The world’s richest 1% have used up their fair share of carbon emissions just 10 days into 2026, analysis has found.

Meanwhile, the richest 0.1% took just three days to exhaust their annual carbon budget, according to the research by Oxfam.

The charity said the worst effects of the emissions would be faced by those who had done the least to cause the climate crisis, including people in low-income countries on the frontlines of climate breakdown, Indigenous groups, women and girls.

Lower- and middle-income countries are most at risk from the detrimental effects of these emissions, with global economic damage potentially adding up to £44tn by 2050.

Not only are the super-rich responsible for most carbon emissions, but they also invest in the most polluting industries. A billionaire carries, on average, an investment portfolio in companies that will produce 1.9m tonnes of CO2 a year – roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 400,000 petrol cars.

Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently "uninvestable".

Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.

But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.

We are all well-aware of programmers volunteering their time to open source projects. Another common example are lawyers who work on cases pro bono.

Which got me thinking, what about marketeers? I have never heard of marketeers volunteering their time and skill. Could it be that such marketeers work in small organisations that nobody has heard of? Could it be that marketing requires way more resources than building software or legal work, such that the barrier of entry to volunteer marketing work is set too high for individuals?

This question came to me while looking at

A large majority of UK voters believe immigration is increasing despite sharp falls in the number of people entering the UK, according to exclusive polling shared with the Guardian.

Voters also say they have no confidence in the government’s ability to control the UK’s borders, according to the poll by More in Common. The results will come as a blow to Keir Starmer’s administration, which has taken an increasingly hardline stance on immigration in recent months.

Net migration to the UK fell by more than two-thirds to a post-pandemic low in the year ending June 2025, but 67% of the people polled thought it had increased. Among Reform voters, four in five thought immigration had grown, and more than three in five (63%) believed it had “increased significantly”.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, promised “the most substantial reform to the UK’s asylum system in a generation” in November, and proposed a series of hardline policies to make the UK less attractive to migrants and refugees.

In a response to US President Donald Trump's latest threat to seize control of Greenland, the leaders of the Danish autonomous region's five main political parties issued a joint statement late Friday declaring the future of the island should be decided by Greenlanders.

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/australia/p/576440/free-palestine-melbourne-march-today-12pm-state-library-of-victoria

See you there!

https://www.freepalestinevic.org/

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7283791

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/18355

Thousands of parents in New York City will have access to free childcare after Gov. Kathy Hochul joined forces with Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday to roll out the first steps of his campaign promise to make childcare universal throughout the city.

The governor announced $1.7 billion in this year's budget that will seek to create childcare access for 100,000 more children, part of a plan to spend $4.5 billion on childcare across the state during this fiscal year.

She said she is committed to “fully fund the first two years of the city’s implementation" of Mamdani's program, which he hopes will one day provide free childcare to kids between 6 weeks and 5 years old.

According to the childcare marketplace website TrustedCare, the average cost of daycare for children in New York City ranges from $2,000 to $4,200 per month, depending on the child's age and schedule.

"This is something every family can agree on," Hochul said at a press conference Thursday at a YMCA in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. "The cost of childcare is too damn high."

— (@)

The governor and mayor will begin by increasing funding for the city's existing 3K program, created under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, which extended free pre-K, which was already available to all 4-year-olds, to 3-year-olds when spots are available. Hochul said she and Mamdani will seek to "fix" the program and make it truly universal.

After initially promising to make it available to all 3-year-olds, Mamdani's predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams, instead slashed funding for it and other early childhood education programs, which children's advocates said drove kids out of the public school system and left many unable to find seats in nearby areas.

"We stand here today because of the young New Yorkers who were no longer willing to accept that the joy of beginning a family had to be paired with the heartbreak of moving away from a city that they have always loved," Mamdani said.

In addition to making that program universal, Hochul and Mamdani are rolling out a program offering childcare for 2-year-olds, known as "2 Care," which will first be available in "high-need areas" before being rolled out to all parents by 2029.

Mamdani has estimated that the plan to make pre-K fully universal will cost about $6 billion per year, with funding made more challenging by the fact that President Donald Trump recently cut off federal childcare subsidies to states, including $3 billion to New York, amid a manufactured panic about rampant fraud. Hochul has said the state is mulling its legal options to fight the funding freeze.

In the meantime, she plans to spend $73 million in the first year to cover the cost and creation of 2 Care, and $425 million in the second year as more children enroll.

While the source of the funds was not immediately clear, Hochul has said that money for the initial phase of the rollout will come from revenue already allocated by the legislature and not from any tax hikes in the coming year.

— (@)

"We’re barely six months away from people dismissing Zohran Mamdani for running on universal childcare," said Rebecca Katz, an adviser to the new mayor's campaign. "And now here we are. Incredible. New York just got a lot more livable for thousands of families."

Some New Yorkers who supported Mamdani's campaign expressed excitement on social media about having one of their highest costs lifted.

