MP Debbie Abrahams is ripping into the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) again, this time by calling out the vile culture in the department and their slowness in supporting victims of the carers scandal.

The letter follows DWP permanent secretary Peter Schofield's disastrous turn in front of the Work and Pensions Committee last month. During the discussion, Lib Dem Steve Darling accused Schofield of talking "blancmange" and Abrahams asked "how on earth" he could possibly explain the DWP's behaviour.

In a letter to the DWP's Peter Schofield, Abrahams said that the lack of change in culture meant claimants did not trust them. She said that although Schofield said there were changes (though failed to say what), these were "too incremental and too slow".

By all accounts, she absolutely handed him his arse in the letter:

Fundamentally, we believe that the Department is failing to put the needs of vulnerable people first, that it is unwilling to learn from its mistakes and that it shows a lack of urgency to bring about change. Until the Department changes its culture, it will always struggle to build trust with the people it is meant to serve.

Abrahams also called out how much the DWP refuses to own it's mistakes and learn from them. She said there was a "culture of complacency" in the department. She pointed out that the committee raised several issues with Schofield, including the handling of the carers' scandal. Schofield's response to intense questioning was, for the most part, complete bullshit.

She told Schofield in the letter:

When things go wrong, we expect the Department to accept its faults, swiftly provide redress and to learn from its errors. The Department has shown repeated inadequacy in its response to mistakes and a lack of urgency when it comes to righting wrongs.

In the committee hearing, when asked about the carers' scandal, Schofield said

We've got a great track record of putting things right when things go wrong. This is a department that when it knows we have to get things right we put it right.

This is something the committee audibly disagreed with at the time, and something Abrahams all directly calls out in the letter

You told the Committee that DWP has "a great track record of putting right when we get things wrong" - I disagree.

The committee hearing followed the publication of the Sayce Review into carers' allowance overpayments. The report found that 86,900 carers still had outstanding overpayment debts. Crucially it ruled that overpayments on this scale were due to "systematic issues within the department". And not, as another DWP Civil Servant, Neil Couling, claimed, down to individual claimants.

In her letter, Abrahams addresses Couling's comments, saying it:

raises questions about the senior team as a whole under your leadership. It undermines the sincerity of your apology and efforts to rebuild trust. Moreover, I am concerned that these attitudes may be more widespread, and indicative of a culture within the Department that blames claimants for errors and fails to recognise the needs of vulnerable people

She also called out Schofield for refusing to respond directly to questions about Couling in the committee hearing and asked him to respond in writing to the following questions:

 How do you explain the failures of Departmental culture that contributed to carers allowance overpayments?

What action will you be taking in your senior team to address the evident attitudinal issues?

It's not like the DWP hasn't had more than enough time and opportunity to right the carers crisis, but they've failed time and time again.

This is something Abraham's brought up too:

It is difficult to have confidence in your commitment to rectify DWP's mistakes given you have had ample opportunity to fix carers allowance overpayments since at least 2019.

She reminded Schofield that back in 2019 the DWP said they had a strategy to fix the carers allowance crisis and processes in place to prevent overpayments in the future. However, this clearly isn't the case.

Abrahams seethed:

Given the previous assertions by DWP that it would fix carers allowance overpayments, I'm sure you can understand my scepticism about your most recent commitments.

She has demanded Schofield sets out how the DWP will ensure the problems are "actually addressed this time".

Still not finished, Abraham's final blow is on how the DWP still hasn't admitted the blame for this horrific crisis.

I was also disappointed that your admission of fault and apology only covered carers affected by flawed guidance on averaging earnings, which was only one error identified by the Sayce Review. You failed to mention at the start of the session that DWP does not accept that its guidance on allowable expenses was also flawed and does not plan to cancel debts or reimburse repayments related to this guidance

She calls Schofield's failure to do this "disingenuous" and that it undermines the idea that he does actually want to fix things. She also points out that when she did raise the issue, Schofield made a pathetic excuse about "limiting decision makers' discretion". As a result, Abrahams also demanded to know the DWP's position on allowable expenses

why it disagrees with the findings of the Sayce review; whether it will investigate how many people were affected by this issue; and what, if any, redress it is considering.

