Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Tory fantasy of a post-Brexit bonfire of regulations is coming true. Our bodies and ecosystems will pay the price, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

As the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) SB62 UN Climate Change Conference opens today (June 16) in Germany -

The documentary shows the damage that fishing does to our planet. So why does the industry still hold governments to ransom? asks Guardian columnist George Monbiot

They’re coming now. Boarding the night train to Wigan from Crewe. They leave behind their bald, gummy ghosts, clutching clapped-out hearts and cans of Special Brew. From dreary council flats and drab maisonettes, they’re coming now. On the platform, tinselled with snow, they’re laughing and dancing. Mullet-haired in svelte tank-tops and high-waisted flares, they spin, kung-fu kick and back-drop. They no longer feel the cold. Their pain is gone now. They sprint through the Grand Arcade, strip lights flickering, past the plastic palms, static waterfalls, the shop selling mobility scooters and walking frames. On the upper floor, behind the closed down TK Max, a mirage of double doors. In a scrum they push through onto the heaving sprung-wooden dancefloor and in an ecstasy of sweat, talc and Brut, a thousand pairs of sparkling eyes lift upwards on a soul-clap. Near the stage and DJ, a throng of circle-skirted girls worship at the shrine of the Casino kings. The best dancers — Johnno, Pinky, Kev. Forever young, their hazy crowns gleam.   --- Jane Salmons lives in Shropshire. She has two poetry collections, The Quiet Spy (Pindrop Press, 2022) and The Bridge (Offa’s Press, 2024). Jane’s microfiction has been shortlisted for the BFFA and nominated for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net. She won the Pokrass Prize in 2022.

For generations, my family has been protecting travellers in these woods. It is dark in here, and it is easy to forget where you are.  Some repay us in their own way. They give us old things from the bottoms of their pockets. Stones with holes bored through them by water. Bird’s bones brittle as glass. Some give us their words, and I have always treasured those the most. Stitched onto tattered scraps of cloth or whispered into our ears, we carry them around as protection of our own. Others do not pay us at all, but run. Forward, into the trees, or away from them, it hardly matters to us. It only matters that they arrive safely. Last spring, my eldest brother was shown gratitude in the shape of rust threaded through his heart. Words were etched into the branches he hung from, in a language none of us could understand. The stench of iron dripped into the roots below. They left him with his eyes all turned up, looking nowhere. I still wonder if the ones who did it found their way out again. Still, we protect them. It is dark in here, and it is easy to forget what you are. They cannot always find the paths between the trees, but we can. We have sharp ears. Sharp teeth. Sharp eyes looking out in every direction at once. We know that they need us. The rumours do go, after all, that there are monsters in these woods.   --- Hana Gammon lives in Cape Town, South Africa, and enjoys exploring the dark and peculiar through her writing. Her short story, "The Undertaker's Apprentice", won the Africa region of the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and her debut novel, The Specimens, was published August 2024 with Tartarus Press.

Find out how to get rid of AI overviews and other unwanted parts of search.

From Protest to Power, Saturday 14 June

Witnesses say Israeli forces opened fire on people near distribution point run by Israel-backed foundation

Gaza is on the brink of famine. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a multistakeholder global initiative aimed at enhancing food security and nutrition analysis, reports that the entire...

As Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will ‘take control’ of all Gaza, we look at what his military campaign has done to ordinary people

One estimate found that a single ChatGPT search uses 10 times the energy of a normal Google search.