The two most famous sets of initials in US politics clashed in a chaotic House hearing on Thursday, as the progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, objected fiercely to an attack on another Democrat by the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, or MTG.

The oversight committee hearing concerned Republican attempts to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt, for refusing to release tapes of interviews between Joe Biden and the special counsel Robert Hur.

Things went wrong when MTG made a partisan point, trying to tie Democrats to the judge in Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money case – which, by drawing a number of Republicans to the New York courtroom to support Trump, was responsible for the hearing starting late in the day.

In answer to MTG, Jasmine Crockett of Texas said: “Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland … Do you know what we’re here for? You know we’re here about AG Garland?”

Greene, a conspiracy theorist from Georgia, said: “I don’t think you know what you’re here for … I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”

Amid jeers and calls for order, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said: “That’s beneath even you, Miss Greene.”

AOC, of New York, demanded MTG’s words be taken down.

As defined by the Congressional Research Service, that meant AOC thought MTG had “violated the rules of decorum in the House” and should withdraw her words.

“That is absolutely unacceptable,” AOC said. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?”

MTG said: “Are your feelings hurt?”

AOC said: “Move her words down.”

MTG said: “Aw.”

AOC said: “Oh, girl. Baby girl.”

Amid laughter, MTG said: “Oh really?”

AOC said: “Don’t even play.”

MTG said: “Baby girl? I don’t think so.”

AOC said: “We’re gonna move and we’re gonna take your words down.”

James Comer, the Republican chair from Kentucky, struggled to impose order, eventually saying: “Miss Greene agrees to strike her words.”

AOC said: “I believe she must apologise.”

MTG said: “I’m not apologising.”

AOC said: “Well then, you’re not retracting your words.”

MTG said: “I’m not apologising.”

Comer banged his gavel, pleading: “C’mon, guys.”

MTG said: “Why don’t you debate me?”

As Raskin tried to interject, AOC said: “I think it’s pretty self-evident.”

MTG said: “Yeah, you don’t have enough intelligence.”

Comer cried, “You’re out of order, you’re out of order,” and tried to recognise Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, another pro-Trump extremist. Jeers broke out, Raskin calling: “I move to strike the lady’s words.”

“That’s two requests to strike,” AOC said.

MTG said: “Oh, they cannot take the words.”

Raskin told Comer: “Please get your members under control.”

MTG said: “I repeat again for the second time, yes, I’ll strike my words but I’m not apologising. Not apologising!”

Extraordinarily enough, that wasn’t the end. Crockett asked Comer: “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling. If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blond, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

Comer said: “A what now? … I have no idea what you just said.”

Next to him, Raskin buried his face in his hands.

Comer imposed a five-minute recess. When the hearing resumed, Lauren Boebert – the Colorado extremist and theatrical exhibitionist who usually battles for attention with MTG – was of all people the one to offer an apology “to the American people”.

“When things get as heated as they have,” Boebert said, “unfortunately, it’s an embarrassment on our body as a whole.”

The economic damage wrought by climate change is six times worse than previously thought, with global heating set to shrink wealth at a rate consistent with the level of financial losses of a continuing permanent war, research has found.

A 1C increase in global temperature leads to a 12% decline in world gross domestic product (GDP), the researchers found, a far higher estimate than that of previous analyses. The world has already warmed by more than 1C (1.8F) since pre-industrial times and many climate scientists predict a 3C (5.4F) rise will occur by the end of this century due to the ongoing burning of fossil fuels, a scenario that the new working paper, yet to be peer-reviewed, states will come with an enormous economic cost.

A 3C temperature increase will cause “precipitous declines in output, capital and consumption that exceed 50% by 2100” the paper states. This economic loss is so severe that it is “comparable to the economic damage caused by fighting a war domestically and permanently”, it adds.

“There will still be some economic growth happening but by the end of the century people may well be 50% poorer than they would’ve been if it wasn’t for climate change,” said Adrien Bilal, an economist at Harvard who wrote the paper with Diego Känzig, an economist at Northwestern University.

“I think everyone could imagine what they would do with an income that is twice as large as it is now. It would change people’s lives.”