It's worth pointing out that since this letter was published, Schofield has announced he's stepping down. It's been insisted that this is for personal reasons, and he will remain in post until July.  In a statement, Abrahams said:

The Work and Pensions Select Committee will continue to hold the Government to account on social security and pensions policy including its culture and how policy is delivered.

What's clear from Abraham's letter, along with every other criticism of the DWP, is just how toxic an organisation it is. When the organisation which is supposed to support our most vulnerable instead spends all it's time demonising and blaming them, it is one that is not fit for purpose.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Channel 4's Dispatches programme has looked at the UK government's highly controversial ban of non-violent direct-action group Palestine Action. And through basic journalistic scrutiny that the rest of mainstream media have largely avoided, it laid out how central 'corporate capture' of our politicians was to the politically repressive decision.

Journalist Jonathan Cook summed up the Dispatches episode by saying:

What the programme made clear was that Starmer's government made the unprecedented decision to declare Palestine Action a terrorist organisation not because the group is a terrorist organisation but because large corporations - arms firms like Elbit - have captured the UK government.

One parliamentary stooge Dispatches interviewed was John Woodcock ('Lord Walney') - who's among the clearest examples of corporate capture in UK politics. He has long lobbied on behalf of dodgy industries and repressive foreign states. And he has a particularly close connection to the Israeli apartheid state.

As Cook explained, Woodcock clearly "struggled through his interview":

It was only too clear that his views on the subject had nothing to do with the public good but were shaped by his ties to the arms industries and his role as an Israel lobbyist.

Having long fought to repress freedom of speech and protest on behalf of Israeli settler-colonialism, Woodcock gave a particularly revealing response when interviewer Matt Shea questioned if public outrage over Israel's genocide in Gaza justified regular protests:

In C4's 'Palestine Action, The Truth behind the ban' Israel friend & arms lobbyists Lord Walney attacks regular pro Palestine marches

The reporter points out the organisers may say opposing the slaughter of civilians on this scale demands regular protests. Watch his reaction pic.twitter.com/WUqm2YbHvv

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 10, 2026

The UK's political establishment, with its deep links to the pro-Israel lobby, has long sought to repress dissent on Israel's war crimes. From the Conservatives to Labour and Reform, protection of Israeli interests is non-negotiable.

As Cook outlined, the ban on Palestine Action was:

done at the behest of Elbit Systems - the Israeli arms firm making killer drones used in Gaza targeted by Palestine Action.

Alongside regular government meetings with Elbit before the proscription, the government had also been considering how to:

Reassure Elbit Systems UK and the wider sector affected by Palestine Action that the government cares about the harm the group is causing the private sector [arms industries].

Apart from the corporate capture of government that led to the ban, Dispatches also noted the:

widespread belief among Home Office staff that the government was "wrong" to proscribe Palestine Action, and there was "disquiet"  that the government was using Palestine Action as a way to curtail rights to protest and speech more generally.

The Labour government of Keir Starmer has been consistently intensifying the efforts of his Conservative predecessors to crack down on dissent.

The government's own adviser, meanwhile, revealed how nonsensical the cynical attempt to link Palestine Action with Iran had been:

GOVERNMENT LIES

A clip from last night's C4 Despatches shows that the government's own advisor saw no evidence on claims used by Labour to proscribe Palestine Action.

Jonathan Hall KC slams the phoney accusations of an 'Iran link' as "nudge nudge, wink wink".

Lift The Ban NOW pic.twitter.com/rXv5j5SScB

— Defend Our Juries (@DefendOurJuries) February 10, 2026

Dispatches also looked at why the Palestine Action ban was so dangerous:

Lord Hain was there when the Terrorism Act was introduced, he has publicly condemned the use of this act against Palestine Action.

He fears it could be used on "all sorts of protestors" and the likes of the Suffragettes and Anti-Apartheid protesters.

"That cannot be justified". pic.twitter.com/ZSllZPQRKV

— Defend Our Juries (@DefendOurJuries) February 10, 2026

Perhaps Dispatches felt it had to tread very carefully around this issue, but it seemed at points to be way too deferential to government talking points, possibly to show 'impartiality'. It also overused ominous music when interviewing people from Palestine Action, and asked them questions it didn't ask of pro-Israel voices:

Nearly two and a half years into Israels genocide and people are still being asked, do you condemn Hamas?

