Keeping global temperatures within safe limits is incompatible with new fossil fuel extraction, as stated by the International Energy Agency. This should be reason enough to oppose any new North Sea extraction of fossil fuels.

The UK oil and gas industry is already in terminal decline, producing just a fifth of the oil and gas it did at the turn of the millennium. New drilling would not arrest this trend.

The current debate about the need for North Sea drilling risks distraction from a more important question. How can the UK build a low-carbon economy now and in the future?

So far, the creation of well-paid, secure green jobs has not been substantial enough to significantly improve the lives of people across the UK.

Meanwhile, carbon-intensive industries have declined, leading to concentrations of job losses in places such as Aberdeen, where the North Sea industry is based, and Grangemouth in Scotland, where a major oil refinery closed in 2025, resulting in the loss of 400 jobs.

The challenge posed by job losses is compounded by the fact that building successful green industries in a globalised world is difficult. In Campbeltown on the west coast of Scotland, the planned creation of new wind power manufacturing site failed to come to fruition due to logistical issues and competition from abroad. There are some success stories, such as in the Humber region, where
wind power manufacturing and assembly has generated 1,000 local jobs. But opportunities have not been distributed evenly across the UK.

When communities are faced with a choice between clean energy jobs that they fear may not materialise and the promise of new, even short-term employment in fossil-fuel industries, local people often favour the latter. This isn’t because they don’t care about climate change – most do, but many understandably choose to prioritise short-term economic security.

As one of us (Pancho Lewis) has shown, this occurred in coastal Cumbria. When a plan to open a new coal mine was proposed by a fossil fuel company, it received support by most residents. Environmental campaigners argued that green jobs should be delivered instead, but these were largely hypothetical proposals and failed to rally large numbers in support.

A just and green transition

In the UK, appeals by activists for a just transition towards renewables have been framed around avoiding a repeat of the mass unemployment and long-term social and economic devastation visited on the coalfields in the 1980s and 1990s. But we are now overseeing an unjust transition threatening workers and communities dependent on oil and gas, manufacturing and other sectors.

So, what might be done instead? There are two steps the government must take.

First, by assuming the role of a coordinating body, the UK government can direct, rather than nudge or incentivise, private business. This means prioritising a longer-term vision of investment in strategic industries, rather than being overly dominated by short-term questions about financial return.

Questions of ownership are crucial. The current ownership model of renewables resembles the old carbon economy following the privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s. Renewables are dominated by foreign multinationals, including state-owned companies from abroad. The government should be exploring how the UK could own its own green technology companies, so that citizens benefit when profits are made.

The second step is to recognise that, even while we must maximise opportunities where they exist, we won’t be able to catch up in becoming the leader of all green technologies. Other countries, notably China, are too far ahead. Automation also means that manufacturing progressively depends less on labour power to function. So even countries who are leaders in manufacturing cannot always rely on these industries to provide ever-expanding employment opportunities for their citizens.

The government needs to support citizens to access lives of dignity and economic security, regardless of employment status or sector of work. Andy Burnham’s discussion of the need for more council housing is welcome, given the exorbitant costs that people pay just to have a roof over their head.

This, married with measures to support people in service sectors – the area of the UK labour market where most jobs are overwhelmingly found and will continue to exist – and also policies to tackle energy poverty by providing provide abundant, cheap renewable electricity could lay the foundations for genuinely just change.

A programme of industrial renewal coupled with a more expansive set of social reforms could support a green transition away from carbon-intensive industries while narrowing social inequalities. The debate about North Sea drilling is a distraction which risks turning our attention away from this vital issue.

A California woman has been shot dead by a 22-year-old DoorDash worker who had been stalking her for months after he illegally entered the US in 2023.

Shalini Thakur, 38, was gunned down outside a Panera Bread in Sacramento as horrified witnesses watched on during the afternoon of September 8.

The suspect, Rohit Rohit, an illegal migrant from India who was allegedly released by the Biden administration, fled in a vehicle before fatally shooting himself, police said.

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Amar Gandhi said the horror unfolded just before 3pm, when Rohit approached Thakur outside her workplace at a shopping mall on Howe Avenue and ‘began to accost her’.

