Half a year after the death of Matthew Perry from acute effects of anesthetic ketamine, the Los Angeles police department (LAPD) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have launched a joint criminal investigation looking into how the Friends star got the prescription medication, law enforcement sources confirmed to the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.

Perry died at the age of 54 on 28 October 2023 in a hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home. Trace amounts of ketamine, which is sometimes used to treat depression, were found in his stomach, according to the Los Angeles medical examiner.

However, an autopsy found levels of ketamine in his blood similar to levels used during general anesthesia. “At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,” the autopsy report stated.

The autopsy also identified drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine – a drug used to treat opioid addiction, about which Perry discussed openly in interviews and his 2022 memoir – as contributing factors in his death. It was ruled an accident, with no evidence of foul play.

The LAPD and DEA, however, are now looking into how the actor came to possess high levels of ketamine, in his system and in general. TMZ was the first to report the investigation, which is primarily concerned with who provided the drug, and under what circumstances.

According to the medical examiner, Perry was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy for anxiety and depression in the days before his death. His last known infusion was a week and a half prior, meaning the ketamine found in his system in the autopsy was not from the procedure.

In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry discussed his long history with substance abuse, beginning at the age of 14 and intensifying with the huge spotlight while on Friends, which ran on NBC from 1994 until 2004. At one point, he wrote, he was consuming up to five dozen pills a day. He was 19 months sober at the time of his death, according to the medical examiner, who noted that he had no other drugs in his system and that no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found at his house.

The medical examiner also noted that the beloved actor, who once had a two-packs-a-day cigarette habit, suffered from diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a group of diseases that can cause airflow blockage and breathing issues.

This is not the first time the federal agents have got involved in a drug-related celebrity death. Following the fatal accidental overdose of Mac Miller in 2018, police arrested and charged Ryan Michael Reavis for selling the rapper counterfeit, fentanyl-laced pills. He was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in April 2022.

It’s so hot in Mexico that howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees.

At least 83 of the midsize primates, who are known for their roaring vocal calls, were found dead in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. Others were rescued by residents, including five that were rushed to a local veterinarian who battled to save them.

“They arrived in critical condition, with dehydration and fever,” said Dr Sergio Valenzuela. “They were as limp as rags. It was heatstroke.”

While Mexico’s brutal heatwave has been linked to the deaths of at least 26 people since March, veterinarians and rescuers say it has killed dozens and perhaps hundreds of howler monkeys.

In the town of Tecolutilla, Tabasco, the dead monkeys started appearing on Friday, when a local volunteer fire-and-rescue squad showed up with five of the creatures in the bed of the truck.

Valenzuela put ice on their limp little hands and feet, and hooked them up to IV drips.

So far, the monkeys appear to be on the mend. Once listless and easily handled, they are now in cages at Valenzuela’s office. “They’re recovering. They’re aggressive … they’re biting again,” he said, noting that was a healthy sign for the usually furtive creatures.

Most aren’t so lucky. Wildlife biologist Gilberto Pozo counted about 83 of the animals dead or dying on the ground under trees. The die-off started around 5 May and hit its peak over the weekend.

“They were falling out of the trees like apples,” Pozo said. “They were in a state of severe dehydration, and they died within a matter of minutes.” Already weakened, Pozo says the falls from dozens of yards (meters) up inflict additional damage that often finishes the monkeys off.

Pozo attributes the deaths to a “synergy” of factors, including high heat, drought, forest fires and logging that deprives the monkeys of water, shade and the fruit they eat.

“This is a sentinel species,” Pozo said, referring to the canary-in-a-coalmine effect where one species can say a lot about an ecosystem. “It is telling us something about what is happening with climate change.”

Pozo’s group has set up a special recovery stations for monkeys – it currently holds five monkeys, but birds and reptiles have also been affected – and is trying to organize a team of specialized veterinarians to give the primates the care they need.

By 9 May at least nine cities in Mexico had set temperature records, with Ciudad Victoria, in the border state of Tamaulipas, clocking a broiling 117F (47C).

With below-average rainfall throughout almost all the country so far this year, lakes and dams are drying up, water supplies are running out and authorities have had to truck in water for everything from hospitals to firefighting teams. Low levels at hydroelectric dams have contributed to power blackouts in some parts of the country.

Humans are feeling the heat as well. On Monday, the nationwide chain of OXXO convenience stores – the nation’s largest – said it was limiting purchases of ice to just two or three bags per customer in some places.

