The WasteBar food truck hopes the eye-catching deal will change people’s attitude to waste in the Netherlands
Using cigarette butts to buy buttery Dutch pancakes? That is the deal one food truck is offering at festivals in the Netherlands as a way to get people thinking about litter.
Cigarette butts are the most common form of plastic waste in the world, with more than 4.5tn butts produced every year. In the Netherlands the estimated figure is in the hundreds of millions.
Continue reading...Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemeption
You can read the Tottenham striker Richarlison launching a defiant broadside at the newly crowned champions. “Next season, we will compete for the title,” he says. “Arsenal won’t be winning it again for the next 22 years.” You can read the outgoing Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, throwing shade at his Arsenal counterpart, Mikel Arteta. You can see the Liverpool full-back Andy Robertson warning his coach, Arne Slot, that “things have got to change if he wants to stay”. You can see the television pundit and former Manchester United player Gary Neville deriding the club’s playmaker Bruno Fernandes as a “stat-padding talisman” who pales in comparison with the City legend Kevin De Bruyne.
Incendiary stuff, and huge if true. Also, as it turns out, huge if not true. On a regular Monday morning on the world’s 15th-most-popular social media platform, these were just a few of the football-related tweets doing big numbers, getting shared and discussed and punted up the X algorithm to be discussed even more. That none of them were actually real quotes was the most minor of inconveniences. After all, when the whole point of the site is simply to argue over things, to relitigate existing beefs and reinforce existing prejudices, does it even matter if they were real or not?
Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?
Amid a heatwave here in the UK, the scorpion of knowledge, drawn by Anaïs Mims, once again scuttles out to challenge you to the Thursday news quiz. Fifteen questions on topical news, popular culture and general knowledge, with the excitement that “Derren Brown” and “Simone Biles” are joining us today for new regular rounds. There are no prizes, of course, but there may yet be a sting in the tail. Have fun! Allons-y!
The Thursday news quiz, No 249
Continue reading...Investigators are still searching for what caused the recent deaths of a mother and her calf, but conservationists say the animal’s shrinking habitat may be the first place to look
The two elephants were found dead in the Indonesian province of Bengkulu, in an area of “production forest” in southern Sumatra. The mother and her calf were lying side by side with their tusks still intact.
Unlikely to be poachers, the cause of their deaths – and that of a tiger nearby – at the end of April is still being investigated but conservationists say this is not an isolated case. It is estimated that seven wild elephants have died in Bengkulu since 2018.
Continue reading...Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Adult swallows travel across the world to breed in Britain’s supposedly temperate climate. Instead, this week’s temperatures have been deadly
Mouth gaping, the swallow chick leans perilously over the edge of the nest cup. It is young, just a scrap of body, and at least a week away from being ready to fledge. But under the tin roof the heat is rising, becoming unbearable.
The chick perches on the edge of the nest, opening and closing its mouth, trying to stay cool in the absence of sweat glands. Then, it’s hard to tell if it overbalances, seeking cooler air, or makes a decision. Either way, it plunges down, dropping with no hope of flight. Somehow it misses the hard breezeblock ledge, and fortunately lands on the horse bedding.
Continue reading...Is het er een tweestrijd gaande tussen moedige onafhankelijke wetenschappers en een omineuze overheid? Soms is het net zo moedig om je in te zetten voor de gemeenschap.
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Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
