Guardian UK

2022 - 9 - 9

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Looking at the state of Britain from the US, for once I feel very glad to ... (The Guardian)

It was an unfamiliar feeling of relief: whatever may be wrong with America, at least no one is looking to Liz Truss to solve it, says Guardian columnist ...

The Washington Post [sought cheerfully](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/06/liz-truss-boris-johnson-queen/) to present her as a corrective to Johnson, a happy transition from “a prime minister known for colorful metaphors and a loose relationship with the truth” to “one who offered unadorned bullet points for dealing with the country’s looming economic crisis”. If US coverage of Truss had a through-the-looking-glass feel, figures attesting to the scale of the national crisis in Britain snapped things back to reality. [described as](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/world/europe/liz-truss-uk-prime-minister.html?searchResultPosition=7) “a party stalwart, hawkish diplomat and free-market champion” with a “practical, unfussy style [that] could appeal to Britons after the circuslike atmosphere of the Johnson years”. From her record, clearly, she has the gravitas and integrity of a Weeble. In the US, where Britain’s influence dwindles hourly, seeing Truss’s appointment splashed on the homepage of the New York Times triggered a brief ping of excitement: oh, look! One after the other, American media organisations summarised Truss’s task as one of reckoning with “ Whatever may be wrong with the US, at least no one is looking to [Liz Truss](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/06/liz-truss-says-uk-will-ride-out-the-storm-of-cost-of-living-crisis) to solve it. Over on NPR, [analysts asked](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/14/1111595703/what-broke-britains-economy): “what broke Britain’s economy?” [overruled Roe v Wade](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/24/roe-v-wade-overturned-abortion-summary-supreme-court), or in the wake of yet another school shooting, the choice to live in this country when there are better alternatives seems at best eccentric, at worst actively mad. Cometh the hour, cometh the woman; Britons could only laugh hysterically on Monday and rock back and forth. That someone of Truss’s abilities should be in charge at this dire moment of British history makes her seem, in defiance of political physics, even worse in some ways than her predecessor. It is a common refrain among foreigners living in the US, one that comes round like clockwork whenever something bad happens: what are we doing here?

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Intelligent toaster and a 'nappy fullness sensor' among UK ... (The Guardian)

Other inventions include a humane insect remover, a gas-flushing toilet and a collar that stops dogs fighting.

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Ospreys make triumphant return as breeding pairs spread across UK (The Guardian)

In England, it was thought that natural recolonisation would take 100 years, so nature was given a helping hand. Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust made ...

One of the chicks has already migrated and the second is expected to migrate soon. [Wildlife](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/wildlife) Trust, and the Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation. “There’s a need for simple, local action to limit human-made threats, such as electrocutions [on pylons], but also international collaboration to address overfishing and the illegal persecution of migratory birds. In the US, numbers have steadily increased since the 1970s, largely due to the widespread ban of DDT and other pesticides. “Easterly winds in autumn can be problematic for young birds from the UK because they may be blown out into the Bay of Biscay and lost at sea. Mackrill runs the Osprey Leadership Foundation, which works on conservation issues with young people in the UK, Senegal and the Gambia. On Bolton Castle estate, near Leyburn, North Yorkshire, a young adult osprey pair recently produced two chicks – the first known ospreys to breed in the county since records began in 1800. There are now about 26 adults in the Rutland area, with up to 10 breeding pairs. After a slow start, several pairs bred successfully in other parts of Scotland, with the population there rising to about 250 pairs by 2018. The first breeding pair successfully raised a single chick at Rutland in 2001. The birds were shot by gamekeepers, who considered them a threat to trout and salmon stocks; they were hunted for sport and taxidermy; and their eggs were sought by collectors. The birds bred successfully in 1959, thanks to Operation Osprey, a 24-hour RSPB protection watch.

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