Beloved by Shakespeare and the Beatles, the blackbird and its sweet song have captured the imagination of Britons for centuries.

But now the songbird is facing decline, and the British public has been asked to contribute to a survey by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) to find out why.

Their numbers have plummeted in Greater London and southern England at rates not seen in the rest of the UK.

It is thought the bird is suffering from Usutu virus, first detected in the UK in London in summer 2020. This disease is potentially fatal to blackbirds and is thought to be spreading across south-east England. It was first identified in South Africa and has spread across mainland Europe.

The growth of the disease has been attributed to climate breakdown; native UK mosquitoes can transmit the virus when it is warm outside.

Blackbird numbers in London fell 50% in 2020 compared with 2019. Numbers recovered somewhat, but are still about 32% lower now than in 2019. Overall, their numbers have decreased by 18% UK-wide since the 1970s due to factors including habitat loss.

Their numbers were already decreasing slightly in London before the arrival of the virus, so scientists want to know if there is anything else contributing to their decline and what can be done to help.

Dr Hugh Hanmer, a senior research ecologist with BTO, said: “Blackbird numbers have been decreasing in Greater London for some time. However, from 2020 they started declining more strongly, which coincided with the detection of Usutu virus. There is now evidence of a wider decline in southern England, not seen in other UK regions.

“The BTO survey seeks to understand why this change is happening and to identify any link to the emergence of Usutu virus. By better understanding how blackbirds use our gardens, we hope to halt the declines.”

Researchers want to see if there are similar patterns in other large cities in the UK and if there are differences between rural and urban areas.

Transmission of mosquito-borne bird diseases is likely to increase as climate breakdown accelerates, according to BTO researchers. Using this survey, they hope to find out how to slow and hopefully stop transmission, so bird populations are not wiped out as new diseases come to the UK’s shores.

It is hoped the survey will help BTO scientists better understand how blackbirds use different types of garden, how successful birds are at rearing young, which factors may influence the risk of disease transmission and how all these factors differ at different levels of urbanisation.

Blackbirds are widely loved because of their complex song, which is very mellow and almost sounds as if it is in a major key. They deliver low-pitched, flute-like verses and are able to mimic each other, and other birds.

The BTO survey is open until October.

The US has sent back 116 Chinese migrants in the first such “large charter flight” in five years, the Department of Homeland Security has said.

“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes amid intense political debate ahead of the US presidential election over the issue of Chinese immigration.

The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt illicit human smuggling through expanded law enforcement efforts”. It did not respond to questions about how long the migrants had been in the US.

The department said it was working with China on more removal flights in the future but did not give a timeline for when the next one would happen.

In recent years, the US has had a difficult time returning Chinese nationals who do not have the right to stay in America because China has resisted taking them back. Last year, the US saw a surge in the number of Chinese immigrants entering the country illegally from Mexico.

US border officials arrested more than 37,000 Chinese nationals on the southern border in 2023, 10 times the number during the previous year.

Chinese migration has increasingly become a rallying cry for Republicans and former president Donald Trump who have raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are coming to the US.

Asian advocacy organisations are concerned the rhetoric could encourage harassment of Asians, while migrants themselves have said they’re coming to escape poverty and repression.

Earlier this year, the US and China resumed cooperation on migration issues. The Chinese government has said it is firmly opposed to “all forms of illegal immigration”. In a statement in May, China’s US embassy said the country’s law enforcement was cracking down “hard on crimes that harm the tranquility of national border, and maintained a high pressure against all kinds of smuggling organisations and offenders”.

Earlier this year, a charter flight carried a small but unknown number of deportees to the north-eastern Chinese city of Shenyang, according to Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks deportation flights.

Homeland security officials did not say how many people were on that 30 March flight, but the Gulfstream V aircraft typically has a seating capacity of 14. It also made a stop in South Korea before heading back to the US, Cartwright said.

The announcement of the weekend’s large charter flight comes amid efforts elsewhere to shut down key routes used by Chinese migrants to get to the western hemisphere.

