The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data. The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power...
The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data. The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station. The researchers said it was “maddening” that such easy action to fight the climate crisis was not being taken, and said people should be angry. Stopping the leaks can even be free, given that captured gas can be sold – methane is the “natural gas” that fires power stations. The mega-leaks occur across the world, but the top 25 list, produced by the Stop Methane Project at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is dominated by facilities in Turkmenistan. The scale of methane leaks in the secretive and authoritarian state has previously been described as “mind-boggling”. Super-polluting plumes were also seen in the US, the largest detected in 2025 occurring in Texas and leaking 5.5 tonnes of methane per hour, equivalent to running about a million fuel-guzzling SUVs. Venezuela (five) and Iran (three) also had multiple mega-leaks from state-owned facilities. The Stop Methane Project also analysed super-polluting plumes from landfill sites, where rotting organic waste can release huge volumes of methane when not well managed. The worst sites ranged across the world, from Turkey to Algeria and Malaysia to the US. Methane emissions cause 25% of global heating today, and there has been a “scary” surge since 2007, according to scientists. They have warned that this acceleration seriously risks triggering catastrophic climate tipping points. However, cutting methane emissions has a rapid impact, because the gas is naturally removed from the atmosphere far quicker than carbon dioxide. Some experts call cutting methane the climate “emergency brake”. “It is really m...
In an age of smartphones, social media and instant communication, it has never been easier to connect … or to offend everyone around us. Many of today’s most common etiquette breaches stem not from malice but from convenience: a badly written message, a thoughtless post, a device that demands our attention. Yet good manners still hinge on the same old principle: consideration for others. From esch...
In an age of smartphones, social media and instant communication, it has never been easier to connect … or to offend everyone around us. Many of today’s most common etiquette breaches stem not from malice but from convenience: a badly written message, a thoughtless post, a device that demands our attention. Yet good manners still hinge on the same old principle: consideration for others. From eschewing headphones on public transport to ghosting invitations and sharing thoughtlessly online, here are some of the most common modern etiquette mistakes, why they grate, and how they can be avoided. Making ‘happy birthday’ posts all about you A classic daily vignette on social media is someone you follow wishing their friend a happy birthday in their story. Without fail, this is usually a photo of the account holder and the friend; the former looking much better than the person whose birthday it is. Stop making other people’s birthdays about yourself. Post a photo of them on their own, if you really must, but also ensure you extend online birthday posts to all friends, rather than just a select few. Sending a voice note without a subject A semi-controversial opinion, but I love a voice note. I love it when my friends and colleagues send me them. But I don’t love it when they send me one without a follow-up line of text explaining what it’s about. Probably, as it is a voice note and not a call or text, it’s in no way urgent. But some sort of nod to its content is always polite. Anything like, “regarding dinner next week; not urgent” or “some background on the new client” will do. (Sidebar: never send a voice note to someone you don’t know well.) Checking your smartwatch during a face-to-face chat Users of smartwatches may well feel a ping or a pop on their wrists, informing them they have a text, their online order has been dispatched, or they have just spent £12.25 at Pret. The Pavlovian response is to glance down to see what the notification is. But when in the company of...
Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears from journalist Adrienne Matei and from Dr Anna Barnard, an...
Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears from journalist Adrienne Matei and from Dr Anna Barnard, an associate professor at Imperial College London who researches peptides ‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US Continue reading...
The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task. The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one o...
The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task. The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one of the defining images of the US-Israeli war on Iran, bluntly capturing the devastating civilian toll. But is it real? Ask Gemini, the AI service powered by Google, and the answer you receive is no – in fact, Gemini claims the photograph is from two years earlier and more than 2,000km (1,240 miles) away. Rather than graves for small girls killed by a missile, the image “depicts a mass burial site in Kahramanmaraş, Turkey” after the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck in 2023. “This specific aerial perspective became one of the most widely shared images of the disaster,” Gemini says, “illustrating the sheer scale of the loss.” Seeing the same burial image on social media, others turned to X’s AI assistant Grok to check its veracity. Like Gemini, Grok will breezily assure you the photo is not from Iran at all – although it lands on a different date, disaster and location. The image is “from Rorotan Cemetery in Jakarta, Indonesia – a July 2021 stock photo of Covid mass burials. Not Minab,” it says. In both cases, the AI answers sound sure: they don’t equivocate, and even provide “sources” for the original image, should you choose to check them. Follow the thread to examine those, however, and you’ll begin to hit dead ends: either the image doesn’t appear at all, or the link provided is to a news report that doesn’t exist. For all their impression of clarity and precision, the AIs are simply wrong. The cemetery image, it turns out, is authentic. Researchers have cross referenced the photo of the site with satellite images that confirm its location, and it can be cross-reference...