Bilal said that purchasing power, which is how much people are able to buy with their money, would already be 37% higher than it is now without global heating seen over the past 50 years. This lost wealth will spiral if the climate crisis deepens, comparable to the sort of economic drain often seen during wartime.

“Let’s be clear that the comparison to war is only in terms of consumption and GDP – all the suffering and death of war is the important thing and isn’t included in this analysis,” Bilal said. “The comparison may seem shocking, but in terms of pure GDP there is an analogy there. It’s a worrying thought.”

The paper places a much higher estimate on economic losses than previous research, calculating a social cost of carbon, which is the cost in dollars of damage done per each additional ton of carbon emissions, to be $1,056 per ton. This compares to a range set out by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that estimates the cost to be around $190 per ton.

Bilal said the new research takes a more “holistic” look at the economic cost of climate change by analyzing it on a global scale, rather than on an individual country basis. This approach, he said, captured the interconnected nature of the impact of heatwaves, storms, floods and other worsening climate impacts that damage crop yields, reduce worker productivity and reduce capital investment.

“They have taken a step back and linking local impacts with global temperatures,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University who wasn’t involved in the work and said it was significant. “If the results hold up, and I have no reason to believe they wouldn’t, they will make a massive difference in the overall climate damage estimates.”

The paper found that the economic impact of the climate crisis will be surprisingly uniform around the world, albeit with lower-income countries starting at a lower point in wealth. This should spur wealthy countries such as the US, the paper points out, to take action on reducing planet-heating emissions in its own economic interest.

Even with steep emissions cuts, however, climate change will bear a heavy economic cost, the paper finds. Even if global heating was restrained to little more than 1.5C (2.7F) by the end of the century, a globally agreed-upon goal that now appears to have slipped from reach, the GDP losses are still around 15%.

“That is still substantial,” said Bilal. “The economy may keep growing but less than it would because of climate change. It will be a slow-moving phenomenon, although the impacts will be felt acutely when they hit.”

The paper follows separate research released last month that found average incomes will fall by almost a fifth within the next 26 years compared to what they would’ve been without the climate crisis. Rising temperatures, heavier rainfall and more frequent and intense extreme weather are projected to cause $38tn of destruction each year by mid-century, according to the research.

Both papers make clear that the cost of transitioning away from fossil fuels and curbing the impacts of climate change, while not trivial, pale in comparison to the cost of climate change itself. “Unmitigated climate change is a lot more costly than not doing anything about it, that is clear,” said Wagner.

The message pads appear a little faded, but the handwriting on the spiral-bound notebooks is clear enough.

Staff at Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion in Florida’s Palm Beach used the pads to jot down the names of the people who had called the financier, and between 2004 and 2005, one well-known person appeared to be calling persistently.

Not Prince Andrew or Bill Gates, or even Bill Clinton, the former US president, though all of them have come under a spotlight over their relationships with the disgraced billionaire.

The name on the pads is one that – until recently – has had far less scrutiny: David Copperfield.

According to copies of the phone message pads, seen by the Guardian, the magician appears to have left messages for Epstein 16 times in just a few months. The notations on the pads include brief messages such as “it’s important” and “just called to say hello”. One says “it’s jackpot” without further explanation.

In a written response to questions from the Guardian US, Copperfield’s lawyers denied that he had left “multiple messages” for Epstein. “Any messages that were left would have been left by our client’s office in response to a request by Epstein for tickets to a show,” the lawyers said.

The Guardian has examined Copperfield’s contacts with Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in prison in 2019, as part of a broader investigation that includes an examination of allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior by the illusionist. Copperfield has denied ever engaging in sexual misconduct or inappropriate behavior.

The phone messages were not the only alleged contacts between the magician and the financier. The Guardian’s investigation found that Copperfield appears to have met with Epstein at least three times, according to interviews with witnesses, court records and police evidence. Two Epstein victims have separately told the Guardian they were present at such meetings – one at a dinner at Epstein’s home in 2004 and the other at Copperfield’s Las Vegas “warehouse” the same year.

Were the two men close? His lawyers insist not. They said Copperfield – who has not previously commented on his relationship with Epstein – “was not a friend of Jeffrey Epstein”.

They also said he was completely unaware of Epstein’s “horrific crimes”. “Like the rest of the world, he learned about it from the press.”

