I’ve been preparing a few of our journalists for trips to the US recently. The advice I’ve had to give them has me shaking my head. Instead of reminding them to pack their passport, I’m telling them they need to leave behind their usual phone and laptop.

That’s because Trump’s administration has made journalists a target. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has warned that any of us entering the US could be questioned about our travel plans and motives, have our devices seized and searched or even be turned away. Just a few days ago the US justice department made it easier for prosecutors investigating a government leak to subpoena records and testimony from journalists.

When you regularly deal with confidential sources who risk their freedom or career to share the truth with the public, this is a serious risk. Nothing is more important to us than keeping our sources safe.

The CPJ also warns that border agents may grill you “if your work covers politically sensitive issues that the US administration may view as critical or hostile”. That’s what I would expect from a tinpot dictatorship – not the supposed leader of the free world. It reminds me of my trips to dictatorships like Equatorial Guinea or Zimbabwe, where as a journalist you would be prepared for your devices to be confiscated and searched.

Today is World Press Freedom Day, which makes all of this more pertinent. Media freedom underpins any kind of democratic order. Without it, citizens don’t have the information that they need to decide who to vote for. It’s the most effective deterrent against corruption.

Megafarms getting millions from UK government

Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is flowing towards intensive poultry farmers along the England-Wales border, even though the farms are poisoning local water and air.

I’ve spent half my life in countries where you can’t get safe drinking water from a tap. Water quality is vital to protect, but the UK’s waterways are in bad shape and getting worse.

Run-off from megafarms is a major issue. More and more massive chicken farms, some with more than a million birds each, have been popping up in the Wye Valley and around the River Severn. 

But as their bank balances have been boosted by government subsidies, the health of the Wye river declined. High levels of phosphates in the water have been blamed on chicken litter.

Charles Watson, the chairman of River Action, a group that campaigns for cleaner waterways, told TBIJ: “Factory farming is now widely acknowledged as one of the greatest causes of the widespread pollution of our rivers.” He added: “The notion that the very same polluters [have received] taxpayers’ cash via government subsidies is nothing short of outrageous.” He said the findings “made a total mockery of any pretence of practising effective environmental regulation in this country”.

It’s not the first time we’ve looked at pollution in the Wye Valley. Our environment team, particularly our impact producer Grace Murray, has stayed in touch with the people we spoke to for our first investigation, following up and keeping us across the latest developments.

That meant Andrew Wasley, our reporter, could file targeted Freedom of Information requests, ensuring he got the right data to tell the story. We then cross-referenced who was receiving the subsidies with databases of “intensive” poultry farms (units that hold at least 40,000 birds and require a permit to operate).

The result: we found that farmers in six counties along the Welsh border got more than £14m in subsidies over three years.

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HSBC gets its hands dirty digging up cash for mining business

The UK’s biggest bank, for all its talk of being committed to net-zero, seems to have broken another of its own pledges to bring carbon emissions down.

HSBC has helped raise $1bn for Glencore, even though the mining company has been ramping up coal production.

Glencore is one of the world’s biggest miners and commodities traders. In South Africa, it runs mines in the hugely polluted area just to the east of Johannesburg. When you drive through it, the coal dust everywhere makes the landscape otherworldly – you feel like you could be on the moon.

And in Colombia, Glencore runs the Cerrejón mine, the site of a litany of human rights abuses and environmental harms.

So why is HSBC helping Glencore build its war chest? After all, back in December 2021 it promised to stop funding companies that were increasing coal production “as soon as possible”. The fundraising for Glencore was in May 2023.

HSBC’s customers and investors are outraged. We spoke with Anders Schelde, the chief investment officer at AkademikerPension, a Danish pension fund that invests in HSBC. “We do not believe there is room for backtracking, as it would put HSBC’s credibility on the line,” he said.

Schelde is part of the group of investors that had initially pushed HSBC to promise to clean up its act in the first place. He wants HSBC to recommit to those climate pledges.

He isn’t alone. Epworth Investment Management, an investment group that also piled on the pressure in the past, was equally angry. “If these reports are accurate, then HSBC hasn’t just bent its coal policy – it has bulldozed through it,” Epworth’s deputy chief executive Andrew Harper told TBIJ. The deal with Glencore “goes against both the spirit and the letter of HSBC's policy,” he said, adding, “this isn’t a grey area. It’s a clear line being crossed.”

Responding to TBIJ’s findings, HSBC said: “We follow a clear set of sustainability risk policies which support our ambition to align the financed emissions in our portfolio to net zero by 2050. We do not comment on client relationships.”

Glencore told TBIJ: “We aim to avoid harm to people from our activities, respect human rights, [and] contribute to the social and economic development of people and society more widely,” adding that it follows best business practices in line with international standards.

We’ve been holding banks to account for their green pledges for years. The landscape is, unfortunately, changing. Many have simply given them up since Trump returned to office in the US. But it’s important not to let those still standing by their climate commitments off the hook for doing the bare minimum. Accountability matters, or all those lines in the sand will end up crossed.