking and pinot noir, the water level is believed to have reached up to 10 metres on the night of 14 July, 2021. The destruction was still clear to see. Mangled railway tracks loomed like twisted rollercoasters. Bridges were demolished by the force of the water. Entire houses were washed away with their inhabitants trapped inside.

And what’s terrifying is that floods of that magnitude could happen again in central Europe – in fact, some scientists think they will happen once or twice before 2050. But the people are not prepared.

More on what I found, after this week’s climate reads.

Essential reads

In focus

I arrived in Brussels on a frozen January afternoon. I was there for a sombre occasion: the memorial service for Rosa Reichel (pictured above), who died in the 2021 floods in Belgium. The service took place on what should have been Rosa’s 18th birthday. Instead, she was swept away by a flash flood while at a summer camp. I was there to meet her friend Benjamin Van Bunderen Robberechts, 17, who jumped into the water to try to save her, narrowly avoiding drowning himself. Now Ben’s a climate activist, travelling the world to raise awareness of the climate emergency as part of his Climate Justice for Rosa campaign.

As I travelled through Belgium’s Vesdre valley, I saw a community still reeling. Many had fallen victim to cowboy builders and were living in half-finished building sites, years on from the floods. They’d only been able to rebuild with the heroic efforts of unpaid volunteers. But alarmingly, people had rebuilt their homes almost exactly as before, without mitigation measures in place to protect them from future flooding. If the valley floods again, many of these homes will be destroyed – with further catastrophic loss of life.

In Germany, too, I saw similar short-termist thinking. There’s even a term for it: flood dementia. The idea that catastrophic flooding will not happen in the same place twice, even when the conditions for those floods – steep hillsides, communities built too close to the water, impermeable bedrock with limited opportunities for drainage – means that they probably will. It’s a kind of magical thinking, and one that can prove fatal: in Germany, 188 people died in the 2021 floods. But in the Ahr, I also met two sisters and winemakers who were bucking the trend by relocating their vinery to the top of a hill, after narrowly escaping death during the floods.

And the UK is already seeing the fingerprints of climate breakdown in extreme weather events. In Chesterfield, I met the family of Maureen Gilbert, a beloved grandmother who died alone in her home during last October’s Storm Babet. Since Babet, the UK has equalled its record for the most named storms during a storm season, with four months of the storm season left to go. March 2024 was the hottest recorded globally, and the 10th month in a row to break records.

Climate scientists have warned that we are entering unprecedented territory. As the world gets warmer, biblical flooding won’t be a one-off, exceptional event, but a new normal. We are not prepared.

Composted Reads

The good news

The bad news

The change I made – Growing my own salad

Down to Earth readers on the eco-friendly changes they made for the planet

A simple tip this week from reader Lyn Wills, which benefits you and the planet: giving up plastic-wrapped salad leaves for some grown in your own garden.

“I started growing my own salad due to the abysmal quality and price of the salad bags in the supermarket, which go slimy a day or so after opening and often are very ‘stalky’,” says Wills.

You don’t even need a big patch to make it work, Wills is quick to stress. “I have a very small space which is sunny enough and I just grow and pick what I need. This year I planted a tray each of lettuce and beetroots, instead of seeds, the rocket and chives come back every year. It’s more foolproof than seeds but a bit more expensive.”

Let us know the positive change you’ve made in your life by replying to this newsletter, or emailing us on [email protected]

Creature feature – Chimpanzee

Profiling the Earth’s most at-risk animals

Population: 175,000-300,000
Location: Forests of central Africa
Status: Endangered

Highly social animals who can live to be older than 50, chimps are our closest cousins – we share about 98% of our genes. Threats include poaching and habitat loss – exacerbated by a slow reproductive rate. Ecotourism initiatives in Africa aim to protect chimps from poaching by providing alternative incomes for communities.

For more on wildlife at threat, visit the Age of Extinction page here

Picture of the week

One image that sums up the week in environmental news

It’s hard to pick just one photograph from this beautiful Guardian gallery celebrating “eco-brutalist” architecture, but this shot of Paris’s dense but leafy Les Étoiles d’Ivry housing block wins out.