On Monday, the US announced that it would cover the costs of repatriating migrants who enter Panama illegally, under a deal agreed with the Central American country’s new president who has vowed to shut down the treacherous Darién Gap used by people travelling north to the US.

Also, as of 1 July Ecuador in effect reinstated visas for Chinese nationals after the South American country said it had seen a worrying increase in irregular migration.

Ecuador was one of only two mainland countries in the Americas to offer visa-free entry to Chinese nationals and had become a popular starting point for Chinese migrants to then trek north to the US.

This match had an epic ­quality throughout and was decided by a moment that will enter ­Turkey’s football folklore.

They were ­clinging on to their lead amid rain, smoke, ­excruciating whistles and a ­barrage of Austrian pressure when ­Alexander Prass looped a long, deep cross towards the far post in hope rather than expectation. It arced to ­Christoph Baumgartner, who had pulled away from his man and hung high in the Leipzig sky, and the next thrilling act seemed set. There was little wrong with the header, directed downwards and skipping sharply up. How Mert Gunok, the Turkey goalkeeper, reacted to paw the ball up and wide is a thing of wonder and, after one last corner was seen off, the celebrations could start.

Gunok joined his teammates partying in front of the Turkey support, decibel levels surely ­exceeding anything heard in Germany all summer. At the other end a ­tearful ­Baumgartner, who could have scored a hatful, had to be consoled by a member of Austria’s staff.

Unbridled triumph on one side and, opposite, a sense of sporting tragedy. A dose of revenge, too: much as Vincenzo Montella had attempted to play it down beforehand, he and his players had been desperate to ­settle a score after the 6-1 thrashing they received in Vienna just over three months back.

More importantly than any tit-for-tat, Turkey are in the quarter-finals. Their wild, highly strung roadshow will career to Berlin for more appointment ­viewing against the Netherlands and ultimately they deserved to go through. Montella’s players were out on their feet in those dying moments, their opponents’ appetite to run, run and run some more finally threatening to wear them down.

But they were tough, technical and composed when it mattered for the majority. The occasion had been billed as a clash of Turkey’s emotion and Austria’s mechanised drills, yet the end product should be framed as a triumph for Montella. He packed the centre of the pitch and, in the first half at least, it meant Austria could not quite execute their usual swamping job. Even in the absence of their captain and heartbeat, Hakan Calhanoglu, they were able to execute their game plan and bite hardest when it mattered.

In the afterglow of a match this gloriously pulsating, though, discussion of tactics may be for the birds. It was ­bedlam from the beginning, six Austria ­players hurtling into the opposition half from kick‑off and Gunok having to smother at Marcel ­Sabitzer’s feet almost immediately. Their propensity to score early goals is well documented so the only surprise was that, when one came, it was Turkey who profited. Proceedings were still well inside the opening minute when ­Turkey won a corner, the defender Kaan Ayhan whirling his arms to work the crowd into a higher state of frenzy in case that were possible.

Arda Guler swung the ball in from the right side and the delivery completely flummoxed Austria’s defence, almost creeping straight in before Baumgartner blocked on the line. He could only clear against Stefan Posch at point-blank range and the ball was goalbound once again until Patrick Pentz scooped clear. That reprieve lasted a millisecond: Merih Demiral smashed the loose ball in and Turkey were ahead after 57 seconds.

The promised level of chaos had already been hit. Baumgartner shot just wide straight afterwards and saw Demiral somehow divert a corner from in front of him on the line: he had hoped for a triumphant outing at the stadium he calls home, but he and the rest of Austria’s Red Bull school were ultimately consigned to look on as Turkey turned it into theirs.

Further half-chances arrived for Baumgartner and Philipp Lienhart but Turkey looked increasingly comfortable as the interval neared. Confident, too: the outstanding Guler offered a flourish in attempting to beat Pentz from halfway, the ball sailing wide. Demiral, a centre-back who approached his tasks in each box gladiatorially, missed a good headed opportunity but atoned soon enough.