Ditched washing machines, a woman’s bare leg, the back of Willem Dafoe’s head … the Oscar-nominated director talks us through his new photography show in Athens – made with his darkroom assistant Emma Stone In the centre of Athens, a brand new temple has popped up. Walk around the tall white columns surrounding it and you’ll eventually find the entrance to its inner sanctum. It might not be quite ...
Ditched washing machines, a woman’s bare leg, the back of Willem Dafoe’s head … the Oscar-nominated director talks us through his new photography show in Athens – made with his darkroom assistant Emma Stone In the centre of Athens, a brand new temple has popped up. Walk around the tall white columns surrounding it and you’ll eventually find the entrance to its inner sanctum. It might not be quite as old as the nearby Parthenon but it does hold a unique kind of treasure: the personal photographs of director Yorgos Lanthimos. Taken over the last few years as he wandered his home country, they offer a glimpse of Greece through the auteur’s absurdist eye. We see a coffin resting against a wall next to a mop, and a couple of horses with their heads chopped off by foregrounded trees. A roadside memorial is shown underneath a sign warning of danger ahead – the wiggly road symbol points directly upwards, as if suggesting the route to the next life for the poor victim. This last image is poignant, strange and funny, eliciting the same awkward clash of emotions you get from watching Lanthimos’s films. Continue reading...
A losing battle with potholes has now seen the backlog of repairs across England and Wales reach a record £18.6bn, according to an annual industry estimate, despite councils filling in about 1.9m holes last year. The “national disgrace” of dangerously pockmarked local roads has been exacerbated by a notably wet winter, with only half of the network now reported to be in good condition. The report,...
A losing battle with potholes has now seen the backlog of repairs across England and Wales reach a record £18.6bn, according to an annual industry estimate, despite councils filling in about 1.9m holes last year. The “national disgrace” of dangerously pockmarked local roads has been exacerbated by a notably wet winter, with only half of the network now reported to be in good condition. The report, published by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA), suggests that new holes may have expensively sprung up faster than additional government money can be sunk into the tarmac. The estimated cost of a one-off repair of all potholes has risen by £1.8bn since 2025, despite the government allocating £1.6bn last year, an additional £500m, to help local authorities fix their roads. David Giles, the chair of the AIA, said: “I think all road users would agree that the condition of our local roads has become a national disgrace.” He said its reports over the past decade showed the money needed to fully repair local roads had increased dramatically, adding: “The impact of frequent adverse weather events on a consistently underfunded – and increasingly fragile – network [is] coming home to roost.” He warned that it would be “some time before the impact of increased funding levels, if fully delivered, will be noticed by the public”. The AA president, Edmund King, said the report “starkly warns us how much more needs to be done to eradicate this plague of potholes”. “We have been seeing with our own eyes, and feeling with our wheels, how record wet weather linked to substandard roads has led to many local roads becoming patchwork obstacle courses,” he said. The RAC head of policy, Simon Williams, said roads were “in a woeful state of disrepair – something that’s been even more noticeable since the beginning of the year with our teams receiving hundreds of breakdown reports every day mentioning potholes”. The safety charity IAM RoadSmart’s director of policy, Nicholas Lyes, said: “About o...
It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and one of the most popular movie theatres in Budapest is full, not an empty seat in sight. The audience is not here for a Hollywood blockbuster, but a Hungarian film that barely had the budget to be made. Feels Like Home (Itt Érzem Magam Otthon) has captured moviegoers not only with its striking visuals but also with its timing – its release coming before Hu...
