With tourists buying up property and landlords opting for lucrative Airbnb rentals, young Cornish people are turning to old campervans to provide a roof over their heads
Skye has a thick duvet in the van she calls home in Cornwall. In winter, the 25-year-old goes to bed in several layers of clothes and is grateful for the extra warmth of her cat. She parks up late, often in car parks well away from beaches, and never stays more than one night in case local people get angry and bang on her windows. This is van life. It can be a very different world from the tourist dream.
“Some winters I’ve had ice on the inside of my van windows, and the door handles frozen shut with me inside,” says Skye, a special educational needs teaching assistant. One year her diesel air heater packed up, and she spent the whole winter feeling cold. “That was genuinely awful.” Even with the heater on in the evening, those nights and early mornings when the temperature drops below zero are tough. “I often get dressed in bed,” she says. “You just have to adjust.”
Skye, 25 arriving back at her van after a day of walking
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
06/25/2026 - 00:00
06/24/2026 - 22:54
Oxfam predicts PNG will be worst-hit country in Pacific from the weather pattern, with up to 3 million people affected nationwide
Families across Papua New Guinea’s Highlands are facing depleted harvests and the threat of hunger after the El Niño weather pattern brought frost and prolonged dry conditions that have destroyed food gardens providing sustenance and income for thousands of households.
The effects of El Niño emerged in recent weeks, bringing drought conditions, falling water levels and frost that are threatening food security in some of the country’s most agriculturally productive regions.
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06/24/2026 - 13:00
British Chamber of Commerce boss Shevaun Haviland says transition to clean energy could be handled better
Andy Burnham should be ready to exploit the UK’s remaining North Sea oil and gas resources to avoid mass job losses in Scotland and the north-east, the director of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), Shevaun Haviland, has said.
The decision about whether to allow extraction at the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields now appears likely to fall to a Burnham administration.
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06/24/2026 - 12:47
Plan warns climate crisis will lead to food price shocks and shortages but farmers say it fails to adequately fund response
The climate crisis will lead to food price shocks and shortages, the government has warned in its new plan for British farming.
But farmers criticised the plan, which outlines for the first time the government’s vision for the long-term direction of farming, for failing to adequately fund a response to this threat to the UK’s food security.
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06/24/2026 - 12:29
Agreement is first by federal government to resolve enforcement claims against a major Pfas manufacturer
The Trump administration on Wednesday reached a multi-state settlement with the chemical giant Chemours Co over years-long, illegal discharges of synthetic “forever chemicals” used to make products resistant to water, grease and stains. The settlement is the first by the federal government to resolve enforcement claims against a manufacturer of harmful chemicals known as Pfas.
Under the agreement, filed in federal court in West Virginia, Chemours will pay a civil penalty of $22.5m for alleged violations and spend $90m over 15 years to mitigate Pfas discharges in three states: West Virginia, North Carolina and New Jersey.
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06/24/2026 - 10:12
Temperature of 36.1C (97F) recorded in Hampshire, while two-thirds of Europe’s population experience temperatures above 30C
The UK has broken its all-time temperature record for June and France has recorded its hottest day ever for the second day running, as a heatwave affecting more than 90 million people sweeps across swathes of Europe.
As the UK and France registered record-breaking temperatures, the World Health Organization warned that the extreme temperatures are “putting lives at risk”.
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06/24/2026 - 09:47
Readers remember the Sherwood Forest tree that has failed to produce leaves for the first time in 1,000 years
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06/24/2026 - 07:00
Those who work with animals are at greater risk for infection, but face challenges in accessing healthcare
Agricultural workers are among the highest risk group for human infection during the screwworm outbreak in the American south, yet they frequently face challenges in accessing public health – an ongoing concern amid zoonotic spillovers such as H5N1 bird flu.
Screwworm has been detected in goats and sheep in three Texas counties in recent days, bringing the total to 16 known cases among animals and none reported in people.
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06/24/2026 - 06:00
Wildlife photographer Mohammed Almuntasir had no idea what he had found until scientists started to get in touch
When wildlife photographer Mohammed Almuntasir uploaded 18 seconds of footage to YouTube, he thought little more about the small, pale cat seen digging a hollow in the sand in the remote dunes of south-west Libya.
The video, however, posted in 2017, turned out to be the first material evidence that the sand cat (Felis margarita), the world’s only felid adapted to true desert conditions, existed in the country.
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06/24/2026 - 05:11
Analysis shows cars in Europe have grown longer, taller and wider every year since 2000
Cars have grown 1.2cm longer, 0.5cm taller and 0.5cm wider each year on average since 2000, analysis of new vehicles sold in Europe has found, in what green groups call “relentless carspreading”.
The increase in size, which leaves people more likely to be killed in a crash and increases emissions that hurt lungs and heat the planet, has progressed at a roughly steady rate for two and half decades even as family sizes have fallen, the campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) found.
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