Israel has urged what it called “nations of the civilised world” to refuse to implement any international criminal court arrest warrants issued against its leaders.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the world’s top court, announced on Monday that his office had applied to a pre-trial panel for arrest warrants for three senior Hamas officials, as well as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Hamas attack of 7 October and the ensuing seven-month-old war in Gaza.

What was widely interpreted in Israel as an equivalence between the named leaders of the Islamist group – Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Mohammed Deif, the commander of its military wing, and Qatar-based Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the political bureau – and democratically elected Israeli politicians was met with outrage by Israeli officials, the public, and the country’s allies.

On Tuesday, a government spokesperson, Tal Heinrich, said: “We call on the nations of the civilised, free world – nations who despise terrorists and anyone who supports them – to stand by Israel. You should outright condemn this step.

“Make sure the ICC understands where you stand. Oppose the prosecutor’s decision and declare that, even if warrants are issued, you do not intend to enforce them. Because this is not about our leaders. It’s about our survival.”

Khan said on Monday that Israel had the right to defend itself from Hamas, but that it did not “absolve Israel or any state of its obligation to comply with international humanitarian law”.

Whatever Israel’s military goals in Gaza, the prosecutor’s office believed its methods – “namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious injury to body or health of the civilian population” – were criminal, he added.

It has been known for some time that Khan’s investigation could result in arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and military officers. Last month, the Israeli prime minister flew into a public panic over the possibility and appealed to the G7 – and in particular the US, Israel’s most important ally – to intervene in any potential international legal action.

Monday’s statement from the chief prosecutor’s office nonetheless shocked the Israeli establishment, and has sparked a flurry of diplomatic damage control.

Israel, along with the US, Russia and China, is not a member of the ICC and does not recognise its authority. The 124 states that do, however, are obliged to honour court arrest warrants if they are issued, which could severely curtail the ability of Netanyahu and Gallant to travel abroad.

France, Belgium and Slovenia said on Monday they supported Khan’s decision, while a UK government spokesperson reiterated that London did not believe the ICC had jurisdiction in the case, and the Czech Republic called the prosecutor’s move “appalling and completely unacceptable”, a clear indication of the west’s growing divisions over approaches to Israel as death and destruction mounts in Gaza.

Israel is also worried about an immediate impact on weapons sales and the defence industry, the possibility of further sanctions if the case goes ahead, and implementing military strategy and judicial changes that may be needed in order to minimise the risk of future charges.

Asked if Netanyahu or Gallant would avoid travelling to ICC-signatory countries if arrest warrants were issued, Heinrich said: “Let’s wait and see.”

On Tuesday, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, travelled to France in a bid to contain the diplomatic fallout. It is also expected that Israel will encourage US Republicans to reimpose sanctions on ICC officials, and urge ICC-signatory allies to pressure the court into preventing warrants from being issued.

The ICC decided in 2021 that it had a mandate to investigate violence and war crimes committed by Israel and Palestinian factions in events dating back to 2014. Many in Israel have long claimed that the UN and associated bodies are biased against the Jewish state.

No leader of a “western-style” democracy has ever been issued a warrant. An ICC warrant for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, was declared last year, and other outstanding warrants include the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and the former president of Sudan Omar al-Bashir.

Khan’s office has requested the warrants for the Hamas and Israeli suspects from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.

In recent visits to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, Israel and the West Bank, Khan had made clear that the scope of his office’s investigation would be expanded to include the 7 October attack and its aftermath.

About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed on 7 October, with a further 250 taken hostage, and about 35,000 people have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

An initial ceasefire and hostage and prisoner swap at the end of November broke down after a week, while several attempts since aimed at a new truce, mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar, have floundered.

A return to fruitful negotiations seems less likely than ever after earlier this month Israel launched a long-threatened offensive on Rafah, the last corner of the Gaza Strip previously spared ground fighting, where more than 85% of the Palestinian territory’s population of 2.3 million people had sought shelter.

Food and medical aid deliveries through Rafah’s crossing with Egypt had been suspended due to a lack of supplies and insecurity, the UN agency for Palestinians said on Tuesday.

Fierce fighting continues across the region: Israeli forces operating in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza on Tuesday laid waste to the area with tank and aerial bombardments, residents said, while airstrikes killed at least five people in Rafah.

An Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday killed seven people, including a doctor, local health officials said.

