After shutting down its final power plant, the UK becomes the first significant economy to cease using coal to generate electricity.

Monday marks the closure of the final coal-fired power plant in Britain, UK Ends Coal Power Era bringing an end to the country’s 142-year history of producing electricity from coal, which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution.

In its pursuit to produce all of Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2030, the UK government celebrated the closure as a significant achievement. Britain is now the first of the Group of Seven major economies to completely phase out coal use, even though some other European countries, such as Sweden and Belgium, have done so earlier.

In 1882, Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Light Station, the first coal-fired power plant in history, opened for business in London.

The 1968 landmark Ratcliffe-on-Soar is visible to millions of people each as they fly by on trains or drive past the M1 freeway. Its eight concrete cooling towers and 199-meter (650-foot) chimney are particularly striking.

Roughly 80% of the electricity produced in Britain in 1990 came from coal. National Grid data shows that by 2012, that percentage had dropped to 39%, and by 2023, it was down to just 1%. Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power currently account for more than half of Britain’s electricity, with nuclear and natural gas providing the remaining portion.

The UK is developing the first ovarian cancer vaccine in history, which “could wipe out the disease.”

According to experts, it might function similarly to the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which is on pace to eradicate cervical cancer.

The university’s MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine’s ovarian cancer cell laboratory is led by Professor Ahmed Ahmed, who is collaborating with his team to determine the vaccine’s cellular targets.

They will determine the most immunologically recognized proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer cells in the early stages as well as the degree to which the vaccination eliminates disease models in the laboratory.

Subsequently, human clinical trials with both healthy women and individuals with BRCA gene mutations, which significantly raise the risk of ovarian cancer, may be conducted.

Up to £600,000 will be provided by Cancer Research UK for the study during the following three years.

Due to the vagueness of symptoms such as bloating and lack of appetite, ovarian cancer is currently discovered late and has no screening test.

BRCA-mutant women are recognized to be at greater risk; one such woman is the actress Angelina Jolie.

At now, it is advised that women who have BRCA1/2 mutations have their ovaries removed by the time they are 35 years old. This means that these women have an early menopause and will never be able to raise children.

BRCA mutations contribute to 5–15% of the 7,500 new instances of ovarian cancer that occur in the UK each year.

The United Kingdom shall transfer Chagos Island sovereignty to Mauritius.

In the Indian Ocean, the UK has declared that, after more than 50 years, it is relinquishing sovereignty over a secluded but strategically significant group of islands.

Following years of discussions, a historic agreement has been achieved whereby the UK would transfer the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

The Chagos islanders themselves, some of whom reside in Crawley, Sussex, and others in Mauritius and the Seychelles, do not agree on what should happen to their motherland.

While some are adamant about maintaining their isolation on the remote islands, others are more concerned with their rights and standing in the UK, while still others contend that outsiders have no business deciding the archipelago’s status.

As a result of numerous UN bodies, including the general assembly and top court, strongly supporting Mauritius and demanding that the UK give up what some have called its “last colony in Africa,” the UK has experienced growing diplomatic isolation in recent years regarding its claim to what it refers to as the British Indian Ocean Territory.

For a considerable time, the Mauritius government has maintained that it was coerced into giving up the Chagos Islands illegally in exchange for gaining its independence from the United Kingdom in 1968.