Firm admits supplying water unfit for human consumption after nearly 150 people fell ill
A major utility company has admitted supplying water unfit for human consumption after a parasite outbreak in Devon made almost 150 people sick.
South West Water (SWW) pleaded guilty to the criminal offence relating to the cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Brixham, Devon, which affected 2,500 homes.
Continue reading...Democratic rematch in Durham-area district draws focus to fight over AI datacenters increasingly shaping US elections
A North Carolina congressional primary held on Tuesday is an early test of datacenter politics – a fight increasingly shaping elections nationwide.
In the Durham-area fourth district, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee is seeking her third term against progressive challenger Nida Allam, a Durham county commissioner she defeated in 2022. The election was too close to call as of Wednesday morning, with Foushee up by less than one percentage point, and is likely headed for a recount.
Continue reading...Company will halt production of controversial paraquat weed killer by end of June as it faces thousands of lawsuits
Syngenta, maker of a controversial pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease, said on Tuesday that it will stop making its paraquat weed killer by the end of June.
The announcement comes as the company is facing several thousand lawsuits brought by people in the US who allege they developed Parkinson’s disease due to their exposure to Syngenta’s paraquat products.
Continue reading...From the Chagos Islands to ‘windmills’ and sharia law, the US president’s comments do not bear much scrutiny
Donald Trump has been opining about the UK again, saying on Tuesday that Keir Starmer was “not Winston Churchill” and repeating his complaint about the deal to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Here are some recent things the US president has said about British issues, and how they compare with reality.
Continue reading...Researchers hope restoring the original song will improve breeding prospects for birds released into the wild
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Scientists have rescued the lost song of the critically endangered regent honeyeater – one of Australia’s rarest birds.
Regent honeyeaters were once seen in vast flocks across south-eastern Australia, with a distribution that ranged from Queensland to Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
Continue reading...Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn among port cities more choked by sulphur oxides from ferries, analysis shows
Fume-belching ferries spew more sulphur pollution than cars in several EU capitals, analysis has found.
Dublin, Helsinki, Stockholm and Tallinn are among 13 of Europe’s 15 biggest port cities choked more by sulphur oxides (SOx) from ferries than road vehicles, data shared exclusively with the Guardian shows.
Continue reading...Authorities say capture of bull and tiger sharks necessary to protect lives as environmentalists launch urgent legal challenge
Some beaches in areas of New Caledonia are closed to swimming and the authorities have begun shark culling off the capital, Nouméa, after a fatal attack in the popular tourist spot – prompting a legal challenge to stop the operation and reigniting debate over public safety and marine conservation.
The culling operation began on 23 February, after a man from New Caledonia riding a wing foil in a recreational area was attacked and killed. Preliminary investigations indicate the victim was attacked by a tiger shark that measured at least three metres.
Continue reading...SA premier Peter Malinauskas warns residents to prepare for heavy falls and possible flash floods
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Late summer rain is causing havoc across Australia, with South Australia on flood watch, Victoria cleaning up after a downpour, and Sydney issuing a shark warning after heavy falls.
Almost all of South Australia, much of western Victoria and parts of western NSW were on flood watch as a slow-moving pressure system from central Australia moved east. Queensland had also seen severe rainfall.
Continue reading...Atmospheric machine-gun has fired storm after deadly storm at the region this year, leaving a trail of widespread destruction
For Andrés Sánchez Barea, in Spain, it was the fear that arose when water started to spurt from plug sockets. For Nelson Duarte, in Portugal, it was the helplessness that hit as violent winds smacked down trees and tore tiles from roofs. For Amal Essuide, in Morocco, it was the reality that dawned when a corpse was pulled onboard a boat in the flooded medina.
Each moment of horror is a fragment of the destruction wrought by an atmospheric machine-gun that in recent weeks has fired storm after storm at the western Mediterranean. Scientists do not know if climate breakdown helped pull the trigger, but research suggests it loaded the chamber with bigger bullets.