Donald Trump has shared a video on his Truth Social account referencing a “unified reich” if Trump wins the presidential election in November.

The video posted on Monday remained up for 15 hours into Tuesday morning despite the reference being pointed out by media outlets. The former president’s account removed it by about 10am ET on Tuesday.

Trump’s campaign claimed a staffer did not see the word “reich” before the video was posted and said it was not used intentionally but did not comment on why the video remained on Trump’s account for so long.

In the video, a narrator states: “What happens after Donald Trump wins? What’s next for America?” Meanwhile, hypothetical headlines are shown, including: “Industrial strength significantly increased … driven by the creation of a unified reich.”

“Reich” is the German word for “empire”, and is heavily associated with Adolf Hitler, who referred to his Nazi regime as the “Third Reich”.

“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the president was in court,” Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary, said in a statement.

The Associated Press reported the headline text appears to be copied verbatim from Wikipedia. “German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich,” states the Wikipedia entry on the second world war.

Trump had dinner with the prominent antisemites Nick Fuentes and Kanye West in 2022, and in his campaign speeches he regularly states that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”, which critics have said echoes Nazi rhetoric.

The Biden campaign criticized Trump for sharing the video.

“Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich’,” a Biden spokesperson, James Singer, said in a statement.

“Parroting Mein Kampf while you warn of a bloodbath if you lose is the type of unhinged behavior you get from a guy who knows that democracy continues to reject his extreme vision of chaos, division and violence.”

The Biden campaign also cited other previous comments and actions from Trump that express or mirror antisemitic views, including claiming Hitler “did some good things” and praising neo-Nazi marchers during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Candy lines every inch of the mercado de dulces in Mexico City’s historic center. Tantalizing strawberry-flavored chocolates and Tajín-covered mango gummies pack the narrow aisles of the meandering marketplace. But many of the colorful packages are somewhat dampened by black stop signs printed on their fronts. Alongside dreamy descriptions of creamy and chocolatey confections, the stop signs warn “Excess calories” or “Excess sugars”. For some customers, the warnings are enough for them to pause and reconsider their purchases.

Latin America is leading the world in a movement to print nutritional warning labels on the fronts of food packages. Currently, the labels warn when a food product exceeds a consumer’s daily recommended value of any “nutrient of concern” – namely, sugar, salt or saturated fat (some countries have added trans fats, artificial sweeteners and caffeine). But research led by scientists across the continent is increasingly pointing towards another factor consumers may want to consider: how processed a food is.

Ultra-processed foods make up an increasingly large share of the average Latin American consumer’s diet. These industrially formulated products, which are often high in fats, starches, sugars and additives (like flavorings, colorings and preservatives), were first named and studied by Brazilian researchers in the early 2000s. Today, many Latin Americans get 20% to 30% of their daily calories from ultra-processed products (in the United States, the average is even higher – upwards of 60%). As the continent leads global research into the health impacts of ultra-processed foods, countries there are also taking steps to ensure labels end up on all ultra-processed products, warning consumers of these harms.

In the early 2010s, researchers at the Pan American Health Organization, a regional office of the World Health Organization, began discussing the possibility of using front-of-package labels to combat rising rates of non-communicable diseases in the region.

“The initial proposals for front-of-pack labeling emerged because the information for consumers based on the nutrition facts table” was “completely insufficient for consumers to have a quick and easy understanding”, said Fabio Da Silva Gomes, the regional adviser on nutrition and physical activity for the Americas at the PAHO.

In 2010, Mexico became the first country in the region to move the “daily guidance amounts” label to the fronts of packages. (Today, some companies in the US voluntarily print daily guidance amounts on the fronts of packages in an industry-led program called Facts Up Front.) Then, in 2014, Ecuador introduced a “traffic light” label, which ascribed certain colors (red, yellow and green) to the levels of different nutrients in packaged foods.

But the landscape really changed when Chile implemented an entirely new label in 2016. Under former president Michelle Bachelet, who trained as a pediatrician, Chile implemented a sugary-drinks tax modification in 2014 and began studying front-of-package label designs.

In 2016, it implemented a black, stop-sign-shaped label after conducting research that found that the traffic-light label in use in Ecuador and much of Europe was too colorful (when associated with food, colors actually elicit cravings). Unfortunately, it was also confusing. Consumers didn’t know which was better: foods with yellow ratings for both sugar and sodium, or one red for saturated fat and one green for sugar. Additionally, the country banned the sale and promotion of products with warning labels in schools, restricted marketing of those products to children, and eventually fully banned companies from marketing foods with warning labels.

