The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has ruled out resigning, saying he will stay in power until the end of his term in 2027 and will appoint a new prime minister in the coming days, after the government’s historic collapse plunged France into political turmoil.

“You have given me a democratic mandate of five years and I’ll carry it out fully until its term,” he said in a televised speech to the French people late on Thursday.

Macron, who is facing the worst political crisis of his two terms as president, criticised what he called the “cynicism”, lack of responsibility and “sense of chaos” of opposition politicians who toppled the government in a no-confidence vote on Wednesday, ending the beleaguered minority coalition of the rightwing prime minister, Michel Barnier, after only three months.

Macron said he would not be held responsible for that chaos himself. He said: “I won’t shoulder other people’s irresponsibility,” He would appoint a prime minister “in the coming days” and instruct them to form a government “in the general interest, representing all political forces who can take part”, or who, at least, would undertake not to bring the government down, he said.

Wednesday’s no-confidence vote was supported by an alliance of leftwing parties as well as MPs from Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, far-right National Rally, with a total of 331 lawmakers – a clear majority – voting to topple the government. Macron accused Le Pen’s party of “choosing disorder”.

France, which faces a growing public deficit, risks ending the year without a 2025 budget or a stable government, although the constitution allows special measures that would avert a US-style government shutdown.

Macron must now find a prime minister to take on the difficult task of leading a minority government in a deeply divided parliament. It will be France’s fourth prime minister this year.

The Elysée Palace is keen to limit any impression of political chaos as Macron prepares to host world leaders on Saturday – including the US president-elect, Donald Trump – for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the devastating 2019 fire.

Macron said that by restoring Notre Dame and delivering the Olympics and Paralympics, France had shown “we can do great things … we can do the impossible”.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the national assembly and a member of Macron’s centrist party, said France could not be allowed to “drift” for long. “There must not be any political hesitation. We need a leader who can speak to everyone and work to pass a new budget bill.”

As France enters a period of political turmoil, the Elysée said Barnier’s government would deal with current day-to-day issues until a new government was appointed.

No new parliament elections can be called before July 2025, narrowing Macron’s options faced with a deeply divided national assembly.

Amid speculation over who could replace Barnier as prime minister , Macron had lunch with François Bayrou, a close ally and veteran centrist politician. The outgoing defence minister, Sébastien Lecornu, denied he was in the running himself.

Socialists, Communists and other figures in the left alliance said a new prime minister must come from the left. Bruno Retailleau, the hardline right interior minister in Barnier’s government, said the new prime minister should come from the right, saying “France is rightwing”.

Since Macron called a sudden and inconclusive snap election in June, the French parliament has been divided between three groups with no absolute majority. A left alliance took the largest number of votes but fell short of an absolute majority; Macron’s centrist grouping suffered losses but is still standing and Le Pen’s National Rally gained seats but was held back from power by tactical voting from the left and centre.

“We are now calling on Macron to go,” said Mathilde Panot, the head of the parliamentary faction of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing party, La France Insoumise, who urged “early presidential elections”.

Le Pen conspicuously did not call for Macron’s immediate resignation, but she said pressure on him would grow.

A poll by Odoxa Backbone Consulting for Le Figaro found 52% of French people thought the no-confidence vote was a “good thing”. Among voters for Le Pen’s National Rally this rose to 72%. “The majority of National Rally voters think that all this is Emmanuel Macron’s fault,” Gaël Sliman, the head of the pollsters told Le Figaro. “But some [National Rally voters], 28%, remain worried about the potential consequences.”

Wednesday’s vote was the country’s first successful no-confidence vote since a defeat for Georges Pompidou’s government in 1962, when Charles de Gaulle was president. Barnier’s government had the shortest lifespan of any administration of France’s Fifth Republic, which began in 1958.

Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, was appointed by Macron in September after two months of political paralysis this summer.

Barnier’s key task, which proved his downfall, was to vote through a budget for 2025 in which he said he would begin to tackle France’s deficit with €60bn in tax increases and spending cuts. But after weeks of standoff over the budget, Barnier on Monday pushed through a social security financing bill, using article 49.3 of the constitution, which allows a government to force through legislation without a vote in parliament. This sparked the no-confidence vote.

Barnier’s minority coalition had been propped up by Le Pen, who, although outside government, had an unprecedentedly powerful role as Barnier attempted to placate her to avoid her party joining a no-confidence vote. Barnier had negotiated with her directly, tapering the budget to her demands.

But Le Pen pulled rank, saying Barnier’s budget was a danger to the country. She told French TV on Thursday that the voting system should be changed and proportional representation introduced.

