Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

• aHopeless and brokena: why the worldas top climate scientists are in despair

Hundreds of the worldas leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating above preindustrial levels,, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit will be met.

Exclusive: Vast web of fake shops touting designer brands took money and personal details from 800,000 people in Europe and US, data suggests

More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a vast network of fake online designer shops apparently operated from China.

An international investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde gives a rare inside look at the mechanics of what the UKas Chartered Trading Standards Institute has described as one of the largest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake websites created.

Senior US administration official says decision was made last week over concerns about a full-scale assault on Rafah

• See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage

Israel was reopening the Kerem Shalom crossing on its border with the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, reports the Reuters news agency citing a statement from the Israeli agency in charge of it said.

According to the statement, aid trucks routed through from Egypt were already undergoing security inspections there.

Aileen Cannon, overseeing Trumpas prosecution on charges of retaining classified files, says case is not ready to take before jury

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trumpas prosecution on charges of retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club on Tuesday formally scrapped her scheduled 20 May trial date without setting a new date, ruling the case was nowhere near ready to take before a jury in Florida.

The fact that the original May trial date would not hold was a foregone conclusion and has been apparent since last year, given delays with pre-trial litigation and the number of unresolved legal issues that have only increased in recent months.

Kim Ki-nam was known as athe North Korean Goebbelsa in the South due to his role as head of propaganda department

Kim Ki-nam, the propaganda chief who served all three generations of North Korean leaders and cemented their political legitimacy, has died, official media have said.

Kim Ki-nam died on Tuesday aged 94 from multiple organ failure, official KCNA news agency reported.

John Hostettler of Indiana, whom pro-Israel groups deemed aantisemitica, loses to Mark Messmer, who led opponents with 40% of vote

Republican John Hostettler has lost his House primary in Indiana, delivering a victory to pro-Israel groups who sought to block the former congressman from returning to Washington. The groups attacked Hostettler as insufficiently supportive of Israel at a time when criticism of Benjamin Netanyahuas government has hit new highs because of the war in Gaza.

When the Associated Press called the eighth district primary race at 7.49pm ET, less than an hour after the last polls closed in Indiana, Mark Messmer led his opponents with 40% of the vote. Messmer, the Indiana state senate majority leader, will advance to the general election in November, which he is heavily favored to win because of the districtas Republican leanings. The victor will replace Republican congressman Larry Bucshon, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Russia has hit critical energy infrastructure in Stryi district and a power generation facility in Chervonohrad district

Chinaas foreign ministry congratulated Vladimir Putin on his inauguration as president of Russia, according to a spokesperson.

aChina congratulates president Putin on his inauguration,a said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, noting president Xi Jinping had already sent a congratulatory message to Putin on his re-election.

Scientists reclassify Humboldt glacier, also known as La Corona, after it melted faster than expected

Venezuela has lost its last remaining glacier after it shrunk so much that scientists reclassified it as an ice field.

It is thought Venezuela is the first country to have lost all its glaciers in modern times.

Severe thunderstorms bring hail and structural damage, with tornadoes hitting cities including Kalamazoo and Battle Creek

Tornadoes that hit Michigan on Tuesday evening ripped the roof off a FedEx building in Portage, partially collapsing the structure and trapping 50 people inside, Kalamazoo county authorities said. Elsewhere in the state, thousands of residents are without power and face a deluge of hail and tornado warnings amid severe thunderstorms.

aTAKE COVER NOW,a the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids warned in a post directed at Portage residents on their Facebook page.

AI analysis of 180 vape flavours finds that products contain 127 aacutely toxica chemicals, 153 ahealth hazardsa and 225 airritantsa

Chemicals used to produce vapes could be acutely toxic when heated and inhaled, according to research.

Vaping devices heat the liquid flavouring to high temperatures to form an aerosol that is then inhaled. They contain chemicals including vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, nicotine and flavourings, blended in various amounts.

Animals were strolling through the backyard of a house when they decided to take a bit of a swim in the pool

As southern California warms up this month, everyone is looking to soak up the sun while staying cool a even the bears.