A 2021 study found that Chilean families purchased 27% less sugar and 37% less salt from foods labeled with “high in” warnings in December 2017, after the implementation of the label, than they would have if the labeling and advertising law had not been implemented.

The law also incentivized food companies to reformulate their products to include less salt and sugar so they wouldn’t be required to print a label.

From Chile, octagonal “warning labels” spread rapidly across Latin America.

Today, Peru, Uruguay, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia all mandate warning labels (with Venezuela expected to join them this December). Some countries have amended the warning label pioneered by Chile to capture more foods – like artificial sweeteners and caffeine – and others have introduced taxes to more strongly dissuade citizens from purchasing certain products.

But not all countries have followed the scientific consensus. When Brazil implemented its label in 2022, it introduced a design that was copied in Canada and may be replicated in the US. Instead of the black stop sign, Brazil printed a black-and-white magnifying glass next to a disclosure if the food was high in sugar, salt or saturated fat.

“We actually don’t recognize the Brazilian system as a warning system,” said Gomes. “It’s very small, and this is critical because we know from tobacco warnings that there’s a dose response between the size of the warning and the response of the consumer,” meaning consumers are less likely to purchase tobacco products the larger the warning label on them is.

Latin America has, in some ways, had an easier time implementing front-of-package labels than the US because most countries’ constitutions there guarantee a right to health that supersedes commercial free speech. “There’s much less of an emphasis on protecting corporate free speech in particular, and there’s a strong emphasis on protecting children,” said Lindsey Smith Taillie, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. But corporations and trade groups have still fought back against labeling initiatives.

While lobbying legislators in countries considering labels, the international food industry has also threatened to take many governments to the World Trade Organization for allegedly violating free-trade agreements that prevent “unnecessary obstacles to international trade”. Gomes says that labels do not “restrict” the sale of ultra-processed foods, but rather add a “requirement” in order to market them.

The food industry has also funded research that emphasizes the importance of exercise over diet. Industry documents show that Coca-Cola gave university researchers in the US and Colombia $199,500 to study the role of physical inactivity, instead of the availability of whole foods, on obesity.

“The industry is really good about shifting the blame,” said Eric Crosbie, a professor of behavioral health and health administration and policy at the University of Nevada, Reno. “What they were trying to do was shift the blame on to individuals so that they’re not responsible for their products. It’s a classic move that tobacco, alcohol, they’ve all done.”

Even where labeling laws are in force, companies have found ways around them. For example, some print a “front” on both the front and back of a package (but only print labels on one side). Or they package foods in an extra-clear plastic wrapper so they can print now-banned cartoon characters (to market to children) on the food itself.

Although the concept of ultra-processed foods emerged in Latin America, no country there has a label demarcating UPFs. However, experts say countries are taking steps to change that.

“I would imagine that [UPF labels] would start in Latin America because they’ve been such a leader in this space,” said Taillie. “Ultra-processed food is a part of dietary guidelines in many of the Latin American countries”, whereas in the US “we’re hearing the evidence, but we don’t have it in our guidelines”.

And current warning labels already cover the majority of UPFs on the market because so many contain high levels of sugar, sodium and saturated fats.

“The evidence suggests that right now in Argentina, in Mexico, in Colombia, with the warning labels that we have applied with nutrient profile models, we can with very good confidence state that these countries are regulating at least 97, 98%” of ultra-processed foods, said Gomes. He noted these countries are also working to “fill this 2% gap” by marking foods that contain colorings, flavorings, emulsifiers and thickeners that are used to “mimic real food”.

Although the science around the various components of ultra-processed foods is still emerging, Gomes says the components still warrant labels because their purpose is simply to make unhealthy foods more appealing. “Think of tobacco legislation,” he says, pointing to laws that ban flavored tobacco products. “We do not necessarily need evidence on the harms of cosmetic additives to regulate them” because they are used “only for the purpose of stimulating the consumption of products that are harmful”.

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One passenger died and more than 30 were injured when a flight from London to Singapore was hit by turbulence.

The Singapore Airlines jet was diverted to Bangkok, where it landed at 15.45 local time (0945 GMT) on Tuesday.

The airline said the Boeing 777 plane with more than 200 passengers about encountered severe turbulence on its way from Heathrow to Singapore.

