On Monday, a public inquiry will reopen, nine years after the plan was proposed and a toxic local battle began
When Fidelma O’Kane retired more than a decade ago from her career as a social worker and lecturer, she thought she would be “travelling and having a glass of wine and eating chocolate and reading books” while based in the quiet, hilly corner of rural County Tyrone where she has lived almost all her life.
It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, an idle remark from a neighbour would set O’Kane on a path that would become an all-consuming mission. A mining company, the neighbour told her, was planning to drill for long-rumoured reserves of gold in the Sperrins, the low peatland mountain range in Northern Ireland where O’Kane’s family has lived for generations.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
04/11/2026 - 00:00
04/10/2026 - 23:00
The Ukraine war on our doorstep is a constant threat. Contaminated drinking water is a dangerous new twist
In the second week of March, the nature vlogger Ilie Cojocari went out to film the arrival of spring on the Nistru (Dniester) river, 70 metres away from his home in Naslavcea, a village bordering Ukraine on the northernmost point of Moldova. But as he approached the river he could smell the stench of oil rising up from the water and see dark spots floating on its surface. Something was wrong.
Two days earlier, Russia had attacked Ukraine’s Novodnistrovsk hydropower complex 15 miles upriver. Cojocari had been kept awake all night by the sound of shelling. “No one slept in the [Moldovan] district of Ocniţa that night,” he told me.
Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist and writer based in Chișinău
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04/10/2026 - 09:26
Campaigners say birds could die trying to access ancestral nests that were sealed during rail refurbishment
Some swifts returning to Britain to breed will be unable to access their ancestral nesting holes after they were blocked in a £7.5m refurbishment of a Derbyshire railway viaduct, campaigners say.
Nature lovers had appealed to Network Rail to unblock three holes which were among at least nine swift nesting sites on the twin viaducts at Chapel Milton, on the edge of the Peak District.
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04/10/2026 - 05:00
The restructuring will close all regional offices, which manages 193m acres of land, roughly the size of Texas
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US public lands will “pay the price” of a drive by Donald Trump’s officials to restructure the agency that oversees them, union leaders have warned, accusing the administration of forcing workers to decide whether to relocate or resign.
All regional offices of the US Forest Service, which manages 78m hectares (193m acres) of land – roughly the size of Texas – are set to close as part of an overhaul launched by the Trump administration. The service has already shed hundreds of staff members since Trump returned to power last year.
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04/10/2026 - 03:31
Residents of Fleetwood say continuous foul smell from Transwaste site is causing illness and making life hell
In the week that many families went to the coast for the fresh sea air or the tang of fish and chips, visitors to one Lancashire resort inhaled a rather more unpleasant aroma.
“Welcome to Fleetwood,” read the local newspaper headline. “The town that smells of bin juice.”
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04/10/2026 - 02:00
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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04/10/2026 - 00:00
Charity advises replacing seed and nut feeders, where birds gather, with small amounts of mealworms, fat balls or suet
Garden birds should not be fed seeds and nuts over the summer months, the RSPB has said, in an attempt to reduce the spread of avian diseases.
Bird lovers are being urged to take down their bird feeders between May and October to help birds such as the greenfinch, whose numbers have plummeted after the spread of trichomonosis, a parasitic disease transmitted more easily when birds cluster around feeders in the warmer months.
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04/09/2026 - 21:11
Hawaii Volcanoes national park closed due to eruption of one of world’s most active volcanoes, located on Big Island
Amber lava exploded over 200 meters into the air as Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, located on Hawaii’s Big Island, erupted on Thursday.
Lava fountains began to erupt from the volcano after 11 am local time, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). On Thursday evening, plumes of smoke and lava pouring downslope were observable on a livestream camera. So far, the episode has produced 3.6m cubic yards of lava, the USGS said.
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04/09/2026 - 15:28
Advocates warn changes could increase risks of pollutants contaminating water and exposure to toxic waste
The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed weakened rules governing the safe disposal of ash produced by burning coal. Those regulations were strengthened under the Biden administration as part of a wider crackdown on pollution from coal-fired power plants.
The Trump administration proposed easing standards for monitoring and protecting groundwater near some coal ash sites, rolling back rules forcing the cleanup of entire coal properties instead of just places where ash was dumped. The revisions would also make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes.
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04/09/2026 - 13:00
New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself
On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.
In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.
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