Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success story

On a quiet Friday evening, an otter and a fox trot through Lincoln city centre. The pair scurry past charity shops and through deserted streets, the encounter lit by the security lamps of shuttered takeaways. Each animal inspects the nooks and crannies of the high street before disappearing into the night, ending the unlikely scene captured by CCTV last month.

Unlike the fox, the otter has been a rare visitor in towns and cities across the UK. But after decades of intense conservation work, that is changing. In the past year alone, the aquatic mammal has been spotted on a river-boat dock in London’s Canary Wharf, dragging an enormous fish along a riverbank in Stratford-upon-Avon, and plundering garden ponds near York. One otter was even filmed causing chaos in a Shetland family’s kitchen in March.

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© Photograph: birdphoto.co.uk/Alamy

© Photograph: birdphoto.co.uk/Alamy

© Photograph: birdphoto.co.uk/Alamy

After record flooding submerged Bor in South Sudan in 2020, the emergency response ended up turning it into a beacon of climate crisis adaptation

The three friends fill yellow jerrycans and help each other lift them on to their heads for the short walk home. Nyandong Chang lives five minutes from the water kiosk and is here up to six times a day. “It’s still hard work,” she says, “but at least nowadays water is available and clean.”

Until last year, women and children in Bor, the capital of South Sudan’s Jonglei state, faced a much tougher chore – going all the way to the filthy stretch of the White Nile that runs near the town to draw the family’s drinking, washing and cooking water and carry it back.

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© Photograph: Florence Miettaux

© Photograph: Florence Miettaux

© Photograph: Florence Miettaux

KINGSTON — A petition from a Ontario Conservative government MPP is calling for the federal government to restore full navigation through the LaSalle Causeway for next year’s boating season. Read More

Their dams cause floods, and that gets them in trouble with humans. But in the right place, more water can be a big help.

© Kim Raff for The New York Times

Kolahoi is one of many glaciers whose decline is disrupting whole ecosystems – water, wildlife and human life that it has supported for centuries

From the slopes above Pahalgam, the Kolahoi glacier is visible as a thinning, rumpled ribbon of ice stretching across the western Himalayas. Once a vast white artery feeding rivers, fields and forests, it is now retreating steadily, leaving bare rock, crevassed ice and newly exposed alpine meadows.

The glacier’s meltwater has sustained paddy fields, apple orchards, saffron fields and grazing pastures for centuries. Now, as its ice diminishes, the entire web of life it supported is shifting.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Teri

© Photograph: Courtesy of Teri

© Photograph: Courtesy of Teri

Weak regulation is to blame for disastrous failures in relation to pollution. But there are solutions if people get behind them

A study suggesting that as many as 168m light-up Christmas ornaments and similar items could be thrown out in a single year, in the UK, is concerning if not surprising in light of longstanding challenges around recycling rates and waste reduction. Even if the actual figure is lower, there is no question that battery-powered and electrical toys, lights and gifts are proliferating as never before. Despite a great deal of commentary aimed at dialling down consumption over the festive season, especially surplus packaging and rubbish, strings of disposable lights and flashing figures have gained in popularity. Homes, front gardens and shopping streets grow sparklier by the year.

Batteries and electrical devices present particular difficulties when it comes to disposal, because they cause fires. But they are just one part of a more general problem of excessive waste – and weak regulatory oversight. British plastic waste exports rose by 5% in 2024 to nearly 600,000 tonnes. A new report on plastics from the Pew Charitable Trusts warns that global production is expected to rise by 52% by 2040 – to 680m tonnes – outstripping the capacity of waste management systems around the world.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

KINGSTON — The city is considering its options for creating a new municipal service corporation to manage water and wastewater services. Read More

As tech companies build data centers worldwide to advance artificial intelligence, vulnerable communities have been hit by blackouts and water shortages.

© Cesar Rodriguez for The New York Times

Political debates have flared across Chile over artificial intelligence. Should the nation pour billions into A.I. and risk public backlash, or risk being left behind?