Sigrid McCawley, a victims’ rights attorney at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner who has represented multiple Epstein victims, argues that there are still questions to answer. “David Copperfield cannot hide or make his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein disappear,” she said.

‘I was invited backstage’

Copperfield’s alleged relationship with Epstein made headlines just a few months ago, in January of this year, after the illusionist’s name was among those referenced in newly unsealed court records in an Epstein-related case. The inclusion of Copperfield’s name in the court records does not mean he committed any crime or knew about Epstein’s criminal conduct.

The court records included new details about an alleged conversation Copperfield had with a woman, Johanna Sjoberg, who would years later accuse Epstein of abusing her.

In a sworn deposition, Sjoberg alleged she had been invited to a dinner at Epstein’s house and had been offered a chance to meet the famous magician. Sjoberg confirmed to the Guardian that the dinner took place in 2004.

Sjoberg – who was in her 20s at the time of the dinner – claimed in the deposition that she had waited at the house along with a girl who she had not met before and seemed very young. She testified that Copperfield “did some magic tricks”. She said she believed that Copperfield and Epstein were friends.

Epstein was running a well-established operation by this time, recruiting girls and women from local schools and colleges to give him massages that led to sexual abuse. In some cases, Epstein paid the young women to enlist others they knew. There is no suggestion that Copperfield was participating in this scheme or Epstein’s abuse.

In her deposition, a lawyer asked Sjoberg: “Did Copperfield ever discuss Jeffrey’s involvement with young girls with you?”

She responded: “He questioned me if I was aware that girls were getting paid to find other girls.”

In the deposition, she said Copperfield didn’t tell her any specifics, including whether the girls were teenagers.

Asked by the Guardian to explain his remark to Sjoberg, lawyers for Copperfield said in written response that he had “heard a rumor about girls being paid to bring other girls to the Epstein residence”.

The lawyers said Copperfield did not recall from whom he had heard the rumor, and that he had not taken it lightly or dismissed it out of hand.

He asked Sjoberg about it “out of surprise (and concern for her)”, his lawyers said. When Sjoberg said nothing to “reinforce the rumor” and did not express concern, Copperfield dropped the matter, his lawyers said, as he “would have seen no reason to contact law enforcement or to raise the matter with others”.

Sjoberg’s interaction with Copperfield at the dinner was widely reported by media outlets when it was made public in January. Copperfield did not issue a statement at that time.

Speaking for the first time about her interactions with Copperfield since her 2016 deposition was unsealed, Sjoberg told the Guardian she believed Copperfield was “trying to figure out what was happening” with Epstein and that she was “unaware if they kept up any type of friendship after that dinner party”.

She also said that she remained in contact with Copperfield after meeting him for the first time at Epstein’s home. Epstein bought Sjoberg a ticket to a Copperfield show shortly after the 2004 dinner, she said. Epstein “knew I loved magic and watched Copperfield on TV growing up”.

She was in the front row, she said, and Copperfield invited her backstage afterwards. “I got to see his tour bus,” she recalled. “It was as I was leaving that we exchanged numbers. He then invited me to come hang out in Miami for the day before his show the next evening. We went shopping and had lunch.”

Sjoberg said Copperfield made no sexual advances on her and was “nothing but kind to me”.

In total she said she saw him “three times around 2004, only once with Epstein’’ and they spoke “a few times” after the dinner party. She also saw him in Las Vegas, while she was on a girls trip, around 11 years ago, she recalled.

Sjoberg said that she hadn’t heard from the magician since then, until she received a call from Copperfield in March. It was the same day that the Guardian sent a representative for Copperfield questions about his relationship with Epstein.

“He was hoping that I would make a statement about my experiences with him,” she said. She said she told him that she had already exchanged a message with a Guardian reporter in January 2024 about the Copperfield dinner. She then sent him a screenshot of the message she had sent to the Guardian.

Sjoberg said she was initially hesitant to speak on the record to the Guardian about Copperfield, saying: “I know that may create another media circus.” She said she did not wish to say anything further publicly on this subject, due to the unwanted attention that speaking out about Epstein and those around him has already brought her.