The journalist asking the question is Matt Shea and the the clip is from Channel 4's Dispatches program 'Palestine Action, The Truth behind the ban' pic.twitter.com/yDDJ2ylcsE

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 10, 2026

'The reason I did this was because I oppose killing innocent lives.' @Matt_A_Shea speaks to Palestine Action activist Ellie Kamio immediately after she was granted bail and found not guilty of aggravated burglary. The jury failed to reach a verdict on her other charges. pic.twitter.com/ifBclgCcEZ

— Channel 4 Dispatches (@C4Dispatches) February 9, 2026

Asks a Palestinian "Is Hamas guilty of killing innocent civilians on oc7 & should we condemn that?"
*doesn't get the right answer*
"it should be simple to condemn the killing of innocent Israelis."

Never asks Falter, Hall or Walney to condemn Israel.

— Özen (@Iridescent1985) February 10, 2026

And if Dispatches was going to look at the claim of foreign links to Palestine Action, it would have seemed completely appropriate to look at the prominent role of the Israel lobby in parliament too.

Pretty good but surprisingly never mentioned the Israeli lobbying in UK which was the main reason for Palestine Action being proscribed in the first place

— Mike (@mwally_mike) February 10, 2026

Dispatches will surely have made some people think more carefully about the reasons behind the Palestine Action ban, though. And if it helped even slightly to mainstream the debate over the corporate capture of our political system, that's something we should all be thankful for.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

Marina Purkiss has renewed scrutiny of Reform leader Nigel Farage, arguing that his conduct does not match his divisive public rhetoric.

Farage…

Rails against WFH while employing his wife to WFH

Rails against the EU while taking the EU pension

Rails against "elites" while being bankrolled by them and happily hobnobbing with them

Rails against people speaking other languages while his own kids speak German.… pic.twitter.com/npFfX6Q3uk

— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) February 10, 2026

The post in full reads:

Farage…

Rails against WFH while employing his wife to WFH

Rails against the EU while taking the EU pension

Rails against "elites" while being bankrolled by them and happily hobnobbing with them

Rails against people speaking other languages while his own kids speak German.

Do you spot the pattern?

Rules for thee, but not for me.

Purkiss' rebuttal to Farage comes following his calls for an end to working from home and the 'focus' on employees having a work-life balance. Farage instead stated that it was a 'nonsense' that people are more productive working from home, suggesting that being with 'fellow human beings' would be best.

Yesterday, our own HG hit back at the attack and argued it would have serious negative consequences in practice, saying:

A Reform government would push even more disabled and chronically ill people into work.

Importantly, working from home allows some disabled people to hold down a job. Farage's attempts to end work-from-home whilst also claiming to want more disabled people to have jobs are contradictory and bullshit. If he actually cared about disabled people, he would be encouraging work-from-home, or work from wherever the hell you want to, as long as the work gets done.

Farage is a hypocrite. And basically, you can't work from home unless it serves him and his pumped-up little agenda.

Given the above, we can't help but think Farage is thinking more of ensuring bosses can oversee their inferior staff members, putting them 'back in their place', than anything to do with the wellbeing of workers.

We even wrote at the end of 2025 a roundup of the hypocrisy running rife in Reform, with our own Willem Moore reporting on one of their lies used to gain votes:

As we reported in October, Kent County Council was also eyeing up a 5% Council Tax rise. You'll be glad to know that they did not proceed with this ridiculous 5% figure. They did, however, raise Council Tax by 4.989%.

So really, when you think about it, that's a saving of 0.11 percentage points for the people of Kent who were worried about the 5% rise.

Purkiss' timely reminder of Farage's well-documented hypocrisy has been well-received on X, with one account reminding us:

Reform is a scam https://t.co/Is6XApc1Cr

— Trevor McArdle (@McardleTrevor) February 11, 2026

This account points out yet again the double standard for people who work for Farage and co:

Once again, Reform and its privileged MP's prove that they will never be on the side of ordinary people. Instead, they will always be on the side of the already-rich and powerful, or those who work directly for them.

