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Images confirm xAI is continuing to defy EPA regulations in Mississippi to power its flagship datacenters
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.
State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long maintained that such pollution sources require permits under the Clean Air Act.
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Exclusive: High levels of banned ‘forever chemical’ have been detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites
A string of toxic pollution hotspots has been uncovered across Cumbria and Lancashire, with high levels of the banned cancer-causing “forever chemical” Pfos detected in rivers and groundwater at 25 sites.
The contamination, spread across a large area, was uncovered by Watershed Investigations and the Guardian after a freedom of information request revealed high concentrations of Pfos in Environment Agency samples taken in January 2025.
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Senators said repeal was ‘particularly troubling’ and was counter to EPA’s mandate to protect human health
More than three dozen Democratic senators have begun an independent inquiry into the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following a huge change in how the agency measures the health benefits of reducing air pollution that is widely seen as a major setback to US efforts to combat the climate crisis.
In a regulatory impact analysis, the EPA said it would stop assigning a monetary value to the health benefits associated with regulations on fine particulate matter and ozone. The agency argued that the estimates contain too much uncertainty.
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Cardiff: It steals light, it discourages growth at its base, and it blocks what was once a panoramic view. How do I make peace with it?
It goes against the grain for me to hate a plant, but I’ve been resenting a certain Leyland cypress for a long time. Planted by a neighbour in the 1970s to give the house we overlook privacy, it now blocks part of our panoramic view over Cardiff. When we moved in 12 years ago, I was able to lie down in bed and see only sky. In that time the solitary tree has grown four metres and now looms over my sleep. Crows, robins, pigeons and green woodpeckers use it as a lookout over the city. Magpies have attempted (unsuccessfully) to build a nest in it. Polite requests to the owner have been ignored.
Hesperotropsis leylandii is an accidental hybrid of Cupressus macrocarpa and Callitropsis nootkatensis. First noticed in 1888 in Leighton Hall near Welshpool, it was exploited commercially as a cheap, fast-growing screen. Leylandii hedges are light-stealers, tolerant of pollution and notorious for discouraging growth around their base. They often generate disputes between neighbours (including one murder). One person was convicted of criminal damage for urinating on an offending plant. So far I have resisted this, and another suggestion that I knock copper nails into its trunk.
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Choice could prove difficult for Thames Water, which is trying to push through a water recycling scheme nearby
The first designated bathing water area on the River Thames in London has been shortlisted as one of 13 new monitored swimming areas across the country.
The Thames at Ham, in south-west London, was shortlisted as a new river bathing water after campaigners gathered evidence to show thousands of people use the river for swimming throughout the year.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Number of males at RSPB Abernethy rises to 30, after ‘huge amount of work’ by conservationists in Highlands forests
After decades of decline, there are signs of hope for the capercaillie, one of Britain’s most endangered birds.
Populations of the charismatic grouse, which in the UK is found only in the Caledonian pine forests of the Scottish Highlands, have increased by 50%, from 20 males in 2020 to 30 in 2025 at RSPB Abernethy.
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Vanessa Napaltjari Davis puts $70 per week on her prepaid electricity card – but as Alice Springs swelters through ever-hotter summers, that credit lasts less than three days
Since the start of summer, Vanessa Napaltjari Davis and her grandchildren have sweltered in their two-bedroom home. Temperatures in the southern half of the Northern Territory have been well above average, and the electricity running their single air-conditioner has been regularly disconnected.
“We almost had 40 days over 40,” she says. “I was struggling to keep on top of the power bill and keep my little grannies [grandchildren] cool.”
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Bizarre idioms for downpours are just one facet of how the UK uses dark humour and ritual to brave the wet
May it fall as a blessing, not as a curse. So goes the ancient prayer inviting us to embrace days of rain.
It is a prayer that would not be welcomed by anyone on the floodplains the UK persists in filling with houses. It would be met with outright hostility by any farmers who are now unable to do any of the things they need to do in February because their land has had literally 40 days and nights of rain.
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A thatcher, gardener and others on keeping their business afloat in the bad weather – and their fears for the future
With76 flood warnings still in force across the UK and further downpours forecast this week and next, parts of the country have endured rain almost without pause since the start of the year.
The prolonged wet weather is disrupting livelihoods as well as daily life, particularly in rural areas, where flooded roads, waterlogged ground and repeated storms are making it harder to keep businesses afloat, protect crops and maintain steady work.
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