New protections for hares, and more humane conditions on farms, should be welcomed by all
Looking after wildlife and improving the lives of farm animals and pets are the related but distinct aims of the government’s new animal welfare strategy for England. Its launch is timely: more than 1 billion chickens and around 8 million turkeys are reared each year – with many of the latter slaughtered in the run-up to Christmas. Winter is also peak season for pet abandonments, with animal charities particularly fearful this year, given the already high numbers of dogs and cats being dumped.
Pledges to end the use of cages for laying hens, and cramped farrowing crates for pigs, will be welcomed by all who object to animal cruelty. So will a proposal to replace the carbon dioxide stunning of pigs with an alternative that is less distressing for them. New rules for farmed fish are also on the way. Until now, fish have been largely excluded from the evolving set of regulations aimed at minimising suffering at the point of slaughter.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/23/2025 - 13:25
12/23/2025 - 11:07
Work under way to refloat boats on emptied waterway after earthwork more than 200 years old fails
The dramatic breach of a canal in the early hours of Monday, which sent two narrowboats tumbling into a hole and left others stranded, was caused by the collapse of an artificial embankment that had stood for more than 200 years.
As emergency services declared the major incident phase over more than 24 hours after the embankment failure, work was beginning to isolate the damaged section of the canal and refloat boats still stranded either side of the emptied section of waterway.
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12/23/2025 - 07:53
U-turn lifts limit from £1m to £2.5m after protests and warnings that family farms were at risk
Ministers will increase the threshold for taxing inherited farmland from £1m to £2.5m after months of pressure from campaigners and MPs representing rural areas.
In a statement slipped out just before Christmas, the environment department announced the U-turn, which will apply from April when the tax kicks in.
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12/23/2025 - 07:12
No 10 has largely played down health secretary’s comments
The Treasury has published this explainer setting out in detail how the inheritance tax rules will apply to farms after today’s announcement.
When the government first announced its plan to extend inheritance tax to farms, it said that this would raise around £520m a year from 2028-29.
The changes we are implementing reflects the concerns that have been raised while preserving the majority of the revenue from reform to help cut debt and borrowing and fund public services. The costings for today’s announcement will be incorporated into the next OBR forecast.
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12/23/2025 - 04:00
As the number of the semi-aquatic creatures soars so can tensions. But the Swiss have a tried and tested system to calm the neighbours and restore harmony
“I hate beavers,” a woman tells the beaver hotline. Forty years ago she planted an oak tree in a small town in southern Zurich – now at the frontier of beaver expansion – and it has just been felled: gnawed by the large, semi-aquatic rodents as they enter their seasonal home-improvement mode.
The caller is one of 10 new people getting in touch each week at this time of year. Beavers, nature’s great engineers, can unleash mayhem during winter as they renovate their lodges and build up their dams. For people, this can mean flooding, sinkholes appearing in roads and trees being felled. A single incident can clock up 70,000 Swiss francs (£65,000) in damages.
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12/23/2025 - 01:00
Met Office says temperatures are tracking ahead of 2022 after year of heatwaves and drought, though late cold spell could yet intervene
Forecasters say 2025 is “more likely than not” to break the record for the hottest year in the UK since records began, after a summer of heatwaves and drought followed by a mild autumn.
According to the Met Office, the official forecaster, the mean temperature for 2025 is tracking well ahead of the previous highest year, set in 2022. However, a colder spell expected from Christmas until the new year makes it too close to call definitively.
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12/22/2025 - 21:53
Advocates say State Electricity Commission’s $650m Delburn windfarm will be a ‘new chapter’ for region previously home to Hazelwood coal power station
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Victoria will have its first publicly owned windfarm after the government’s electricity commission spent $650m on a 33-turbine project in the Latrobe valley.
Construction of the Delburn windfarm is due to start in early 2026 and climate advocates said the purchase of the project by the State Electricity Commission marked a key turning point for a region known for its privately owned coal plants.
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12/22/2025 - 18:11
Biologist says specimen filmed by a Victorian fisher is ‘unusual’, but not a rare albino as some had wondered
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Cody Stylianou thought he saw a huge trout. But, skimming just below the surface, it was moving differently than a fish would.
The creature surfaced and, amazed, the Victorian fisher reached for his phone. Swimming in front of him was a pink platypus.
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12/22/2025 - 13:49
Black Diamond Pool eruption provides dramatic footage after being captured on official camera
A hot spring in Yellowstone national park that erupts sporadically was captured on an official camera exploding in spectacular muddy plumes at the weekend.
Volcanic experts at the US Geological Survey described the eruption as simply “Kablooey!”
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12/22/2025 - 11:16
Interior department move affects five projects under construction in latest blow to industry targeted by Trump
The Trump administration has said it is immediately pausing all leases for offshore wind farms already under construction, in the heaviest blow yet to an industry that the administration has relentlessly targeted throughout the year.
Trump’s Department of the Interior said that it was halting the building of five wind projects due to “national security risks”. The department said it would work with the US Department of Defense to mitigate the risk of the wind turbine towers creating radar interference called “clutter” that could in some way hamper the US military.
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