A landmark defamation lawsuit against Greenpeace USA could have a "chilling" effect on free speech and the right to protest, environmental and activist groups have warned. 

What was the ruling?
A jury in North Dakota last week found Greenpeace liable for defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts related to demonstrations dating back to 2016 aimed at disrupting the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The suit, brought by Texas-based oil and gas giant Energy Transfer, claimed the environmental group funded and encouraged the protests, damaging the company's reputation and costing it as much as $340 million. The jury agreed and ordered Greenpeace to pay $667 million in damages.

What has the reaction been?
Greenpeace had warned it would have to declare bankruptcy and close its US operations if found liable. It has now vowed to appeal the court decision, which was met with "shock and dismay" among activist groups, said The Guardian.

The ruling "sends a dangerous message", Anne Jellema, executive director of advocacy group 350.org, told The Times: "that fossil fuel giants can weaponise the courts to bankrupt and silence those who challenge the destruction of our planet". Marty Garbus, a lawyer who represented Nelson Mandela and civil rights campaigner Cesar Chavez, described it as "one of the most important cases in American history" and "far bigger than the environmental movement".

Donald Trump's Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the outcome was a victory "for the rule of law". It would make Greenpeace "think twice now about doing it again", said North Dakota's Republican senator Kevin Cramer.

What does it mean for other protest movements?
The ruling will undoubtedly "encourage other oil and gas companies to legally pursue environmental protesters at a time when Donald Trump's energy agenda is in ascendancy", said The Guardian. But its impact "stretches far beyond any individual organisation" and even the green movement itself.

Amnesty International said the "devastating" verdict "sets an array of deeply damaging precedents on the rights to freedom of speech, association and peaceful protest".

This was never going to be an easy week for Rachel Reeves, who is expected to announce controversial spending cuts in tomorrow's Spring Statement. But "things are going from bad to worse for the beleaguered chancellor", said The Spectator, as Labour ministers "hit out" over her latest freebie: tickets to a Sabrina Carpenter concert at the O2.

'Indefensible'
There is "no suggestion" that Reeves has broken any rules, said The i Paper. She is declaring the tickets, reportedly worth £600, and when asked why she hadn't paid for them herself, Reeves told the BBC that there "wasn't a price" to them. But there may be a political price: the story "threatens to reignite the row" over MPs receiving freebies, in a repeat of last year's "public outcry".

Yesterday, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander "effectively cut her fellow cabinet minister adrift", said the Daily Mail, by saying she was "too busy" for freebies. Downing Street also "gave a lukewarm endorsement", saying the prime minister "supports all of his ministers making their own judgements".

Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook said accepting free concert tickets wasn't "appropriate", while Labour MP Rachael Maskell called it "indefensible", given what Reeves is paid and her plans for major government cuts to benefits. "Not to recognise the inequity in this goes to the heart of the problem," Maskell said.

'No quid pro quo'
"I don't understand the fuss about this whatsoever," Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley told the BBC's "Politics Live". "Unless Sabrina Carpenter is expecting a quid pro quo, unless she's looking for a safe seat in Labour-held Wales, I don't understand why it matters."

The problem, said Zoe Williams in The Guardian, is the "optics". After last year's "shambles" – with Keir Starmer's Taylor Swift tickets and the cash donation for Reeves' wardrobe – "it should have been obvious that freebies are to be avoided". This political generation was "raised to ask 'how will this look?' first and 'is this important?' some time later, if at all". For a chancellor in office when the UK is "mired in gloom", there can be "no rock'n'roll (or country pop) until the good times are also rolling".

In the late 1700s, towns with ancient natural springs nearby became "magnets" for people who believed that "taking the waters" could cure ailments "from scabies to smallpox", said National Geographic. Surrounded by beautiful landscapes and filled with grand buildings, many of these spa towns remain "fantastic destinations" to visit today. 

Bath, Somerset
The Romans made their mark in what is now the West Country city of Bath, building an enormous "complex of pools" in the centre, said National Geographic. But, as the town's Roman name, Aquae Sulis, testifies, the hot spring had been in use for years previously by a local tribe, who worshipped the goddess Sulis. You can no longer bathe at the Roman Baths (pictured above), but you can still take the waters at the adults-only Thermae Bath Spa, which has "several pools filled with 35.5C spring water".

Buxton, Derbyshire
The warm springs of this Derbyshire town, on the fringe of the Peak District National Park, have drawn all manner of visitors including the Romans, who settled in the area in about AD70. Visit the Grade II-listed Pump Room, conveniently also now the town's visitor centre, and St Ann's Well, which has "quenched locals' thirst for centuries".

Malvern, Worcestershire
This "pretty" town, "tucked away" in the Severn Valley, was once "revered" for the purity of its natural spring, said The Independent. So much so that a full-scale "hydrotherapy industry" was developed here in the 19th century, drawing all the Victorian big hitters, from Charles Dickens to Florence Nightingale. You can sip the same waters from the Malvhina fountain in the town centre, then spend the night at The Malvern, which has steam rooms, a salt grotto, saunas and an "indoor and outdoor hydrotherapy pool".

Train travel is turning Brits into rude, selfish monsters
Lucy Mangan in The i Paper
Britain's rail network has become a "hellscape", writes Lucy Mangan. I'm on a book tour and there has "not been a single journey that has not shredded my nerves and left me arriving at my destination in dire need of a drink, Valium and a lie down". And "late, of course". Between "points failures, door failures, passengers taken ill, ruptured cables, vandalised tracks, flooding" and the "large swathe" of fellow travellers who behave like "pigs", getting around by train "is now a masochistic, borderline depraved act".

Rachel Reeves must not shy away from painful decisions
The Times editorial board
The Spring Statement is usually a "straightforward exercise in the House of Commons on the UK's fiscal outlook", writes The Times. But, thanks to Rachel Reeves' "missteps and miscalculations", tomorrow's "is set to be a more dramatic event". If the chancellor had been "more prudent in her budget last year, which included £40 billion of tax rises chiefly on the shoulders of business, her room for manoeuvre would not be so limited".

Facial recognition cameras in Croydon should alarm all Londoners
Rebecca Vincent in City A.M.
"Alarming escalations" in the introduction of live facial recognition technology "should have everyone worried", writes Rebecca Vincent. The installation of the UK's first permanent network of fixed facial recognition cameras, in Croydon, "represents an alarming expansion of the surveillance state, and a further slide towards a dystopian nightmare" that could "quickly take hold" across the nation. "Enough is enough" – it's time to "halt all use" of this "Orwellian technology".