Some Māori believe that when they die, their spirit travels up New Zealand to the tip of the North Island – souls flying like birds
Australian bird of the year 2025: nominate your favourite now
After a long struggle with her health, Mum died in Auckland in 2012. At the end of her funeral service a blackbird (Turdus merula) flew inside the church. It fluttered and hopped about her coffin, which was laid on the floor in front of the altar on a beautiful Tongan tapa cloth. The blackbird lingered next to Mum for some time, then flew back out the open doors.
I stayed at my sister Lisa’s home for a week after the funeral. The morning after the ceremony, a blackbird appeared in the back yard. I noticed it as I sat outside. It stayed around for a few days, sometimes perched in the sunshine on a brown wooden fence, often poking around for insects in the new spring grass. Those days were warm, still and quiet – far from how I felt. I found solace in the blackbird.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/17/2025 - 10:00
09/17/2025 - 10:00
Exclusive: Firm that runs Aberdeenshire resort says it is ‘categorically wrong’ to suggest it has caused environmental damage
Donald Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course has breached sewage contamination limits 14 times since 2019, documents reveal.
The 36-hole golf course, one of two that Trump owns in Scotland, also has a five-star hotel, a whisky bar and two restaurants. Trump International Golf Links, Scotland has a private sewage system that treats wastewater before releasing it into the ground by soaking it through gravel beds in raised filter mounds.
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09/17/2025 - 10:00
Australia must lead other nations in committing to 1.5C pathway for safety, security, prosperity and the environment, experts say
Leading climate advocates have warned the Australian government’s decision on a 2035 emissions reduction will be a historic “sliding doors moment” for the country, with an international goal to keep global heating to 1.5C now hanging by a thread.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is expected to announce a target range on Thursday after a scheduled morning cabinet meeting before formally submitting it to the UN later this month.
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09/17/2025 - 09:52
Analysis reveals sum equal to 24.2% of average bill taken as pre-tax profits by the major energy industries last year, rather than being reinvested
UK public has paid £200bn to shareholders of key industries since privatisation – study
A quarter of the average UK energy bill was funding corporate profits last year, according to analysis that reveals the hidden cost of privatising some of the UK’s key industries.
The study – part of a wider Who Owns Britain project by the Common Wealth thinktank – found that a sum equal to 24.2% of the average energy bill went to the pre-tax profits of the major electricity generators, networks and household suppliers in 2024.
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09/17/2025 - 07:15
People remember the human side of the ‘dazzling’ film star, who was kind and wise and lived a dignified life
Robert Redford, giant of American cinema, dies aged 89
I met Bob in 1984 after he finished Out of Africa through a mutual friend in Malibu, and subsequently began to work for him and became friends. At that time he was establishing Sundance and distancing himself from Hollywood. He was a dolphin among sharks. He was the most kind and wise person one could ever know in this life.Lex, Joshua Tree, CA
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09/16/2025 - 23:00
Researchers from Imperial College London say 16,500 deaths caused by hot weather brought on by greenhouse gases
Human-made global heating caused two in every three heat deaths in Europe during this year’s scorching summer, an early analysis of mortality in 854 big cities has found.
Epidemiologists and climate scientists attributed 16,500 out of 24,400 heat deaths from June to August to the extra hot weather brought on by greenhouse gases.
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09/16/2025 - 22:10
The National Adaptation Plan is only a small step towards a comprehensive strategy to build resilience into Australia’s economy
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It is a warm spring day in my home town in regional Victoria. The sun is shining, an ocean breeze rocks the tea trees and swarms of dragonflies dance outside my window. There is, however, a cloud over me as my mind keeps returning to the National Climate Risk Assessment (NCRA) released earlier in the week.
I have been assessing climate risks and translating this into policy action for 35 years. Even for people like me, the National Climate Risk Assessment findings are confronting. They are also not new, nor alarmist.
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09/16/2025 - 19:00
Rainfall picked up in June and July in some areas but it may already be too late
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In a “normal” year, Bernie Free would start seeing green shoots in the paddocks of his dairy farm in early May. This year the germination did not arrive until July – which means “naturally less sunshine, less warmth and so on – the grass grows slower”, he says.
In the two years to September, southern Australia has had much lower than average rainfall – the lowest on record in some parts of Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. It is a drought so bad that some farmers are searching for comparisons in the 1960s and even as far back as 1914.
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09/16/2025 - 18:01
Julia Chuñil is one of 146 land defenders who were killed or went missing last year, a third of them from Indigenous communities
One day last November, Julia Chuñil called for her dog, Cholito, and they set off into the woods around her home to search for lost livestock. The animals returned but Chuñil, who was 72 at the time, and Cholito did not.
More than 100 people joined her family in a search lasting weeks in the steep, wet and densely overgrown terrain of Chile’s ancient Valdivian forest. After a month, they even kept an eye on vultures for any grim signs. But they found no trace of Chuñil.
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09/16/2025 - 12:00
Business owners explain how summer immigration sweeps have shaken the community and left them ‘vulnerable’
From early morning to late at night, food vendors are feeding the people of Los Angeles. They offer nearly anything – tamales, fried fish, crispy tacos, mole, pupusas, fresh fruit, esquites, bacon-wrapped hot dogs – to Angelenos as they start their commutes or head home after the bars have closed.
Taco trucks and food vendors are a vital part of the city’s celebrated culinary scene, one that came under attack this summer as Donald Trump ordered mass immigration raids across the city.
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