Each of the 13 photographs in the piece, taken across the world from Brazil to Bosnia, feature in the new book Brutalist Plants by Olivia Broome. “Brutalism can be this quite harsh, austere architecture style, but with nature involved, it balances it all out,” she says.

For more of the week’s best environmental pictures, catch up on The Week in Wildlife here

It was September 1991 in New York and the grand finale of Look of the Year, a prestigious modeling contest that had helped launch the careers of supermodels Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen.

The celebrity magician David Copperfield, one of the judges, watched from the front row as 58 contestants paraded across the runway in their branded hot pink and sorbet yellow swimsuits. Nearly all the contestants were teenagers; some were as young as 14.

Today, more than three decades later, five former contestants say that they were subjected to behavior by Copperfield that they now regard as inappropriate or worse. The women – who were all teenagers at the time – met him at the New York contest in 1991 or three years earlier in Japan, when he was also a judge. Others who attended the events also say they witnessed Copperfield behaving inappropriately towards the girls.

The claims include allegations of unwanted sexual touching and sexual harassment. In one case, a former contestant alleges she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Copperfield in the months after the competition. She was 17 years old at the time, she says.

The claims follow a report in yesterday’s Guardian US, which detailed allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior by Copperfield from women who had met him in connection with his performances. There was also an allegation of drugging in that story: one woman told the Guardian that she believes she and a friend were drugged by Copperfield before he had sexual relations with them, leaving them unable to consent.

In written responses to questions from the Guardian, lawyers for David Copperfield denied all the allegations of misconduct and inappropriate behavior. Copperfield’s lawyers said he has “never, ever acted inappropriately with anyone, let alone anyone underage”.

Look of the Year 1991

In 1991, Look of the Year was hosted by real-estate mogul Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel in New York, which he owned. Former US President Trump and Copperfied were among the 10 judges.

Other judges included a former Look of the Year winner and an executive at an advertising agency. Top fashion photographer, the late Patrick Demarchelier, and Gérald Marie, head of the Paris office of Elite Model Management, the agency that ran the competition, were also on the judging panel. Elite was then the world’s leading modeling agency. In recent years both men have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct towards young models, which they both denied.

The judges and the contestants stayed in rooms at Trump’s luxury hotel overlooking Central Park during the week-long contest.

Behind-the-scenes footage and photographs from the event show Copperfield mingling with contestants during the events. At the grand finale, Elite’s founder and owner, John Casablancas, introduced the illusionist, who was wearing a black dinner jacket with shoulder pads, as “the Emmy award-winning master magician, my friend, David Copperfield.”

Trump sat alongside him in the front row, with his then nine-year-old daughter Ivanka, who would later work for Elite as a model, perched on his knee. Naomi Campbell, then an Elite supermodel, co-hosted the black-tie gala with Casablancas.

The event attracted aspiring models from all over the world, aged 14 to 21. The average age of contestants – according to a Fox documentary the following year – was just 15. Some traveled there alone and were away from home for the first time. The pressure to impress the judges was intense.

Jenniffer Diaz, a Venezuelan contestant, had just turned 18 when she arrived in New York. In the evening, after the day’s events were done, she says the phone in her hotel room rang and a voice said: “Hi, so this is me, David Copperfield.” She claims he repeatedly called her room and invited her to join him in his room.

She recalls being in her pyjamas and being asked by him what she was wearing.

“I really didn’t speak much English and I had no idea what he meant,” she says now.

Only later, she says, did she realize that there was a sexual implication. Diaz, now 50, says she is relieved she declined the invitations, but says that at the time she felt uncomfortable saying no to the celebrity judge. “Even at that age, I was very young and naive, but still, I knew very clearly that you don’t go to a guy’s room at night.”

Copperfield’s lawyers denied that he called Diaz or any other contestants at their hotel rooms . “The allegation against our client is false and makes no logical sense,” lawyers said.

