Along with stamps, banknotes and the national anthem, another thing has noticeably changed since King Charles ascended the throne – the weather.

The first 18 months in which the new monarch "rained over us" were the wettest in England since 1836. While no one is suggesting that Charles is to blame, many may be asking what is and what the implications may be.

Is the UK getting more rain?
Last winter was the eighth wettest since records began more than 150 years ago. England and Wales were then deluged by more than one-and-a-half times the average rainfall in March.

Over the past century, the average UK winter has become around 15% wetter and 1C warmer, according to a new analysis from Carbon Brief. Researchers who assessed data on temperature, rainfall, wind speed and snow found that wet winters were becoming more common and that average annual winter rainfall rose from around 300mm between 1961-90 to almost 350mm between 1990-2020.

Why is it getting wetter?
The "simple answer" is that warm air is able to hold more moisture, said the BBC.

For every degree of warming, the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere increases by around 7%, which fuels "more intense rainfall". So for as long as the Earth's climate continues to warm, the atmosphere's capacity to hold water vapour will "continue to increase".

What is the future outlook?
The Met Office has predicted that by 2070, winters in the UK will be up to 30% wetter than they were in 1990 and rainfall will be up to 25% more intense. The most severe downpours, 30mm or more rain in an hour, are expected to occur twice as often, increasing the risk of flooding, as ground becomes saturated and drainage systems are overwhelmed.

The danger of "very intense rain cells", Environment Agency boss Philip Duffy said last year, "genuinely keeps me awake at night".

There is some good news though: scientists have found that rain can make us happy and improve our mental health. After drops of water hit a hard surface, negative ions can be formed in the air. Several studies suggest that inhaling these negative ions has a positive effect on health and mood.

Ford has become the latest major US company to scale back its diversity and inclusion policies, amid a "changing legal and political environment and online pressure from the right", said CNN.

Corporate investment in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives rose sharply in 2020 following the wave of protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Management consultancy firm McKinsey estimates that US companies spent an estimated $7.5 billion (£5.7 billion) on DEI-related schemes in that year alone.

Legal minefield
The US Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in 2023 that ended affirmative action programmes at colleges, finding that factoring racial make-up into admissions amounted to discrimination.

While the ruling "didn't directly implicate companies", said Bloomberg, it "invigorated" legal activists, who filed lawsuits targeting corporate hiring practices that they claim unfairly favour non-white employees. The decision has "so transformed the legal landscape", said The Washington Post, "that some companies are abandoning diversity programmes as a defensive measure even before any litigation is filed".

Enter Robby Starbuck
Leading the charge against DEI programmes is former Hollywood music video director-turned-conservative activist Robby Starbuck. He has "channelled energy on the right" to target specific brands "popular with politically conservative customers", such as Harley-Davidson, said CNN. The parent company of Jack Daniel's whiskey, Brown-Forman, also dropped its DEI programmes shortly before Starbuck announced he had planned to launch a campaign against the brand.

Last week, Ford CEO Jim Farley sent an email to employees saying that the car-making giant had also changed some of its DEI policies, including ending participation in external culture surveys by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.

While Starbuck is undoubtedly an important force in the anti-DEI pressure movement, his success is exposing the "fragility" of corporate backing for inclusion schemes, said Shaun Harper, professor of education and business at the University of Southern California and founder and executive director of its Race and Equity Center.

"If one person can take to Twitter and ultimately inflame a campaign to dismantle DEI in large companies, it means those things were not strong to begin with," Harper told CNN. "Most companies and the people who lead them were not committed to this in the first place."

The spa town of Bad Ischl is the gateway to the jewel-coloured lakes and rugged mountains of the Salzkammergut region, a hub of Austria's salt mining industry for millennia.

Now, alongside Bodo in Norway and the Estonian city of Tartu, Bad Ischl has been crowned a European Capital of Culture for 2024. 

What to do
The town's architecture "evokes an imperial age of grand balls and silk gowns", said Adrian Bridge in The Telegraph, and none more so than the "ochre-coloured" Kaiservilla – a former Hapsburg summer residence that is open for tours throughout the year.

A nearby former salt processing facility, the Sudhaus, now hosts an exhibition including an "intricate maze" installation by Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto, created using around six tons of salt, said Jamie Fullerton in The Guardian.

Half an hour away in St Wolfgang, Austria's steepest steam cog railway takes passengers 4,000ft up to the summit of Schafberg mountain, with views of "white-capped" Alps and the region's 76 "sapphire-blue" glacial lakes, said Ellen Himelfarb in National Geographic.

Where to eat 
Traditional "grammelknodel dumplings are available in many taverns", said Falstaff magazine. But head to the Hubertushof hotel to enjoy this "cultural treasure"  served with a refreshing pear and radish salad for an "extra twist".

Around a 15-minute hike from the town centre, the Gasthaus Siriuskogl restaurant boasts an ever-changing menu filled with locally sourced produce, with plenty of vegan options.

And visitors with a sweet tooth are advised to stop by at former court confectioner Zauner Café for "glossy iced gateaux" and pastries, said National Geographic.

We wanted a serious government: now we have one. But a little Rayner-like joy wouldn't go amiss
Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian
"Joy", writes Gaby Hinsliff, is lacking in our "young government". With the "glorious exception" of Angela Rayner, Labour has marked its landslide "by having the very opposite of a brat summer". Instead, the party has issued a "string of stern, buzz-killing pronouncements about how things are probably only going to get worse before they get better". But if "long, hard road back to prosperity" is "going to be a miserable one", Keir Starmer "needs to help us take our fleeting pleasures where we can".

Donald Trump is losing it
Lee Siegel for New Statesman
There are many reasons to "inspect Trump's political credibility", writes Lee Siegel. "Cognitively speaking", the Republican presidential candidate is starting to make Joe Biden "look like Oscar Wilde". Trump's "patterns of thinking" indicate a "decline in the way he apprehends and makes sense of reality that goes beyond mere propriety or morality". There is a "tacit prohibition against discussing Trump's obvious mental incapacity in public" in the US, but "he is even further along in his deterioration than Biden".

The eternal lockdown of the soul
Luca Watson for The Critic
"Thankfully", lockdowns are "behind us", writes Luca Watsob, yet "that mentality of taking glee in telling off those who transgress the latest state diktat" remains evident "in a sizable chunk of the population". If the rumoured ban on smoking in public places comes into force, enforcing it will almost certainly be "largely be left to the public, not the police", and "the busybodies will have their moment in the sun once again".