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Lovehoney sponsors Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers associated with love and sex
It is one of the most prestigious events of the UK social calendar, but the great and good attending Chelsea flower show may be in for a shock this year as the Royal Horticultural Society unveils a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company that sells vibrators.
Lovehoney, a sex toy company, is sponsoring an Aphrodite-themed “pleasure garden” full of flowers and plants associated with love and sex.
Chelseaflowershow will be held at the Royal Hospital Gardens from 19 to 23 May.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Landowner disputes, coastal erosion and disused ferry hindering completion of King Charles III England coast path
The longest managed coastal walking route in the world has been opened by the king at the Seven Sisters cliff walk.
However, large parts of the King Charles III England coast path are still closed to the public after objections from landowners, fears about coastal erosion and a disused ferry.
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Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income
Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk.
The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran.
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Conservation can be hard work. But not when it comes to helping these little orange and brown beauties
You’ve almost certainly seen gatekeeper butterflies, even if you don’t know them by name. The gatekeeper is, says naturalist and butterfly enthusiast Matthew Oates, “a charming butterfly; a charming meditation of soft oranges and browns”. Traditionally found in the “scrub edges” (the borders between grassland and woods) and at hedge margins, they are frequently seen in suburban and urban areas, near garden gates (hence their name) and at the base of shrubs. The gatekeeper is in no hurry, so you’ll get to enjoy it. “It doesn’t dash about at great speed,” says Oates. “It flops around; both males and females bask a lot.” As a bonus, Oates adds, gatekeeper males are “extremely polite to each other”, unlike lots of other butterflies, which are highly territorial. “They’re gentlemen.”
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Iran war has increased gas price, with effects on UK energy bills that could be avoided, Common Wealth says
Household energy bills could be reduced by up to £203 a year by stopping expensive fossil gas setting the price of energy in the UK, according to a report.
Under the existing system, gas – the most expensive form of electricity production in the UK system – set the price of energy 85% of the time in 2024 in the UK, even though it generates only about a quarter of Britain’s electricity.
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Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements
On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.
Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.
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Closure of strait of Hormuz – a key fertilizer production and transportation route – has squeezed farmers as prices jump
Rodney Bushmeyer has been farming as long as he can remember. Bushmeyer’s father was a farmer, as was his grandfather.
The family-run Bushmeyer Farms in Illinois dates back more than 100 years, when his ancestors came to the US from Germany. They acquired the first 80 acres cost-free as homesteaders, cleared the land, and worked it.
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In the middle of the city, traditional growers blend crops with native species to preserve Pedra Branca state park’s biodiversity
The sound of the scythes wielded by brothers Jorge and Ubirajara Cardia breaks the silence in the hills of Vargem Grande, in the south-west zone of Rio de Janeiro city. Quilombola from the Cafundá Astrogilda community, they harvest bananas the same way their ancestors used to. Every week, they select the bunches of prata, maçã, and Cavendish bananas, cut them down and, on the back of their mules, go down the hillside with the newly harvested crop.
Through sloping ways in the forest, they travel about 5km (3 miles) along paths first opened by the Indigenous Tupinambápeople and enslaved workers of African descent.
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In this week’s newsletter: with US-Israeli strikes hitting oil refineries, military bases and nuclear facilities, monitors are warning that the conflict will have devastating effects
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If the first casualty of war is the truth, the environment can’t come far behind.
The black rain that fell across Tehran two weekends ago was perhaps the most symbolic symptom of a litany of environmental devastation being wrought on Iran by the US-Israeli war machine since the start of the month. As I reported last week, we already know the conflict will have major long-term environmental repercussions.
Revealed: the world’s worst mega-leaks of methane driving global heating
‘Drinking from a fetid pond’: superbug-creating genes found in UK’s largest lake
Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations
We need to be honest about Iran – and how our rampant greed for oil is causing mayhem | George Monbiot
‘Very damaging’: how the Iran war is hitting energy-intensive industries
Democrats urge windfall tax as big oil set to make billions from Iran war
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