Spain’s former PM faces tax fraud inquiry as police find €1.3m of jewellery | Spain | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Spain, José Luis Zapatero, Europe, World news
Title – Spain’s former PM faces tax fraud inquiry as police find €1.3m of jewellery | Spain | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/samjones
Link – Spain’s former PM faces tax fraud inquiry as police find €1.3m of jewellery | Spain | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T14:12:46.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/12/former-spain-pm-zapatero-faces-tax-fraud-inquiry

The former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is being investigated for possible tax fraud and smuggling after police discovered jewellery valued at more than €1.3m (£1.1m) while searching his office safe as part of a separate inquiry.

Zapatero, who led two socialist governments between 2004 and 2011, is already under investigation for alleged influence-peddling and other offences relating to the state bailout of the Spanish Plus Ultra airline during the Covid pandemic. He is alleged to have overseen “a hierarchical structure of influence-peddling”, whose purpose was “to obtain economic benefits through intermediation and the exercise of influence before public bodies in favour of third parties, mainly Plus Ultra”.

On Friday, the investigating judge at Spain’s highest criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional, said a new investigation had been launched after an expert assessment put the value of the jewellery, which includes necklaces, bracelets, rings and watches, at €1,323,915.

In a ruling explaining his decision, Judge José Luis Calama said the apparent absence of the necessary tax paperwork concerning the jewellery, which was found on 19 May, had led him to open a new investigation.

“The possession of high-value luxury goods, coupled with the lack of tax traceability regarding their acquisition, constitutes an objective and rational indication of the possible existence of significant tax fraud, since the acquisition of jewellery of the indicated value necessarily generates tax obligations, whether in terms of VAT, property transfer tax, inheritance and gift tax, or personal income tax, depending on the nature of the legal transaction,” he said.

A spokesperson for Zapatero said some of the jewellery had been inherited by the former prime minister and his wife, while other pieces had been picked up on trips. The spokesperson – who had originally claimed the jewellery was worth €30,000 to €50,000 – apologised on Friday for unintentionally misleading people and said that he and the former prime minister would both provide Calama with an explanation.

Zapatero, who is due to appear before the judge next week, has denied any wrongdoing.

After the opening of the investigation into his role in the Plus Ultra bailout, Zapatero released a video in which he insisted on his innocence and stated his willingness to cooperate with the investigation. “I’d like to reaffirm that all my public and private activity has always been conducted with absolute respect for the law,” he said, adding he had never carried out “any action” relating to the airline’s rescue.

Zapatero’s socialist successor, Pedro Sánchez, is facing a slew of corruption cases involving his wife, his brother, his party and his administration.

China arrests US academic at conference for ‘espionage activities’ | China | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – China, US news, Myanmar, Thinktanks, Universities, World news, South and central Asia, Asia Pacific
Title – China arrests US academic at conference for ‘espionage activities’ | China | The Guardian
Author – Associated Press in Bangkok
Link – China arrests US academic at conference for ‘espionage activities’ | China | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T10:27:08.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/12/china-arrests-us-academic-min-zin-espionage

China has arrested a US scholar who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy on suspicion of spying.

Min Zin was suspected of “engaging in espionage activities that endanger China’s national security,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Friday.

It is uncommon for Beijing to arrest a US citizen on national security allegations, and the case comes just a month after Donald Trump met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping , in Beijing as the two countries aim to reset their tumultuous relationship.

A Burmese activist said Min Zin disappeared on 3 June after going to Kunming, in China’s Yunnan province, for a conference. The activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of arrest, said Min Zin had visited China many times before.

Min Zin was a student activist in Myanmar’s 1988 uprising , a student-led movement the then-government reacted to with military force; he later sought asylum in the US. He was not currently involved in any direct activism work, the activist said.

Min Zin founded a thinktank called ISP Myanmar, which in recent years has been writing about Chinese foreign policy and trade with Myanmar, located on China’s south-west border. The thinktank exchanged ideas with Chinese thinktanks, and had published reports on issues such as Myanmar’s rare-earth exports to China.

He is also a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.

Can you really travel the world for free? A travel points expert shares her secrets | US personal finance | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – US personal finance, Credit card fees, Business, Money, Life and style, Travel
Title – Can you really travel the world for free? A travel points expert shares her secrets | US personal finance | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/danielle-renwick
Link – Can you really travel the world for free? A travel points expert shares her secrets | US personal finance | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T11:00:42.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/12/travel-credit-card-points-secrets

S tacy Roberts likes to tell her 321,000 followers that her family is rich – in credit card points, that is. Last year alone, she, her husband and their three kids traveled to Spain, Denmark, Austria, Italy, California, Utah and Hawaii all for around $4,300, she says.

How does she do it? Roberts says she opens a new credit card each month, allowing her to accumulate around 1m points a year.

Though the thought of opening 12 credit cards a year would make most people shudder, Roberts insists it can be done safely: “Every card goes on autopay,” she says, adding that her advice is not for everyone. “Half of the US is in credit card debt, and half is not. [My advice] is for the half that are not.”