‘As the victim attempted to run away, Rohit chased her down, pulled out a firearm, and shot her multiple times,’ he said. ‘The victim fell to the ground.’ 

Gandhi added that Rohit then walked over to Thakur’s body as she lay dying on the sidewalk, and ‘shot her in the head at close range.’ 

Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the scene and tracked Rohit’s vehicle as he fled. They quickly located him and said he ‘immediately slammed on his brakes’. 

‘Deputies attempted to call out the driver for some time, but ultimately discovered that he was deceased from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,’ Lieutenant Gandhi said. 

The suspect, Rohit Rohit, an illegal migrant from India who was allegedly released by the Biden administration, fled in a vehicle before shooting himself dead in the car

Homicide detectives later learned that Rohit had been harassing and stalking Thakur after meeting her through his DoorDash pickups from her workplace. 

The campaign of harassment dates back to at least January, when Thakur discovered an Apple AirTag he had planted under the hood of her car. 

Gandhi said Rohit’s behavior became ‘increasingly alarming,’ and on one occasion, he deflated Thakur’s tires and followed her to work so that he could offer her assistance.

Rohit even obtained a copy of her apartment key and entered her home on Sierra Boulevard while she was sleeping. 

He claimed the next day that he snuck into her home as a welfare check after she did not respond to his messages. 

The series of troubling incidents prompted Thakur to obtain a restraining order against Rohit, which he breached in July by dropping off random grocery items at her front door. 

The investigation into Thakur’s death is ongoing, and detectives have urged anyone with information about the case to contact them via 916 874 5115. 

The victim’s mother, Kumari Thakur, said that her husband died two years ago and Thakur was her only child. 

‘I am alone in this world,’ Kumari told KCRA 3. 

Thakur was gunned down outside the Panera Bread on Howe Avenue in Sacramento

Thakur, 38, had been stalked by Rohit for months before she died, law enforcement said

Thakur has been remembered by her relatives as ‘a caring, loving, selfless, and generous young woman who gave so much of herself to others’

Kumari said she spoke with her daughter over the phone less than an hour before she was gunned down, and they had planned to speak again 15 minutes later. 

‘Then she will never come,’ Kumari said through tears. ‘I call her every time, every minute, every hour. I don’t know.’ 

Thakur was remembered by her family as ‘caring, loving, selfless, and generous’

Kumari said she when she could not get through to her daughter, she sent a series of WhatsApp messages urging her to call back, adding: ‘I am worried about you’.  

The grieving mother said police ‘did not protect’ her daughter, even though she filed for ‘restraining order after restraining order’.  

Thakur was remembered by her friends and family as ‘a caring, loving, selfless, and generous young woman who gave so much of herself to others’. 

‘She was always willing to support people in need, and her kindness left a lasting impact on so many lives,’ they wrote on a fundraising page for her funeral expenses.

‘Her presence mattered deeply to the people who knew and loved her.’ 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has blamed Biden’s immigration policies for the tragedy, saying Rohit illegally entered the US via Arizona in 2023.

Rohit was arrested by US Border Patrol agents in August of that year, but was ‘released into the country by the Biden administration,’ according to the DHS.

Thakur was on the phone to her mother less than an hour before she died in Sacramento 

Rohit was arrested by US Border Patrol agents in Arizona in August 2023, but was ‘released into the country by the Biden administration’, according to the DHS

‘This illegal alien from India harassed, stalked, and then killed a 38-year-old woman in California, and then took his own life when police caught up to him,’ a spokesman said. 

‘This tragedy would have been completely avoided if it weren’t for the Biden Administration RELEASING this killer into our country. 

‘Sanctuary politicians must put an end to reckless policies that play Russian roulette with American lives. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim and her family.’

Rohit managed to pass background checks through Checkr to gain work with DoorDash by providing a Social Security number, sources told the Daily Mail. 

He had not made a delivery in more than six weeks and was not active on the platform on the day of the murder. 

A DoorDash spokesman expressed condolences for Thakur’s family, and said the company is ‘fully cooperating’ with police as they investigate the case. 

‘This is an unimaginable tragedy, and our hearts are with Ms. Thakur’s family and loved ones as they grieve this immense loss,’ the spokesperson said. 

