Spain’s floods force some UK sellers to buy oranges from southern hemisphere

Some British retailers and wholesalers have been forced to switch to sourcing oranges from South Africa and South America early after last month’s catastrophic floods in eastern Spain left farmers struggling to harvest and ship their crops.Companies in the UK have moved to buying fruit from the southern hemisphere several weeks earlier than in a typical year to prevent gaps emerging on supermarket shelves and amid fears over the quality of Spanish produce.Persimmons, also known as sharon or kaki fruit, have been affected even worse than oranges by the flooding as they are more delicate than citrus, analysts and industry insiders said.The Valencian branch of Asaja, Spain’s biggest farming association, has estimated that the floods have resulted in losses of more than €1bn for the region’s agricultural sector.“The damage is catastrophic in terms of output, cultivated fields, agrarian infrastructure, agricultural machinery and vehicles, livestock farms and nurseries – and in terms of the lands lost as entire fields have disappeared,” it said

Electric shock: carmakers battle strict UK electric car rules as big fines loom

When Ford announced this week that it was cutting 800 jobs in the UK, the US carmaker also had stern words for the government. It has joined in a chorus of criticism of rules that force car companies to sell more electric vehicles each year. The rules, known as the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate, are simply “unworkable”, Ford said.Someone should have told Ford back in 2022, when the carmaker strongly backed the policy. In fact, it went further, calling for the British government to force carmakers to sell even more electric cars each year

Jeff Jarvis: ‘Elon Musk’s investment in Twitter seemed insane, but it gave him this power’

Jeff Jarvis was born in 1954 and studied journalism at Illinois’s Northwestern University. He worked as a TV critic and created the magazine Entertainment Weekly, later leading the online arm of US media company Advance Publications. Since 2001, he has been blogging at Buzzmachine.com and in 2005 he became an associate professor at City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism, directing its new media programme before retiring last year. Jarvis, who lives in New York, is the co-host of the podcasts This Week in Google and AI Inside

Wire cutters: how the world’s vital undersea data cables are being targeted

The lead-clad telegraphic cable seemed to weigh tons, according to Lt Cameron Winslow of the US navy, and the weather wasn’t helping their attempts to lift it up from the seabed and sever it. “The rough water knocked the heavy boats together, breaking and almost crushing in their planking,” he wrote.Eventually, Winslow’s men managed to cut the cable with hacksaws and disrupt the enemy’s communications by slicing off a 46-metre (150ft) section.This was in 1898 off the cost of Cuba during the Spanish-American war. More than a century later, subsea communications cables remain a target during times of geopolitical tension

Stokes and McCullum need strong start to year that could define Bazball

The way the cricket calendar is carved up sounds a bit absurd; a kind of speed-dating event for the chief executives and chairs of the full-member nations that is hosted every four years by the International Cricket Council. Not that the ICC – more events company than governing body – gets involved. Its officials apparently have to leave the room before the bigwigs start schmoozing at the tables and operations types plumb the fixtures into their spreadsheets.The men’s future tours programme emerged from one of these opaque lock-ins in 2022 and even at the time England’s winter of 2024-25 stuck out as slightly unimaginative. Test tours of Pakistan and New Zealand were scheduled for the second winter in two years, the latter for the third time in five

RFU accused of betraying game over Premiership promotion criteria

Top officials at the Rugby Football Union have been accused of betraying and misleading the game by the former England international who has been helping to negotiate the sport’s future below the Premiership. Simon Halliday, part of England’s 1992 Five Nations grand slam-winning side, has also called for a review into the “significant” failings of some RFU executive directors.Halliday, who was chair of European Professional Club Rugby for seven years until 2021, has latterly been representing Championship clubs seeking greater funding and firm guarantees from the RFU over promotion and relegation. In an excoriating letter sent to the RFU’s chair, Tom Ilube, seen by the Observer, he alleges the existing tier 2 clubs “have been stalled, misled and misinformed” and warns recent poor governance “threatens the game” in England.In particular, Halliday alleges RFU executives have reneged on assurances given at a council meeting in mid-June to talk further about softening the Premiership minimum standards criteria to make it more feasible for sides to be promoted to the top tier