Copperfield is not the only famous person Sjoberg said she had met as a result of her relationship with Epstein. As part of the Epstein-related case in which Sjoberg made comments about Copperfield, Sjoberg also described her alleged interactions with Prince Andrew, including her allegation that he touched her breast. Prince Andrew denied the allegation.

‘Magic David called’

The message books that were seized by police in 2005 from Epstein’s Florida home as part of the criminal investigation into Epstein offer clues about who he was in touch with before he was charged one year later with soliciting prostitution, and roughly 14 years before he was indicted for child sex trafficking.

The pads were collected during the execution of a search warrant. They were found both inside the residence and in Epstein’s trash, according to court records filed in an Epstein-related case. Multiple witnesses have said that the collected messages accurately reflect those taken by various staff at the Palm Beach mansion, the court records say.

He left messages for Epstein 16 times in three months, the message pads suggest.

The police also seized a smaller batch of pads from 2002 and 2003, in which there is no record of calls from Copperfield.

The first dated message to Epstein from Copperfield in the pads, on 21 November 2004, simply reads: “it’s important”.

Some of the messages appear to suggest a familiarity between Copperfield and Epstein. On the evening of 9 December at 7.05pm, the message pads record, the illusionist left a message that he’d “just called to say hello”. Ten days later they record he left another message saying the same thing.

Another reads: “Magic David called.”

On 9 January 2005, Epstein had one message from Copperfield and another from one of Copperfield’s assistants, who appears to be arranging a time for Epstein to see one of the magician’s shows.

“The 28th will be the best day to come and see show,” it reads. “The show starts at 8.30.” Copperfield was in Florida on tour at the time and performing at the Carol Morsani Hall in Tampa on this night, according to records. The following morning Copperfield calls again. “He is just checking you can reach him at home,” the note said.

He was not the only one leaving messages.

The model agent Jean-Luc Brunel – who hanged himself in jail in 2022 while being investigated for sex crimes – also called regularly during this period. Donald Trump, the former US president who has said he had a falling out with Epstein, disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and American banker Jes Staley also left messages for Epstein around this time. Staley, the former chief executive of Barclays, was fined $2.26m (£1.8m) by the UK Financial Conduct Authority last year and banned from holding senior positions in the UK after it was determined that he had mischaracterized the “nature of his relationship” with Epstein. In a statement at the time, Staley – who has denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes – said he was disappointed by the FCA’s decision and would challenge it.

In the weeks leading up to the show on the 28th, the message pads indicate, Copperfield left more messages for Epstein.

In one, the message read: “he has some info”, and six days before the show: “it’s jackpot”. In another, Copperfield asked Epstein to call him back. In yet another, Copperfield said he could be reached at home.

Along with denying that Copperfield left multiple messages for Epstein, the magician’s lawyers said he “never” called Epstein personally.

When the Guardian pressed Copperfield’s lawyers on this issue – noting that Copperfield’s direct phone number appears to be on the messages – his lawyers declined to comment.

Copperfield’s lawyers said he and Epstein were “at most, acquaintances” who only met on a “handful” of occasions. Copperfield believed, they said, that he only attended Epstein’s Florida mansion once, for around 15 minutes. They said he also visited Epstein’s New York home.

Alfredo Rodriguez, who was Epstein’s housekeeper at his Palm Beach mansion between September 2004 and February or March 2005, testified in a videotaped deposition in 2009 that Copperfield was in the house “maybe two or three times” when he was present. He said Copperfield “came to the house, played tricks” and then left.

Copperfield’s lawyers said Rodriguez “lacks any credibility”. Rodriguez, who died in 2015, was convicted in 2012 of an obstruction charge for failing to tell prosecutors that he was in possession of Epstein’s phonebook – commonly referred to as his “black book” – and for trying to sell it.

‘Clearly a close friend’

One of the questions that has been raised by Copperfield’s apparent contacts with Epstein is what the exact nature of their relationship was.

Five people, including Epstein himself, have said they believed the two men were friends. The Guardian has no evidence that Copperfield and Epstein had contact after 2005.

In the videotaped deposition of Epstein conducted by the lawyer Jack Scarola in March 2010, Epstein was asked if he had a “social relationship” with Copperfield. Epstein responded that he believed that by raising “the names of friends of mine”, Scarola was seeking to stress his relationships and “imperil my business relationships”. He added: “I’m going to say, yes, I do know Mr Copperfield”.