Austria had ripped into the second period, Ralf Rangnick rolling the dice with two changes and seeing Gunok block from Marko Arnautovic after they had finally shown some subtlety in the middle. The giant substitute Michael Gregoritsch headed wide and Konrad Laimer shot waywardly before the sting arrived from the same one-two as before.

Guler was pelted with plastic cups as he shaped to take another corner but was undeterred from whipping in another gorgeous delivery that Demirel converted emphatically after rising above Kevin Danso.

Game over? Not here. It never quite seemed likely and Gregoritsch, jabbing in after Stefan Posch had headed on yet another set piece, set up an exhilarating finale. Turkey squandered chances on the break but the luckless Baumgartner, beating Gunok to the ball on one occasion, missed two headers and Austria’s siege could not break through.

Then Gunok had his biggest moment of all. Rangnick was asked whether the save reminded him of Gordon Banks. “That is correct,” he said, leaving any other sentiments to float in the air. For Turkey and their relentless contingent, the atmosphere is now thick with awe and promise.

Robert F Kennedy Jr has responded to an allegation that he sexually assaulted an employee by stating: “I am not a church boy,” as scrutiny grows over his long-shot run for the presidency.

The independent candidate, who is seen as a threat by both the Biden and Trump campaigns, made the statement after his former babysitter told Vanity Fair that Kennedy assaulted her at his home in 1998.

Eliza Cooney, who worked for Kennedy and his then wife as a live-in nanny at the family’s home in Mount Kisco, New York, said Kennedy touched her leg at a business meeting and later appeared shirtless in her bedroom before asking her to rub lotion on his back.

A few months later, Kennedy blocked Cooney in the kitchen “and began groping her”, Vanity Fair reported. Cooney told the magazine that Kennedy touched her inappropriately.

“My back was to the door of the pantry, and he came up behind me,” Cooney said.

“I was frozen. Shocked.”

The assault was interrupted, Cooney said, when a male worker entered the kitchen.

Asked about the sexual assault allegation on the Breaking Points podcast, Kennedy said: “The [Vanity Fair] article is a lot of garbage.”

He added: “Listen, I have said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that.

“I said in my … I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.

“So, you know, Vanity Fair is recycling 30-year-old stories. And, I’m not, you know, going to comment on the details of any of them. But it’s, you know, I am who I am.”

Asked if he was denying that he assaulted Cooney, Kennedy said: “I’m not going to comment on it.”

The Kennedy campaign did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.

Cooney said she kept the alleged assault secret until the #MeToo movement prompted many women to come forward with stories of abuse in 2017. She told her mother, and after Kennedy announced his campaign for the presidency in 2023, Cooney told two friends and a lawyer, Elizabeth Geddes. Geddes did not respond to a request for comment.

Kennedy, 70, initially ran against Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination before launching a campaign as an independent in October of last year.

As the son of Robert F Kennedy, the US senator for New York who was assassinated in 1968, and the nephew of John F Kennedy, who was assassinated while serving as president in 1963, Kennedy’s campaign drew widespread attention but has been littered with controversies.

In July 2023, a video surfaced of Kennedy making false claims that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack Black people and white people while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, while Kennedy has also claimed that wifi causes “leaky brain”.

He has also linked antidepressants to school shootings, and in 2023 he claimed that chemicals in water are making children transgender.

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer, is polling at 9.1% of the national vote, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average, and is highly unlikely to win the presidency.

But both the Biden and Trump campaigns fear he could pull votes away from them in key states. Kennedy will be on the ballot in Michigan, a crucial swing state that the president won by 150,000 votes in 2020, and is working to gain ballot access in Wisconsin, which Biden won by 20,000 votes.

It’s day 19 in the Euro 2024 Haus. Cristiano Ronaldo has finally pared his entire on-field performance down to a series of viral reaction memes. German police are to be given tasers and sniper rifles to deal with a raised threat of beaming, selfie-grabbing children whose parents need to have a look at themselves. And a formal investigation is under way into whether Jude Bellingham grabbing his imaginary balls really is a private joke among his friends or an insult to Slovakian manhood.

