Government plan to de-link gas and electricity prices aims to reduce bills for consumers after global surge in prices
Households in England, Scotland and Wales could save nearly £200 a year on their energy bills if the government stepped into the market to act as the sole buyer of electricity, according to a thinktank.
The research found that public procurement of electricity, meaning the government would become the “single buyer” of power before it is resold to consumers, could shave billions of pounds from electricity prices.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/10/2026 - 01:00
06/10/2026 - 00:00
While most visitors prefer the finches, tropicbirds and blue-footed boobies, some are drawn to less glamorous species
Most visitors don’t come to the Galápagos for the gulls. With more than a dozen kinds of Darwin’s finches on offer – along with fearsome frigatebirds, ethereal tropicbirds, and comical blue-footed boobies – my tour companions could be forgiven for overlooking these less glamorous seabirds.
But as a lifelong laridophile (as gull enthusiasts are known), I had two particular target species here. And on our first day’s sailing, as we landed on North Seymour Island, I saw my first: a large gull with a dark grey head and strikingly zigzag-patterned wings.
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06/10/2026 - 00:00
Greenpeace calculates that wealthiest contribute nearly $1tn of damage a year with ownership-based emissions
Ultra-wealthy people zooming across the world on their private jets, lounging on yachts and conspicuous by their Instagrammable consumption are among the most easily identified individual culprits when it comes to the climate crisis – but new research argues that it is not just their heady lifestyles to blame, but also their bank accounts.
Through their ownership of companies and private financial and physical assets, from oil producers to property developments, the super-rich are responsible for an outsized slice of the greenhouse gases that are overheating the planet. The top 1% of people by wealth, through their shareholdings and investments, control about a quarter of global annual emissions in total.
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06/09/2026 - 23:00
Conservationists say cherished creatures such as whales, dolphins and seabirds are being killed in large numbers by fishing tackle
Thousands of Britain’s most charismatic and protected marine wildlife, including whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals and seabirds are being killed as “collateral damage” by fishing vessels every year, according to the first-ever analysis of bycatch data.
The analysis, by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups, reveals the devastating toll bycatch, the accidental capture and killing of non-target species by fishing vessels, is having on marine species.
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06/09/2026 - 18:01
Targeted vaccination and improved testing planned as part of drive to eradicate disease by 2038
Cattle will be vaccinated against tuberculosis from 2030 as a “gamechanging” part of a new strategy to drive eradication of the disease in England by 2038. In parallel, the last badger culls are expected to end by 2029, with vaccination of badgers expanded.
More than 20,000 infected cattle are slaughtered each year, costing taxpayers £100m and inflicting a heavy toll on affected farmers’ livelihoods and mental health. Mass culling of badgers began in 2013 and has killed about 250,000 animals, at a cost of about £60m.
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06/09/2026 - 11:30
Earthquake was region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years and was also felt in parts of Mexico including Cancún
An earthquake on Monday off the coast of Cuba, which was that region’s strongest tremor in nearly 150 years, could be felt in Florida and parts of Mexico.
The 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which struck in the afternoon, occurred approximately 65 miles (105km) north-west of Mantua, Cuba, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS added that the earthquake had a depth of 16 miles.
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06/09/2026 - 10:00
Researchers believe the same pair of birds has been mating and nesting in the unusual spot in the Daintree Rainforest for 15 consecutive years
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It started by chance – but it should have come as no surprise that two ospreys would pick a hi-tech research facility to make their home.
James Cook University’s 47-metre tall crane towers over the far-north Queensland rainforest canopy, making it the perfect nesting place for the seabird.
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06/09/2026 - 09:00
Price of dairy product has risen fivefold after users of GLP-1 medications advised to increase protein consumption
The growing popularity of weight-loss drugs has fuelled global demand for whey protein, sparking concerns among industry experts over a potential shortage.
The price of whey has risen fivefold to record levels as companies race to secure supplies amid a boom driven by growing use of GLP-1 drugs, such as Mounjaro, which often require higher protein intake to preserve muscle mass.
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06/09/2026 - 08:00
Pacoima is hemmed in by highways and heavy industry, and its residents are fighting pollution with hyperlocal air quality monitoring
Jose Luis Salas looks up at the ladder. “Are you ready?” he asks Shance Taylor, an environmental project manager who’s holding a white container, about the size of a shoebox, covered with wires and numbers.
Taylor nods and climbs up to reach the side of Salas’s tidy house in Pacoima, a neighborhood in Los Angeles’s north-east San Fernando valley. The curious box in their hands is known as Aeroqual sensor – part of a community air-quality monitoring program run by Pacoima Beautiful, a local environmental group.
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06/09/2026 - 08:00
Sharp rise in hospital visits will in turn drive up annual healthcare costs for heat-related conditions to over $1bn
People in the US are poised to endure another summer of unusually ferocious heat and there will be little respite in the years ahead, with a new study finding that the coming 15 years could see a doubling in hospitalizations due to heat-related illnesses.
The number of annual heat-related emergency department visits or hospitalizations across the US are set to rise from about 109,000 cases a year to as many as 237,000 cases by 2040, the new research has estimated.
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