Copperfield’s lawyers said any suggestion he was friends with Epstein “is totally false and a mischaracterization made by the media.” They added that it is “well-documented, Epstein ‘collected’ the rich and the famous”.

McCawley, the victims’ rights attorney at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, said “Consider that in just one, single trash-pull and search by police of just one of Epstein’s properties, message pads from a short period showed Copperfield called Epstein multiple times.”

Spencer Kuvin, a Florida lawyer at Goldlaw who has also represented Epstein victims, said: “Because Copperfield appears to have been within Epstein’s social orbit during that time frame, he should definitely be coming forward to give more information.”

Brad Edwards, an attorney who once represented Sjoberg and multiple other Epstein victims, said in his book, Relentless Pursuit, that Copperfield was “clearly a close friend” of Epstein’s, according to unnamed witnesses he had interviewed.

Edwards, who has claimed that he tried to depose Copperfield as part of his investigations of Epstein but was not able to due to “legal and logistical roadblocks”, also alleged in a legal filing in April 2011 that Copperfield had an improper interaction with one Epstein victim, but did not provide any details or substantiate the claim. Copperfield’s lawyers declined to comment on this allegation.

Edwards declined to elaborate on the claim, saying in a Whatsapp message to a reporter that he was not in a position to assist the Guardian.

Public records show that one Epstein victim who said she was a teenager at the time of her abuse told detectives as part of a 2005 police investigation that Copperfield tickets were among the gifts that Epstein gave her during the time he was sexually abusing her in the early to mid-2000s.

“I got show tickets. I went and saw like David Copperfield, I had VIP tickets or something like that,” she said.

‘It did make me feel safe’

The same year that Sjoberg attended a dinner with the two men, another Epstein victim says she also spent time in their company. This time it was on Copperfield’s turf, in Las Vegas.

Jane Doe 15, who is one of more than 100 Epstein victims to have reached a settlement with Epstein’s estate in 2021, was 15 years old when she was abused by him.

She described in an interview with the Guardian how she was flown from her home town in Michigan to Las Vegas in early 2004 in order to meet the financier for the first time.

On her arrival at the airport, she says she was picked up by someone working for Epstein and taken straight to David Copperfield’s “warehouse”.

When she arrived she joined a group of other young women who had also been flown to Las Vegas for the occasion, to meet Epstein and Copperfield. She said she believed Epstein and the other girls had just seen the magician’s show at the MGM Grand – where he still performs today – but she had only arrived in time to “hang out with David and take a look at all his oddities that he kept in the back warehouse space”.

“I was just a kid so I was like ‘oh wow, magic, cool’,” Jane Doe 15 told the Guardian. There was a cardboard cutout of Copperfield that she posed with “so it looked like he was levitating you,” she recalled.

She kept a polaroid of this, which she shared with the Guardian. “I could not wait to tell my friends about this.”

Lawyers for Copperfield acknowledged he had given a tour to Epstein “and his guests” but said the tour he gave was at his museum and that he and Epstein were accompanied by 10 members of his staff. The lawyers said the tour took place before Epstein’s crimes were exposed and that Copperfield did not see or suspect anything inappropriate during the visit.

Jane Doe 15, who grew up living in a small farming town and loved to read Narnia books, was impressed by Copperfield. She described the “vibe” at Copperfield’s warehouse as “teen friendly”. She said, “I was being taken to … meet this magician …I’m being wowed and my defenses are going down.”

“There’s a safety in it … it felt very like an admittance that I was young and would be into this sort of thing.”

After the meeting, Jane Doe 15 claimed she was taken on Epstein’s private plane – which later became known among the press as the “Lolita Express” – with the other young women to Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico. It was there, just days later, that Epstein subjected her to a “vicious, prolonged sexual assault”, according to the lawsuit she filed against Epstein’s estate in 2019.

Meeting Copperfield “did make me feel safe,” she said. Jane Doe 15 did not allege Copperfield ever acted inappropriately with her.

“In my experience with Epstein there was so much of him fronting or showing off these celebrity associations, one of them being David Copperfield,” she said. “When he felt you could be getting nervous, he would bring up a celebrity association.”

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.