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Exclusive: Of more than 1,000 medicinal cannabis products available, only two have been evaluated by the drug regulatorFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDoctors are commonly prescribing high-dose medicinal cannabis containing up to four times the concentration of THC tested in clinical trials, a review has found.Researchers from Monash University evaluated the available evidence for the efficacy and safety of higher THC potency medicinal cannabis products, in line with those being prescribed in Australia. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient of cannabis. Continue reading...

• Romania is preparing to shut down a nuclear reactor due to the Danube river reaching its lowest water levels in 30 years. • In separate international developments, Haiti's electoral council has scheduled its first presidential election in nearly a decade for December 13, with a runoff on February 21. • These events highlight critical infrastructure vulnerabilities caused by climate extremes and a pivotal attempt to restore democratic governance in Haiti following years of gang violence.

• The Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) has surged, surpassing both previous levels and market forecasts. • This growth indicates significant strength and resilience within the service sector of the economy. • The surge is critical as it provides a key indicator of overall economic momentum and may influence upcoming monetary policy decisions.

ABS data show one in 10 people are not satisfied with life – but community cohesion and trust lift happiness scoresGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastNearly 2.2 million Australians 15 years and older are living below the wellbeing poverty line, with the share of people reporting very low life satisfaction doubling over the past decade.In 2025, 9.7%, or about one in 10 Australians, rated their general satisfaction with life at four or below out of 10, according to Guardian Australia’s analysis of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’s (ABS) general social survey. Continue reading...

Health Foundation paper argues health is an economic asset and improving it could generate £72bn for public financesRestoring the deteriorating health of the UK’s population to the level of 2014 would boost GDP by 2% and generate a £72bn dividend for the public finances, research suggests.A paper by the Health Foundation thinktank, published on Sunday, argues the nation’s health should be valued by policymakers as an economic asset. Continue reading...

Guardian analysis finds 19% of games reached heat levels warranting delays, as Fifa defends its player safeguardsThe climate crisis has come for football.During this year’s World Cup, nearly one in five of the tournament’s 100-plus matches took place in levels of heat and humidity that a football players’ union has previously said should trigger delays or postponements, a Guardian analysis has found. An additional 23 matches were played in cities as they reached those heat levels, but in stadiums where conditions were mitigated by air conditioning. Continue reading...

• Market experts are analyzing whether the Nifty will cross the 24,300 mark on Monday, July 13, amid supportive domestic fundamentals. • Immediate resistance is identified in the 24,400-24,600 zone, with a potential breakout potentially leading the index toward the 25,000 level. • While market breadth is improving, Ravi Singh of Master Capital warns that volatility may persist due to crude oil fluctuations and the resurfacing crisis in West Asia.

As Trump’s immigration crackdown continues, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s death marks another high-profile killing by ICE officersEarly on Tuesday morning, 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo took his coffee and a meal his wife had prepared for him, said goodbye to his dog, and left the house he built. He drove his white van, picked up three co-workers, and headed towards a construction site to work on some houses.But Salgado never made it to work. During a “targeted enforcement operation”, officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shot and killed Salgado and arrested the three other men. Continue reading...

Experts warn that some marine species are at risk of ‘mass mortality events’ in ever-warming oceansUK waters are being hit with an “extreme” marine heatwave, the Met Office has said, as scientists warn the high ocean temperatures globally could result in “mass-mortality events” for some species.The forecasters said these elevated temperatures have developed rapidly because of last month’s heat dome, during which most of Europe sweltered in its worst ever heatwave that scientists said would have been impossible without the climate crisis. Continue reading...

