Military Road on island’s south is threatened by erosion, with some parts now less than 5 metres from steep cliffs
It is considered one of the most scenic routes in the UK, an 11-mile stretch of road that skirts the coastal cliffs and enjoys sweeping views of the Channel.
The problem is that Military Road on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight is getting just a little too close to those plunging cliffs for comfort.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/08/2025 - 08:40
07/08/2025 - 08:00
Exclusive: Defra warned three years ago of farmland contamination by water firms’ sewage-derived product
Government ministers have ignored Environment Agency pleas to tighten rules on the use of sludge fertiliser for three years, despite the regulator having said that water company attitudes towards the substance are “akin to fly-tipping on to agricultural land”, it can be revealed.
Sludge, sometimes referred to as biosolids, is a byproduct of the sewage treatment process that is sold by water companies to farmers as a low-cost fertiliser.
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07/08/2025 - 08:00
The seaside resort has become a byword for coastal deprivation but its youth say there’s a world of creativity bubbling under
Photographs by Polly Braden
Michael knows exactly how he feels about his home town of Blackpool. “It’s just brilliant,” he says. Walking along the beachfront past people soaking up the sunshine on benches and kids playing in the sand overlooked by Blackpool Tower, he throws out his arms with a huge grin. “For me, it has been an amazing place to grow up. I don’t understand why anyone would talk down their home town. If you feel shit about your town, you’re going to feel shit about yourself, right?”
Michael’s life may be going places – he’s studying fashion at college, is making music and has a part-time job entertaining visitors at the Sea Life aquarium – but he knows his positivity about Blackpool isn’t shared by his peers in the town.
Michael in the Sea Life aquarium, where he works part-time
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07/08/2025 - 05:00
‘Maha’ promised to tackle ultra-processed foods – but is it hijacking the food movement instead?
Over the space of the last year, Robert F Kennedy Jr. has made the term “ultra-processed foods” something of a household phrase.
Once a term only used by nutritionists and food policy researchers to describe the most processed foods in the supply chain (think: chips and sodas, packaged bread, microwave dinners and even some yogurts), ultra-processing has become a calling card of the “Make America Healthy Again” (“Maha”) movement.
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07/08/2025 - 05:00
We all need to be careful about how we get information and reach conclusions – especially now
Why exactly so many people drowned in the terrible Independence Day floods that swept through Texas’s Hill Country will probably have multiple explanations that take a while to obtain. But it’s 2025, and people want answers immediately, and lots of people seized on stories blaming the National Weather Service (NWS).
There were two opposing reasons to blame this vital government service. For local and state authorities, blaming a branch of the federal government was a way of avoiding culpability themselves. And for a whole lot of people who deplore the Trump/Doge cuts to federal services, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, the idea that the NWS failed served to underscore how destructive those cuts are.
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07/08/2025 - 05:00
Experts scrambling to understand losses in hives across the country are finally identifying the culprits. And the damage to farmed bees is a sign of trouble for wild bees too
Bret Adee is one of the largest beekeepers in the US, with 2 billion bees across 55,000 hives. The business has been in his family since the 1930s, and sends truckloads of bees across the country from South Dakota, pollinating crops such as almonds, onions, watermelons and cucumbers.
Last December, his bees were wintering in California when the weather turned cold. Bees grouped on top of hives trying to keep warm. “Every time I went out to the beehive there were less and less,” says Adee. “Then a week later, there’d be more dead ones to pick up … every week there is attrition, just continually going down.”
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07/08/2025 - 04:00
Cuts and chaos instigated by Trump come as threat from extreme weather grows due to human-caused climate crisis
The deadly Texas floods could signal a new norm in the US, as Donald Trump and his allies dismantle crucial federal agencies that help states prepare and respond to extreme weather and other hazards, experts warn.
More than 100 are dead and dozens more remain missing after flash floods in the parched area known as Texas Hill Country swept away entire holiday camps and homes on Friday night – in what appears to have been another unremarkable storm that stalled before dumping huge quantities of rain over a short period of time, a phenomenon that has becoming increasingly common as the planet warms.
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07/08/2025 - 02:11
Restrictions to be brought in from Friday after region receives just 15cm of rainfall between February and June
Business live – latest updates
Yorkshire Water has introduced hosepipe restrictions after the region recorded its driest spring in 132 years.
Yorkshire received just 15cm of rainfall between February and June, less than half of what is expected in an average year, pushing the region to an official drought status.
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07/07/2025 - 18:01
Research in Chile suggests climate crisis makes eruptions more likely and explosive, and warns of Antarctica risk
The melting of glaciers and ice caps by the climate crisis could unleash a barrage of explosive volcanic eruptions, a study suggests.
The loss of ice releases the pressure on underground magma chambers and makes eruptions more likely. This process has been seen in Iceland, an unusual island that sits on a mid-ocean tectonic plate boundary. But the research in Chile is one of the first studies to show a surge in volcanism on a continent in the past, after the last ice age ended.
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07/07/2025 - 11:55
Hundreds of homes, bridges and roads washed away in north Indian state after unusually heavy rainfall
India’s mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh has been left reeling after it was hit by rainstorms, flash floods and landslides, with dozens of people reported missing.
Hundreds of homes, bridges, roads and electricity pylons in the north Indian state were washed away after 23 flash floods and 16 landslides caused by unusually heavy rainfall over the weekend. There were also 19 cloudbursts, in which an enormous amount of rain falls in a sudden deluge, according to a report by the Himachal Pradesh state government.
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