What is a favourite place if not one built upon our fondest memories?
Would I like to write about my favourite place?
The invitation inspired me to recall so many magical places – from north-east Arnhem Land to Mediterranean island hamlets with idyllic quayside tavernas, from the Melbourne Cricket Ground on grand final day to Dickensian London pubs, from picture postcard villages beneath snow-capped alpine peaks to the haunts of my literary giants and on to Joshua Tree and Hagia Sofia.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
02/27/2026 - 09:00
02/27/2026 - 09:00
EPA rolls back rules as chemical firms claim provisions in RMP protection system too expensive to implement
The Trump administration is slowly dismantling the federal disaster management system that protects the nation from chemical catastrophes, such as fires and explosions at high-risk facilities.
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Response Management Program (RMP) requires more than 12,500 high-risk facilities to develop protocols to prevent catastrophes, or limit fallout, and was largely designed to protect workers, first responders, and fence-line communities.
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02/27/2026 - 08:32
With most Scots supportive of reintroducing the wild cat, charities are focusing on those whose jobs could be affected
Could lynx, the elusive wild cat driven to extinction in Britain more than 1,000 years ago, become the new Loch Ness monster? “Whether Nessie’s there or not, she draws tourists,” said Margaret Luckwell, a resident of Moray, Scotland. “It would be the same with lynx. I’d love to see a lynx in the wild.”
Luckwell’s view is a majority one among local people gathering at village halls across the Highlands, as a painstaking consultation slowly gathers momentum for the apex predator’s return to Scottish forests.
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02/27/2026 - 07:30
EPA found only 27 of 219 plants needed upgrades; 71 later got exemptions as Donald Trump scrapped mercury limits
Almost all coal-fired power plants in the US had the ability to comply with rules limiting their emission of dangerous pollutants such as mercury that can cause brain damage in children. Despite this, Donald Trump’s administration decided to demolish the standards anyway.
Last week, the Trump administration said it is loosening restrictions on air toxins from mercury, lead and other heavy metals that are released by coal plants. Such pollution is known to be neurotoxic and has been linked to irreversible brain damage in children and infants, as well as heart disease and cancer in adults.
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02/27/2026 - 03:00
This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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02/27/2026 - 01:00
The annual competition draws thousands of entries from across the world and brings together images from below the water’s surface that show the diversity and challenges of subaquatic life
All photographs courtesy of Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026
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02/27/2026 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 27 February 2026; doi:10.1038/s44183-026-00187-0
Identifying suitable mussel cultivation sites in European offshore waters—an assessment for co-location with the wind industry
02/26/2026 - 17:26
Federal judge in Oregon rejects bid to overturn Biden-era agreement to protect endangered fish populations
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A federal judge in Oregon sided with salmon against the Trump administration on Wednesday, ordering the federal government to change hydropower system operations long considered at the heart of native fish populations’ sharp decline.
At the center of the dispute are eight dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Pacific north-west that have created devastating obstacles for salmon and steelhead unable to breach their deadly turbines or navigate through the large, warm, artificial pools. The federal agencies and their supporters, which include a group of utilities, water managers and farming organizations, argued that reservoir drawdown would put power reliability in peril.
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02/26/2026 - 12:27
Yorkshire plant has been criticised for taking material from some of British Columbia’s most environmentally important forests
The owner of Drax power plant has started reducing the amount of Canadian wood pellets it burns, and will stop burning trees from British Columbia entirely within the next year.
The FTSE 250 company Drax Group said its Canadian wood pellet plants, which once supplied millions of tonnes of biomass to be burnt in its North Yorkshire power plant, had cost the company almost £200m in financial impairments last year.
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02/26/2026 - 12:00
Families are ‘struggling with cost of heating their homes’, letter says as Trump repeatedly pledges to slash utility bills
As energy prices for US households soar nationwide, Democratic and progressive lawmakers are calling on the energy department to end its plan to double exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
“The Trump administration’s LNG export policies are not putting America first: they have jacked up utility prices for families, leaving many Americans struggling with the cost of heating their homes this winter,” reads a letter to the energy secretary, Chris Wright, sent the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and seven others.
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