After all, working from home is good for Farage's wife, but not for ordinary people living ever more strenuous lives.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

In his latest newsletter, "By Hagbard's Beard," Bobby Campbell explains how he wrestled with a particular question with his Tales of Illuminatus! comic book adaptations: Does Hagbard Celine have a beard or is he clean shaven? I'll let you follow the link for Bobby's solution!

Lots of other interesting news and bits at the link, don't forget to click through Bobby's links! For example, Bobby is working on his plans for a Maybe Day event on July 23 in Berkeley, California: "I've been scouting venues and bugging the locals. Speaking it into existence one step at a time :)))"

Continued global heating could set irreversible course by triggering climate tipping points, but most people unaware

The world is closer than thought to a "point of no return" after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said.

Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish "hothouse Earth" climate far worse than the 2-3C temperature rise the world is on track to reach. The climate would also be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilisation developed.

Though the original series is very much done, Netflix is going to squeeze as much juice out of Stranger Things as it can. The company is said to be filming the Broadway production of Stranger Things: The First Shadow so it can offer up a recording on its streaming service.

Several public performances were canceled this week to accommodate filming, according to The Hollywood Reporter. They'll recommence on February 15. Filming is taking place before the original Broadway cast leaves the production next month. 

Stranger Things: The First Shadow opened in New York City last year after debuting in London in 2023. It's been a critical and commercial success, and it has won multiple Tony Awards. The play is a canonical prequel to Stranger Things and it fills in more of the backstory of Henry Creel, who becomes Vecna. The show's final season digs into his past too.

Netflix hasn't indicated when it will start streaming a recording of the play. This was inevitably going to happen at some point, though. Netflix has been busy expanding the Stranger Things universe with spin-off shows, such as the animated series Stranger Things: Tales From '85 (which will start streaming on April 23). A documentary that shows how Stranger Things: The First Shadow came together hit the streaming service last year.

Back in 2021, in the thick of pandemic mania, The Register gleefully reported that "radioactive hybrid terror pigs" were thriving in Japan's Fukushima exclusion zone.…

Their names sound like a chemistry exam: USS Antimony, USS Calcium, USS Hydrogen — three concrete barges that spent World War II doing exactly one important thing in the Pacific: making ice cream. Roughly 500 gallons per shift, about five tons a day, from freezers that ran at ten gallons every seven minutes, according to Wikipedia. — Read the rest

The post WWII's strangest vessels were ice cream factories appeared first on Boing Boing.

Four Cambridge math students in the 1930s wanted to know if you could fill a square with smaller squares, each a different size. They solved it by pretending the squares were electrical resistors. Brooks, Smith, Stone, and Tutte — who published as "Blanche Descartes," a shared pen name — transformed the geometry problem into a circuit diagram, then applied Kirchhoff's laws to find solutions, according to Wikipedia. — Read the rest

The post Four students solved a geometry puzzle by pretending squares were resistors appeared first on Boing Boing.

This looping animation by Robert Samuel Hanson is only a few seconds long. A goose tries to interact with a fire extinguisher. The goose and the extinguisher share the same beak (or handle), depending on how you look at it.

The simple black-and-white illustration style makes the whole thing feel timeless and surreal, letting the strange visual logic speak for itself. — Read the rest

The post A surreal animation of a goose confused by a fire extinguisher appeared first on Boing Boing.

Microsoft has released Windows 11 26H1 but is warning the vast majority of users that it is not for them.…

Telcos likely received advance warning about January's critical Telnet vulnerability before its public disclosure, according to threat intelligence biz GreyNoise.…

Something subtle but significant is happening across the U.S. economy, and it looks less like normal market evolution and more like an early-stage collapse dynamic.

Brands that were explicitly built to serve price-sensitive consumers, Chipotle, Southwest Airlines, and much of fast-casual dining and domestic travel, are steadily pivoting away from affordability and toward higher-income customers.

This isn't just inflation. It's a customer base shift.

The average consumer can't absorb the price increases required to keep stock prices growing. Shrinkflation and quality degradation are largely exhausted. What remains is the widespread push toward "premium" tiers, add-ons, and pay-to-access basics as the final lever to extract more revenue.

