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Charity shops won’t take them. Councils incinerate them. Retailers dump them on the global south. We’re running out of ideas on how to deal with our used clothes – and the rag mountain just keeps growingIn February, a threadbare polycotton bedsheet landed on the desk of Simon Roberts, CEO of Sainsbury’s. A “protest by post”, it had been sent by the Sheffield-based designer, maker and eco activist Wendy Ward. “I purchased this from Sainsbury’s at least 10 years ago,” she wrote in the accompanying letter. “It has served me well. However, I have no sustainable options available for what I should do with it.” Beyond repair, it was too damaged to donate to a charity shop, she explained. She couldn’t compost it as it had been blended with polyester, and she couldn’t repurpose it as cleaning cloths, as, being polycotton, it wasn’t absorbent. And, she added, “I don’t want to put it into a textile recycling collection as the likelihood is that it will be shipped overseas or incinerated and not recycled.” Ward qualified her assertions with links to respected sources – as a sustainable fashion PhD student, she is well informed on such matters.“The only action I can personally take,” she continued, “is to put it into my general waste bin. I don’t want to do this, as in Sheffield all general waste is incinerated as ‘energy recovery’. This isn’t a sustainable option as such processes have been shown to be as damaging to local air pollution as burning coal.” So, she concluded, “as Sainsbury’s is responsible for designing and manufacturing this product, making decisions to use polycotton with no consideration for what could be done once it reaches the end of its life, I have decided to return it to you. I would really love to hear what you decide to do with it.” Continue reading…

In his first 100 days, the president has taken a sledgehammer to institutions and the constitution. We can only guess what’s nextIn nearly 100 days on the job, Donald Trump has outlasted Liz Truss and a fabled head of lettuce. That’s a fact, not an achievement. Like the hapless British prime minister, the 47th president blazes a trail of wreckage. Chaos is his calling card. If, when and how the carnage ends is anyone’s guess.The US simultaneously wages economic war on its allies and China. Tariffs soar. It’s as if Trump forgot the words “Smoot-Hawley” and “Great Depression”. The president risks higher inflation and a recession for an idealized yesteryear that never quite was. Back on Earth, markets signal potential capital flight and stagflation.Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 Continue reading…

The Guardian, working with media partners, has tracked down first-hand accounts to reconstruct Viktoriia Roshchyna’s final monthsThe exchange took place on a lonely forest road in February. Moving along a line of refrigerated lorries, the teams in hazmat suits went about their grim work: preparing the remains of 757 Ukrainian military casualties handed over by Russia for the journey back to Kyiv.Clipboards in hand, intermediaries from the Red Cross checked their lists. For each body shrouded in white plastic, the Russians had provided a number, a name, a location, sometimes a cause of death. And then, at the very bottom of the last page, a mystery entry: “NM SPAS 757.” The letters were abbreviations, taken to mean “unidentified man” and “extensive damage to the coronary arteries”. Continue reading…

We spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. It’s time to change thatI have held public meetings all over Vermont and in many parts of the country. At these gatherings I almost always ask a very simple question: is our healthcare system broken? And the answer I always receive is: Yes! The American healthcare system is broken. It is outrageously expensive. It is horrifically cruel.Today, we spend almost twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other country on Earth. According to the most recent data, the United States spends $14,570 per person on healthcare compared with just $5,640 in Japan, $6,023 in the United Kingdom, $6,931 in Australia, $7,013 in Canada and $7,136 in France. And yet, despite our huge expenditures, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right.Bernie Sanders is a US senator and a ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress. Continue reading…

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is traveling to the Philippines on Tuesday seeking to further boost an alliance in the face of China’s growing assertiveness in the region.…

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — U.S. Rep. Angie Craig on Tuesday became the latest Minnesota Democrat to enter the increasingly competitive race for a U.S. Senate seat currently held by the retiring Sen. Tina Smith.

Our cartoonist on the Dutch manager failing to get the credit he deserves off critics close to homeBuy a copy of a cartoon in our Print ShopDavid’s new book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now Continue reading…

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher looks at what’s different this time around US President Trump’s return to office.

US Vice President said negotiations between Washington and both Kyiv and Moscow are underway, though he declined to give details while underlining for a swift end.