Experts say the critical reservoir system is careening toward a breaking point as the US west’s climate warms and driesLake Powell, US’s second-largest reservoir, threatens to plunge to unprecedentedly low levels this year after a historically bleak snowpack failed to raise its water level, scientists and water experts have said, adding renewed urgency to stalled talks over how to conserve a water source depended on by tens of millions of people in the US south-west.The 185-mile Colorado River reservoir currently stands at about 23% of its capacity, or roughly 5.6m acre-feet. Lake Powell fell below that level for a few months three years ago. But those 2023 levels were recorded in the winter, when the reservoir straddling the Utah-Arizona border hits its lowest ebb. Spring runoff carried the level back up to 9.6m acre-feet by June, according to data from the US Bureau of Reclamation. Continue reading...

• Wall Street closed at record levels with all three major US indexes ending higher: the Nasdaq Composite rose 1.12%, the S&P 500 jumped 0.72%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.29%. • Oil prices stabilized, returning to levels seen before the conflict in Iran, while global stocks rose 0.41% according to MSCI's gauge. • The ongoing AI boom continues to drive market momentum, highlighted by South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix launching a 43 trillion won ($28.07 billion) US share sale.

• The Nifty 50 index concluded the trading week with overall gains, maintaining a steady broader market sentiment. • Technical analysts have identified critical levels for the upcoming session on July 6, with support at 24,200 and resistance at 24,400. • The index is expected to enter a temporary consolidation phase as it tests these key psychological barriers to determine its next directional move.

• A study published in Nature Health on June 15, 2026, reveals that new antidepressant prescriptions in England have fallen below pre-pandemic levels. • The research analyzed primary care dispensing data spanning from 2019 to 2024 to track prescribing trends across the country. • This shift is significant as it provides a comprehensive look at how mental health treatment patterns have evolved following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Success of statins and blood-pressure drugs hailed as researchers find some people with obesity were ‘better off’Many adults who are obese have “indistinguishable” cholesterol and blood pressure levels compared with those with a healthy weight, largely because of the use of statins, according to a study.In some cases, people with obesity were “better off” than those of a healthy weight, researchers added. Continue reading...

KPMG analysis rebuts claims older generations had it harder when it came to buying and paying off a homeGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s national mortgage burden is heavier now than it was when lending rates reached 17% at the end of the 1980s, new analysis reveals.Terry Rawnsley, an urban economist at KPMG, said his research was in part a “myth-busting” exercise aimed at rebutting oft-repeated claims that previous generations had it harder when it came to buying and paying off a home. Continue reading...

Ministers accused of being more hesitant to respond as Reform has risen in polls, due to fear of ‘saying wrong thing’During the May local elections in England, a canvasser was out in the London borough of Barking and Dagenham campaigning for her party. At one doorstep, the occupant asked if she was Muslim. When she said yes, he told her she should be hanged.It is one of dozens of stories that Akeela Ahmed, head of the British Muslim Trust (BMT), the government’s official partner for monitoring anti-Muslim hatred, has heard in recent weeks. Continue reading...

Fears hard-won gains in reducing child mortality over 20 years are at risk after end of USAID funding for nutrition programmesChild malnutrition in Nepal has reached “alarming” levels, according to the largest ever survey of under-fives in the country.The new figures came just over a year after USAID, the former US flagship agency closed by the Trump administration in 2025, stopped funding work on child nutrition in Nepal. Continue reading...

• On June 25, 2026, the Sensex climbed over 400 points and the Nifty crossed 24,100, driven by a lower India VIX and easing geopolitical tensions involving Iran. • Crude oil prices are sliding toward pre-war levels, boosting sentiment for energy-importing economies and contributing to the Indian market's upward trend. • Global markets showed mixed results, with Japan's Nikkei 225 surging 3.87% to 71,854.88, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.72% and Indonesia's JSX Composite dropped 3.56%.

Fears of long-lasting energy crunch ‘slinking away’ as vessel traffic doubled in 24 hours to highest level since late FebruaryBusiness live – latest updatesOil prices have fallen below levels seen before the Iran war started in late February as more oil tankers exited the strait of Hormuz.Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell to a low of $72.24 a barrel on Thursday, slightly lower than the day before the US and Israel launched missile attacks on Tehran on 28 February. Prices have fallen more than 20% this month. Continue reading...