Images posted on social media showed emergency services at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

In a statement on social media, the airline said: “Singapore Airlines flight SQ321, operating from London (Heathrow) to Singapore on 20 May 2024, encountered severe turbulence en-route.

“We can confirm that there are injuries and one fatality on board the Boeing 777-300ER. There were a total of 211 passengers and 18 crew on board.

“Singapore Airlines offers its deepest condolences to the family of the deceased.

“Our priority is to provide all possible assistance to all passengers and crew on board the aircraft. We are working with the local authorities in Thailand to provide the necessary medical assistance, and sending a team to Bangkok to provide any additional assistance needed.

“We will provide regular updates on our Facebook and X accounts.”

According to airline tracking websites, the flight dropped about 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) when it flew into the rough air.

Fatalities caused by turbulence are extremely rare on international scheduled flights, but severe injuries have occurred – more often to crew. There have been fatalities on smaller private jets, although usually only when the turbulence has led to a crash.

A decade ago, on my friend’s birthday, we took a huge tent and stayed the night at our local campsite. We laughed as we put the tent up where the grass met the shingle beach, the sunshine glistening on the water, the sound of the waves scraping the stones. I remember a night of ghost stories, teenage gossip and chasing each other with seaweed.

But the land where we pitched our tent is no longer there. It’s somewhere in the North Sea.

My home town, Inverbervie, on the north-east coast of Scotland, is disappearing. The beachfront I played along as a child, where I collected driftwood and chased waves, looks very different now. Standing on the shingle, the coastal path that once led me safely to the shore has been mercilessly carved away by the sea. Buried second world war pillboxes have been exposed and the bridges I paddled under have almost been engulfed by water.

The Inverbervie Community caravan park is at the heart of the community – managed by locals, it is the place where they go for Bonfire Night and summer galas. The manager, Alick Smith, a 73-year-old volunteer, has seen the change first-hand over the past 45 years. He remembers a time, not too long ago, when fishers landed with full nets of salmon and locals paddled freely in the shallow basin where the River Bervie met the sea.

I visited him before and after Storm Gerrit, at the end of December. On my second visit, the paths I had walked a week earlier had disappeared. He told me to make sure I didn’t slip on the sea-soaked remnants of the campsite. My boots got tangled in the seaweed scattered on the road. Smith had measured the land lost at the campsite. Thirteen metres had gone in the space of a year, he said – half the pitch.

The campsite started shrinking – dramatically – in November 2022. North-east Scotland saw a month’s worth of rain in two days. Whipped by the wind, the flood waters broke the banks of the Bervie. All we could do was watch. We thought it was a one-off, but the storms keep coming.

Babet, Debi, Gerrit, Henk, Isha. These days the storms arrive like angry guests every couple of weeks from October until March. We used to get the occasional reprieve, but not any more. Babet, last October, was when the fear properly set in. No one could remember seeing waves that high. We secured what we could, got out the sandbags and hoped for the best.

When we came up for air, more of the campsite was gone. The beach was strewn with old fishing nets and rubbish dredged up from the deep and the coastal path was broken, land snatched by the waves. No one outside the town seemed to care, or even notice.

The Queens pub in Inverbervie hasn’t changed since I was a child. The walls are still decorated with old pictures of the town. The laminated menu offers fresh haddock and chips. An old schoolfriend, Abbie Sclater, walks in and we fall into talking about the storms. “We’ll see how much more of the beach disappears the more storms we get,” she says. “Because it’s not if, it’s when.”

It’s not just the land she is worried about – it’s people’s lives. In October, the body of 61-year-old Peter Pelling was found three days after Babet blew itself out, 13 miles from Inverbervie in Marykirk. The road had disappeared beneath him, sweeping his car away under water. “It’s scary,” says Sclater. “So much can change in such little time to make a place totally different. Or more dangerous.”

Inverbervie, population 2,310, is a place few have heard of, even in Scotland. Built on fishing and the textile trade, it’s now a commuter town for Aberdeen’s oil and gas industry. People here don’t fear bad weather. We are taught to respect the unpredictability of the North Sea; strong winds and heavy rain are a normal Wednesday. But suddenly we are asking: what are we going to do?

Each storm now requires an extensive clear-up as the waves and tide reach new heights. For days afterwards, sand, shingle, seaweed and dead fish litter the roads near the beachfront.

We were warned last year to expect a record-breaking storm season. Maybe we would make the news again, we thought. When Babet hit, we got a mention for winds that reached 77mph. Just two months later, during Gerrit, the fiercest gale was measured at 86mph.

