Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier” — nicknamed because its collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise. They have discovered it started retreating rapidly in the 1940s, according to a new study that provides an alarming insight into future melting.

The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is the world’s widest and roughly the size of Florida. Scientists knew it had been losing ice at an accelerating rate since the 1970s, but because satellite data only goes back a few decades, they didn’t know exactly when significant melting began.

Now there is an answer to this question, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

By analyzing marine sediment cores extracted from beneath the ocean floor, researchers found the glacier began to significantly retreat in the 1940s, likely kicked off by a very strong El Niño event — a natural climate fluctuation which tends to have a warming impact.

Since then, the glacier has been unable to recover, which may reflect the increasing impact of human-caused global warming, according to the report.

What happens to Thwaites will have global reverberations. The glacier already contributes 4% of sea level rise as it sheds billions of tons of ice a year into the ocean. Its complete collapse could raise sea levels by more than 2 feet.

But it also plays a vital role in the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, acting like a cork holding back the vast stretch of ice behind it. Thwaites’ collapse would undermine the stability of the ice sheet, which holds enough water to raise sea levels by at least 10 feet, causing catastrophic global flooding.

The study’s findings match previous research on the neighboring Pine Island Glacier, one of the largest ice streams in Antarctica, which scientists also found started retreating rapidly in the 1940s.

“If both glaciers are retreating at the same time, that’s further evidence that they’re actually being forced by something,” Wellner said.

To build a picture of Thwaites’ life over the past nearly 12,000 years, the scientists took an icebreaker vessel up close to the edge of the glacier to collect ocean sediment cores from a range of depths.

These cores provide a historical timeline. Each layer yields information about the ocean and ice going back thousands of years. By scanning and dating the sediments, the scientists were able to pinpoint when the substantial melting began.

From this information, they believe Thwaites’ retreat was set off by an extreme El Niño that happened at a time when the glacier was likely already in a phase of melting, knocking it off balance. “It’s sort of like if you get kicked when you’re already sick, it’s going to have a much bigger impact,” Wellner said.

The findings are alarming because they suggest that once big changes are triggered, it’s very hard to stop them, said James Smith, a marine geologist at the British Antarctic Survey and a study co-author.

While similar retreats have happened much further back in the past, the ice sheet recovered and regrew, Smith said. But these glaciers “show no signs of recovery, which likely reflects the growing influence of human-caused climate change.”

Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who was not involved in the research, said the study confirms and adds detail to our understanding of how Thwaites’ retreat began.

Martin Truffer, a physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said the research shows if a glacier is in a sensitive state, “a single event can knock it into a retreat from which it is difficult to recover.”

“Humans are changing the climate and this study shows that small continuous changes in climate can lead to step changes in glacier state,” said Truffer, who was not involved in the research.

Antarctica is sometimes called the “sleeping giant,” because scientists are still trying to understand how vulnerable this icy, isolated continent may be as humans heat up the atmosphere and oceans.

Wellner is a geologist — she focuses on the past not the future — but she said this study gives important and alarming context for what might happen to the ice in this vital stretch of Antarctica.

It shows that even if a trigger for rapid melting has ended, that doesn’t mean the response stops. “So if the ice is already in retreat today,” she said, “just because we might stop warming, it might not stop its retreat.”

Prince William certainly wants everyone to know he’s back on the frontline of royal duties, after taking some time away to support his wife, Catherine, following her January operation for an unspecified abdominal condition.

He’s made several moves to cement his return, but his impassioned plea on the Israel-Hamas war to “see an end to the fighting as soon as possible” was perhaps the most powerful moment this week.

“There is a desperate need for increased humanitarian support to Gaza. It’s critical that aid gets in and the hostages are released,” William said. “Sometimes it is only when faced with the sheer scale of human suffering that the importance of permanent peace is brought home.”

His strong declaration came ahead of several engagements recognizing the human suffering related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, he paid a visit to the London headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which has been providing a humanitarian response to the war in Gaza. William was briefed about operations in the region and spoke with charity workers providing mental health support to those experiencing trauma around the world.

He also spoke with ICRC employees in southern Gaza who told the royal that they didn’t “even have words anymore to describe what we are seeing, what we are hearing,” according to the UK’s PA Media news agency.