It’s seven o’clock on a Tuesday night, and one of the most popular movie theatres in Budapest is full, not an empty seat in sight. The audience is not here for a Hollywood blockbuster, but a Hungarian film that barely had the budget to be made. Feels Like Home (Itt Érzem Magam Otthon) has captured moviegoers not only with its striking visuals but also with its timing – its release coming before Hungary’s pivotal parliamentary elections on 12 April. The psychological thriller tells the story of a saleswoman who is abducted into a family that follows the orders of an authoritarian father-figure, Papa, and whose members get privileges if they play by the rules. The main character, Rita, tries to escape, but finds that even outside everything seems to be owned by the family, so there is no point in asking for help. View image in fullscreen Rozi Lovas as Rita in Feels Like Home, which is filling cinemas despite a minimal PR budget. Photograph: Cine Super The director, Gábor Holtai, says it was not his intention to create a metaphor for life in Hungary under Viktor Orbán, but that is certainly how it has been interpreted in the fevered final weeks of the election campaign. According to critics, the rightwing prime minister has used the last 16 years to capture independent institutions, dismantle democracy and enrich his family and loyalists. But he is facing an unprecedented challenge from someone who emerged from his circle and turned against him: Péter Magyar, leader of the newly founded Tisza party. At the showing in Buda, Bea and almost all her friends are wearing Tisza’s logo on their T-shirts. They see direct parallels between Hungary’s political leadership and characters in the movie. View image in fullscreen Bea, front right, went to see Feels Like Home with her friends and sported the Tisza logo on her T-shirt. The party is challenging Viktor Orbán and Fidesz in the upcoming elections. Photograph: Zsuzsa Darab/The Guardian Bea, a 52-year-old sales assistant, said...
Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture wars, Musk and his team of teenage coders set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the “department of government efficiency”, he declared that governments were poorly configured “big dumb machines”. To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that “the only w...
Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture wars, Musk and his team of teenage coders set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the “department of government efficiency”, he declared that governments were poorly configured “big dumb machines”. To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that “the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers”. Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need “God mode”, an overview of the whole. Continue reading...
The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey. “Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing n...
The US is no longer a democracy. One of the most credible global sources on the health of democratic nations now says this outright. The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at Gothenburg University reaches the alarming conclusion in its annual report, that the US is hurtling towards autocracy at a faster rate than Hungary and Turkey. “Our data on the USA goes back to 1789. What we’re seeing now is the most severe magnitude of democratic backsliding ever in the country,” says Staffan Lindberg, founder of the institute. Since 2012, Lindberg has led his small group of researchers in Sweden to become the world’s leading source for analysis of the health of global democracy. In their latest report, published on Tuesday, they conclude that the US, for the first time in more than half a century, has lost its long-term status as a liberal democracy. The country is now going through a rapid process of what the report’s authors call “autocratisation”. “For Orbán in Hungary, it took about four years, for Vučić in Serbia, it took eight years, and for Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India, it took about 10 years to accomplish the suppression of democratic institutions that Trump has achieved in only one year,” Lindberg says. US democracy is now back at the worst recorded level since 1965, when US civil rights laws first introduced de facto universal suffrage. All progress made since then has been erased, according to the report. Worldwide, democracy has receded to its lowest levels since the mid-70s. “The world has never before seen as many countries autocratising at the same time,” Lindberg says. A record 41% (3.4 billion) of the world’s population currently resides in countries where democracy is deteriorating, the report claims, adding that Washington is leading this global turn away from democracy. The researchers use 48 different metrics to assess democratic health, such as the freedom of expression and the media, the quality of elections and the observance of the rule o...
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) is included among the 15 Best Safe Dividend Stocks for 2026. Micron Expands Taiwan Footprint to Support AI-Driven Memory Demand Carol Gauthier/Shutterstock.com On March 15, Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) announced that it had completed the acquisition and assumed ownership of Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation’s P5 site in Tongluo, Miaoli Cou...
Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) is included among the 15 Best Safe Dividend Stocks for 2026. Micron Expands Taiwan Footprint to Support AI-Driven Memory Demand Carol Gauthier/Shutterstock.com On March 15, Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) announced that it had completed the acquisition and assumed ownership of Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation’s P5 site in Tongluo, Miaoli County, Taiwan. The move follows the acquisition agreement the company announced earlier on January 17, 2026. The new facility will complement Micron’s existing operations in Taiwan. It will operate as an extension of the company’s vertically integrated mega campus in Taichung, located about 15 miles away. The site includes roughly 300,000 square feet of existing 300mm cleanroom space. Micron plans to use the facility to expand the supply of leading-edge DRAM products, including HBM, as demand linked to artificial intelligence continues to rise. Micron began preparing for the Tongluo site soon after announcing the deal in January 2026. With the transaction now complete, the company will start retrofitting the existing cleanroom. The site is expected to support meaningful product shipments from the existing fab starting in fiscal 2028. At the same time, Micron is planning the next phase of expansion at the location. Construction on a second facility of comparable scale is expected to begin by the end of fiscal 2026. The new building will add about 270,000 square feet of additional cleanroom space. Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) provides memory and storage solutions. The company offers a portfolio of high-performance dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), NAND, and NOR memory and storage products through its Micron and Crucial brands. While we acknowledge the potential of MU as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantl...
matejmo/iStock via Getty Images The following segment was excerpted from the PGIM Jennison Energy Infrastructure Fund Q4 2025 Commentary. Though relatively flat for the fourth quarter, the Fund outperformed the -1.6% return of the Alerian Midstream Energy Select Index. In absolute terms, diversified midstream names were the largest positive contributors. In addition, names in the processing & gath...
matejmo/iStock via Getty Images The following segment was excerpted from the PGIM Jennison Energy Infrastructure Fund Q4 2025 Commentary. Though relatively flat for the fourth quarter, the Fund outperformed the -1.6% return of the Alerian Midstream Energy Select Index. In absolute terms, diversified midstream names were the largest positive contributors. In addition, names in the processing & gathering segment in addition to out-of-index electrical equipment names also contributed positively during the quarter. Natural gas pipes & storage names were the largest detractor from performance. Names in the liquid pipes & storage segment as well as exposure to out-of-index independent power producers (IPPs) further detracted from performance results during the quarter. In relative terms, strong stock selection in the natural gas pipes & storage segment was the largest positive contributor. Exposure to out-of-index electrical equipment names also further helped relative performance, while stock selection in the gathering & processing segment detracted from performance, though marginally for the period. Key Contributors MPLX LP ( MPLX ) Targa Resources Corp ( TRGP ) DT Midstream ( DTM ) MPLX LP is a diversified midstream company whose parent, Marathon Petroleum ( MPC ) is one of the nation's largest refiners. MPLX's high yield and compelling dividend growth above many peers continue to attract investors in a choppy market. In October, MPLX announced an increase of 12.5% in the quarterly distribution from the prior quarter. In the 3Q25 reporting period, MPLX announced a Letter of Intent (LOI) with MARA Holdings Inc. ( MARA ) a crypto and digital asset company, to provide gas to power generation facilities in West Texas. Targa Resources Corp owns a portfolio of integrated midstream energy assets across the natural gas and natural gas liquids ( NGL s) value chain. After a multi-year run of strong performance due to the company's attractive business model, strong balance sheet ...
German fintech Upvest , which supplies brokerage technology to neobanks such as Revolut and to retail lenders, raised $125 million in a new funding round that included its existing backers. Upvest is raising $90 million in equity from investors such as Sapphire Ventures , Tencent Holdings , Bessemer Venture Partners and BlackRock Inc. , while the company is also in talks to secure a $35 million cr...
German fintech Upvest , which supplies brokerage technology to neobanks such as Revolut and to retail lenders, raised $125 million in a new funding round that included its existing backers. Upvest is raising $90 million in equity from investors such as Sapphire Ventures , Tencent Holdings , Bessemer Venture Partners and BlackRock Inc. , while the company is also in talks to secure a $35 million credit facility, the company said in a statement. The deal values Berlin-based Upvest at €640 million ($735 million), up from €360 million in a December 2024 fundraising, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Upvest declined to comment on the valuation. Upvest supplies trading technology for neobanks and retail lenders such as Revolut and N26 , as well as Banco Santander SA ’s Openbank and Germany’s DKB . It aims to become profitable and reach more than €100 million in annualized revenue in the next 24 months, Chief Executive Martin Kassing said. “We are onboarding additional retail banks, wealth managers and private banks,” Kassing, who founded the company, told Bloomberg. “The majority of our sales will come from banks and less than a third from fintechs.” Upvest plans to use the fresh funds to expand its business, among other things by rolling out AI-supported tools to build personalized advisory services to customers.
