There's plenty of waterside fun to be had this summer.

At nearly one million square kilometers of pristine wilderness and with a burgeoning population of grizzly bears and cougars, the forests and mountains of British Columbia are not a good place to get lost.

Three sodden summers brought many butterflies to the brink of extinction. But now Britain's most endangered species are making a comeback thanks to 2010's Indian summer and conservation efforts.

As a location for a film about growing up in rural England you would be hard-pressed to better Stiperstones Church of England Primary School in Shropshire.

The name Albert Heijn is as familiar to the Dutch as Sainsbury is to the British, being that of the biggest supermarket chain in the Netherlands. It is similarly well-known in pockets of the Welsh Marches, where the grandson and namesake of the company's founder lived for the last 20 years of his life, investing part of his fortune in redeveloping a run-down part of Hereford, becoming one of Hereford Cathedral's leading benefactors, and restoring the neglected North Herefordshire estate of a Victorian coal baron to its original grandeur.

A 15-year-old girl was crushed to death by her horse after it somersaulted over a jump during a riding lesson, an inquest heard today.

Last-minute Christmas cottages

White Heron Properties still has availability for festive rentals in Herefordshire. Choose from Field Cottage, sleeping up to five, price £640 for the week commencing 21 December, or Gardeners Cottage, sleeping six, for £800.

Go to whiteheronproperties.com

Two Britons have died in a helicopter crash in the south of France, the Foreign Office said today.

Companies that benefit from Government contracts worth hundreds of billions of pounds under the private finance initiative (PFI) were urged today to pay some of it back to help protect public services.

The longest running annual photography festival in the UK, the Hereford Photography Festival, celebrates it's 20th anniversary by showcasing groundbreaking and leading photographers such as Martin Parr, Rankin and Wang Qingsong.