If parliament does not pass a budget by 20 December, the government can propose emergency legislation that would roll over spending limits and tax provisions from 2024, pending the arrival of a new government and a new 2025 budget bill.

“France probably won’t have a 2025 budget,” said ING Economics in a note, predicting that the country “is entering a new era of political instability”.

Moody’s, a ratings agency, warned that Barnier’s fall “deepens the country’s political stalemate” and “reduces the probability of a consolidation of public finances”.

A series of earthquakes struck the northern California coast on Thursday morning, rattling communities and activating emergency alerts for both shaking and tsunami risks just before 11am local time.

The largest, registered as a magnitude 7.0 and originating near the historic and picturesque town of Ferndale in Humboldt county, could be felt in San Francisco more than 260 miles (418km) away. Roughly 1.3 million people felt the shaking, according to initial estimates provided by the US Geological Survey (USGS), which also reported that risks to human life remained low.

Cellphones buzzed throughout the region, warning of the incoming shaking and offering ample time to brace and cover. Tsunami alerts also rang out for at least 5.3 million people on the California coast and into Oregon, warning of large waves, strong currents and coastal flooding that could persist through the afternoon.

Following the alert, Bay Area Rapid Transit trains were held as underground stations were cleared, as major delays were announced throughout the system, and the San Francisco fire department began clearing the beaches. The tsunami warning was withdrawn shortly after noon as officials announced the highest risks had subsided.

Some affected areas, especially those that hug the coast and were recently saturated with rain, could be prone to landslides, USGS data shows.

No immediate damage reports were made available, but the USGS issued a “yellow alert” signifying that “some damage is possible and the impact should be relatively localized”.

“Overall, the population in this region resides in structures that are resistant to earthquake shaking, though vulnerable structures exist,” the USGS said in a bulletin, noting that brick masonry construction poses the highest risk.

Videos of the aftermath posted online by local reporters showed grocery store shelves in disarray and shattered glasses and bottles lining bar floors. Residents shared images of cupboard contents that had been thrown to the flood. By early afternoon, only minor damage had been reported.

The New York police department on Thursday issued a fresh image clearly showing the face of a man they suspect of shooting and killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, early on Wednesday in Manhattan.

The manhunt continued and police appeared to be closing in on the fugitive as key new clues surfaced.

The newly-released images were taken by security cameras at a hostel on the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan where police think the suspect stayed.

In previous images issued the suspect was wearing a mask. But late morning on Thursday, police posted photographs showing a young man smiling and one of the same person looking more serious, with the hood of his coat up.

The suspect remained at large while investigators scrambled to find out his identity and as police continued to comb through a vast network of private and public surveillance cameras.

Law enforcement deployed drones and dogs in addition to sifting through data related to electric bikes.

Despite officials previously referring to the Citi Bike brand of public-use e-bike to talk about the vehicle that was used in the crime, and thousands of which are dotted around the city at charging ports, later on Thursday morning this proved to be unconfirmed. There was a report by the New York Times, citing sources familiar with the investigation, that police were now looking into it being an unmarked electric bike.Police chiefs have said it was a targeted killing.

Among other clues discovered were acell phone, video footage of the suspect and shell casings from bullets found at the scene with the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose”, according to unnamed sources who also spoke with ABC News.

Those words potentially evoke a book published 14 years ago that criticized the US health insurance industry, with its title using vocabulary common in corporate language around insurance claims, called Delay Deny Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, Reuters reported.

The book’s author, Jay Feinman, a professor emeritus at Rutgers University Law School in New Jersey, told the news agency “sorry, no comment” in an email responding to an enquiry.

The coincidence hints at possible motive, but by early Thursday afternoon the authorities had not addressed that angle nor posited a motive for the killing.

Police had earlier searched the hostel where the suspect is believed to have stayed, CNN reported, also reporting that police found a fingerprint while investigating objects connected to the man, including a cellphone and a water bottle, and that evidence was being examined in hopes it could pin down an identity.

“This does not appear to be a random act of violence,” Jessica Tisch, New York City police commissioner, told reporters. “Every indication is that this was a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack.”

Thompson was killed by a man in black carrying a gray backpack and with his face covered up to the nose around 6.40am ET Wednesday. The police have been using the word “he” when referring to the suspect.

The man in questions had leveled a handgun fitted with a silencer at Thompson’s back and shot the executive at least once in the back and the calf, just as he was about to enter a midtown Manhattan Hilton hotel for an annual investor conference.

As Thompson collapsed on the sidewalk, the gun jammed, the man – “proficient” in firearms according to police – quickly cleared it and resumed shooting.