Roberts is part of a growing cohort of travel points influencers who say anyone can travel the world – sometimes even flying first class – for less than the cost of a nice dinner out. So what’s the catch?

The Guardian spoke with Roberts about her credit score, why she never signs up for store credit cards – and what she hopes her children will learn from traveling the world.

A typical credit card point is usually worth between half a cent and two cents. But you say you have found ways to maximize your points, taking $83,000 worth of vacations one year for just more than $4,000 out of pocket. How did you pull that off?

It’s a question of dedicating the time to doing it. When I got into this, I didn’t have the money to take these trips but I had some time. We open a new card almost monthly. In the last four years, [my husband and I] have earned a [combined] million points at least every year from opening around 12 credit cards a year.

At least $30,000 of that [$83,000] value was in two round-trip, business-class flights to Japan with my daughter. We traveled off-season, I took her out of school and we booked last minute. A lot of that value comes from using points at hotels that cost up to $3,000 a night.

Typically we travel only on school holidays, but I don’t mind if [my kids] miss one or two days of school so that I can catch a cheaper flight.

How much do you have to spend to amass that many points?

If the average card requires you to spend $4,000 over three months, and we’re doing 12 cards a year, [that would be] $48,000. We don’t actually spend $4,000 a month; we probably average between $2,500 to $3,000. However, the last few years, we’ve had fun surprises: $20,000 worth of ice damage [to our home] that our insurance reimbursed us for. I put it on my credit card, and they gave me a check. Another year we had to replace our car’s transmission – twice.

Last year, we decided to pay our taxes – we owed about $20,000 – on a credit card. You’re paying a fee of nearly 3%, but I calculated it was worth it for the number of miles I was able to get for doing it.

Some research suggests people spend more money when using plastic compared with cash, and critics argue that trying to earn a reward can result in consumers justifying unnecessary purchases.

Maybe.

I personally have always understood if I don’t have the money, I don’t spend it. Usually, if I want something, I either put it on a list of things to buy one day when I have more money, or I tell myself, If you’re still really thinking about that thing in two weeks, maybe we can justify it .

I would not say that we spend more, we are just spending smarter. I have to get a root canal next week, and my daughter just got some dental work. It’s very expensive, and I’m putting them on brand-new cards to get signup bonuses, so those are things that we have to spend on, and I’m going to earn a vacation from them.

How many credit cards do you have?

16.

Doesn’t that make you nervous? Americans have about $1.3tn in credit card debt , according to federal statistics. Whenever I hear someone say they opened a bunch of credit cards, it’s usually the beginning of a story about how they amassed mountains of debt.

Half of the US is in credit card debt, and half is not. [My advice] is for the half that are not.

I have never carried a balance on a credit card in 25 years of having credit cards. All of my cards are on autopay. I’m only using one card at a time. I maybe carry three on me because there are different rewards for different expenses, such as dining out.

What’s your credit score?

832. When I started doing this, it was in the high 700s. I always pay on time. [Editor’s note: according to FICO, the most widely used personal credit score firm, anything above 800 is considered “exceptional”.]

However, you don’t want to apply for credit cards for six months before applying for a mortgage, because if the bank sees a bunch of credit card requests they’re going to wonder.

How did you get into using points to travel?

I’m the youngest of 12, and [my parents] were pretty frugal people. We’d always stay in hostels and use credit card points for flights. When I turned 18, my dad opened my first credit card. [My parents] taught me to pay them off, so I’ve never had credit card debt.

I got married when I was almost 30; we had kids and then we weren’t traveling that much.

I wanted to go to Europe, I wanted to go to Peru. I wanted to go around the world. I realized credit cards were the way to do it because it’s not like our salaries – I was a social worker at the time – were increasing to make that a lifestyle.

We don’t have fun money or extra travel money. What I can do is give a couple hours a week to learning something new and figuring this out, and then staying organized and on top of it.

What’s the catch? What’s in it for credit cards?

The banks that issue the credit cards make money every time you swipe your card. Businesses are probably passing the extra cost from credit cards along to [consumers], and raising their prices. Then there are people who don’t pay off their credit cards who have super-high interest rates, so [credit card companies] are also making money on that. For us, we’re paying on time, so we’re benefiting while credit card companies are still benefiting.

‘Anger burns off every bit of it’: the furious guerrilla-art response to the Epstein files | Stage | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Stage
Trefwoorden – Stage, Culture, Jeffrey Epstein
Title – ‘Anger burns off every bit of it’: the furious guerrilla-art response to the Epstein files | Stage | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/arifa-akbar
Link – ‘Anger burns off every bit of it’: the furious guerrilla-art response to the Epstein files | Stage | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T13:39:45.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jun/12/anger-burns-off-every-bit-of-it-the-furious-guerrilla-art-response-to-the-epstein-files

C an social media bring on the revolution? Maybe not, but it was vital for the collective action behind this theatrical event, conceived on a WhatsApp group for playwrights shortly after the release of the Epstein files. Members of the group were angry that the world was not talking nearly enough about the impact of Jeffrey Epstein’s actions on the girls and women he abused. They were also concerned that America’s war with Iran was serving as a distraction from the violence that lay festering in these files on the paedophile-financier. So when British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz sent out a prompt, scores of writers responded.