Intel Corporation is set to deepen its footprint in Malaysia’s semiconductor ecosystem, with its advanced packaging complex and assembly manufacturing operations expected to commence later this year. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the development follows a recent briefing by Intel Chief Executive Officer Tan Lip-Bu and the company’s leadership team on the progress of its expansion plans in the ...
Intel Corporation is set to deepen its footprint in Malaysia’s semiconductor ecosystem, with its advanced packaging complex and assembly manufacturing operations expected to commence later this year. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said the development follows a recent briefing by Intel Chief Executive Officer Tan Lip-Bu and the company’s leadership team on the progress of its expansion plans in the country. The investment centres on the establishment of an advanced packaging facility alongside assembly and test manufacturing capabilities, critical segments in the global semiconductor value chain that are increasingly becoming strategic amid supply chain realignments. Naga Chandrasekaran, Executive Vice President of Intel Foundry, outlined plans to roll out the first phase of operations focusing on assembly and testing for advanced packaging. “I welcome Intel’s decision to begin operations at the complex later this year,” Anwar said in a social media post, signalling confidence in Malaysia’s position as a key node in Intel’s global manufacturing network. The expansion underscores Malaysia’s ongoing efforts to move up the semiconductor value chain, particularly in higher-value segments such as advanced packaging, which plays a crucial role in enabling next-generation chip performance. Beyond infrastructure, the discussions also highlighted the importance of workforce readiness, with continued emphasis on training and upskilling local talent across the semiconductor ecosystem. This aligns with the government’s broader push under the MADANI economic framework to create high-value jobs and strengthen domestic capabilities in strategic industries. Bernama
Tesla Inc. and LG Energy Solution Ltd. will build a $4.3 billion battery plant in Lansing, Michigan to supply the carmaker’s energy storage systems business. Confirmation of the deal, reported by Bloomberg News in July, was included in a US Department of the Interior statement to highlight energy security cooperation between the US and Indo-Pacific nations. Production at the lithium-iron-phosphate...
Tesla Inc. and LG Energy Solution Ltd. will build a $4.3 billion battery plant in Lansing, Michigan to supply the carmaker’s energy storage systems business. Confirmation of the deal, reported by Bloomberg News in July, was included in a US Department of the Interior statement to highlight energy security cooperation between the US and Indo-Pacific nations. Production at the lithium-iron-phosphate prismatic battery cell plant is scheduled to begin next year, the statement said. “American-made cells will power Tesla’s Megapack 3 energy storage systems produced in Houston, creating a robust domestic battery supply chain,” it said. LG Energy shares rose as much as 2.9% in Seoul trading on Tuesday. The agreement underscores the South Korean battery maker’s aggressive expansion into the fast growing energy storage system market in response to surging demand primarily from AI-driven data centers, a slowing electric-vehicle transition in the US and intensifying competition from China. Tesla, which currently relies heavily on Chinese-made LFP cells, has also been stepping up efforts to diversify its supply chain to mitigate tariffs pressure and reduce production costs. The company reported that the tariff impact on its energy storage business amounted to roughly $200 million in the third quarter of 2025 alone, and it was seeking to localize LFP battery manufacturing. Read more: SK On Targets US Energy Storage Market in Shift From EVs LG, alongside domestic rivals like Samsung SDI Co. and SK On, has been repurposing several EV battery production lines, aiming to raise its ESS cell output to more than 60 Gwh this year. BloombergNEF forecasts demand from US data centers will more than double from 2024 to 78 Gwh by 2035, accounting for nearly 9% of the country’s entire electricity demand and outpacing growth in EVs and hydrogen. Samsung SDI has said the US ESS market is projected to reach 130 Gwh in 2030 from around 80 GWh now.
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