Continue reading...Coalition government agrees to remove parts of controversial law and allow homes to rely on fossil fuels
Germany’s coalition government has been accused of abandoning its climate targets after agreeing to scrap parts of a contentious heating law mandating the use of renewables in favour of a draft law allowing homeowners to rely on fossil fuels.
While the previous law required most newly installed heating systems to use at least 65% renewable energy, often with a heat pump, the amended legislation will allow households to keep using oil and gas.
Continue reading...Critics say proposal to fold department into a new ‘mega ministry’ will dilute accountability and put nature protections at risk
New Zealand’s government is seeking to abolish its dedicated environment ministry to cut down on bureaucracy, a move critics say could dilute environmental protections.
Under the plan, the department would be folded into a new “mega-ministry” that will cover housing, urban development, transport, local government and the environment.
Continue reading...As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead
There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling.
Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Project Giving Back, set up in 2022 to help charities exhibit show gardens, says this year will be its last
Chelsea flower show is looking for new charity sponsors after the mystery philanthropic couple who have spent more than £23m on show gardens end their support.
Project Giving Back was set up by two anonymous donors in 2022, and since then it has paid for 63 gardens at the most prestigious horticultural event in the world, held each summer at the Royal Hospital gardens in south-west London.
Continue reading...Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential
In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.
Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.
Continue reading...Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants
Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.
The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.
Continue reading...Document also shows US miner had been unlawfully clearing land for 15 years despite warnings from department
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The Australian government’s decision to allow the US mining giant Alcoa to continue clearing swathes of Western Australian jarrah forest despite past illegal clearing practices was made in part due to a critical minerals deal reached between Australia and the Trump administration last year, a new document shows.
The document also reveals Alcoa was unlawfully clearing land for its bauxite mining practices in the area south of Perth for 15 years, despite warnings from the federal environment department.
Conservationists have expressed outrage that an “unprecedented” $55m penalty announced by the environment minister was only applied to a six-year period in which the illegal clearing was alleged to have occurred.
Murray Watt said on Wednesday that the penalty – known as an enforceable undertaking – was for clearing that occurred from 2019-2025 in known habitat for nationally protected species without an approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
When announcing the penalty, Watt said he had granted Alcoa a national interest exemption to allow it to continue clearing in the northern jarrah forest for 18 months while the government considered a proposal for an expansion of the company’s Huntly and Willowdale mining operations to 2045.
Continue reading...City of Catania calls ruse to avoid CCTV cameras installed to stop fly-tipping ‘as cunning as it is doubly wrong’
A man in Catania, Sicily, trained his dog to dump bags of rubbish by the roadside in an attempt to evade surveillance cameras installed to combat fly-tipping, municipal police have said.
The episode was detailed in a post on the city of Catania’s official Facebook page. Accompanying a video of the dog was a remark from the police that “inventiveness can never become an alibi for incivility”.
Continue reading...Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property
It will be much easier to shoot deer in England under government plans that aim to curb the damage the animals are doing to the country’s woodlands.
Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, plans to bring forward new legislation to give landowners and tenants legal rights to shoot deer to protect crops and property.
Continue reading...Arctesthes avatar moth, which won nearly half of the votes, was discovered in 2012 and is critically endangered
A tiny critically endangered moth, named after the Avatar films because of the proposed mining activity threatening its primary habitat, has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year.
The Avatar moth won by a wide margin, earning 5,192 of the more than 11,000 total votes cast. It won 2,269 more votes than the runner-up, the mahoenui giant wētā, one of the world’s largest insects. Other contenders included the wonderfully spiky hellraiser mite, the country’s heaviest spider – the black tunnelweb – and a giant earthworm that glows in the dark.
Continue reading...Report says common agricultural policy provides ‘unfair’ levels of support to unhealthy, meat-heavy diets
Beef and lamb receive 580 times more in EU subsidies than legumes, a report has found, despite scientists urging people to get more of their protein from less harmful sources.
Analysis by the charity Foodrise found the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) provides “unfair” levels of support to meat-heavy diets that doctors consider unhealthy and climate scientists consider environmentally destructive.
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