That was four months ago. This week, more than 80 of those writers have mobilised a creative response under the lead direction of Lucy Morrison along with Hannah Hauer-King, Madeleine Kludge and Tessa Walker. It takes place across 15 spaces, cupboards as well as open plan areas, on the upper storey of an office in London, currently occupied by Theatre Deli, a company that takes over empty locations.

You see the graffiti as you enter. It’s emblazoned on the walls and floors. Almost every patch is covered by writing: poems, essays, theatrical scenes. Anger burns off them all. You could call this project a guerrilla-art response to the files, with material ranging from live performances of short plays (with actors often doubling up), to installations. Co-producer Anoushka Warden describes it as “art exhibition meets theatre meets activism” and it feels just like that combination as you walk around.

There is no official way in or out and the interplay of sometimes simultaneously performed work is initially overwhelming. Perhaps that is the point. There is a lot this production wants to say and its material gathers a concentrated power, room by room, distilling not only anger but shock and disbelief through story after story about Epstein but also, more broadly, unaccounted male abuse. There are two main performances in the central space, the longest a composite play called All the Rage, made up from the lines written by all the writers involved in the show.

Despite having had only four days on site and in rehearsals, this female/non-binary collective has brought an extraordinary attention to detail. Among the most striking art works is a row of clothes, embroidered with statements (“she felt her mind separate from her body” written on the crotch of a pink leotard). Created by Jenifer Toksvig, the clothing contains some pages from the Epstein files tucked into pockets, as well as other accounts of abuse, and is truly horrifying.

Prince Andrew is name-checked repeatedly, each reference more bilious: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s two-hander describes a photograph of him on all-fours over a woman. In a dualogue by Ellen Bannerman, Sadie Pearson, Laurie Ogden and Bex Bowsher, there’s a remembered account by a woman who becomes trapped in Epstein’s mansion and speaks of vacating her body as she is abused (“I was told it was only dancing, only massage”).

Witch Room by Naomi Westerman and Poppy Corbett is, as the title suggests, a room featuring pages from the files that contain the word “witch” – mostly in the context of a “witch-hunt” in the legal case, as a form of defence.

“I thought it would be interesting to see how many times ‘witch’ was mentioned and it was hundreds of times,” says Westerman. The room reclaims the power of the word through spells and potions (which the audience can make with materials provided).

There are more immersive elements here, such as a perfectly reconstructed teenage bedroom by Julie Tsang and Kerry Fitzgerald, along with Georgia Fitch and Joy Lynch. It captures the cusp of childhood and adulthood for a girl/woman and is as intricate as any Punchdrunk setup (maybe Viola’s Room?), creating a composite version of a girl in Epstein’s orbit, with drawers that contain letters, a diary and a pregnancy test.

It seems, in its cumulative power, as if we are back in the era of #MeToo, at its advent, in fact. Wertenbaker’s piece talks about a well-known director who becomes obsessed with female actors and another who asks female performers for hugs, getting angry if they say “No”. There are accounts of rape, sexual assault – its normalisation or denial. One playwright overtly makes a comparison between this moment and the year when Harvey Weinstein’s arrest blew the door off institutional complicity with abuse and misogyny. AJ Baker’s audio piece, Avalanche, voiced by Lilly Driscoll, speaks of an older male family friend who keeps his hand on the lap of a 15-year-old girl for too long. “This is not new. It’s centuries old,” we hear.

It makes you think, “So what’s changed?” and there is something deeply depressing in its implicit answer that there has been too little transformation since that watershed.

But there is hope in the raised voices, the courage in testimonies of lived trauma, and the collective speaking up. “Craft your stories,” is a refrain in the collective play and this could serve as a call to arms.

At Theatre Deli, London , until 13 June

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Has the US really carried out a secret mission to get oil through Hormuz? | Strait of Hormuz | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Strait of Hormuz, Shipping industry, Business, World news, US-Israel war on Iran, Oil, Gas, Donald Trump, US news
Title – Has the US really carried out a secret mission to get oil through Hormuz? | Strait of Hormuz | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jillian-ambrose,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joanna-partridge,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tural-ahmedzade
Link – Has the US really carried out a secret mission to get oil through Hormuz? | Strait of Hormuz | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T07:00:39.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/12/us-secret-mission-oil-hormuz-trump-iran-blockade

Donald Trump has claimed that the US has been conducting a “secret mission” in the strait of Hormuz to help Gulf petrostates bypass Iran’s chokehold on oil flows – which has roiled global energy markets for months.