• The NSE Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex rallied on Wednesday, with the Nifty closing at 24,021.65 (up 0.83%) and the Sensex ending at 76,991.22 (up 1.04%). • This surge allowed the benchmarks to recoup most of the losses from Tuesday, when both indices had fallen by 1.16%. • The recovery was driven by Brent crude prices dropping below pre-US-Iran war levels, which significantly eased investor concerns regarding oil-linked economic risks.

San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems in ‘critically loaded state’, increasing chance of ‘big one’ quake in futureSouthern California’s San Andreas and San Jacinto fault systems are at their highest levels of tectonic stress in 1,000 years in what scientists describe as a “critically loaded state”, according to a study published earlier this month.“Our results show that stress levels on multiple fault segments are now at or above the highest values seen in the past millennium and that the region may be capable of a large through-going rupture involving both fault systems,” Liliane Burkhard, the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, said in a statement. Continue reading...

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday that malnutrition has worsened across much of Afghanistan, with conditions deteriorating in 26 provinces. • The situation has reached critical levels in 12 provinces, highlighting a severe decline in nutritional stability compared to 2025. • This escalation underscores Afghanistan's ongoing status as one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, threatening the health and survival of vulnerable populations.

• A new report from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program reveals that global conflict levels have reached their highest point since World War II. • The data highlights a surge in one-sided violence in Africa, specifically citing massacres in El Fasher as a primary driver. • This escalation marks the most severe level of one-sided violence seen on the continent since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Experts say results from trial of new triple hormone drug for type 2 diabetes are striking but further tests neededA new triple-action weekly jab for type 2 diabetes could significantly reduce blood sugar and body weight, according to phase 3 trial results. Patients in the trial receiving weekly retatrutide injections for 40 weeks lost more than four times as much weight as those on placebo, while the average drop in long-term blood sugar (HbA1c) was more than twice that of the placebo.The triple hormone drug mimics three gut hormones that help control your appetite, blood sugar and metabolism: GLP-1, GIP and glucagon. Unlike other diabetes medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy, which primarily target the GLP-1 pathway to suppress appetite, or Mounjaro, which contains GLP-1 plus GIP to control blood-sugar levels, retatrutide also engages the glucagon receptor, which helps increase energy expenditure. Continue reading...

When pupils could no longer play outside, St John’s school in Barnet decided to act, enlisting Trees for Cities to help rethink its outside spaceThe play area at St John’s Church of England primary in Barnet, north London, used to flood so severely it was often unusable. “It would get so bad that the children couldn’t be dismissed from the playground,” says Maccie Dobbie, the school’s head teacher. “We had to dismiss them from different parts of the school or, literally, parents were stepping into puddles to lift their children out of the classroom.”Because the school sits in a basin with clay foundations, rain would pool on the grey tarmac and just sit there, often denying the children a proper break for play outside. Continue reading...

Study of Channel finds levels of toxic Pfas in Solent at 13 times safe limits in some places, with much coming from treated sewageScientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study.In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity. Continue reading...

Research on weight limits of elevators made in UK and Europe 1972-2004 raises concerns over safety and equityLifts are no longer big enough to fit the UK’s larger citizens, according to researchers.A study of maximum capacity in elevators in the UK and mainland Europe found lifts have not kept up with increasing obesity levels, raising concerns about safety and equity. Continue reading...

Promises to cut emissions and use more fuel-efficient planes fail to stop rise, with Ryanair’s carbon footprint 50% up on 2019Emissions from flying in Europe have now passed pre-pandemic levels, with Ryanair’s carbon footprint 50% higher than in 2019, research has shown.Total aviation emissions continue to increase despite industry pledges to decarbonise and the introduction of more fuel-efficient planes, driven by the massive expansion of low-cost carriers. Continue reading...