The suspect then fled on an e-bike into nearby Central Park. As of Thursday, there have been no arrests in the case, and police offered a $10,000 reward for information.

Since Wednesday, police have also uncovered footage of the man near the Frederick Douglass public housing project on Manhattan’s Upper West Side around 5am ET, ABC News reported.

The suspect’s motives remain unknown. Thompson’s widow said her husband had received threats. However, such incidents are not uncommon in controversial sectors.

“There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson told NBC News. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage? I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

UnitedHealthcare is a branch of UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest companies in the United States. The branch insures tens of millions of people with private health coverage.

The need for private-sector health insurance is a fact of life in the US, but frequently a thorn in American’s side, and insurers are often accused of unfairly denying coverage. The company was also the subject of an insider trader investigation and inquiry into unfair trade practices, Fox Business News reported.

Thompson’s killing quickly sent shockwaves through the corporate world, with corporate security heads gathering in a conference call to Wednesday.

“Many of my colleagues today are sitting down with their executive protection team leaders, their security leadership teams, and re-evaluating what they are doing and not doing,” Dave Komendat, president of Seattle-based Komendat Risk Management Services told the New York Times.

Another security executive, CEO Michael Julian of MPS Security & Protection, told Axios: “I’m just shocked the guy didn’t have a protective detail.”

Thompson is survived by his wife Paulette and two sons.

The Associated Press, Reuters and Joanna Walters contributed to reporting

Obsessed with the weather? If you’re a British reader, then the answer is certainly yes. Thanks to our seasonal climate, we have always been a nation with one eye on the sky – and it’s only a short hop from there to observing how our flora and fauna respond to these ever-shifting conditions. Being in early winter now, it’s the time of year for geese and gales, starlings and mistletoe, tree rot and fungi in staggering variety. There is always, always something changing about our wildlife, day by day.

This is the foundation on which the Guardian’s Country diary column flourishes. It’s a sort of slow-motion version of the BBC programme Springwatch – one short piece each day, from a different writer in a different part of the UK, each focusing on a different aspect of nature.

It’s such a simple concept – perhaps that is why it has endured for so long; after all, Country diary is, remarkably, the longest known newspaper column in existence, having run since 1904. Its longevity is also a tribute to the many distinguished writers who have contributed, past and present.

How do we keep it blooming over a century later? I’ll explain, after this week’s most important environmental reads.

Essential reads

In focus

Back in the diary’s earliest years, there was but one writer, Thomas Coward in Cheshire, who, God forbid, had to file an article to his editor every single day. At first principle, you could hardly find a more suitable subject for a daily series than the natural world. After all, wildlife has evolved a truly dizzying array of creatures, and accompanying ways to survive and thrive – of late, readers have learned about rare glow-worms, deadly thorn apple, and strange magpie behaviour.

But the diary is also far from just a “what species is that?” column: recently, we’ve had our resident farmers writing on the post-budget protests and the return of bovine TB. Last month, we had Mark Cocker waxing about the hunter’s moon in Burnlaw, Northumberland, and Nicola Chester (from Berkshire) celebrating the 100th birthday of her rural village hall; further back we had Phil Gates (County Durham) on “footpath furniture”. Soon, on the winter solstice, we’ll have a dispatch from Mary Montague in Northern Ireland, about the remarkable Newgrange in County Meath, a neolithic monument that is designed to be illuminated as the shortest day of the year begins.

Like many of its writers (I suspect), the diary rises early, publishing at 5.30am, and I’m told that for many readers it is part of their morning routine, taken with a cup of tea and Wordle, or with a takeaway coffee on a packed train. In a world of hard edges and relentlessly hard news, it provides some brief respite, taking you out into the fields, the woods or the garden for your daily constitutional. I’d also like to think that it contains a little of that vanishingly scarce commodity: charm.

As with anything related to nature, of course, there is also grave news to be found; indeed, the diary is fundamentally a piece of journalism, so it is duty-bound to report on the climate crisis and its effects on species and systems. Our fine writers can at least bring some elegance and/or anger to the topic. Some notable examples I can recall are Paul Evans’s damning diary after the 2022 heatwave, and the bittersweet chase that Charlie Elder undergoes to see the increasingly rare cuckoo in the Dartmoor mist.