In televised comments from the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president claimed Iran was unaware that dozens of tankers had been escorted out of the blockaded channel at night with their transmitters off.

He later wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that 200 vessels had got out this way, transporting more than 100m barrels of oil to global buyers.

So what is actually going on?

Is the ‘secret mission’ real?

Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, told a congressional hearing after the comments that he was unaware of the US having helped get millions of barrels out, but earlier in the hearing he did say the US military had helped get some oil out of the strait.

It seems hard to believe this development was a secret to Iran, given recent reporting in multiple news outlets about a rising number of tankers being shepherded out of the waterway at night with their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmitters switched off to avoid detection.

According to Lloyd’s List, a leading provider of maritime intelligence, the US has been helping some of these “shadow transits” by running “overwatch operations”, using autonomous vehicles, aircraft and drones to escort them through the southern part of the strait, close to the coast of Oman and out of the line of fire from Iranian territory.

Once vessels are out they transfer their cargoes to other waiting tankers undetected before returning to the Gulf to reload more oil and gas.

Richard Meade, the editor-in-chief of Lloyd’s List, said: “Tankers are exiting the Gulf, they’re then conducting ship-to-ship transfers to other tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

“Those empty tankers which ran the strait with their AIS off, run back through the strait and pick up new loads of oil from the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar and Iraq. And this operation is happening in the dark.”

How many ships are making the journey?

The number of oil and gas tankers transiting is nowhere near pre-crisis levels, but there is evidence that more are making their way back to the global market.

Before the crisis 138 ships a day were transiting the waterway on average, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center.

But once the war began about this same number of vessels were estimated to have made the journey in the whole month of March, according to Lloyd’s List intelligence.

Today, about 25% of the tankers present in the Gulf at the start of the crisis have managed to leave the region since the conflict began, according to Lloyd’s List. These have included ships carrying oil and gas to buyers in the global market.

However, the amount of oil and gas getting out could be much higher than this figure suggests. This is because turning AIS off makes the exact movement of tankers hard to track, and some are believed to be going back and forth through the strait to ferry fossil fuels to vessels waiting in the Gulf of Oman.

Satellite images show these “dark tankers” loading at Gulf ports before undertaking shadow transits and ship-to-ship transfers. Analysts at Lloyd’s List were able to record 36 transits through the strait between 1 and 7 June, or which 17 were “dark” and 19 were traceable.

However, they caution that they sometimes only see with a week’s delay that a ship has previously transited the strait, when it switches its transmitter back on in a different location, often far from the strait, making the exact number of dark transits difficult to gauge.

So how much oil is reaching the market?

Given the difficulty of counting dark transits, Trump’s 100m barrel figure cannot be fully factchecked, but according to market analysts at data firm Kpler it could be broadly consistent with the crude flows it has observed from Gulf producers, excluding Iran. Even if accurate, it only equates to the volume that would have passed through in five days in normal times.

Nevertheless, market observers believe much more oil could be leaving the Gulf than previously thought as clandestine flows via dark transits and shuttle tankers may have picked up in recent weeks.

Ship-to-ship transfers may have helped an average of about 1.9m barrels of oil a day to move through the strait of Hormuz to the Gulf of Oman since the start of April, according to Kpler.

The figure may have reached highs of 2.1m barrels a day in late May, according to estimates from JP Morgan, or even as high as 2.9m barrels per day, according to investment bank Piper Sandler. However, that represents just a fraction of the 15.6m barrels that flowed through the strait per day before the war.

Will it bring the oil price down?

In recent weeks the price of Brent crude has tumbled from over $110 a barrel at the start of last month to about $93 a barrel this week, even as global oil inventories continue to fall, and some of this may be down to tankers beating the blockade.

JP Morgan noted this week that “surprising volumes of crude and petroleum products still appear to be transiting the strait” despite the ongoing naval blockade, thanks to the clandestine shipments.

In addition, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are continuing to reroute a total of 4.5m barrels a day out of the Gulf via pipelines. At the same time, China has slowed its imports in favour of drawing on its record high stockpiles.

However, without a return to normal oil flows, rising prices are expected to return.

“Things are going to get worse,” according to Jan Stuart, global energy economist and strategist at Piper Sandler. He expects the price of Brent crude to average $130 a barrel in July and August as global oil inventories continue to sink and demand for fuels during the summer driving season rises.

Peroxide mop, statement specs, tweed suits and quirky Crocs: David Hockney’s genius for fashion | Fashion | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Fashion, David Hockney, Life and style, Art and design, Culture, Painting, Art
Title – Peroxide mop, statement specs, tweed suits and quirky Crocs: David Hockney’s genius for fashion | Fashion | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laurencochrane
Link – Peroxide mop, statement specs, tweed suits and quirky Crocs: David Hockney’s genius for fashion | Fashion | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T10:41:58.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jun/12/david-hockney-genius-for-fashion-peroxide-tweed

I f artist style is now a well-trodden path in fashion, there are some examples that stand out. David Hockney – with his trademark glasses, rugby shirts, trenchcoats and quirks like wearing a pair of yellow Crocs to meet King Charles in 2022 – might have been top of that list.

