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Rome’s Christmas Tree 'Has Clearly Been Traumatized’

For the second year in a row the Christmas tree in the Piazza Venezia in Rome has backfired on the city’s mayor Virginia Raggi after it dried before the holiday. Credit Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For the second year in a row the Christmas tree in the Piazza Venezia in Rome has backfired on the city’s mayor Virginia Raggi after it dried before the holiday. Credit Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Rome’s Christmas Tree 'Has Clearly Been Traumatized’

For the second year in a row the Christmas tree in the Piazza Venezia in Rome has backfired on the city’s mayor Virginia Raggi after it dried before the holiday. Credit Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For the second year in a row the Christmas tree in the Piazza Venezia in Rome has backfired on the city’s mayor Virginia Raggi after it dried before the holiday. Credit Alberto Pizzoli/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

No sooner had workers hoisted a 72-foot tall Norway spruce in Rome’s central Piazza Venezia this month than the mocking began.

The tree was quickly nicknamed Spelacchio, or Mangy, because so many of its dead needles were dropping off, leaving the tree looking a bit bare. Chatter spread quickly on social media where Romans traded jokes about the spruce and criticized its sad appearance.

Insults quickly turned to intrigue as the Italian media plumbed the tree’s costs, questioned how it had been transported to the city and analyzed its state of health, according to 'The New York Times'.

A consumer rights group asked an administrative court, which has oversight over government spending, to investigate what it described as a “shameful spectacle for citizens and tourists” and demanded that the tree be removed immediately.

Some likened the scruffy tree to a toilet brush. Others unfavorably compared it to the tree donated by Poland to the Vatican that was nicknamed “Rigoglio.”

Gardeners, botanists and ecology professors were quizzed on whether the tree would make it to Christmas. The jury is still out.

And in newspaper commentaries, the tree became a symbol of the Italian capital’s decline, moving the controversy from local news to national front pages.

“Spelacchio mirrors the decadence of the city,” said Francesca Nava, a television journalist who has lived in Rome for the past 15 years. Intrigued by the intrigue, she had come to check out the tree not as part of her job but as a private citizen.

“Without meaning to, this poor tree has become a symbol of Rome today, it is paying the price of this decadent time,” she said.

A spokesman for Mayor Virginia Raggi of Rome said the city had begun an inquiry to determine whether anyone was at fault.

Ms. Raggi hasn’t had an easy time in office. On Tuesday, she told reporters that she would not be running for re-election. Her party, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, has a two-term limit for political office and she is in her second.

“Getting to the end of this mandate will be a great success,” she told reporters.

Italian media published before and after photos of the fir, demonstrating a drastic decline.

Citizens were also outraged over the cost of the tree operation — an estimated 48,000 euros, or $57,000, to cover the costs of transporting, raising and eventually removing the Christmas tree.

The tree itself was donated to the city by the Magnifica Comunità di Val di Fiemme, a collective that manages the forests and pastures of an alpine valley in the Trentino region.

Sniffing a scandal, newspapers had published a document showing that the collective would be paid €8,000, or $9,500, plus tax. Stefano Cattoi, the director of the collective’s sawmill, explained that the sum covered the costs of prepping the tree for transport.

“We chose a beautiful tree and we cut and prepared it with as much care as we possibly could,” he said in a telephone interview. But he said he was unaware of what happened to the spruce once it was out of his care.

“What happened during the trip, or what kinds of lights were used on it, I can’t say,” he said. “But we’ve sent many trees to Rome, and we’ve never had problems before.”

He said the community was still trying to understand what happened to the spruce and said they “did everything right” before it was sent.

On Wednesday, Mattia Feltri, a columnist with the Turin daily newspaper La Stampa, penned a front-page editorial written from Spelacchio’s point of view to his Roman detractors.

“You have a dark, chaotic city, you throw everything on the ground, nothing works and tourists are supposed to think it’s all my fault,” Mr. Feltri wrote. “Look, I am not a metaphor of Italy. It’s you.”

The New York Times

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Varieties

Lonely Tree in Wales Is an Instagram Star, but its Fate Is Inevitable

The Lonely Tree, often pictured submerged in water, was first planted in 2010. (Getty Images)
The Lonely Tree, often pictured submerged in water, was first planted in 2010. (Getty Images)
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Lonely Tree in Wales Is an Instagram Star, but its Fate Is Inevitable

The Lonely Tree, often pictured submerged in water, was first planted in 2010. (Getty Images)
The Lonely Tree, often pictured submerged in water, was first planted in 2010. (Getty Images)

It is one of Wales' most-loved beauty spots - but the time of the so-called Lonely Tree being an Instagram star could be slowly coming to an end.

The birch tree's striking setting at Llyn Padarn in Eryri, also known as Snowdonia, draws photographers to capture the sight through the seasons, according to BBC.

But the local authority Cyngor Gwynedd has raised the prospect of the tree, which was planted around 2010, disappearing within the next decade or so.

A lack of nutrients in the soil means birch trees have “a relatively short lifespan” in the area, typically living for around 30 years, but the fact that The Lonely Tree is sometimes submerged in water means its time could be even shorter.

Thousands of walkers and photographers make their way there each year and the tree has many social media sites dedicated to it, including one with 3,500 members on Facebook.

Marc Lock from Bangor, Gwynedd, said: “The Lonely Tree holds a special place in my heart and that of my family.”

He added: “Nestled down by the Lonely Tree, it's a perfect spot for us to sit, reflect and soak in the breath-taking scenery. We often go paddleboarding there in the summer months.”