In fact only one of these statements is demonstrably true at the time of writing. But it does raise many other lines of inquiry. What kind of investigation is this exactly? What kind of friends are we talking about here? And what is the chance any sanction for breaching “decent human conduct” (Uefa translation: racism, arguably no; dick gesture, zero tolerance) will be delayed until after the tournament’s second most famous man is safely packed off somewhere else?

But from an England point of view Uefa is right in at least one sense. Some kind of investigation is required, and it should definitely centre on Bellingham.

To date England’s performances have resembled an extended experiment into the limits of audience discomfort, before dissolving into a frenzied screwball comedy for the final half-hour against Slovakia. As the players spend the week in Blankenheim grooving whatever training process has led to this outcome, it seems increasingly clear that the way the manager has used Bellingham is key both to the current state of confusion, and to the chances of resolving it.

During Ronaldo’s time at Juventus it was said that he provided a solution to the problems he created. It would be unfair to apply this to Bellingham. But his use so far by Gareth Southgate is undeniably a factor in the team’s faltering rhythms, the dilution of pre-existing strengths, and the confusion in central midfield. Is there time to fix this, ideally while also keeping those extraordinary moments of grace?

It seems clear two weeks in that Southgate came to Germany with a squad he didn’t really understand. There is a case that his biggest problem at this European Championship is he has forgotten he isn’t a very good manager. When he remembers this he becomes a much better one.

Instead fate has presented him with Cole Palmer, Trent Alexander‑Arnold and above all Him, Who Else, this endless store of destabilising charisma. At the end of which Southgate has the look of a man who went out after work in his suit, headed on somewhere else, and eventually found himself dancing awkwardly on a podium at a celebrity rave called BMBED and still wondering where to put his briefcase.

England’s balance is shot, with too many bodies crowding the same forward positions, too few in the deep controlling spaces. The midfield is a mess, despite having had all those games since Qatar to find a method. It has been surprisingly poor prep for a manager who is all about planning. But Southgate does deserve some sympathy here. The lure of Bellingham is key to this state of dissonance, to the late shift of shape and balance. And Bellingham is undoubtedly a very strange, sui generis footballer at this stage in his career.

Bellingham wins games. He looks brilliant while also playing terribly. His performances are uneven. What is his position exactly? He’s not a central midfielder at this level, something Carlo Ancelotti managed by playing him at the front of the team. It has been suggested in Spain Bellingham lacks the stamina to play elite-level central midfield right now. But then, playing central midfield for Real Madrid is a peak career goal. When Luka Modric was 21 he was still at Dinamo Zagreb.

OK, so what are Bellingham’s outstanding technical attributes? He has been compared to Zinedine Zidane, but the Frenchman was always the best passer, dribbler and touch-player on any pitch. Currently Bellingham’s superpower seems to be belief, fearlessness, ball-grabbing game-changing arrogance, the power of personality. Which is fine. But how do you channel that into a careful, system-built team?

Plus the things Bellingham offers are deceptive. What he gives you is delicious, consumable moments. He gives you the football equivalent of the Maillard reaction, as defined by the French chemist Louis‑Camille Maillard to describe the process in cooking whereby heat is applied to a certain kind of starch, to create crackle, flavour, salt, juice, good stuff.

This is what we try to create, what we crave. It is what furiously literal-minded men on the internet with blowtorches and chemistry books have now fixed on as the key basis of cooking. The fashion for the seared, smashed burger patty is basically a Total Maillard overload, all flavour, all crisped surface area.

And Bellingham is this modern, moreish thing in football form. He’s Maillard made flesh, always trying to create moments, flavour, the key and decisive ingredient in the dish, and often succeeding. But it has made his performances seem strange at times, that search for flavour a little overwhelming to the rest of the pot.

Bellingham produced the best pass of England’s Euro 2024 campaign, the deep through ball to Ollie Watkins against Denmark. He scored a brilliant header and a brilliant overhead kick. For 40 minutes against Serbia he played like Hamlet, Elvis Presley and Paul McCartney playing all the instruments on Let It Be. Make a clipped-up reel of this and you might imagine Bellingham was out there twirling these Euros on his finger. But he is also part of their instability, and in a way that isn’t entirely his fault.