His flair for style was there from the start: a self-portrait of Hockney at 16 shows him dressed in a blue coat, red scarf and yellow tie, already with strong statement specs. As time went on, he developed his trademark look. The peroxide mop came in the early 60s, after he saw an advert for Clairol proclaiming “blondes have more fun” and his signature round spectacles replaced his NHS specs by the the middle of the decade.

As the 70s and 80s unfolded, the signature clothing arrived: rugby shirts, brightly coloured suits and perfectly crumpled trenchcoats. Much like Pablo Picasso in his Breton, Andy Warhol in his fright wig or Georgia O’Keeffe in her white blouse, “he became an artwork himself,” wrote Vogue in 2025 . This panache was quickly noted – he appeared on Vanity Fair’s Best Dressed List in 1986 .

The artist documented his outfits himself, of course, creating more than 300 self-portraits. These included him in red braces, in a flat cap, a checked shirt and a tweed suit, quite often with either a paintbrush or his other trademark accessory, a cigarette.

Inevitably, Hockey became a reference for fashion designers. His seemingly haphazard artistic approach to wearing colour – so central to his work – was a big part of the appeal. People who think about clothes a lot were fascinated by a man who could look striking without looking perfect. As the Guardian wrote in 2014 , “his clothes never look new or overly styled or even thought out but are somehow simultaneously a total ‘look.’”

Christopher Bailey designed a collection inspired by Hockney while at Burberry in 2013. Speaking backstage, Bailey said: “I once saw David Hockney on Jermyn Street, wearing a cream linen suit with a perfect green paint smudge on it. I love the way Hockney wears colour, so that you’re never completely sure how deliberately the look is put together.”

Paul Smith, who designed a collection inspired by Hockney in 2008, echoed this sentiment almost exactly when speaking to Vogue in 2017 . “I remember once bumping into him in town, and he had a pinstripe suit on, but in an interesting shade of blue, and he wore it with a teal shirt and an emerald-green tie,” he said, “very tonal colours that fought each other and looked very feisty together.”

Hockney was an icon of 60s and 70s bohemia and hedonism, friends with people such as Warhol, Ossie Clark, Manolo Blahnik and Cecil Beaton. Smith recalled an anecdote from his wife, Pauline Denyer, who was at the Royal College of Art with Hockney: “[She] remembers him graduating, and causing an absolute outrage because instead of wearing the mortar board and gown he had a gold lamé jacket on and had dyed his hair blond.” In an era where outfits worn by those in the public eye are chosen with great care by teams of stylists, his unconsidered and spontaneous take on fashion is like catnip.

The artist was photographed during this period by his friend and sometime lover, Peter Schlesinger, wearing those now familiar items: the suits, the glasses, the too-long scarves. These images, and others of Hockney in his studio in a paint-splattered sweatshirt, have gone beyond fashion designers’ mood boards to become familiar style references on social media as this analogue era of abandon seems further and further away. A dupe of Hockney’s Coney Island sweatshirt can now be bought on Etsy for £40, and the current vogue for the rugby shirt can, at least in part, be traced back to Hockney.

Happily, Hockney lived and worked for many more decades, and his style evolved as he did, always keeping that flair for the unexpected. In his later years, he stuck to suits – often made by a tailor in Cannes, with the same ones worn for both painting and private views – set off with colourful knitwear. The Crocs at the Order of Merit luncheon performed the same visual function, if on the feet. King Charles, for one, was charmed. “Your yellow galoshes!” he remarked. “Beautifully chosen.”

From Amazon to Meta: how the world’s biggest companies are securing supplies of low-carbon energy | The Grid | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – The Grid
Trefwoorden – The Grid
Title – From Amazon to Meta: how the world’s biggest companies are securing supplies of low-carbon energy | The Grid | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rhymer-rigby
Link – From Amazon to Meta: how the world’s biggest companies are securing supplies of low-carbon energy | The Grid | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-03-17T15:01:56.000Z
Category – Labs
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/the-grid/2026/mar/17/how-big-tech-companies-are-securing-low-carbon-energy

The war in the Middle East this year has given us a stark reminder of how global events can have a huge impact on domestic energy prices. It follows earlier systemic shocks to global energy supplies, from the oil crises of the 1970s to the energy price spikes in 2021-2023 as the world came out of Covid lockdowns and then grappled with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While each of those dramatic disruptions had a well-documented impact on the consumer market, power-hungry businesses and energy suppliers felt the brunt. That’s why many organisations want to fix their energy costs to avoid price spikes, flatten out the peaks and troughs or volatility and give more certainty over the longer term.

How power purchase agreements work

One way of doing this is with power purchase agreements (PPAs). Being familiar with them can give you a fuller understanding of the clean energy grid – how clean energy markets work and how these agreements help companies reduce their carbon footprint.