However, Lock said the area really became his sanctuary after his wife bought him a camera for Christmas and he took up photography.

It was the place he headed to straight away, and he returns regularly at various times of the day and throughout the seasons.

“It's my go-to spot whenever I have some free time and my camera in hand,” he added. “I can't imagine what I would do if anything devastating happened to it like that at the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian's Wall. It's simply unthinkable.”

The Sycamore Gap was a much-loved landmark beside Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland that also drew hikers and photographers from far and wide.

It was more than 100 years old and had been the scene of many proposals, with people making the trip there from around the world.

But it was cut down by vandals in September 2023, causing uproar, with thousands of people leaving tributes and posting messages about their love for the beauty spot.

Two men were jailed for four years and three months after admitting the illegal felling.

While maybe not quite as famous as the Sycamore Gap was, The Lonely Tree is every bit as special to those that hold it dear to their heart.

Varieties

Four Signs You're Self-Sabotaging Your Joy

Threat or uncertainty can reduce cognitive regulation and increase avoidance behaviors. (Indiana University)
Threat or uncertainty can reduce cognitive regulation and increase avoidance behaviors. (Indiana University)
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Four Signs You're Self-Sabotaging Your Joy

Threat or uncertainty can reduce cognitive regulation and increase avoidance behaviors. (Indiana University)
Threat or uncertainty can reduce cognitive regulation and increase avoidance behaviors. (Indiana University)

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have stood in the way of our own growth.

We make progress on a project, start to feel hopeful about a relationship, or finally get on track with a goal, and then we do something that undermines it.

We fall into a procrastination spiral, pick a fight, or simply quit; in doing so, we talk ourselves out of something that could potentially bring us happiness.

There’s a name for this kind of behavior: self-sabotage.

Dr. Mark Travers, an American psychologist with degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder, wrote an essay at Psychology Today about four well-studied reasons why people sabotage good things, based on research in psychology.

Avoiding blame

According to Travers, one of the most consistently researched patterns in self-sabotage comes from what psychologists call self-handicapping.

He said this is a behavior in which people create obstacles to their own success so that if they fail, they can blame external factors instead of internal ability.

A prime example comes from classic research in which researchers observed students who procrastinated studying for an important test. The ones who failed mostly attributed it to a lack of preparation rather than a lack of organization or discipline.

Self-handicapping is not simply laziness or whimsy. Rather, it is a strategy people use to protect their self-worth in situations where they might perform “poorly” or where they might be perceived as inadequate.

Fear of failure or success

People often think of the fear of failure as the main emotional driver behind self-sabotage.

But research points to the fear of success as an equal, yet less-talked-about engine of the phenomenon. Both fears can push people to undermine opportunities that are actually aligned with their long-term goals.

He said people who worry that failure will confirm their negative self-beliefs are more likely to adopt defensive avoidance tactics, like procrastination or quitting early.

Fear of success, though less widely discussed, operates in a similar fashion. What motivates this fear is the anxiety that comes with the consequences of success.

So, self-sabotaging success can be a way to stay within a comfort zone where expectations are familiar, even if that zone is unsatisfying.

Negative self-beliefs

Self-sabotage is tightly intertwined with how people view themselves. When someone doubts their worth, their ability, or their right to be happy, they may unconsciously act in ways that confirm those negative self-views.

Psychological theories help explain this.

Self-discrepancy theory proposes that people experience emotional discomfort when their actual self does not match their ideal self. This mismatch can lead to negative emotions such as shame, anxiety, or depression.

Coping with stress and anxiety

Self-sabotage often emerges in moments of high stress or emotional threat. When people feel overwhelmed, anxious, or stretched thin, their nervous systems shift into protective modes. Instead of moving forward, they retreat, avoid, or defensively withdraw.

Threat or uncertainty can reduce cognitive regulation and increase avoidance behaviors. In situations of perceived threat, even if the threat is potential success or evaluation, people can default to behaviors that feel safer, even if they undermine long-term goals.

Varieties

2025 Was the World’s Third-Warmest Year on Record, EU Scientists Say

This photograph taken in Lanester, western France on May 31, 2025, shows smoke rising from a factory. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Lanester, western France on May 31, 2025, shows smoke rising from a factory. (AFP)
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2025 Was the World’s Third-Warmest Year on Record, EU Scientists Say

This photograph taken in Lanester, western France on May 31, 2025, shows smoke rising from a factory. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Lanester, western France on May 31, 2025, shows smoke rising from a factory. (AFP)

The planet experienced its third-warmest year on record in 2025, and average temperatures have ​exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming over three years, the longest period since records began, EU scientists said on Wednesday.

The data from the European Union's European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) found that the last three years were the planet's three hottest since records began - with 2025 marginally cooler than 2023, by just 0.01 C.

Britain's national weather service, the UK Met Office, confirmed its own data ranked 2025 as the third-warmest in records going back to 1850. The World Meteorological Organization will publish its temperature ‌figures later ‌on Wednesday.

The hottest year on record was 2024.

EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS

ECMWF ‌said ⁠the ​planet ‌also just had its first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era - the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.

"1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.

Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding ⁠1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with the pre-industrial era.

But their failure to reduce ‌greenhouse gas emissions means that level could now be ‍breached before 2030 - a decade earlier than ‍had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said.

"We are ‍bound to pass it," said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. "The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems."

POLITICAL PUSHBACK

Currently, the world's long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial ​era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, the world already breached 1.5 C in 2024.

Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit - even if ⁠only temporarily - would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods.

In 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.

Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing increased political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change "the greatest con job", last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The long-established consensus among the world's scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause ‌is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.