A rare pair of red panda twins have made their first public appearance at Longleat.

The 10-week-old cubs were born earlier in the summer but are only now beginning to venture outside.

The pair are the first to have been born to new parents Emma and Lionel as part of a successful breeding programme for the endangered species at the Wiltshire attraction.

“Both cubs are doing really well,” said keeper Sam Allworthy.

“Emma is a great mum and she has been looking after them fantastically.

“Although we have yet to name them, we have been able to do their first health checks and can confirm they’re both females.”

These are the seventh and eighth red pandas to have been born at Longleat.

Previous cubs have gone on to collections all over Europe and have even had cubs of their own.

Red pandas are increasingly under threat due to habitat loss, deforestation and poaching. It is thought there may be as few as 2,500 living in the wild.

A new £40m onshore wind farm has been granted planning permission by South Lanarkshire Council.

Developers Banks Renewables have won approval for six large turbines at Mill Rig Wind Farm near Darvel.

The project, which straddles the South Lanarkshire and East Ayrshire border, will have a capacity of about 36MW – enough to power about 21,000 homes.

Banks Renewables said the development was “on course” to become operational within three years.

In a statement, the firm said the project would displace more than 18,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from the UK’s electricity supply grid – the equivalent of removing almost 7,000 petrol cars from the road.

The Hamilton-based company plans to set up a local community fund which it has claimed will generate up to £5.4m in revenue over the expected 30-year lifetime of the project.

It has also estimated that the local area will benefit from local contracts worth £11.7m during construction.

Robin Winstanley, sustainability manager at Banks Renewables, said: “With the next steps of detailed design and construction, Mill Rig Wind Farm is on track to help Scotland achieve its ambitious net zero targets, bolstering the UK’s energy security by producing green electricity by 2025.”

The Welsh government is pressing ahead with delayed plans to ban single-use carrier bags and plastic drinking straws in Wales.

Plastic plates, cutlery, stirrers and cotton buds would also be banned under the proposed new law.

Climate Change Minister Julie James said Wales must “avoid leaving a toxic legacy” to future generations.

The Conservatives accused Labour ministers of “dragging their heels on environmental issues”.

England and Scotland have already banned plastic straws, cotton buds and stirrers.

However nowhere in the UK has stopped the sale of single-use carrier bags.

The new Welsh law would make it an offence to supply or offer to supply what ministers call “littered and unnecessary disposable single-use plastics”.

The Welsh government said the law needed to bring in the changes was delayed by a complicated piece of post-Brexit UK legislation.

The bill, which will now begin the required scrutiny process before it can become law, would also give local councils the powers to enforce the ban on single-use plastic items including:

• Cutlery, plates and stirrers
• Drinking straws (with an exemption for medical or care needs)
• Cotton buds with plastic stems
• Balloon sticks
• Polystyrene takeaway containers, cups and lids
• Thin plastic single-use carrier bags

The list follows a consultation in 2020 and the Welsh government argues there are non-plastic or reusable alternatives to all of the products.

Hurricane Fiona is continuing to strengthen – threatening lives in parts of the Caribbean, say US forecasters.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the category two storm currently packing speeds of 115mph (185km/h) could even worsen to a category four – the second-highest designation.

Rain is lashing Puerto Rico, where at least two people have died and 90% of the island remains without power.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader says damage is “considerable”.

The hurricane was about 10 miles (15km) north-west of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos Islands at 12:00 GMT on Tuesday, the NHC said.

Mr Abinader has declared three eastern provinces of Dominican Republic to be disaster zones, amid warnings from the NHC of “heavy rainfall and life-threatening flash flooding”.

Several villages were cut off in the country as floodwaters rose, while hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes and thousands were left without power.

Lexie Wilcox, who lives in the easternmost province of Altagracia, said it was the worst hurricane she had experienced and had hit her local area much harder than Hurricane Maria in 2017, which killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico.

On Monday morning there were trees down, with roads blocked and a lot of flooding.

She was unable to sleep, spending the night mopping up rainwater.