In the days ahead, he will be heading to a synagogue to join a discussion with young people from different communities who are advocates against hatred and antisemitism.

William this week also unveiled a new housing initiative designed to help combat homelessness in the southwest of England. Using land on his private Duchy of Cornwall estate in Nansledan, Newquay, and working with a local charity, he is aiming to provide 24 purpose-built properties to support individuals in the area struggling with homelessness.

Ben Murphy, the Duchy’s estate director, said the Prince of Wales had “asked us to address the homelessness challenge within Cornwall and other areas where the estate resides.”

“We will be helping people rebuild their lives, with training and employment opportunities alongside the provision of more permanent housing that we are building,” Murphy said.

Development is expected to get underway in September, with the first homes completed by next fall.

The approach was inspired by William’s “Homewards” program, a five-year, locally-led plan in six UK locations that he launched with his Royal Foundation in June to demonstrate that it is possible to end homelessness.

One of the moves alone would normally have garnered headlines, but both within days of the other shows that while William may have been briefly out of the public eye, he’s been hard at work behind the scenes.

The British royal family has long taken a stance of political neutrality and does not generally comment on sensitive issues. But that has shifted in recent years when the family feels particularly strongly that they can’t simply stand by – as was the case with showing support for Ukraine following Russia’s unprovoked invasion two years ago.

William’s steps illustrate that he’s not afraid to offer up his views on current affairs, but in a way that doesn’t overstep his royal position.

In the past, the family have faced criticism over owning vast swathes of land while many struggle with affordable housing. Here, William is seeking to address that and building on an area he has spent years working to raise awareness of.

His particularly forthright approaches appear to be resonating, with both initiatives welcomed positively. He’s handling matters a little differently to his father or late grandmother, moving with the times and reflecting issues his generation cares about – which will ultimately be the generation he serves as King.

Lowitja O’Donoghue, one of the most respected and influential Aboriginal activists in Australian history, has died at age 91.

O’Donoghue, who passed away surrounded by her family on Sunday in Adelaide, dedicated her life to fighting for the health and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

She received numerous honors in recognition of her trailblazing advocacy, including becoming the first Aboriginal woman to gain Membership of the Order of Australia in 1976. Other titles included Australian of the Year in 1984, Australian National Living Treasure in 1998 and many others.

Away from home she was also appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire and awarded a papal honor from Pope John Paul II.

Born in 1932, O’Donoghue was the fifth of six children born to an Irish father, whom she never knew, and a Yankunytjatjara mother in Indulkana, a remote Aboriginal community in South Australia.

When she was just 2 years old, she and two of her sisters—like thousands of other mixed-race children at the time—were removed from their family and taken into the care of missionaries. She would not see her mother again for more than 30 years.

Nevertheless, O’Donoghue’s difficult start in life did not stop her from forging a promising career for herself. She became the first indigenous Australian to train as a nurse at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1954, going on to become a charge sister despite enduring much racism along the way.

After several years in the profession, she went into public service. She successfully campaigned for the recognition of Aboriginal peoples in a 1967 referendum and went on to head up numerous indigenous bodies, both at state and national level, while in 1992 she became the first Aboriginal person to address the United Nations General Assembly.

In 2010, the Lowitja Institute was established in her honor, to promote the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, described O’Donoghue as “one of the most remarkable leaders this country has ever known.”

In a lengthy tribute posted on X, Albanese said: “Dr O’Donoghue had an abiding faith in the possibility of a more united and reconciled Australia. It was a faith she embodied with her own unceasing efforts to improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to bring about meaningful and lasting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.”

Her death was announced by her family online. They said: “Our Aunty and Nana was the Matriarch of our family, whom we have loved and looked up to our entire lives. We adored and admired her when we were young and have grown up full of never-ending pride as she became one of the most respected and influential Aboriginal leaders this country has ever known.

“Aunty Lowitja dedicated her entire lifetime of work to the rights, health, and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We thank and honour her for all that she has done – for all the pathways she created, for all the doors she opened, for all the issues she tackled head-on, for all the tables she sat at and for all the arguments she fought and won.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh and his government have submitted their resignations, he announced Monday.