The result is increasingly clear:

Affordable, dependable, and healthy options are becoming rare especially for lower-middle and middle-income households that don't qualify as poor, yet aren't wealthy enough to weather constant price increases.

What's left is a hollowed-out market:

• Luxury and convenience for the top
• Bare-minimum, low-quality options for the bottom
• A rapidly shrinking middle where "good enough at a fair price" used to exist

From a collapse perspective, this matters because social stability depends on predictable, affordable systems, food, transportation, and everyday services, that people can rely on without chronic financial stress. When those systems are reoriented toward higher earners, resentment grows, trust erodes, and people feel quietly excluded from normal participation in society.

This isn't a sudden crash.
It's managed degradation.

We're still early in the process. Collapse doesn't happen in a single generation, it unfolds gradually, and it looks like this:

Today

• Lower class: Losing access to affordable, suitable options
• Middle class: Forced to pay more for what used to be standard

Tomorrow

• Lower class: Systemic failure and exclusion
• Middle class: Those unable to climb into the upper-middle are absorbed downward, as the middle effectively disappears

In 1874, an astronomer named James Nasmyth built his own telescope, observed the moon, and then created and photographed detailed plaster models of its surface. You can see one of those photographs here. Without context, you'd think it was taken from orbit. — Read the rest

The post How James Nasmyth created stunningly realistic moon models in 1874 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Upgrade your listening setup with these JBL Tune Buds 2 True Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds, now only $39.99.

Are you in the market for some new earbuds? These JBL Tune Buds 2 True Wireless Noise Canceling Earbuds offer killer sound, all-day comfort, and an impressive 48 hours of battery life — and right now you can bring them home for just $39.99. — Read the rest

The post Upgrade your listening with JBL noise-canceling earbuds, now just $40 appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: Get modern, AI-powered Office 2024 apps for Mac or PC for a one-time $99.97 — faster performance, smarter tools, and lifetime access without subscriptions.

There are two types of people: People who don't mind paying monthly subscriptions. And people who absolutely do not. — Read the rest

The post This MS Office 2024 sale is the tech version of getting your life together appeared first on Boing Boing.

Manhole covers are round for a mix of safety, engineering, and practical reasons. A circular cover can't fall through its opening, regardless of rotation, making it safer for workers and pedestrians. The shape also matches the circular shafts below, which handle pressure from surrounding soil and traffic better than angular alternatives. — Read the rest

The post A manhole cover may have been the first object launched into space appeared first on Boing Boing.

On "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" last week, James Taylor told the story of how he came to record the song "You've Got a Friend," written by Carole King. It's his only #1 hit.

Taylor met King in 1969, when King was already a tremendously successful songwriter, and he was only 21 years old, with one album under his belt. — Read the rest

The post James Taylor tells a heartwarming story intertwining two of the most iconic songs of the 70s appeared first on Boing Boing.

Tom the Dancing Bug: Super-Fun-Pak Comix, feat. Mickey Mouse and his nameless dog

-Please join the team that makes it possible for your friendly neighborhood comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug to exist in this hostile Trumpverse! JOIN US FOR 2026 IN THE INNER HIVE, and be the first kid on your block to get each week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic - before it's published anywhere. — Read the rest

The post Tom the Dancing Bug: Mickey Mouse reunites with his dog in Super-Fun-Pak Comix appeared first on Boing Boing.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief's fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. This is the last edition of Cropped for 2025. The newsletter will return on 14 January 2026.

RISKY BUSINESS: The "undervaluing" of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a new report covered by Carbon Brief. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) "business and biodiversity" report "urg[ed] companies to act now or potentially face extinction themselves", Reuters wrote. 

BUSINESS ACTION: The report was agreed at an IPBES meeting in Manchester last week. Speaking to Carbon Brief at the meeting, IPBES chair, Dr David Obura, said the findings showed that "all sectors" of business "need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts". Bloomberg quoted Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the report, as saying: "Too often, at present, what's good for business is bad for nature and vice-versa." 

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  Sign up to Carbon Brief's free "Cropped" email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.

JAPAN'S TAKEOFF: Japan's prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, announced on 2 February that the country became the first in the world to extract rare earths from the deep seabed after successful retrievals near Minamitori Island, in the central Pacific Ocean, according to Asia Financial. The country hailed the move as a "first step toward industrialisation of domestically produced rare earth" metals, Takaichi said. 

URGENT CALL: On 5 February, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) secretary general, Leticia Reis de Carvalho, called on EU officials to "quickly agree on an international rule book on the extraction of critical minerals in international waters", due to be finalised later this year, Euractiv reported. The bloc has supported a proposed moratorium on deep-sea mining. However, the US has "taken the opposite approach", fast-tracking a single permit for exploration and exploitation of seabed resources, and "might be pushing the EU - and others" to follow suit, the outlet added.

CAUTIONARY COMMENT: In the Inter Press Service, the former president of the Seychelles and a Swiss philanthropist highlighted the important role of African leadership in global ocean governance. It called for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining due to the potential harmful effects of this extractive activity on biodiversity, food security and the economy. They wrote: "The accelerating push for deep-sea mining activities also raises concerns about repeating historic patterns seen in other extractive sectors across Africa."

• ARGENTINE AUSTERITY: The Argentinian government's response to the worst wildfires to hit Patagonia "in decades" has been hindered by president Javier Milei's "gutting" of the country's fire-management agency, the Associated Press reported. Carbon Brief covered a new rapid-attribution analysis of the fires, which found that climate change made the hot, dry conditions that preceded the fires more than twice as likely.
• CRISIS IN SOMALIA: The Somali government has begun "emergency talks" to address the drought that is gripping much of the country, according to Shabelle Media. The outlet wrote that the "crisis has reached a critical stage" amid "worsening shortages of water, food and pasture threatening both human life and livestock".
• FOOD PRICES FALL: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization's "food price index" - a measure of the costs of key food commodities around the world - fell in January for the fifth month in a row. The fall was driven by decreases in the price of dairy, meat and sugar, which "more than offset" increasing prices of cereals and vegetable oil, according to the FAO.
• HIGH STANDARDS: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol launched a new standard for companies to measure emissions and carbon removals from land use and emerging technologies. BusinessGreen said that the standard is "expected to provide a boost to the expanding carbon removals and carbon credit sectors by providing an agreed measurement protocol".
• RUNNING OUT OF TIME: Negotiators from the seven US states that share the Colorado River basin met in Washington DC ahead of a 14 February deadline for agreeing a joint plan for managing the basin's reservoirs. The Colorado Sun wrote: "The next agreement will impact growing cities, massive agricultural industries, hydroelectric power supplies and endangered species for years to come." 
• CORAL COVER: Malaysia has lost around 20% of its coral reefs since 2022, "with reef conditions continuing to deteriorate nationwide", the Star - a Malaysian online news outlet - reported. The ongoing decline has many drivers, it added, including a global bleaching event in 2024, pollution and unsustainable tourism and development.

This week, Carbon Brief reports on the impacts of the US withdrawal from the global nature-science panel, IPBES.

The Trump administration's decision to withdraw the US from the world's main expert panel that advises policymakers on biodiversity and ecosystem science "harms everybody, including themselves".

That's according to Dr David Obura, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES.  

IPBES is among the dozens of international organisations dealing with the fallout from the US government's announcement last month. 

The panel's chief executive, Dr Luthando Dziba, told Carbon Brief that the exit impacts both the panel's finances and the involvement of important scientists. He said: 

"The US was one of the founding members of IPBES…A lot of US experts contribute to our assessments and they've led our assessments in various capacities. They've also served in various official bodies of the platform."

Obura told Carbon Brief that "it's very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we're doing". He said he hopes the US will rejoin in future. 

Carbon Brief attended the first IPBES meeting since Trump's announcement, held last week in Manchester. At the meeting, countries finalised a new "business and biodiversity" report. 

For the first time in the 14-year history of IPBES, there was no US government delegation present at the meeting, although some US scientists attended in other roles. 

Dziba is still waiting for official confirmation of the US withdrawal, but impacts were being felt even before last month's announcement. 

Budget information [pdf] from last October shows that the US contributed the most money to IPBES of any country in 2024 - around $1.2m. In 2025, when Trump took office, it sent $0, as of October. 

Despite this, IPBES actually received around $1.2m extra funding from countries in 2025, compared to 2024, as other nations filled the gap. 

The UK, for example, increased its contribution from around $367,000 in 2024 to more than $1.7m in 2025. The EU, which did not contribute in 2024 but tends to make multi-year payments, paid around $2.7m last year. These two payments made up the bulk of the increase in overall funding. 

Dziba said IPBES is looking at other ways of boosting funds in future, but noted that lost income is not the only concern: 

"For us, the withdrawal of the US is actually much larger than just the budgetary implications, because you can find somebody who can come in and increase the contribution and close that gap. 

"The US has got thousands of leading experts in the fields where we undertake assessments. We know that some of them work for [the] government and maybe [for] those it will be more challenging for them to continue…But there are many other experts that we hope, in some way, will still be able to contribute to the work of the platform." 

One person trying to keep US scientists involved is Prof Pam McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University. She told Carbon Brief that "there are still a tonne of American scientists and other civil society organisations that want to stand up". 

McElwee and others have looked at ways for US scientists to access funding to continue working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which the US has also withdrawn from. She said they will try and do the same at IPBES, adding: 

"It's basically a bottom-up initiative…to make the message clear that scientists in the US still support these institutions and we still are part of them.

"Climate science is what it is and we can't deny or withdraw from it. So we'll just keep trying to represent it as best we can." 

UNDER THE SEA: An article in bioGraphic explored whether the skeletons of dead corals "help or hinder recovery" on bleached reefs. 

MOSSY MOORS: BBC News covered how "extinct moss" is being reintroduced in some English moors in an effort to "create diverse habitats for wildlife". 

RIBBIT: Scientists are "racing" to map out Ecuador's "unique biological heritage of more than 700 frog species", reported Dialogue Earth. 

MEAT COMEBACK: Grist examined the rise and fall of vegan fine dining.  

• Areas suitable for grazing animals could shrink by 36-50% by 2100 due to continued climate change, with areas of extreme poverty and political fragility experiencing the highest losses | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• The body condition of Svalbard polar bears increased after 2000, in a period of rapid loss of ice cover | Scientific Reports
• Studies projecting the possibility of reversing biodiversity loss are scarce and most do not account for additional drivers of loss, such as climate change, according to a meta-analysis of more than 55 papers | Science Advances

• 9-12 February: Climate and cryosphere open science conference | Wellington, New Zealand
• 18 February: International conservation technology conference | Lima, Peru
• 22-27 February: American Geophysical Union's ocean sciences meeting | Glasgow, UK

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.  Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

Cropped 28 January 2026: Ocean biodiversity boost; Nature and national security; Mangrove defence

Cropped

28.01.26

Cropped 14 January 2026: Wildfires scorch three continents; EU trade; Food and nature in 2026

Cropped

14.01.26

Cropped 17 December 2025: 'Deadly' Asia floods; Boosting London's water birds; UN headwinds

Cropped

17.12.25

Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview

Cropped

03.12.25

The post Cropped 11 February 2026: Aftershocks of US withdrawals | Biodiversity and business risks | Deep-sea mining tensions appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Late Tuesday, the FAA ordered every aircraft out of the sky over El Paso — commercial flights, cargo, private planes, medevac helicopters, police — for 10 days, citing "national defense" and threatening to shoot down anything that flew. No one in city government, Congress, or airport operations got advance warning, El Paso Matters reported. — Read the rest

The post FAA ordered a 10-day shutdown of El Paso's airspace, then reversed it hours later appeared first on Boing Boing.

XPENG has aggressively overhauled its Southeast Asian strategy in early 2026, transitioning from a niche importer to a regional powerhouse with localized manufacturing and an integrated infrastructure backbone. Central to this shift is a blueprint established in Indonesia: the integration of world-class ultra-fast charging to eliminate the primary barrier to ... [continued]

The post XPENG Isn't Just Entering ASEAN—It's Assembling an Operating System appeared first on CleanTechnica.