A family of bears in Monrovia, about 30 minutes from Los Angeles, took a stroll through a backyard on Monday afternoon, exploring their surroundings and investigating a pool. Video captured by the homeas occupant Rick Martinez showed a bear and her cubs roaming the property and scratching a tree. At one point the adult bear hopped into the pool and went for a swim while two tiny cubs watched on curiously.

Increase in cases reflects changing mood across continent towards Chinese threats, say experts

As Chinaas president, Xi Jinping, arrived in Serbia for the second leg of his European tour, authorities across the continent were grappling with a wave of allegations about Chinese spying.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, revealed that a amalign actora had compromised British military payroll records, with reports pointing the finger at China.

Russian continues air raids on Ukraineas energy networks; aabout halfa of North Korean missiles duds. What we know on day 804

Two Ukrainian security officials have been detained over an alleged Russian assassination plot against Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraineas president. Luke Harding writes from Kyiv that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it had exposed a network of agents run by Russiaas FSB that also intended to kill Ukraineas military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, and the SBUas head, Vasyl Maliuk.

The plans included finding someone in the presidential entourage to capture and kill Zelenskiy, the SBU said; and to kill Budanov and others with a missile strike, kamikaze drones launched locally, then another missile strike to destroy the evidence of drones.

The SBU named three FSB intelligence officers behind the operation as Maxim Mishustin, Dmytro Perlin and Aleksii Kornev. In intercepted messages, Perlin referred to the missile attack on Budanov as a abig birda and the drone as a asmall birda. He emphasised: aThe order is rocket, drone, rocket.a

The SBU said it recovered drones, warheads and mines from one of the arrested Ukrainian alleged accomplices. He and others face charges of treason and terrorism. One of the alleged agents was a colonel serving in Ukraineas state guard service, said to have met Kornev secretly before 2022 in a neighbouring European country.

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have examined debris from 21 of around 50 North Korean ballistic missiles launched by Russia between late December and late February. The office of the chief prosecutor, Andriy Kostin, told Reuters the missilesa failure rate appeared to be high: aAbout half of the North Korean missiles lost their programmed trajectories and exploded in the air; in such cases the debris was not recovered.a

Use of North Korean missiles by Russia threatens a nearly two-decade consensus among permanent members of the UN security council on preventing North Korea expanding its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Russia recently vetoed the annual renewal of UN sanctions monitoring of North Korea.

Russia has been shipping refined petroleum to North Korea at levels that appear to violate the mandates of the security council, a US official said on Thursday, adding that the US was planning new sanctions in response. The US would continue working with other countries to impose sanctions aagainst those working to facilitate arms and refined petroleum transfers between Russia and the DPRKa.

Romaniaas president, Klaus Iohannis, has said he is open to discussing sending a Patriot system to Ukraine after German appeals to EU and Nato member states.
Iohannis met with the US president, Joe Biden, at the White House on Tuesday.

Ukrainian forces on Tuesday attacked an oil storage depot and sparked a large fire, injuring five people, on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, the regionas Russia-installed leader said. There was no official Ukrainian statement on the incident. Separatist fighters backed and financed by Russia seized control of large chunks of Luhansk and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea.

Itas a moment of truth for Bidenas policy on Israel and the Palestinians a and at the least will make continued prevarication harder to disguise

When Israeli troops paraded through the Rafah crossing with an oversized star of David on Tuesday morning, they were making a point to Hamas a and at the same time driving up to the very edge of Joe Bidenas ared linea.

The Biden administration avoids that phrase at all costs. Its top officials also served Barack Obama, who drew a red line he did not enforce over Syriaas chemical weapons. But there is no hiding from the fact that they have clearly and repeatedly stated US opposition to a Rafah offensive, absent proper humanitarian provision for the more than 1 million people sheltering there.

A new biopic, starring Maya Hawke, sheds more light on the short but impressive life of the American writer

The film American Fiction opens in a university classroom with Monk, played by Jeffrey Wright, teaching the literature of the American south. On a whiteboard is written aFlannery OaConnora and the title of one of her short stories. A title that contains the N-word. When a white student objects, Monk, who is Black, tells her: aWith all due respect, Brittany, I got over it, Iam pretty sure you can too.a The student walks out in tears.