One of the true values of the diary is that, having run for so long, it is now a vast document that tells the story of British wildlife and rural affairs over the past 120 years – from the modernisation of agriculture to the winners and losers in our index of species. On that note, it is worth mentioning that the daily diary is sometimes accompanied by an archive diary too, written on the same day of the year in past decades. These show the cumulative importance of all those daily snapshots. Archive pieces can be startling to read, with their casual references to, say, seeing nightingales or turtle doves as if they weren’t critically endangered; or their passing mentions to God Save the King (the 1940s version), mead or horse-drawn ploughs. But they are also reassuring, bringing home the resilience and constancy of nature: while everything else changes, the first butterfly of spring or a flock of long-tailed tits look the same today as they ever did, and draw the same responses.

In September this year, a Country diary “best of” called Under the Changing Skies was published by Faber. It covers the period between 2018 and 2024 – a drop in the ocean of the ongoing, living record that is the diary. While I couldn’t begin to be a student of the entire span of the diary since its inception all those years ago, what I can vouch for is the brilliance, dedication and love for the subject that the current crop of writers have, all of which is borne out in this collection. And you never know, perhaps the diary will still be going in 120 years time.

Paul Fleckney is editor of the Country diary. To catch up on the daily series, click here. The Guardian is also taking submissions for this winter’s Young country diary, until Friday 3 January.

Read more of the Country diary:

Composted Reads

The good news

The bad news

Climate hero – Amaya Edwards

Profiling an inspiring individual, suggested by Down to Earth readers

The Young country diary, written by nature-obsessed children across the UK, is another wholesome part of our long-running column. Amaya, who is 10 years old and has autism, is one of many budding climate heroes who contribute.

Her parents, Gavin and Colette, say: “Being outside helps Amaya to regulate her feelings and emotions, and is a way for her to feel free and at one with her surroundings.”

Amaya’s devotion to nature began when she watched a documentary about an injured wild dolphin who was given a prosthetic tail. “Amaya related, as she felt the dolphin was different and so was she,” her parents say.

Her love of the natural world only grew from there. She regularly joins beach cleans, once saved 24 jellyfish (as she wrote about here) and wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. Gavin and Colette say: “She once saw a deceased seal with a ring around its neck. This prompted her to design a poster for rubbish to be put in bins and not left on the beach – the local mayor was so impressed he put the poster around the town and made 500 postcards of it. Amaya donated the proceeds to Sea Life, raising £500. She then wrote and illustrated a book about saving sea animals, with her support dog Boo as the main character. This has spurred further books and she now writes a blog which details her nature work.

“We are proud that, at the age of 10, she is so passionate about the environment and wants to not only help save and preserve it, but also educate others to do the same.”

Nominated by Paul Fleckney

If you’d like to nominate a climate hero, email [email protected]

Climate jargon – Vulnerability

Demystifying a climate concept you’ve heard in the headlines

Vulnerability describes how at risk people or ecosystems are from the adverse effects of the climate crisis. High vulnerability is often the result of a combination of environmental, social and economic factors that increase the danger of harm from climate impacts.

For more Guardian coverage of climate vulnerability, click here

Picture of the week

One image that sums up the week in environmental news

Credit: Maria Nunzia

Sticking with the Country diary, take a moment to study this peaceful snowy picture from Brogyntyn park in Oswestry, Shropshire. Squint and you may see that the picture, which accompanied 29 November’s Country diary by Paul Evans, captures not just a beautiful lime tree, but a barely visible flock of fieldfares, in their grey, chestnut and speckled coats. The birds, which fly in from Scandinavia and Russia in autumn, were singing “a soft bubbling song like snow through winter trees,” Evans writes.

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

Guardian and Observer journalists who belong to the National Union of Journalists are taking industrial action on December 4 and December 5. Please note that journalists who have written and edited this newsletter did not produce their work on strike days.

Concern over the climate crisis may evaporate in the White House from January, but its financial costs are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums – with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all.

A mounting toll of severe hurricanes, floods, fires and other extreme events has caused average premiums to leap since 2020, with parts of the US most prone to disasters bearing the brunt. A climate crisis is starting to stir an insurance crisis.

Across all US counties, those in the top fifth for climate-driven disaster risk saw home premiums leap by 22% in just three years to 2023, compared to an overall average of a 13% rise in real terms, research of mortgage payment data has found. The Guardian has analyzed the study’s data to illustrate the places in the US at highest risk from disasters and insurance hikes.

“This has been the canary in the climate coalmine, and it’s now hitting households’ pocketbooks,” said Ben Keys, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and co-author of the research. “You can deny climate change for whatever motivations you have but when insurance is going up because you live in a risky area, that’s hard to deny.”