The growing intensity of our storms is fuelled by global heating, says Dr Larissa Naylor, a professor of geomorphology and environmental geography at the University of Glasgow. Oceans absorb most of our greenhouse gases. As they get warmer and expand, bad weather is turbo-charged so that, instead of a few blustery days, we get a named storm. A name means a threat, an attack on the land and – often – more inroads by the sea.

It’s not just Inverbervie, of course. From Fiji to the Florida Keys, the Netherlands to the Bahamas, rising sea levels and more frequent extreme weather pose an existential threat.

In the coastal town of Montrose, just a 25-minute drive from Inverbervie, the sea has advanced 70 metres in the past 30 years. Tommy Stewart, an independent councillor, is bleak about the town’s future. “I would give Montrose another three years maximum and I think it’ll be under. The defences will breach if they don’t do anything.”

Back in Inverbervie, the Conservative councillor George Carr has been lobbying about coastal erosion in the area since he was elected in 2007. But he insists the climate crisis has nothing to do with it. According to Carr, the fault is with the Scottish government, for not providing enough funding for coastal maintenance in the form of “rock armour” walls – basically, lines of huge boulders to absorb the force of waves. “There was a fisherman who showed me where the rock armour should go, how it should be finished off and how that prevents the effect of the sea to a large extent from eroding the beach,” he says. “But that work was never done.”

Carr also argues that vital shingle maintenance – which would move pebbles from one end of the beach to the other to soften the impact of the waves – should be done annually, but funding has not been prioritised by the Scottish government. In March, Aberdeenshire council finally undertook some of the shingle maintenance the community council had been fighting for. (The last time any of this work took place was 2018.) But locals say it was too little, too late.

For many years, most people in Inverbervie agreed with Carr that this was a local problem. But with each centimetre of the town that is lost to the sea, more are recognising that while maintenance may help with the immediate danger, it won’t fix the crisis looming on the horizon.

When I go to see the community councillor Margaret Gray, 75, we talk about the weather. Gray, who has lived in Inverbervie her whole life, is no climate activist, but she can see something is going on. “I can’t think of rain going on the way it has done,” she says, looking out of the window. “I’m not a scientist, but who can argue with them? I’d like to argue, say it’s not happening, it’s not true, but winters do seem to be milder and there’s not the same amount of snow and ice.” She has never seen the waves breach the sea defences this badly.

Spend any time researching coastal erosion in Inverbervie and you are likely to find your patience, much like the coast, wearing thin. It doesn’t matter whom you ask: it’s always someone else’s fault. Local people blame Aberdeenshire council; the council blames the Scottish government; the Scottish government blames the UK government.

When I ask Aberdeenshire council what it is doing to prevent further erosion, it says it is “not under any statutory obligation to take immediate action”, but that it remains committed to helping communities if the work is justified. Its investigations found “no need” for rock armour. As for the state of the coastal path, that has “been reported to the relevant service for an appropriate course of action”.

But the council is also very clear about the obstacle to getting anything done: “Any award of contract will be subject to the council having available funding to carry out the works.” In January, it said it needed to make cuts because of an estimated budget gap of £66.8m. It has since announced it is even cutting school crossing patrollers.

In April, in an email to members of the Inverbervie community council, Aberdeenshire council said it was “not technically and financially in a position to positively defend and/or protect the area used by the caravan park for caravans and tents”. It suggested the erosion was down to “natural factors” and says that current predictive mapping, which takes the climate crisis into account, shows “it is probable that this issue will worsen in future years”.

But even if the local authority acted now in Inverbervie – even if further work on coastal defences started tomorrow – it’s too late, according to Naylor. We can’t hold back the rising sea – we just have to adapt to it. The campsite could be given a temporary reprieve, but that is all. “This location is too vulnerable,” she says. “It may be that individuals are more directly affected than others, but it is an issue for the community.”

Aberdeenshire council argues that, in any case, what is happening to the campsite isn’t its responsibility. It is responsible only for existing coastal protection built by the council and there are “no council structures associated with the caravan park”.

On a video call from Westminster, Andrew Bowie, the Conservative MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, which includes Inverbervie, and a junior minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, agrees that more should be done to protect communities from storms and erosion. “The situation around Inverbervie is a cautionary tale about coastal erosion in Scotland,” he says. He points to funding provided 15 years ago to protect a nearby area from a landslip. When I check that out, I find that the funding was given to the Bervie Braes in Stonehaven, a 15-minute drive along the coast.