They said that during the event young male scammers would call contestants’ hotel rooms, using Copperfield and other judges’ names in order to “try and meet girls”. Copperfield’s assistant at the time, Linda Faye Smith, said in a statement to the Guardian that there was a “group of scammers calling contestants’ rooms at random – posing as celebrity judges” and “saying they were David”. Copperfield’s lawyers confirmed that he and Smith had been in contact before she sent the statement to the Guardian.

The Guardian spoke to eight attendees of the 1991 event, including an organizer from Elite, and none recalled hearing anything about scammers calling contestants. Diaz says she believed it was Copperfield’s voice on the phone.

Diaz’s account was corroborated by two witnesses. An American contestant, who didn’t want to be named, recalled translating a phone call between Copperfield and Diaz. “I was like, what the hell is going on?” the woman told the Guardian in 2020. Diaz’s then roommate, Stacy Wilkes, 16 at the time, also corroborated Diaz’s account of the calls. During the contest, Wilkes adds, the presence of men with no apparent connection to the modeling industry felt “inappropriate”.

Diaz claims Copperfield continued to contact her even after the competition ended. He called her multiple times at her family home in Venezuela and left messages with their housekeeper, she says. She did not respond. Diaz, who is now an actress and real estate agent, says, in hindsight, she feels it was “absolutely predatory behavior”. Copperfield’s lawyers said he did not call contestants at their family homes “as claimed”.

Diaz says she believes her agency, Elite, may have given Copperfield her home number without her permission. She says it appeared to her that her then boss, Casablancas, and Copperfield, were friends.

Aimee Bendio, a 15-year-old American contestant, says she believes Copperfield also showed an interest in her during the 1991 competition. Footage from the contest shows Aimee being interviewed by the panel of judges in her swimsuit. Immediately after, the camera cuts to Trump and Copperfield leaning back in their chairs to talk to one another.

Bendio says Copperfield approached her on the evening of 1 September 1991, when all the contestants, judges and other “friends of the agency” were taken on a private yacht around the Statue of Liberty.

Bendio first told her story in a 2020 Guardian investigation, which revealed allegations of inappropriate behavior by several men connected to Elite’s Look of the Year, including accounts from contestants that Trump would sometimes appear backstage as they were getting dressed. Trump denied “in the strongest possible terms” behaving inappropriately with the contestants. In response to the article his representatives said he was not aware of any predatory environment at the time.

On the evening of the boat party, Trump and Copperfield posed for photos with the contestants. Bendio claims Copperfield – who was nearly two decades her senior – came up to her and grabbed her around the waist. “He just thought he could do it and it made me feel really uncomfortable,” she tells the Guardian. Copperfield’s lawyers denied Bendio’s allegation and claimed that security, press and chaperones were everywhere at all times.

Copperfield and his assistant contacted Bendio at her family home several times over the course of seven months after the contest, she says. They mainly spoke to her mother, “checking in to see how my career was going.” Bendio says: “We didn’t come from a lot of money and I know that he had offered to help.” Copperfield invited her to his shows and on one occasion offered to send a limousine, but her mother told her to decline, she recalls. Bendio, now a school bus driver in her 40s, says: “We just thought the whole thing was creepy.” Copperfield’s lawyers denied he contacted contestants “as claimed”. They described the offers of free tickets to his shows as “friendly and innocent” behavior.

Like Diaz, Bendio says she is not sure how Copperfield got her contact information.

In addition to Diaz and Bendio, sources say Copperfield contacted at least two other contestants from Look of the Year 1991 after the event.

The same year, Copperfield allegedly connected with another teenage model through one of his stage performances. Carla*, whose story appeared yesterday in the Guardian, says she met Copperfield at one of his shows when she was 15. Afterwards, she alleges, Copperfield repeatedly called her at her family home, sending gifts and tickets to his shows. Like other women who agreed to be quoted by the Guardian on the condition of anonymity, she is being identified with a pseudonym marked* with an asterisk.

Carla now feels she and her family were being “groomed” by Copperfield. When she turned 18 she says he was the first man she had sex with. His lawyers denied her allegations.