“I would like to inform the honorable council and our great people that I placed the government’s resignation at the disposal of Mr. President (Mahmoud Abbas), last Tuesday, and today I submit it in writing,” Shtayyeh said in a post on Facebook.

The resignation comes as the Palestinian Authority (PA) comes under intense pressure from the United States to reform and improve its governance in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The PA has long been seen as corrupt by US politicians and Palestinians themselves.

The PA was set up in the mid-1990s as an interim government pending Palestinian independence after the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. It is headquarters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah and exercises nominal self-rule in parts of the territory.

The government, which is dominated by the Fatah political party, held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip. Israel has rejected the prospect of the PA returning to Gaza after the war, and has dismissed the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the territories.

The US however favors a reformed PA being in control of both the West Bank and Gaza as part of a future independent state.

The PA is also very unpopular among Palestinians, who see it as unable to provide security in the face of regular Israeli incursions in the West Bank. A survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in December showed that more than 60% of Palestinians want the PA to be dissolved. Meanwhile, support for President Abbas, who has held the position since 2005, has collapsed. In the West Bank, 92% of respondents want him to resign, according to the poll.

The prime minister’s post in the PA was set up in 2003, following the Second Palestinian Intifada (uprising) after the US, the European Union and Israel called for reforms. It marked the first real move toward power-sharing by then President Yasser Arafat since the PA was established. At the time, Arafat named Abbas as prime minister. Abbas took over as president after Arafat died in 2004.

The Israeli military has submitted a plan to the war cabinet for “evacuating the population” of Gaza from areas of fighting, amid warnings that an offensive on the southern city of Rafah will take place soon.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had directed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to draw up a plan for the evacuation of civilians from Rafah, where more than a million people are crammed.

Fears are growing in Gaza and across the international community over the IDF’s planned offensive on Rafah, which lies next to the shuttered border with Egypt.

The city has become home to the majority of displaced Palestinians as the Israeli military advanced south through the enclave, but those civilians seemingly have no further place to escape.

The US has warned it would not support a campaign on the city without a “credible” plan to evacuate Palestinians.

Monday’s statement from Netanyahu’s office said the cabinet also approved a plan for providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza “in a manner that will prevent the looting that has occurred in the northern Strip and other areas.”

The Israeli leader pledged to press ahead with the effort in Rafah during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday.

He told the program that once Israel “begins the Rafah operation, the intense phase of fighting is weeks away from completion, not months, weeks away from completion.”

And he indicated he had asked the IDF to submit a “double plan”; one to “enable the evacuation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” and another “to destroy the remaining Hamas battalions.”

“If we have a deal, it’ll be delayed somewhat. But it’ll happen,” Netanyahu said, referring to a potential deal that would see a humanitarian pause in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. “If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway. It has to be done,” he said.

These negotiations come even as indirect discussions with Hamas continue. Crucially, Hamas has not yet signed onto this possible framework and any possible final deal is still, at the earliest, days away as negotiators continue to hammer out the actual details.

“There will have to be indirect discussions by Qatar and Egypt with Hamas because ultimately they will have to agree to release the hostages. That work is underway,” Sullivan added. “And we hope that in the coming days, we can drive to a point where there is actually a firm and final agreement on this issue. But we will have to wait and see.”

Former US President Donald Trump will be “against Americans” if he chooses to support Russia over Ukraine, the war-torn country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

“It’s unbelievable,” he added.

Trump, who is on the verge of becoming the Republican presidential nominee after winning the South Carolina Republican primary, has in the past refused to say whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to win the war.

Zelensky said that he believed Trump — who also claimed he would end the conflict in one day if elected — did not understand Putin’s goals.

“I think Donald Trump doesn’t know Putin,” Zelensky said. “I know he met him… but he never fought with Putin. (The) American army never fought with the army of Russia. Never… I have a better understanding,” he said.

“I don’t think he understands that Putin will never stop,” he said.

“I was surprised that they are strong even in the United States, in the EU (European Union), all over the world. They put a lot of money (in)to this,” he said.

Inflating the number of Ukrainian casualties is just one example of how Russia is spreading false narratives, the president said. Earlier on Sunday, Zelensky disclosed for the first time the number of Ukrainian soldiers killed in the conflict so far: 31,000.

