Wildfire thought to be largest in Belgium’s history creeps closer to German border prompting evacuations
An elderly couple died in fires on the Greek island of Salamis on Sunday and Belgium is battling its largest modern-day wildfire at an inaccessible area near Germany, in the latest wave of European wildfires.
The couple died outside their home in the Peristeria beach area of Salamis, Greece’s coastguard said. More than 500 people were ordered to evacuate.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
08/17/2026 - 02:50
08/16/2026 - 18:45
Hurricane Lala downgraded after skirting Big Island as one person dies and 183,000 still without power
Hurricane Lala weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday after skirting Hawaii without making landfall, but it wasn’t done punishing the Big Island with hurricane-force gusts. Total rainfall of nearly 3ft (1 meter) was expected on the higher windward slopes, turning rivers into raging torrents and threatening mudslides.
The Hawaii governor, Josh Green, said at least one person died in a car accident in the South Point area of the Big Island, where more than 100 homes were destroyed. A little over 183,000 utility customers remained without power across Hawaii by Sunday mid-afternoon, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us. At least three hospitals were operating on generator power, and 19 roofs were lost, Green said.
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08/16/2026 - 10:37
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08/16/2026 - 10:16
Belgium battling biggest fire in more than a century as flames near German border and 600 people told to evacuate
Two people have died in fires on the Greek island of Salamis as firefighting aircraft were called on to help tame the biggest blaze in Belgium in more than a century in the latest wave of European wildfires.
The bodies of two people were recovered from the Peristeria beach area of Salamis on Sunday after two fires broke out on the island, a fire department spokesperson told Agence France-Presse. Hundreds of people have been ordered to evacuate.
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08/16/2026 - 09:00
Famous raptor helped livestream viewers in difficult moments, and inspired a conservation project at her lake home
The bald eagle Jackie made her home on the shore of southern California’s Big Bear Lake for most of her 14 years. But her death earlier this week drew international attention.
The Los Angeles Times described her as “arguably the world’s most famous bald eagle”. For years, millions of people tuned into a live stream of Jackie’s nest, watching her rear her eaglets, work out life with her mate, Shadow, and, perhaps most memorably, incubate her eggs while almost completely buried in snow.
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08/16/2026 - 07:00
Loggerhead turtles abound this season but rollback of Endangered Species Act protections could threaten future
Wildlife groups in Florida are celebrating record numbers of sea turtle nests this season, but experts warn Donald Trump’s recent gutting of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) could reverse decades of their recovery from the edge of extinction.
With more than two months of the summer nesting season still to run, loggerhead turtles have already made 13,770 nests, hundreds more than recorded in any previous year, along an 8.5-mile stretch of shoreline monitored by the Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
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08/16/2026 - 06:33
Nurses collapsing, builders with heatstroke, bus drivers in cabs that reach 44C. The new PM wanted to spend the summer talking about the cost of living – he should change his plans
I don’t think I have ever written before about a British strike directly related to the climate emergency. But that’s exactly what began late last week in north London, with a zeitgeisty connection to Andy Burnham’s fixation on buses: picket lines outside depots and massed walkouts, while the temperatures in the relevant parts of the capital and its suburbs hovered at about 34C (93F).
Last Friday, more than 1,500 drivers employed by the transport giant Arriva began a planned run of 26 stoppages through to October, affecting bus routes spread between London and Essex. Everything is being led by the union Unite, whose recent grievances include alleged company union-busting and assaults by the public on staff. But the fundamental basis of the dispute is at the heart of the national condition: the near-impossibility for millions of people of working through another insanely hot summer.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
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08/16/2026 - 04:00
Molendotech will collate data from daily tests that detect E coli and other bacteria amid reports of swimmers falling ill
A UK university spinout behind a rapid bacterial water testing kit is planning to launch live water quality maps, as scores of beachgoers report falling ill after swimming.
Molendotech, a spinout from the University of Plymouth, sells a portable test that detects E coli and other bacteria in water and delivers results on the spot, without waiting for days to get laboratory results.
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08/16/2026 - 04:00
New rules could affect nine in 10 rental properties in duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and at Sandringham
King Charles and Prince William could be forced to spend up to £10m upgrading hundreds of rental properties on their private estates to meet planned energy-efficiency rules.
The government has announced that landlords will need to ensure their properties have energy performance certificate (EPC) ratings of C or higher by 2030 – up from the current requirement of an E.
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08/16/2026 - 01:00
Ahead of Fat Bear Week, avid fans are glued to the spectacle of brown bears devouring salmon at Brooks Falls in Alaska
One of this summer’s biggest onscreen hits has had big beasts, great escapes and choppy waters, but it’s not Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – it’s a livestream of Alaskan brown bears catching salmon.
The Brooks Falls bearcam at Katmai national park in the US was watched 7.3m times between 22 June and 4 August – up 70% from the same period last year and more than double the views it attracted in 2024.
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