"Universal 3K is the major reason we could afford to stay in our apartment in NYC," said Jordan Zakarin, a producer at the labor-focused media company More Perfect Union. "Making care free for 2-year-olds will be a game-changer for so many families and keep so many of them in NYC."

Andrei Berman, a father of three children, said that "this will save me 40 grand and eliminate my biggest expense a year early."

The high cost of childcare is an issue that has brought Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, together with the centrist Hochul. The endorsement of New York's "first mom governor," a leading Democratic power-broker in the state and the country, proved a critical stepping stone for Mamdani on his unlikely ascent to the city's highest office last year.

"To the cynics who insist that politics is too broken to deliver meaningful change, to those who think that the promises of a campaign cannot survive once confronted with the realities of government, today is your answer," Mamdani said. "This is a day that so many believed would never come, but it is a day that working people across our city have delivered through the sheer power of their hard work and their unwavering belief that a better future was within their grasp."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

Looks like that's the end of Sendle? Bit of a shame, they were very convenient for sending small parcels. Couriers on the whole are a pain in the proverbial to deal with normally.

Summary:

Last-mile delivery provider FAST Group, formed through the August 2025 merger of Sendle, FirstMile, and ACI Logistix, is currently facing a severe financial crisis that has led its primary private equity backer, Sydney-based Federation Asset Management, to freeze its $100 million investment fund. Just months after the merger intended to create a logistics powerhouse, the entity is reportedly struggling with significant financial red flags and "due diligence lapses" that have brought it to the brink of a potential U.S. bankruptcy filing. The meltdown has raised serious concerns regarding the firm's risk management and the stability of its underlying assets, leaving the future of the e-commerce logistics venture in doubt as it seeks urgent financing to avoid a total collapse.

Email received today:

this website has been around for 5 goddamn years and we still don't have this emoji yet? for shame

It was a genuine question believe it or not. And “yes” would have been sufficient.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/36840985

Archived version

...

Today, the biggest news comes from Northern Europe.

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After months of unexplained damage beneath the Baltic Sea, Finland has moved into action by intercepting a vessel directly linked to the cable cuts. For the first time, a Russian operation that relied on distance and unclear responsibility has been exposed through enforcement rather than inference.

Finland intercepted and exposed a Russian-linked civilian vessel connected to the cutting of underwater cables between Finland and Estonia, marking the first time one of these grey-zone operations has been confronted directly at sea.

Footage released by Finnish authorities shows a controlled interception unfolding step by step in open waters, starting with Finnish patrol vessels pulling alongside and ordering the ship to slow and hold its course.

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This incident fits into a broader Russian campaign targeting underwater infrastructure across the Baltic Sea, where power cables and data lines form the backbone of everyday life. Over recent months, multiple fiber-optic and power cables linking Nordic states have been cut or damaged under suspicious circumstances, often near known shipping lanes.

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While there was broad agreement that these incidents were not random, the lack of direct attribution prevented authorities from acting beyond repairs and diplomatic warnings. The aim has created disruption that creates uncertainty, repair costs, and political hesitation without triggering a direct military response.

The method is simple and hard to counter, because civilian vessels move slowly along established shipping routes, blend into dense maritime traffic, and operate in areas where cables are known to run.

...

The breakthrough came when investigators confirmed not only that the vessel was operating along sensitive seabed routes during the cable damage, but also that it was carrying sanctioned steel products.

This turned a pattern of suspicion into a provable violation, allowing Finnish authorities to move immediately from monitoring to action using existing law. Instead of another case of accidental damage in busy waters followed by statements and quiet inquiries, Finland now had clear grounds to act openly and decisively.

By anchoring the response in documented violations rather than intent or attribution debates, Moscow's usual escape route of denial and ambiguity collapsed the moment the cargo was recorded.

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For years, grey-zone operations have thrived because responses stopped at warnings, investigations, or diplomatic pressure. This case establishes a different precedent, as intelligence collection tied to legal preparation and immediate enforcement, allowing states to act publicly without escalating militarily.

Operationally, it lowers the threshold for boarding and inspection, politically it removes the need to argue intent, and legally it shifts the burden onto Russia to explain documented violations rather than deny them.

...

This case shows another path, as it shows that intelligence gathering, legal preparation, and enforcement can be combined into a response that exposes the operation without turning it into a military confrontation. Once a ship is boarded and its cargo documented, the shield that protects hybrid warfare disappears.

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As an addition: A recent report exposed how Russia wants to drain Europe's investigative resources with its sabotage campaign, according to officials

Whatever you believe about what the Right Thing should be, you can't control it by refusing what is happening right now. Skipping AI is not going to help you or your career. Think about it. Test these new tools, with care, with weeks of work, not in a five minutes test where you can just reinforce your own beliefs. Find a way to multiply yourself, and if it does not work for you, try again every few months.

P.S. I learned that not all of you are developers.