He said it was important to share the number because “we’ve had enough of the lies,” adding that even some US politicians have been sharing widely inaccurate numbers.

‘Millions will die’

Ukraine has had a difficult start to the year. It suffered a major defeat earlier this month when Ukrainian troops withdrew from Avdiivka, an eastern city they held for a decade.

Zelensky and other Ukrainian and Western officials said Avdiivka was lost because troops did not have enough ammunition to defend it.

Yet despite the horrific consequences of these shortages, the US Congress continues to stall on President Joe Biden’s $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine.

Zelensky said that without US aid, Ukraine will not only struggle to make any new gains on the battlefield, but it will also find it difficult to keep defending itself this year.

“People will be prepared, but ammunition will not be prepared and brigades will not be ready… not only for our counter-offensive, they will not be ready to defend, to stay strong. It will be very difficult,” he said.

The timing is crucial as Zelensky said earlier on Sunday that Russia could attempt a new offensive as early as late May.

Ukraine’s new army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi is currently drawing up two versions of a plan on what to do next, he said. If Kyiv gets the US assistance, it will be able to start pushing back against Russia. If it doesn’t, it will have to focus on defending only.

Zelensky said that he has spoken to the House Speaker Mike Johnson about the aid package and was feeling optimistic after that conversation.

“He said that he will do everything to support Ukraine, and he’s on our side, and he understands how heroic our people, our soldiers and civilians (are),” he said.

Zelensky added that while he understands the US is heading into elections, he is hoping an agreement can be reached.

“If they will change their minds, it’s a big problem for us,” he said.

“I asked President (Biden)… ‘please, president, I’m asking you to help me and to help the Ukrainian people… please have one meeting with each other, Democrats and Republicans, and please, can you have a deal?’” he said.

Asked by Collins about a claim made by US Senator JD Vance that the outcome of the war will not change even if Ukraine receives the money, Zelensky said Vance “does not understand what is going on here.”

“To understand it is to come to the frontline to see what’s going on… without this support. And he will understand that millions of people will be killed,” he added.

“He doesn’t understand it, of course, God bless you don’t have the war on your territory.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko says he will run for another term in elections set to be held in 2025, a move likely to extend the long rule of a key ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Lukashenko, while speaking to journalists at a polling station after voting in parliamentary and local council elections, was asked whether he planned to stand in the next contest.

“Tell them I will,” he said, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported on Sunday.

“The harder [the opposition] try, the more likely I will bid for re-election. Don’t worry, we will do everything necessary for Belarus,” he added.

Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, will be confident of winning again, with votes in Belarus widely seen as neither free nor fair.

Reacting to the news on Sunday, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X: “Lukashenka says he will be running for president again? Com’n. Just coronate yourself. No one will be fooled anyway.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Lukashenko has deepened ties with Putin, and Belarus – a former Soviet nation – has become a key ally and strategic partner in the fight, with Russian forces using Belarus as a launchpad for invading Kyiv.

Called “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko brokered a deal with Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop Prigozhin’s Wagner group from marching on Moscow in June 2023.

The last presidential vote, in 2020, triggered riots when preliminary results showed Lukashenko had won in a landside victory.

Observers and the opposition said there was widespread ballot stuffing and falsifications.

Tihkhanovskaya demanded a recount after the country’s Central Election Commission announced Lukashenko had won with 80.23% of the vote, while Tikhanovskaya stood at 9.9%.

Around 3,000 people were detained and dozens injured during subsquent clashes with police.

Since then there has been a crackdown on dissent, with many opposition figures thrown into jail or exiled.

“To understand it is to come to the front line to see what’s going on, to speak with the people, then to go to civilians to understand … what will (happen to) them without this support. And he will understand that millions … will be killed. It’s a fact,” Zelensky said.

“Of course he doesn’t understand, God bless you don’t have the war on your territory,” he added.

Zelensky’s warning came just hours after the Ukrainian leader made a rare admission of troop losses, saying that about 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far in the conflict, during a conference in Kyiv.

Addressing the conference, Zelensky disputed Russian claims of much higher numbers when it comes to Ukrainian casualties. He added that “tens of thousands” of civilians have died in Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces.

