The UK's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1.5 per cent in 2007, according to official figures published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) today.

Does Drax Group have a long-term future? As Europe's largest coal-fired power station, and therefore its biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions, you might not think so, yet Dorothy Thompson, the chief executive, is doing her best to ensure it does. Yesterday's exchange of contracts with Alstom gives her the technology to take Drax's co-firing of renewable biomass materials up to 10 per cent of output.

Just when the country was beginning to enjoy some warm weather, experts warned that the sun has arrived with a sting in its tail – the first smog of summer.

In a kitchen removed from the brouhaha of 3,000 Democrats assembled at the Sheraton Hotel to celebrate victory on Tuesday night, a party aide was trying to get her ducks in a row, or at least establish their proper running order. "It's Clinton first and then Cuomo, correct?" she pleaded into her two-way radio.

On Friday evening, after posting 551 for 6 declared, and having reduced Sri Lanka to 91 for 6 in their first innings, England's cricketers would have been privately contemplating the golf course on which they would this morning be celebrating a comprehensive victory. But last night, after 185 overs in the field, Andrew Flintoff's side will have been mulling over the perils of scoring runs, however few, against Muttiah Muralitharan on a wearing pitch.