After lying dormant for years, the Era Dorada project in Asunción Mita resumed this year and villagers say history is being repeated, despite promises of change

In the community of La Lima in Guatemala, Elda Dinora Ramírez, 58, looks towards a small well at the back of her home. Dusty wooden planks lie across the opening, concealing the faint gleam of water far below. “The well is drying up again,” she says.

Ramírez’s home lies less than a mile from Era Dorada – a goldmining project acquired by the Canadian multinational Aura Minerals in January 2025. After years of inactivity, the project was reactivated this year when the Guatemalan government granted Aura a construction licence.

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© Photograph: Euan Wallace

© Photograph: Euan Wallace

© Photograph: Euan Wallace

Exclusive: 7,280 suspected illegal spills in rivers and sea recorded in first five months of 2026

The number of suspected illegal discharges of raw sewage into rivers and seas by water companies during dry weather increased significantly during the first five months of 2026.

Dumping raw sewage into waterways during dry spells via overflows amounts to pollution. It is considered a breach of the permits given to water companies and is illegal. Discharging during dry weather increases the toxicity of the sewage pollution entering waterways. Rivers have less flow and volume, and there is no rainwater to dilute the sewage pollution entering the waterway.

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© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

© Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Canyons, small streams and dry creek beds in the West can be deceptively dangerous, trapping hikers when rainfall upstream causes rapidly rising water.

© John Locher/Associated Press

Scientists say system to treat contaminated wastewater offers a model for ensuring food security in a fast-warming climate

All it took to turn the murky, heavily polluted waters of South Africa’s Stiebeuel River into a resource clean enough for irrigating a community’s vegetable plots was a collection of stones, heat-treated wood and sand.

Without chemicals and using renewable energy, researchers from the University of Cape Town are cleaning 36,000 litres of water, polluted by sewage, chemicals, and traces of drugs and medication, every day to make it usable for growing food in a fast-expanding informal settlement along the course of the river.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

© Photograph: Courtesy of Water Hub

Successful legal challenge raises questions about hundreds of floodplain harvesting licences issued by former Coalition government

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The New South Wales water regulator has cast doubt over its ability to prosecute potential water theft due to uncertainty about the validity of licences governing billions of litres of water entitlements in the state’s north.

It follows a successful legal challenge brought by a group of irrigators in the state’s north-west which found 11 floodplain harvesting licences issued by the former Coalition government were invalid.

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© Photograph: Photography by Mangiwau/Getty Images

© Photograph: Photography by Mangiwau/Getty Images

© Photograph: Photography by Mangiwau/Getty Images

Checking for sewage spills has become as normal as checking the weather forecast, say swimmers on East Sussex beaches

• South West Water has worst environmental record in England, analysis shows

“I’m furious,” says Jo Armstrong, 75, sitting on Brighton beach with her daughter and granddaughter.

Armstrong lives in Lewes, a town 8 miles from Brighton, and usually goes swimming in nearby Seaford in East Sussex every day. But over the past week the water there has been too polluted to swim. “Brighton beach was the only place that stayed clean,” she says.

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© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset

• ‘Tiny bit of rain and the sewage comes’: Brighton swimmers vent fury at sea pollution

South West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.

Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills.

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© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

Checking for sewage spills has become as normal as checking the weather forecast, say swimmers on East Sussex beaches

• South West Water has worst environmental record in England, analysis shows

“I’m furious,” says Jo Armstrong, 75, sitting on Brighton beach with her daughter and granddaughter.

Armstrong lives in Lewes, a town 8 miles from Brighton, and usually goes swimming in nearby Seaford in East Sussex every day. But over the past week the water there has been too polluted to swim. “Brighton beach was the only place that stayed clean,” she says.

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© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

© Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Exclusive: Friends of the Earth finds greatest sewage discharge in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset

• ‘Tiny bit of rain and the sewage comes’: Brighton swimmers vent fury at sea pollution

South West Water is doing more harm to the environment than any other water company in England, according to new analysis, with more sewage discharged in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset than anywhere else.

Friends of the Earth analysed water companies’ environmental performance in six categories: sewage spills, water quality at bathing sites, pollution incidents or warnings at bathing sites, severity of sewage pollution at bathing sites, the percentage of rivers rated below the standard for good ecological health, and the affordability of bills.

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© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

© Photograph: Greg Balfour Evans/Alamy

The uncertainty stretches across seven U.S. states, tribal nations and Mexico.

Given the challenges in forecasting and detecting such calamities, researchers advised banning construction on floodplains and marking out clear evacuation routes.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times

In this week’s newsletter: Anti-datacentre sentiment is growing across the political spectrum in the US – and the public is only just finding out about the potential effects on their energy bills

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Anti-datacentre sentiment is growing from across the political spectrum in the US.

More than a dozen states have considered moratoria on datacentres. New York became the first US state to enact a temporary ban last month. Progressive stalwarts Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have proposed a national moratorium. And even Greg Abbott, the far-right governor of Texas, called for a ban on datacentre development in rural swaths of his state.

‘Our new normal’: how marine heatwaves affect life in British seas

Iraq’s ghost villages: Islamic State drove people away – now a new enemy is preventing their return

Destroyed crops, riverbed cyclists and a ‘Rock of Starvation’: how drought has devastated the Danube

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© Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

© Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Given the challenges in forecasting and detecting such calamities, researchers advised banning construction on floodplains and marking out clear evacuation routes.

© Atul Loke for The New York Times

An ice avalanche that started high in the Himalayas tumbled thousands of feet, releasing vast amounts of energy that pulverized the ice into a significant volume of flood water.

© Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

The federal cyber agency's warning comes amid a wave of suspected Iran-backed cyberattacks targeting critical water systems across the United States.