He says any funding would come at a UK level, but adds that, in the meantime, “taking action to mitigate climate change and to reduce our carbon emissions and to prevent more extreme weather events will absolutely have a positive impact”.

Just in case the climate emergency doesn’t miraculously sort itself out, Inverbervie’s inhabitants have done what they can to help themselves. They have cleaned out the drains after storms, replanted flowers, removed the debris from the roads and paths. In desperation, they also raised £1,400 so they could buy a lorry-load of rock armour to protect a small section of the coast.

It wasn’t enough. Last month was Scotland’s wettest April since 1947. The rain in Inverbervie was incessant. Towards the end of the month, Smith sent me a photo of the campsite, closed to the public and almost completely submerged by the sea. It has since tentatively reopened – but for how long?

It makes me think of all those moments in my childhood that I took for granted: the camping trips, the beachcombing, the paddling. In my lifetime, we have already lost so much. What will today’s children lose in theirs?

A rare and highly prized feather from the extinct New Zealand huia bird has sold for NZD$46,521 (US$28,365), making it by far the world’s most expensive feather ever sold at auction.

The hammer price far exceeded initial estimates of between $2,000-$3,000, and blew the previous record-holder’s price out of the water. Until Monday’s sale, the previous record sale was another huia feather that sold in 2010 for $8,400.

The feather weighs roughly 9 grams, making it vastly more valuable than gold – $5,169 per gram compared with $127 per gram of gold, according to the latest Gold Broker figures.

The huia was the largest of New Zealand’s wattlebird species, known for its beautiful song, its predominantly black glossy feathers and long tail feathers tipped with white. The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907, though it is believed they were still alive into the 1920s.

The bird was sacred to Māori, and featured in songs and sayings, while the wearing of its feathers was reserved for rangatira (chiefs) and people with mana (prestige). When Europeans arrived in New Zealand the birds were already rare, but a subsequent European craze for their feathers led to their demise.

The desire to own something of the huia remains strong internationally. In 2023, a pair of stuffed huia sold at a British auction for NZD$466,000, despite public pleas for the New Zealand government to intervene and bring them home.

Leah Morris, the head of decorative arts at Auckland-based Webb’s auction house where the feather was sold on Monday, believed the single feather’s excellent condition, the efforts to protect the feather with archival paper and UV glass, and the story of the huia, drove up the bids.

“The huia is such an iconic bird and a lot of people really relate to the bird in some way,” she told the Guardian.

The specimen was one of the best huia feathers the house had seen come to market.

“It doesn’t have a lot of bunching in the feathers … you’ll also see it’s retained a lot of its colours … its rich brown and iridescent colour and there is no sign of damage from insects,” Morris said.

The feather is registered as a taonga tūturu (authentic treasure) with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, meaning only a registered “taonga tūturu” collector can buy the feather, and the feather cannot leave New Zealand without permission.

There are few details over the provenance of the feather and Morris could not divulge information about the vendor or buyer due to confidentiality agreements. But she said they were both registered collectors and New Zealand-based. There were no international bids.

About 30 people were present at the auction, however all the bids were made via phone or online. Morris said people watched the price go up “with bated breath”.

“When the bidding eventually stopped and the hammer was knocked down there was a round of applause in the room – you don’t often get that at an auction.”

Migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970, new findings show.

Populations are declining in all regions of the world, but it is happening fastest in South America and the Caribbean, where abundance of these species has dropped by 91% over the past 50 years.

This region has the world’s largest freshwater migrations, but dams, mining and humans diverting water are destroying river ecosystems. In Europe, populations of migratory freshwater fishes have fallen by 75%, according to the latest update to the Living Planet Index.

Migratory freshwater fish partially or exclusively rely on freshwater systems – some are born at sea and migrate back into fresh water, or vice versa. They can in some cases swim the width of entire continents and then return to the stream in which they were born.

They form the basis for the diets and livelihoods of millions of people globally. Many rivers, however, are no longer flowing freely due to the construction of dams and other barriers, which block species’ migrations. There are an estimated 1.2m barriers across European rivers.

Other causes of decline include pollution from urban and industrial wastewater, and runoff from roads and farming. Climate breakdown is also changing habitats and the availability of freshwater. Unsustainable fishing is another threat.