“It’s a big loss to us. 31,000 Ukrainians, Ukrainian soldiers, died in this war. Not 300,000. Not 150,000, whatever (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is lying with,” Zelensky said. “Every loss is a huge loss to us.”

Throughout the conflict, Kyiv has been hesitant to admit how many soldiers have been killed. Former Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said in June 2022 that he believed tens of thousands of Ukrainians had been killed since February of that year.

Two months later, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, then the head of Ukraine’s armed forces, said 9,000 troops had been killed.

US officials estimate some 70,000 soldiers have been killed and nearly twice that number wounded.

Zelensky’s comments come as his country faces setbacks on the battlefield and is struggling to secure more aid from its Western partners. In the United States, a foreign aid bill remains stalled in the House of Representatives by isolationist Republicans.

The Ukrainian leader said his country is counting on Congress to act.

“They know we need their support,” said Zelensky.

Zelensky also floated the possibility of attending a possible peace summit in Switzerland in the spring, though cautioned Russia may not be involved. He said that Putin “does not want to end this war.”

Reporting contributed by Andy Carey, and Madalena Araujo in Kyiv. This story has been updated with new information.

Russia is nearing a presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s rule throughout this decade and into the 2030s.

The vast majority of votes will be cast over three days from 15 March, though early and postal voting is expected to take place sooner, including in occupied parts of Ukraine where Russian forces are attempting to exert authority.

But this is not a normal election; the poll is essentially a constitutional box-ticking exercise that carries no prospect of removing Putin from power.

The president’s dominance over the Russian electoral system has already been reinforced as the election looms. The country’s only anti-war candidate has been barred from standing, and Alexey Navalny, the poisoned and jailed former opposition leader who was the most prominent anti-Putin voice in Russia, died last Friday.

Here’s what you need to know about the election.

When and where will the election take place?

Voting will be held from Friday March 15 until Sunday March 17, the first Russian presidential election to take place over three days.

A second round of voting would take place three weeks later if no candidate gets more than half the vote, though it would be a major surprise if that were required. Russians are electing the position of president alone; the next legislative elections, which form the make-up of the Duma, are scheduled for 2026.

Early voting has already begun in hard-to-access areas, with approximately 70,000 people able to case their ballots in remote areas of Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, according to state news agency TASS. The region makes up more than a third of Russia’s total territory but has only about 5% of its population.

In early March, voting will be expanded to the parts of Ukraine currently occupied by Russian forces, although precise dates have not yet been confirmed, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant.

Russia has already held regional votes and referenda in those occupied territories, an effort dismissed by the international community as a sham but which the Kremlin sees as central to its campaign of Russification.

How long has Putin been in power?

Putin signed a law in 2021 that allowed him to run for two more presidential terms, potentially extending his rule until 2036, after a referendum the previous year allowed him to reset the clock on his term limits.

This election will mark the start of the first of those two extra terms.

He has essentially been the country’s head of state for the entirety of the 21st century, rewriting the rules and conventions of Russia’s political system to extend and expand his powers.

That already makes him Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

Putin’s previous efforts to stay in control included a 2008 constitutional amendment that extended presidential terms from four years to six, and a temporary job swap with his then Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev the same year, that preceded a swift return to the presidency in 2012.

Who else is running?

Candidates at Russian elections are tightly controlled by the CEC, enabling Putin to run against a favorable field and reducing the potential for an opposition candidate to gain momentum.

The same is true this year. “Each candidate fields juxtaposing ideologies and domestic policies, but collectively they feed into Putin’s aim of tightening his grip on Russia during his next presidential term,” Callum Fraser of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank wrote.

Nikolay Kharitonov will represent the Communist Party, which has been allowed to run a candidate in each election this century, but has not gained a fifth of the vote share since Putin’s first presidential election.

Two other Duma politicians, Leonid Slutsky and Vladislav Davankov, are also running. Davankov is deputy chair of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, while Slutsky represents the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the party previously lead by ultra-nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in 2022. All are considered to be reliably pro-Kremlin.