The earlier Guardian investigation reported teenage models’ misconduct allegations against Elite’s boss, Casablancas. This included a lawsuit in 2019 that alleged Casablancas sent a 15-year-old model to a “casting call” with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, during which she says Epstein sexually assaulted her. The alleged victim, Jane Doe 3, later reached a settlement with Epstein’s estate.

Four men who attended Look of the Year in 1991 told the Guardian that Copperfield’s interest in the contestants appeared evident to them.

Ohad Oman, a young journalist who attended the event, claims he witnessed Copperfield flirting with a 16-year-old Israeli contestant, which he says he found inappropriate. One European modeling agent says he intervened at one point during the event when he saw the illusionist talking with a contestant he represented who was also around the age of 16. “From the corner of my eyes I saw she wrote her telephone number on a little booklet” for Copperfield, he says. “I took that, threw it on the floor and took her away.”

The agent says: “People in the industry knew why Copperfield wanted to be invited to these events.” He says models at such events were a big attraction for some high-profile men.

“Lots of people in the industry knew of his reputation as a creep. It was obvious,” says fashion photographer Roberto Rabanne, who took photos and video for Elite during the event.

Copperfield’s lawyers said that any portrayal of their client taking part in Look of the Year to exploit teenage models is “simply wrong”. They note many celebrities served as judges and that it was a “high-profile event in the modeling calendar”.

Look of the Year 1988

Three years before the 1991 competition, Brittney Lewis, a 17-year-old high school student from Salt Lake City, Utah, arrived at Look of the Year 1988.

It was September and the contest was held at the beach resort of Atami, Japan. Copperfield, one of the judges, was on a tour of Asia at the time. He was then known for his giant death saw trick and the year before had performed his famous “escape” from Alcatraz prison.

Lewis, according to an article in her local newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune, skipped the first day of school to attend the event. In an interview with the Guardian, she recalls that Copperfield “got to interview us [the contestants] alone in a room and he asked things like, who was my boyfriend”. It felt “a little uncomfortable,” she says.

Soon after returning to her home in Utah, Lewis says, the phone calls began.

She says Copperfield, then 32, invited her to one of his upcoming shows in California. Lewis says she was excited. At the time she lived with her grandparents and saw her father, Gus Lewis, occasionally. Since she was only 17, they were not sure she would be safe going to meet a man they did not know. Over the course of multiple conversations, Lewis says, Copperfield reassured Patricia Burton, her late grandmother, and her father, that she would be looked after by his female staff.

“He was pleasant on the phone,” her father tells the Guardian now. “My daughter must have told him I was into motorcycles and Harleys at the time, which I was. And so he brought that up first thing…. just trying to be buddy, buddy.” He says Copperfield told him he “would take good care of her and they’d be in separate rooms”.

Lewis says: “My parents are just super good, honest people and trusting … They were starstruck and believed everything he said.”

In late 1988, Lewis recalls, she traveled to California to meet Copperfield ahead of the show. They spent the day together and went shopping, she recalls. “He took me to a mall and he wanted to hold hands and his hand was super sweaty.”

Backstage “he tried to kiss me up against a wall and I ducked and dodged and I was like, no, no, that’s not what I’m here for,” she says. She told him they were “just friends”.

“After the show, he took me to a bar,” Lewis says. “I remember looking down and seeing him pour his drink into mine and I looked at him and said, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘I’m just sharing’.” The rest of the night is hazy, she says.

She says she remembers flashes of being carried out to a car and being helped into a hotel room, where Copperfield had an adjoining room. She says he laid her on the bed, and she remembers “him on top of me, my clothes coming off and then him kissing down and going down towards my crotch.” Then she blacked out, she says. “I don’t remember anything after that.” Lewis says she believes she was drugged.

In the morning she woke up feeling “nauseous and sick to my stomach”. Yesterday’s Guardian story reported that another woman, Gillian*, believed she and a friend had been drugged by the magician. Copperfield denied Gillian’s allegations, saying: “Anyone who knows our client knows drugs have never been a part of his life in any shape or form.”

