UK’s clean electricity growing too slowly to meet climate targets, report says

Britain is expected to fall short of the progress needed to meet its climate targets over the next decade because it is not growing its supply of clean electricity quickly enough, according to the government’s energy system operator.The latest 10-year forecast of Britain’s carbon emissions by the government-owned body has revealed that by 2035 the UK will be producing almost a third more carbon emissions than in scenarios where it is on track to meet its legally binding climate targets by 2050.It is the second official warning in the last month that the government’s climate targets are at risk of being derailed, after the Committee on Climate Change reported that two-fifths of the emissions reductions needed to meet the UK’s interim climate target by the end of the decade still have significant risks or insufficient plans to deliver them.The latest forecast report, published by the National Energy System Operator (Neso), represents the operator’s current view of the next 10 years based on the UK’s existing project pipelines and policies to highlight “the difference between where we are heading compared [with] where we need to get to”.It suggests that the UK will produce 274m tonnes of carbon (MtCO2) by 2035, well above the 185–204MtCO2 range shown in the same year for the Neso scenarios in which the UK meets the government’s net zero target by 2050

Post Office could hand ownership to staff amid review after Horizon scandal

Ministers are to consider handing over ownership of the Post Office to its operators after the Horizon IT scandal.The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has published a green paper, starting the first big review of the scandal-plagued organisation in 15 years. The review, which will run until 6 October, follows the publication last week of the first part of the findings from a two-year public inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal.Ministers said part of the review would include looking at the ownership model of the Post Office, which is ultimately controlled by the government, including the possibility of mutualisation or a BBC-style charter model.Ministers have previously met representatives of post office operators to discuss the possibility of handing ownership to the network branch managers who run its 11,665 outlets

Elmo’s X account posts racist and antisemitic messages after being hacked

Hackers gained access to the X account of the puppet Elmo over the weekend and used it to post racist and antisemitic threats as well as make profane references to Jeffrey Epstein. Sesame Workshop was still trying to regain full control on Monday over the red character’s account.“Elmo’s X account was compromised by an unknown hacker who posted disgusting messages, including antisemitic and racist posts. We are working to restore full control of the account,” a Sesame Workshop spokesperson said on Monday. Sesame Workshop is the non-profit behind Sesame Street and Elmo

Musk’s giant Tesla factory casts shadow on lives in a quiet corner of Germany

Politics of carmaker’s owner has soured sentiments in Grünheide, south-east of Berlin, where the factory promised jobs and revitalisationWhen Elon Musk advised Germans to vote for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in elections last year, Manu Hoyer – who lives in the small town where the billionaire had built Tesla’s European production hub – wrote to the state premier to complain.“How can you do business with someone who supports rightwing extremism?” she asked Dietmar Woidke, the Social Democrat leader of the eastern state of Brandenburg, who had backed the setting up of the Tesla Giga factory in Grünheide.Hoyer said that in Woidke’s “disappointing, but predictable” answer, he denied the charge. “He said he didn’t know him personally. As if that excused him

Ben Stokes left drained after pushing through ‘dark places’ in England win

Ben Stokes said he expended every last ounce of his energy in pursuit of victory after England brought an end to a day of slow-building drama and mounting tension by beating India by the wafer-thin margin of 22 runs in the third Test to go two-one up in the series. “I thought I had taken myself to some pretty dark places before,” he said, “but today …”A game in which both sets of players sometimes allowed their emotions to boil over – behaviour that Stokes said he was “all for” – ended when Shoaib Bashir, playing through the pain of a broken finger that will rule him out for the final two Tests, dismissed Mohammed Siraj.“Obviously it was a great game, a close game,” said Stokes, who hauled himself through mammoth spells of 9.2 and 10 overs across the final day. “You’d think I should be saying it was [one of my best-ever wins], but it’s just quite hard to get my head around it at the moment

Stokes is a destiny man who loomed over Lord’s like the angel of the north | Barney Ronay

The England captain can realistically set his sights on winning the series against India, then the Ashes“I’m not tired. I’m not tired. I’m not tired.” Really, Ben? Really? Well, you’re pretty much on your own in that case old boy, after a day where simply watching Ben Stokes being Ben Stokes felt like a full contact sport, psychodrama, soap opera, and in its stickiest moments like a man engaged in an act of public self‑medication by Test cricket.This fifth day at Lord’s was entirely dominated by Stokes, who loomed over it like the angel of the north, arms outspread, another note in his own extraordinary sporting life