What happened
The US military has drawn up plans to use its most powerful non-nuclear bomb against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities if Donald Trump orders renewed attacks, according to officials cited by CNN. The 21,600-pound GBU-43/B — nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” (MOAB) — has not been used in the conflict so far. Its potential deployment would represent a significant escalation after more than seven months of fighting.

Who said what
Military planners have included the weapon in options for attacking nuclear sites, including the suspected underground facility at Pickaxe Mountain. However, officials have questioned whether its blast can penetrate deeply buried installations, warning that it is primarily designed to destroy targets over a wide area. One source told CNN the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for “psychological operations”.

What next?
The White House said Trump retained all options to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet deploying the MOAB “could significantly escalate the ongoing conflict at a time when fighting has lulled”, said Al Jazeera. The US president faces pressure to end an increasingly unpopular war before November’s midterm elections, but negotiations have yet to deliver a resolution.

What happened
One of the UK’s most prestigious independent picture houses, the Prince Charles Cinema in London, has been saved following a public campaign.

The cinema said it had signed a 25-year lease that would allow “our projectors will keep rolling for years to come”. The campaign to save the Prince Charles Cinema began early last year when its management released a public statement stating that the movie theatre was under “serious threat” of closure.

Who said what
The theatre is the “only independent cinema in the West End”, said Deadline, and “the venue is popular with hipsters and young film fans”. Quentin Tarantino, director of cult classics such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs”, has cited it as his favourite UK cinema, while “28 Days Later” director Danny Boyle said London would “die a little death” if the site was forced to close.

Number eight on Time Out’s list of the 100 greatest cinemas in the world, the Prince Charles Cinema “is a true one-of-a-kind in the pantheon of picture houses”, according to the magazine.

What next?
There is no break clause in the new agreement and “effectively, this means the indie venue can continue under its current conditions for at least another 25 years — a major victory at a time when beloved London businesses are closing at quite a rate”, said the Londonist.

A decaying forest full of grey, leafless trees may seem like the setting for a horror movie. But ghost forests have expanded beyond silver screens and on to coastlines across the US.

A ghost forest is the “watery remains of a once verdant woodland”, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It happens when seawater “advances and overtakes the fresh water that deciduous trees rely upon” and “poisons living trees, leaving a haunted ghost forest of dead and dying timber”.

Between 2012 and 2023, scientists tracked more than 260 million dead trees across the US Great Lakes and the country’s coastlines, according to a preprint on research distribution service bioRxiv. More than half of the mortality was “concentrated in just 10% of forests, primarily in high-elevation inland wetlands and low-lying forests prone to inundation”.

The rise in sea levels — brought about by climate change — is the biggest contributor to the growth of ghost forests. Global mean sea levels are “rising at about 4.1 millimeters per year, and saltwater intrusion is expected to affect nearly 77% of the world’s coastlines by 2100”, said New Scientist, putting more coastal forests at risk.

There are likely to be long-term climate implications. “Tree mortality and decomposition releases carbon into the atmosphere,” Michelle Sims, a geospatial research scientist at the World Resources Institute, told New Scientist. “If the forests do not recover, then these areas may not regain their capacity to sequester carbon and it could represent a more long-term carbon stock loss.”