American Fiction leaves it there but anyone provoked to learn more about OaConnor is in luck. Wildcat, an independent movie directed by Ethan Hawke and starring his daughter Maya Hawke, dips in and out of the life story and imagination of the novelist and short story writer who defined southern Gothic literature.

The Atacama desert has become a aglobal sacrifice zonea of used fast fashion. Activists and designers organised an event to raise awareness of the devastation to the land and people

Draped in layers of denim, Sadlin Charles walks the catwalk of sand between piles of discarded clothes and tyres in Chileas Atacama desert. His outfit has been made from items found in the surrounding heaps of rubbish, which are so vast they can be seen from space. Almost all of this waste has come from countries thousands of miles away, including the US, China, South Korea and the UK.

A staggering 60,000 tonnes of used clothing is shipped to Chile each year. According to the latest UN figures, Chile is the third largest importer of secondhand clothes in the world. Some of these clothes are resold in secondhand markets, but at least 39,000 tonnes ends up being illegally dumped in the Atacama desert. The desert is one of the countryas most popular tourism destinations, famed for its otherworldly beauty and stargazing, but for those living near the dump sites it has become a place of devastation.

Sadlin Charles models denim salvaged from discarded garments at Atacama fashion week

He tackled a murderer to the ground to protect the public. But the draconian licence conditions of his a99-year sentencea meant that the first person he called was his probation officer

Marc Conway was regarded as a model IPP prisoner. Perhaps the model IPP prisoner. He received an indeterminate imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence at 30 for armed robbery. Before that, he had committed a long list of crimes including driving without a licence, selling class A drugs and firearm offences. He had spent eight years in jail. Now, here he was, a free man, studying with students from the University of Cambridge, working for the Prison Reform Trust and delivering speeches to the great and the good.

The date was 29 November 2019. The occasion was the fifth-anniversary celebration of an educational project in which Cambridge students and prisoners learned together. Conway, who had taken part in the project, had been asked to give a speech at Fishmongersa Hall, a Grade II* listed building in the City of London. aIt was a lovely sunny day. You never get that weather in November in London,a he says. aWe had food, we was laughing, we was joking, we was patting each other on the back. I was getting a bit nervous, because Iad only been out a year and I was still new to public speaking.a

The death of a Christian political leader has sparked a wave of vigilante attacks on Syrians, fuelled by political scapegoating

Mustafa* was walking home from work last month when he was attacked. He had lived in the neighbourhood a an attractive, predominantly Christian town a few miles from Beirut a since 2010. In an apparently unprovoked assault, a gang of more than a dozen men beat him up, broke one of his ribs, and left him bleeding by the side of the road.

It is one of numerous reports that have emerged in recent weeks of vigilante groups across Lebanon attacking Syrians. After the abduction and killing of a senior official in the Lebanese Forces, a rightwing Christian political party, rights groups have recorded a spike in attacks and rhetoric aimed at Syrians living in the country.

People of colour are disproportionately affected by the crisis, even as far-right parties seek to scapegoat them, campaigners warn

The 40 sq metre apartment had everything that Hamado Dipama was looking for: one bedroom, a bath and a good location in the southern German city of Augsburg. When he called to set up a viewing, however, the landlord kept asking him where he was from.

aIt was really bizarre,a said Dipama. aI told him that I didnat know what that had to do with his rental. And he hung up on me.a

The hairless cats live on average for just 6.8 years, while a Burmese could survive to be 14, according to research

They may sound ancient but you should avoid a sphynx cat if you want a pet to grow old with, research suggests.

Experts have revealed how many years on average domestic cats in the UK have left to live based on their current age.

Tiger Stripes, about a girl who turns into a jungle cat when her periods start, was chosen by Malaysia as its Oscar entry. But they wanted cuts. Amanda Nell Eu relives a apainful and comedica experience

The director Amanda Nell Eu has always been a bit of a rebel, she says over video chat from her home in Kuala Lumpur. aWhen I was a teenager, I was sometimes labelled a monster by my parents and teachers. I probably wasnat the most obedient child.a Now Eu has turned the horrors of puberty into an actual horror movie. Tiger Stripes is her feature debut, a funny and political film with a whopping air punch of girl power. Set in a conservative Muslim school, it mixes body horror with Mean Girls energy and a sprinkle of Malaysian folklore.

