Health

Four fire crews have remained at the scene of a large blaze at a recycling centre.

Firefighters were called to the site at Hovefields Avenue in Basildon, Essex, overnight to tackle the fire, which had spread across warehouses and 15 vehicles.

Essex Fire and Rescue Service said it expected to stay at the scene throughout the weekend and were using a digger to break up recycling material in order to fully extinguish the fire.

The headteachers of the three girls killed in the Southport stabbings have attended a full council meeting where a one-minute silence was held.

Councillors came together to reflect on the tragic events on 29 July, when Alice da Silva Aguiar, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Bebe King died in a knife attack during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

The extraordinary meeting heard how the town had struggled to come to terms with the tragic events of 29 July.

The book - Becoming a Scientist - is aimed at young adult readers and was written by the University of Cambridge's Prof Adrian Liston, and illustrated by Yulia Lapko - a business administrator for the pathology department.

Both their routes could be deemed unconventional as Prof Liston was expected to join his truck-driving family's business in Australia, while Ms Lapko fled her native Ukraine in 2022 following invasion.

Prof Liston said as a youngster he did not even know what a scientist was, and hoped the stories showed the "many different pathways".

Joseph Aquilina hates the term attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Aquilina feels that the two Ds in the term ADHD suggest dysfunction. He prefers his own term: attention difference hyperdrive.

Aquilina's ADHD diagnosis came at the age of 37, 16 years after his diagnosis with dyslexia. The fast-talking Londoner had long thought that his difficulties with focus, memory and planning were due to dyslexia, until the people in his life started asking more questions about his behaviour. 

Growing up in Los Angeles, I mostly ignored nature. "I'm a city person" I'd say to anyone who tried to drag me on a hike. But during lockdown, I noticed finches nesting on my balcony. I hung bird feeders and downloaded an app to ID bird calls, hoping for something to keep me away from doomscrolling.

The finches made for a soothing distraction, but things really changed when I spotted a cute "critter cam" account on social media. People weren't just feeding birds, they were filming them – even setting out a tiny hot tub for the birds to splash around in.