Put simply, PPAs lock in a long-term price at which a business or supplier can buy energy. The prices may be somewhat higher than the wholesale price, but if the price climbs they can offer significant savings. In this sense, they are much like fixed mortgages. They work for both businesses and energy providers. Businesses like to be able to forecast their costs accurately and energy generators like to be able to forecast their income.

It isn’t just rising wholesale prices that make PPAs attractive. Renewable energy is another increasingly important driver. Renewables such as offshore windfarms have huge upfront investment costs and the debt incurred raising capital needs to be serviced. Knowing there is a reliable income stream that could last between five and 20 years (the typical duration of PPAs) makes investment decisions of this nature much easier.

Sustainability reporting

But PPAs are about much more than financial risk management. Businesses and energy suppliers who use PPAs are not just buying the energy, they are buying a guarantee of origin. Thus, the environmental attributes of the project in question can enable a business or energy supplier to state that it is powered by low or net zero energy. The companies still normally get their energy from the grid but they will have a certificate saying that the amount of energy they used was generated by renewables.

This can help companies deliver more robust sustainability reporting. Likewise, it can help assure customers who are trying to reduce their own carbon footprints.

There is another benefit when it comes to PPAs and clean energy. Nowadays, energy from renewables is generally cheaper to generate than energy from gas. However, wholesale electricity prices in Britain are determined by the most expensive source of energy generation available. This is known as a marginal pricing system and means the most expensive power source, which is most often gas, determines the price for all electricity . But if a company commits to buying large quantities of renewable energy over a long period a green energy generator may also be able to offer businesses (and energy suppliers) lower prices.

There are other facets to PPAs. Some will cover energy produced “privately”. This might, for instance, be from solar panels on a company’s site or nearby and will bypass the public grid altogether.

A booming market for PPAs

PPAs have become big business in recent years. According to BloombergNEF’s Corporate Energy Market Outlook report , in 2023, private companies and public institutions signed PPA contracts to secure 46 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy to power their operations – over 12% more than in 2022. The US market, which declined slightly last year, is the biggest, followed by Europe which is growing fast. Since 2008, companies have signed PPAs for almost 200 GW of clean energy . This is more than the generating capacity of countries such as France, the UK and South Korea.

Iberdrola, the world’s second-largest electricity utility company, which owns Scottish Power in the UK, has been using PPAs for more than a decade. It is the biggest player in Europe and in 2024 signed 15 PPAs totalling 1.25 GW, an increase of 38% over 2023. It has signed PPAs in the US, UK, Spain, Mexico and Australia and its corporate clients include Amazon, Apple, Meta and Heineken. Amazon is one of the biggest corporate buyers of clean energy in the world: in 2023, it bought 8.8 GW of PPAs ; Meta bought more than 3 GW.

Recently, in the UK, Iberdrola signed a PPA with Amazon associated with the East Anglia THREE offshore windfarm, as well as another with Co-op supermarkets, associated with a photovoltaic solar plant for about 170 MW.

For all of these companies, these deals are tools that help them decarbonise their operations. They also ensure that long-term plans can be made and that price shocks will not happen. Increasingly, they are part of a green future that makes both environmental and business sense.

Iran’s World Cup camp in Tijuana unfolds under armed guard and political shadow | Iran | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Iran, World Cup 2026, Football, World Cup, Sport, US-Israel war on Iran
Title – Iran’s World Cup camp in Tijuana unfolds under armed guard and political shadow | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alexander-abnos
Link – Iran’s World Cup camp in Tijuana unfolds under armed guard and political shadow | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-11T20:49:46.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/11/iran-world-cup-tijuana-security-camp-mexico

O pen-top trucks patrolled the surrounding roads outside the Estadio Caliente today, mounted by men in helmets and masks and wielding machine guns. They pass by the main entrance every few hours, guarding the massive city block, otherwise chocked with cars and smog, that the Iran national team has made its temporary, and largely improvised, home for this World Cup .

This has become business as usual here in northwest Mexico, at an arena that most teams in the domestic league hate to visit thanks to its distance from the country’s other footballing hubs and its brutal artificial turf playing surface.

The team was originally due to stay about 400 miles and one international border away, in Tucson, Arizona, at the sprawling Kino Sports Complex; a pro-level facility with numerous fields. Those plans were scrapped in a rush in the weeks after the US and Israel opened their attacks on Iran itself, killing the country’s head of state and several top leaders. The setting now, in the middle of bustling Tijuana, is downstream of that and countless other aggressions, threats and volleys of policy.

Staff working for Club Tijuana were only informed about the team’s move two weeks ago in a call with Fifa. Since then, they have been working 18-hour days to get the training field ready for one of Asia’s best teams – the complex only has one pitch with natural grass. That’s on top of the logistical concerns. Admission to the facility is strictly controlled. Credentials are checked, double-checked, then checked again. Though the team is staying at a hotel nearby, the political situation has demanded the utmost security. Hence the machine guns, the tight security, the lack of information about training times, filming locations, and who, if anyone, will speak about the latest extraordinary situation the team finds itself in.

