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Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.

Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.

Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

The culture wars have a new target: your teeth.

Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies.

The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.

“The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”

There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.

Fuselages made by Boeing's largest supplier regularly left the factory with serious defects, according to a former quality inspector at the firm.

Santiago Paredes who worked for Spirit AeroSystems in Kansas, told the BBC he often found up to 200 defects on parts being readied for shipping to Boeing.

He was nicknamed "showstopper" for slowing down production when he tried to tackle his concerns, he claimed.

Mr Paredes made the allegations against Spirit in an exclusive interview with the BBC and the American network CBS, in which he described what he said he experienced while working at the firm between 2010 and 2022.

He was accustomed to finding "anywhere from 50 to 100, 200" defects on fuselages - the main body of the plane - that were due to be shipped to Boeing, he said.

"I was finding a lot of missing fasteners, a lot of bent parts, sometimes even missing parts."

A Michigan township clerk was charged with multiple felonies on Wednesday, the latest turn in a state inquiry into efforts by Donald Trump supporters to tamper with voting machines to prove his false claim that he lost the 2020 election due to fraud.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement that former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, 52, has been charged with five felonies related to unauthorized use of a computer, concealing a voting machine, and misconduct in office, and one misdemeanor for disobeying the secretary of state. The most serious count carries a potential seven-year prison term.

Nessel also added three felonies to the charges faced by Scott's attorney Stefanie Lambert, who was already facing multiple charges over allegations she accessed and tampered with voting machines in other incidents across the state.

Scott, a Republican, had overseen voting in rural Adams Township until the state revoked her authority over elections in 2021 for resisting state orders to allow testing and maintenance on the voting tabulator in her care, claiming it would erase evidence of potential fraud. Scott withheld a critical component of the tabulator until it was seized by state police, law enforcement records show.

In addition to disregarding orders from the state authorities regarding the tabulator, Nessel accused Scott and Lambert of providing a computer examiner unauthorized access to non-public voter information in violation of state law.

A cruise ship sailed into a New York City port with a 13-metre dead whale across its bow, marine authorities said.

The whale, identified as an endangered sei whale, was caught on the ship's bow when it arrived at the Port of Brooklyn on Saturday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration fisheries spokesperson Andrea Gomez said.

A video posted to YouTube on Saturday appears to show the whale's carcass hanging off the bow of the vessel, with the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline in the background.

Steve Albini, a rock musician and revered audio engineer who played a singular role in the development of the sound of alternative rock music in the 1980s, the ’90s and beyond — recording acclaimed albums by Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies and hundreds of others — while becoming an outspoken critic of the music industry, died on Tuesday at his home in Chicago. He was 61.

The cause was a heart attack, according to Taylor Hales of Electrical Audio, the studio in Chicago that Mr. Albini founded in 1997.

With a sharp vision for how a band should be recorded, and an even sharper tongue for anything he deemed mediocre or compromised, Mr. Albini was one of rock’s most acerbic wits. He was also a withering critic of the exploitive extremes of the major-label music business, describing in a widely-quoted 1993 article, “The Problem With Music,” the ways that naïve bands are lured into major deals with labels that, in most cases, leave them broke and in debt.

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> May 8 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday publicly warned Israel for the first time that the U.S. would stop supplying it weapons if Israeli forces make a major invasion of Rafah, a refugee-packed city in southern Gaza.

> “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah ..., I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said in an interview with CNN.

> Biden's comments represent his strongest public language to date in his effort to deter an Israeli assault on Rafah while underscoring a growing rift between the U.S. and its strongest ally in the Middle East.

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A former Florida police captain with a long history of civilian complaints, including false arrests and harassment, has joined the state’s state guard under governor Ron DeSantis.

Javier Ortiz, 44, joined the Florida state guard in February, the Miami Herald first reported. Ortiz’s enrollment comes months after being reinstated by the Miami police department, after he was initially dismissed for slew of conduct complaints.

As a member of the Florida state guard, Ortiz could be sent to assist during natural disasters or with other statewide emergencies, the Herald reported.

“I can’t wrap my mind around how concerning this is,” Rodney Jacobs, the director of Miami’s civilian police review panel, said to the Herald about Ortiz joining the state guard.

Jacobs added: “Are they being vetted?”

Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on May 3.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there.

Biden, in an interview with CNN, said the U.S. was still committed to Israel’s defense and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms, but that if Israel goes into Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used.”

The Wakayama Prefectural Police revealed on May 8, 2024 that Your Name. movie producer Koichiro Itou has been referred to prosecutors for additional violation of Child Prostitution & Pornography law in Japan, after it came to light that he had paid an underage girl for sexual intercourse.

The latest case involved a 17-year-old high school girl from Yokohama. Investigators believe Itou knew the girl was a minor when he paid her 30,000 yen for having sexual intercourse at his residence in December 2023.

He is also suspected of taking and saving photographs of the act.

Disney is banking on a password crackdown and spate of sequels as it pushes to make its streaming business profitable.

The company, which is under pressure as audiences move away from traditional pay-TV and cinema, said it was on track to meet its goals after new subscribers and price rises helped to narrow losses in its streaming business.

“Nobody seems interested” in helping Rudy Giuliani meet accounting obligations in his ongoing bankruptcy case, lawyers for the former New York mayor, presidential hopeful and Trump attorney said in a court filing on Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, the debtor originally had an accountant who was helping,” the filing said. “However, he had a change of heart and indicated that he no longer wished to help prepare the monthly operating reports.

“The debtor advised that he has reached out to a number of accounting firms and CPAs seeking their help, however, no one seems interested in taking the assignment.”

Disgraced biotech company founder is now due to be released in August 2032, two years and four months before original date

Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced former chief executive of the blood-testing company Theranos, has had her federal prison sentence shortened again, new records show.

The 40-year-old Holmes is now scheduled for release on 16 August 2032 from a federal women’s prison camp in Bryan, Texas, according to the US Bureau of Prisons website.

Holmes’s sentence was reduced by more than four months, as her previous release date was set for 29 December 2032.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons confirmed Holmes’s amended sentence to the Guardian but said he could not comment further due to “privacy, safety and security reasons” for inmates.

This is the second time  that Holmes has had her sentence shortened. In July, was reduced by two years.

People incarcerated in the US can have their sentences shortened for good conduct and for completing rehabilitation programs, such as a substance abuse program.

> ProPublica won the prestigious public service Pulitzer Prize for what the judges described as “groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court to reveal how a small group of politically influential billionaires wooed justices with lavish gifts and travel, pushing the Court to adopt its first code of conduct.” The prize is given to the staff of a news organization that performed “meritorious public service.” It is the seventh Pulitzer Prize for ProPublica.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge in Florida presiding over the classified documents prosecution of former President Donald Trump has canceled the May 20 trial date, postponing it indefinitely.