But there is notably no candidate who opposes Putin’s war in Ukraine; Boris Nadezhdin, previously the only anti-war figure in the field, was barred from standing by the CEC earlier in February after the body claimed he had not received enough legitimate signatures nominating his candidacy.

In December, another independent candidate who openly spoke out against the war in Ukraine, Yekaterina Duntsova, was rejected by the CEC, citing alleged errors in her campaign group’s registration documents. Duntsova later called on people to support Nadezhdin’s candidacy.

Writing on social media earlier in February, opposition activist Leonid Volkov dismissed the elections as a “circus,” saying they were meant to signal Putin’s overwhelming mass support. “You need to understand what the March ‘elections’ mean for Putin. They are a propaganda effort to spread hopelessness” among the electorate, Volkov said.

Are the elections fair?

Russia’s elections are neither free nor fair, and serve essentially as a formality to extend Putin’s term in power, according to independent bodies and observers both in and outside the country.

Putin’s successful campaigns have been in part the result of “preferential media treatment, numerous abuses of incumbency, and procedural irregularities during the vote count,” according to Freedom House, a global democracy watchdog.

Outside of election cycles, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine targets voters with occasionally hysterical pro-Putin material, and many news websites based outside Russia were banned following the invasion of Ukraine, though more tech-savvy younger voters have grown accustomed to using VPNs to access them.

Protests are also tightly restricted, making the public expression of opposition a perilous and rare occurrence.

Then, as elections come into view, genuine opposition candidates almost inevitably see their candidacies removed or find themselves prevented from seeking office, as Nadezhdin and Duntsova discovered during this cycle.

“Opposition politicians and activists are frequently targeted with fabricated criminal cases and other forms of administrative harassment designed to prevent their participation in the political process,” Freedom House noted in its most recent global report.

Is Putin popular in Russia?

Truly gauging popular opinion is notoriously difficult in Russia, where the few independent think tanks operate under strict surveillance and where, even in a legitimate survey, many Russians are fearful of criticizing the Kremlin.

But Putin undoubtedly has reaped the rewards of a political landscape tilted dramatically in his favor. The Levada Center, a non-governmental polling organization, reports Putin’s approval rating at over 80% – an eye-popping figure virtually unknown among Western politicians, and a substantial increase on his ratings in the three years before the invasion of Ukraine.

The invasion gave Putin a nationalist message around which to rally Russians, and even as Russia’s campaign stuttered over the course of 2023, the war retained widespread support.

National security is top of mind for Russians as the election approaches; Ukrainian strikes on Russian border regions have brought the war home to many people inside the country, but support for the invasion — euphemistically termed a “special military operation” — remains high.

The Levada Center found at the end of 2023 that “increased inflation and rising food prices may have a lasting impact on the mood of Russians,” with the proportion of Russians cutting back spending increasing.

But that is not to say Russians expect the election to change the direction of the country. Putin benefits heavily from apathy; Russians have never witnessed a democratic transfer of power between rival political parties, and expressions of anger at the Kremlin are rare enough to keep much of the population disengaged from politics.

How will Navalny’s death affect the election?

The timing of the death of Alexey Navalny – Putin’s most prominent critic – served to emphasize the control Russia’s leader exerts over his country’s politics.

In one of Navalny’s final court appearances before his death, he urged prison service workers to “vote against Putin.”

“I have a suggestion: to vote for any candidate other than Putin. In order to vote against Putin, you just need to vote for any other candidate,” Navalny said on February 8.

He died on Friday after becoming unwell on a walk at his prison and falling unconscious, according to the Russian prison service. The cause of his death is unclear and his body was only released this weekend to his mother after a dispute with authorities.

It has put an ominous shadow over the campaign. Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, urged the EU to “not recognize the elections” in a passionate address to the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union a few days after his death.

“Putin killed my husband exactly a month before the so-called elections. These elections are fake, but Putin still needs them. For propaganda. He wants the whole world to believe that everyone in Russia supports and admires him. Don’t believe this propaganda,” she said.

As the Jorō spider continues to spread across the southeastern United States, its spindly homes can be spotted almost anywhere — even on power lines and stoplights hovering over busy roads.

