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Born of student disquiet after the 2008 crash, the group says it is reshaping economists’ education
As the fallout from the 2008 global financial crash reverberated around the world, a group of students at Harvard University in the US walked out of their introductory economics class complaining it was teaching a “specific and limited view” that perpetuated “a problematic and inefficient system of economic inequality”.
A few weeks later, on the other side of the Atlantic, economics students at Manchester University in the UK, unhappy that the rigid mathematical formulas they were being taught in the classroom bore little relation to the tumultuous economic fallout they were living through, set up a “post-crash economics society”.
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Exclusive: only matter of time until decrepit ships cause spill bigger than Exxon Valdez disaster, analysts say
Decrepit oil tankers in Iran’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet are a “ticking time bomb”, with a catastrophic environmental disaster only a “matter of time”, maritime intelligence analysts have warned.
Such an oil spill could be far bigger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster that released 37,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea, they said.
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Birdwatchers flock to Montréal for rare sighting of ‘vagrant’ bird that has made its home during a bitterly cold winter
On a quiet Montréal street of low-rise brick apartment buildings on one side and cement barrier wall on the other, a crowd has gathered, binoculars around their necks and cameras at the ready. A European robin has taken up residence in the neighbourhood, which is sandwiched between two industrial areas with warehouses and railway lines and, a few blocks away, port facilities on the St Lawrence River.
Ron Vandebeek from Ottawa, Ontario, is here on a frigid February morning hoping to see the rare bird, which was first spotted at the beginning of January.
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Abbeydale, Sheffield: I’m genuinely scared when I wake at 2am to the sound of screaming. Then I see two male badgers in an almighty scrap
Fast asleep, my dreamworld takes an unexpected swerve as raucous screaming erupts outside the open bedroom window. For a moment, I assume this is imagined, some emotional outburst from my subconscious. Then I realise that I’m awake. This is real. I check the time: 2am. The screaming continues. In fact, it’s now louder and somehow more intense. The back of the house is woodland, and noises off are common enough. A fox barking. Robin song that eases those anxious, wakeful stretches of the night. But this is something else altogether. This is violence.
My heart is racing now. I fear someone is being attacked, and from the pitch of the screaming, a woman. Mercifully, I soon discount this. My startled mind then suggests a catfight, but the sound I’m hearing is too big for that. So, despite the freezing cold beyond the duvet, I hop out of bed, pull back a curtain and stick my head outside.
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Release into Helman Tor reserve marks historical first for keystone species hunted to extinction in UK 400 years ago
Shivering and rain-drenched at the side of a pond in Cornwall, a huddle of people watched in hushed silence as a beaver took its first tentative steps into its new habitat. As it dived into the water with a determined “plop” and began swimming laps, the suspense broke and everyone looked around, grinning.
The soggy but momentous occasion marks the first time in English history that beavers have been legally released into a river system, almost one year after the government finally agreed to grant licences for releases.
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It has rained in parts of the country every day of the year so far and downpours are expected to continue this week
In a “miserable and relentlessly wet” start to the year, rain has fallen somewhere in the UK every single day for weeks on end.
With more than 100 flood warnings in force across the country and further downpours forecast this week, scientists say the atmospheric forces behind Britain’s endless drizzle are the same ones driving devastating floods across Spain and Portugal.
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Corteva will discontinue a mixture of Agent Orange and glyphosate, but another of its herbicides will still use Vietnam war-era defoliant
The chemical giant Corteva will stop producing Enlist Duo, a herbicide considered to be among the most dangerous still used in the US by environmentalists because it contains a mix of Agent Orange and glyphosate, which have both been linked to cancer and widespread ecological damage.
The US military deployed Agent Orange, a chemical weapon, to destroy vegetation during the Vietnam war, causing serious health problems among soldiers and Vietnamese residents.
This article was amended on 9 February 2026 to add comment from a Corteva spokesperson.
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The beautiful game has a fast fashion problem, with clubs bringing out multiple kits every season. But a move towards upcycling old shirts and wearing vintage garments is on the rise
It may have been a quiet January transfer window, but even so, thousands of new shirts will be printed for Lucas Paquetá, returning to his former Brazilian club Flamengo, while his West Ham shirt instantly feels old. Not to mention the thousands of other players moving from one club to another. Uefa estimates that up to 60% of kits worn by players are destroyed at the end of the season, and at any one time there are thought to be more than 1bn football shirts in circulation, many of which are discarded by fans once players leave.
The good news is that lots of designers are bringing their upcycling skills to old kits, taking shirts and shirring them, sewing them or, as in the case of designer and creative director Hattie Crowther, completely transforming them into one-of-a-kind headpieces. “I’m not here to add more products into the mix, I’m here to reframe what’s already in circulation and give it meaning, context, and longevity while staying culturally relevant,” says Crowther, whose creations involving the colours and emblems of Arsenal, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, are, she says, “a response to how disposable football product has become”.
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Push to restart uranium mining in Patagonia has sparked fears about the environmental impact and loss of sovereignty over key resources
On an outcrop above the Chubut River, one of the few to cut across the arid Patagonian steppe of southern Argentina, Sergio Pichiñán points across a wide swath of scrubland to colourful rock formations on a distant hillside.
“That’s where they dug for uranium before, and when the miners left, they left the mountain destroyed, the houses abandoned, and nobody ever studied the water,” he says, citing suspicions arising from cases of cancer and skin diseases in his community. “If they want to open this back up, we’re all pretty worried around here.”
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Rising GDP continues to mean more carbon emissions and wider damage to the planet. Can the two be decoupled?
During Cop30 negotiations in Brazil last year, delegates heard a familiar argument: rising emissions are unavoidable for countries pursuing growth.
Since the first Cop in the 1990s, developing nations have had looser reduction targets to reflect the economic gap between them and richer countries, which emitted millions of tonnes of CO2 as they pulled ahead. The concession comes from the idea that an inevitable cost of prosperity is environmental harm.
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