Eu cast her trio of leading girls during lockdown, putting adverts on Instagram and searching through TikTok profiles: aSchools were shut, everything was shut.a Zafreen Zairizal plays 12-year-old Zaffan, a rebel who is constantly yanking off her headscarf and daringly wears a bra to school. Zaffanas body is changing: hairs sprout and spots erupt. Then, when she becomes the first girl in class to get her period, sheas ostracised by her two best friends. aYouare dirty now,a adds her mother.

Running had been my identity, my career, my life. One beautiful spring day, I realised it wasnat enough

I have Jane Fonda to thank for my fitness adiscoverya in the late 1980s. Still in my teens, I wore through the carpet doing her workout videos in front of the TV. I also spent hours ploughing up and down the pool at the local leisure centre and honing my muscles at the gym.

I always regarded fitness as my superpower. Something that I worked hard at, for sure, but something that gave me kudos. Keeping fit a I mean, really fit a seemed to me an admirable and noble pursuit. I could fit into nice clothes easily. I could push my body and trust it not to fail. Whatever other qualities I didnat possess, whatever I wasnat good enough at, I could walk into a gym or toe a start line for a race and pass muster.

Social networking company reported $575m in losses, but strong revenue and an increase in users buoyed investor confidence

Reddit shares rose more than 15% in after-hours trading on Tuesday following its first quarterly earnings since going public in March. The company reported overall losses of $575m, citing expenses from its initial public offering for the decline. But strong revenue and user increases boosted confidence in the company after its long-awaited public offering.

Reddit reported a revenue of $243m during the first quarter of 2024 a an increase of 48% from the previous quarter. It also posted record user traffic, with daily active users increasing 37% to 82.7 million from the previous three months. The report comes after its initial public offering saw a positive response, with shares up 48% on the first day of trading.

Joe Biden signed a bill giving ByteDance up to 19 January 2025 to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or risk being banned from the US

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have sued to block a law signed by Joe Biden just weeks ago that would force the sale of the short video app or ban it from the US.

The companies filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the US government in the court of appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing the law is unconstitutional and violates free speech protections.

University and police denounced as masked group marched on campus and attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week

The University of California, Los Angeles, said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authoritiesa slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of ainstigatorsa.

The schoolas chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to abetter protect our community moving forwarda and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, aeffective immediatelya.

Officers in riot gear raid encampment at dawn as university warns demonstrators that failure to leave could lead to arrest

Police have dismantled the student-led Palestinian solidarity encampment at the University of Southern California.

About 4am on Saturday, as many as 100 Los Angeles police officers in riot gear raided the encampment at dawn as anti-war student demonstrators slept in the tents. In a series of tweets during the raid, the university warned demonstrators to leave the area, adding that apeople who donat leave could be arresteda.

Trumpas disgraced former attorney somehow frittered away almost $120,000 in January. As a cash-strapped millennial, Iam delighted to share some money-saving tips

aBankruptcya is a surprisingly amorphous term. For poor people, it means not having any money. For corporations and the super-wealthy it means a nifty legal strategy that can shield their riches from lawsuits. And for Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former mayor of New York City and personal attorney of Donald Trump, it means being forced to try to subsist on a measly $43,000 (APS34,200) a month.

Half a million dollars in spending money a year might seem a princely sum to the common man, but aSira Rudy (recipient of an honorary knighthood) is anything but. Weare talking about a gentleman with elevated tastes here: a bon vivant who, during a legal battle with his estranged third wife, was accused of spending $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars over a five-month period. In that same timeframe, his ex-wifeas lawyer claimed he spent $286,000 on his alleged lover, $165,000 on personal travel and $447,938 afor his own enjoymenta. Thatas a lot of enjoyment.

When asked what advice an eminent surgeon might give other doctors, I brace myself for another mountain I canat climb

aWhatas a Festschrift?a my youngest asks.

aIn German it means acelebration writinga,a I say, aIam going to an academic conference to honour a doctor.a