Lewis says Copperfield came in through the connecting door shortly after, saying he wanted “to talk to me about what had happened.” She says he then said, “I just want you to know that I didn’t penetrate you because you’re underage.”

Lewis says Copperfield told her it would be best for her to return home that day, despite having a multi-day trip planned. Before she left, she says, he convinced her to write him a letter. She can’t recall the exact wording but says it suggested that nothing wrong had happened and that Lewis would not tell anyone about the alleged incident. “I feel like that note kept me hostage for a long time,” she says.

Copperfield’s lawyers have denied Lewis’s allegations. His lawyers said “our client did not act as alleged.”

Months later, Lewis says, Copperfield called her again, inviting her to one of his shows in her hometown. Lewis told him she never wanted to see him again and hung up, she says.

Lewis says her fear of Copperfield was compounded by a childlike sense that he was capable of real magic. Lewis recalls him telling her he was into black magic. When she returned home and realized one of her crystal earrings was missing, she was convinced Copperfield had taken it and was “really scared of what he could do”. Another woman in yesterday’s story, Lily*, who alleged she was groped on stage by Copperfield when she was 14 or 15, says for years after she had nightmares fearing that he would “use his magic on me”.

Lewis, now 53, gets emotional when she talks about the impact the alleged incident had on her life. She had been sexually assaulted as a teenager before she met Copperfield. “I fought the first time … and I thought if it ever happened again, I’d fight harder,” she says. With Copperfield, she says she believes she was drugged “so I felt really defeated and scared of men, scared to date, scared to have boys kiss me.” She “started drinking young,” she says. “I was just really self-destructive for a long time.”

On many nights for a decade after the alleged incident, Lewis says, she had nightmares, in which she was being attacked by a man on top of her. Eventually, she began opening up to those close to her about what she says happened, and got therapy. Now, a mother of three, living a quiet life in southern California with her husband, she says: “I just found a lot of really great alternative ways to heal.”

The Guardian corroborated Lewis’s claims by interviewing three friends and family members, as well as an acquaintance with whom she is no longer in contact. They recall her telling them about the alleged incident several years later. Lewis says she initially felt she couldn’t tell people because of the note she had written Copperfield.

In 2018, Lewis shared her allegations publicly in The Wrap, inspired by the #MeToo movement. Copperfield posted a statement on Twitter after the article was published praising the #MeToo movement while saying that he had been “falsely accused publicly in the past”.

The phone calls

Another contestant from Look of the Year 1988 also recalls getting phone calls from Copperfield at her family home after the contest. Natalie*, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had turned 17 just before the competition.

She had no idea, she says, that Copperfield was also allegedly contacting Lewis around the same time.

Natalie remembers the giddiness of having a celebrity taking an interest in her. They developed what she thought at the time was a friendship and describes being “enamored” of him. Over the phone, he would take the time to ask her how she was and how her modeling career was going, she says. “That made me feel special.” Copperfield told Natalie that he would be performing in her hometown soon and offered her and her parents tickets, she says.

They jumped at the opportunity. It hadn’t crossed their minds that anything inappropriate could happen with their daughter, who was still a minor, as they would be there with her, she says.

Lawyers for Copperfield said he did not call contestants as claimed, adding: “If people our client met asked his office for tickets to his shows our client would often provide complimentary tickets”.

Copperfield, who she says had built the family’s trust, invited Natalie to join him backstage alone, she recalls.

In an interview with the Guardian, Natalie, now 52, says: “He tried to have his way with me.” She alleges he kissed her, touched her breasts and “pushed me down” onto a couch. “He was trying to move forward and go further south and I just didn’t let him do that. I stopped him.”

Natalie, who says she had not had sex before, remembers feeling scared, not wanting to upset the man who had been so generous to her and her family. She notes that while she did not want him to touch her, he stopped when she asked him to stop. She remembers joining her parents in the audience after the incident.

When she returned home the phone calls continued, she says.

