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London has been engulfed by a blanket of yellow sky this afternoon as hurricane Ophelia leaves its mark on the capital. The strange coloured sky has arisen because of the hurricane drifting sand from the Sahara and debris from forest fires in Spain and Portugal. The South Coast was first to be hit earlier in the day and now the clouds are making their way north. Social media has been awash with photos of the funny sky as well as...

Martha Daub, a 59-year-old grandmother from Northern Tanzania, is campaigning to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a harmful cultural practise that involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Martha is well placed to talk about FGM, having been cut at the age of 14 in preparation for her early marriage, and later working as ‘cutter’ performing FGM on many girls in her community. Sunday, October 15th is International Day of Rural Women and...

This fascinating image of a tiny insect living under a massive mushroom has won an amateur photographer a major photography award. Duncan McNaught, 54, picked up the Royal Society of Biology photography award after snapping the unusual picture. The image -- titled Welcome to My Humble Abode -- shows a tiny toadstool, no bigger than the size of a small teacup, with a small bug inside. Duncan, who lives in Glenlee, Dumfries and Galloway, ventures to the forests near his...

This image shows how Hurricane Ophelia transformed a popular tourist beach into a white wonderland - by turning the sea into FOAM. Coastal areas in Cornwall are already feeling the effects of the strong winds with high tide yet to come. Penzance was the first to feel the storm's power as Ophelia made landfall in Britain this morning as high winds whipped up the sea by the habour. And these images and footage from photographer Sally Adams show the scene...

Shock figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that Britain is £490 billion poorer than was thought. Britain’s stock of wealth has fallen from a surplus of of £469 billion to a net deficit of £22 billion. The UK has totally lost its reserve of foreign assets, and is actually in a much more vulnerable deficit, losing any safety margin just Theresa May’s government is attempting a breakthrough in a crucial stage of Brexit negotiations. This massive...

Britain is officially a nation of shopkeepers – according to new research. An international study has revealed Britain is ranked as the fourth most micro-business dense country in the world, with 81 micro-businesses to every thousand people. The Czech Republic beats The United States and Indonesia to claim the title of country with the most micro-businesses per capita – with 89 micro-businesses for every thousand Czechs. The UK makes the top five ahead of Portugal, Slovakia and Iceland. Oliver Harcourt,...

Vets saved a cobra which had been stuck inside a can of beer for four days. The highly venomous reptile had been crashing around the inside of an abandoned water tank with its head stuck inside an empty can of Budweiser. The terrified snake had almost slit its own throat and vets painstakingly cut away the metal and performed a two-hour op to stitch it back to health. The thirsty cobra found in the tank in Bhubaneshwar city in the...

A teenager has become the first person to move into an innovative "micro-home" built as part of a unique project to tackle Britain's homelessness. Kieran Evans, 18, was handed the keys to the cosy property on Thursday (12/10) after it was air-lifted into a back garden over the summer. The 186 square foot (17.25sqm) space - which takes inspiration from yachts and first-class aeroplane cabins - cost just £40,000 to build. A teenager has become the first person to move...

Cull marksmen left the bloodied corpses of three badgers piled up on a footpath for 12 hours - putting dogs at risk of TB, activists claim. The bodies of a family of badgers shot dead during the cull were abandoned beneath a tree, and were said to pose a "biohazard" to the public, if they were infected. Tuberculosis is spread through bodily fluids, and the open wounds had attracted hoards of blue bottles could have infected dogs or foxes, protesters...