First, England are emotionally unbalanced by Bellingham. In some ways this team are quite bland, quite mild, lacking in loud, dominant energy. In this context Bellingham is just an overload of alpha energy. No one else is filling the room like this, or drawing the cameras. Bellingham could probably use some boundaries, some competing energy, someone else to be Big.

Instead he seems able to say and do whatever he wants, to go on about learning from Madridismo (the eye-rolling from Catalan journalists at this was a great tournament moment), to make Harry Kane dad-celebrate with him, to do his ball-grabbing stuff then go all over social media explaining it. Here is a 21‑year‑old who could probably do with something to push against.

More to the point the team are unbalanced tactically. The transformation of this late England iteration into a Bellingham vehicle is probably the worst thing that could happen to Southgate. Here is a manager who has never really loved midfield, or had great midfielders to work with. He wants stability and balance in there. With, say, prime Jordan Henderson in place, England might be pootling through with their usual efficiency.

Instead Southgate has Spider‑Man, the Wolf of Wall Street, an attention supernova. With Bellingham, England’s ceiling is much higher. But they have a more difficult, more tantalising energy to manage. It is too late to change this now. For Southgate the only real option is keep hanging on to the rising balloon, to trust in the Jude‑shaped universe.

But it has been handled poorly. The 4-2-3-1 formation came late, with idea of incorporating Bellingham into an area where England are already well covered. The midfield choices behind him have been baffling. Alexander-Arnold, Kobbie Mainoo and Conor Gallagher are totally different players: a statement passer, a calm recycler and a man who appears to be being chased by a tiger. This is guesswork in action. Bellingham has suffered as a result, looked lost like everyone else, but still provided moments of rescue.

It is surely time to provide some more substance. With the courage to shift Bellingham deeper, to play 4-3-3, to add another defensive body in midfield, Southgate may even be able to create some genuine structured freedom. All creativity comes from a solid base. Mainoo was England’s best midfielder against Slovakia because he offered control. There needs to be more of this.

The current chaotic version has been bad for Southgate’s England. It isn’t great for Bellingham either, who becomes the roaming saviour figure, the moments man, and who is vulnerable to all this, vulnerable to his own power, out there in the brightest of lights, hostage to the way the world will hunger after him.

He needs to be protected. At times Bellingham can sound like he has swallowed a high-performance podcast archive, but this is not the same as being genuinely hardened to the pressure of this very new and violent public existence. He remains just as vulnerable as every other prodigy. He needs control, boundaries and in practical terms another deep midfielder to fill those spaces. Less flavour more fibre. This sounds like a healthy recipe for everyone.

Just in case anyone needed reminding, the Dutch know how to play football. Clicking back into gear after a stumble against Austria, the Netherlands brushed aside the challenge of Romania – literally in the case of Cody Gakpo bursting beyond Radu Dragusin to set up the decisive second goal – and head into the quarter-finals in form.

This was a vindication for coach Ronald Koeman, whose selection was spot on and his substitutions even more so. For their opponents, this still counts as a good tournament, and their fans made one heck of a noise. However, the gulf in class between Romania and the Oranje in blue was clear and only grew larger as the game went on. Donyell Malen scored a brace in the last 10 minutes after coming on at half-time, consolidating a first-half lead delivered clinically by Gakpo.

The Romanians had the first 20 minutes, driven on by the support prized so much by coach Edward Iordanescu. Unfurling a banner that read “give everything for the final” (this may be a loose translation) they were not in the mind to go home. The players were of the same persuasion it seemed and began the game at a furious pace. Led by Ianis Hagi who suffered an early cut to the head that left him wearing a bandage and a hairnet, the Ena Sharples of the Carpathians, they crafted the best of the early chances. But much like a famous resident of Transylvania, the apparently dormant Dutch woke up when the Romanians least desired it.