Keys said there is a “tight correlation” between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from a metric drawn from past disasters combined with modeling of future events exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Heightened disaster risk now results in a $500 jump in premiums, on average, for households, Keys’s paper finds. People looking for home insurance, required for a mortgage, are now facing tangible climate costs even before they have to pay out for flooding cover, which is typically separate from home policies.

“The cost of living in harm’s way has gone up disproportionately,” said Keys. “We are seeing the first broad-based direct cost of climate change for homeowners because of these insurance increases.”

Across the US there are insurance-rise hotspots, ranging from Teton county, Wyoming, home of the Jackson Hole ski area, to Assumption parish, near the flat, fraying coast of Louisiana. Such places have seen raises because of major fires or floods, others for smaller but more frequent impacts and some primarily for unrelated factors.

“We are getting more of these secondary events like hail storms and extreme rainfall that mean you get a big insurance cost increase in Minnesota even though you aren’t hit by big hurricanes,” said Andrew Hoffman, an expert in environmental and sustainability policy at the University of Michigan.

As such damaging events pile up around the world, the insurance industry is looking at the climate crisis as a threat like no other. In October, the insurance giant Axa ranked climate change as the biggest risk facing the industry globally, above geopolitical instability and cyber and AI issues, for the third year in a row.

“We are getting more unpredictability that insurance companies don’t like, a rise in construction costs, and an increase in the number of assets located in at-risk places,” Hoffman said. “A lot of things are coming together.”

If there is an epicenter of disaster risk and ballooning insurance in the US, it’s to be found along the Gulf of Mexico coast and, in particular, Florida, the state where home insurance costs more than $11,000 a year on average, surging by 42% just in 2023. “Florida is a creature unto itself,” said Keys. “It has had so many waves of storms and insurers going bust that the risk exposure is kind of staggering.”

More than a dozen insurers have left Florida in the past seven years amid a stampede of disasters, placing strain upon a state-supported backstop insurance system that is now “not solvent” according to Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor.

DeSantis has opted to pretend a key driver of this problem doesn’t exist, deleting mention of climate change from state law in May. Donald Trump is similarly expected to remove climate considerations from US government agencies and federally-backed projects that face higher risks because of climate change.

Florida’s state Citizens Property Insurance Corporation has just over 1m insurance policies on its books, although its trying to offload many of these on to private insurers. Citizens, which wants to hike rates by 14%, has so far denied nearly 30% of claims relating to Hurricane Helene and about 6% of the claims from Hurricane Milton – two major storms that recently hit Florida in quick succession.

“The system is sustainable,” said a Citizens spokesman, pointing out that by law surcharges can be placed against other Florida insurance policyholders if it runs out of money. “As Florida’s insurer of last resort, Citizens will be there for policyholders who cannot find comparable coverage in the private market.”

But Helene and Milton highlighted broader holes that are appearing in the insurance market, with just a quarter of homes in Pinellas county, Florida’s hardest-hit county, having flood insurance. In Asheville, North Carolina, which was devastated by Helene, just 1% of homeowners had flood insurance.

“Though approximately 90% of all US natural disasters involve flooding, many homeowners still are unaware that a standard homeowners policy doesn’t cover flood damage,” said Dale Porfilio, chief insurance officer of the Insurance Information Institute.

Even within the home insurance market, the rising costs are starting to bite, with 10% of American homeowners now going without and nearly a third of losses from natural disasters going uninsured. Research has found that rising premiums also worsen the risk that people miss mortgage repayments, making them vulnerable to losing their homes entirely.

“I can understand why people in states like Florida are hurting because suddenly their premiums are double or triple what they were, it’s a huge shock,” said Parinitha Sastry, a finance expert at Columbia Business School whose research has shown that low-quality, fragile insurers are stepping in to replace those that have departed Florida.

“Regulators are grappling with this trade-off with the quality of insurance and the affordability of the insurance. It’s a tough balancing act.”

But will these pressures on the insurance market impact broader trends, whereby the US population is generally shifting southwards towards warm weather, affordable housing and jobs, even though these are places most at risk from the climate crisis?

There is conflicting research on this, with some studies suggesting climate risks are often ignored by the public, while others point to a reverse “snowbird” effect taking place where some retirees are fleeing the increasingly oppressive heat and storms. Insurance is now growing to be a major consideration, though, rather than incidental household cost.

“The cost of insurance will start to change people equations,” said Hoffman. “Somewhere like Florida is warm, there’s no income tax, it’s a strong draw for seniors. Insurance might not stop people moving there, but if you’re selling you might not get any buyers.

“Insurance is so important for the economy. Sooner or later we are going to have to have a serious meetings of minds about not building in certain places because it just won’t get insurance.”