Just about the only population who have welcomed the Iranians with open arms are Mexicans. Club Tijuana staffers, while clearly stressed at the sudden change of plans, have pulled out as many stops as they can to make the players feel at home – a large banner surrounding the field reads “Iranian cheetahs, welcome to Tijuana” in Farsi. Mexican fans have taken to gathering outside the team’s hotel, sending them off for the short journey to training sessions with cheers and requests for autographs.

“I’m ashamed of what the United States is doing,” one fan told Agence France-Presse.

“It’s wrong… [the United States] treat everyone like terrorists,” said another.

When they move to Los Angeles for the Fifa-mandated press conference on Sunday, they will do so without 15 members of the support staff, a federation official confirmed, including their entire media operations department. When asked who will run the press conference and manage any potential access to players in the aftermath of their World Cup opener against New Zealand, the official speculated that it might have to be the kit man.

Today, the federation is allowing only a brief glimpse of the team in the spotlight, moreso now than at any previous time they have gone to the World Cup under political pressure. No players will speak, because there is little in it for them if they do. At home, the regime itself and its supporters will pounce on any perceived slight in a moment where the nation is seeking unity. Among the diaspora, opponents of the regime will criticize the team for representing the oppression they have escaped. Somewhere in the middle, there are Iranian people who simply want to see the team do well, because they are football players playing in a football tournament, and football brings joy to a nation that is absolutely mad about the sport. The players are in a no-win situation; political and cultural quicksand where the only way to survive is to not move at all.

Yet the Iranian players are moving. Today is a light regeneration session, with the team recovering from yesterday’s 3-0 win over the Under-21 team of Club Tijuana, their hosts. It’s about as good a competition as the team can muster at this point, with their country a pariah on the international stage and thus seemingly radioactive for teams looking for a stern test against an experienced team that has qualified for its fourth straight World Cup. A planned friendly against Caribbean country Grenada was abruptly canceled, hence the need to play that U-21 team.

In 2022, Iran played in Qatar amid ongoing protests within the country over the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman arrested for improper hijab and who later died in custody. At the first of those three games in the middle east, Iranian fans used the occasion to shout the time’s rallying cry: Woman, Life Freedom. Over the course of the next two, the tenor of the crowd changed, reportedly policed from within by hundreds of IRGC operatives sent from across the water.

The denial of visas to many Iranian officials makes a similar scene unlikely this time around. Yet this is a team that does not have the support of all Iranian people, and especially not the diaspora that in the US has its center in the Los Angeles area, where the team will play two of their three group games. There are divisions within divisions that are almost inherent to this fandom, though Fifa will pretend there are none, and that this team’s appearance in the world’s showpiece event is purely about the football.

Good luck.

A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat? The vessel chomping plastic waste out of the sea | Waste | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Waste, Rivers, Oceans, Los Angeles, Pollution, Plastics, US news, Environment, World news
Title – A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat? The vessel chomping plastic waste out of the sea | Waste | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/katharine-gammon
Link – A solar-powered rubbish-eating boat? The vessel chomping plastic waste out of the sea | Waste | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T11:00:44.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/12/solar-powered-rubbish-eating-boat-plastic-waste-sea

O n an overcast June morning, I step from the rubber-sided Zodiac boat on to a floating barge at the mouth of Ballona Creek, where it meets Santa Monica Bay on the west side of Los Angeles . The first thing I notice? Salty air is the only smell, despite six giant waste bins sitting atop the tennis court-sized barge.

The contraption is actually two barges – a smaller platform sits nestled inside the larger boat. A floating barrier directs rubbish into the device, where a conveyor belt scoops it up. An automated shuttle then distributes the waste into six dumpsters on a separate barge, sending an alert to crews when it is full. Above, solar panels form the ceiling and a conveyor belt runs slowly, dropping bits of plastic and waste into each of the bins. The whole thing can hold about 20,000lbs (9,070kg) of rubbish – the same as one fully loaded lorry.

Since it is the dry season in LA there is not much waste being washed down the river by rainfall. But I still see what the problems are: polystyrene takeaway containers, noodle cups, bottle caps, a yellow pencil, a palm frond dotted with colourful pieces of microplastics. They are all caught up in the boat’s conveyor belt. It’s a pretty representative sample, says James Patterson, the operations manager with the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup , which created the system. “You get a wide variety of basic plastics – a lot of bottles, cups, to-go containers, things from restaurants. That’s typically what we see out here,” he says.

When the waste is pulled out, it is sorted and sent to refuse facilities. “We want to make sure that from start to finish, we’re pulling the trash out in a responsible way, and it’s getting sorted or stored in a responsible manner,” Patterson says. “We don’t want a circular battery of trash here.”