The opening goal came in the 20th and it was a delicious move, begun by the unassuming Jerdy Schouten. His little pass ran only 10 yards, but it bisected the Romanian midfield entirely and found Xavi Simons in a pocket of space. Simons spun and released Gakpo out wide. The Liverpool forward took Andrei Ratiu towards the touchline then cut back away, took a touch across the corner of the box and drilled a low shot inside Florin Nita’s near post. Could the keeper have saved it? Perhaps, but at 125kph, at least it was over quickly.

Koeman spoke afterwards of his satisfaction with his team’s “ball position”. It sounded like ball possession at first but he meant what he said; the spaces and places in which his team picked up the ball and made use of it. His midfield played like a unit here after being a rabble against the Austrians and Koeman had especial praise for Simons, returning to the starting XI and adapting to a new role for this team between the lines. His link-up with the confident, strong and well-drilled Gakpo was key.

It was also the case, however, that the Romanians had a pulsating bruise, the left-back position where Nicosur Bancu was unavailable through suspension. The Dutch chose to punch that bruise again and again. Iordanescu, with his team under pressure, chose to reshape his defence before half-time, but with little effect. Simons should have scored after Denzel Dumfries robbed the substitute Bogdan Racovitan just before the break, but missed the moment thanks to an unnecessary touch.

Koeman doubled down on exposing the left-back black spot, replacing Steven Bergwijn – who had played just fine but was carrying injury – with Malen and his lightning pace at the break. Sure enough the Borussia Dortmund forward got in behind almost instantly and his cut-back should have been finished by first Simons then Memphis Depay, but wasn’t. Just before the hour Malen sprang clear once again, but crossed when he perhaps ought to have shot. From the resulting corner Virgil van Dijk hit the post with a header. Four minutes later and Nita denied Gakpo dramatically after the Dutchman had run the length of the field. From that corner, Gakpo got the ball into the net only to be denied by VAR for offside.

The tide was unrelenting, but the longer the score stayed as it was, everyone knew the laws of football physics would point towards a Romanian comeback. Iordanescu rolled the dice with 20 minutes to go, taking off Hagi, striker Denis Dragus and midfield linchpin Marius Marin for fresh legs. There was a controversial moment when a promising break was cut short for a foul on Dumfries which, on camera, was less than convincing. In truth, though, Romania only became more open as the game went on and Iordanescu made no complaints about the outcome.

With the clock running down, substitute Joey Veerman took a cute Gakpo backheel and shot just wide, Gakpo had a close-range shot blocked when played in by a driving Malen. With five minutes remaining, the roles reversed and Gakpo bustled into the box, knocked his way past Dragusin on the byline and gave Malen a tap-in, an invitation the Dortmund man duly accepted. Malen scored again with the final kick of the match, bursting through for the umpteenth time and driving in at that same near post.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and adviser to Donald Trump, has been disbarred in New York for making false statements about the results of the 2020 election.

A New York appeals court made the decision on Tuesday.

A panel of judges ruled that Giuliani would be “disbarred from the practice of law, effective immediately, and until the further order of this Court, and his name stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors-at-law in the State of New York”, the Associated Press reported.

The decision comes after Giuliani already had his New York law license suspended for making false statements after the 2020 election.

In May, Giuliani was also suspended by New York radio station WABC for using his show to declare that Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election because of supposed electoral fraud.

In an interview with the New York Times, billionaire John Catsimatidis, the Republican owner of WABC, said that Giuliani had been “warned” to not discuss lies about the 2020 election.

“We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election. We warned him once. We warned him twice. And I get a text from him last night, and I get a text from him this morning that he refuses not to talk about it … So he left me no option. I suspended him,” said Catsimatidis.

Despite the slew of legal trouble, Giuliani has said he has no regrets for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Last month, after posting bond in the Arizona fake electors case against him, Giuliani said he didn’t regret his actions.

“I’m very, very proud of it,” Giuliani said while leaving the state courthouse.

Giuliani has plead not guilty to criminal charges for reportedly pressuring Arizona legislators and the Maricopa county board of supervisors to change the state’s 2020 presidential election results. Giuliani also told Arizona Republican electors to vote for Trump.