The roof has been partially blown off her shed, and a security sign blew off her house.

Ms Wilcox and her neighbours are without electricity, and believe this may take days to be fixed as the storm is still ongoing.

Connection returned for a few minutes on Monday, just long enough to allow Ms Wilcox, who is Canadian, to watch the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral while the hurricane raged outside.

Scottish Environment Protection Agency SEPA is investigating a major accidental release of one of the most potent types of greenhouse gases at a Perth meat producer.

The environmental watchdog said the release of F-Gases (fluorinated gases) at Anglo Beef Processors UK is the second largest incident of its kind in Europe’s food and drink sector.

The release was caused by an issue with the plant’s refrigeration system.

Anglo Beef Processors said the release occurred following machine failure.

The firm said a new refrigeration system was subsequently installed.

SEPA identified the issue in February and said its investigation was ongoing.

Details of the 2021 accidental release emerged in Sepa’s annual report on greenhouse gas emissions from industrial sites.

The watchdog said the Perth incident alone accounted for 87% of the total hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) emissions from all industrial sectors in Scotland for 2021.

F-Gases are man-made and often used as substitutes for ozone-depleting substances in the likes of fridges and air conditioning units.

Kajuru Castle is a luxury villa, built between the years 1981 and 1989, at Kajuru (Ajure) village in southern Kaduna State, Nigeria.

It was built by a German expatriate in Nigeria, living in Kaduna at the time.

The castle is located at about 45 km from Kaduna on a mountaintop in Kajuru (Ajure) village, Kaduna State.

Built with 1 meter thick granite stone in a fanciful medieval-inspired Romanesque style, it is adorned with turrets, an armory and a dungeon.

The castle is privately owned, and has the capacity to host 150 guests.

The castle is often described as an African version of the Bavarian Castle in a grand 19th-century Romanesque revival style.

It has a baronial styled hall, coupled with dungeons and towers lined with crenellated walls.

The castle also has a big “knight’s hall” and a landlord (masters) residence and several other rooms over its three floors.

It is a delight for nature lovers and sight-seeing.

The SS Lady Elizabeth, more commonly known as the Lady Elizabeth Shipwreck, is a famous beached ghost ship which is located in the waters to the eastern side of the capital city of the British overseas territory of the Falkland Islands, Stanley.

As it is between the islands’ main airport and the capital, more precisely in Whale Bone Cove, the shipwreck is one of the few things that receives some greater attention, even though it is not as imposing nor something enormous that will make someone to visit the Falklands specifically for the shipwreck.

Still, this three-mast, iron hulled barque was constructed by Robert Thompson Jr. of Southwick, Sunderland and officially launched on 4 June 1879.

Being just under average size when compared to the other barques which were also constructed by Thompson, in the fleet of ships of John Wilson, SS Lady Elizabeth was the seventh largest ship.

With few ownership changes throughout its years, SS Lady Elizabeth successfully executed her primary purpose, hauling cargo, and its final shipment of lumber began on 4 December 1912 from Vancouver, Canada, and it was headed towards Mozambique in Africa.

Due to very strong winds, the ship was damaged, much of its cargo lost, and even 4 men were lost in the sea.

Furthermore, while trying to reach Stanley in the Falklands for the much needed repairs, the ship experienced further damages off Volunteer Point, which unfortunately did not made her seaworthy, as it was way too expensive to be repaired.

When this was also confirmed in Stanley, SS Lady Elizabeth was bought by the Falkland Island Company in order to be used as a floating timber warehouse.

Staying at the East Jetty for 3 years, the ship was then moored in the harbor, up until 17 February 1936 when some violent gales, strong winds, forced the Lady to broke her moorings and to drift to its present location.

There are some reports which state that the shipwreck is moving a bit from the pounding waves during high and low tides, however, fortunately most of its accessories are still attached to it.

With the years, the weather has took its toll on the ship, and with the corrosion it is uncertain how long Lady Elizabeth will stay like this, with hope that the local government will try to find some kind of solution in order to preserve this historic treasure it has.