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Councils will end contracts allowing private enforcers to receive 50% to 100% of each fine served
Ministers have signalled an imminent crackdown on so-called “for-profit” litter enforcement arrangements in England, where private firms are paid for each fixed penalty notice issued.
Under long-awaited statutory guidance, councils would have to end contracts that allow private enforcers to receive between 50% to 100% of each fine they serve.
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A record 39,000 birds are overwintering on Wallasea island wetlands thanks to soil transported from London tunnels
Almost 40,000 birds have made their home on a nature reserve created using soil from tunnel excavations for the Elizabeth line.
Three million tonnes of earth were transported from London to Wallasea island in Essex and used to lift the ground level and make wetlands.
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In the two years since the system was launched, beverage-packaging collection and recycling has risen to 94%
In the Transylvanian village of Pianu de Jos, 51-year-old Dana Chitucescu gathers a sack of empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles, aluminium cans and glass every week and takes it to her local shop.
Like millions of Romanians across cities and rural areas, Chitucescu has woven the country’s two-year-old deposit return system (DRS) into her routine.
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Strategy paper released with budget allows new oil and gas projects to move ahead if they are linked to existing fields
The government has ruled out new North Sea oil and gas exploration or lower taxes for fossil fuel companies as it struggles to protect workers from the industry’s collapse.
In a strategy paper, Ed Miliband confirmed the crackdown on new North Sea exploration – although the energy secretary will still allow new offshore fossil fuel projects to move ahead as long as they are linked to existing fields.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Welsh Marches, Shropshire:All the ditches and drains from the hills of mid-Wales to here burst with rain. The Severn has a deadly seriousness now
Low sunlight casts the shadows of figures, standing on the Frankwell footbridge in Shrewsbury across the River Severn, into trees. The willows have shaken loose from leafing, and the light that strikes them has a brilliance no longer absorbed by hungry foliage. The trees are illuminated, freed from the processes of growth, and the river has risen to meet them.
The shadows stand in the golden branches above a bend in the river, and look back at us. They are dark and shift slightly, mirroring our movements, but not enough to feel we are the same thing. We’re not. They are strangers, watching. Freud may have called them doppelgangers: uncanny versions of our repressed selves. Jung may have seen them as unconscious personalities that we project on to others because of the struggles we have with ourselves. The shadows are not watching us, though: they’re watching the river.
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A boom in places offering petting sessions is linked to a rise in the illegal movement of exotic and endangered species, say experts
The second floor of an unassuming office building in central Bangkok is a strange place to encounter the world’s largest rodent. Yet here, inside a small enclosure with a shallow pool, three capybaras are at the disposal of dozens of paying customers – all clamouring for a selfie. As people eagerly thrust leafy snacks toward the nonchalant-looking animals, few seem to consider the underlying peculiarity: how, exactly, did this South American rodent end up more than 10,000 miles from home, in a bustling Asian metropolis?
Capybara cafes have been cropping up across the continent in recent years, driven by the animal’s growing internet fame. The semi-aquatic animals feature in more than 600,000 TikTok posts. In Bangkok, cafe customers pay 400 baht (£9.40) for a 30-minute petting session with them, along with a few meerkats and Chinese bamboo rats. Doors are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
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A series of walking festivals and cultural programmes aim to lure visitors to the Algarve’s woodland interiors and pretty villages to help boost tourism year round
‘I never mind doing the same walk over and over again,” said our guide, Joana Almeida, crouching beside a cluster of flowers. “Each time, there are new things – these weren’t here yesterday.” Standing on stems at least two centimetres tall and starring the dirt with white petals, the fact these star of Bethlehem flowers sprung up overnight was a beautiful testament to how quickly things can grow and regenerate in this hilly, inland section of the Algarve, the national forest of Barão de São João. It was also reassuring to learn that in an area swept by forest fires in September, species such as strawberry trees (which are fire-resistant thanks to their low resin content) were beginning to bounce back – alongside highly flammable eucalyptus, which hinders other fire-retardant trees such as oak. Volunteers were being recruited to help with rewilding.
Visitor numbers to the Algarve are growing, with 2024 showing an increase of 2.6% on the previous year – but most arrivals head straight for the beach, despite there being so much more to explore. The shoreline is certainly wild and dramatic but the region is also keen to highlight the appeal of its inland areas. With the development of year-round hiking and cycling trails, plus the introduction of nature festivals, attention is being drawn to these equally compelling landscapes, featuring mountains and dense woodlands. The Algarve Walking Season (AWS) runs a series of five walking festivals with loose themes such as “water” and “archaeology” between November and April. It’s hoped they will inspire visitors year round, boosting the local economy and helping stem the tide of younger generations leaving in search of work.
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Some would argue airflow is silent, and that only the objects in its way give rise to vortex shedding or sough
The evocative sound of wind in the trees, called psithurism or sough, occurs when the smooth, “laminar” flow of air becomes turbulent around branches, twigs and leaves. The different scales of obstruction give rise to a mix of different frequencies of sound, resulting in something like white noise. Wind through pine trees is higher pitched because of the smaller size of pine needles, making a hissing or whispering sound.
When indoors you may sometimes hear the wind howling. That sound is the airflow interacting with the sharp edges, gaps and openings of buildings, producing a note in the same way as blowing over the top of an empty bottle does. These are known as Aeolian tones after Aeolus, the Greek god of winds.
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Emotions ran high at the UN climate summit in Brazil, which was hit by its first major protest in four years
It was a tense moment. A group of about 50 people from the Munduruku, an Indigenous people in the Amazon basin, had blocked the entrance to the Cop30 venue in protest, causing long lines of delegates to snake down access roads, simmering in the morning heat.
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