Mysterious green, grey and black balls have washed up on a beach in Kurnell, in Sydney’s south, with beachgoers warned to avoid the area.

Authorities said the “ball-shaped debris” washed up along the eastern end of Silver beach on Tuesday.

Sutherland Shire council was leading the clean-up after a local resident alerted the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA).

Council installed warning signs on the beachfront advising of the suspected contamination. Beachgoers were advised not to enter the beach until the clean-up was completed.

The NSW Greens said on Thursday the EPA didn’t appear “any closer” to discovering the source of the debris washing up on Sydney’s beaches.

“The EPA can’t explain the source of the human waste causing the fatbergs and it can’t assure the public that Sydney’s beaches are safe to use,” the party’s environment spokesperson, Sue Higginson, said in a statement.

“If our waste system is leaking sewage into the environment and onto our beaches, this should be a priority issue to resolve. This spate of human waste being washed up on beaches seems to be a red flag that we could be losing significant quantities of wastewater [from aged and cracked pipes] and we don’t even know about it.”

Sutherland council said the discovery of the mystery balls at Kurnell was limited to a small section of the beach but it was monitoring the situation.

“While the spread of debris is limited to the Botany Bay-facing Silver beach at present, council will continue to monitor other local beaches to ensure this debris is not affecting other areas of our coastline,” the statement said.

“Council wishes to thank local residents for their patience and understanding while we work to remove all debris and ensure local residents and visitors to the area can once again enjoy this scenic stretch of Sutherland Shire’s coastline.”

The EPA collected samples of the debris which were being tested and compared to black balls discovered along beaches in eastern Sydney in October.

They were initially thought to be tar balls but later found to be “fatbergs” made up of organic and inorganic matter, including human faeces, motor oil, hair, food waste, animal matter and wastewater bacteria.

Jon Beves, an associate professor at the University of NSW, said those balls were “consistent with human-generated waste, like the types of things you would find from domestic waste in a regular sewer”.

In early November, Sydney Water said “there have been no issues with the normal operations of the Bondi or Malabar wastewater treatment plants”.

The EPA on Thursday described the Kurnell debris as varying “in size, shape and colour with some rounded and golf ball size while larger ones are more irregular in shape”.

“They range in colour from whitish or pale through green, grey and black,” the authority said.

“EPA officers collected samples for analysis which will be tested and compared to others found in the last two months. This is a much smaller event than the incident in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in October, with fewer balls over a smaller area.”

Officers from the EPA, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Sutherland Shire council inspected nearby beaches without finding further balls.

Sydney Water officers found a number of balls across Botany Bay at Dolls Point beach which were cleaned up.

The EPA said on Thursday it had finalised testing on the black balls that washed up in the eastern suburbs in October – which confirmed earlier results that indicated their origin was “likely a source that releases mixed waste”.

“Experts could not determine where the balls originated from as no source samples were available for comparison,” the EPA said.

The EPA also said it was awaiting results of testing on debris balls which washed up in Kiama in November.

Sydney Water was contacted for comment.

Hip-hop has long been a culture that honours single mothers and their many sacrifices. “She was barely even grown and became my momma!” rapped a tearful Cee-Lo Green over a wounded piano on Goodie Mob’s criminally underrated 1995 song Guess Who. “I never knew my dad, so even when the times got bad / I was glad, because I had my momma.”

On the powerful hood-gospel song, Dear Mama, 2Pac famously paid tribute to the persistence of his own family matriarch, the Black Panther political revolutionary Afeni Shakur. He rapped the empathetic line: “Even as a crack fiend, momma / You always was a Black queen.” It’s one of only a few rap songs selected for preservation at the National Recording Registry in the US Library of Congress.

Whether it’s Kanye West tenderly comparing the late Donda West to an elegant book of poetry written by Nikko Giovanni, or Jay-Z revealing he “cried tears of joy” when his own single mother Gloria Carter finally came out as a lesbian after years of societal shame, you don’t have to look far to find a rap song where a mom is elevated to the status of a deity.

This made Eminem’s many lyrical attacks on his mother, Debbie Nelson, who died this week at the age of 69, stand out so dramatically. Turning his rough and tumble childhood in a Detroit trailer park into a cartoonish soap opera where nothing was off limits, in Eminem’s songs Debbie is frequently depicted as a villainous, Nurse Ratched-esque character, while her alleged drug use was something he regarded as ripe for parody.