Water companies could face a spate of legal challenges by people and businesses affected by sewage pollution after a ruling that United Utilities could be sued by a private company for damage caused by the dumping of human waste.

Lawyers said it was a “watershed moment” as the courts had previously ruled that penalties for water companies were a matter for the regulator, and companies could not sue firms for damage caused to their property by sewage pollution.

The Manchester Ship Canal Company, which has been trying since 2010 to bring a claim against United Utilities, has alleged that discharges from 121 sewage outfalls within its networks constituted a trespass.

In February 2012, the high court ruled in favour of United Utilities, but this was later overturned by the court of appeal, and then restored by the supreme court in 2014. Then, in March 2021, the high court ruled it was the role of regulators and not the courts to address problems caused by sewage dumping.

The Environmental Law Foundation, supported by the Good Law Project, challenged this decision, arguing that there should be legal options for people directly affected by sewage pollution. But the court of appeal found against them and said the only option for recourse in issues caused by pollution was through the regulator, and that the law did not allow people or companies directly affected to bring private claims against the water companies.

The case then went to the supreme court, which overturned the previous rulings and found that United Utilities can be held to account for damage caused by discharges.

The court said the 1991 Water Industry Act does not prevent the company from bringing a claim for nuisance or trespass when a canal is polluted by sewage discharges from United Utilities’ sewers, even if there has been no deliberate misconduct or negligence.

Lord Reed and Lord Hodge said: “The supreme court unanimously allows the canal company’s appeal. It holds that the 1991 act does not prevent the canal company from bringing a claim in nuisance or trespass when the canal is polluted by discharges of foul water from United Utilities’ outfalls, even if there has been no negligence or deliberate misconduct.”

The Good Law Project’s interim head of legal, Jennine Walker, said: “This is a sensational victory. It gives us stronger legal tools to turn the tide on the sewage scandal and hold water companies to account, after repeated failures from our toothless and underfunded regulators.”

A United Utilities spokesperson said: “We are considering the implications of the supreme court’s ruling and the clarification of the circumstances in which private owners could bring proceedings in respect of discharges. We understand and share people’s concerns about the need for change and we have already made an early start on an ambitious proposed £3bn programme to improve over 400 storm overflows across the north-west which would cut spills by 60% over the decade to 2030. These proposals form part of our business plan, which is currently under consideration as part of Ofwat’s price review process.”

Name: Chalfont St Giles.

Age: The Buckinghamshire village is mentioned in the Domesday Book, published in 1086, so at least 938 years old.

Appearance: Snuggled up to the Chilterns, Chalfont St Giles has everything you’d want and expect in a village often referred to as “quintessentially English”: village green, duck pond, Norman church …

Sounds lovely. Which is why it has attracted celebrity residents. It’s the birthplace of Nick Clegg.

Erm, celebrity? Sorry. Noel Gallagher used to live there. The Osbournes – Ozzy and Sharon – are up the road. It has been used as a filming location for the BBC sitcom As Time Goes By, an episode of Peep Show, and Dad’s Army (where it filled in for Walmington-on-Sea). “Chalfonts” is also cockney rhyming slang for haemorrhoids.

Mmm, less lovely. Got anything more … highbrow? You want highbrow, I’ve got highbrow. John Milton retired here in 1665 to escape the plague in London. It’s where he completed Paradise Lost, which now becomes rather fitting.

How so? I understand the paradise part. Chalfont St Giles has won the county’s best kept village competition, organised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England, six times since 2002. If keeping village was playing tennis, Chalfont would be Novak Djokovic.

Oh, I see. Presumably it’s going for the title again this year? Sadly not.

Why? Sabotage by Chalfont St Peter? Foul play? Foul smell more like it – the stench has been wafting across the green for months.

Djokovic pulls out due to chronic flatulence! OK, maybe let’s drop that analogy now. Anyway, can you guess the source of the smell?