‘DoorDash has absolutely zero tolerance for violence or harassment of any kind, and we encourage anyone experiencing unwanted attention to report it directly in the DoorDash app, and to contact local law enforcement if they feel unsafe. 

‘We are fully cooperating with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office as they investigate.’ 

The Daily Mail has reached out to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and the DHS for more information.

President Donald Trump said Monday that a “SICK conspiracy” is being waged against artificial intelligence and the data centers that run it by what he described as a group of “Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers” — two days after the heads of the largest American AI companies publicly called on their own industry to slow down.

Writing on Truth Social, Trump attacked one of them, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and suggested that no new regulations on AI are needed because of powers the government already has.

“The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!” Trump wrote. “We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!”

He did not say what conduct he was referring to, what the criminal power consists of, or who the conspirators are.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” he said.

He added: “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so.”

Trump’s rant comes after Amodei published an essay on Saturday in which he argued that AI companies should deliberately slow the rate at which they make their models more capable.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain,” Amodei wrote. “The measures I propose to advance the frontier at a safe pace will not be easy. But I believe we owe it to humanity to try.”

He warned that within six to 12 months, a swarm of rogue AI agents could be capable of “taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet,” causing what he estimated as hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. He said Anthropic would unilaterally give outside evaluators employee-level access to verify its safety procedures, and called on competitors to match it.

In response, OpenAI’s Sam Altman posted that he agreed “that we need to pace the frontier” and said his company would open itself to external evaluators too.

Elon Musk, who runs xAI, posted on his own platform that”Dario is right,” while Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis also signed on.

Trump’s post follows a negative reaction to the whole episode on the part of stock markets, with Nasdaq futures falling more than 1 percent overnight and chip stocks sliding on Monday, with Intel down close to 6 percent, Micron around 5 percent and Nvidia roughly 3 percent, as investors priced in the possibility that the companies buying the hardware intend to buy it more slowly.

Shares in SoftBank, a major OpenAI investor, and in European suppliers to the data center buildout including ASML, Siemens Energy and Schneider Electric also fell.

Trump’s post also lands in the middle of an argument the White House has been having with Anthropic for nearly a year. David Sacks, who ran AI and cryptocurrency policy for the administration until March and now chairs the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, has accused the company of pursuing “a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fearmongering.”

This week he told both Anthropic and OpenAI they were free to “go ahead and pace the frontier” but should stop asking Washington for an antitrust waiver or a formal approval regime to do it.

If the Trump administration opposes any collective attempt to slow down model development by leading AI companies, they could potentially use existing law to prevent that sort of cooperation.

An agreement among rival firms to restrain output is the kind of arrangement antitrust law exists to prohibit, which is why the companies have sought legal cover before acting together — and why a slowdown that happens without it would most likely have to happen one company at a time.

Amodei’s critics have argued his motives are commercial rather than ethical. “Dario makes the case to stop open source and concentrate enormous technological and economic power with Anthropic,” the venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya wrote after the essay appeared.

The essay arrived at the end of a week in which the AI safety argument moved abruptly into public view, following the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who issued a public warning about the technology and a rogue-agent incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face that is now the subject of a Senate inquiry.

Two vans travelling in opposite directions were involved in a crash

A man has died after two vans were involved in a crash. Emergency services were called to the A505 between Flints Cross and Royston at around 4.10pm on Wednesday, September 9.

The crash involved a white Mercedes Sprinter van heading towards Duxford and a white Ford Transit van travelling in the opposite direction. The driver of the Ford Transit, a 51-year-old man from Ipswich, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A police spokesperson said: “The driver of the Mercedes, a 45-year-old man of no fixed abode, was taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge with serious injuries. He remains in a stable condition.

“An investigation has been launched, and officers are appealing for anyone who witnessed the collision, or who may have dashcam footage from the area at the time, to come forward.

“Anyone with information is asked to report it online or call 101, quoting incident 288 of September 9.”

Do you want more of the latest Cambridgeshire news as it comes in from across the county? Sign up to our dedicated newsletter to make sure you never miss a big story from Cambridge or anywhere else in the county. You can also sign up to our dedicated Traffic and Crime newsletters for the latest updates on the topics you are most interested in .