“I just found out my mom does more dope than I do!” Slim Shady famously rapped on the breakthrough 1999 single My Name Is. The attacks seemed to get darker as time went on, with rape jokes (in the track Kill You) and the suggestion that Debbie may have have munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. He ended the scathing Cleanin’ Out My Closet, which peaked at No 4 in the UK charts, with the brutal address to her: “Well, guess what? I am dead: dead to you as can be!”

Some felt Eminem’s attacks were the byproduct of a more extreme, Jerry Springer-fuelled era in pop culture, where boundaries were pushed with reckless abandon from everything from Vince McMahon’s muckier, Attitude-Era wrestling shows to the “lads’ mags” on sale at the supermarket. Yet many others – including Debbie herself, who sued Eminem for defamation – felt a line had been crossed.

Growing up without a father myself due to bereavement, and with a working class mother who subsequently worked seven jobs to provide for her three boys, I gravitated towards rap music and its underdog themes. It was that rare space where single mothers were consistently deified rather than written off with negative judgements, as they tended to be in classist British political discourse. There was a rich tradition of rappers paying tribute to women who were the glue that held a struggling household together, and it’s that which made Eminem’s mom-bashing lyrics genuinely shocking.

Given the bad blood, it was difficult to see how Eminem and his mother could ever possibly reconcile. However, then came Eminem’s softer 2013 rap-ballad Headlights. Here he expressed regret at Cleanin’ Out My Closet ever coming out and shifted his stance by rapping the touching line: “You’re still beautiful to me, cos you’re my mom.”

In the music video he gives Debbie a warm hug and this felt like a pivotal moment for Eminem’s legacy: a shift from rapping with venom about his broken childhood to solidarity. On this song, even if the production is a little slushy, Eminem acknowledged he and his mom were “survivors” rather than enemies.

The rollercoaster saga of Eminem and Debbie exemplifies the way in which hip-hop is perhaps surprisingly rich with empathetic songs about struggling mothers. Even when artists reveal difficult truths – like Biggie sharing his mom’s cancer diagnosis with the world on Suicidal Thoughts, or underground hero Boldy James complaining of being neglected by the woman of the house on Mommy Dearest – it tends to culminate in a moment that reveals a touching respect, or the mending of a broken relationship.

It’s the genre where working class men come to grapple with complex relationships with the women who gave birth to them – like Debbie and Marshall Mathers. While the road might be rocky and painful memories are likely to be excavated, rappers (and by extension their fans, who feel “seen” by the lyrics) that immortalise their mothers in music tend to walk away with much lighter shoulders.

A $200bn wave of new gas projects could lead to a “climate bomb” equivalent to releasing the annual emissions of all the world’s operating coal power plants, according to a report.

Large banks have invested $213bn into plans to build terminals that export and import gas that is chilled and shipped on ocean tankers. But a report has warned that they could be more damaging than coal power.

The report, by the climate group Reclaim Finance, found a sharp rise in projects to boost the global trade of gas in recent years, driven by a shift from coal to gas in developing countries and Russia’s war on Ukraine, which caused pipeline imports into Europe to dry up.

It found that there were eight liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects and 99 import terminal projects completed in the past two years, which increased the world’s export capacity by 7% and the global import capacity by 19%.

In addition, LNG developers are planning 156 new LNG terminal projects worldwide to be constructed by 2030, of which 63 are export terminals and 93 import terminals, according to the report.

It warned that due to methane leaks these terminals could produce an estimated 10 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade, or almost as much as the annual emissions of all the coal plants in operation worldwide.

Justine Duclos-Gonda, a campaigner at Reclaim Finance, said: “Oil and gas companies are betting their future on LNG projects, but every single one of their planned projects puts the future of the Paris agreement in danger. Banks and investors claim to be supporting oil and gas companies in the transition, but instead they are investing billions of dollars in future climate bombs.”

The latest findings are expected to fuel growing fears that unchecked investments in the global gas market could lead to an oversupply of gas that would threaten the world’s climate targets.

The International Energy Agency warned last month that the global LNG markets are heading towards an unprecedented glut of gas supply that would be inconsistent with keeping global temperatures from rising over 2.4C (36.32F) above pre-industrialised levels.

It warned that the world’s LNG capacity was on track to grow by almost 50% by 2030, greater than the world’s forecast demand for gas in all three of the agency’s modelled scenarios.

This glut is expected to lead to falling fossil fuel prices, which could encourage a greater reliance on cheap gas in favour of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency improvements, throwing climate targets further into doubt.

The IEA has predicted that the price of gas imported into the EU is expected to plunge from a record average high of more than $70 (£54) per million British thermal units (MBtu) in 2022 to $6.50 (£5) by the end of the decade, following a boom in planned gas projects in recent years.