I’m going to go right out on a limb here and take a wild stab in the dark. Would it have anything to do with a private water company? It would! Thames Water. The Amersham Road Balancing Tank has been overflowing, discharging sewage into the River Misbourne.

Bet the locals are delighted about that. “We’re all gutted,” the parish council’s Robert Gill said. They’ve had to close the playground, the river walk, the duck pond. And, now, pull out of the best kept village contest. “It’s important to villagers that we enter these competitions but we were left with no choice,” Gill added.

And it’s definitely that? Not just the normal countryside smells? Gill said he worried that contamination levels in the river were high after Thames Water took samples. A Thames Water spokesperson told the BBC the wet winter had resulted in high water levels, and that diluted wastewater had been discharged into the Misbourne “for which we are sorry”.

Do say: “Nationalise utilities now!”

Don’t say: “Anyone for a dip?”

When Richard Forrest walks along the Lyme Regis beach on the Jurassic coast in Dorset, he carries in his small backpack a pointed pick, a geological hammer and an old kitchen knife. But he very rarely uses them until he is back home with a rock or two to work on. “The most important thing to take with you is your eyes,” he says. “And learn what it is you’re looking for.”

Forrest is a fossil finder and has spent more than 50 years on Britain’s beaches hunting for evidence of the country’s prehistoric past. The Jurassic coast, stretching 95 miles (150km) across Devon and Dorset, is world famous for its treasure trove of ammonites and other fossils that lie, in many places, conspicuous beneath visitors’ feet. Others are hidden within the cliffs, only exposed after heavy rains bring on one of the regular landslips. “The best feeling is when you find something you think is potentially interesting and then you get it home and discover that wow, this is really interesting,” he says. “That feeling is amazing.”

On the day that we take a walk along the beach, the sun is dipping in and out from behind a blanket of pale grey clouds and there is a fresh breeze in the air. A dozen people in raincoats wander across the rocks slowly, crouching down intermittently to examine what’s at their feet.

The coast attracts thousands of visitors a year who descend on the most popular fossil beaches of Lyme Regis and Charmouth, often with picks and hammers. Some of them come to find what they may view as prehistoric treasure, others to walk in the footsteps of Dorset’s famous daughter, Mary Anning, who became known around the world for the discoveries she made here in the early 19th century.

But few have the level of expertise of the truly dedicated fossil finder. Walking with Forrest is like having the lights turned on in a shop full of jewels – suddenly seeing treasures surrounding you.

Recalling the first time he came to Charmouth as a teenager with his then-girlfriend’s brother, Forrest says: “I remember he said ‘hit that rock and there’s an ammonite inside it’. So I hit it and a beautiful ammonite appeared and he said ‘that’s the first time it has seen the light of day in 180m years’. That felt like fireworks going off. It was really extraordinary to me.”

Even the most experienced fossil hunter is not always successful, as the tiny fragment of rib framed in Forrest’s downstairs toilet attests. The words around it read: ‘Total finds from four days of collecting at Lyme Regis and Charmouth. Sometimes it’s only the beer that makes it worthwhile.”

“It’s always frustrating to come back again and again empty handed,” he says. “But you learn to deal with that because what matters, at the end of the day, is the number of hours you spend out there looking.”

For Forrest, fossil finding is much more than a pastime. It helped him recover from a deep personal tragedy, which left him repressing feelings that came back to haunt him later in life.

He found a love of fossils thanks to a palaentologist at his local museum, Arthur Cruickshank, who took him under his wing and encouraged him to piece together a plesiosaur, bone fragment by fragment. Forrest later went on to become one of the country’s leading experts on the marine reptiles, subsequently writing academic papers on his findings and giving talks.

Once hours of scouring the beach are done, we head over to Charmouth to see Forrest’s friend of 20 years, Chris Moore. A fellow fossil hunter, Moore is a longtime friend of David Attenborough who has made two documentaries with him, Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster, which aired earlier this year, and Attenborough and the Sea Dragon. The latter is about an icthyosaurus Moore and his son Alex discovered, and whose painstakingly reconstructed bones are now displayed in the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre.