After five years making Energy UK ‘noisier’ on green issues, Emma Pinchbeck has been picked to lead the UK’s fight against global heating

‘I was a risk when they hired me,” smiles Emma Pinchbeck. The chief executive of Energy UK, the voice of the industry, is hours away from a black-tie awards event that will serve as her unofficial leaving do. After almost five years in the role, she will join the government’s climate watchdog , the Climate Change Committee, in a matter of days.

“It’s pretty funny to remind people of this now, but I was an untested risk. I don’t think back in 2019 if you’d said to the energy industry, ‘who would you want as a spokesperson for the sector in a time of crisis?’ that they’d necessarily have chosen someone like me.”

Continue reading...

This documentary follows the formation of the Amazon Labor Union, showing how difficult it is for workers working for a company determined to efface their rights

The historic 2022 victory in getting union recognition for Amazon workers in a huge warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and the creation of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), is the subject of this candid and valuable film. It’s another reminder that the kind of rights that the ALU secured – however reasonable and modest – are still precarious, have never been freely given and need to be fought for. The corporation in question is uniquely powerful, well aware that it operates in a world where people will cancel their Washington Post subscription but not their Amazon Prime membership.

This documentary’s hero is Christian Smalls, who deserves his own chapter in the history of the American labour movement, alongside Sylvia Woods and Cesar Chavez. Smalls was laid off from the Amazon fulfilment centre for objecting to poor safety protocols; he set about creating a union, with a lonely, cold vigil outside the warehouse, handing out leaflets, accepting support from well-wishers, doing media interviews. The pressure grew, and the dream of creating a union was theoretically possible because of the law that if 30% of the workforce require it, a vote on unionisation has to be taken. Amazon’s workforce turnover means employees come and go and it is very difficult to get up to this point. But it was achieved, and a “yes” majority secured – after which Amazon started a huge legal campaign to have that vote annulled.

Continue reading...

Prime minister says victims of serial abuser John Smyth ‘failed very, very badly’

Keir Starmer has refused to back the archbishop of Canterbury, who has faced growing demands to resign over his handling of an abuse scandal.

Pressure on Justin Welby has been intensifying since the publication last week of a damning report on the church’s cover-up of John Smyth’s abuse in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later in Zimbabwe and South Africa. About 130 boys are believed to have been victims.

Continue reading...

Avon and Somerset police referred themselves to watchdog, who said girl was being transported to custody

A teenage girl who was killed by a car while on foot on the M5 had fled a police vehicle before she was struck, it has emerged.

Avon and Somerset police said the motorway was closed between Bridgwater and Taunton in Somerset after the fatal collision involving a pedestrian and a car at 11pm on Monday.

Continue reading...

As bill to allow terminally ill people in England and Wales to end their own lives enters parliament, supporters of the law change speak out

• UK politics live – latest updates

Two months after Beverly Sand was told that her oesophageal cancer was terminal, she took her life, alone when her husband was away for a couple of days. In a note she left him, she asked for forgiveness and told him: “You are the love of my life.”

Even though Peter Wilson could prove he was 120 miles away at the time of her death, he was questioned by police for seven hours, fingerprinted, photographed and swabbed for gunshot residue. No gun had been involved in Sand’s death.

Continue reading...

Musk and Donald Trump propose a ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, crypto wins big in the election and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok

• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. In this week’s newsletter: Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to create a “Department of Government Efficiency”, crypto wins big across the board, and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok. Thank you for joining me.

Trump, president-elect of the US, said he wants to appoint Musk, the world’s richest man, as the country’s “secretary of cost-cutting” to reduce bureaucracy in the federal government by an order of $2tn, roughly a third. Trump announced in September that he would create a “Department of Government Efficiency”. Musk had pushed for the idea and has since relentlessly promoted it, emphasizing the acronym for the agency: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive Shiba Inu. Trump said the agency will be conducting a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.

The billionaire does not seem to be under illusions of what will happen after his proposed cuts.

Continue reading...

The recipients of the Royal Photographic Society awards have been announced for 2024. New categories have been introduced to better reflect the international photography community and the society’s evolving focus and role. Ingrid Pollard was awarded the RPS centenary medal in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the art of photography

Continue reading...

Former Republican challenger likely to become secretary of state as further developments expected in Trump’s legal battles

• Trump expected to appoint China critics Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz

Vietnam’s Communist Party head To Lam has congratulated Donald Trump on his US presidential election victory in a phone call and the two discussed ways their countries could boost economic ties, according to the communist party.

The US is Vietnam’s largest export market, and the two countries upgraded their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership last September, the highest level in Vietnam’s ranking.

Lam stated that Vietnam is ready to promote the stable and long-term development of the bilateral ties for the sake of the two peoples, as well as for regional and global peace, cooperation, and sustainable development…

Trump expressed his satisfaction with the positive development in the bilateral relations, and affirmed the importance he attaches to the relationship with Vietnam, particularly economic cooperation. He highlighted specific areas of economic and trade collaboration that the US seeks to advance.

Continue reading...

Saved by the Kindertransport scheme, the portraitist later fell in with Soho’s artistic crowd including Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud

Frank Auerbach, one of the most significant figurative painters of the postwar era, has died aged 93.

Over a career spanning seven decades, the British-German artist was known for his portraiture, as well as street scenes of Camden in north London where he kept the same studio for 50 years. He was also known for the unique way in which he created his work – repeatedly scraping the paint from versions he was dissatisfied with and starting again until the finished work could be so laden with paint that it threatened to wobble off the canvas. He once estimated that 95% of his paint ended up in the bin. “I’m trying to find a new way to express something,” he once told the Guardian. “So I rehearse all the other ways until I surprise myself with something I haven’t previously considered.”

Continue reading...