Thursday has been described by residents as ‘horrendous’, ‘distressing’ and ‘one of the scariest days of my life’
People in Stourbridge have described the fires that devastated more than a dozen homes as “horrendous” and “distressing”, with one describing blazes that surpassed the height of residential houses.
Multiple fires spread across the West Midlands on Thursday as temperatures reached record highs of 38.1C in the UK, during the country’s fifth consecutive heatwave.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/14/2026 - 12:17
08/14/2026 - 10:08
Utility company’s plant, which has only run five times, now has an estimated total cost of £500m
Thames Water is preparing the UK’s only desalination plant to restart operations later this year – but it will not be ready until the winter, long after the current drought is likely to have passed.
The utility company said that it was hoping to start operating its plant in Beckton, east London, “by the end of the year”, in order to help build up reservoir supplies over the winter for next summer.
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08/14/2026 - 10:07
Marine conservationist says deliberate attack would be ‘act of extreme cruelty’ against endangered population
Spanish officials have launched an investigation after the matriarch of an orca pod known for jostling and ramming boats off the Iberian Peninsula was spotted with wounds suggesting she had been shot by a pellet gun.
On Friday, Spain’s environment ministry said Toñi, the oldest living member of the pod, had been seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar with markings on her dorsal fin that were “consistent with shots from a pellet gun”.
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08/14/2026 - 10:00
‘High coral cover is evidence of recovery and resilience, not evidence that the disturbances causing mortality didn’t happen,’ scientist says
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The Australian newspaper appeared to think it had a slam-dunk this week with a front page story pointing to official government data which showed “the Great Barrier Reef is refusing to die” despite decades of warnings that global heating would cause its demise.
In an editorial to back its reporting, the newspaper claimed the “continued good health” of the reef was a “welcome reminder that physics rather than the pseudo-religion of climate change doom still holds sway over the natural order.”
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08/14/2026 - 09:31
PM urges people not to risk lives and homes by starting fires as military brought in to help deal with wildfires
UK politics live – latest updates
Downing Street has issued a temporary GB-wide ban on the sale of disposable barbecue and brought in the military to help deal with wildfires as Andy Burnham urged people not to risk lives in “tinderbox” Britain this weekend.
The prime minister spoke from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, where at least 19 people have been taken to hospital during eight fires that have ripped through several homes.
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08/14/2026 - 08:25
Possible cut from 80% down to as little as 50% could add millions of tonnes of CO2 to emissions and comes amid UK heatwaves
Andy Burnham’s government has said it will look at cutting electric vehicle sales targets, in proposals that could add millions of tonnes a year to the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions.
The government launched a consultation on Friday on cutting the target for new EVs to as little as 50% of all new cars in 2030, down from 80% under existing rules. The consultation will include several options, including leaving the headline target unchanged, or cutting it to 70%, 60% or 50%.
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08/14/2026 - 05:45
With the UK experiencing the driest summer on record, we look at how the weather is affecting the pitches and courses across the country
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08/14/2026 - 03:00
Twenty-one birds released on Bodmin Moor where it is hoped they will one day return to produce their own young
They took a little coaxing at first – after all, they had got used to a safe, comfortable aviary tucked away in woodland on the edge of Bodmin Moor. But after a few minutes, the birds stepped out into freedom and the bolder ones were soon soaring into the blue, the first white storks to be released into the wilds of Cornwall.
Yan Swiderski, the founder of the Cornwall Stork Project, had tears in his eyes. “I do feel a bit emotional,” he said. He sounded a little like a proud father wanting to play down the achievements of his offspring – and failing. “They’re a little bit clumsy at the moment. They aren’t used to flying free … but they do look majestic, don’t they?”
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08/14/2026 - 02:00
Weather forecasts once gave Britons something safe to chat about. Not any more, and that’s a problem for the experts – indeed, for all of us
In this fragmented but supposedly mild country, watching and talking about the weather forecast is meant to be a reassuring, unifying activity. Collectively, we have created and maintained a national climate narrative of small disappointments and pleasures. The first weather forecaster to appear on British TV, George Cowling, made his debut on the BBC in January 1954, predicting that “tomorrow would be rather windy”, but “a good day to hang out the washing”. For most of the 72 years since, such brief, carefully calibrated broadcasts have provided people from Aberdeen to Penzance with practical information, small talk and minor grumbles about essentially the same situation: living in a country where the weather is constantly changing, in a paradoxically unchanging way.
Yet like the traditional British climate, that common weather culture may now be evaporating. “Met Office considers issuing red ‘extreme heat warning’ across Britain while nation enjoys ‘incredible summer’,” said the headline above the forecast on the GB News website on Monday, caught between terror and delight at the latest heatwave. As the climate crisis has affected this country in more and more unmistakable but uneven ways, TV weather forecasters have increasingly struggled to find the right language to describe this transformation’s daily consequences. Their struggle influences and exemplifies that of many Britons to understand, and work out what we think about, the apparent end of the weather patterns we expected to shape our whole lives.
Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist
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08/14/2026 - 01:14
Firstly you can just grieve – it’s not your fault because you used a plastic straw that one time
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