Experts share tips to avoid the blood-sucking pests that can transmit Lyme disease and other illnesses on to humans
I won’t go into gory detail about the tick I found latched behind my ear approximately 35 hours after a hike in early June. Suffice it to say, the parasite was well fed, and I was horrified.
I am far from alone in making such a disgusting discovery. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), emergency room visits for tick bites have been unusually high in the US this year. Thirty-one million Americans are bitten by ticks annually – and the number has been trending up for over a decade. In the UK, ticks appear to be rising in number and species variety.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/21/2026 - 11:00
07/21/2026 - 08:45
Government urges visitors not to approach or feed wolves as it manages safety amid growing population
Danish authorities have advised tourists to stand still, make eye contact and put up “maximum resistance” in the event of attack if they encounter a wolf while on holiday.
After a 200-year absence, wolves started returning to Denmark in 2012. There are now estimated to be 49 wolves on the Danish peninsula of Jutland.
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07/21/2026 - 06:45
Chiefs in Ontario say they were left to self-evacuate before homes burned to ground, after being told there was no imminent threat
Fast-moving wildfires have burned two First Nations communities in Canada to the ground, as members said they were left to self-evacuate without government help or emergency alerts.
Thirteen communities in Ontario province have been ordered to evacuate because of wildfires, most of them First Nations. The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, told reporters on Monday that close to 2,000 people had been evacuated so far to cities including Toronto and Niagara Falls.
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07/20/2026 - 23:18
Albanese government’s approval of North West Shelf gas extension being challenged by the Australian Conservation Foundation and Friends of Australian Rock Art
The Albanese government’s decision to approve one of the world’s largest gas projects in Western Australia is being challenged in the federal court, setting up a significant test of how Australia’s environment law deals with the climate crisis.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and Friends of Australian Rock Art (Fara) are this week running concurrent court challenges against the approval of the extension of Woodside’s major North West Shelf gas export project.
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07/20/2026 - 23:09
Decline in clearing of trees and shrubs offset by sharp jump in clearing of non-woody vegetation
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Almost 90 football fields’ worth of woody habitat were bulldozed in New South Wales every day in 2024, according to new government data which shows the state has failed to rein in high rates of clearing.
Clearing of vegetation across the state increased by 16% in 2024, reaching 81,293 hectares (200,879 acres) in total – an area more than 275 times the size of the Sydney CBD. The increase was due to a sharp jump in clearing of non-woody vegetation, up 70% on the previous year.
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07/20/2026 - 23:00
Industry says government’s failure to address cooling demands means AI growth plans are ‘fatally flawed’
The UK will not have enough water for future datacentres, the water industry has said in stark criticism of the government’s AI growth plans.
Datacentres rely on large amounts of water to manage the heat generated by densely packed servers. Cooling towers, chillers and humidification systems make direct use of this water, with large volumes also consumed indirectly through high electrical power needs.
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07/20/2026 - 14:00
Scientists recorded slower reduction over past 20 years, but study finds this was ‘temporary rather than sustained’
A previously recorded slowdown in Arctic sea ice decline has ended, according to a new study, with the largest year-to-year wintertime reduction ever recorded.
In a study published last summer, researchers found that melting sea ice in the Arctic had slowed down over the past 20 years, with no statistically significant decline in its extent recorded between 2005 and 2024.
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07/20/2026 - 12:31
National disaster agency confirms ‘severe financial and human losses’ in eastern province of Nuristan
Rescue crews in Afghanistan are searching for survivors and bodies among the rubble of houses destroyed by devastating flash floods that authorities said had killed nearly two dozen people and left more than 100 people missing.
The Afghanistan national disaster management authority said on Tuesday that 23 people had died, 80 had been injured and more than 100 were missing after floods struck the eastern province of Nuristan on Monday, causing an undetermined number of buildings to collapse. The provincial capital city of Parun was among the areas affected, authorities said.
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07/20/2026 - 11:55
Bertha could bring heavy rain on US Gulf coast, with its center located 110 miles south of Panama City, Florida
Tropical Storm Bertha formed on Monday evening in the Gulf of Mexico south of the Florida Panhandle as it drifts erratically toward populated coastal areas, bringing a threat of heavy rain, storm surge and damaging wind gusts.
Meanwhile, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Fausto formed far from Mexico’s Baja California peninsula and posed no threat to land on Monday night.
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07/20/2026 - 10:00
Resorts in New South Wales and Victoria face a warm and dry start to the season with only sporadic falls of natural snow in many alpine areas
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Alpine ski resorts in New South Wales and Victoria saw climate records shattered at the weekend with maximum temperatures up to 12C above average.
Ski areas of Mount Hotham and Falls Creek set July records for their hottest daytime and night-time temperatures and Thredbo also set a new hottest July day, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
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