This particular barge is a model for others being deployed around the world. Ocean Cleanup operates in 10 places, with 21 Interceptor systems – in countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. It aims to clean up the 30 most-polluted cities by 2030.

The big idea? Stop waste from ever reaching the ocean. “Instead of specific rivers, the goal is to clean up an entire area, because that’s how you get an actual genuine impact on society and on the environment,” Patterson says.

In this creek, the end of a 130 sq mile urban drainage network in LA County, the boat stopped 143,710lbs of rubbish from entering the ocean in 2025. Ocean Cleanup will launch two more boats in the LA area – in the San Gabriel River and the Los Angeles River. It is already having an impact on the coastal communities, Patterson says. Beach cities south of the project have lowered their budgets for beach grooming: there is simply less waste on the sand, so they don’t need to be cleaned as often.

Ocean Cleanup’s founder, the Dutch inventor and entrepreneur Boyan Slat, was originally inspired to use technology to battle the Giant Pacific Garbage Patch , and created the skimming technologies that can scoop a soupy crud of waste off the surface of water. But in researching solutions, the nonprofit pivoted to rivers – the arteries that carry rubbish into the world’s oceans.

Rivers are key. Research by Ocean Cleanup has shown that just 1,000 of the world’s rivers are responsible for nearly 80% of plastic emissions into the ocean, and 90% of all pollution in the ocean comes from rivers. “We have to turn the faucet off before we can scoop the ocean, or else all we’re doing is taking out legacy trash to replace it with new trash,” Patterson says. “Before you can clean out the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, you really need to turn off the source.”

Work on designing the autonomous boat started in 2017, and this pilot project in LA began in 2022. It cost about $1.3m to design and permit, and another $1.5m to secure the boat and booms in place. Maintenance each year costs $650,000 – and the Interceptor is being provided to LA County free from Ocean Cleanup.

It’s not a perfect system. As we stand on the barge, I point to a red plastic cup floating outside the barrier on the surface. Patterson winces. “When something like that escapes, it hurts,” he says. But that cup is an outlier. The most difficult kind of trash, the public works employees agree, is large logs.

Each river requires its own special system. “There’s no one size fits all,” Patterson says. “Every river is different in how they act, where you can deploy, what the local government and permitting timelines look like, and just the conditions of nature.”

Patterson adds the boats rarely have issues with wildlife – except for birds. Seagulls like to sit and defecate on the barge, which can corrode the metal.

As we step off the Interceptor back to the Zodiac that will return us to shore, I look back at the metal container and comment how straightforward it all seems: gather the floating debris, hold it for later disposal. From the outside it looks complicated. “It may seem simple,” Patterson says, “but, truly, a master of engineering goes on inside of these.”

Phil Mickelson reportedly ousted from golf club after alleged ‘inappropriate contact’ with woman | Phil Mickelson | The Guardian

13 June 2026Uncategorised

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Phil Mickelson, Golf, Sport, US sports, LIV Golf Series
Title – Phil Mickelson reportedly ousted from golf club after alleged ‘inappropriate contact’ with woman | Phil Mickelson | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/ewanmurray
Link – Phil Mickelson reportedly ousted from golf club after alleged ‘inappropriate contact’ with woman | Phil Mickelson | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T01:50:31.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/11/phil-mickelson-membership-cancelled-the-farms-alleged-misconduct

Phil Mickelson has reportedly had his membership cancelled at a San Diego golf club following alleged “inappropriate contact” with a female employee.

Golf Digest first reported that Mickelson has had his membership terminated at The Farms following an alleged incident before he played there in the spring. The report, citing multiple sources, said the employee accused the 55-year-old of “nonconsensual and inappropriate physical contact” towards her before a game of golf. Mickelson is said to have been challenged on the incident mid-round and duly left the property.

“Any misunderstanding has been cleared up,” said a spokesperson for Mickelson. “Phil continues to attend to a family health matter and is uncertain when he will be able to return to professional golf.”

Mickelson has been absent during most of this season on the LIV tour due to family issues. He also skipped the Masters in April and the following month’s US PGA Championship. Ongoing doubt regarding the longevity of LIV, which will soon lose its Saudi Arabian funding , makes Mickelson’s future in his sport unclear. The six-time major winner is regarded as one of the finest players in golfing history.

The Farms provided a statement to Golf Digest which read: “The Farms Golf Club is committed to maintaining a golf club environment that is safe, respectful and reflects the highest standards of conduct. All members are required to adhere to our code of conduct, and any allegations of misconduct are taken seriously.

“Following a staff member report of member misconduct, the club provided immediate and ongoing support to the staff member, conducted a thorough independent investigation of the incident and took decisive action. This individual is no longer a member of The Farms Golf Club.”

Attorney Tom Clare provided Golf Digest the following statement: “There is a great deal of misinformation circulating and, while Phil’s full attention is devoted to a private family health matter, he has retained defamation counsel and is determined to hold accountable any publication or individual trafficking in speculation or false rumors.”