Herman Wanningen, founder of the World Fish Migration Foundation, one of the organisations involved in the study, said: “The catastrophic decline in migratory fish populations is a deafening wake-up call for the world. We must act now to save these keystone species and their rivers.

“Migratory fish are central to the cultures of many Indigenous peoples, nourish millions of people across the globe, and sustain a vast web of species and ecosystems. We cannot continue to let them slip silently away.”

A quarter of freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with migratory fish disproportionately threatened.

The report looks at population trends of 284 freshwater fish species. Researchers also noted there could have been substantial declines prior to 1970 but there was no data for this.

There was also insufficient data to calculate population changes in Africa, but researchers wrote that many species in that region faced multiple stressors.

Previous research has found similar “catastrophic” declines. Authors of the latest report call for better long-term monitoring, rivers to be restored and protected, and the removal of barriers to migration.

Researchers want to find renewable energy alternatives to the thousands of new hydropower dams being planned across the world. Last year, a record 487 barriers were removed in 15 European countries.

Michele Thieme, deputy director of freshwater for WWF-US, said: “We have the tools, ambition and commitment to reverse the collapse of freshwater fish populations … Prioritising river protection, restoration and connectivity is key to safeguarding these species.”

Dr David Jacoby, a zoology lecturer at Lancaster University, said that while the report confirmed widespread concerns about freshwater bodies, “the extent of decline, both regionally and globally, is still shocking”.

“The threats posed by barriers to migration, pollution, water abstraction and climate change become cumulative,” he said, adding that the “huge” impact on migratory species and the impact on the fisheries they sustain required increased monitoring to help reconnect freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Dr Anthony Acou, of the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) in France, pointed out that, as many species migrating between salt and fresh water spent most of their lives in the sea, it was also important to consider “pressures such as oceanic current modification, decrease of productivity, offshore windfarms, climate change [and] bycatch”.

“To preserve/conserve the species, it is critical to better understand the impact of the pressures on both marine and freshwater habitats to enhance our understanding and target efficient management measures,” he said.

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

The Trump campaign has come out swinging against The Apprentice after the film, which depicts the former president raping his first wife, shocked audiences at Cannes, with a spokesperson saying that they will be “filing a lawsuit to address the blatantly false assertions from these pretend filmmakers”.

Speaking to Variety on Monday after the world premiere of Ali Abbasi’s film, the Trump campaign’s chief spokesperson Steven Cheung confirmed they would take legal action.

“This garbage is pure fiction which sensationalises lies that have been long debunked,” he said. “As with the illegal Biden Trials, this is election interference by Hollywood elites, who know that President Trump will retake the White House and beat their candidate of choice because nothing they have done has worked.”

“This ‘film’ is pure malicious defamation, should not see the light of day, and doesn’t even deserve a place in the straight-to-DVD section of a bargain bin at a soon-to-be-closed discount movie store, it belongs in a dumpster fire.”

Abbasi’s film, which stars Sebastian Stan as Trump and opens with a disclaimer that the events depicted are fictionalised, earned an eight-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on Monday.

Audience members reportedly gasped over scenes including Trump getting liposuction, having scalp-reduction surgery and, most controversially, a scene in which he pushes his first wife, Ivana, to the ground and rapes her.

The scene is a fictionalised account of a 1989 incident that was previously detailed in the couple’s divorce proceedings in 1990.

In the film, Trump reacts with fury after Ivana disparages his physical appearance. “You have a face like a fucking orange,” she tells him. “You’re getting fat, you’re getting ugly and you’re getting bald.” The future president is then shown forcing his wife to the floor and raping her. “Did I find your G-spot?” he asks in the film.

In her 1990 deposition, Ivana Trump described a similar assault that she said occurred shortly after her husband’s scalp-reduction surgery. She claimed that Trump pushed her to the floor and pulled out handfuls of her hair. Ivana initially described what followed as a rape, but later walked back on the claim.

In a 1993 statement, she said: “On one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently towards me than he had during our marriage. As a woman I felt violated … I referred to this as a rape, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

During the couple’s divorce proceedings, Trump dismissed his wife’s version of the incident as “obviously false”.

The Apprentice also stars Jeremy Strong as Trump’s lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn and Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump.

In his two-star review for the Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote: “In sketching out his pre-White-House career, The Apprentice worryingly moves us back to the old Donald, the joke Donald who had a cameo in Home Alone 2 and of course his own hit TV show, the joke that is now beyond unfunny. It feels obtuse and irrelevant.”