“Whenever he came back to [my hometown] he always offered tickets to my family,” she says. Natalie admits that at the time, part of her enjoyed the attention from a celebrity. “I was naive, I was foolish,” she says.

Natalie, who now runs a business in New York, never told her parents, believing for years that she was somehow to blame. “I don’t know, I felt guilty, maybe,” she says.

Copperfield’s lawyers said he denies Natalie’s allegations. They noted that the backstage environment at a magic show is “densely populated and inhospitable to the kind of outrageous conduct alleged. It would be like engaging in this sort of misbehavior during rush hour at Piccadilly Circus.”

A third contestant from 1988, Diana Long from Pennsylvania, says Copperfield “pursued” her during the Japan contest. Long, who was 19 then, says that the magician never crossed a line, but “I remember thinking he was pretty bold and why didn’t he get the message.”

She says that following the competition, Copperfield’s female assistant called her family home at least two times, speaking to her mother. They declined offers of tickets to his shows.

Long, now a mother of five, didn’t give much thought to her interactions with Copperfield at the time, she says, but if he was “talking that way to my 18-year-old, I would be really upset. It’s very inappropriate.” She describes it as “an abuse of power … I think he took advantage of his position, especially being a judge and being famous.”

Copperfield’s representatives denied Long’s allegation, saying it is “not our client’s practice” to offer tickets to shows.

Regarding the phone calls, Long adds: “I’m wondering how many of us he was doing this to and making each one of us [think] it was only us.”

Elite was forced into bankruptcy in 2004. The Elite brand continues to be used by two separate agencies, owned by different corporate entities. One, Elite World Group, said in a statement that the “current ownership since 2012 have no ties to John Casablancas. It never employed, consulted or conducted any business with Mr Casablancas during his lifetime.” It said the agency is “committed to providing safe work environments for our … models.”

The other inheritor of the brand, Elite Model Management, declined to respond to questions. In response to the 2020 article it also strongly distanced itself from the Casablancas-owned firm and era.

The industry

A decade or more after the 1988 and 1991 Look of the Year events, Valerie* – who was quoted in yesterday’s Guardian investigation – was working as an assistant to Copperfield. She recalls Copperfeld having a “little black book”, containing contact details for models and others from the modeling industry.

Valerie, who worked for the magician for 18 months from the late 1990s says some of Copperfield’s closest staff would use the list to “contact modeling agencies” and arrange for models to meet him at or after his shows. This included agencies across the US.

“There were always models coming in and going,” she claims.

The Guardian spoke to an American model agent from the list who confirmed that he received a call from a Copperfield employee asking for a group of models to attend his show.

In 1993 Copperfield began dating the Elite supermodel Claudia Schiffer. According to reports, they met when he brought her on stage to participate in a mind reading act and a flying illusion.

Copperfield reportedly proposed to Schiffer the following year on Little St James, the island that would later be purchased by Epstein. In the years that followed, Schiffer appeared on stage with Copperfield multiple times. Schiffer never married Copperfield and their relationship ended six years later in 1999. There is no suggestion she was aware of any alleged misconduct during their relationship. Schiffer declined to comment on the allegations against him.

Valerie said in yesterday’s story that she felt so uncomfortable about her boss’s behavior around young women that she quit and paid back her Christmas bonus.

The final trigger for her leaving, she says, was witnessing Copperfield’s behavior around a mother and her daughter, an aspiring model, who spent time with him over a number of days in his New York apartment. Copperfield’s lawyers said he is unaware of staff members quitting for the reasons cited.

Valerie says that a modeling agency had connected Copperfield with the pair and the illusionist appeared to be advising them on the girl’s modeling career.

Copperfield, whose lawyers said he denies acting as alleged, took the mother and her daughter – who Valerie recalls was still a minor – to nightclubs until late at night, she says. Valerie attended one such evening and recalls his behavior towards the girl as “creepy”. She says: “That mother seemed very naive, very starstruck.”

Valerie notes that she does not know of any misconduct between Copperfield and the girl, but adds that she felt “it was super wrong.” She felt she couldn’t work for him anymore, she says.

“I left as soon as I could after that.”