Typical spiders — and most creatures — tend to find the noise and wind disturbance from nearby busy roads to be too stressful, but the Jorō spider doesn’t seem to mind much, according to a new study published in Arthropoda on February 13. This research could explain why the spiders are regularly spotted in urban areas that native spiders don’t inhabit and suggests the creatures are well-suited to thrive and spread in similar locations throughout the United States.

“If you ever look at a spiderweb next to a road, they’re jiggling and shaking, and it’s a cacophony of stimuli. … Roadsides are a really harsh place for an animal to live. But Jorōs seem to be able to live next to them,” said lead study author Andy Davis, a research scientist at the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology.

“It’s kind of unfortunate for us here in the US — it so happened to be the place where the spider got deposited about 10 years ago, and it just so happens that the (spider) that got dumped here is one that can do really well with humans.”

Tolerance for being around cars and people

Jorō spiders, or Trichonephila clavata, were first spotted in the United States around 2013, according to a University of Georgia news release. The creatures — which grow up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) in length, about the size of the palm of a human hand — have since spread rapidly across the southeastern states.

Classified as orb weavers, the spiders catch prey using their giant, three-dimensional webs. The Jorō will sit in the middle of the web and wait to feel a vibration, signifying that an insect has been caught in the sticky trap, allowing the spider to rush down and capture it.

The researchers behind the new study, including Davis and undergraduate ecology students, conducted more than 350 tests on spiders across 20 roads using a tuning fork on the spider’s web to simulate prey behavior. While the researchers had expected noisy roadsides to interfere with the spider’s hunting abilities, the tests found that spiders near moderate to heavy traffic roads were only slightly less likely to attack the simulated prey than those near low-traffic roads. The spiders near heavy traffic attacked 51% of the time, while those in less busy areas attacked 65% of the time.

“This does help us dial in on one potential aspect of this species to look at, because it does kind of set the boundaries — how far is it going to spread? And is it not going to stay restricted to the South, and in forested areas, or is it going to move into cities where the likelihood of interacting with them between the spiders and humans increases?” said Floyd Shockley, collections manager for the Department of Entomology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Shockley, who was not involved with the study, said he was surprised to see only a little more than 10% reduction in the spider’s vibration-detecting efficiency but was not shocked that the species seemed to have a natural tolerance for being around cars and people.

“Whereas most of the other species like to stick around in the woods, the Jorōs specifically like to move into urban habitats,” Shockley said. “They’re capitalizing on easy hunting, easy access to prey. … They’re not particularly interested in us; they’re interested in the fact that we make the condition super easy for them to get the prey that they need to complete their life cycle.”

Urban life offers a certain ease for the Jōro spiders because they seem to prefer making their webs on structures where lights are nearby, such as between buildings or on telephone poles, Shockley said, explaining the light tends to draw in insects they eat.

The study authors cited past studies that had found roads had a negative impact on the abundance and diversity of insects, but the Jorō spider, and many of its cousins within the Trichonephila genus, are surprisingly urban tolerant, Davis said, and choose to build their homes near busy areas.

The researchers said they don’t know why these spiders are better suited to city life than others. But Davis said he is hoping to find an answer with future studies, where he plans to research the physiology of a Jorō spider and the creature’s response to stress.

“Compared to other spider species, Jorō spiders have this sort of unique way of reacting to stress, behaviorally that is, and we think that this is part of the same sort of thing where somehow these Jorōs are just unique in that they can live in a stressful environment,” said Davis, who conducted a 2023 study that found the species is rather timid and tends to “freeze” when disturbed. The spiders’ shyness might help them endure more urban settings as the prolonged freeze could help to conserve energy, the researchers wrote.

What to do when you come across a Jorō spider

As the nonnative Jorō spider continues to spread in the region, the spiders pose a threat to native species that are beneficial to the environment. The spiders do not appear now to have a negative impact, Shockley said, but as they continue to multiply, they could start to displace native spiders as they eat insects the native spiders also need to eat.

While conducting the study, the researchers found evidence of the Jorō spiders coexisting with native spiders, Davis said.

The spider is venomous, but its fangs are incapable of breaking human skin. So while it is advised to kill certain invasive species such as the spotted lantern fly, the Jorōs can be left alone, Davis said.

And the Jorō spiders eat species that are good and bad for the environment, including the infamous lantern fly, he added.