“LNG is a fossil fuel and new projects have no part to play in a sustainable transition,” Duclos-Gonda said. “Banks and investors must take responsibility and stop supporting LNG developers and new terminals immediately.”

Although most major banks have set targets to move towards “net zero” banking, the report warned that none have a specific policy on financing LNG projects meaning that investments have been allowed to go ahead despite climate targets.

South Korea’s ruling party says it will rally behind the beleaguered president, Yoon Suk Yeol, to block a move by the opposition to impeach him over his botched and controversial attempt to impose martial law.

The floor leader of the People Power party vowed on Thursday that its lawmakers would “unite” to defeat the opposition-led motion to impeach the deeply unpopular president.

“All 108 lawmakers of the People Power party will stay united to reject the president’s impeachment,” Choo Kyung-ho told a livestreamed party meeting.

Opposition lawmakers need eight ruling party lawmakers to vote with them for the impeachment bill to pass. The opposition says the vote is expected on Saturday.

The political turmoil comes after Yoon’s surprise, late-night declaration of martial law on Tuesday, which was met with widespread condemnation and street protests, and alarmed international allies. Within a few hours Yoon was forced to rescind the order when parliamentarians defied an attempted military blockade and assembled to vote it down.

On Thursday morning, Yoon accepted the resignation of his defence minister Kim Yong-hyun and nominated his ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Choi Byung-hyuk, as the new defence minister.

Kim, who had also been facing an impeachment motion, reportedly advised Yoon to declare martial law on Tuesday.

The US deputy secretary of state, Kurt Campbell, said Yoon had “badly misjudged” the martial law decision, which took the White House by surprise.

At an event organised by the Aspen Strategy Forum, Campbell said the fact that both political sides in South Korea could agree his decision was “deeply problematic” despite deep political polarisation and division was a reassuring tribute to the strength of South Korean democracy.

He said South Korea would be “in a challenging place” in the next few months and the US goal would be to make clear its alliance with Seoul is “absolutely rock solid.”

While Yoon’s ruling People Power party said it would oppose the impeachment motion introduced by the opposition on Thursday, the party has been divided over the crisis.

The opposition Democratic party has a majority in parliament but still needs at least eight ruling party lawmakers to back the bill in order for it to pass.

“The Yoon Suk Yeol regime’s declaration of emergency martial law caused great confusion and fear among our people,” Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won told a session of South Korea’s National Assembly held in the early hours of Thursday.

The martial law declaration late on Tuesday attempted to ban political activity and censor the media in South Korea, which is Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a key US ally. The shock move divided Yoon’s ministers and unleashed six hours of chaos.

None of the 108 ruling party lawmakers were present for the introduction of the impeachment motion. The motion paves the way for a vote to be held in the following 24 to 72 hours.

The impeachment vote follows a night of chaos after Yoon declared martial law and armed troops attempted to force their way into the National Assembly building in Seoul, only to stand back when parliamentary aides sprayed them with fire extinguishers.

“The people and the aides who protected parliament protected us with their bodies. The people won, and it’s now time for us to protect the people,” said Kim.

“We need to immediately suspend the authority of President Yoon. He has committed an indelible, historic crime against the people, whose anxiety needs to be soothed so that they can return to their daily lives“.

Opposition parties need a two-thirds majority to pass the impeachment bill. If it passes, South Korea’s constitutional court will then decide whether to uphold the motion – a process that could take up to 180 days.

If Yoon were to be suspended from exercising power, prime minister Han Duck-soo would fill in as leader.

If the embattled president resigned or was removed from office, a new election would be held within 60 days.

Yoon told the nation in a television speech late on Tuesday that martial law was needed to defend the country from pro-North Korean anti-state forces, and protect the free constitutional order, although he cited no specific threats.

Within hours, South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, unanimously passed a motion for martial law to be lifted, with 18 members of Yoon’s party present.

The president then rescinded the declaration of martial law, around six hours after its proclamation.

“There are opinions that it was too much to go to emergency martial law, and that we did not follow the procedures for emergency martial law, but it was done strictly within the constitutional framework,” a South Korean presidential official told Reuters by telephone.

There was no immediate reaction from North Korea to the drama in the South.

Yoon had been embraced by leaders in the west as a partner in the US-led effort to unify democracies against growing authoritarianism in China, Russia and elsewhere.

But he caused unease among South Koreans by branding his critics as “communist totalitarian and anti-state forces”. In November, he denied wrongdoing in response to influence-peddling allegations against him and his wife, and he has taken a hard line against labour unions.

Reuters contributed to this report